Quick Contest Update and Thursday Adventures
Name That Quilt Series! Contest Update
Thanks BUNCHES for all the suggestions so far. Y'all are great! This is harder than I thought because there have been not just one or two, but several mentioned so far that I could happily live with! I'll give everyone one more day in case someone thinks of something else and then on the weekend I'll make a decision and announce a winner. So there's still time...Keep on playing!
Thursday Adventures
It's been a little while since I had a "write stuff and draw arrows all over my photos" sort of blog entry, so I thought I'd share a little with you about how I spent my day yesterday.
I'd gotten a postcard in the mail from my favorite place to eat lunch in Lexington, The Garden Cafe, at Flag Fork Herb Farm. I say "lunch" because the Cafe is only open for lunch, 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. Wish they were open more!
Anyway, I got a postcard saying that if I brought the card in anytime during the month of March, I'd get a free birthday lunch, including beverage and dessert. And that's not all! If you act now...oh, sorry, slipped into TV AdLand for a second there. But that really wasn't all. It said if I claimed the free lunch on or before the 16th, I'd also get a $5 gift certificate for my NEXT visit, and 25% off any item in the gift shop. PLUS I got a $10 gift card to Victoria's Secret in the mail, PLUS a coupon from PetsMart for a free bag of dog food. Obviously it was time to spend a day in Lexington.
So I made a reservation for lunch for yesterday and off I went. FFHF is in a funky old building that dates from the late 1700's. It's very cool except that you have to walk right past a humongous boxwood hedge to get inside, and I think boxwoods smell exactly like tomcat spray. Bleah.
Once you're inside though, you find a funky little gift shop, with several rooms, most of which have some sort of theme. A lot of their gifts are handcrafted Kentucky arts stuff, so its a fun place to shop for gifts for friends who live other places. Even the bathrooms are artsy. Take a look:
The room was too tiny for me to get much of a shot, but you get the idea. The shop has a resident cat named ClawDette (yes, that's how they spell it) and you've gotta love a shop that houses a cat! She's very friendly too.
The menu at the Cafe is what I think of as "ladies who lunch food" - soups, salads, sandwiches, desserts. My favorite thing on the menu, which I never get tired of, is their combo plate where you get a small cup of any soup, a half of any sandwich, and a small portion of any side dish. It's enough to be a filling lunch, but the portions are small enough that dessert is still an option if you want it. And believe me, at this place you WANT it.
Since I swore to my friend Morven (who also LOVES FFHF and went there with me all the time before she moved back to NZ) that I'd tell her what I ordered so she could suffe...er...I mean, live vicariously, here's what I had for lunch: carrot-leek soup with orange-ginger cream; penne pasta salad with asparagus, sundried tomatoes, parmesan cheese, cilantro, and olive oil; and chicken salad on whole wheat bread. I drank apricot iced tea and had hickory nut pie for dessert. (Like pecan pie except it's topped with hickory nuts - which I like much better than pecans.)
I used my gift shop discount totally selfishly to buy an early birthday present for meMeME and here's what I bought:
The colored bits are glass and the metal parts are copper, so they should eventually turn a cool verdigris color.
My stops afterward naturally included PetsMart to get the freebie dog food, and Victoria's Secret (for a bra and undies in turquoise blue!). I also stopped by Mecca, AKA Off-Broadway Shoe Warehouse. See, you can just barely see me in the mirror a half-acre or so away:
What, I ask you, is a sure sign of spring? Daffodil leaves poking through the soil? A robin pecking at the lawn? Yeah, yeah, sure...whatboringever. HERE is a sign of spring for you! Metallic sandals embellished with bejeweled BUGS!
No, I didn't buy them. I didn't actually love them, I just loved SEEING them, if that makes sense. OTOH, I totally DID love these boots, but they were miserably uncomfortable:
In the end I didn't buy a thing at the shoe store. Sad I know, but I'm sure there'll be things to be bought another day. I even tried on some Wasabi Green Keds, just like Debra bought a little while ago, but they hurt my feet too. Keds always feel like they're cutting my foot in half across the instep, even though I can wear most cheap-o Keds-style knock-offs with no problem. (Gee, do you think I could've come up with a way to use a few more hyphens in that sentence if I'd tried REALLY hard??)
Final stop was the book store and then home.
As my artsy-fartsy Daily Effort, I took this photo:
"Blue Skies Smilin' at Me"
At first I was just noticing the contrast of the white sycamore tree against that intense sky, but then I noticed the way the sycamore appeared to be reaching out toward the dark tree on the right, and vice versa, and it reminded me of this painting. (Yes, I realize I'm odd. I've been living with that for many years now. Heh.)
Finally I have to say a Happy Birthday in memoriam to my Mom. If she was still with us, she would have been 67 today.
Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you and I miss you.
Once you're inside though, you find a funky little gift shop, with several rooms, most of which have some sort of theme. A lot of their gifts are handcrafted Kentucky arts stuff, so its a fun place to shop for gifts for friends who live other places. Even the bathrooms are artsy. Take a look:
The room was too tiny for me to get much of a shot, but you get the idea. The shop has a resident cat named ClawDette (yes, that's how they spell it) and you've gotta love a shop that houses a cat! She's very friendly too.
The menu at the Cafe is what I think of as "ladies who lunch food" - soups, salads, sandwiches, desserts. My favorite thing on the menu, which I never get tired of, is their combo plate where you get a small cup of any soup, a half of any sandwich, and a small portion of any side dish. It's enough to be a filling lunch, but the portions are small enough that dessert is still an option if you want it. And believe me, at this place you WANT it.
Since I swore to my friend Morven (who also LOVES FFHF and went there with me all the time before she moved back to NZ) that I'd tell her what I ordered so she could suffe...er...I mean, live vicariously, here's what I had for lunch: carrot-leek soup with orange-ginger cream; penne pasta salad with asparagus, sundried tomatoes, parmesan cheese, cilantro, and olive oil; and chicken salad on whole wheat bread. I drank apricot iced tea and had hickory nut pie for dessert. (Like pecan pie except it's topped with hickory nuts - which I like much better than pecans.)
I used my gift shop discount totally selfishly to buy an early birthday present for meMeME and here's what I bought:
The colored bits are glass and the metal parts are copper, so they should eventually turn a cool verdigris color.
My stops afterward naturally included PetsMart to get the freebie dog food, and Victoria's Secret (for a bra and undies in turquoise blue!). I also stopped by Mecca, AKA Off-Broadway Shoe Warehouse. See, you can just barely see me in the mirror a half-acre or so away:
What, I ask you, is a sure sign of spring? Daffodil leaves poking through the soil? A robin pecking at the lawn? Yeah, yeah, sure...whatboringever. HERE is a sign of spring for you! Metallic sandals embellished with bejeweled BUGS!
No, I didn't buy them. I didn't actually love them, I just loved SEEING them, if that makes sense. OTOH, I totally DID love these boots, but they were miserably uncomfortable:
In the end I didn't buy a thing at the shoe store. Sad I know, but I'm sure there'll be things to be bought another day. I even tried on some Wasabi Green Keds, just like Debra bought a little while ago, but they hurt my feet too. Keds always feel like they're cutting my foot in half across the instep, even though I can wear most cheap-o Keds-style knock-offs with no problem. (Gee, do you think I could've come up with a way to use a few more hyphens in that sentence if I'd tried REALLY hard??)
Final stop was the book store and then home.
As my artsy-fartsy Daily Effort, I took this photo:
"Blue Skies Smilin' at Me"
At first I was just noticing the contrast of the white sycamore tree against that intense sky, but then I noticed the way the sycamore appeared to be reaching out toward the dark tree on the right, and vice versa, and it reminded me of this painting. (Yes, I realize I'm odd. I've been living with that for many years now. Heh.)
Finally I have to say a Happy Birthday in memoriam to my Mom. If she was still with us, she would have been 67 today.
Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you and I miss you.
posted by Deb R at 3/03/2006 08:54:00 AM
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