It was a happy Friday

Today – more shopping  and more food in Traverse City with Lee and Roxie.

First I’ll tell you that I bought two beautiful chairs
at that resale store we visited last Monday

(the house is coming together. I still need to get covers for the outlets,
bury the internet cable and get a huge rug, but it’s coming along just fine)

And then I’ll tell you about a really good restaurant.

As you have figured out by now, I am one of those “foodies”.   Lee suggested that we try out a relatively new restaurant in T.C’s old town.
Mmmmm…………..
Phil’s on Front

Oh my goodness, it was good. It was very good indeed.

Here are pics – not of food but of us

heehee, this one is great. Lee and Roxie and at the table behind us is Sue. We didn’t know each other.
She was there 1 week too early to have lunch with friends. She kept posing along and I caught her.
When she found out that she was early we invited her to sit with us but she decided to leave.
What a hoot. Sue, if you read this, please comment

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Richard!  Maitre D. (Roxie loved him, heehee)

I also need to introduce you to Elvis’ daughter or grand-daughter, here she is

Theresa (one of the servers)

Here is Phil on the right.

On our way to the car, Lee insisted that I take a picture of the guys working on this exciting, new construction.
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Construction Guy

Dimples

Doesn’t this look like the dark side of the moon?

Mike pointed it out the other night and I think he has a point -

Dimples, errrrr…..craters in the snow are all over the front yard

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And today it looks like we might be living in Siberia.

Brrrr….it is cold and blustery today

The swing set is lonely and waiting for some little ones to get abused by
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Behind the house and down the drive way, it’s a sea of ice.
It is getting pretty difficult to walk to the cars or get the mail.

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And that, everybody, is the weather report for the Wayfarer on this day in history.

Have a lovely day

Used Furniture and Lunch

So, Lee and I decided to go to Traverse City today to shop for furniture and accessories for my house and to meet Christine from the Tackle Box for Lunch at Amical on Front Street.

We had a great time, found some really great pillows and other little items at
Pier One and then went to meet with Christine.

Christine and Lee – super models !

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Ok, cheers this is the continued celebration of  my birthday.
As if we needed a reason to have a glass of wine for lunch
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“This is how I hide my extra skin, Lee”…
Isn’t that a silly picture.  Leave it to Christine to snap that one, heehee

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And now for dessert

A most delicious Peach-Cranberry Tart

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mmmmmm, Raspberry Crème Brûlée

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“Goodbye Christine, this was great fun and we should do it more often!” -
and now on to finding a couple of comfortable couches for the Library/TV room
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How about this one?  I love it.

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…this one is great too.
Everything looks like it’s new and it’s priced that way too.
I have to go home and seriously think about this.

Lee really likes it

A snowman’s prayer

It’s been too warm this week.  The snow is melting.

My first thought was to dismiss this photo, because it’s probably difficult to see
what I am talking about

On second thought, I’ll show it to you and see if you like it.
Can you see what I mean?  My entire back and front yards are still covered in snow,
even after the warm temps we’ve been having.
It glitters in the sunshine.

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Someone walked out of the swamp and across the street to visit.
I can positively say that it was not a bear.
Looks more like it might have been a deer.
It came all the way up on the porch.

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And there, quietly, sits the rhododendron waiting for its time to be colorful again.

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Oh, look – something is already happening
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Snowman’s Prayer: “Please freeze! Amen”

Time for some color

The weather is dreary once again. That’s fine.  I put color into my day by playing with my food.

The boys and I spent Sunday afternoon in Traverse City which always includes a trip to Meijer’s for me.  They have food!  They have the kind of food that we, here in Frankfort, can only dream of.  I am particularly fond of their produce department. Yumm.  I could spend hours in that place.  So, I stocked up on veggies and fruits.  And now I am turning those veggies and fruits into the most delicious juice.   Here is what I made this morning.
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Carrots, apples, beets and Swiss chard – mm~mm~ good

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Tie dye – not too appetizing yet, but wait until it’s all mooshed together
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There’s no recipe, only that I always include apples and carrots because they sweeten up the greens; the greens change from spinach to Swiss chard, to beet greens and parsley.

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OMgosh, look at this sweet, red juice.

Monopoly

For the first time in a long time we played Monopoly.  Not just any Monopoly but Coast Guard Monopoly.

Ty was out at a friend’s birthday party and an overnight, Marc was here.
He did not need his arm twisted to play. That surprised me, he’s been a bear for the last year or so.

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Then I tried to get some nice pictures of Mike and Marc but those two
Dinglefritzes kept making faces at the camera.
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The one with the dopiest smile won the game

Not so nice?

Today was one of those days when you wish you didn’t have to go out. No, that’s not true. Today was the perfect day for someone like me.  The kind of day that makes you wish you were inside with a book and some tea or hot chocolate and some cookies or whatever sounds good.
We had one of those ugly January thaws with ugly, dirty snow – yahooooo

Elberta looking down M-22

Frozen Betsie Bay in Elberta

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Too cold for Thursday market today

The bay is almost completely frozen now


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Frankfort’s north pier with its frozen rocks

There you have it and now on to that pot of hot chocolate enhanced with
a tiny bit of Meyer’s Rum, heehee

Grin…

I have been meaning to tell Pam Dow, the owner of “It’s the Berries”,  that her window decorations in winter, when the store is closed, are really imaginative.

Here, look for yourself

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Paper cut-outs with real, tiny clothes.  Beautiful clothes. I am afraid that the details are not coming through in the pictures.
She used gorgeous fabrics in beautiful colors to dress these 3 foot “dolls”

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I hope you can see what I mean.
I wish more people in this town, me included, would dress with a little more pizazz.
We are all in a boring, black and gray rut.

It’s the Berries is located in Frankfort on Main Street, right by the Book Store and the Coho Cafe.

I didn’t notice all the reflections when I took the pictures.

Illumination

This one is for Robbyn who said this yesterday in a comment:

“Today I took down my tree and all of our decorations, 16 days after Christmas. I was not ready for the holidays to be over.”

I keep a little sparkle going through the dark months
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Now that I look at that picture I think it would look nicer if I had burried the wires under the ice cubes.

I am going to do that now or maybe tomorrow  

A gift

This morning – a gift!
There it was, completely unexpected.
Can you see it?

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Then later this morning I had to go to a friend’s house in Elberta and saw the most amazing icicles…

Can you see the gift here?

Oh come on, play along, it’s not that difficult.
However,there isn’t a prize for guessing correctly     

( Hansel & Gretel may have come through here)

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It’s SUNSHINE

I love that kind of sunshine.

It makes everything look so much more crisp and cold.

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