Burgers

I'm a burger lover.  My number one favorite place to get a burger is Red Robin.  This week I went to a couple other places.  The first I'd never been to before.  The second is another favorite.

The other evening I was at the mall and decided to check out Max & Erma's.  They opened there not long ago.  I had them make their mushroom and Swiss burger with the black bean patty.  It was a little light on mushrooms.  [Red Robin has spoiled me.]  There were onions, tomatoes and lettuce under the patty.  Pickles on the side along with the seasoned fries.  It was all good.  I'd eat there again but I wouldn't go out of my way to do it.  The price was $7.99.

Today That Man and I had lunch at Indigo Joes.  We had a buy one get one free entree coupon with a maximum of $8.00 off.  The only requirement was having to purchase two drinks.  Tea for him and lemonade for me.  We eat there when we have a coupon because it's such a good deal.  They put a coupon in a mailer every couple months.  We get one in the mail and my mom gives the one she receives to me.  So, we have one more coupon to use in the next few weeks before it expires.  Anyway, I usually order "The Veggie".  It's a veggie patty on a wheat bun with avocado, Swiss cheese, cucumber, tomato, onion and mayo.  I love avocados.  Their French fries are really good.  Crispy, flavorful and they give you a bunch.  The price was $8.49.

A couple of other places I like burgers at are The Corner Pub and Grill and Letty Lou's Cafe. I'm always up for trying a new place.  If you know one in the St. Louis area that offers a meatless burger, let me know!

Eating Without Labels

Recently I've been thinking about labels people use regarding what they eat.  We live in a society that categorizes and labels everything.  For over 20 years I considered myself a vegetarian.  Until early last year I did eat fish.  I read that I was eating a "semi-vegetarian" diet during that time and should have referred to myself as a pescetarian.  Who knew?  I didn't.

The end of December I shifted from being a vegetarian to being a vegan.  I talk about it here.  So, for about two months I've eaten a vegan diet.  I've avoided all egg and dairy ingredients.  I've replaced some dairy products with non-dairy versions.  I've added more fresh fruits and vegetables to my diet.  I've tried new foods.  During that time I didn't have cravings for egg or dairy containing products.  That really surprised me.

You know what?  There are some egg and dairy containing foods I like and I want to eat them.  Today I decided I am going to eat what I like.  What tastes good to me.  It's my body.  It's my conscience. This evening That Man and I went shopping and I bought cheese and yogurt.  The kind made from cow's milk.  I ate the cheese on my sandwich for dinner.  Vegan no more.  Am I a failure for not being able to stick to a vegan diet?  No.

Actually, I'm glad I had a foray as a vegan.  It focused me on eating a greater variety of foods, as well as more fruits and vegetables.  I'm eating less sweets and find I don't need or want things to be overly sweet now.  I've decreased the focus of dairy products in my diet, even with the inclusion of non-dairy replacements.  I've added new foods and look forward to exploring more.

I'm no longer a vegan.  I'm also no longer going to refer to myself as a vegetarian.  I'm just a gal that eats some things and doesn't eat others.  I don't need a label for that.

[ image credit: PosterPop ]

Ribbed Glass Pitcher

I saw this pitcher at Target this evening and loved the vintage look of the ribbed glass.  It's made by Anchor Hocking and they're selling it for $5.99.  The one I purchased is just like this one with rubber stopper in this great shade of green.  The Target website shows you can get it with an orange or red (begonia) stopper, but I thought I saw one in the store that was magenta.  Heavyweight and holds 2 quarts.  5" wide x 3" deep x 10" high. I'm a sucker for glass.

Good Eats

Here's a round up of some products I've tried recently and recommend.  

First up is E. D. Smith More Fruit.  This three fruit blend is made up of black cherry, damson plum and raspberry.  It's lightly sweetened with sugar and has pieces of fruit throughout.  I look for fruit spreads sweetened with sugar or fruit juice.  The jar is 40 ounces.  It's big because I bought it at Costco.  We recently became members of Costco and it's my observation that they have more healthy choices than Sam's Club.

Here it is on my English muffin this morning.  Coming up on my mental list of things to do is to make English muffins from scratch.  The other day I came across an old Julia Child cooking show and she was making them.  It's something I've always wanted to do.  I love English muffins.  I located this recipe that's supposed to be what she made on that show.

Next up are these Baker's Recipe all natural extra creme chocolate sandwich cookies made by Interbake Brands.  It's another Costco purchase.  They're not all that healthy but when I buy cookies I look for ones where the ingredients are natural.  It's all about moderation and balance.  If you're calorie intake is greater than what you burn, then you're going to gain weight.

Having said that, I have no self control when it comes to chocolate sandwich cookies and these are wonderful.  I mentally cursed That Man the other day when he opened up another pack out of the box to refill the cookie jar.  I gravitate toward them when they are easily accessible.

Another cookie, also from Costco, are these are cinnamon spice crisps.  No manufacturer is mentioned.  Only the distributor (Consup (NA), Inc.).  Made in Germany.  

They're flavored with cinnamon and other spices, but aren't super spicy.  Rather dry and not very sweet, which makes them a perfect accompaniment with your favorite hot drink.  I've enjoyed a few with a cup of spiced chai latte.  Nice when you want a treat that's not overloaded with sweetness.

I really like these Ole Mexican Foods tomato basil wraps.  I found them at Dierbergs.  They have nice flavor and the olive oil in them keeps them from drying out.  I hate wraps that fall apart.  Hate is a strong word and it is justly applied in this instance.  The package is empty because we ate them all.  I need to buy some more!

Last up is this Simply Organic sweet basil pesto mix from Frontier.  It has great flavor.  I found it at Whole Foods but you can also purchase it online directly from Frontier.  It cooks up in a couple minutes by mixing it with water and olive oil and heating to a boil on the stove.  I like to have it on pasta with some veggies tossed in like mushrooms, tomatoes, etc.  

I recommend all of the products I just mentioned.  Bonus for me is they're all vegan, which also means they are perfect for those who cannot tolerate dairy.

Water Lilies

image credit: Missouri History Museum

One Friday afternoon in January my daughter and I headed to the St. Louis Art Museum to see the Monet's Water Lilies exhibit.  When we arrived there were people sledding on Art Hill.  Something like those in the photo above from 1904, but not quite.  

We went inside the museum and I picked up our tickets.  They had a goody bag waiting for me full of cool stuff.  I was one of their three random winners on Twitter.  How fun!

image credit: stltoday.com

We had about 15 minutes to wait before our scheduled viewing time, so we went through a few galleries.  It was great seeing they filled one gallery entirely with Max Beckmann's work.  Our museum has the largest collection in the world of his paintings.  ARTINFO posted an article about it this week.

image credit: stltoday.com

We moved on and found in conjunction with the Monet exhibit they had Impressionist art in two galleries.  One with portraiture and the other with landscapes.  Above is Degas' "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years". What a nice prelude to the main exhibit.  

image credit: Saint Louis Art Museum

The Monet exhibit was wonderful.  The beginning focused on Claude Monet the man.  Then a room with three studies he painted, which illustrated his working methods.  My favorite was Water Lilies, Harmony in Blue. After that was the large main room with the Water Lilies canvases.  All of the paintings in the exhibit were outstanding.  The colors -- blues, purples, greens, pinks -- were so beautiful and relaxing.  What a rare opportunity to see all three Water Lilies panels displayed together. Across the room from Water Lilies was Wisteria Numbers 1 and 2.  It was an unbelievable feeling to be surrounded by such splendor.  

On our way out of the exhibit we stopped by the Paint Like Monet interactive feature.  Above is my daughter creating her masterpiece.  You can do the same right now here.

image credit: Saint Louis Art Museum

Now I'm looking forward to the next main exhibit that starts February 19th and runs through May 13th.  It features contemporary photography and is titled An Orchestrated Vision.  In conjunction with the main exhbit, two smaller exhibits will be on display.  One is Single Wide and the other is The First Act.  Photography is a fascinating medium.  Thanks to my goody bag, my daughter and I can go for free any day of the exhibit.  I can't wait!

Old House in Hog Hollow

Yesterday morning I finally went to Old House in Hog Hollow and am so glad I did.  It was full of the kind of stuff I love -- primitives, Americana, etc.  It's located on Olive Blvd. in Chesterfield.  The house it is in was built in 1859.

Every time I go into an old house I'm like a child imagining how it would be if I lived in it.  There are lots of rooms filled with great things on both floors. Here's one of the bedrooms on the second floor that had a lot of Americana items in it.

The table at the end of the bed had this bowl of fabric fruit on it.  The kind of things I look at and say to myself: "I can make those".  How many times do you see something and say you can make it?  How many times do you actually make it?

There was all of this Americana in one of the closets in the room.  Love the sheep.  I'm a sucker for primitive sheep.  I'll be so glad when we redo our living room and I can break out my sheep and other stuff again.

In the lower left corner of that photo in the basket was this bolt of patriotic fabric.  I wasn't expecting to find Moda fabric there.

Here's one of a number of quilts I saw.  Before the year is out I will have made my very first quilt!

Downstairs there is a display cabinet with really cool primitive figures.  Sorry for it being blurred.  My daughter would say they are creepy.  I say that's what makes them so awesome!

On the shelf above these, to my pleasant surprise, were these birds.  I wasn't expecting to find anything steampunk in this shop.  They're made by Mullanium.  

Here's a better view of one of their birds from an image on their website.  It's wonderful. 

I didn't make any purchases during my visit but I'll definitely be back to do so.  Now I want to make a trip over the river to go to the shops on Main Street in historic St. Charles!  

When I left Old House in Hog Hollow I was planning on walking through the nearby historic village in Faust Park, but it started raining.  Another day I'll post photos I took on previous visits there and tell you about my family connection to a couple of the old houses.  

Goodbye Closet

Early last year I suggested to That Man removing the closet near the front door.  The suggestion was immediately rejected.  So, for the moment, I dropped it.  I was determined the closet would go.  Fast forward to December.  Here's the closet.

It's a standard closet found near the front door in your average 1950's ranch style house.  There's the front door to the right of it.  Yes, that's the dog's food and water dishes to the left.  Why?  It's on ceramic tile and she can't damage it with the water she manages to get all over the place when she drinks.  I can't have it in the kitchen.  The water would end up warping the laminate wood flooring.

You can kind of see in the photo where the door trim and baseboards had been removed the original wall color for the living room when the house was built in 1953.  It's kind of a sage green.  Here's a close up look.  The color doesn't come out quite right in the photo, but it gives you a general idea.  We have found there were no neutral colored walls in the house when it was new.

Anyway, the end of December I brought up the idea of removing the closet again.  My daughter quickly seconded the notion.  That Man agreed.  Hooray!  Why do I want to get rid of the closet?  For one reason we never use it except to hold the things that had been sitting in it for years.  The other is because the wall it is on has a fireplace on it.  That wall spans the width of the living room.  It runs on the right from the front of the house to the kitchen on the left.  When we complete our living room redo the plan is to have a flat screen TV above the fireplace.  Removing the closet opens up a decent amount of space to allow for a piece of furniture with shelves to hold the electronic equipment and to move the dog dishes further right.

Here's partway through the demolition.  You can see the end of the fireplace mantle to the left.  The paint on the wall to the left is the color the living room will be.  That Man painted the wall to see how it looked.  I think the color is called fig.  Kind of taupe with green in it.  I'm concerned it may end up being a little too dark but we bought the paint and I'm going to stay committed to it.

Here it is after the framing was removed.  The drywall on the ceiling and wall need to be repaired.  

Luckily we were able to buy more of the ceramic tiles to fill in where the closet was.  We have ceramic tile on the floor in that space running from the front door to the kitchen all the way to the wall the fireplace is on.  The front door is directly across from the opening to the kitchen.  We also have the smaller size of the same tile around the opening of the fireplace.  I'll have to to take photos some time and post to show the space.


So, that's where we are at for the moment.  We bought the boards needed for doing the floor in the corner.  That's the next step.

Teeth

For some reason teeth has been the theme recently.  It all started a couple Saturdays ago when I took our Greyhound to the vet for her annual exam and shots.  I had the vet look at her teeth.  She was overdue for a good cleaning and an appointment was scheduled for that the following Friday.  If you didn't know, Greyhounds teeth generally aren't so hot.  Above is a photo I snapped of her yesterday evening.  She's such a pretty girl.

A few days later I ate a bowl of granola and noticed one of my molars felt funny.  I couldn't believe it.  A corner of the tooth on the inside edge broke off.  I've never had anything happen like that.  I went to the dentist a couple days later and he was able to fix it at that visit by removing the old metal filling and reconstructing the tooth with a composite resin filling.  Good as new!  The dentist said it had nothing to do with the granola.  That tooth had been sensitive off and on for a number of months.  He said there must have been a small crack that finally became too weak.

The next morning I dropped our dog off bright and early at the vet to have her teeth cleaned.  They ended up having to pull some molars that were too far gone and infected.  My daughter and I picked her up early that evening.  The poor girl was not in good shape.  Shaking, breathing really heavy and having some "bloody drool", which for some reason the vet likes to say quite a bit.  She could have stayed overnight there but we knew she'd be happier at home.  Maybe happier is not the right word because she just had teeth pulled.  Anyway, she slowly began to relax.  It took a few hours for her breathing to settle down.  I spent the night on the couch to be near her.  Here she was the next day resting.

The following Monday my daughter and I went to the dentist for our semi-annual cleaning.  This appointment  was made last year.  The dentist had to look at one of my daughter's teeth for a small cavity that was discovered at her last orthodontist appointment.  Her first cavity.

Yesterday we were back at the dentist to have the cavity repaired.  We were out of there in less than a half hour and won't be going back again until July for our next cleaning.  Fingers crossed, knocking on wood and all that.

It's now been over a week and our dog has made a complete recovery.  No more stinky breath.  Pearly white teeth.  Back to her normal diet and snacks.  Working on a dental chew.  I'll be able to start brushing her teeth this coming Saturday.  I'm glad we had it done.  Here she is again.

Finally, Thursday my daughter goes back to the orthodontist to get her bands replaced and the wires tightened.  Why weren't there cool colored bands when I had braces?