T Stands for Tuesday-Mostly Lake Views and Henry

 Welcome to T Stands for Tuesday and our new month of August.

  I am so happy to see August has arrived as next month brings us closer to Fall-I am soooo ready. This has been such a hot summer for us. 

  Good news though, last week was much cooler with lots of rain, but no flooding here at the lake as in other parts of Missouri.

  To cut down on my blogging time I am considering  linking up to T once or twice a month going forward-will see if I like that or not. 

    I am enjoying Rains Thursday Art and Dinner date since she took over my Food Wednesdays-lots of lovely art and good eats there on Thursdays. I posted early today again as Tuesday I will be at the polls voting, if I post early gives everyone the chance to visit early so not so many links to visit in just one day.

  We did get our new lift put in. So happy with the company we chose, very professional and courteous staff. Haven't gotten help to get the boat on it yet. I am not a strong driver especially a big vehicle with a boat trailer on it so we are still waiting for help with that. What Larry liked about this lift no metal moving parts sitting in the water. Also the boat will sit up out of the water on this lift. This lift is designed to move with the waves. from HydroHoist

This was a two brothers team

Lake photos over the weekend

   Pre sunrise

 Fast boats too close to the docks on Saturday

Haven't seen the pirate ship going by in awhile, an adult red headed woodpecker

For my drink share I had a mug of hot decaf black tea and also a peek into a watercolor I painted with stamps, early Sunday-if interested will post the finished piece on Thursday

I also bought some new coffee for us. This company uses the profits to help veterans and also RSBN network (which is privately owned with no corporate investors) It is one of the few networks I have found that shows the truth live-I watch them on Rumble This one is a bag of decaf for me and I bought two of their dark roasts (lots of caffeine) for Larry

and Henry visited my mailbox all the way from Germany-thank you Iris-love him

Happy T and new week and new month

Rain's Art and Dinner Date

 Good morning Friends,

   I am posting today for Rain's Art and Dinner date-link in my sidebar. We share art and/or food- a perfect pairing.

  I didn't follow the prompt this week, but I have gotten out my watercolor paints and watercolor inks this week. Monday, I found my watercolor postcards that I have had for awhile now. When I was just getting into painting I was following tutorials more and one site was selling these postcards on discount. So I painted and stamped some of them or used only watercolors, and sent them off to my usa slow mail friends. That was fun.

    Tuesday morning I decided to get out a piece of watercolor paper and paint flowers inspired by a calendar photo I had saved. I must remind my readers I am a total novice when it comes to painting. I used watercolor paints and inks.

  My first piece I didn't like at all, thought I could salvage it a bit with stamps nope, I will just fold it in half and use it for slow mail

 The second attempt was better, but not sure why I did the flower petals so small.

 This was my inspiration piece. I used to think that looking at a photo was "cheating" but after watching a video using acrylics the artist says no it is good to use your own photos or another reference and not rely on memory.

Note all photos will enlarge just click on them

For this second painting after I put in the background I grabbed my black walnut ink and dip pen and outlined the flowers and stems first. Made sure it was dry and then used watercolor paints. The darker green in the grassy area is alcohol ink

  I am fairly pleased with this for me, but would have been better with larger petals Also the photo reference did not have leaves, but on my version thinking I should have added some large leaves to the stems--always learning

   I made a couple batches of keto ice cream recently. This is the recipe I follow  I use the swerve powdered sweetener and xylitol. These two sweeteners combined help to make the keto ice cream creamy. 

 Warning though xylitol will kill dogs, not sure why as it is made from the birch tree and is a natural product.

    I also double the recipe, use cream for the condensed milk recipe and then switch over to 1/2 and 1/2 for the rest of the recipe-after using the last cup of the cream in the quart container.

   I added fresh strawberries and blueberries to the first batch. I also used strawberry extract instead of vanilla extract.

 

 The second batch I turned into a chocolate espresso ice cream-soooo good my favorite so far.  Follow the same recipe at the end of making the condensed milk add 3 ounces of dark cocoa I use Hershey's special dark as it has a rich flavor-I also added in two tablespoons of espresso powder, and for the rest of the recipe added in vanilla extract.

 it does take 30 minutes of constant stirring of the cream to begin the condensed milk recipe

The sweeteners and the butter added to above

then the espresso, cocoa, whisked til blended and the xanthan gum let sit for 10 minutes covered then continue on with the recipe

I usually make this early morning and then mid afternoon it is ready to churn. I found if I let it sit over nite it seperates too much

For me this was well worth the money

added these in at the end.  I think I will leave these out next time, they are very hard after the ice cream has been in the freezer, and I think I cracked a crown-ugh can't believe that happened-so do not want to go the dentist and it's a long drive too.

                              

  Last week I needed to use up fresh apples and frozen peach slices so made up a crisp with gluten free oat flakes and oat flour I used Splenda to sweeten the fruit (I no longer bake with sugar) and sprinkled instant tapioca (gluten free) and baking spice as I layered the fruits,  and in the crumble topping I used coconut sugar or sometimes I use swerve brown sweetener along with cinnamon.

Happy Thursday and thanks so much for visiting

T Stands for Tuesday

   Happy T Stands for Tuesday,

      Looks like this is our last Tuesday for July too, I am actually glad to see July coming to an end as it has been non stop high 90's and 100's f with humidity all month.  

   Checking out this week's weather forecast, a big change since I last looked-rain chances every day and much cooler days-I'll take it smiles 😀  I would not mind a total wash out but Wednesday our new lift for the boat is to be installed, and our neighbors to the right of us are having their huge family gathering-members come from all over the country beginning this weekend. I even share a parking spot behind my car for the week if they need it. This will be their first since covid hit so I am excited for them. We have been blessed with kind and friendly neighbors on both sides of us. He came over yesterday, saw our boat was not on the lift last weekend and this weekend and wanted to make sure we were alright. That is a good neighbor. They come out to their lake home mostly after labor day, when the lake is not so crowded with craziness. We always enjoy sitting on our deck watching the very young grandkids fish. They are really good at it too

  Sorry, again not much to share for Tuesday, as I haven't done much really except to "survive" this weather. I have been working on books that have been on my kindle for awhile. Do you ever get angry at an author? It's just a story right? Well, I won't share the author but the second book in a three book series-just ended with a cliff hanger ending that was a tragedy for the two main characters. It was so abrupt I doubt that any reader saw it coming. She ends it by saying God told her to do it, and the third book is more expensive than the first two. I was very upset over this, shocked really. I found her on Facebook and messaged her privately and had let her know I have read most all of her books and was very very unhappy with this book.  For me this was a money grab. I deleted all of her books off my kindle and canceled my order for the third book. 

  Took me awhile to feel better about the whole thing, It's only a story right? Many of us that read allot really get invested in the characters and they become real in some cases especially if part of a series of books.  I looked in my kindle and found an author I have not read yet-she writes cozy mysteries. It's good so far. I don't usually read contemporary  or mysteries I mostly read historical fiction, and some time travel stories from a couple favorite authors of mine.

  Okay enough about books. This past week I made two batches of keto churned ice cream. I hadn't made any ice cream all summer for us. I made a vanilla ice cream that I added in fresh strawberries and blueberries.

    I bought two of these vintage ice cream dishes several years ago for one of our anniversaries Really love using them, and they remind me of a childhood ice cream shop Bonnie Doone Ice Cream in Mishawaka Indiana. They made all their ice cream on site. Inside they served ice cream sundaes in dishes like these. Well I had to look them up-they are still there  Haven't been back there since 1967 when I graduated high school.

On Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date I will share my second batch of churned ice cream-dark chocolate-expresso. A new flavor for me.  The base tastes really good.

  I do have a lovely slow mail hand stamped card to share. One of my slow mail friends and I love wolves, She sent me this hand stamped wolf card-I Love it! I have this card sitting on my mantel near two handmade bells Larry brought back to me years ago from a hunting trip to South Dakota. Made by Native Americans in that area. They are both hand signed inside the bells.  The pottery behind the card is handmade, and to the right are vintage pottery pieces.

  Here in Missouri our primary elections will be on August 2nd. There is a very important election coming up in November   There are so many candidates for both the US House and the US Senate this year for my state of Missouri; that I needed to look them all up online and learn more about them. I am down to three choices for both the house and the senate-I will be doing more research before I vote in the primary.  There are also elections for Missouri state's house and senate as well.  Too important not to do the research and vote wisely this year. 

   For my drink share, I bought this bottle of wine during my last big food shopping trip. Same brand as I had bought before but a different flavor. That week the price was back to around $4.00-not bad though You can also see my margarita fixings to the left (haven't made any of those in a long time) and sorry the photo came out a bit blurry  blame it on our heat wave haha

Happy T and new week ahead

How Are You Stayin Cool?

  Happy Friday,

   I am thinking the majority of us no matter where you live are experiencing heat waves this summer. The Missouri Ozarks area is known for these extremely hot and humid summers which I have noticed occur after a rough winter. We moved here in the fall of 2003 and this is probably the third of those very hot summers. So this is really normal for this area. (sorry I do not believe in the climate change theories that are being shoved through congress, the earth evolves which it has been doing since God created it-my personal opinion)

 When we moved and retired to this area from northern Illinois-our small farm property was just a few feet from the Wisconsin border-the biggest change for me was learning that the sun is lower in the sky here in the Ozarks then what we were used to, so the sun here has always been too hot for me. Thank goodness for air conditioning. I am so thankful for it.

  At our ages-mid 70's-we do what we need to do outdoors very early in the mornings, before sunrise and need to get back indoors before 9 am it's just too hot after that.

  So what have you been doing to stay cool?

I am "making" myself drink more liquids, which I don't do generally. I remind myself now that when I am feeling thirsty I need to grab a glass of cold tea or water. 

  I also don't eat allot of fruits, but I think they are perfect for these hot summer days.  We have been enjoying fresh strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and I am getting ready to cut into a  honeydew melon. With it being so hot and dry here, I have not seen any nice watermelons. 

  Yesterday I also churned up a batch of keto vanilla ice cream that I also mixed in fresh berries. That one should be good, I will make a second keto ice cream tomorrow with a different flavor. So we will have a cold treat.

 When the weather is extreme like this I have a difficult time getting into any projects-seems perfect though- being stuck in the house I could be weaving the towels that are on my loom, practicing the sashiko stitches on a sampler, creating a journal page or painting instead I have been reading-allot.

  or this might work to keep us cooler  

Happy Friday and weekend everyone

  

  

Rain's Art and Dinner Date

   Hi Everyone, if it is very hot and humid where you are-hoping you are able to stay cool. We are back in the 100's this week-not counting heat index.

  You are most welcome to share your art and dinner date post with Rain's link up in my side bar. (and the dinner date was our food wednesdays)

I don't usually follow prompts but this week was poetry  so I thought I would give this a go.

    I searched online for poems about sunrises over water and found this one.

Sunrise at the Sea

God created so much beauty on earth-
Mountains and plains, hills and valleys,
But nothing can compare to a sunrise at the sea.
It is a miracle created just for you and me.

The sky and the ocean seem to blend
Together on the horizon.
Slowly the light slips
Over the line…

  find the rest of the poem here

    For this painting exercise,  I used watercolor paints, a stamp with ink, and the quote written with black ink and dip pen.   

    This was my second painting attempt-I loved another poem I had chosen and the painting much better, but then when I was refilling the ink pot-it splattered all over my painting-no way to fix it. sigh

    So I just started over with a different poem. I thought the sunrise needed more and it may be too much more now haha. I am not totally in love with this piece.       This painting exercise did get me out of my slump of not creating so that was a good thing for me. I liked my water much better the first time too.  I will fold this in half and use for one of my slow mail letters.

  For my dinner date share-I am terrible at remembering to take photos while I am in the kitchen-but I did get a few this time.

  I like to grill pork tenderloins on my cast iron grill pan. I cut the tenderloins in half which is plenty of meat for the two of us now. To change up the flavors I use different herb blends and spices that contain no salt.  This time I used bbq spices

I served with wild rice and mushrooms. The wild rice comes from the Lakota in northern Wisconsin which my friends pick up for me. I have been buying canned mushrooms that are organic from a favorite online source Vitacost They have many organics and gluten free items that I can't find near me and they most always have coupons or sales going on too-especially if you sign up for their newsletter (no affiliate I just really like shopping there)

   Tuesday morning very early, was my monthly food shopping trip. Every time I shop I can see the prices getting higher A pound of butter $8.00?? I don't think so, I am glad I keep butter in the freezer. I did find some big price drops for different meats at our small Wal mart store. They usually go through early mornings and drop the prices on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I like to have a corned beef in the freezer and I found a nice one where they took off $10.00 Wow quite a big drop. I wasn't planning on buying meat this trip, but I also found $5.00 off of a package of 2 very large skinless chicken breasts, and price cuts on lean hamburger, and fajita meat.  I saved at least $25.00 or more on the meat purchases during this shopping trip.  I was stocking up on some canned fruit with no sugars added-and the Wal mart brands for most of those fruits was $1.00 a can, I don't think I could home can fruit myself for that price.

    I haven't made the keto churned ice cream all summer so I bought the cream and half and half enough to churn up 2 different flavors-I will share my ice cream  next week.

So glad you dropped by for a visit, Stay cool and safe if you have this heat wave too.

T Stands for Tuesday

 Happy T and new week,

   Nothing much new here at the lake. The hot temperatures and humidity continues here in the Ozarks.

   We are still getting a little rain every 10 to 14 days which is a good thing, for my new perennial plants-as they get a good soaking with the rain.

   I haven't been too motivated this past week for art or craft projects, mostly helping to clean up the boat, and the one big project over the weekend was to defrost my deep freezer. The most time consuming part of this is emptying everything out, and then putting it back in. Since the move to the lake our panty of foods has diminished greatly. We used to hunt and process that meat, and I would can up allot of bushels of fruits, and freeze veggies from my garden. I do miss all that. I may get back to some of that once things settle down, we get the woods property sold and I can get a gas stove. 

  I have been reading allot more during the afternoon and evenings during these  hot days this past week. I finished reading America's First Daughter by Dray and Kamoie  I had this on my kindle and had forgotten about it til I heard about their second book My Dear Hamilton.

  If you like to read historical fiction, I would recommend this book. I really enjoyed it and learned allot more about what was going on during that time period. The reviews were mixed-seemed to be very good or low. Reading why some rated the book low-most said too much drama-well there was allot of drama going on during this time period and within this family.  The authors did a allot of research using actual letters etc,  and the authors took the time to share the sources they used, and areas where they needed to fill in and how they wrote those areas. This book was written in first person by Jefferson's daughter. (photo found online)

  I wanted to share this very interesting article from Free the Ocean, True stories about messages found in bottles over the years-one from the 1800's

  I did also purchase another book on Sashiko which looked more detailed and it is. Many diagrams on how to's and not what to do when stitching, and many full size patterns.  Simply Sashiko Classic Japanese Embroidery Made Easy by Nihon Vogue (photo found online)

  I had tried stitching a sample and ran into some problems at corners, this book shows what to do.  I had purchased a small preprinted project and I think I will work on that first, to get a feeling for the stitches. 

  I mentioned in one of my last posts, that last fall the squirrels decided to feast on my gladiola bulbs-I only have three that survived-one more pink one and a white one

I think the deer have been foraging at night in my garden-they have eaten the tops off of many flowers, including my geranium. My neighbor told me the deer come in every year and eat down her hostas-I was surprised that the deer would eat those. Not happy they are eating down on the lilies too

and for my drink share, I picked up a couple of these bottles of different fruit flavors-it's a cheap wine but flavorful and perfect for hot summer days. and they were on sale for only $3.00 The small cup is from Japan I picked up at a resale shop I used to visit allot with a friend-before moving to the lake

Happy T and new week everyone

Time to Grill & Surprise in my Garden & Moon

 Hello my dear online friends,

    Another hot one here on the lake (Lake in the Ozarks Missouri)   Since the boat is in the driveway we are taking the opportunity to give it a good cleaning. The sun is very hot here by 8:30 am already so we are getting ourselves outdoors soon after it gets light.

   I have most of the boat washed down now, even took the rug out and gave it a good sudsy clean, rinsed and should be dry now to get it back in place tomorrow morning.

  Larry with a new found friend worked hard today figuring out how to get the lift out-what a job this has been, since it's broken hard to get the floats up and out, but they did allot today.

  We have discovered the electric to the house is much worse than suspected. We have been here a couple years now so the problems have really showed up now. sigh-so no electric stove on while the washer is on. No dryer on while the washer is on at the same time. Also no laundry being done while the a/c is on-so tomorrow morning early I will get a load in.  No microwave on while the stove is on. etc

  I decided now was the time to bring up the smaller weber grill closer to the house. I have a very large one still next to the fire pit-that one is too heavy for me to move, but the smaller one is perfect for our meals. This small weber grill is at least 30 years old now, probably more. I have replaced the grate twice now, the little heat controls underneath have long been broken off. One leg is almost rotted out-but once in place still works to hold up the grill.  I don't usually grill-bake-cook outdoors during a hot summer, and being our main meal of the day is at 2 pm it's really hot out there-but there is a bit of a shady spot near the front door that I can sit for a bit, and here it's very close to the kitchen.

  So I grilled us hamburgers and made foil packets of onion, wedged potatoes, and and a big handful of frozen green beans. I no longer want my foods touching aluminum foil (allot of cons about that now) so I tore off a piece of parchment to place on top of the foil-and then added the veggies with a little olive oil and ground black pepper. I think the parchment paper kept the foods from sticking and burning too. Although, next time I will let the potatoes get a little more browned.

I also brought up the vintage milk can that was my stool for the floor loom for as long as I can remember-back in the 70's-works out well for a mini table now near the grill

I didn't get the grill marks on the hamburgers as my coals weren't as hot after cooking the veggies in the packets. so they cooked slow and stayed moist.

I added a little slice of horseradish havarti cheese on top of the burgers. There was very little horseradish flavor in this cheese so I didn't mind eating it haha. a very creamy cheese though

Next time I will keep the packets over the hot coals a bit longer, but the veggies were cooked through.

and smores-I actually made these in the microwave as the marshmallows are small stars. I used gluten free cinnamon graham crackers, Lindt dark chocolate, 4 little marshmallows-zap in microwave for about 12 seconds, add the top graham cracker-a perfect evening snack The marshmallow stars were red white and blue with different flavors

and surprise in my garden. I had bought a small bag of Victorian colors of gladiolas last fall-and sadly I caught the squirrels digging them up and eating them. Looks like three have survived-this is the first one that bloomed-gorgeous color

Were you able to view the gorgeous moon? I remembered to look out the wall of windows to the far right to see it rising-Soooo gorgeous. I was able to get a photo with my very old camera.  Once risen it was large and white

Happy Friday and weekend

T Stands for Tuesday & Rain's Art and Dinner Date

   Hello everyone,

     I thought I  would combine a couple of link ups in one post, as I have seen that many do this all the time. Will see how this goes and if I like it or not.

   T is where we gather with a drink related photo and share with friends over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog. Link in my sidebar

  Rain's Art and Dinner Date is sharing any form of Art and Dinner is sharing foods which was my Food Wednesdays  I am looking forward to this new pairing, as I am learning more about painting from Rain's videos and she always shares foods too, so I am excited that these are together now. link in my sidebar

  Thinking allot of you have been experiencing a very hot summer too. We are either in the mid 100's or high 90's F, but the good thing is, about every 10 days or so we have been getting a good rain shower, which has helped to save the flowering plants. I am very grateful for that, as one of the first years that we had moved to Missouri, we went from end of spring to late September with no rain.  So I am so thankful for the rain this summer when we get it. My perennials are doing pretty good considering.

 This has been one of those weeks for us. I didn't get photos as I was just too freaked out with the whole situation.  Long traumatic day but the short version our boat lift broke-an all day process to save the boat and get it off the lift- drive down to the conservation access, put on trailer and now safely in our driveway whew  This was a 104 degree f very humid day-with Larry's health on top of it-a freak out day for sure for the both of us. I thank our new friend that lives in a cove near us, and to our new good friend that was vacationing at his family's lake house that helped Larry accomplish this. I prayed for help and we got it.

  I suggested to research out the main companies for a new lift and just do it, if we have the money-we don't go in debt for anything any more.  So pretty fast I thought a new lift will be installed end of this month.  We learned that our old lift was on record from the company we chose to purchase from-50 years ago-so being on a main channel of the lake that gets allot of rough water I would say that was pretty good for that old lift.

   On to more fun things I am sharing this with T and also for Rain's Art   Last Thursday her video was sharing an easy technique with acrylics inspired by Bob Ross.  I really wanted to try this out, suppose to be easy-well it was easy but I had trouble with the white in some areas, and I was not totally happy with my trees but will try this again for sure-I used my wolf stamps and I made two paintings.

The painting below ended up with those footprints-loved that

Last week I saw posts of pizza-yum-I had not made us pizzas in quite awhile, I checked and I did have the shredded mozzarella cheese in the freezer. I wanted to try a thin crust instead of the thicker Chicago style I usually make. I asked Marie my Wisconsin friend-who also cooks and bakes allot-if she had a thin crust pizza recipe. She sent me two different links-I chose this one  It came with a gluten free flour option, and you could proof for 30 minutes or not. I chose to proof it. 

   Next time for the gluten free version, I forgot that it is better to roll out the dough on to the baking pan or stone and then let it rise for the 30 minute. If you do it before hand like for the wheat dough you will lose all the rise when rolling out.

  My pizzas and recipe are for both T and Rain's Dinner Date

Wheat crust  

     The toppings were simple I fried up Jimmy Dean's Italian sausage, added a natural and less salt sliced black olives, and lots of cheese.

Gluten free crust-and it was baked through and delicious. Many times gluten free doughs like this do not bake through So a keeper recipe for sure and simple and easy too-so many gluten free crusts are more complicated and do not need to be

My drink share for T 

     I grabbed two beers-gluten free to the left and Larry's favorite to the right I think this is the last bottle of Guinness that was in the frig-the original 6 bottles were in there now for at least 4 years haha

Monday morning in my inbox a newsletter from Dave's Garden featured this article How to make sun tea safely  Thought I would share as many of you like to brew sun tea.

I also wanted to share a video again. Saturday morning around 6 am I made me a cup of decaf black tea, fed the birds and grabbed my camera. You can hear the birds singing, the crows came in at the neighbors dock so you can hear them too, and the swallows were active that morning. This video is around 5 minutes long

Thank you so much for visiting, hugs to the T group and to Rain's community