apricot/almond muffins, ice bucket

What I forgot to say yesterday was that…remember when I was complaining about the books that Ginny got me hooked on…the TRADD STREET books by Karen White?  And that I had just finished the third one and that the library probably wouldn’t have the (newly published) fourth one until next year?  Well, I got a package from AMAZON…sent by Ginny…yep…the fourth book…..she sent one to me, one to herself and one to her daughter Jodie so that we can all read them!!!  I can’t wait to get started…just as soon as I finish my current book.

Anyway, I made 16 apricot/almond muffins Wednesday (1/8) morning

 

 and ran a dozen over to Sally & Jimmy’s house.  Then Michael and I took off to go furniture shopping.  We have a dining room table that is not very stable.  We have people over a lot, and we’re all getting older and I watch when people go to get up…the first thing they do is plant their hands on the table and push down to get up.  If they are on the side, the table REARS UP on the other side…not very good.  So, we had our first foray into furniture world….we also need to replace our 2 living room chairs…and I think we found new chairs…but want to keep looking for a table.  Anyway, we didn’t get home until 1:30 and we both had a quick lunch before Michael headed out for 9 holes of golf and Nancy H came over for a visit with me.  We had a WONDERFUL time…haven’t seen each other in weeks…so had lots to talk about.  She left at 5, right around the time Michael got home.  I made a roasted butternut squash, with sage butter pasta that was to die for….after he was done, Michael said ‘I could definitely eat another bowl of that right now!!”  We watched the third THAT”S ENTERTAINMENT movie and then a TOTALLY tense MAJOR CRIMES before bed.

You have to check out these pics.  We have a bucket under our furnace runoff, and we use the water to water our plants in the summer.  Michael keeps an eye on it during the winter, and uses a hair dryer on the pipe to free up the ice as needed.  Yesterday he checked and the ice had really started to freeze in the bucket…it created a perfect ‘ice bucket’, check it out:

brr_r_r, would make ICE cold drinking water...