Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

peach jam

Summer is winding down in my neck of the woods, perhaps sooner than normal as we have been blessed with temperatures in the 80s during the day and 60s overnight. Peaches are abundant right now, so I decided to try my hand at making peach jam. For the first batch, I made five jars of peach and five jars of a peach/blackberry mix. As the peach turned out well (haven't tried the mixed jam yet), I made a second round of peach on Saturday. For whatever reason, the peaches did not ripen as much as I would have liked, which made them challenging to smash with the potato masher. Consequently, I'll have to say that the end result is more peach preserve than peach jam. But I'm okay with that. The flavor is still quite good.

St. Louis Zoo

Sunday morning I met my photographer friend Caren at the St. Louis Zoo. With temperatures in the 60s when we started out, it was a perfect time to experience the animals. Because it was a Sunday, the zoo was not yet crowded so we were able to stroll and photograph at our leisure for the first hour or so. By the time it got really crowded, we were ready to head out anyway.

I had yet to visit the Grace Taylor Broughton Sculpture Garden behind the St. Louis Art Museum, so we walked there next. It was slightly disappointing, to say the least. There are no paths leading to each sculpture so you have to walk on the grass. As the irrigation system had been on that morning, it was a soggy endeavor. And I have no idea how the project met ADA requirements as I can't imagine pushing a wheelchair (or a stroller, for that matter), let alone trying to maneuver a walker through the area. Over 400 hundred trees have been planted, some purportedly representing "rooms", but all I could see was too many trees planted too close together. There will be tree casualties due to this, and that is a shame. Perhaps they should consider using a local landscape architect next time, instead of bringing someone in from France.

Sculpture Garden

We then headed inside to have an early lunch at Panorama, the restaurant located inside the museum. This was my second time eating here, and I have found both the food and the service to be quite good. Caren and I had both parked in the open lot across from the museum when we arrived that morning, so it was an easy walk back to the cars following our meals. It was good to get out and photograph again. It's been too long since I have taken time to do that.

A Technological Christmas

Andy and Megan made it safely to our house on December 23rd, and we celebrated with Andy's favorite meal of Imo's Pizza. It is a must-have when he comes to town, so we figured we would just get it out of the way. On Christmas Eve Jim and I got a workout in at the rec center before the day's festivities began. I made my traditional Italian beef for supper, followed by our new tradition of Cranberry Cosmopolitans while opening gifts. As I mentioned before, Katie was unable to come home due to lack of vacation days, so we did the next best thing. I put my Macbook on the entry foyer steps where she normally sits during our gift exchange, with a Cosmo next to the computer for a virtual toast. Through the miracle of Skype we set up the laptop and my iPad so that she could see us opening the presents and we, in turn, could watch her open her gifts. It amazes me that we could keep in contact with her for over two hours at absolutely no cost to anyone. Thank you, inventor of Skype! Below is a fun gift I received to commemorate my trip to Switzerland this year. I really need to find the connection between this Kubler family and mine!

Kubler Absinthe

MoBot Train

While the kids were here we made our annual trip to the flower and train show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was lovely as always, and surprisingly uncrowded on the day after Christmas. We also visited the Art Museum to see the new addition for the first time. While I am not a fan of the architecture it was interesting to see the new exhibition space. I particularly like the exhibit shown below that looked like a fabric quilt but was in fact made from liquor bottle caps. The interactive glass block exhibit is cool as well.

Jim on repeat

I was, however, very offended by this painting.

Jim and I fly out to Los Angeles tomorrow to bring in the New Year with Katie. Kirby will remain here with his favorite dog sitters though he always prefers to be with Jim. Speaking of Kirby, here is the gift I had made for Jim. He loved it, as you might imagine.

Kirby mug

Happy New Year to my readers. May 2014 be everything you hope for and desire!