Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

This Week's Food Waste

LETTUCE

I didn't quite make it all of the way through a bag of lettuce before the last of it went bad. Otherwise, we did pretty well.

This Week's True Food Confessions

Egg salad cornettes made by my sister-in-law-- one of the treats we had for Easter.

This week, we had a lovely Easter dinner with Ward's family, but for the rest of the week the food was fairly routine. So, I'm going to skip ahead to today's entries for National Poetry Month. As of yet, I have not featured the ever-important poetry type of the limerick. Here are a few food related ones that come from the book, Lots of Limericks selected by Myra Cohn Livingston. 

A Lady in Madrid
A lady who lived Mardrid
made soup a way no one else did:
she swallowed some broth
with some herbs wrapped in a cloth,
and covered her head with a lid.
by N. M. Bodecker

An epicure, dining at Crew,
Found quite a large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter, "Don't shout
And wave it about
Or the rest will be wanting one too."

There once was a provident puffin
Who ate all the fish he could stuff in.
Said he, "Tis my plan 
to eat when I can:
When there's nuffin' to eat I eat nuffin." 
by Oliver Herford. 

The Unfortunate Giraffe
There was once a giraffe who said, "What
Do I want with my tea strong or hot?
For my throats such a length
The tea loses its strength,
And is cold ere it reaches the spot."
by Oliver Herford.

A Second Look--April 23, 2014

Spring is definitely here in all of its glory. Everywhere I turn, there is something new to see. Here are some of the things I saw this week during a Second Look.

The pansies from last fall have come back and are starting to bloom.

I continue to count the different varieties of daffodils that I have in the yard and I'm up to twelve. Some of the differences are subtle and don't show well in the pictures.

 

This bluebird brought materials to help build the nest in this box. No eggs yet.

Bleeding heart. Two weeks ago this was just a white sprout coming up.

The deer have determined that these azaleas need to be "pruned" every day.

The red bud is starting to bloom.

 

With his messy eating, this squirrel dropped seeds from the suet that these doves ate.

We have grape hyacinth springing up many places away from the bed they were first planted in. I assume that means some critters have been at work. This is one of the transplants.

This is the first time that I have seen one of these nests, but I think that it is a chickadee nest. The fur lining is one of the telltale signs. Six eggs were deposited in it this week.

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In honor of Earth Day, here's today's poem. It is Looking West from Picnic, Lightning by Billy Collins.

Looking West
by Billy Collins

Just beyond the flower garden at the end of the lawn
the curvature of the earth begins,

sloping down from there
over the length of the country

and the smooth surface of the Pacific
before it continues across the convex rice fields of Asia

and, rising, inclines over Europe
and the bulging, boat-dotted waters of the Atlantic,

finally reaching the other side of the house
where it comes up behind a yellow grove of forsythia

near a dilapidated picnic table,
then passes unerringly under the spot

where I am standing, hands in my pockets,
feet planted firmly on the ground.

Good Morning

The sun is up over the trees and the birds are chirping. A goldfinch and cardinal are taking turns at the feeder giving a bright display of colors among the light fog that is lifting. A flock of Canada geese fly over giving a bass voice to the song of a wren. And here I sit at the computer with a blank mind except what is filling it from my surroundings. I fret about my lack of material and motivation for a post when I realize that I need to stop and just be in the moment. So I join the cats at the window and continue to watch the morning awakening. 

I hope you also get a few quiet moments today to enjoy what is around you.

Thankful Sunday--April 20, 2014

I am thankful for Easter 

 

because it reminds us that 

all things are possible.

Ponderings of Theodore--the teenage years.

The teenage years are often a difficult time as we transition from childhood to adulthood. During this time, we try to figure out who we are and who we want to become. We explore, we retreat. We're popular, we're invisible. We're happy, we're sad. In other words, we're in limbo, not quite sure where to land. During some of Theo's teenage angst years, he wrote about this. One of those times was in today's poem.

                                                                 Limbo

                                                            by Theodore

                                          How can you be falling if you never hit the ground?

                                          How can you be flying if you never touch the sky?

                                          How can you love yourself if you never are good?

                                          How can you hate yourself if you never are evil?

                                          When people stare in awe and wonder

                                          And flee before your touch

                                          Neither heaven nor hell will take you

                                          And you want nothing so much

                                          As a solid place to stand

                                          And someone to take your hand.