Bright and Sunny

I live on what I call the shady side of my street.  The morning sun streams in the back side of the house so it's nice in the kitchen in the a.m.  Which means we get the afternoon and evening sun on the front of the house.  During the very long, very hot Texas summers this is not so enjoyable.  Regardless...I have been relishing the early mornings in the back of the house.  It's still very cool, low to mid 40's in the a.m. and starting to warm up to mid 70's in the afternoon.  My perfect idea of a great climate. These kind of days aren't around for very long, so I do my best to really enjoy them.

Hubby and I have been trying to overhaul our menus lately.  We go in stages of eating out a lot, and eating things that really aren't good for us.  Then we alternate to only cooking at home, and eating what we know is good for us. During the latter stage, we end up feeling very virtuous about it, but actually feeling BETTER as well.  Funny how that works, huh?

Most mornings breakfast is oatmeal.  But mornings in a hurry, it's something quicker. For hubby that means a breakfast sandwich at a fast food place. He calls it his Buffett breakfast...  he saw in an interview with Warren Buffett that he eats the same thing most mornings, from the $1. menu.  HaHa  Yesterday I had one of my favorites, which I don't have often.  I have a love/hate relationship with bagels.  Mostly because I could never stop at just 1/2 but always had the entire thing.  Those things are HUGE you know!  Well, I don't feel so bad when I can eat just 1/2. Then I treat myself to cream cheese and a bit of  Fig Preserves. This is almost the best jam I have ever tasted.  The label says 50 calories per Tblsp. I use less on 1/2 bagel.

Did you notice my new bright yellow straw placemat?  I picked them up at Target last time, on clearance for .67.  Every year they have these, in different colors.  I was suprised they had the bright spring-like color on clearance.  I can't resist getting a few new ones each year,  I wouldn't have gone for the yellow, but have been using this old tablecloth lately, and thought a pop of bright would be nice with it.
I haven't mentioned any Target finds lately because I simply have been behaving myself and not going there as much.  On the same trip that I got the placemats, I found a few Nate Berkus stationery items, shown on the same yellow placemat.  It looks a little faded in the photo, but is is really bright in person.

 

Keeping with the yellow theme, here's what I had in the late afternoon, sitting on the front porch in the sun when it was 75.  This is only 7 oz., just the right size. A friend told me Dr. Oz said it is healthy to have one "light" beer a day.  I don't know if this one is considered light or not, I just like it.

 

I cooked us a healthy dinner of green beans and quinoa and a salad, along with bruschetta with sauteed garlic and tomatoes.  We were hungry and ate it fast so no photos.  It wasn't that exciting visually, but was very good.

Herding Turtles

  On Thursday night, I was able to take my friend Pat out to dinner for her birthday.  Afterwards we went to one of our favorite Targets, looking for Nate Berkus clearance.  We didn't find much, but bought a few other things there.  On the drive home, we were discussing other Target locations that we might be able to stop at before they closed. The two we knew of were both too far away, since it was already after nine p.m.  I said let's just go home, but she was determined to hit another one.  So we arrived at the one closest to my house.  Now mind you, I had already seen all the Nate Berkus clearance there a couple of days earlier, and there were no tortoise shells.  So, at 9:45, we walked into the store as all the other people were leaving.  We ran to the household goods...and there they sat, 4 of the tortoise shells.   We quickly grabbed them all.  They were 50% off, and we saw a couple other things we liked, however they were only 30% off.  As they announced the "five minutes before closing, please bring your purchases to the checkstand"...we were still shopping.  When we got to the front we were the last people in line.  We were laughing hysterically and I think the check out lady thought we were two crazy old chicks.  We were, but we rescued those turtle shells and got the heck out of there!! We laughed all the way home at our good fortune.

This is the photo from Design Sponge, I got the yellow shell and the gold sea urchin.  She got the white shell and the white sea urchin.   Hubby had found me a yellow shell earlier in the week, at regular price, and the darn thing hung crookedly on the wall.  So anyhow, today I took it back.  

Today between Pat and I, we visited 6 different Targets.  At all but one we found the tortoise shells, but still at regular price.  The one that had them on clearance, had them for only 30% off.  One must really hit a lot of Targets to find the clearance price they want to pay, because they are all different.   We did each get a lamp, that we had liked when it first came out, but not for $50.00.  We got them today at 70% off.  We spent a lot of time texting and talking on the phone while shopping.   I got one Nate towel at one store, and Pat found me two more at another store. It was a lot of fun, but part of it is just the thrill of the hunt. We don't really need any of it, we just like Nate Berkus designs.  I do think we are done Targeting for awhile though.  I feel like I worked hard today, and all I did was shop.

 

This is some of the new Nate Berkus collection that just came in. It is being released tomorrow, but two of the stores already had it set today. Notice in the first photo, the tortoise shells on the bottom shelf that are still part of the first collection. Thankfully, I did not see anything in the new collection that I feel that I really just have to have.