Midweek meanderings

 

Image from The Graphics Fairy

 Just cruising in  midweek to chat a bit!  

What a stretch of hot, humid weather we have endured here in the Granite State.  It's been absolutely crazy.  I am so thankful for cooler temps this morning, though the humidity is still very high.

Last evening we took supper to share with our friends Sam and Jenn and their boys.  It's always a joy to get together with these younger believers!  I took along an Antipasto Salad I hadn't thought of in years.  My recipe is from an old Taste of the Country cookbook put out by Taste of Home magazine.  My recipe differs a bit from the one I linked to, but it's essentially the same.  I used an entire pound of pasta.  I used a few slices of provolone, chopped, but then added a package of the mozzarella pearls (a product I have never previously used).  I used one green pepper and one yellow pepper, and would do this again as it really enhances the salad's appearance.  This calls for salami and pepperoni.  Our local Market Basket supermarket sells deli meat ends very inexpensively, so I picked up a package of Italian cold cut ends to use in this salad.  I ended up only needing about half of the meat the package contained, so I'm planning to make this salad again for Sunday's fellowship dinner at church. 

 Because of the aforementioned heat wave, I didn't want to bake a dessert, but I did want to provide one, so I decided on one of the icebox cakes made with oreos as a base.  Our friends love chocolate and peanut butter, so I went looking for an icebox cake with those flavors.  Here's the one I found: Peanut Butter Oreo Icebox Cake.  This turned out so well!  The only change I made was to decorate the dessert with teensy peanut butter cups rather than a drizzle of chocolate syrup.

Let's see, what else has been going on?  My hubby has been busy with projects at our little camp.  Despite the heat, he has been doing crazy things like laying pipes to our little spring, mixing concrete for various projects, and preparing to build an outdoor shower.  Yesterday he went to Lowe's and got a lot of the necessary materials for it.  

Don't recall if I shared about this before or not.  The top step here was sunken below ground level.  My hubby dug underneath it and lifted it up with the help of a strong lever and a wiry 7-year-old.  Then he created a second step using stones from one of the many walls on our property.  The third step is pieces of slate which had been placed there years ago.  Those weren't the most stable, so this week he made a concrete form to embed them in.  I'll have to take a photo next time we are over there, as this photo from July pre-dates the concrete.  As you can see, scraping and painting on the building (especially this little porch) will be a necessity this fall!

Adding a flag was a simpler project and one we are so pleased to have done.  We found a solar light which works perfectly to light it up at night.

 These stone steps led up from the road, or possibly from a driveway, to the large farmhouse that once stood on our camp property.  My hubby was doing a little bit of brush cutting and came upon these.  We had just seen a photo of the farmhouse at the historical society, so when he found these he knew exactly what they were.  We have since placed a pot of flowers on one step so passers-by will notice them.

Our church had VBS (aka Summer Bible Camp) last week and it was a great week of ministry.  So good to see the folks working together to minister to kids from both church and community.

I've been trying to get back into the FlyLady routines this month.  In spite of the fierce heat (and dripping with sweat as I worked), I managed to do a little decluttering in Zone 1 last week and am tackling Zone 2 this week.  I'll have to do a Making Space post soon, as I have found a few items to donate.

 I'm also trying to keep up with the 100-for-100 writing challenge.  I've missed a few days here and there but currently have well over 13,000 words so I am pleased with that.  

 Another project I'm tackling is to make some sachets to help with musty odors at the camp.  Humid weather brings those out.  I'm making some balsam sachets to tuck into furniture, and some lavender ones to place in drawers and cabinets.  For the lavender ones, I'm using the same mixture as my vacuum cleaner bag sachets.  A jarful of mix is currently curing, and I'll package it in coffee filters next week.

Last but not least, we've recently learned that our Nevada family is to arrive on August 29 for a ten-day visit.  Lots of planning ahead as we consider meals and people and places they hope to see!