Salad Days and Summer Stuff

 

Yesterday, I stayed at home doing projects and housework. Today I went thrifting and also picked up a few groceries. I wore a (thrifted) long blue dress, and it was very comfortable in this hot weather. Once at home, I looped the ends of the dress under my scarf/belt. I actually like the way this looks and might do a neater version of it the next time I wear the dress out. My thrift haul will end up in my next post, since I already have so much stuff I can't keep to myself!

The caterpillars have moved on to a new plant. My guess is these are travelers from the neighbor's back yard, which she lets go wild. She wants to create a butterfly habitat. That's swell and all, but it ruins a lot of my herbs. Next year, I will plant in pots far away from that fence.

I am cultivating from veggie scraps on the ledge in back of my sink. It looks like I'll maybe end up with a few scraps of greens to top a salad or put in a sandwich. This is just a general interest thing which I've been curious to try. Not expecting much to come of it!

It was truly a salad day for us. My plan had been to make a pot of chili, but Tommy didn't want a hot meal for dinner. My solution was to buy both a salad kit and a bag of kale. The first thing I did when I got home, was pull the stems off all of the kale leaves. They will either be ground up for some pesto, or I'll hide them in a batch of dog food. Our last dog, a wonderful Golden Retriever named "Teddy," would eat absolutely anything. She loved kale. When I cut off the stems, I would just hold them out to her, and she'd gobble them up.

I mixed half the bag of salad mix with some kale and it's in the refrigerator for tomorrow. Then I mixed two bowls with the same kind of mixture. It created a beautiful green base for a salad topped with all manner of things from our refrigerator. There's stuff like tabouli (Flashfood), red peppers, strawberries, mushrooms, onions, feta cheese, and two Al Fresco chicken sausages (Ff, $2.62 for a pack of four). The salad toppings for the kit were used too. Not shown, were three remaining little croissants from my Friday Ff haul. I toasted them in the air fryer, which is also how I cooked the sausages. This was a delicious Mediterranean dinner!

Last night was another phyllo dough/pie dinner. It was made from all sorts of leftovers, and obviously a lot of cheese! We still have two pieces left, which will probably be reheated for dinner with the other two sausages I air fried tonight. There is still one entire sleeve of dough left as well!

Today was also spent redecorating Frankies crate. I added a couple of layers of blanket along with the foam I'd put in the pillow sham. She had been able to get into it and tried to shred the foam, so I knew it had to be sewn shut. There are a few more items to go in. Whenever you see an overly styled bed and wonder who on earth needs so many pillows; Frankie does! This girl loves digging and tossing and burrowing in blankets and pillows. Two pieces in her crate will not be enough. But when it's all said and done, she prefers to snuggle on the bed with daddy.

I took a picture of her belly yesterday so I could see how she's healing. It looks good! We can't take off the donut because she will lick at the incision. She does go on walks without it, and we take it off for meals. It looks like she may wear it until mid-week.

We will be participating in the July 17 "Good Trouble" protests to honor the late Senator John Lewis, who passed on this day five years ago. I finished my sign last night. The back of it is intentionally upside down. An upside-down flag is the sign of distress. My message there is that our core values of Liberty and Justice for All are in danger. For those outside of the U.S., Mike Johnson is the Speaker of the House of Representative and a total toady for the orange blob-monster. He is also very short. Are there any events near you? Will you be participating?

Filed under the category of "What Wouldn't I do for Free," are my bonus non-spends to report today. I found a headband when returning my shopping cart at Aldi. Other than being dirty, there was nothing wrong with it. After a good washing, it's now wearable and perfectly fine. It was also a delight to see a few fruits growing on one of my volunteer tomato plants. Hopefully they will ripen to something edible. And they were free!

Have you found anything lately? Would you have picked up that headband?