is there any more pie?

the masked singer

Posted on January 11, 2019 by is there any more pie?

This is the craziest show on tv right now and I have to admit that once I turn it on I can’t stop watching.

masked singer again

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https://www.fox.com/the-masked-singer/

On Fox on Wednesdays at 9:00 PM, the show features six heavily costumed “mystery” performers each week. One is voted off–and unmasked–each episode. Clues are given to each performer’s identity and the panel tries to guess who they are. They will eventually whittle 12 performers down to one, the winner.

It’s hilarious.

Some can sing. Some cannot.

I personally think “The Lion” is Nicole Kidman. Do you?

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what’s on the wall in january

Posted on January 10, 2019 by is there any more pie?

Stitching the cold winter away.

This isn’t the best picture. The colors are so much prettier in person. But still…is this going to end up as another one of my quilts that everyone secretly hopes they don’t receive as a gift?

Here was my inspiration:

From Kaffe Fassett’s new book.

I would have loved to have made this is similar colors, but for the past five years I’ve been determined to use the fabric I have and not buy more (not that I always keep this vow, but I really, really try).

I have used up blues and browns and reds in recent years and now have a fabric closet piled high with golds and pinks and yellows and purples.

It has taken many hours to put the various fabrics together in a hopefully pretty way. And I know no one will have one like it! At least I can say it’s a one-of-a-kind creation, right?

Today was my “Taking Mom Out” day. We headed north to the Newport Creamery and ate hot dogs and hot fudge sundaes before snow flurries urged us to hurry back home. I absolutely love hot dogs, so today’s lunch was so good.

Hot dogs and snowflakes don’t go together, but what the heck! We weren’t complaining.

I’m going to sew more blocks now…see you tomorrow…

Posted in family, food, quilting, rhode island | 2 Comments

time for a break

Posted on January 8, 2019 by is there any more pie?

When my friend Barbara called to ask if we wanted to join her and her husband on a jaunt to Newport Sunday to see a collection of grandfather clocks, I thought that was the best idea I’d heard in a long time.

And I’m not all that crazy about clocks. My grandfather was and he had a lot of them. I never did see the appeal of all that gonging and ringing and bonging going on every fifteen minutes.

Banjo Man has been working too hard. Twelve hour days in his office and long, physical weekends cleaning out the workroom have worn him out. Not that he would admit it.

“And of course we’ll have lunch,” Barb added.

Lunch? I love lunch. I was all in. I told Banjo Man, “You’re taking a vacation day. No computer. No ladder. No hauling of furniture.”

So off we went to the oldest library building in the United States, the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, established in 1747 by colonists in Newport who wanted to make knowledge more available to the residents of the island.

The Redwood’s exhibition is “the greatest single presentation of Clagget clocks ever assembled,” according to the library’s magazine. William Clagget came to Newport from England in 1714 and soon established himself as Newport’s preeminent clockmaker.

I cannot even begin to imagine what his clocks are worth. Most of them have stayed in the families that originally purchased them in the 1700’s. One came from the Metropolitan, two others from the Sturbridge Museum.

The library also has an impressive portrait collection decorating its walls. Banjo Man was awed by spotting four original Gilbert Stuart paintings. That made his day.

And then there was lunch at the Brick Alley Pub, a favorite local haunt with great food.

Why am I the only one who looks happy?

Believe it or not, we were all having a good time.

Why is she making a face at Glen? He must have teased her. He always teases her.

I never grow tired of visiting Newport. The colonial homes, the Gilded Age mansions, the chowder, the museums, the shops, the cobblestone streets…what’s not to love?

Posted in family, friends, rhode island, travel | 2 Comments

cb strike

Posted on January 2, 2019 by is there any more pie?

cb strike

This is a British detective series based on the novels by J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. Only she uses Robert Galbraith as her pen name for the series.

I loved the first three books. I’m on a waiting list–a lonnnnnnng waiting list–for the fourth book, but I’m too frugal to buy the Kindle edition for $14.99. So I wait. Patience is good for me.

Anyway…when I discovered there was actually a tv series I was thrilled. When I learned it was only shown on Cinemax, I was not so thrilled. What to do, what to do…

Luckily Cinemax offers a free 7-day trial, which leaves Banjo Man and I plenty of time to watch the seven installments. Heck, we watched the first two last night when we were tired of college football.

We’ve agreed to meet in the living room at 6:30 tonight to watch two or three more episodes. It’s a cold night, but we have a warm living room and leftover fried dumplings and Spicy Chicken from yesterday’s trip to the Chinese restaurant near Home Depot for dinner. So, as my dad would say, life is good.

And do you know what other good thing happened today? We called a plumber to fix our kitchen sink (I’ve been washing dishes in the bathroom since the day after Thanksgiving) and he is coming on Friday!!!!

Let me repeat that: he is coming on Friday.

My joy spilleth over.

Washing dishes in the bathroom sink was way too much like camping for my taste. I detest camping. I can find nothing good to say about the experiences I’ve had in a tent in the Great Outdoors. “Hell” is a good word to describe camping.

Hell. On. Earth.

So…back to my torn up kitchen…I’m sure the insurance company’s contractors will arrive some day to install a cabinet and put in a new, huge floor, but as long as I have a working sink and faucet I can wait for that February day to arrive without getting hostile.

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I showed my mother this picture over lunch today. We went for a drive and ended up at Denny’s, in Coventry (the waitress remembered us and once again bent over backwards to make sure my frail, 92-year old mother was comfortable and well fed) where we ate turkey and stuffing and potatoes.

Mom was very happy about the plumber coming on Friday, too. Though I’m not sure she really understood this picture at all.

So now it’s time to leave the office and get ready for Episode 3 of “CB Strike”. If you’ve seen it, let me know what you thought!

For more info on the books, click here: https://robert-galbraith.com/

Posted in books & music, family, rhode island, television | Leave a comment

happy ’19

Posted on January 1, 2019 by is there any more pie?

It is an unseasonably warm day here, in the 50’s. Rainy and wet. Gray. The first mug of coffee tastes really, really good.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Did anyone stay up until midnight? We certainly didn’t! After a cozy dinner with old friends down the street, we drove the few hundred yards home and crawled into bed. Once again the ball dropped without us.

And today is football. Lots and lots of football, though I have to say I’ve found the bowl games pretty disappointing. As Will says, there’s not much excitement this year. Do you feel that way, too?

But first, before Banjo Man settles onto the couch and I start assembling fabric for a future quilt (I have an idea in my head but I’m not sure yet, so it’s time to spread a lot of fabric around the room and see what fits the vision), we’re heading down the road to–wait for it–Home Depot. Yes, again. My husband has been waiting for days for me to go to good ol’ HD to get more flooring samples. And I’ve been stalling, due to a bad case of post-Christmas exhaustion. I just cannot get up the energy to load myself in the car and drive anywhere or do anything.

Banjo Man is frustrated by my inertia. So this morning he suggested we both go to Home Depot! And go to our favorite Chinese restaurant and eat dumplings!

Well, that’s one way to get me in the car. He’s a devious man.

I’m listening to my new Rosanne Cash cd, which is my main New Year’s resolution: listen to more music, play more music, learn more music.

Oh, yeah, there’s also the treadmill and the yoga dvd’s and the vow to eat salad, blah, blah, blah, but this year I’m mostly filling my little world with more music in every way possible.

(I’ve also vowed to reduce the amount of plastic in my life and now have a recipe to make my own laundry detergent, so stand by for the future eco-saga.)

Here’s to a new year filled with whatever brings you joy! We all need more of that.

Posted in books & music, family, music, rhode island | 2 Comments

where’s the hole?

Posted on December 31, 2018 by is there any more pie?

Yes, this is a photo of a roll of toilet paper. Maybe I’m the only one who hasn’t seen this eco-friendly or budget-friendly or something-friendly innovation in toilet paper, but just in case you don’t know about it, here it is.

You push the center tube out.

And voila!

As Will explained, “Now you have a small roll of toilet paper to take with you.”

Me: Take with you where?

Will: Camping.

Camping? They’ve reinvented toilet paper so people can more easily take toilet paper with them???

I don’t think so. But maybe there are more campers in the world than I realize.

Posted in austin, family, shopping, texas | Leave a comment

hurry up and wait

Posted on December 29, 2018 by is there any more pie?

“Hurry up and wait” was the theme of our travel experience this Christmas. From being delayed by a contractor’s visit and rushing to the airport last week only to find out the flight was delayed to yesterday’s issue with our cab not showing up to take us to the Austin airport and then, after son Will raced from work to pick us up at the condo, we arrived at the Southwest counter to discover our flight was delayed. By almost two hours.

Hurrying off the plane in Baltimore we discovered we did not have to worry about racing to our flight to Providence, because it was delayed two hours, until 1 AM.

Oh, my.

We were relieved that we would be heading home eventually and not spending the night in a hotel by the airport.

The only place serving food was McDonalds. And after a long day in an airport stuffed with storm-delayed, hungry travelers, McD’s was down to a midnight menu of three kinds of sandwiches, with fries.

Honestly? We didn’t care. We ate what we were given and were grateful to have it.

Arriving in Providence at 2:30 or so, we discovered it was only 51 degrees out. So much better than our previous arrivals of 8 degrees and wind chill. The parking lot shuttle arrived, the car started right up and we were home by 4 AM.

Bed never felt so good.

I slept until 12:30 and, though I fully intend to shower and dress, I still haven’t managed to accomplish that. It’s almost 4 PM now and I’m tempted not to bother. But don’t tell anybody.

This has nothing to do with our flights home, but here’s a photo our waitress took of us at the Saxon Pub Wednesday night. We bought tickets to hear Johnny Nicholas and it was a great show. Pay no attention to those empty margarita glasses.

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Oh, I can’t forget to show you what I saw at the airport in Baltimore. Terminal C is fairly new and while we were sitting waiting for a yet another delayed (what else?) flight on the 20th, we noticed this.

Doggie bathroom.

I had to peek inside.

And that was our laugh in Baltimore. You see all sorts of things when you spend three or four hours in one airport!

So I am presently defrosting a chicken pot pie (I tried a new recipe which should be interesting) for dinner while Banjo Man has gone to the grocery store for milk and vegetables. We intend to spend the rest of this long holiday weekend on the couch watching football.

What are you doing?

Posted in austin, family, rhode island, travel | 2 Comments

merry christmas from Austin 2018

Posted on December 23, 2018 by is there any more pie?

It took quite a few hours to get out of Baltimore, but it happened! Here is the view from the window as we were about to land in Austin. It was a welcome sight.

The airport baggage claim area was decorated beautifully. A nice surprise!

Will picked us up, in the midst of a midnight airport traffic jam, and we headed to the Magnolia Cafe for a late night meal before falling into bed at 2 AM.

We are so glad to be here.

I have a giant pot roast cooking in the crock pot this morning, just in case anyone gets hungry later on. We’ll be next door at C’Boys bar at 3:30 for some country music and Chicken Sh** Bingo. Daughter Nancy is eying a piece of art in a store down the street. I think she’ll be buying it today as her holiday souvenir.

And now it’s time to wrap presents! I can’t believe Christmas is the day after tomorrow, can you?

Posted in austin, family, texas, travel | 1 Comment

christmas past, 1949 style

Posted on December 20, 2018 by is there any more pie?

We are presently delayed in Baltimore as we head to Texas for Christmas. It has been a day of delays, from being late leaving the house because the contractor from the insurance company arrived to look at the job ten minutes before we intended to walk out the door. The flight to Baltimore was delayed by almost two hours .And now the flight to Austin has been rescheduled twice.

There is a lot of bad weather in the Southeast.

We could end up stuck here tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised.

In honor of the holiday, I wanted to share Banjo Man’s favorite childhood gift from Santa. He was eight.

Once in a while the grown up Banjo Man likes to put it under our tree.

I think it looks good there, don’t you?

Posted in family | 4 Comments

a few november photos

Posted on December 19, 2018 by is there any more pie?

Before we jet off to Texas for Christmas, I thought I’d share a few November pictures with you. Before the Funny Grandson became ill. Before the kitchen flood.

Here’s a small version of the Dunkin’ Donut birthday cake, which I invented for Son #1 in 1988 and became a family tradition.

Always a hit.

Here we are waiting in line at Allie’s Donuts. After fifteen minutes spent shivering outside in the cold and the wind, we came to our senses and drove to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts.