Life By Lindsey Rae

I think cooking is a huge waste of time. I guess it's partially because I don't care about food as much as the average person and partially because being an artistic person if I'm going to create something, I like to be able to see it and enjoy after. With food, particularily cooking food, it's like you spend all that time making it and then it's just gone!
Also, I don't understand why everyone has such a problem with the fact that I don't have any desire to cook. I mean, if everyone was good at cooking, that would kind of steal the thunder of the people who actually do have that talent.

So, my kind of cooking is this "recipe" for Chicken and Dumplings from the Pillsbury website. I happen to have a lot of Pillsbury products right now, because at Publix there was some good sales on the stuff recently. Then with using coupons and taking advantage of rebates, there was the opportunity to make $6.50 to bring ten cans of biscuits home.
So, I went to their website to find a way to use some of these and found that by dropping pieces of frozen biscuits into a can of soup, you can make quite tasty dumplings.
I have a memory that once my grandma made dumplings for me when I was about four years old and I enjoyed it very much, for some reason. I asked many times for dumplings after that, but never really got them. I guess it was not popular with any one else in my house. Now I can make them myself by just thawing out a biscuit! hehehe.

And speaking of savings and coupons: maybe I don't write as much on here because I spend too much time looking for the deals. No, just kidding. Seriously though, since I started using coupons (like a crazy person) in the past few months, I cannot believe the amount of money I have saved. I get many of the groceries I buy for pennies or free or even make money on them. If I would have known how it all worked and how much I could save before, I would have been clipping coupons long ago. I hate to think of how much money we could have saved if I would have known all the things I know now.

Like tonight, when we were having dinner I pointed out that almost everything we had was free or nearly free. Pasta was about $0.20 or $0.30. Biscuits were free (money maker). We had those Green Giant steamer vegetables that are normally about $2.99 and I got for $0.09. The butter was free. The tin foil was free. The Pam we used on the tin foil was free.

It always tastes better when it's free.

This past weekend, I was excited to be able to be able to take advantage of the opprotunity to enjoy two of my favorite things all at once: art and history.
Fun, fun fun. And, not only any art and history, but European Medieval art and history, mostly based around its relationship to Christianity in that time period. Now, what could be more interesting than that? :)
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts here in Nashville is hosting an exhibition of Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art from February 13th to June 7th. I went on the 13th because there was a lecture I wanted to attend that night.

One of the pieces that had on exhibit that I found particularly interesting was a prayer book or book of hours that belonged to Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain.(She was the sponser of Christopher Columbus's exploration of the New World.) A book of hours was a personal and portable book for devotion and prayer and recitation of psalms.
I was reading a book about Juana la Loca, who was the daughter of Isabella, during this time, so it made it particularly appealing.

I also saw a floor mosaic from the Roman Empire that I recognized from seeing before in one of the books I read on mosaic art. So, that was kind of fun to then see it in "real life."

So, yep, if you are in the area, it is definitely recommended.

I bought my husband rocking chairs for Christmas. And, it was kind of a big deal for me because I spent many, many....many hours researching many, many rocking chairs before I bought them. Kind of like before I bought curtains. I thought about curtains a lot.
I have a very difficult time making decisions and as a result I often spend many hours researching things. Going to lots of stores, looking at a ton of websites...reading a lot of books (although I did not read any books about rocking chairs...a lot of things I get books from the library about). It is not easy to not be able to make a decision.

I really wanted to get what my husband wanted, which were extra wide chairs, but, I also wanted to make sure that they were somewhat modern looking and I really wanted black. Partially because I like black and it would look good with the house and partially because the neighbors across the street have white ones.
Eventually, though, all I could find in the proper size at a price that suited my cheapness (and I wanted to use my "own" money, 'cause it's more fun to buy someone a present when you don't have to ask them for money to buy it) were white ones.
I had decent expectations, since the reviews others had given these particular chairs were good, but, when they arrived on Christmas eve they were damaged! I was so upset about it! I really wanted to get a good present for J, because he always gets me such nice things. I suppose it is the thought that counts, but when you spend so long trying to find something and then it comes damaged on Christmas Eve...there is not much hope in replacing it in a timely manner.

Anyway, my husband liked the ones I got, but as they were damaged, we had to return them and decided to get something different. We recently found these at Sam's Club and thought we might try them. They are fairly wide (which was a requirement) and J thinks they are comfortable. They were twice what I paid for the others, so he sort of did have to buy his own present after all, but what can you do when you sit at home and build rock walls all day? (No, just kidding...I do other things to...sometimes...really. I also spend hours and hours trying to make small decisions. hahaha).


As you can see, these are not black. They are teak, which I think is probably the best for outdoors and will last a long time. But, I don't know if I like the color of the wood. I thought about painting or staining it a black, but, I don't know if you should stain teak.

So, now I can sit outside and watch the little lizards run by. It is actually a good spot, I think. I sat out there the other day when it was only about 35 degrees and read my mail and when the sun is out that location gets fairly warm.(To tell the truth, I think once it's summer I'll probably be scared to sit out there half of the time, because I'm too afraid of the bugs!)

I also want to get a hummingbird feeder and put it somewhere near this area. I have "my room" (my office/art space/mess) where that big window is, so I think it would be nice if I could look out the window and maybe see some hummingbirds...and bunnies. I only had one bunny in the flowerbed last year.

I guess I feel happy that it's February because that means the dang cold weather will be over that much sooner. Winter is just so depressing.
I hate being cold. The only thing good about it is that there are less bugs.
Actually, when I really think about it, I'm not sure which is the worse of the two evils: cold or bugs.
I think I'll go with bugs though.
Really, that's actually a pretty easy winner.