Monday Miscellanea

We headed north on Saturday morning, dropping Kat off at her mom's and then checking out the Basswood Resort near Platte City, MO, to see if we might like to spend a weekend camping there. 

Platte City was also holding city wide garage sales, where we scored some good cheap and free stuff.  I found lots of tops for myself for 25¢ and 50¢ each.  When you're as messy as I am in the kitchen, you don't want to spend much on tops that will inevitable get grease spots on them.

Someone had an EdenPURE heater in the free pile with a note that says it "works, but heats slowly".  We grabbed that right up.  It may be just that they didn't understand how an infrared heater works, or it may need new elements.  If we have to replace elements, at $80-$100 it's still a bargain for this kind of heater. 

We drove by one home where several people were picking apples from their trees.  We pulled over and asked if they were selling their apples.  They told us they'd already picked and canned all they wanted and that we were welcome to pick as many as we wanted for free!  We picked about a bushel, but could have picked many, many, many more if we could have reached them.  They are very nice apples, both Granny Smith and a blush type, perhaps Gala.  We gave some away, we'll eat some out of hand, and I'll can the rest as pie filling.  I might make cider vinegar with the peels, too.

We didn't come close to seeing all the garage sales, but we had a late lunch date with Kat, my daughter T. and my son-in-law M.  My daughter's birthday was on Labor Day, so this was a celebration of sorts.  T and M follow a vegan diet, so they chose Cafe Gratitude.  (They have a really neat concept; click through to read about it.)  Cafe Gratitude serves a vegan and mostly gluten-free menu that focuses on local and organic foods.  They make the most amazing homemade ginger ale and a wonderful coconut milk, almond butter and vanilla smoothie.  The food was very good -- and filling -- the atmosphere was fun, and place was busy but not overcrowded at that time of day.  We all had a great time.

M, T, and Kat.

Shane and me.  Our table was in what used to be a storefront display window.

My hand-rolled veggie tamale with black beans and Mexican coleslaw.

M's "nachos" made with cashew "cheese and sprouted grain crackers.

We also saw this from the restaurant window.  I have no explanation. I don't even have a logical guess.

Saturday afternoon my dad visited and spent the night.  It wasn't really a planned visit; he was in town for other reasons and needed a place to sleep, and left fairly early on Sunday morning to do his own thing. 

We stayed home on Sunday and did this and that around the house:  laundry, a fall planting of lettuce and radishes, housework, etc.  We had no real plan, we just looked around and did things that needed to be done.

This week promises to be busy.  I still have those peaches in the freezer to work up, and now apples.  Kat gets out of school early on Thursday, and we have a fun weekend with my sister next weekend to get ready for. 

How was your weekend?  And what do you have lined up for this week?

Another Quick Camping Trip

Shane and I decided to take the camper out again, just the two of us, while Kat was with her mom for the weekend.  It's been a few years since we camped without Kat, so we had a nice getaway as a couple.

An upscale housing development (Lakewood, for my local readers) was having community wide garage sales that we didn't want to miss.  We couldn't decide whether to camp or go to sales, so we figured out a way to do both, by camping just a mile away from Lakewood (at Blue Springs Lake).  That's right, we camped just 20-25 miles from home, and for all practical purposes, we were "in the city" the whole time, but as it turned out, this is one of nicest parks we camped in, and we had a very nice time.

A sight I won't often see -- the back of our camper while it's on the road.
Look how dark the sky looks.

Half an hour and 20 miles later, it's bright and clear!

Since we were sans Kat, our meals at camp were a little different this time around.  Any time we don't have her, we make a point of enjoying some of our favorite foods, flavors, and/or ingredients that she doesn't really like.  For example, Friday night we ate this Cajun Shrimp and Grits dish.  It was based on THIS RECIPE.  It doesn't look a thing like the original photo, but it was delicious and perfect for the cooler temperatures here that night.

We had THESE SANDWICHES for breakfast both Saturday and Sunday mornings, but instead of having the eggs on English muffins, we had them on bagel thins one morning and sandwich thins the next.

Our intent for Saturday was to run "home" to the camper for a quick lunch, then head back out for more garage sales, followed by a repeat of the same meal for supper.  What really happened was that we skipped lunch altogether, then had an extreme pig-out once we finally did get back to camp.  Pictured here (or just out of frame) are THIS DIP, along with some commercially-prepared hummus, a veggie tray and meat/cheese tray I put together, pita chips, woven wheat crackers, and sandwich thins.   There was just enough left over that we made a similar lunch yesterday when we came home.

To drink, we enjoyed water, iced tea, beer for Shane, some of the new Michelob Light Cider for me (meh...I was unimpressed), and each morning, coffee.

I tend to take too much food when we camp, but with each trip, I'm getting better at judging how much we will need.  I hope to be spot on by the end of summer.

That should be it for the camping posts for a while.  Our next camp out is reserved for July 4-8.  Unless, of course, we decide to go somewhere sooner.

Let the Garage Sales Begin!

It's garage sale season!  With the mild winter we had, they never really went away -- there were usually 1 or 2 to be found most weekends -- but last Thursday was the first day I found multiple garage sales to browse.  I think I went to about 8 or 9 of them.  Here's what I found that I "couldn't live without".

Bling-y gold flip-flops. These are so NOT me; I usually go for something more earthy.  But these were just 25¢ so I grabbed them. And I love them!

Burgundy sunflower candle pedestals.  There were three of them for $1 each, so I made them mine.  The one with the candle on top is one I already had, so now I have enough to make an arrangement or two.  Just need to find more sunflower yellow candles.  These are great decor for late summer and early autumn, but they match my living room so well that I leave them out year round.

I was a big spender at the church sale, were I found two new packages of cupcake liners for a nickel each.  They're just the basic pastel liners, but the price was right.

I also found a swimsuit  for $1 that may or may not fit Kat (didn't notice that the top and bottom weren't the same size), and a decent length of Weed Block fabric for 50¢.

Pretty good haul for less than $5.