Valuable lessons from Pottery Barn

I've learned a lot from the Pottery Barn catalogs over the years. Important lessons like: pick one color of book that matches your decor and only read books in that color. Black books and white books are ok, but be sure to pile them artfully in different locations in the room. Also, if you have a huge, lovely window with a really great view, it's best to put a bed with an oversized headboard directly in front of said window.

In the latest catalog though I learned something new. My lawn needs a throw rug.
Seriously. It says in the product description that it can be used to 'define a grassy backyard seating area'. Who knew? I bet the gardener will love it.

More signs of spring

This morning there were tulips in my yard.


And buds on the trees.


And a Tomten.
And there were these.

Tickets to Monday's Patriots' Day Game at Fenway.

For those of you outside of New England, Patriots' Day is a holiday (now only recognized by Massachusetts and Maine) which celebrates the anniversary of the beginning of the Revolutionary War - the battles at Lexington and Concord and "the shot heard round the world". It's a big day in Boston - 11am baseball and the Marathon.

A coworker and his wife are coming with me (and my Dad is meeting us there). We're toying with the idea of going in really early and stopping in Concord to see some of the reenactments which start at dawn. It could be my second war reenactment this spring!

We could go the night before and try to catch Paul Revere on his midnight ride. But I think not.

Really? Do y'all agree with this?

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Mojitos and Spring

My neighbor Pete and I were making mojitos the other day to celebrate the coming spring (and fresh mint at the winter farmer's market). Pete and I disagree a bit on the making of the yummy rum drinks. I like to have full mint springs, a bit crushed, floating around in my drink. It should look like you dipped your glass into a pretty pond and added ice. Pete likes to crush the mint into an almost paste making the drinks a shocking all over green. Either way they are tasty.

Since making these drinks properly takes a little bit of time, and we are planning a party where we would like to serve them, we wondered if we could infuse the rum with mint ahead of time and then just garnish the drinks with a sprig or two.
Since we disagree on the mint crushing, we have tried both ways in our infusions.

These bottles have been sitting for almost a week now and will be strained tonight and tested by our panel of experts. We'll be watching Sweeney Todd from Netflix, so it will be an evening of bloody, musical, rummy, mintyness with a little Johnny Depp thrown in for good measure.

Speaking of spring and time with friends, I had lunch with Melissa yesterday at the Green Bean. We sat OUTSIDE. It was in the 70s and they have set up two small tables just outside the door. I think that if I lived somewhere in the South where the seasons are not so extreme I would not value so much that first really warm day where you can sit outside, without a coat on, and enjoy a BLT (with Avocado), an iced coffee and good conversation.

Today is cooler and rainy, but there are more signs of spring in the yard.
My apologies to my family members in Vermont (where yesterday my dad shoveled 3 feet of snow off the deck in a patch big enough for mom to sit in a chair in the sun) and in Maine (where they may not see bare ground until sometime in July from the sounds of things).
Just in time for spring I finished this wool and alpaca sweater....