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.

my name is Frona

Hub invited me out to breakfast this morning. We had to make a run over to B&N to pick up a couple of things, so decided to hit our favorite deli on that side of townn...MannyHattans. Only to find that it had gone out of business! When did this happen...who knows, we hadn't been there in about a month. Oh no...did we help put it out of business by not going often enough? My best and favorite bagel, a real N.Y. style bagel, tough and chewy, not the airy, bready ones you find in the grocery. Trying to think what else was in the neighborhood, we decided on Panera Bread. We rarely eat there, they have a rep of having very high-calorie, non healthy foods. Well, when one craves a bagel and cream cheese, that's not the healthiest choice anyhow. Since we were going to eat in, I asked for my Cappucino in a ceramic cup. The waiter looked a little surprised, like that doesn't happen often, but he dug around under the counter and came up with one. He said, "here we are, this one has your name on it", then he turned it upside down to read the bottom and said "if your name is Frona". I said, "well it could be, that's a nice name". I told him that since Mannys had closed we may be coming there more often, he said I'll save the cup for you. When he called me up to get my bagel he said "here's your order Frona". He seemed to be enjoying the fun of it all. I'll bet he will remember me next week. Hope he still has this nice yellow cup.




When we left, we discovered a small gallery/frame shop in the same mall, so went in to look around. They had a lot of frames and a few gift items. There was a collection of licensed products from several artists I know from Somerset Studio publications. I bought this cute little heart by Kelly Rae Roberts.