Yup. Still busy, but you have no idea whether this post was written Wednesday or Sunday! (Though you can probably guess, all things considered.)

Ready? Set?

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Saturday I wanted chocolate cookies for myself–preferably with nuts–so I needed to make something else Grandmom could eat. (She complains that she eats too many sweets if I make cookies for her, but complains that she makes sweets she can’t eat if I don’t. So I err on the side of making cookies.)

Earlier this year I bought the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book, primarily to try and get more whole grains into Michael’s diet. I’ve tried a couple recipes, and they’re pretty good (though I prefer the unbleached flour sweet rolls), but grandmom really liked the Chewy Oatmeal cookies, so that’s what I made for her.

These cookies are very chewy and almost spice cookies as much as they are oatmeal cookies.
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For quite awhile now I’ve wanted Fiestaware for my every day dishes.

First, you’ll have to understand that we don’t have a china pattern, we have place settings, including one from my grandmother’s set and one from Michael’s grandmother’s set, and random patterns that various family members have picked out for us.

And I don’t own sets of towels in the traditional sense. When I buy towels, I pick up three of the same brand in colors I like, usual shades of purple and blue and green. The only matching towel sets in the house belong to Grandmom.

Why? I like variety. I like the fact that if I there is a china pattern I like, I can pick up a place setting and it will fit in with what I already have.

Fiestaware is perfect for this, since it comes in many many different colors, with colors coming and going every year. If they come out with a color I like, I can pick up a place setting in that color. And if a plate or bowl gets broken, no big deal, since that’s just an opportunity to get another color!

And as an added bonus, Fiestaware is made by the Homer Laughlin China Co, in Newell, West Virginia, so I’m supporting a West Virginia business.

So when we were wandering around the mall yesterday waiting while my grandmother got her haircut, we saw a sale on Fiestaware place settings–plus a free fruit bowl with each place setting! And the store had a sale going, so we ended up saving significantly more money than we spent (Deal!).

And now I can buy place settings whenever I find a color that catches my eye, and can have a different colored dish every day of the week if I so desire. (Yes, there are six plates, there, and two are cobalt blue. I ordered two other colors from Amazon, which was also having a sale. So we’ll have eight place settings and seven different colors. Woot!)

Happy Birthday to my baby brother, Brian. I may be older, but you’re more respectable!

And Happy Birthday also to Gina. Happy Birthday wife! Hope you get chocolate for your birthday!

As I mentioned, I’ve been doing some work on the front garden. I have a long bed the runs the front of the deck, part of the bed gets full afternoon sun, the back part gets a little dappled sunlight but is mostly shade.

It’s made the bed hard to fill, but it’s one of the nicest (and flattest) stretches of garden I have.

I just moved the spider wort from the bottom of the hill to the front bed, because the flowers are pretty much wasted at the bottom of the hill where they can barely be seen. In the shade end I also have some astilbe and lily of the valley, unfortunately, the lily of the valley are at the very edge of where the soaker hose reaches, and don’t really thrive. And there aren’t a lot of plants that thrive in high shade low moisture.

Almost half the bed is day lilies. I love day lilies. I love the flowers and I love the greenery and the way they spread and keep out the weeds and grass.