Get Back To The Basics + Learning to Unplug

It was awesome! I guess all that walking around NYC took up most of my time. 

I spotted this cool phone at the museum of modern art and was tempted to buy it. But ultimately I brought home some freshly baked cookies instead. 

Priorities. It’s all about priorities.

In The Kitchen

One of my goals this year is to use up two bins of dried beans. So the plan for this week is to make a pot of split pea soup and a lentil salad.  I already have a really good split pea soup recipe but I’ll be testing out a new lentil salad recipe.

I’ll let you know if it’s a winner. Stay tuned.

Kitchen Goals For This Year

• Master the pear frangipane tart from Standard Baking Company. 
• Put my Weck jars to use.
• Use two bins of beans.

Rug Hooking

With all my wool dyeing done for the foreseeable future, now I have time to work on a few projects before gardening takes over every waking minute.

The past few days I’ve been working on a custom table runner. After that’s finished, I’ll start working on the large whale rug {and new pattern}I’ve been wanting to make for a while now.

Rug Hooking Goals For This Year

• Finish drawing out all my patterns, making kits, dyeing wool by March 31st. 
• Release 10 new rug hooking patterns/kits.  {3 down 7 to go}
• Hook 27 of the patterns from the “someday I’ll hook these” bin. {4 down 23 to go}

Go New Places – See New Things

Our trip to NYC was a big success. We had a blast! 

We walked 100 miles {well, it felt like it anyway} saw a broadway show, went on a tour, enjoyed afternoon tea at The Plaza, visited a couple of museums, and ate some really good food. 

What more could you ask for? 

I have no idea when or where my next adventure will be. 

But Jen did inform me that we are still on the wait list {rolled over from last year} for The Grand Canyon. I totally forgot about that! Maybe we’ll get in, maybe we won’t. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Travel Goals For This Year

• Travel someplace {internationally} that I’ve never been before.
• Travel somewhere in Maine {overnight} that I haven’t been before.

Places I’ve Been So Far This Year

• Boston {Birthday getaway}
• NYC

Walk And Stretch More

I think I nailed the walking goal last week. 

Walking/Stretching Goals For This Year

• Get into some sort of stretching routine
• Fast walk a 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon {signed up for a half marathon}

Garden

The great garden clean up has begun. Yesterday was so nice and sunny, I cleaned up and weeded both the front and back beds and pruned the hydrangea plants.

The next big garden project {for the HH} is to dethatch the lawn. He bought a special rake to do this a few years ago and it goes pretty quick. 

We noticed some crocus in a neighbors lawn yesterday while we were out for a walk and we’re thinking about planting some this fall. Have you ever planted crocus bulbs? Are they pretty easy to grow?

Garden Goals For This Year

• Rework the driveway and garden areas 
• Go crazy and plant a ridiculous amount of flowers 
• Step out of my comfort zone and plant some flowers I’ve never planted before

Paint

No painting this past week but the driveway is coming along. Just a few more rows to go and then the grading will begin on the front garden. Yee-Haw. It’s getting there!  

We’re supposed to have a high of 58 degrees here in southern Maine today {holy cow!}.

Have a good one, 

~Mavis

Painting Goals For This Year

• The Van Gogh wall
• The gallery wall down stairs
• The captains wall in the hall
• Trim and walls 

OTHER

The post My Goals For 2026 – Week 15 of 52 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

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Don’t you just love magnolia trees? It’s been so nice to see all the different things in bloom during our visit to NYC.

Cherry blossoms, magnolia trees, daffodils and even a few tulips. It makes me excited about going back home knowing that I’ll be seeing the same things back in Maine in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we started the day with another round of oatmeal and yogurt from Butterfield’s.

Bananas were $2.29 a pound at Butterfield’s. Yikes! We also saw bananas priced at $2.00 each at a coffee shop. It made me wonder where people go grocery shopping here. You know, like for everyday grocery items. 

I think if I lived in a city like NYC I might do 2 or 3 giant stock up trips a year and just buy produce and dairy locally.

Then again if I lived in NYC I’d probably live in a shoebox and there wouldn’t be room to store anything.

We went to MOMA and checked out the Van Gough paintings. We didn’t see any sunflowers though.

Christina’s World was there though. And it was much bigger in person than I thought it would be. 

FACT: Five paper bags lined up in a row is not art. Seriously, it’s not.

Stuffed animals arranged by color aren’t either.

Jasper Jones Flag sold for $110 million dollars in 2010. 

I would be happy to make you an American flag using plywood, newsprint, oil paint and hot wax for half that amount.

Another beautiful salad. This time from Pret a Manger.

And of course, what would a trip to New York City be without seeing a Broadway show?

After the show we went down and had our evening bowl of fruit, hung out in the steam room for a bit {I LOVE the steam room!} and checked Jen’s watch to see how many steps we had walked.

18,582 steps! It was another productive day. 

Now, comes the hard part. Going home. Fingers crossed we get some nice weather in Maine so I can keep the momentum going. 

Hey! It’s Friday. Can you believe it? I hope you have a great weekend. 

It was fun sharing tidbits of our trip with you.  

~Mavis

OTHER

The post NYC – Day 4 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

After starting the day with just a half a cookie and some tea for breakfast yesterday, we headed out to explore. 

Kat’s Delicatession was on our list and we wanted to make sure we were good and hungry when we got there so we didn’t do our usual oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast. 

New York City! There is something to see on every corner! It’s nuts.

We should have tried to get tickets to The Tonight Show. It never even occurred to us! But hey, at least we got to walk by the entrance.

We saw someone come out of a store with a baby crib. I guess the plan was to wheel it home? To their apartment? 

I hope there was an elevator.

We also happened upon a farmer’s market. I LOVE farmer’s markets and so does Jen so we stopped and had a look around. 

Too bad our room didn’t come with a mini kitchen or anything otherwise we might have loaded up on fresh veggies and who knows what else. There were probably half a dozen vendors with stands that were selling just apples and cider. 

Everything you could imagine was there. A dozen large eggs were going for $8 a dozen.

4″ pots of herbs were $6 each. Which seemed about right. They’re between $4-$5 a the local nursery.

Fat carrots were $2.50 a pound. That seemed a little high. But then again have you ever tried growing carrots? 

I paid $15 for a small cherry pie. 

Pink ranunculus are one of my favorite flowers! 

Tulips were $14 a bunch. I think I’m going to sell mine for $10 a jar again this year. 

Madewell. Everything in the store window looked lovely. I’ll have to look it up when I get home. 

We saw a dumpster with a dozen mattresses in it.  Lamps and other things too. I wonder if it’s illegal to dumpster dive in NYC? 

I kind of wanted to see what else was in there but Jen said there was a high possibility the dumpster was full of rats. {We saw a giant one in the subway by the way.}

It was creepy.

We made it to Katz’s! We split a pastrami sandwich and matzoh ball soup. It was our first time trying matzoh ball soup and we both liked it.

Does anyone have a good recipe for it? 

The pickles were delicious and so was the sauerkraut. We both said we’d probably eat there at least once a month if we lived in NYC.

Seriously. Look at that beautiful sandwich! It’s a good thing the walk there was 3.5 miles.

After the pastrami sandwich and Matzoh ball soup, we went to the churro place a few doors down for dessert. 

It was another winner.

After filling up we made our way to the 9/11 memorial and it was incredibly moving. 

We did not go into the museum or visit the One World Observatory. I couldn’t do it. It was just too much sadness for me. I’m glad we spent some time at the memorial though.

Yesterday we walked 15 miles. We left about 8:30 and didn’t get back until just before dark. By the time we finally called it a day, we had racked up nearly 34,000 steps.

A bunch of walking fools. That’s what we are. If this doesn’t count as training for a half marathon, I don’t know what does. 

Today is our last full day in NYC. I hope it’s a good one.  

~Mavis

OTHER

The post NYC – Day 3 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Jen wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, I wanted to spend half the day at The Met so we split up yesterday and did our own thing. 

I’m glad I chose The Met. 

Jen said the ferry ride was cold and windy and crowded but she enjoyed seeing the Statue of Liberty and visiting the Ellis Island Museum. She was surprised though at how stout the Statue of Liberty was in person. 

I LOVED my walk to The Met. And I ended up spending 4 hours there! Mostly in the America’s section of the museum. 

It’s always my favorite area. Seeing American folk art, iron work and furniture up close always gives me a ton of ideas for rugs. 

{I didn’t see any rugs though!!}  I did see a few new paintings though. Our lady of Valvanera was new to me.

And I was able to see Grant Wood’s The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere in person. I love his artwork!

Check out this earthenware crocus pot. Never in a million years would I have guessed what it was. 

I thought it was super cute though.

When I saw the Emanuel Leutze painting of Washington Crossing The Delaware all I could think about was the SNL skits with Nate Bargatze as Washington. 

Have you seen the skits? They’re hilarious. 

The painting is HUGE by the way.

Lunch at The Met. 

Afternoon tea and fig and chocolate pastry from Mangia {my new favorite and the BEST ready made food on the planet earth!}

And then there was The Plaza. Which was gorgeous. The flower arrangements were fantastic. Lot’s of gold and crystal and flair.

So was the afternoon tea service. Jen had a pot of some sort of caramel tea and I had Earl Grey {because that’s my favorite}. Everything was lovely.

The scones though, ehh. I didn’t eat my second one because I’m a scone snob. The real deal is 100% better. The finger sandwiches though were some of the best I’ve had.

A few hours later, after another walk around town, we popped downstairs and ordered our evening fruit bowls.  

Using a $25 use it or lose it daily food/drink credit is tricky. Neither of us drink, which is a good thing because cocktails are $26 each {!} and neither of us eat late and we’re both pretty set in our morning routines {oatmeal and yogurt}.

So an evening fruit bowls it is!

It was another good day. With lot’s of walking.

Today we are planning to walk {3.5 miles each way} to Katz’s Delicatessen to try their pastrami sandwich and matzo ball soup. 

Who knows what else we’ll find along the way.

What are YOU up to today? Anything exciting? Curious minds want to know. 

~Mavis

OTHER

The post NYC – Day 2 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Well, NYC day 1 is in the books.  

We made it to New York City the day before last. There was a slight hiccup getting there, but hey, Jen and I LOVE detours. Nothing stops us from having a good time together. 

Not even flat tires.

In fact when it comes to flat tires, we’re pros! Remember the flat tire we got in England {and Mr. Tiddly}? HA HA HA.

Luckily since we booked our trip through Costco Travel {which included door to door service from the airport to the hotel} we were able to sit back and relax while our driver Sonny rolled us into Queens and got the tire fixed. 

If you ever get a flat tire in Queens, Tire Express is the place to go! Man they were fast.

Yesterday we got up bright and early and walked to Butterfield Market to check on the place. And to get something for breakfast before our 6 hour walking tour started.

I LOVE Butterfield Market! Beautiful food, nice employees, great service.

And steel cut oat bowls with fruit!! 

Jen loves yogurt bowls in the morning, I like my oats, so it was the perfect {3 mile?} morning walk.

After breakfast we met up with our tour guide, Luke from Real New York Tours for our private tour around the city. We’re staying right across from Central Park so that’s where we started.

The cherry trees are just beginning to bloom here and it’s beautiful! Central Park is HUGE! I wonder how much we’ll get to see while we’re here? Jen mentioned something about a Botanical garden {or greenhouse?} I’ll have to look that up.

We saw so many things, I can’t remember them all. Gapstow Bridge, Bethesda Fountain, Strawberry Fields, the Literary Walk. Central Park was lovely.

All that walking made us hungry. Luke suggested Gray’s Papaya for chili cheese dogs. At $4.75, they hit the spot!

We did so much walking and talking yesterday, I totally forgot to take pictures of some of the places we went. Jen and I were so busy looking around and soaking it all in. 

New York City was much cleaner than I thought it would be. We even rode the subway! At $3 a ride, I thought it was a pretty good deal.

Joe’s Pizza was also a great deal. How can you go to NYC and not get a slice of pizza, right? The HH would have loved it.

We walked through Greenwich Village. I stopped in front of Fire Patrol #2 thinking it was just a beautiful old fire station. 

Turns out Anderson Cooper bought and restored it a while back. 

We visited Little Italy. The area seemed so small. And touristy. It was nothing at all like The North End in Boston.

China Town was interesting though. HUGE. Lot’s of fresh produce.

One market we walked though was full of all sorts of live creatures. Lobsters, eels, FROGS.

A small take out box of dumplings was only $5.

So much to look at!! 

So many things to try. 

Jen spotted Levain Bakery so we had to stop there to load up on cookies. 

I had never heard of the cookie company but she’s made their cookies before at home and wanted to know if the store bought ones would taste the same. They did. 

We also stopped at a real neighborhood bodega to buy milk. Talk about one stop shopping! They had a little bit of everything in there. 

It was awesome.

I think we did pretty good for our first full day in NYC.

We got in a little walking, went on a tour, ate some local favorites and made it back to the hotel before dark.

We used our $25 daily dining credit for dinner {2 kids fruit bowls} and then changed our clothes and hit the hotel steam room to soothe our joints.

Next up on the agenda… Museum day. I’ll be going to The Met, and Jen is headed to the Statue of Liberty. We’ll meet up this afternoon at The Plaza for tea. That’s the plan. We are loving NYC! 

I hope you have a great day. 

~Mavis

OTHER

The post NYC – Day 1 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.