Month: September 2015

Spence’s Girl Receives Liebster Award!

~ Spence's Girl ~ 4 Comments
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How exciting is this?

I just learned that I was nominated for the Liebster Award by the immensely talented http://incahootswithmuddyboots – thank you, Sabine!  This is especially exciting as I near the one year anniversary of launching this blog – on Halloween to be exact.  It has been gratifying to receive three awards now and from bloggers I so admire.

Please check out: http://incahootswithmuddyboots! Such a great blog including travel adventures, cooking, gardening and photography.

By accepting this award, I was asked to answer the following questions:

  • Your favorite book? Hard to choose one favorite but a truly remarkable book is “Memoirs of a Geisha”
  • Your favorite movie? Again, just one?  “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” – have watched it countless times and it never gets old
  • Your dream vacation?  After seeing all those commercials for the European River Boat Cruises while watching Downton Abbey, that is a dream vacation.
  • Your favorite flower? This is a hard question as I am such a garden geek, but I adore Hydrangeas (which I strangely have no success in getting to bloom)
  • IOS or Android?  I’m Apple all the way!!
  • Which languages do you speak? English, Spanglish and I can read what I call “menu French” as the five years of French I studied in high school escaped me eight years ago when I  traveled to France. (epic fail – ask Spence)
  • Coffee or tea? Tea
  • Favorite color?  Teal blue
  • If you were reincarnated as an animal, which one would you choose? I’d like to be a well-loved cat
  • Are you an early bird or a night owl?  Early bird
  • What is your favorite breakfast?  Everything Bagel toasted with Light Veggie Cream Cheese and a glass of cider (and the aforementioned tea of course)

Now for my nominations for the Liebster Award:

  1. http://lovingleisuretime
  2. http://dawns-ad-lib.com
  3. http://bubblyBEE
  4. https://4wallsnaroof.wordpress.com
  5. https://curvylouise.wordpress.com

These blogs are so well crafted. I’m always happy to see a new post and have featured their posts under my category “From Blogs I Follow”. I invite you to check them out. I promise it will be time well-spent.

Now for 11 questions for my nominees:

  1. What is your favorite birthday cake or pie?
  2. Peanut butter – smooth or crunchy?
  3. What is your least favorite household chore?
  4. Curly, wavy or straight hair?
  5. If you could live anywhere else, where would it be?
  6. Left-handed or right-handed?
  7. What is your favorite adult beverage?
  8. What talent do you wish you had?
  9. What made you decide to blog?
  10. Best decision you ever made?
  11. Person you admire most?

Here are the rules for accepting the Leibster Award:

  1. Make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you.
  2. Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post too.
  3. Nominate 5 -10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you.
  4. Ensure all of these bloggers have fewer than 200 followers.
  5. Answer the eleven questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make eleven  questions of your own for your nominees or you may use the same questions.
  6. Lastly, COPY these rules in your post.

My Mission – Find these Products

~ Spence's Girl ~ 1 Comment

For those who’ve visited my blog, it’s obvious that I’m food obsessed.  I admit it freely. I love to cook and (pat on the back) am really skilled at it. Since retiring, Spence has benefited more than ever from my endeavors. I frequently cook from scratch, often make up recipes and even before I started the blog, photograph my culinary creations. My Pinterest page is a testament to my obsession as are the countless cookbooks and voluminous recipes I’ve clipped or have on cards in my old-school recipe box.

It is rare that I need to buy food staples at the grocery store as my pantry and freezer hold a myriad of items.  Recently I started a list of things that I needed to replace. To my shock, several mainstays and comfort foods were missing when I visited my local Kroger store.

  • Campbell’s Cream of Shrimp Soup 
  • Stouffer’s Spinach Souffle
  • Stouffer’s Welsh Rarebit

Out of a shopping list of ten items, this seemed a dismal failure but I chalked it up to the condition of the store which has been undergoing an endless “renovation” and is in a state of turmoil.

“Perhaps they are so disorganized that they don’t even know what they need to order” I surmised.  I went online and let them know of my concern.

A few days later, we traveled north to Traverse City for a few days with family. Since Spence had to make a beer run I asked him to look for these items at their local IGA store. Struck out – not one of the missing items to be found.  My concern was escalating. Gloria, their next door neighbor, stopped by and heard my tale of woe.  She’d be at the Traverse City Meijer store that day and offered to do reconnaissance for me. If she was successful, she’d buy every can of the elusive shrimp soup and report back on the frozen items. It’s a huge store but that evening we learned the sad truth.  NO LUCK – not one of the items to be found. I felt a rising sense of panic but not to be deterred, committed to searching all grocery stores in our county upon returning home.

Last Saturday, I was on a mission. I drove to the nice, newer Meijer store in the neighboring community of Davison.  STRUCK OUT.  Next, I went to the Davison VG’s and while the soup and Welsh Rarebit eluded me, I hit gold with the Spinach Souffle, snagging six of them!

I was encouraged.

Recalling that there is a Kroger in Davison, I trudged on.  And to my delight, snagged the last six Cream of Shrimp soups and five Welsh Rarebits.  As I drove home victorious, I declared “I must blog about my quest“.  Spence was impressed with my coup but said “don’t put this in your blog“. What does he know about blogging?

Proof!
The elusive soup

Please watch in the future for a post of the recipe – my Famous Shrimp Bisque – using the elusive but not discontinued Cream of Shrimp soup as the base! 

Fifty….I mean Fifteen Shades of Biscotti

~ Spence's Girl ~ 3 Comments

For those of you who have visited Spence’s Girl before, you’ve seen posts that feature my two cats, Tipper and Biscotti (aka The Biscuit).  Today’s post came about because of a blog I adore called Creekview Carol. Creekview Carol is a lovely black and white cat from Paris Kentucky who is a gifted writer and shares stories and photos about her siblings – both cats and furry beasts (or dogs).  It is highly entertaining, I always read it aloud to Biscotti and Tipper; they love seeing the pictures Carol posts.

Biscotti has been after me to do a “feature post” (his words) about him.  I didn’t catch on at first until I noticed he was constantly posing for me.  The Biscuit isn’t allowed to use my MacBook so the compromise is me blogging on his behalf. He helped to choose the photos and captions.

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Here’s looking at you!

Biscotti and Tipper have been featured in earlier posts on this blog. If you enjoyed this, they’d love for you to check more of Spence’s Girl under “Cat Stuff”.

And if you want a real treat, check out http://creekviewcarol.com – it is a really great blog!

Iris Re-boot 2015

~ Spence's Girl ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago I caught a glimpse of something white as I was heading out to run some errands.  Putting the car in reverse I slowly backed up. This is what I saw.

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What’s happening? It’s past mid-September….

Then the following day, more beautiful irises.  I was getting a re-boot!

What a lovely surprise from Mother Nature.  I walked around my yard looking for signs of more iris life within the green fronds that remained from the Spring bloom.  I did see another one with some promise, as long as our Michigan Autumn remains warm.  If so, I’ll be sharing them with all of you.

And my Mom, who loves these more than any other flowers in my garden.  A Fall bouquet for Mom, for sure!