This new adventure continues

When we came back to Texas, Ron left his Mustang behind in Ohio.  Things are starting to settle down here in our new home... so now there was room on the agenda to find a replacement for his Mustang.  We had a little adventure in the process, but we ended up going to our favorite car showroom and found Ron's replacement Mustang.

Actually this car was not one I even knew anything about... never mind that we couldn't live long enough to pay for it.  I think the salesman said this car, a Ford GT, is one of 18 released to select dealers across the country... and not for sale. The rope barrier kind of says, "not to be touched".

Ron did find a red car, but it was not a GT.

A couple weeks ago we went to a really cool restaurant in Gruene called the Gristmill.  The dining room almost overhangs the river... lots of atmosphere, and great food.  It was a special dinner for just the two of us celebrating our anniversary.

One of the perks of our new house is its location in respect to a local fig grower.  OK, so its not an official grower... but he is my neighbor... right across the street... and he grows fig trees as a hobby.  He has more fig trees than I have ever seen growing in one place before.  Being the good neighbor that he appears to be... he thought I ought to have some fig trees of my own to try my hand at growing.  I am not ready to transplant these three fig plants into the ground yet, but I have now transplanted them into the bigger bins they are sitting in here in this picture.  I am hopeful that these will become great big beautiful trees with lots of figs so I can make some more super fig cakes.

Back to making our new house our home.  Curtains can add a new look to an otherwise plain ole window. I like valances a whole lot more than full curtains and these just seemed like a good fit for the dining area of our living room.

Now the bedroom windows presented an opportunity for another different look.  I found swag valances that blended very well with the quilt that spans the space between these two windows.  This quilt is probably my favorite of the collection of quilts that I have made and now these swags have expanded that canvas.




Final item of the day... I have lots of fruit in the freezer from the produce market where I have found some really great deals.  Today I decided that I needed to make something with blackberries.  I went surfing on the internet and found an awesome Blackberry Oat Crumble Bars recipe.  I had quite a dilemma in the process.  The recipe said I needed a 12 x 17 pan with sides, which I had.  I proceeded to prepare the crust part, which needed to bake and cool before the filling was added.  When I took it out of the oven I knew I was in trouble.  At this point I had cooked the filling part and I could clearly see there was no room in this pan.  I found another pan in my cupboard that was only two inches shorter, so I cut off one end of the crust and moved the shortened version to the new pan using the parchment paper as a sling.  Recipe said to line the pan with foil, but I try to avoid having aluminum come in contact with my food, and parchment paper usually works for me.  The parchment paper made the move from one pan to the other pretty easy.
Well, when these bars were done, they turned out awesome.  Click on the link above for the recipe.