When my hubby and I split up and I moved out i brought that spice rack with me, intended to mount it on the wall of my new kitchen. Wouldn’t you know it, all of the kitchen walls were completely filled up with cupboards so there was no space to put that rack on the wall! I did find space for it on the counter, though, beside the stove and there is where it stayed for a good number of years.

Eventually all of the original bottles from the spice rack broke and I could not find replacement bottles that fit, so the little rack got “freecycled” away when I moved again. Now I store my spices in my pantry, and have tried various methods of storing them, but I really have not found a suitable system for the spices. I miss that rack!

When my hubby and I moved into our first house, we were so excited to share our joy with our friends. So we had a big Independence Day party; complete with a pot-luck barbecue and pool party. The guests were completely enamored of our litter of five week old keeshond puppies, which were confined inside their six foot tall chain link kennel run.

One of our guests (which I did not want invited but hubby insisted) decided that he would light a string of black cat firecrackers and throw them into the kennel run. The quick bang-bang-bang and yelp-yelp-yelp brought my hubby and me running quickly to see what in the world was going on. When we saw the inebriated guest laughing at the upset puppies, we asked him to leave the party. Needless to say, feelings were hurt.

The next morning when we went out to feed the puppies, we discovered that someone had removed them from their kennel and put them inside the fenced in pool area. The puppies had all drowned in the pool. My heart was completely broken. Later that day we went to the pool supply store and bought a pool cover for our swimming pool in the hopes that this kind of tragedy never happens again. And I never spoke to that guy that had thrown firecrackers into the puppy pen, as we suspect that he was the one responsible for relocating the puppies. It would have been impossible for the puppies to escape their pen and enter the fenced in pool area on their own.

Sometimes life gets hectic, and an unexpected gift giving occasion arrives and time doesn’t allow the luxury of making the gifts. That’s when buying a gourmet gift basket comes to the rescue. There are so many gourmet gift baskets on the market, it is pretty easy to find one that will suit almost any occasion and please any recipient.

Yummy!

The vast majority of my home made gifts have been well received, and I often get special requests from the people who are on my gift list.  I have been surprised, and sometimes dismayed, when I discover that my gift ends up being turned into a cat toy (by a child too young to appreciate the money, time, and effort put into making the gift) or tucked away in a closet because it is appreciated so much that the recipient thinks it is “too good to use” and is afraid to use it!  Or even more dismayed when the recipient turns up their nose at the gift because they think that the homemade gift represents the thought that I was “too cheap” to “buy” them something from the store.  Those people don’t realize that the raw materials used to make the gift often will cost more than buying a gift from the store.

So, giving home made gifts can be tricky sometimes.  I need to research the individual and make sure that they will actually appreciate the home made gift before I go through the time and effort to make it.   Sometimes the best gift to give someone can simply be a gift card, to let them buy what they REALLY want.

Au contraire!  The Gray Ghost winery in Amissville VA has wonderful wine!  I had the opportunity to taste their 2006 Adieu wine at a wine tasting party that a friend held, and I fell in love with it.  I had to go to the winery myself and buy a couple of bottles of it to have for special occasions.

After I learned about The Gray Ghost winery, I went on the Internet to find their location, and found their website.  I was impressed to learn that they have won numerous awards for the wines.  I think that the Gray Ghost is giving the Napa Valley some competition!

There are so many convenience foods and “helpers” and “kits” in the grocery stores now that it is easy to fix a good meal with most of the cooking being done in the microwave.  Most every box has instructions on it for preparing the meal in the microwave.  And there are a lot of cookbooks available that are written especially for the microwave.

What I especially like about using the microwave is that I can cook, serve, and store in the same dish most of the time. 

Seems as if now, more than ever, the friends and neighbors are giving each other the gift of wine for a gift giving occassion. More of my friends are keeping their wines in vino temp beverage coolers to keep them at their best flavor. To be honest, I’ve never paid too much attention to which wine should be served at what temperature, but as I become more knowledgable about the different types of wines, I’ve started to becom interested in looking at the different vino temp wine coolers to see if there is a vino temp cooler that is nice looking and within my budget.

He just made a face and said it was nasty and threw the whole thing in the trash. Later that night my son tried one, and he said it was nasty too. So now I am wishing that I had asked for a sample taste at the store before buying all of those.  If this happened to you, would you complain to the store? What would you do?

While we all ate that chicken that night and we were all very impressed with how moist and delicious it was. I will buy that again! So now I have to keep my eyes open for coupons for Tyson’s chicken products!

The whole customer service thing was less painful than I expected. I had not kept the receipt and I dreaded going back to deal with that issue. But the store clerk was OK with and told me to go get another one from off the shelf and she would take care of it.

The funny thing is, as I was walking back with the new roasting pan, I noticed a lot of things that were on clearance. So not only did I get the new pan, but I bought another $80 worth of stuff while I was at the store!

if your teenager likes to play guitar and sing, this is a great idea for a birthday cake. It was easy to make and easy to decorate. I love the idea and I know just about any teenager would love to have this cake.

OH NO! I just realized that it is the 1st of the month, and the grocery stores will be completely mobbed! Good grief – I HATE when that happens!