Date Night With Jeff

scenes from the last couple weeks

Summer is… teatime on a park bench by a sparkling fountain… surrounded by hanging flower baskets, visiting Barnes & Noble and spotting TeaTime Magazine on the shelf (the one that contains the feature article I wrote and photographed last summer…), rainbows right outside our front door after an abrupt downpour, the sweet scent of petunias,…

rose petal salad

Today Gracie and I strolled downtown to do some antiquing and we found a few awesome treasures. I promise I’ll share photos soon. We popped into the little Mexican grocery store on the corner of Plum and Main to order the ingredients for fresh tamales. (I can’t wait to share my recipe with you…) and…

scenes from summer staycation 2013 ~ part 1

The last couple days have been so relaxing and wonderful. This year for our summer “vacation” we’ve decided to hang out in our own town, Red Wing Minnesota, and surrounding areas. I sometimes forget how much beauty we have just outside our door. We live in a very unique part of the state. Unlike the…

rose soiree

I love weekends like this past one. Dinner out on Friday night at a wonderful riverside restaurant to celebrate our second feature article in TeaTime Magazine! (I promise I’ll tell you more about this soon!)… Cherry Berry and shopping on Saturday… Pizza and drinks on a garden-side patio with our dear friend Brad Saturday evening….…

prairie picnic

Another beautiful weekend in the Mississippi river valley. Plenty of sunshine punctuated by just enough rain to keep it cool. We sat out on our back porch last night and shared a glass of wine during a sun shower. This happened a couple days ago and a giant double rainbow appeared over Memorial Park (Jeff…

summer pleasures & tea party gardens

The mercury is rising…. time to enjoy our fresh air rooms…. hang lavender scented linens on the clothesline… pack a picnic basket…make a jar of sun tea… take a little summer “staycation”… go to an art fair… read a book at the water park… chase the ice cream truck…take a hammock nap… and just be….…

orzo picnic salad

My birthday week. I can’t remember a birthday week that was ever so rainy, but I’ve been making the best of it. My friends have been bringing me food gifts (which I love), morels and rhubarb and fresh-caught-right-out-of-the-Cannon-river trout! We piled those yummy, buttery morels on toast, baked the rhubarb into crisps and cakes, and…

scenes from the last week

Jeff made awesome crispy chicken salads for dinner a day to myself : candles THIS MOVIE, needlework, iced tea, and garlic bread pizza lilacs blooming all over Red Wing…. we’re planting 8 lilac bushes this year! Gracie sporting her new “Moustache Shades.” while sipping tea… the “incredibly disappearing” strawberry rhubarb crisp… thanks for the rhubarb,…

spring weekending

nature walks… pink bluffs at sunset… hand embroidered pillowcases… a walk downtown to dinner on the patio of a favorite pub… mushroom ravs… wedge salads… painted murals… a stroll on the cannon valley trail… vintage flour sacks turned table squares… vino… newly crocheted cabin blankets… and napping kitties. I hope you all had a wonderful…