Some Miscellaneous Fun Things

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had a lot of fun! I got 2 great birthday gifts that I have to show off . . . one is a lovely wind chime from my parents that has the most beautiful tones I have ever heard in a chime. There was some information on the chime tucked in the box that said it had been tuned to the Key of A. I never even thought for a moment that something like that could be done with wind chimes. The effect is very nice, let me tell you. I've been spending a lot of time sitting on the back porch in one of the Adirondack chairs and listening to the haphazard melody that the wind creates with the chime. Peaceful, very peaceful.

I also got some very beautiful flowers for my birthday from my brother and sister-in-law and their kids. They all came to our house last Sunday for hamburgers, a spirited water fight, and a trip to my favorite nursery, Farmington Gardens. Christy and Jessica (my sister-in-law and niece) helped me arrange the flowers in some pots that I had available. I really like how they turned out--especially the trailing flowers--beautiful!

A couple of weeks ago I decided to use (finally!) the very cool garden stone-making kit that my mom got for me last year. It came with its own little packet of cement, tint for the cement, some rectangular plastic molds for the stones and stamps for all the letters of the alphabet as well as numbers and punctuation marks--everything I could possibly need to make some unique and beautiful stones! It took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to say, but I settled on some French words . . . mon petit jardin. It translates to "my little garden." And fittingly, I do have a very little garden this year--just my pots of flowers and the yellow volunteer pansies that decided to make a home amid our path of stepping stones.

Lastly, last week I tried my hand at making some blueberry scones for the very first time. I got a smokin' hot deal on blueberries at Fred Meyer, and wanted to make sure they did not go to waste. The recipe I found on the Internet was a low-calorie, low-fat recipe and I thought, "Hey, why not try it? If they're terrible, I'll never make them again." Well, they were not terrible. They were fantastic! :) They looked like little chocolate chip cookies, and I figured since they were small, I could eat more of them than I would if they were the normal scone size. I thought they were best fresh from the oven, when the juice from the blueberries was still hot and the berries themselves kind of burst in my mouth. Yum. Michael thought they were great too, and within only a couple of days, we were out! I made a double-batch the next time and those were wonderful too. I have the recipe posted on Facebook, in case anyone is interested. :)