Spring has Sprung

There is a very good reason why I moved to a place that has hellaciously hot summers.  It is for the short winters, of course.  We in Arizona are rewarded with falls that are more like what I call summer-lite – hot days and cool nights.  Spring generally starts early here and I can generally count on it by Valentine’s Day.  This year is no disappointment.  Spring has sprung and I’m loving every minute of it, well except the allergies, of course.

Spring has always been my favorite time of year, but in Colorado where I grew up, it’s a fleeting season and is generally disappointing.  Snow in Denver doesn’t stay around long because of the intense sun, but it’s heavier and wetter in the spring and it feels like flowers are a bit shy, like girls wearing spaghetti straps.  You might see it and it could happen, but it’s not reliable and it’s very risky.

Like many other Coloradans, even the younger, more educated-about-the-sun generation, I really cannot get enough of the springtime sun.  I’m always amazed when I attend an outdoor event in Phoenix (like a Dbacks versus Rockies game) and the Coloradans are all sunburning themselves and are as red as beets. There is that part of me that wants to do the same. But, alas, the dermatologist has convinced me to moderate (somewhat).

We went for a really nice hike this weekend, and I got plenty of sun!  The wild flowers were in full bloom on the trail.  It felt so good.  Here’s the funny thing about being older.  It used to be that exercise energized me.  Now it just exhausts me.  After our two-hour hike, I came home and fell right asleep in a nap I really had no choice but to take.

Trader Joe’s always carry daffodils starting in February and they are so cheap.  I bought two bunches ($3 total) and I just love what it does in my kitchen!

DF Evon and I took a little drive over the weekend and took some shots of beautiful trees and cute, older homes with flowers out front. I might add these homes are in a beautiful Central Phoenix neighborhood and go in the $1 million range. So “cute” might not be the right word. Such a pretty time in Phoenix right now.

I know much of the world is not in the throes of spring yet, but one of my “hobbies” is watching webcams in places I’ve been, places I want to go and places I just find interesting.  It’s a wonderful way to see the seasons in faraway places without leaving my snug nest.  I like to look at European sites on Skyline Webcams and US places on Earthcam. 

Amazon Shopping

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I haven’t done a lot of shopping this year (it’s almost March for heaven’s sake!), but I have a few Amazon finds that I get a lot of compliments on and I’m linking them here.  I am ordering a few things to spruce up the house for spring, and I’ll link them after they come and I can take pictures of them in place.

I love this bedspread.  It’s really pretty, feminine without fussiness and no need for a bedskirt.  The price was really right!

I get so many compliments on my honey jar.  It’s leaded crystal and I couldn’t be more happy with the quality. It’s currently unavailable, but here’s a similar one.

I purchased this shelf to go under the TV in the bedroom.  It’s really inexpensive, but it looks like marble shelves and I think it’s very rich looking.  It’s nice and narrow for the space I needed. I purchased this in September, but the exact one is not available. Here is a similar one by the same manufacturer.

We bought this Eufy pet vacuum robot and it works great.  I literally run it every day and every day it’s full of fur and dust.

For the recipe below I used my Mueller chopper.  I have put pictures of it on this blog before, but it continues to be a mainstay in my kitchen.

What I’m Reading

I have had This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel on my Kindle for quite some time, but it never seemed appealing enough to dive into.  I finally got down to it in my title list and read it this week.  It is so good.  The subject matter is not really of interest to me, but her characters are all so quirky and sweet and well-meaning that I loved them.

Spoiler, it has a happy ending, but I felt like after the length of the book, the end tidied up a little too quickly and cleanly.

I guess what I really want in a perfect book is less middle and more end.  Ha!

My sister had given me a copy of Drop City quite a while back and I finally read that this week too.  Again, a subject matter I’m not interested in – about hippies in the early 70s – but I really liked it.  It’s a coincidence since I finished Daisy Jones and the Six last week with the same theme.  It’s sort of like all the WWII books I read at once and now I’m on hippy books.  Ok, enough of that subject for a bit, but the book is well written and some of the characters are great fun.

I will say that reading these counterculture books has me on a social subject I am going to talk about on a future blog.  And that is how that era was not really about peace and love.  There was quite an evil, abusive, racist and misogynistic side to it.  I’m glad this book explored that. Is that too heavy a subject for this blog?

On audio I finished Deadline by John Dunning and Into the Web by Thomas H. Cook.  These are both old authors but are new to me and I’m having a great time discovering their work.  Thomas H. Cook reminds me so much of Patricia Highsmith but with rosy endings.

You can see that I read a lot last week, which means I spent a lot of time outdoors (and on my couch).  But, in case you think I’m not watching anything, I’ve been binge watching an old series Chuck on Amazon Prime.  It’s a fun premise and the bad guys are so bad they crack me up!

What I’m Eating

I made this orzo salad which was supposed to serve six, but it could probably serve 10. I served it as a main dish and not a side.  I really liked it and would make it again.  I customized it to fit my Low Fodmap diet as much as possible, and the good thing about pasta salads is they lend themselves nicely to that.  It would be super easy to add a protein to it as well.  Here’s what I did:

Orzo Salad

• 1 pound of orzo
• 1 red or yellow chopped pepper
• 1 chopped English cucumber
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• ¾ cup Kalamata olives, pitted
• 8 ounces Feta
• 4 green onions (I used the tops only)

Dressing

• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• Dried herbs to taste (I used thyme and oregano)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Boil orzo to al dente, whisk dressing, and chop veggies.  After the pasta has cooled add all ingredients and refrigerate at least two hours (I refrigerated overnight).

Whether or not you’re getting a little taste of spring, try to enjoy the outdoors this week!