Until Next Year

I'm memorializing my porch with a picture here. In a few short weeks, we'll have to move all the plants indoors. Despite my longing for sweater weather and corduroys, I will miss my lush little balconey being the green growing oasis it has been since spring. This year, for the first time, I realized my dream of a) having a real live porch (even better is a second floor porch) and b) having a large boston fern hanging from the roof of said southern dream porch. All spring and summer I have had the pleasure of sipping adult beverages with various friends and satan as well as deliciously alone in my very own cozy semi-secret perch above the street. It's been wonderful.

Not to be outdone, Satan has his own porch and his own (somewhat inferior) plants. The design of the building is such that we have two porches. I was in fact standing on Satan's porch when I snapped the picture you see here. More often than not, we porch-sit on one balconey or the other together, but there are those times when you just need your own porch. And, sometimes, you need to co-sit on separate balconies and make faces and obsene hand gestures at one another. Occasionally, objects must be hurled with alarming force from one balconey to the other at someone or another's head. But only occasionally.

My tip of the day: never cook chicken in the crockpot on the "high" setting. I learned this the hard way yesterday when I unexpectedly morphed into Martha Steward mode and zipped home on my lunch hour to toss a lovely plump chicken stuffed with apples and celery in to the crock. The recipe called for 6-8 hrs. on "low". I reasoned since I wanted the chicken ready in only four hours the "high" setting would be appropriate. Not so much. What I found in the crockpot upon returning home no longer resembled a chicken. Unless the chicken was the victim of an especially catastrophic road kill. Conveniently, the meat no longer required chewing, but simply dissolved into broth upon hitting the palatte. Furgirl became the happy beneficiary.

In other news...the family room WILL require a second coat of daredevil. It's taken me a couple of days to admit this to myself. Friday is the unhappy day. After that, Satan will embark upon phase B of the family room transformation and lay a light maple floating floor. I will post photos of that process as well.