The view we have all been waiting for! Our finished street view! We painted our house yellow earlier in the summer/fall and on Thursday the security door was installed. It’s a quite sturdy steel door, painted blue on the exterior and white on the interior. We also installed a new storm door with full view glass (so you can see the pretty deep blue color of the door more), and a built-in retractable screen. On those rare perfect spring/fall days where it’s warm out, but not hot enough to have the AC running, we would like to be able to open the house up to a nice cross breeze and some fresh air.
I think…. this means that we are finally ready for winter?! Pretty close to it! Donald is still feeling a bit under the weather, so once he has recovered from his cold, I’ll ask him to bring in the Christmas decorations from the garage and we will start decorating the house for the holidays!
How early do you start decorating? What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
We had our first snow of the season today! It wasn’t too much, and it didn’t last very long, but I’m quite surprised that it waited until the third week in November! We’ve had a very mild autumn so far. This is what it looked like – just a dusting on top of the car.
Today, we had our front security door installed! It was a little bit chilly outside to have a gaping hole in the house, but we stayed in our offices and worked while Phil installed the door, and the rooms stayed fairly warm.
At this point, the door was held in place with these temporary pieces of wood, but it was starting to give us an idea of what the finished door would look like – so exciting!
And… HERE IT IS! There’s still some finishing touches left to be done (trimming off the foam that you can see on the bottom after it has set a bit), but it looks great! We’re very happy with the lever and lockset that we have selected as well! I didn’t think that the door would make that much of a difference to the feel of the living room, but I think that it looks like a whole new space! Donald is already thinking about other things we can do to update and decorate the room! (New ceiling fan? Crown moulding?)
It was a bit too dark outside once everything was finished (Grrr, Daylight Savings Time changes!), so I’ll take photos once it’s light outside again. Let us know what you think of the new door!
The white building with the large chicken on the roof is a familiar sight to those who live near Clawson, MI. It has been a few different restaurants, but most recently it has been renovated into a very popular brunch destination called Biscuits and Gravy.
Given that it’s located just steps from downtown, the restaurant’s footprint is a bit small – both inside and out. The parking lot fits almost exactly the number of cars that the dining tables can accommodate, meaning that if there is a wait for a table, you may also encounter a wait for a parking space. That said, the staff does a great job of managing turnover, and we only had to wait a few minutes for a table.
While cozy, the dining area had a light and airy decor, with touches of (fake) greenery throughout. The tables were well-spaced and the seating was more comfortable than most. We were greeted by coffee served in small mugs, which was clearly a deliberate decision meant to keep our coffee fresh and hot at all times. The servers were constantly circulating to refill mugs and replenish our supplies of creamer and sugar, without us having to ask for a thing!
Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs as we ordered the Big Breakfast, Meat Lovers Omelette, and the titular Biscuits and Gravy. The plates came out of the kitchen heaping with deliciousness! The bacon was extra crispy the way we like it, the grits were yummy, and surprisingly, they even managed to elevate the toast, which was light and crispy with the perfect butter taste!
The only, super minor, quibble that I had was, unfortunately, with the biscuits and gravy. It’s one of my favorite comfort breakfast foods, so I order it a lot in various locations. This version fell a bit short in my estimation, in comparison to the robust, seasoned offerings familiar to true Southern kitchens. However, this was just my opinion. Donald, our “true Southern boy,” delighted in their version, praising the biscuits for their homemade, old-fashioned quality akin to cornbread. I have to admit, those were the largest biscuits I’ve ever seen served with an order of biscuits and gravy! For just $1 more, you get two instead of one, so you can’t go wrong with ordering the set and splitting with your table mate!
Overall, we loved our experience at Biscuits and Gravy and plan on making a lot of return visits. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of their menu, but our bellies are already excited!
Every year the Stage Nature Center in our city offers a Rent-A-Maple program, where — for a small fee — you can have a maple tree on the property tapped in your name. Last year, we just donated to the program and had our name on a tree, but didn’t sign up in time to do the tapping ourselves. This year, we put it on our calendar and signed up as soon as we were able!
Even though Donald has to work on Saturday afternoons, we figured that we could fit this into our morning. We made sure not to sleep in, had our coffee, and Donald made us eggs and toast for breakfast. Once we were fed and ready, we set out into the sunshine, blue skies, and cold weather (below freezing)!
We were met at the door by some of the Stage Nature Center docents/volunteers and quickly found our guides for the event. I was so surprised to see Sarah there! She was in training as one of the guides and happened to be assigned to Donald and me!
As we went from the main building to the staging area outside, our guide, Danielle, kept reminding us that we needed to get a bucket and a lid. Apparently, it was a common thing to forget, and they didn’t want to have to walk all the way to our tree, just to have to backtrack to pick up the bucket that our tree sap would collect in.
Donald made sure to grab them, and then commented on how he could use them to make himself some Mandalorian armor.
Once we found our tree (which already had a tag on it with our names), Danielle showed us how to use a brace hand crank drill to make a small hole in the tree, angled slightly downward, each of us taking a turn. We then used a nail to get the wood shavings out of the hole and sprayed some water in it. Donald then gently tapped the French cast iron spile into our new hole and I hung our bucket on the spile. Donald put the cover on the bucket and we were good to go!
For a quick outing, it was a lot of fun! We received a little goodie bag with some maple candies, a pint of maple syrup, candles, pancake mix, and a certificate for our “lease” of the maple tree. We grabbed a Starbucks on the way home, my parents stopped by for a visit and a surprise (more on that later!), and then it was time for Donald to start work.
We have another adventure planned for tomorrow, so keep an eye out for another post soon!
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.) 🙃📸
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.
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!
Donald is great at always keeping an eye on the weather for us, so we knew that it was going to snow Sunday morning. I thought it would be a lot of fun – especially for my Florida boy! – to go for a walk in the snow at one of our favorite local nature centers.
We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, then stopped by the house to grab our wet weather boots from one of our moving boxes. Next stop: the Stage Nature Center, where we had previously seen a mink playing in the Rouge River!
Our car parked next to the snow-covered trees! Poor car isn’t used to this cold weather!
The snow was so beautiful on the ground and coating the branches of the trees! It was really good packing snow, too!
After living in Florida for the past few months, this was quite a change for us and we thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. There were a surprising number of people who were also out this morning to take a walk in the snow. We decided to take the Blackbird trail today, and it ended up snowing the entire time.
I don’t think it is possible for me to overemphasize how often one of us would exclaim, “It’s SO PRETTY!” or “Wow! Look at this, babe!”
Even without leaves, the snow-covered branches made for interesting tunnels to walk through.I made this for Donald. I will always give him my heart!
We saw deer, ducks, and birds on our walk, but we’re particularly entranced by the trees. There are a lot of older trees here. (Above, Donald is playing among some of the taller pine trees.)
We love taking photos and recognize the importance of capturing our memories. We are trying to get better at documenting our adventures (and taking more videos!), so we played a bit with slow-mo mode. The clip below shows Donald shaking a branch to have some snow fall on him. This is towards the end of our walk, and you might be able to tell that the branches now have a good couple inches of snow on them – much more than when we began our walk!
Just after seeing some deer in the woods, we came to a hilly section of the nature center. I wanted a photo of Donald in the field, to show the scale of the terrain a bit. I think I ended up making it look like he was tiny and standing on the fence!
There had been a group of kids in a group who were geocaching when we started our walk. We didn’t want to interrupt their program, but decided to catch a few caches on our way out. There are definitely more caches out there, but we just grabbed a quick two. They are not too difficult to find; it is a fun, little “extra” that families can do together while enjoying nature.
There was just enough snow on the ground for Donald to make a snow angel. I think he did a great job!
We were out in it for a good two hours, then returned to our hotel home to warm up. We were so glad to get back to some of the things we love to do: hiking, taking pictures, and seeing the local flora and fauna.
We wanted to pick up a new puzzle to work on, after *finally* finishing the Thomas Kincaid puzzle that was a pastel, fuzzy-edged nightmare to complete. We wanted something brightly colored, easy, and fun. This puzzle of 50 Great American Novels was just the thing! In fact, we started and completed it in one day!
After we finished it, we decided that it would be fun to turn this experience into a challenge. We both want to read more literature and classics, and enjoy reading books together. We also think it would be fun to explore them more academically and Donald suggested that we could even write little book reports on them and discuss the major themes and ideas that resonated with us.
We have each read a selection of the books already, but decided for the purposes of this challenge, we would re-read books and read them at the same time as each other.
Books Jenn has previously read:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Books Donald has previously read:
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
We love making choices using random methods. For selecting which book to read next (and subsequent books), we took a photo of the poster that came with the puzzle, printed it out, cut each book apart, folded it up and stuck it in a large jar, which Donald then proceeded to vigorously shake around. Then, I picked one without looking, and we unfolded it together.
Our first read is going to be Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut!
Keep an eye out for our review of this book after we have completed it!
It has been a little while since we have indulged in one of our favorite lunchtime pastimes: finding a new city park to explore. We tend to do this a little more in Tallahassee, but we have found that there are quite a few local parks in Troy which are beautiful and fun to explore – particularly in summertime. Today, we returned to the Stage Nature Center – where we had seen the mink earlier in the year – to see how it looks when everything has had a chance to green up.
This is the Rouge River, as it is here in Troy, a little more than a creek.
We only had about 30 minutes to spend at the park during my lunch hour, so we made a quick trip around the Sugar Maple loop. It was really neat to see the different colors of green in the leaves and how the sun lit up the trees. The part of the loop that we walked also had a display of the various stages of tree/forest lifecycle, with logs in various stages of decay and decomposition.
The nature center has programs in the winter/early spring where you can rent a tap for a sugar maple tree, then collect the maple syrup produced from the sap.
We spent a few minutes at this crossroads in the paths to watch some chipmunks. They are FAST little ones! One of them ran up a tree and started chittering very loudly for quite some time. At first, I didn’t know what was making that sound and ended up recording it on my Bird ID app. I’m not sure if he was mad or excited, but he certainly wanted everyone in the forest to hear what he had to say!
Just as we were about to move on from the chipmunk area, we spied four deer running parallel to our path. Donald’s phone has much better zoom on the camera and he was able to get this incredible photo.
A view of the Rouge River from the other side of the Sugar Maple loop.
We just did the short 0.4 mile Sugar Maple Loop today, as I only had an hour for lunch. It was really pretty and we want to come back after work one day to see what animals are active in the early evening, as well as spend more time in the back half to see if we can spot our mink friend again.
I love seeing all the different colors of green!
This was a very BIG bee on this flower. It’s in an area of the nature center which has been planted as a monarch butterfly migration station.
I love when parks make boards like this to help people know what kinds of flowers and plants are indigenous to the area, and to promote planting native plants in gardens. Sometimes, you will see a companion board, where they will inform you of invasive species in the area and ask people visiting the park to help remove the invasive species if they are seen during your walk.
This was just a quick out and back visit, but we had a lot of fun. It was great to take a break and get away from the house for a bit, as well as to enjoy the warm, sunny, non-humid weather while we have it!
You can now listen to our blog via our podcast! It is available from Anchor via Spotify, but we are also working to get it published to other podcast platforms. Don’t worry, we will be working on our audio quality as we go! Enjoy!
In the beginning of our relationship, we talked about playing games together, and Donald wanted to teach me how to play cribbage.
We bought a cribbage set and would play every so often.
A couple of weeks ago, I brought up that I remembered having fun playing Gin Rummy with my Dad as a kid. We looked up how to play on YouTube and played a couple times.
This afternoon, after work, I felt like learning a new card game. I was anticipating researching one online, but Donald had a suggestion ready to go: Golf. He remembers playing it with his Dad.
It is kind of like a game of Memory, as you keep your set of 4 cards face down and have the opportunity to swap one out each turn, but have to remember what you had. The goal is to have less points than your opponent. When you think you are as low as you can go (or lower than your competitors), you can “knock,” which signals the last round. Then, all players turn over their cards and count the points. Number cards are their value, Aces =1, J and Q are 10, and K=0.
Donald is both lucky and a great strategist. It looked while playing that he had a commanding lead over me. But when the round of Golf (9 “holes”) was completed, he had won by the slimmest of margins! 😀
Gameplay is very quick and the game is easy to learn. We will have to teach this to Gabby when we are in town; that little card sharp will love it!
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 