Domestic Diva--HA! or NOT!

I'm trying.....I learned a LOT of things from my dad when I was young. He worked me and my older sister, Lyle, as if we were guys, along with our brothers....Every weekend we were working--on the car, washing and waxing, changing the tires, repairing stuff, learning how to spackle, paint, take care of your brushes, rake leaves, mow the grass, sweep the lawn clean of the leaves with a big ole, hard to push lawn sweeper, washing window screens, changing out storm windows, varnish this, varnish that, and lots of other stuff to do...We'd want to go play, but we had to work around the house, doing chore after chore after chore.  If we weren't doing chores, we had to stand around and wait for him to bark orders what to do next, or we were to watch and be silent as he did his work around the house as we followed him around listening to instructions and handing him what he needed for various jobs. Yard work was one of the biggest time consumers we had to do as kids. We had a big yard that ALWAYS needed dandelions dug out by hand, one at a time with Dad's dandelion tool, and it needed to be mowed and fertilized, etc., etc. We missed a lot of fun with our friends while growing up. But we came away from our childhood with a lot of useful knowledge that got put to use later in life.

Every once in awhile, even though my childhood was difficult and unhappy because of my dad's problems with alcohol, I appreciate my dad in his efforts to teach us how to take care of things...I learned a lot of things from him that enabled me to be single and take care of myself and my home for many years. Every once in awhile, Eldy (my significant other) asks me, "Where did you learn how to do that?" and it's because of my dad.

Today, I worked on stripping the wallpaper from the bathroom, and finished that job up after three days of annoying wheat paste and brown paper that came off in shreds instead of nice big sectional pieces. I didn't learn that from my dad, but I did learn how to spackle holes in the wall and caulk, so that's what I did do in the guest bathroom and a few other places. Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself! And all I need now, is a shower curtain and hooks and the guest bathroom is complete.

I like the way the towel border and colors....

....accents the pineapple motif in the artwork frame....

Then, I decided that I better cook something for us for dinner. Hopped down to Publix, which has a lady cooking just about every day of the week all afternoon, with easy recipes and samples. They are usually very easy to prepare. Now, healthy? Not so much..... Today it was steak and potato flatbread with a green "snap" salad....Vegans, AVERT YOUR EYES! I like my beef extra rare, so that's the way I made it, and this turned out delicious! The potato part is actually baked potato salad from the deli. 1.) Grill your favorite grilling steak. 2.) Heat the flatbread. 3.) Spread a thin layer of light sour cream on the warm flatbread, 4.) warm the potato salad in the microwave, 5.) spread the potato salad on top of the flatbread, too, then 6.) top the flatbreads with chopped bacon bits, the thin slices of steak that you have grilled and lastly, 7.) drizzle some Tabasco chipotle pepper sauce (optional) over the steak flatbreads to give it a little kick. Cut into wedges and enjoy!

Then, I outdid myself. I made a salad from scratch--no prepackaged mix! It was butter lettuce, chopped green onions, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and a light Asian sesame dressing. You're supposed to sprinkle the salad with fried wonton strips, but I left those out.

And then, you need dessert....or not! The chef chose not to worry about dessert this evening. However, gotta have a photo of a nice dessert to round things out here. This is a photo of our dessert that we had on a DIFFERENT night when we tried a new restaurant in the Lakewood Ranch area, the Lakewood Ranch Grill. We split a meatloaf dinner that was a HUGE portion, way too much for one person--good thing we split it--very delicious with mashed potatoes and gravy and my favorite vegetables--steamed yellow squash and zucchini slices with some carrots thrown in. And here's the dessert I just had to have. It was a toss between two of my favorites--creme brûlée or cheesecake...I went for the cheesecake to share with Eldy....

I'm practicing taking food photos with my iPhone. Too bad the cheesecake from the restaurant didn't taste as good as it looks--even though they said it was homemade! Bland, no flavor to speak of and on the dry side....And too expensive! But they sure knew how to present it. WOW! No wonder I have so much trouble watching my weight--I really really love good food! :-) I just have to learn to leave the bad stuff alone....sigh.....Or, try, as my mother Millie, used to say, "Anything in moderation."