Cherry picking

 In this house we prefer cherry tomatoes to regular tomatoes. You never seem to need a whole big tomato for a recipe or salad and then you're left with a large chunk that gets mealy and ends up being thrown out. The solution? I always have a basket or two of cherry tomatoes on hand. It allows you to use just the right amount of tomato and there's no waste. But the downside is that they need to be kept at room temperature on the counter and they come in those ugly plastic containers that are so unsightly. 

Who wants one or two of those things sitting on the counter? NOT ME. So I finally decided on a solution. A nice ceramic holder that looks like a paper container that you get at a roadside farmstead or farmer's market. So much nice to look at. I found one on Easy that was nicely priced and I was quite happy to see that it was much larger than I had expected from the picture. It can hold up to two containers of tomatoes. It sits nicely on my kitchen island, I love it. 

The power trip

 I bought Scott a new toy the other day, a power washer. He had been telling me how great they were and when I found out you could get one for only $150 or so I thought 'why not?' 

It arrived by UPS one day shortly after lunch and within an hour he had it unpacked and had started his first project, washing the mold from the front blue stone steps. They now look like the day they were installed. 

He also blasted the trim around the porch door. He still has to finish the rest of the screens on the other sides. Yesterday he tackled the old teak bench in the back yard, the one my father and I assembled almost 20 years ago. It looks brand new.

Lastly, he took on the little brick path on the side of the house. It really evened out the color as one strip of the bricks I put down this past Spring. Now they're all the same color. 

This thing is worth its weight in gold!

Winter water views

 I ran across an aerial view of Sag Harbor online the other day. I realized that just out of frame in this shot IS MY BACKYARD. You can really see how close I am to the water, it's something I should really push if I ever decide to sell. I could bill it as "Winter Water Views" because if you get up on my roof you can see just a little bit of the bay! 

The Robe

 I've been doing small projects with my 'new' sewing machine, the one I got FREE from a yard down the block...mending towels, enlarging bandanas, making a quick slip cover for a chair back. I felt comfortable enough to jump feet first into a big undertaking, a garment using a pattern. I decided a robe would be a great thing, something comfy but not too fitted, so the sewing wouldn't need to be too exacting. I wanted a robe with a hood. In the colder months I like waking up and having my head covered. I found the exact thing I wanted in a Simplicity pattern that I found on Amazon. I needed five and half yards of fabric. There was a nice blue-green, very masculine. It took me a whole day to lay out the pattern on the fabric after it had been washed and then to cut out all the pieces. Then another day to do the pockets and belt loops. The third day I got most of the body of the robe done and the last day I finished the hood and the hemming. At first I thought that the fit was a little too big (I chose to go with LARGE as the size), but on reflection I think it's fine. If I were to make another one I might try the MEDIUM. I learned A LOT about patterns and garment construction thru this process. Thank God for YouTube also. I watched a ton of how-to videos and picked up a lot of tips and tricks that helped a lot. I can't wait to try my next project. 

A bicycle built for one

I was on Nextdoor.com this week and spotted what I thought was a great deal. A stationary bike for only $200 that looked practically brand new. As I zoomed in on the picture I saw that it was a Schwinn, a good brand name.

 I exchanged DM's with  the owner and at the end of the day we agreed that I could drive over to her place and take a look at it. It turned out to be a huge house in the Norhwest Woods, almost near my friend Dean's home. Very modern with an electrical gate all the way around. When I got there the husband (?) greeted me, I think he had Parkinson's. Very nice but shaky and a little hard to understand when he talked. She came to the door, "Hi Ron!". They weren't wearing masks which was a little odd to me, but I was for sure so I took the gamble. They showed me down to their basement which was half home movie theatre, half personal gym. It was VERY luxe. The minute I saw the bike I knew it was an expensive model. If it had been used more than four times I would have been surprised. My plan was to haggle a little but I knew that at $200 it was a bargain, so I let that go. I gave him he money and realized that I could take off the handle bars and seat and it would be easy to fit in the back of the Jeep. It must have weighed FIVE TONS. It was a struggle to get up the stairs, out the house and into the car...but I managed somehow. They were extremely nice and even threw in the mat that the bike sits on. When I got it home and into the basement, again with much effort and strain, I Googled the model. It's worth at least ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. This was the deal of the century...SCORE!! I tried out my first workout on it yesterday and it's perfect. This has been the summer of great deals for sure. 

An old sew-and-sew

The other day Scott told me he saw a bunch of stuff on the curb for free down the block, in front of the big white house with the big screened porch. I walked down there and one of the things was a Sears Kenmore sewing machine. I had just been saying to him recently that I wished I had a sewing machine to do odd little sewing projects. Well, lo and behold, here was one that showed up. I got it home and plugged it in and it worked! I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday cleaning it up. It was covered with age and grime. I got 98% of it off. It looks almost brand new. The case especially, gleams. Now I have to sit with it and study how to use it. There was no instruction manual. When I was watching some tutorial videos on how to use the machine, the teachers all stated how much they liked these machines from the late 1960s and early 70s. They're really well built, it weighs a TON, very solid. They also said you can buy old instruction manuals for these models on Ebay. I looked there and found ads for sites that sell pdf's of vintage manuals. Sure enough, there was one called SewingMachineManuals.com! AND they had my model # available...the 60 page pdf was only $4.99. I bought it in a heartbeat. The internet can be a wonderful thing for sure. I can't wait to start learning hot to use it!

(Not a) still racoon

We spotted this little fellow not once, but TWICE last week in the vacant lot next to the front yard. Was it a SIGN of some sort??