At the end of each week, I like to ask myself a few questions (The What’s?) on how my week went. I think asking myself (or yourself) a series of inquiring questions, helps keep me (or you) focused and appreciative. It certainly helps me see exactly how I am doing, where I am going and if I am achieving anything in my life!

  1. What’s Doing In The Garden? My cucumbers aren’t coming to full capacity. They seem to stop growing in the middle of a cycle. I did some research on that and the reason why is because the flower buds weren’t pollinated properly. That’s news to me because the cucumber beds were swarming with bees and other insects that tip toe from bud to bud. I think it was poor quality seeds. Next year will be better. The cukes are still edible, however, and I have been enjoying them in our salads.

2. What’s Cooking? Lots of good stuff. I’ve been watching this Greek Cooking show on PBS Create called ‘My Greek Table‘. This all-inclusive dish intrigued me, so I tried it. It didn’t fail me. Oodles of feta cheese surrounds spinach, onions, celery, tomatoes and cannelloni beans. You can try the recipe out for yourself here: Messinia Style Giant Bean Bake.

I also made my annual zucchini bread. This recipe is a favorite of mine dating back to the 1970’s (as you can see from the yellow pages of my self-written cook book collection of favorite recipes). With over two cups of shredded zucchini, you would never know the loaf was packed with so much goodness.

3. What’s Happening (socially)? Other than a surprise visit to a local winery (click here) and a few grocery shopping trips, hubby and I have not been out of our house much. This pandemic lock down is starting to get to us now. We had planned a day trip to a Rhode Island beach (a neighbor was going to watch our dog and water the veggies) but RI is now on lockdown also. Basically, New York State is becoming an isolated “country”. We can’t go anywhere and if we do leave the state we have to submit to a 14 day quarantine. Many of our local park and hiking trails are over run with citidiots who keep trashing the places with their garbage and tossed away masks and gloves. Yes, they’re disgusting. I wish they would just stay in NYC, but they don’t. Rather than be annoyed, hubby and I just stay home.

4. What’s Streaming? Amazon Prime has been releasing some really old movies. Some dating back to the 1950s. I understand that no one is filming right now, but really? If we want to see something closer to 2020, we have to pay an additional movie fee! Hubby has a free 1 year subscription to Apple TV but there’s nothing on that streaming service either. So, I’ve been watching old movies such as ‘A Place In The Sun‘ with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cliff. Another popular choice of mine is anything with Danny Kaye in it. Comical and enjoyable. All free.

5. What Music Is Playing? I found this great play list on Amazon Music called The James Taylor Station. Endless good music plays for hours on end from other artists such as Steely Dan, Billy Joel and The Beatles. Here are some other choices:

6. What Are You Most Grateful For? In this 90F degree heat, that would be our “luxury” kiddie pool. I don’t remember a summer with so many days in the 90s. It isn’t so much the heat as it is the humidity. Some days the humidity levels soar in the high 80%. Hubby and I thought we were the only ones doing this, till we read an article in The Wall Street Journal. Obviously, most everyone has a kiddie pool or some sort of an above-ground pool. Much to the chagrin of many HOAs.

Yup! That’s me floating along in my luxury ‘kiddie’ pool!

7. What Did You Do This Week To Stretch A Buck? When we got our new freezer it had a little dent in it. Hubby called the store we bought it from and they gave us a choice: a $100 rebate or a new freezer. I chose the rebate. Hubby wanted another new freezer. We won’t get a new one till October but could use the one delivered in the meantime. After a few weeks I told hubby that the company was going to suffer a loss by getting us another new freezer. In this pandemic and the difficulties some companies are going through in order to survive, I asked hubby to call back the company and take the $100. Hubby called and the company was so thankful they gave us an addition $65 as a ‘thank you’. We got a rebate check in the amount of $165!! I used this extra bonus to first save, and then bought myself two floating designer shelves from the same store, to hang on my bare office wall so that I could post some of my famous photos on display.

Lastly, after our day at the winery (click here) hubby and I wanted to have a lunch out. I remembered there was a famous Italian deli, Rossi & Sons, that I had wanted to check out last year but we never got around to it. The deli was rated #1 winning top honors for many years. Hubs and I googled it, followed the directions and wound up in Poughkeepsie, NY. We ordered a whole hero sandwich (check out this menu by clicking here) but had them split it in two. One side was eggplant parmesean and the other side was chicken cutlet parmesean. The food was outstanding. It was as if my own grandmother had cooked the meal! A full sub cost $10, but hubs and I split it so our sandwiches only cost $5 each. We had already packed sodas and cold drinks. We ate our sandwiches down the block at a local park. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.