Easter Leftovers

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Easter decorPost-Easter Monday always is filled with getting rid of Easter dinner decorleftovers: Eggs, eggshells, assorted mangled chocolate bunnies and those little foil-wrapped solid chocolate eggs that nobody eats. But I hope this spectacular egg centerpiece carved from a watermelon gets to hang around at least another day or so. It was featured at the Easter Sunday buffet at the Coffee and chocolateManchester-Coffee County (Tennessee) Conference Center, where we gratefully enjoyed ham, prime rib, lamb and all the trimmings after a morning full of rich and inspiring church services. And presents! My brother and sister-in-law, who live on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee, are some of the best present-givers I know. They gave my mom an Easter basket full of beautiful ready-to-be-transplanted greenery, and I got  Blue Smoke coffee beans (http://bluesmokecoffee.com/) and some of the best toffee ever — less like peanut brittle but still fresh and crunchalicious — from local candymakers Scenic City Toffee (http://www.sceniccitytoffee.com/). And the travel French press coffee mugs from Starbucks? An Easter present from me to … me. I’d been eyeing them for days and finally gave in. I always do French press on lazy mornings when all I have to do is sit and sip — which means I do French-press coffee perhaps about twice a month. Maybe being able to indulge on the run will transfer some of that rare peaceful relaxation to my normal daily routine. All I know is that it’ll take lots of experimentation to find out — the things I do for scientific exploration!

Easter

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Easter dessertsEaster is one of those easy family holidays that Easter treatsgives you lots of bang for your buck — if Christmas is the stress-inducing standard then Easter falls somewhere above Valentine’s Day but below birthdays. Well, that’s my opinion today anyway, when I’m a few years past midnight hours of frantically finishing Easter dresses for my two daughters and managing the Easter-morning chaos of baskets and eggs before church. At least the food is still easy, with Easter bake sales everywhere. I found these goodies at the Empty Bowl luncheon this past week sponsored by the Salvation Army Auxiliary in Florence, Alabama. From works-of-art cakes worthy of Easter dinner to peanut-butter fudge for munching as you did more shopping, there was something for everybody. Hope everyone has a stress-free and photo-op-filled Easter weekend, with chocolate bunnies for all!

Food

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Pizza Grocery, Corinth, MississippiDon’t you love eating out in good local pizza places? I think it goes Pizza Grocery, Corinth, Mississippiback to when I was younger — before Pizza Hut and Domino’s and Papa John’s were on every corner — and going out for pizza was a much-anticipated treat. Today for the adult me, there’s something so cozy and comforting about a restaurant that gives you melted cheese and cold beer in abundance — along with real silverware Pizza Grocery, Corinth, Mississippiand plates. One of the best local pizza parlors is Pizza Grocery in Corinth, Mississippi. It’s in an almost 100-year-old warehouse close to the Corinth square and is a popular local gathering spot. Besides specialty pizzas (my husband especially likes the Cajun Cowboy with blackened chicken, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese), the menu has calzones, deli sandwiches and sandwiches. The lunch special is a slice (or two, maybe?) of pizza plus a salad, and the non-pizza dinner entree special comes with fresh vegetables and upscale additions such as a pea puree or mushroom ragout. There’s also draft and bottled beer but it’s bring-your-own wine — the left-behind bottles decorate the brick walls downstairs. And if you want dessert to go, grab a pizza sugar cookie. Green peppers never tasted so good!

Go here http://nems360.com/pages/full_story?article-Pizza%20Grocery%20% 20=&page_label=results_content&id=2133541-Pizza+Grocery+&widget=push&open=& for a review of Pizza Grocery by Ginna Parsons, food editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo.

House and Garden

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Historic homes in Decatur, Alabama
I was wandering around the historic district of Decatur, Alabama, the other day and found this gorgeous home. Couldn’t you just walk right in?

Gardens in Decatur, Alabama

Facebook Game

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Am I the last person to do ABC’s of Me from Facebook? I loved it — quick and easy and very Twitter-like. I you haven’t done this yourself, give it a try.

A – Age: 51

B – Bed size: Queen

C – Chore(s) you hate: Every single damn one of them

D – Dog’s name: Abby the Lately Beloved

E – Essential start-your-day item: Cappuccino. Espresso. Coffee. Rinse and repeat.

F – Favorite color: Green. No, yellow. No, blue.

G – Gold or Silver: Platinum

H – Height: One inch higher than whatever my husband claims.

I – Instruments you play: Cellphones

J – Job title: I used to have one of those …

K – Kid(s): Older Daughter (mother of grandson Capt. Adorable), Younger Daughter (college student contemplating fulfilling her mother’s dream of master’s/doctorate in English) plus Son-in-Law (Most Talented Artist Ever) and four cats.

L – Living arrangements: Married. With benefits.

M- Mom’s name: Susan Jeanette

N – Nicknames: ????

O – Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Too fuzzy to remember

P – Pet Peeve: People who cannot drive. And people who yell at people who cannot drive.

Q – Quote from a movie: From “Time Bandits” — Kevin: Yes, why does there have to be evil?
Supreme Being: I think it has something to do with free will.

R- Right- or left-handed: Right

S – Siblings: Two younger brothers, who of course were spoiled rotten and were raised by different parents than those who raised me and they got everything they ever wanted. But as all my friends and other family members know, I’ve come to grips with this and have moved on and don’t ever hardly think about it one little bit anymore at all.

T – Time you wake up: Anywhere from 4:30 to 5:30 a.m. — I know, I know. I can’t help it. It’s a curse.

U- Underwear: Yes.

V – Vegetable you dislike: One word — limayuckybeans

W – Ways you run late: Standing in my closet frantically throwing clothes on the floor and moaning, “I don’t have anything to wear. Why are all my clothes so awful? Why doesn’t anything fit? Why do I look so horrible?” In other words, typical morning routine.

X – X-rays you’ve had: Too fuzzy to remember.

Y – Yummy food you make: I am well known for my peanut-butter cookies, sandwich rollups, Chex Mix, spiced-tea mix and fresh salads. Hey, I’m thinking restaurant menu …

Z – Zoo favorite: Being on the outside looking in.

Note:  I said “Married with benefits” because my husband and I have a commuter marriage that straddles two states, which means I get to live in Alabama and Mississippi sort of both at the same time, with our home state of Tennessee thrown in, too. So get your mind out of the gutter.

Basketball

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Getting ready to watch the NCAA men’s basketball championship game tonight? Read my husband’s column in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal today, “Wild Times in SEC Hoops” at http://nems360.com/pages/news_sports, so that during commercial breaks and timeouts you can intelligently discuss 1) the state of Southeastern Confernce basketball, 2) why “strength of schedule” is important and 3) what Kentucky’s new hire means for next season. Or you can get up to get more beer. Your choice.

Spring Cleaning

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Spring cleaningHome-organization experts say you can tell a lot about Spring cleaningpeople by the state of their refrigerators. I hope you can tell from ours that I did a massive cleaning shortly after Christmas’s food extravaganza and have kept it in top shape ever since. I mean, this was a six-hour job — taking out and scrubbing each shelf, throwing away a whole garbage bag of expired/old/what-in-the-world-is-this food and getting into every little corner and those Spring cleaningannoying ridges in the vegetable bins. And maintaining it means constant vigilance for crumbs and that Unidentified Sticky Stuff that mysteriously shows up. I can pretty much guarantee that everything in this fridge is now fresh and edible. Before this cleaning marathon, I would have to sprint to the fridge to throw myself in front of it when folks headed in that direction — I was that embarrassed to let anybody see the disgusting chaos inside. Luckily, in my cleaning frenzy I even felt moved to attack the outside, excavating years of Post-Its and lists that dated, I’m ashamed to admit, to the previous century. I kept all the artwork and notes and doodling that had decorated the door for so long — our refrigerator had long served as a sort of guestbook for my now 20-something-daughters’ friends as they traipsed in and out of the house during the Teenage Years. But with 1-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable discovering crayons, it’s time to make room for new artwork. And food that isn’t growing food of its own. My daughters’ reactions to the clean fridge were telling: Older daughter (Capt. Adorable’s mom) said, “Mom, the refrigerator looks wonderful! Great job!” Younger daughter said, “Why did you take down all the pictures? They’d been there forever!” But I’ve already started a Refrigerator-Door Scrapbook — and I guess in another 10 years I’ll have another Fridge Spring-Cleaning.

A Week of Spring — Home Decor

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Spring decorWelcome to the weekend wrapup for A Week Spring decorof Spring. Thanks for coming along with me as I’ve discovered a week of cute and must-have spring things. I think this final find is the best of the bunch! I fell in love with these twig- and dried-flower baskets the birds’ nest as soon as I spied them at Downtown Books in Corinth, Mississippi. The baskets are supposed to be planters, but I’ve already put the dried lavender in the one with the handle and I’m pondering what to do with the others. My favorite, though, is the birds’ nest. It just says “spring” to me — in a very soft, whispery, spring-like voice, of course. And the bonus? All of this was $30.  But I left plenty, so if you’re in Corinth go to Downtown Books and pick up some more spring bargains.

Want more spring? Visit these blogs:

http://www.leciawphinney.com/ — At A Day That is Dessert, photographer and mom Lecia Phinney posts wonderful photos that will make you think spring no matter what the weather outside is.

http://www.winosandfoodies.com/ — Winos and Foodies has yummy and creative recipes for spring classics.

http://www.omiru.com/ — The stylish folks at Omiru show you how to waltz fashionably and frugally into spring. They focus on what to pull out of your closet to combine with the new season’s trends for totally chic ensembles.

Grandparenting

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You know how people say, “Oh, you’ll love (fill in the blank)” and you just nod and smile and agree politely because how do you know you’ll love (fill in the blank) until you actually do/are/try (fill in the blank)? That’s how I was when people told me, “Oh, you’ll love being a grandma” — but after 53 weeks and some days of being one now, I can tell you: Those people were right! Read more at my weekly newspaper column, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090403/ARTICLES/904035000

A Week of Spring — Azaleas

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AzaleasAzaleasWelcome to day No. 5 in A Week of Spring. Here in Alabama, spring means gardening and yard work and those first wonderful blooms. I am not a gardener — the best I can do is just sort of maintain, although I am a fierce and thorough weeder (even though I spy a few I missed in these photos, drat it). However, even the non-green thumbs like me can appreciate the beauty of April’s rebirth and renewal. These azaleas are in a corner of ourback yard where nobody can see them, of course, but the lush front-yard pink extravaganza shouldn’t be too far behind. Dogwoods are blooming, irises are up and even our winter-battered hydrangeas have optimistic buds, although freezing temperatures predicted for the first of next week might wreak more havoc. I even am sort of inspired to go to the garden store and pick out some more flowers — or I could just sit back and admire what I’ve already got. Hmm … Check back tomorrow for more in A Week of Spring.