Get Back To The Basics + Learning to Unplug

So I decided to download an audiobook instead. Raising Hare by Chole Dalton. Have you read it?  I’m about half way through the book and so far so good. 

A little nutty, but then again, we feed the birds and I leave out treats for our resident chipmunk so who am I to judge?

In The Kitchen

Thank you for all the soup recommendations. We are looking forward to trying some new recipes. I told the HH we’ll need to try the leek soup recipe when our leeks are ready to harvest. 

I don’t know how much leeks go for at the grocery store, but it looks like we’re going to have about 50 here in a few more weeks.

We are still eating zucchini, peppers and potatoes at least 3 days a week which is fine by me. We tend to eat the same thing over and over and over again and then move on to the next great thing. Do you do that too?

Kitchen Goals For This Year

• Master the pear frangipane tart from Standard Baking Company. 
• Put my Weck jars to use. Working on it!!
• Use two bins of beans {Working on it}

Rug Hooking

I dyed a batch of my favorite whale blue yesterday. The weather was so nice, I let it drip {mostly} dry in the sunshine. 

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.  {4 down 6 to go}
• Hook 27 of the patterns from the “someday I’ll hook these” bin. {12 down 15 to go}

Go New Places – See New Things

I’d really like to see Nova Scotia, but the HH isn’t excited about doing all that driving. He also thinks Nova Scotia is going to look a lot like Maine.

If I could find a deal on tickets, I’d love to go to London {again} and stock up on all my favorite treats and visit my favorite gardens. The flight is only 5 ½ hours and there would be afternoon tea. Which is always a plus in my book.

Who knows. Maybe we won’t go anywhere this fall? 

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 {Girls getaway}
• John Mellencamp Concert + Stockbridge, MA

Walk And Stretch More

We passed by a free table on one of our walks and I scored two 12” knobby trays and a shelf. All with their tags still on!! I have no idea where I’ll put them or what I’ll use them for but they needed a good home so… I snatched them up. 

It’s been sort of slim pickins this summer with the freebies. I keep hoping I’ll come upon a stack of free terra cotta pots but no such luck yet.

Walking/Stretching Goals For This Year

• Get into some sort of stretching routine
• Fast walk a 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon 

Garden

The last hurrah. Tomato season is 95% over. I can’t believe it. 

I wish I would have weighed our bounty because it’s been such a great year for growing vegetables. I bet we’ve grown at least 200 pounds of tomatoes, zucchini, beans and cucumbers. 

The beets were total duds this year, but the carrots and leeks are coming in strong.

Garden Goals For This Year

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

Paint

And last but not least, I had planned on staining the fence but it rained on Friday and Saturday so I decided to work on painting a new batch of loon ornaments for my Etsy shop.

It’s hard to believe the holidays are right around the corner. It’s crazy how time seems to fly by these days. Summer, I don’t want it to end.

I hope you have a great Monday!

~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 36 of 52 appeared first on One Hundred Dollars a Month.

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Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? Any BBQ’s or potlucks on the calendar? Well if you do here are three AWESOME recipes:

• Mustard Potato Salad
• Carole’s Creamy Grape Salad
• Broccoli Cashew Salad with Bacon

We don’t have anything planned, and the weather is looking a little wonky, so I might stop by the library and see if there are any new movies to check out. 

I always tend to go for movies that were made in the 80’s or 90’s, but maybe you have a newer movie you can recommend?

If the weather is nice, then I’ll probably break out the giant 5 gallon bucket of fence stain and get a few more panels stained. 

The mosquitoes seem to be less active these days so I should probably hop to it if I’m going to finish the fence before the weather really takes a turn.

Also, I’ve been craving soup lately and I’m on the hunt for a new soup recipe to try. A loaf of Dutch oven bread and a nice soup… With fall in the air it seems like a good idea. 

So if you’ve tried a new soup recipe lately I’d LOVE to hear about it. 

Oh, and I should probably pop by the nursery and see if they have mums in. They may not be my favorite plant of all time, but they sure do look great in pots on the porch this time of year. 

I hope you have a great weekend.

~Mavis

OTHER

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How is your garden doing? Are things winding down? We are still harvesting green beans, zucchini, tomatoes and basil. 

On Tuesday morning I delivered some fresh vegetables to a friend. She was hoping we had some extra vegetables to share and I was like… Umm yes. I think I can drop some by. 

This was a good year for growing things, that’s for sure.

The HH  picked all these tomatoes last night. 

While he was doing that, I made a few flower arrangements for the house. I just adore Limelight hydrangeas. 

Okay, so I pretty much love all hydrangeas!!

We still have two more rounds of green beans, the leeks and carrots to look forward to, but other than that, things are starting to wind down in the garden. 

The Roma tomatoes are done. And so are a few other varieties of tomatoes. Luckily, though, I think we still have a few weeks of glorious flower bouquets. 

And that makes me happy.  

~Mavis

OTHER

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Chips and salsa. They’re kind of like a welcome gift when you go to a Mexican restaurant, right?

Well not here in New England. We’ve been here over 8 years now and tried many Mexican restaurants, and quite frankly, there hasn’t been a single one we’d go back to.

Not only have they all been duds, but not once in all those years here in New England did we ever receive free chips and salsa when we sat down. 

Not once. Chips and salsa are not complimentary around here. They are something you order off the menu. It’s the strangest thing. Until yesterday. 

Yada Yada Yada… We had to drive to New Hampshire to pick something up and on the way back we decided, on a whim, to grab a bite to eat before going grocery shopping at Market Basket {which was on the way home}.

The two possible choices were a sandwich shop and a Mexican place. We took a gamble and decided on Mexican food. 

We walk in, sit down, the waiter greets us, sets down WARM chips, salsa and queso {OH MY WORD!} and asks if we’d like anything to drink. 

We couldn’t believe it. As soon as the waiter walks away, the HH looks at me and says, we’ll this is promising. HA HA HA. 

And it was!!! 

Not only were the chips and salsa spot on, but so was the decor and the menu and even the bathrooms were clean. 

We both ordered the chicken enchiladas, which were perfect.

They were so good in fact, we will absolutely be going back. The losing streak is over. We finally found a Mexican restaurant we’d go back to.

And it even has free chips and salsa to boot! 

Cinco’s Cantina in Epping, New Hampshire. Muy bueno. If you’re in the area check it out! 

~Mavis

P.S. Are you given free chips and salsa when you go to your local Mexican restaurant? Or is having to pay for them just an anomaly around here. Curious minds want to know. 

OTHER

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All day long I see things that other people don’t see in simple, ordinary objects. I don’t know when it started or why I’m like this but every once in a while I have to stop and take a picture. Just to show someone. 

Looking left to right – I see the nose, mouth and eye of a giant dinosaur in the rock. Do you see it too?

I can’t decide if this is a fat bunny or a Scotty dog. 

But I do know that seeing a snowman’s face in a fried potato, means we’re going to have a lot of snow this winter. Which is fine by me. I love snow. 

But seriously, the giant dinosaur head, you see it, right? 

~Mavis

OTHER

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