Red, white or what?

I am not a connoisseur of wines but I do enjoy a glass with my evening meal and shared among friends around a kitchen island or counter.  On a porch or a deck, with a view or without, around a fire.  I like cheese, too, and yes even the tangy blue.  Crumbled, with some walnuts.  Yummy.  I enjoy a creamy brie, a smokey gouda, a soft muenster.  I do like cheese. 

Not all of you are wine drinkers.  I hear some folks get headaches from wine. So sorry for you.  This, I guess, is more common for red wine than white.  Others don’t drink wine  because of a personal belief or a history of issues and addictions.  I respect those circumstances.  

My favorite is Cabernet.  Like it.  Can find it in any price range and frankly, sometimes the “cheap stuff” is “good stuff”.  I’m fond of the little label Mad Housewife but have recently really loved Bogle.  

Have you tried Bogle? Great smoothness, nice fruitiness.  I am trying the Bogle Merlot this week and it is also very good, a bit lighter than the Cab, and nice sale price at the local grocery this week.  

While I am not huge into whites, I do love the Toasted Head Chardonnay and will order this when I am out.  Served at the right temperature, it is a pleasure to drink.  Its a strong white so if you like the light and fruity, don’t bother.  But if you like to taste a wine, this one is good.  Also under $14 a bottle and can find on sale around $10 at times. Its worth it, but remember, the temperature on a chilled white makes ALL the difference.  I don’t have a wine cooler which is why I often wait to have a glass when I am out at a place with a great wine selection and good refrigeration.   

If you can, try a glass of wine.  The experience of drinking a glass of wine is different than slamming back a shot or a beer.  Savor it.  Relax with it.  Linger over conversation with interesting, or even boring people (they get better with a glass of wine in them). Don’t worry about what you are eating, just enjoy a glass.  If you can’t, that’s okay, I understand but please don’t mind if I do. 

See?

This weekend in my not-so-empty-nest, I'm expecting some visitors from the south.  Only about 2 1/2 hours south, but south none the less.  Two of the three offspring are arriving, grand daughter divine in tow,  for some chill time.  Love it when they can all be here at one time but this weekend the youngest is staying in her home to take care of some post insurance painting.

I love, love, LOVE for the kids to visit and I will take them in any combination.  Sometimes it's one, sometimes two..and all that they bring with them.  Sometimes it is for a certain event or get-together, sometimes it is just because they are available and willing.  This weekend was to be a celebration of a favorite aunt's birthday but, details changed and that's been postponed.  Since they had already made the plans, its on like Donkey Kong.  We're excited.

This means a bit of a rush around clean up for us.  Which is very good as I am not a Suzy Homemaker and house work is not my thing.  (I deplore it, really, so its always good when company is coming and I spruce up.)   For years and years it seemed like I was the only one to whom it mattered.  Once I purposefully left a sock lying in the middle of the floor, to see if anyone other than me would pick it up.  No one did. Well, not until I did, about a week later.

The kids were fairly grown and I thought "Why am I busting my butt, getting all stressed out, yelling, threatening and generally acting like a crazy woman, when no one cares but me what this house looks like on a day to day basis?"  It was on that day that I decided I was not going to be a House Wife.

My mom invested her entire day to housewifery.  She got up to make my dad's breakfast, she cleaned the kitchen.  She fed all of us breakfast.  She cleaned the kitchen.  She scrubbed, she ran the vacuum, she dusted and washed windows, used Windex on all the mirrors, did laundry, made lunch and then cleaned the kitchen.  She folded laundry, she ironed, she had an afternoon snack for us, cheese and crackers for my dad when he got home from work, she started dinner and she cleaned the kitchen.  I'm sure your mothers did much the same and in some homes, even more.  As kids, we did some chores on Saturday and we made our beds,  but mostly it was my mom.

I couldn't keep that pace as I worked outside the home when my youngest turned about 2 and everyone had to pitch in.  The kids did their own laundry at a very early age, and they really, overall, were huge helpers around the house and still are.  Times they needed some gentle prodding and I would state, sometimes in an always loving but slightly raised voice "For crying out loud, take a look around and see what needs to be done, then do it!"  There were things they didn't HAVE to do but there was plenty of stuff they could do to help out...and sometimes, I acted like a crazy woman and that can be  blamed on a little thing called PMS most of the time.  I have a different set of hormones controlling me now.  Whatever happened to that catchy phrase, anyway?

Now the pace is much different.  I clean a bit, and a bit more on the weekends, a bit more than that when company is coming, and even more when I have a shindig or soiree and then, I can be a shadow of that former crazy woman self and go just a bit hormonal.  I am not tied to housewifery like my little mom was, and her mom before her.  I tried to be that person for about 10 years and just couldn't keep up that pace.  Don't get me wrong, the house is clean, folks, but not always as tidy as it could be.  You won't be seeing me on a TLC series or anything.

Empty Shmempty

I am not a politician nor a campaigner.  I am not someone to spear-head, whatever that is.  However, I may start...today.

I've heard or used the term empty nester, and well, I don't like it, and I'm putting a stop to it.

Empty is sort of a negative, isn't it? Empty gas tank, empty room, empty mind.  I decided this week that I don't want to be the "empty" nester.  The whole idea of the "empty" just goes against what I believe to be true about the times ahead, what I believe to be true about me.   I'll be a nester but I am not going to be empty, thank you.

I want my "golden years" to be filled.  Filled with family, filled with friends, filled with hope, filled with adventures and filled with memories.  I'm ready to take this on, folks.  I'm spear-heading, I think?  It's a campaign! It's a grassroots effort! Is it? What does that mean again? Join me!

My nest may be less crowded than it once was but its not empty! Not as long as I am here!

This just in!!!

Had to post this quickly, before the taste left my palate!  If you read the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond's blog you may have already seen this, but IF you love avocado and don't mind a hard boiled egg, mix those two puppies together and make your self some Avocado Egg Salad.  Wow, is all I can say.  I spread mine on a flour tortilla for a bit of a wrap, with lettuce, chopped tomato and Oh.My.Word.   Bacon in there would be FABULOUS as well. Why have I not thought of this before? Build on it people!

One of the best things I have ever bought...

Alright, I'm going to take a bit of a turn here and post about this great 3 piece strainer set I recently got at Wal Mart.  Now, think what you will about Wal Mart but they do have some great stuff..you just have to admit.

If you didn't know by now,  I am an "empty nester"; I am also an empty nester in a small nest so I try to shop reasonable sizes.  Not to say I haven't gotten some very wrong items over the years, I have many, many times.  But, I completed the 12 step program on over-sizing and over-purchasing a couple years back and things are much less crowded around here.

So a couple weeks ago, middle child and I were shopping at the Wal Mart in her town.  I got held up looking for an item in the housewares and she wandered off.  As I rounded a corner, there she stood,  holding this set of strainers with a look of awe and wonderment on her face.  I right away widened my eyes and "Ohhhh'd", as is appropriate when out shopping.   We looked for a second set so we could each have one, then a third for youngest daughter and a fourth for son and his girlfriend.

This strainer set is ideal for my kitchen!  See that small one? Well, its perfect for just my single serving of grapes, or for straining olives for my egg salad.  Washing a few cherry tomatoes for your salad? Perfect!  I love this little thing!  The bigger sizes are great as well with the largest not quite as big as a traditional size colander but the steep sides make it super for big quantities or sizes.  The set is stackable of course, in this bright fun green and.....wait for it.... $5.97.  $5.97!

I am very deliberate about my purchases these days; I have wasted too much money on the wrong thing  far too many times.  I have suffered through tons of clutter and am still drawn to a wide variety of "things" but I have streamlined a bunch in the past five years.  I try (and its not perfected yet, I said TRY) not to bring anything in unless I know something is going out.

Long live the small house!

Take time, take care

Living on a small lake, I enjoy sharing the lake with others in our large family.  Its a great piece of property and although we wonder how we are going to be able to care for it as we age, we’ll figure it out later.  That day isn’t here yet. 

We had great weather for the 4th of July, and a great family time.  It may be my second favorite holiday while hubs says its his very favorite.  I am fond of Thanksgiving, personally.   But, this year, the 4th will be a standout.  

Hubs got to cross off a bucket list item when he swam in the lake with his granddaughter.  She wasn’t wild about the lake in the previous summers and he was so looking forward to going out there and bobbing around with her.  She was a champ and kicked her little legs like she has been taught.  Has a great floaty vest and took right to the water.  It was a lot of fun to hear my daughter’s voice saying “kick, kick, kick” like we did with her.  It reminded me of my own dad getting such a chuckle when my kids  earned their guppy designation at their swim lessons at the Y.  It was hard to understand the joy at the time, but I get it now, Dad.  I chuckled.  

We also had a nice family get-together with a lot of family here.  Its really important to me to try to bring family together when I can.  Its really for selfish reasons...I love them being together.  I love watching them all in one place, interacting.  Here I am as that observer again, but, I love just seeing it.  I enjoy the similarities, the weaving of lives together, the changes.   

Family is everything.  I know that might be repetitive as I possibly have stated that before, but I so enjoy spending time with my own kids.  I so enjoy spending time with my brothers-in-law, their wives and their kids.  And their kid’s kids.  Oh, my, I love my great nieces and nephews.  When I was first married into this large family I loved having my sisters-in-law so close; built in friends.  As our babies were born, my own had their best buddies a house or two away.  I love to see our grown up young men and women, careers underway, spend time with each other and refresh their relationships.  It can be a bit awkward at first, as their busy lives and their distance try to remain in front, but after a while that washes away and the familiar is in the lead..its the "I KNOW you" that wins, every time.  

Take time for family! Take care of family!