TO BE DELIVERED

Handyman has been busy lately, but has finally gotten the final coat of paint on the bookcases. They'll soon be delivered to Nashville and will probably need a little touching up after making the trip. It will take the truck along with a trailer to get it all loaded. The two end cases are actually 2 pieces each - a base and an upper. The middle bookcase is all one piece except for the crown at the top, which, thanks to the experiences of an old friend of mine, was made separately. This makes for an easier move. The crown on the two end pieces will be added at the time of delivery to assure a 'perfect' fit and the base will be added to the bottom front to cover all three pieces seamlessly. I can't wait to see it in place.

Handyman showing off his masterpiece.

Beautiful, just beautiful!

HANDYMAN BUILDS AGAIN!

Our oldest daughter and her husband will soon close on their new home. I am so excited for them. The house has so much room that they'll be able to use the formal living room as a library and still have plenty of living space. Since our son-in-law is a professor and our daughter home school's their oldest child and will eventually home school their other two children, they have a growing number of books at their house.

Here is a picture of what will be their library.

As soon as her daddy, my handyman, heard that they wanted bookcases to go in their library, he started working on the plans. After getting the go ahead from our daughter, he began building the bookcases this week.
The first day he had to go to Lowe's to purchase all of the materials, but when I came home, he had already started.

This is what he accomplished the first day.
The middle section.

The second day, he worked on the two side bases and the upper shelves on one side.
I made handyman stand beside it because it didn't look as big as it really is in the pictures.
He had his eyes shut, but he said that was okay because he was just being a measuring stick!

Today when I got home, he had put together the other end section.
Note - the sections are all separate so they will come apart and transport easier this time and any other move they may make in the years to come.

There will be doors on the bases of all three bookcase and the shelves are adjustable. He still has quite a bit of work to do with making the doors and painting, but it's amazing how quickly it's gone together already.

It's really great to have a handyman around !!

FARMER'S MARKET

On Saturday I visited our local farmer's market. There is one certain display where I purchase most of my veggies because they have just about anything you would want and usually the biggest and best looking tomatoes.
This trip I bought squash, big juicy tomatoes and small red onions(the red onions at Kroger are always huge). For dinner that night we had Bacon & Tomato Sandwiches, Fried Squash & home canned Green Beans. Delicious!!



After purchasing the produce that I had specifically gone for, I decided to walk thru the market to see what else was available.
I was surprised to see Wine for sale. They were set up so you could taste the various wines that were available and even though it was only 10:00 on a Saturday morning (their clock said 5:00) I got to taste several kinds of locally made wine. Some of them I liked and others not so much, but in the end I decided to purchase a bottle of the apple wine. I think what swayed my decision was the name - Alvaton Apple.

I'm planning on waiting until the kids are here to open the bottle. It was a little more expensive than what I prefer to buy, but I thought this would be nice for a special occasion.


On a similar note - a few weeks prior to this I asked handyman to pick some strawberries for us so I could make some jam. He picked enough for us to have a couple of shortcakes, make a batch of jam, and freeze enough crushed berries for two more batches of jam.


I love the bright red color you get from freshly made strawberry jam. It tastes delicious too!

RUM CAKE

I've planned on making a rum cake for years. Back in the 70's, Bacardi Rum put a recipe in the women's magazines and I always thought they looked yummy! We just never seemed to have any rum on hand because as you know, we're really heavy drinkers and must have drunk it all up. ;-)
For Thanksgiving last year (or was it the year before?) I made some hot buttered rum (which I didn't like at all). I had some leftover rum and thought I'd make the rum cake. Well, here it is June and I still hadn't made it. After getting my new Kitchen-Aid mixer I decided that I'd better be putting it to good use, so I finally made my rum cake. It turned out really well although I did modify the recipe a tad so it didn't have quite so much rum flavor in the glaze.



For the recipe go to The Pioneer Woman.com
She has step by step instructions for this delicious cake.

A PRESENT FOR ME (FROM ME)!!

A few weeks back I bought something for myself that I've been wanting for quite some time. It's one of those things that I didn't really need but just wanted. Hey, at my age, I think I'm entitled every now and then!! I had looked at several recipes that gave directions using one --but since I've had it, I haven't run across another one of those recipes.
After checking prices, I changed the color from Cobalt Blue to Willow Blue. As far as I could tell, this was the only difference other than the price which was about $40.00 less for the Willow Blue. They are rather expensive, but our bank has been giving us points for quite some time that I have just ignored. I cashed the points in for a $100.00 Amazon Gift Card to go towards it and also used the $80.00 Cash Back from my Discover Card. So I figure it cost me about $50.00, which isn't that bad. I look at rewards as free money!

Isn't it a beauty?

I really never thought I wanted or needed one of these until recently. Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me --- I've been doing more baking since I got it. Bread...Cakes...pies.... It does a great job of kneading the bread and it really whips up the egg whites for meringue. Calories, calories, and more calories!

There was also a rebate that came with it -- either a glass mixing bowl or a food grinder. Since we like ham salad, turkey salad and such I opted for the free food grinder. It should be here within the next month.

I wonder what I'll find to use it for next?