Category Archives: 2023

Morning Coffee in Clawson!

2023, Adventures with Donald, Clawson, Food, Michigan, , ,

These have been some beautiful days in Michigan, and this weekend looks to be more of that: temperatures in the mid to high 70s and sunny. Donald and I have been feeling like getting away, so we looked up flights and various places we could go. We *almost* booked a flight to Orlando or Denver, but eventually decided to wait until we had a 3 day weekend. We thought about going up north to the Traverse City area, but it looks like next weekend may be peak fall color, so we are tentatively earmarking next weekend for that trip.

While he worked his afternoon shift on Friday, I spent my evening dreaming up possibilities. By the end of the night, I didn’t have anything concrete in mind – with one exception. I wanted to have a leisurely early morning with Donald at a local cafe enjoying a latte and some pastries. We are always looking for a local coffee place that reminds us of Lucky Goat or Black Dog (some of our favorite coffee shops from Tallahassee). This morning, we searched and found two candidates, both in Clawson: Sabbath and Kahve.

We initially went to try Sabbath first, but there was a line out the door. Popularity is a great indicator of a place’s appeal, but we didn’t feel up to the wait or the crowd. Luckily, Kahve is less than a block away on the other side of Main St. We were able to find on-street parking quickly.

It was already a gorgeous morning. We took a moment to take in the cute downtown area. Clawson has a lot of charm for a small city.

Walking in, the cafe was really cozy with armchairs and a sofa in addition to the traditional table and chairs. It is decorated in a Mexican/South American theme with art and textiles on the walls and vases of fresh flowers scattered throughout.

Donald and I shared the cheese croissant and pumpkin muffin. I had a raspberry white mocha, and he enjoyed a cinnamon vanilla latte. After finishing our drinks, Donald wanted something cool, so we shared a mango smoothie. All of it was delicious! That mango smoothie… heaven!

Of course, I spent a majority of my time photographing the flowers, but we also looked briefly at what we might want to do today. Donald was excited to get a jump on my mom and be the first one to text “Good morning!” She noted that Clawson was having a fall festival today that she might like to go to. We just know that with the weather so beautiful, we would like to spend some time outdoors today.

I hope you have a fantastic day as well! Please let us know what adventures you find yourself in this weekend!

— Jenn & Donald

First NFL Game of the Season!

2023, football, ,

For the second year, Donald and I have joined the NFL Fantasy Football league with some of my coworkers. It makes the football season so much more enjoyable. To be fair, we probably wouldn’t watch more than a few games here and there if left to ourselves; however, I am very competitive, so the Fantasy league is just the incentive I need to get fully invested in the games. And, I’m sure, having an enthusiastic partner makes watching the games a lot more enjoyable for Donald as well!

Tuesday evening was our Draft, and we got rated a “B” in our selections. I feel pretty good about that! Jarrod reminded us 15 minutes before the rosters locked down, so I was able to switch out our kicker to make sure that we had at least one player in tonight’s game. Right before the game, Donald and I were out getting Starbucks and take-out Japanese, and barely made it back home before kickoff.

This is an exciting game for us, with Kansas City being the reigning Super Bowl champs and hosting the game, and Detroit being our home town team. We’re rooting for the underdog Lions. As I’m writing this paragraph, we have 1:47 on the clock in the 4th quarter and the Lions are up by 1: 21 to 20. My boss has already called it – Lions are going to the Super Bowl!

I wonder if we can get tickets to a home game sometime this year?

Current Kindle Unlimited Books

2023, reading

You can borrow quite a few Kindle books from Kindle Unlimited … BUT only 25 at a time. Or, well, 25 slots at a time (if you borrow a title and it has an audiobook component as well, it counts for two slots). Right now, I have saved/borrowed my max amount, which comes out to 22 titles.

My reading genres are all over the place! I don’t even remember any longer why I borrowed some of these titles, and to be honest, I have a zillion books in my Kindle account and on my TBR on Goodreads.

I’m hoping that by calling attention to them, I’ll be more motivated to start working my way through them. Plus, I find it helpful to see the covers somewhere. I’m very much a mood reader and seeing the covers makes it more enticing to read the novel vs. seeing a list of titles.

Of these books, the one I am reading right now is Love Lettering. In this book, a hand-letterer who makes custom journals and planners (sounds like someone from the Planners Gone Wild community!) “accidentally” puts a hidden message in a couple’s wedding announcement, indicating that the relationship won’t last. About a year later, the intended groom comes back and confronts her about the hidden message. As it turns out, he never got married. I picked this one mostly because the main character was a planner girl and did hand-lettering and that made me think about my friend, Cindy Guentert-Baldo and my other friends from PGW.

That (and, apparently 16 other books) are what I’m working through right now. As for you, do you use Kindle Unlimited? What are some titles on your TBR?

Troy Farmers Market Goodies!

2023, Adventures with Donald, Exciting Adventures of the Everyday, Food, Michigan, Troy, Weekdays

In the summer, Troy hosts a small farmers market near the Civic Center on Fridays from 11 am – 3 pm.

Since this was one of Donald’s days off, we stopped by on my lunch break.

We came home with a veggie peeler and grocery bag we won from a spin-the-wheel game, pea micro greens fettuccine, sugar snap peas, fresh garlic, a basil plant, and some cookies.

(The purple cauliflower was just pretty. We didn’t take it home with us.) 🙃📸

Recipes: Week of 6/26 to 7/2

2023, Adventures in Cooking, Food, Michigan, Troy

I’m at a loss as to the best way to keep track of recipes that I find and that we like. I rarely go on Pinterest, I find it difficult to remember what the recipe was like and if we enjoyed it if I just save a link to a recipe in a Google doc, sometimes recipes are online but sometimes they are in a book or magazine, and I often will make my own tweaks to recipes. How does a girl account for all of this?! (Seriously, if you have a good system, please share!)

Now that our kitchen is (mostly) complete, we are setting up some routines. Generally on Sundays, we will sit down and plan out our meals for the next week. As we go, I will add items that we need to our grocery list on the Kroger app (we found a Kroger that we like, although we still miss Publix). The app lets me see if there are deals on certain brands and clip digital coupons as I place items on my list.

We make sure to add items that we have run out of (milk, creamer, eggs – we are always running out of these!), as well as any snackies that we would like. We try to have our planners/calendars out during this time, so we can accommodate for days where we will be away from home or visiting family, etc. Next, we (lately Donald has been going with me) will go to Mass and stop by the grocery store after (it just makes sense with where things are located for us).

While making out our meal plan, I like to write it all down on a sheet I can post on the fridge. As you can see from this photo, some weeks have a lot of edits to the original plan. 😉

Below is a table of what we actually ate during the week. Probably more for our record-keeping/memories than anything, but feel free to take inspiration if something sounds yummy. 🙂

DayBreakfastLunchDinner
MondaySausage CroissantSandwich, chips & salsaChicken Taco Voila
TuesdayPB Cap’n CrunchSoup and sandwichHawaiian pizza, potato chips
& french onion dip
WednesdaySausage/Greens/Tomato OmeletSandwichBurritos, chips & salsa
ThursdayIDKIDKSpaghetti w/meat sauce,
garlic bread
FridayEggy1/2 sandwichPepperoni pizza, salad
SaturdayIDKBurgers, corn, baked beansBeef stew
SundayPancakesSaladSalmon, cheddar broccoli
Rice-a-Roni, broccoli

I’ve included links to any recipes I’ve used for that meal, as well as product links, in case you are interested in what brands we used (none of these are sponsored or ads – just what we happened to buy – we don’t get any money if you click on the links).

And, of course, this wouldn’t be one of my blog posts without some gratuitous photos…
Here you go! Yes, I am one of those people who likes to take pictures of my food before eating….

10 Minute Book Meet: Mastering Sauces

2023, Book Reviews

Okay, this was 2 minutes with a book (Mastering Sauces by Susan Volland), and then Donald was out of class!

What I got was that it has a large array of recipes, a lot of instruction on techniques, and not nearly enough photos of food. Also, I am hungry.

Conclusion: I want to pick this up again and try some different recipes. I’d write more, but Donald is waiting and I have the car keys. See you soon!

10 Minute Book Meet: Good Catholic Girls

2023, Book Reviews

Since I’m frequently at the library after work, waiting for Donald to finish class, I came up with a challenge for myself:

I will read a book for 10 minutes, then give myself 5 minutes to write a “first impression.” I think this should be fun!

I choose two books for today’s challenge:

  1. Good Catholic Girls by Angela Bonavoglia
  2. Mastering Sauces: The Home Cook’s Guide to New Techniques for Fresh Flavors by Susan Volland.

3… 2… 1… GO!

Okay…. So, huge caveat – I literally, just skimmed through and read paragraphs here and there in different chapters. A lot of what I read were first- or second-hand accounts of women being sexually abused/manipulated by clergy (among many other issues in the vein of feminism vs. traditional Catholic teaching). She is pointing out all that is wrong and how some people are working towards reform.

TRUE, there is sexual sin and abuse found in the Catholic church. Among its members and those in positions of authority. And that is awful and not to be tolerated.

However, I think that the author fails to adequately explain and explore what the Catholic church actually teaches regarding sex and sexuality and the reasons why the Church is not conducive to the types of reform she envisions (E.g. Allowing women to be priests, etc.).

Conclusion: It is interesting, and compelling writing; however, it does not have a balanced approach to the issues at hand and is a poor representation of what the Church really professes and believes, so I do not think that I would like to continue reading this book.

Wednesday Evening in Plymouth!

2023, Adventures with Donald, City Parks, Exciting Adventures of the Everyday, Food, Michigan, Plymouth

Prelude

After work/school, I wanted to take Donald to a restaurant that I had been meaning to share with him for a while, but it was still a bit early. I decided to drive around UM campus for a bit and show him some of central campus.

We got a parking spot on State St. (summer semesters are always lighter volume, but some luck was involved as well), and first tried the Museum of Art, but it was closed. We walked across the street to the Michigan Union, poked around for a bit, and spent the last few minutes in the Tech Center dreaming of our next computing device purchase.

Outside, I introduced Donald to the Cube.

Dinner at Pizza e Vino

Next stop, Pizza e Vino in Plymouth!

I had gone to this restaurant about 10-15 years ago with my Alpha small group and remembered that it was delicious! When we came back to Michigan, it has always been my intention to take Donald here, but we hadn’t gotten around to it. Until today.

There was a wait for a table, but it ended up being a shorter wait than originally stated, and we were soon seated near the wood-burning oven. So, our spot was a little warmer than other places in the restaurant, but not uncomfortably so. Definitely the best spot in the house for chilly days!

Appetizer

We ordered the Spiedini, which is fresh mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto. So amazingly good!

I’m going to leave you lots of photos, so you get hungry. You’re welcome!

They come on skewers, so we pushed them off, cut them into bite-sized pieces and ate them with the bread. Yum! I wish all mozzarella sticks were like this.

Salad

Here’s where our order modifications started. Donald is a fan of goat cheese, so we added some on to our Mista salad.

There was plenty of salad to share, and everything was fresh and delicious!

Entrée

What pizza to pick? Ugh, this was SUCH a difficult choice! Everything sounded good!

We went with the Pozzuoli (Italian Fennel Sausage, Old-World Pepperoni, Red Onions, Fresh Basil, Portobello Mushrooms, Fior di Latte Mozzarella), and took off the mushrooms and onions, and added goat cheese and prosciutto.

It was amazing!

The crust is thin and foldable and made the pizza very light. You didn’t feel like you’ve just eaten a ton of bread or get over full. It really let the toppings shine. The best surprise for me was the fresh basil – it was so good!

It’s almost lunch-time as I’m writing this, and I am making myself hungry! I’ll add another photo of the pizza, so you can drool over the screen with me:

Kellogg Park

We generally enjoy going on a light walk after dinner, and Kellogg Park was just steps away from Pizza e Vino. It was a gorgeous evening: warm with a breeze. Lots of people were also enjoying the park and the fountain.

We really enjoyed our evening in Plymouth! Donald even tried to get me to agree to making Pizza e Vino a weekly event! If you are in the area, we highly recommend it!

Aviation Disasters

2023, Aviation, Disaster Stories, Social Media

For the past couple years, I have been binge-watching/-listening to stories of aviation disasters on YouTube and Apple Podcasts. I like technical details and analysis and I think, in general, that it is very comforting to know *why* a disaster happened, so that you are more prepared for the next time similar circumstances arise. So, I watch disaster stories to relax. And, yes, I’ve watched airplane disaster investigations while on a flight. (On my phone, with AirPods, and not next to nervous flyers.)

In no particular order, here are some of the creators I have been enjoying:

  • Mentour Pilot – Petter’s production value is out of this world. Extremely informative with very detailed and easy-to-understand explanations.
  • Mentour Now! – Petter’s second YouTube channel.
  • The Podcrashed – Casey and Mariah discuss a new incident weekly. Very compassionate and heartfelt retellings of these stories.
  • 74 Gear – Kelsey’s content trends more current headlines, viral videos, Pilot Confessionals, ATC conversations, etc. Very funny and engaging.
  • Green Dot Aviation – Describes the channel as a confluence between psychology and aviation.
  • Mayday: Air Disaster – Has the feel of an older cable channel covering these incidents who has taken their content to YouTube.
  • Disaster Breakdown – A look at some of the most tragic events in aviation history, from a non-pilot perspective.
  • Curious?: Science & Engineering – Their content extends beyond aviation to many other topics.
  • Wonder – They also have the Mayday: Air Disaster content.
  • The Flight Channel – Also presents air disasters, often including audio from the incidents.
  • Stevie Triesenberg – A young pilot from Michigan, now in California (no disaster content).
  • Mini Air Crash Investigation – Covers air crashes “that have been forgotten to the pages of history.”
  • Airspace – An active airline pilot explains in simple terms what has caused the most famous air disasters.

If you have any recommendations for podcasts/videos in this genre, please send them my way! Thanks!

Father’s Day Weekend 2023

2023, Food, Holidays, Michigan, Troy

Saturday, June 17

Father’s Day weekend started off deliciously! We slept in, then Donald treated us with the most amazing breakfast sandwiches. He basically make a sausage and cheese omelet that he put between two slices of toasted bread. Decadent and yummy! Even Acey wanted in on that action!

While we were finishing up breakfast, we could hear a great clattering outside … and traveling down our driveway. I knew what it was, but wanted to sustain the surprise for Donald. Once the delivery driver had left, we went out to take a look at his Father’s Day present: a new grill!

There was a whole SNAFU that happened (and which took most of the day to rectify), but by 3 pm, we had a brand-new, completely functional grill to use (and bellies full of Baskin Robbins sundaes)! Even better, we had already planned on having shish kebobs for dinner, so we had all the ingredients on hand! We made a quick stop at Mom & Dad’s to get a full propane tank, then Donald went to work!

The kebobs and grilled corn were delicious!

Sunday, June 18

Another leisurely morning and another delicious breakfast! Today, Donald made for us our “classic” breakfast burritos and served it with our favorite salsa in all the world: Desert Pepper Cantina Salsa (red) in Medium. During breakfast, we made sure to call Donald’s dad, Jim, to wish him a Happy Father’s Day, as well as message a few other friends and family.

We went to the 12 pm Mass at St. Anastasia, then had lattes and pastries at Street Sweet Cafe. We borrowed a pen and paper and did our meal planning for the week. We challenged ourselves to stick to ONLY those items which we had added to the grocery list, then walked over to the Kroger Marketplace.

We have been trying for months to find a grocery store here in Troy that we like as much as we loved the Publix in Tallahassee, but it’s a very hard act to follow! We love our Publix! Maybe I’ll do another post some time about our grocery store experiences. Anyways…. We thought this one was pretty good and we may start shopping here more regularly.

We came home and put away the groceries, then took a few minutes to lay down and relax before heading to Mom & Dad’s to celebrate Father’s Day.

They also had shish kebab’s on the menu! But also taco salad, potato (with sweet potato!) salad, and hamburgers, with ice cream sandwiches for dessert.

We helped Dad take the picnic table and grill off the deck (so they could have it re-stained tomorrow) and picked up a few items Mom has been holding for us while our kitchen was under reconstruction. Too soon, it felt, it was time to head home so we could get ready for the work week.

ALAS! There was still some work for me to do before bedtime! Dishes, laundry, shower, insulin pump and CGM sensor change…. I didn’t actually get to bed until well after 12 am.

It was worth it, though! Such a nice weekend! I hope all of the fathers, would-be-fathers, step-fathers, foster fathers, father-figures, and all had a fantastic Father’s Day and felt the love and appreciation that we all have for the love and support and guidance you give your families each and every day!

To my Dad: I can’t possibly thank you enough for all of the wisdom, support, and love you have given Clint and I over the years. I will always strive to be someone you are proud of and I will always think that my Daddy knows about everything and can fix any problem. I love you!

To Jim: Thank you for raising a wonderful son! And thank you for all of your support and encouragement and guidance that you have given us both!

To Donald: Thank you for being the best father to our stuffed animals (Acey and Zoey) and our plant-kids (Buddy and Sport)! You make life a fun adventure every day!

To my priest-friends: Thank you for all of your prayers and love! Thank you for being amazing role-models and staunch supporters. I hope you find particular joy this Father’s Day!

And, as always, my gratitude and love to Jesus and God the Father Almighty. The very definition of “a good father.” 🙂