HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026

 Wow!

We are starting our first full new year in our new house.

We stayed up 'til midnight, had some sparking red wine and twelve grapes (one for each month of the new year, it's a lucky thing).  The neighbors (well, somewhere down the road, ha) had a nice little fireworks show we could see from the porch.  We heard some coyotes howling.  Saw a couple rabbits hopping through the yard and ended it...

...looking at the constellation Orion.  There is a full moon in 2 days but we could still see the stars to ID it.

Life is good out here on the farm.

We are thankful for all you coming along on this journey and here we are!  This year is going to be full of epic new things to see and do out here where we now live!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

CHRISTMAS EVE 2025

It's Christmas Eve!

Where did the time go?

We didn't do much decorating this year.  The closing and move just came too late in the year.  It's only in the last week or so that we have gotten everything finally unpacked...but a lot of that is still sitting around needing to go to homes somewhere in the house.

Got a wonderful gift from a very sweet friend.  Our first ornament for the new house!  It will have a place of honor on the tree every year.

New Home - New Beginnings - New Memories!

THANKSGIVING DINNER 2025

 Our first Thanksgiving in the new house is in the books.

It was quiet, just the two of us, but we got to use our new kitchen.  We considered it a dry run for next year's entertaining festivities.

We cracked open a bottle of wine...a Pinot Grigio that paired well with turkey.

2nd Man made some rolls, they were delicious!

I handled the snacks. Tried to go with as healthy as possible.  Mixed nuts (no salt), zero fat chips, a dip made with Beau Monde seasoning but using greek yogurt and the mayo we discovered that's so good, so it's virtually zero saturated fat, and then sausage balls, a holiday tradition, made with turkey sausage and 2% milk fat cheese.  We have to say, we didn't miss the regular versions, it was terrific!

I broke out our special "can-berry" dish (don't hate on those of us that like canned cranberry sauce!, ha).

I also made us a Caprese salad...fresh tomatoes (including those brown variety we found a few months back), basil, mozzarella and then drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The turkey that 2nd Man roasted came out perfectly (more on that in a future post).

He also made the stuffing and giblet gravy (totally forgot to get a picture of those).

I roasted some Brussels sprouts with turkey bacon and balsamic vinegar.

I set the table, we had all the food on the island and we jumped in!

The salad first.  SO good!

And then the main event (took the skin off the turkey for serving of course).

We were full and happy...

We are indeed all of these...

We are home.

We are grateful.

We are blessed.

And we are thankful.

Hope you all had a wonderful long weekend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2025

 We are finally in our forever home for our first Thanksgiving.  Turkey is in the oven (one of them), yeast rolls are rising, everything else is prepped and ready to go, and we have some nice jazz music playing over our ceiling speakers.  Oh, and the doors to the screened in porch are open with someone on a property nearby burning their fireplace so we get to enjoy the fireplace smell without having to clean it up, ha.

It's wonderful and we are so grateful.

We are also thankful for all of you coming along with us on this journey.  It's been a process getting here but hey, fun times are ahead, that's for sure!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!

THANKSGIVING PREP UNDERWAY IN THE NEW HOUSE

Our first Thanksgiving in the new house at the farm is coming soon.  

We can think of no better way to wake up and have a cup of coffee and breakfast while looking out the window at this!

We aren't having anyone over as the rest of the house isn't ready for that.  The dining room table is still a landing zone for unpacking from the garage and the screened in porch dining table is still in the storage unit, ha.

We cleaned off the island so we could prep our turkeys!  We have SO much room.  Now we can begin work on meal prepping for Thanksgiving!

We are doing our tradition of dry brining in the fridge for several days prior and now that we have the space with our garage refrigerator, we are doing two this year.  One for us for Thanksgiving and one for roasting and taking all the meat off to stock the freezer for turkey meals through the year.

And if I find some on clearance after Thanksgiving, there might be more since we have the space.

We rub the turkeys with olive oil and our farmhouse blend of spices and then pop them in the fridge.

They both fit perfectly!  This was something we could never have done before without the space (and double ovens to cook them) so it's a win/win for sure!

Hope your Thanksgiving week is off to a good start!

MEMORIAL DAY 2025

 We're on weather watch today.  We'll see how the day goes.  Either way, crazy hot or rain and storms, it's a good day to stay inside and relax.

No work is going on at the house.

Thanks to all that serve and of course, keeping those that have given the ultimate sacrifice in our thoughts always and are grateful to them and their families.

Hope you all have had a good weekend.  Yesterday we had our BBQ rib dinner on raceday!  Pics next Sunday.

We're both off today and are relaxing but also doing a little nesting?  Or de-nesting?  What do they call it when you are going through stuff and sorting organizing for a move in a few months, ha!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025

Here we are!

2025!?!  We were just talking about how we remember when Y2K was a thing, the rollover from 1999 to 2000 and everyone thought the world was going to end...and now TWENTY FIVE YEARS have passed on by!

What the heck?

But for better or worse, here we are, a quarter century older than we were back then, ha. 

This time last year, I was only a few weeks past my heart attack, wondering what the future would hold.  Now, here we are, one year later, with groundbreaking on our new house about to happen.  This year will finally bring us to our dream of living in our dream house AT the farm.

It'll be a year of BIG changes but it's what we've worked toward all this time and we are ready to start our new adventure!

Periodically, I like to say I still don't have my flying cars and robots.  For the longest time, it seemed robot vacuums would have to be it but...

...we are getting close to the robot part of that.  This is one of several humanoid robots rapidly coming into reality.  This one is called Figure 02.  There are at least a half dozen others just as close and advanced. This model has the potential to be used in homes for chores and errands.  Hey, maybe I can have one of these to help around the farm in a few years!

Two Men, a Robot and a Little Farm? 🤣

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Be safe!

NEW YEARS EVE 2024

 New Year's Eve is here...

We always stay in on this night, as people say, nothing good ever happens on the roads after midnight.  Add in so many more people drinking and partying than any other night, and it's never a good combination.

Saw this online and it made us laugh...maybe it's post pandemic, maybe it's age, maybe it's just a natural progression we all have, but we just don't like crowds of people and getting out anymore.  It's more fun to stay in and relax from the comfort of home.

Tonight, I'm making a new lasagna dish.  Got it ready last night and it's in the fridge waiting to be popped in the oven later tonight.  It's re-tweaked to be more healthy with fat free ricotta, 2% mozzarella, ground turkey, a marinara sauce with 0 grams of fat, etc, it should still taste great, we shall see.  We'll still treat it as a splurge (only one slice each), have a nice large salad to start, and then we'll have a bottle of sparkling Rosé for the evening.

And our TV tonight will be:

It is coming out tonight for rent as a gift for fans.  We never rent movies on demand, I mean, like never.  We rarely go to the theater either.  We just wait for them to be available on a channel we have.

But we have REALLY wanted to see this...it's New Year's Eve...it seems like a special thing to do.

"Yes neighbors, that's me singing "Defying Gravity" at the top of my lungs".

"Yes 2nd Man, I'll tone it down". 🤣

And remember, pets are sensitive to fireworks and loud noises.  Stay with them if you can, have counter noise (radio or tv), and keep them inside and comfortable.

Be safe out there!

POST CHRISTMAS CLEARANCE FINDS

Found a few things this year for use next year, at our new HOUSE!

We have stockings for each other (and one for Hobart) and we always exchange gifts of course but when I saw these, I thought they were too cute to pass up.

They are large, nylon Santa bags that seal up with a drawstring. I figured they might help us start a new tradition. We put small things in the stockings, and gifts are wrapped under the tree, so I'm not sure what we tradition we could start with these Santa bags, but we'll each have one and it'll be fun.

They were $1.25 each, down from $7.99.  Deal!

And then, between a few different stores, I found some new "farm themed" ornaments, all at 75% or more off.  A couple of barns, some old trucks (no white ones this year but we do have a couple already), complimentary design/color decor and I even found a cute little fuzzy fawn, similar to the ones we see on our property from time to time.  I spent less than $10 on everyting.

We will use these, in conjunction with others we already have, to put on this:

The white tree we found downstairs a couple of years ago!  We knew it would come in handy and with our new house for next Christmas, there will be a tree in every room!  Well, ok, maybe not EVERY room, but we will have one in the living room (a BIG one), one in the kitchen/dining room, one in the study, one in the screened in porch and one in our bedroom. Not sure which room this one will go in but it'll be fun!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2024

Many of you have probably seen this photo but we love it and since it hasn't been posted in a few years, we thought it would be nice to repost it this year.

It was a one in a million photo taken with the trailcam on the porch.  We had two deer running through the front yard during a RARE snowfall.  It has only snowed twice out there since we've owned the property and probably only 5 or 6 times ever, ha.  Plus it was Christmas to boot!  The things that had to come together to get this photo!

We even had a sweet friend turn it into a greeting card for us one year.  Once we're out there, we may have to take the photo and have it turned into a mass production card to mail out to friends and family.

We hope you all have a great Christmas Day and that Santa brings you all you want.  We are building a new house, so Santa definitely came through for us, ha!

Next year...CHRISTMAS WILL BE AT THE FARM!

WHEN DO YOU OPEN PRESENTS

 We always like to ask this as it's fun to hear from readers when they have traditionally opened presents.

Christmas Eve?

or

Christmas Morning?

2nd Man and I grew up with different traditions.  For me, it was always Christmas Eve.  We'd have dinner and then open presents after.  But there were always a few presents for Christmas Morning when I was younger and Santa came.

2nd Man grew up with dinner Christmas Eve, then church, go to bed, and then wake up for Santa.

Now, he and I usually open one present Christmas Eve and then the rest Christmas morning with breakfast.

How about you?

THANKSGIVING DAY 2024

Here we are, Thanksgiving Day has arrived!

The weather here is appropriately cold today because a front came through and it's chilly.  Somehow, that seems appropriate!

We're watching the Houston Thanksgiving Day parade on TV as 2nd Man and I are prepping things in the kitchen.  Turkey, dressing, and a couple of sides.

Today we celebrate our families and friends and everything we have to be thankful for.  This time, I'm especially thankful for another year of good health, here's to many more! 

Thanks to all of you for coming along on our journey year after year.  We both realized today that next year, we will be having our first Thanksgiving in our NEW HOUSE.  We can't even wrap our heads around that but it's coming!

Have a wonderful day, food pics coming in the next few posts!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART LABOR DAY MONDAY

It's been a busy weekend  but feels like nothing major got done, ha.  The farm was a rain out, couldn't mow but I did get some of the kitchen stuff packed up.  I guess that's progress.  Sunday was our home builder appointment and while it was fun and we did what we needed to do, it took up our entire Sunday, getting home at 7:30pm so Sunday was a wash out.  Today is the first day of just relaxing and it's kind of "meh", ha.

We ate some good food.  Here are some skinless oven roasted chicken legs, lemon pepper broccolini and homemade corn tortillas.  Today we are having pozole rojo, it's on the stove cooking now and smells so good (with some more homemade corn tortillas!).

Hobart is taking the weekend to rest, as usual.  You can see in the background here, we have a cardboard box that he like to sleep on so we leave it there but there was a ray of sunshine and he needs to recharge.  Of course, he's our ray of sunshine so there's that.  Because...

#notspoiled

Hope you all have had a great weekend!  Tomorrow, more new house teaser!

4TH OF JULY 2024

Well, here we are, another holiday has arrived! 

Having a day off in the middle of the week is weird.  Work yesterday, off today, work tomorrow, off for the weekend, but hey, we'll take it.

We gauge all holidays now by saying "this time next year, we will be celebrating at the farm".  And we already have ideas.  We have a sofa table that we love that will go in the new foyer and will become my holiday decorating fun zone, ha.  More on that later.

UPDATE: Don't forget about those who are affected by loud noises.  We are in a city that bans fireworks so it's not as loud as we know it can be.  But for those impacted, people and pets, it can be a stressful time.

Speaking of, we already have a few farm themed 4h of July items but they are in a box in the barn. Tomorrow on my lunch break, I'll go check out some after holiday clearances and see what I can find!  Stay tuned!

And check out this card that we got from one of the dear readers here.  She makes the most amazing holiday cards.  We save them all because they are works of art in and of themselves and you can tell they are made with love.  Thank you!

We'll be staying inside where it's cool as we are under a heat advisory.  Here is the current temp at 11am...with a feels like of 111.  Yep, inside where it's cool.  Hope you all have a good day and stay safe!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART MOTHERS DAY SUNDAY

Here we are, another week gone by.  Yesterday was supposed to be mowing day, but things didn't go exactly as planned.  More on that tomorrow.  Today is rainy.

Time for some good food and some Hobart!

We started with a salad of baby spinach with spring greens and mini Roma tomatoes...

And then the main course, oven roasted Mahi-Mahi with shrimp and potatoes with Aleppo pepper and topped with sriracha and chives.

YUM!

Hobart is unimpressed by the good food...so we moved the couch cushion out of the way so he has room to spread out while sleeping.  Because...

#notspoiled

And of course Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there!  2nd Man and I lost our mothers years ago but we always think of them and hold their memories close.  Hope you all have a wonderful day and get the wonderful treatment you deserve!