Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I found a facebook site that is all about Wantagh. It's been fun going through the different posts seeing if I know anyone but also reading the memories that people write. I did see one person that graduated with me that had the same last name as me. It was sad to read that she's very sick and almost lost her life.
My favorite part is the different pictures that people post from what Wantagh looked like back in the day. This picture is of Dauernheim Greenhouses as they were up until the early 80's. I used to take some poinsettias and easter lilies from their discard pile and bring them home to my mother. They were supposed to be sickly plants but those lilies came up in the garden year after year!
The greenhouses were knocked down and condominiums and a shopping center were built on the site. Sad!!

Monday, January 25, 2010

In honor of the New Orlean's Saints winning last nights football game and now heading to the Super Bowl, I made a few of these Fleur-De-Lis. I wear different styles depending on the day. They are great because you never have to loose your glasses again. No more putting them down and 2 seconds later... "Where are my glasses"? You wear it like a brooch.
They are held onto your clothes with magnets instead of a pin so you'll never ruin your clothes!
PJ's always looking for a gimmick so I'm bringing a few with us to the Mardi Gras event in Ithaca in 2 weeks. If someone asks about them I'll say "I just happen to have some with me. Would you be interested in purchasing one"? There's always people at these events doing that same thing. Why not?



Sunday, January 24, 2010

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It was a crisp 41 degrees but not a cloud in the sky. PJ and I decided to take a ride in the MGB. I'm surprised that we didn't cause an accidents. We had so many people beep at us, give us peace signs, wave and thumbs up jestures. I guess people thought we were crazy to be riding with the top down in the middle of the winter. After about an hour, we started to get cold. We headed home. It took us HOURS before we started warming up!
It felt great to get out in the sun on such a beautiful day!

Friday, January 22, 2010

On our way home today, Kris asked me if I wanted to see what 'Tiny Town' looks like. I had never been there even though I've lived 10 minutes away from it my whole life! It was really cool to see such narrow roads and tiny houses. A lot of the small houses have been knocked down and big ones built but the official area around the 'circle' is still quite unique. I'm so glad I FINALLY got to see it!

The Chapel which is now a home



The following is from a NY Times article on Tiny Town:
A Bite-Size Town Faces a McMansion Age October 23, 2005

NORTH MERRICK - THE houses are so small, residents say, some visitors ask whether elves and circus people live in their neighborhood, known as Tiny Town. Certain homes look more like dollhouses than residences.
Set close to the road on circular streets, some with itsy-bitsy porches and railings only two feet high, the houses -- no more than 12 feet wide and 60 feet deep, on lots 20 by 100 -- seem more fitting for an amusement park than a suburb.
But Methodists, not elves, are the reason for Tiny Town.
And development is the reason Tiny Town is in jeopardy.
The North Merrick neighborhood, which is also known as the campgrounds, sprang from annual Methodist camp meetings in the 1800's. The campgrounds were designed in concentric circles with roads as short as the length of a house, like spokes in a wheel, leading to a center clearing where a large open structure on wooden posts was established as the tabernacle. Around the circle, tents were pitched and eventually cottages were built.
A plaque in the small triangular park at the intersection of Kingsley, Peck and Fletcher Avenues attests to the neighborhood's history: the annual camp meetings were held from 1869 to the early 1920's. The Long Island Camp Meeting Association, made up largely of Brooklyn and Queens County Methodists, bought more than 60 acres in 1869 for its summer revival meetings.
The area was chosen for its shady woods, access to water and proximity to the newly completed Southside Railroad, whose trains started running from Jamaica to Babylon in 1867 and stopped in Merrick daily. Horse-drawn wagons carried visitors the mile from the Merrick station to the open-air Methodist assembly.
In 1873 there were about a dozen cottages alongside at least 200 tents in the campgrounds; by 1900 there were about 60 houses. Today, after the sale of cottages and lots so that new houses could be built, about two dozen remain in various sizes and states. The lots vary in size and shape, partly as a result of sales over the years. Some pie-shaped lots closest to the inner circle are small while others are larger, affording the ability to subdivide.
Some of the cottages are still tiny, but many have been expanded. Some of the houses are gingerbread relics with Hansel and Gretel charm, while others have long needed care.
On Wesley Avenue, a chocolate-brown cottage features rose-pink trim on the ornamental scrollwork on the gables and eaves.
At a stone cottage on Wesley, passers-by can look through a rose-covered arbor and see the stained-glass window on the door. The interior is like that of an old railroad flat, with the living room in the front, a 2-foot-wide hallway with two 9-by-6-foot bedrooms on either side, and a bathroom and kitchen in the rear.
Lori Weiner of Select A Home Island South Realty said that a dilapidated two-story house on Abbot Avenue sold for $247,000 this year; the new owner has done some work and has put it back on the market for $329,000.
Those cottages that have not been torn down are remnants of an era in which camp meetings were popular in America and offered pastoral settings for fiery preaching, conversions and reaffirmations of faith.
As many as 10,000 people a day attended the Methodist camp meetings here. ''Each train is bringing in more candidates for salvation,'' said an article on Aug. 10, 1875, in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Visiting ministers and itinerant preachers conducted the services, which lasted 10 days, according to The New York Times in August 1870; the families stayed the summer.
''There will be a splendid chance for the boys and girls to go a-huckleberrying when they gather here,'' The Times reported on Aug. 6, 1873. ''The country for miles near the grove is thick with the berries, nice and ripe and easy of access, with no one save the mosquitoes to dispute the right to them.''
Various accounts remark on such simple pleasures as the beauty of the grounds and the reprieve of cooling rains. But pleasure was not the purpose of the meetings; there were services at 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Bible readings at 8:30 a.m., The Eagle said.
Those worshiping in the woods had to abide by campground rules. Cottages and tents had to be set back six feet from the street, tenants had to keep a lantern lighted at night and a bucket of water outside in case of fire. Dancing and card playing were forbidden.
The avenue names evoke the neighborhood's history: Camp, Jerusalem, Dow (Lorenzo Dow was an itinerant Methodist preacher), Peck (Jesse T. Peck was a Methodist bishop in Syracuse). Wesley, the inner circle closest to the tabernacle, was named for John Wesley, the English clergyman who founded Methodism.
Ellen Prochilo lives in one of the original cottages in the inner circle. Her house, built around 1878, was designated a home with historic merit by the Historical Society of the Merricks, and a plaque is on the house.
''I like the uniqueness of it,'' she said of the area.
Many homeowners are hesitant to pursue historical status with the Town of Hempstead, however, because of restrictions impeding exterior renovations, like the brick inlaid New York Yankees logo on the Prochilo chimney. Only two houses in the area have received historical status from the town: 4 Peck Avenue (formerly the chapel) and 2 Wesley Avenue (originally the preacher's house).
Janet and Henry Kessin bought the preacher's house in 1982 and received landmark status in 1994. The Victorian structure has the original two-story wooden clapboard house from 1870 and 10-foot windows with the original wavy glass panes. ''We like old houses,'' Mr. Kessin said.
But the old cottages are disappearing. The lots have been bought and the cottages torn down; on one lot on Gatch Avenue, a small Depression-era cottage, beyond the original circles, was razed and two large houses built. Siding, two-car garages and shiny white PVC fences are showing up in Tiny Town.
''The whole character of the neighborhood is almost gone,'' Mr. Kessin said.
''In the last three or four years the pace of developers has quickened with the incredible rise in real estate value,'' added Mr. Kessin, who said he was disappointed and not angry, acknowledging economic pressures.
In 1873, 30-by-80-foot lots leased for $5 a year. In 1972, Joe Cook bought one of the original cottages on Wesley Avenue, which had fallen into disrepair, for $10,000.
Mr. Cook estimated that he invested $10,000 in renovations, doing some of the work himself. ''The town claims it's worth $300,000 now,'' he said.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

PASTA PIE

I know this isn't my cooking blog but this deserves to be on BOTH of my blogs!
I made this Pasta Pie from The Noble Pig. It was so easy to make and the assembly took probably like 5 minutes! PJ came home from work, took one look at it and said that I have too much time on my hands! It would make a GREAT presentation when having company over!
Click here for the recipe from the Noble Pig...
http://noblepig.com/2009/03/18/when-the-moon-hits-the-sky.aspx
I even cheated and made it simpler by adding the browned chop meat with a jar of ready made spagetti sauce!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Last night I made a nice Asian dinner. We had Hot & Sour Soup, BAKED Eggrolls and an Asian Noodle Salad. Just the salad would have been fine but I got a little carried away! The meal was pretty healthy, mostly because there was no meat involved and that the eggrolls were baked and not fried.
Asian Noodle Salad

Hot & Sour Soup... this was really good and authentic tasting. I'm going to put the recipe on my cooking blog.


Baked Eggrolls. These were pretty good but I think next time I will use the filling recipe that I used last time. It was more flavorful. PJ and I left the food on the table for Alyssa because she'd be coming home from work shortly. Before she got home, PJ caught Huckleberry on the table and chased him off. Then he said... didn't we have more eggrolls left than just 2? I thought there was 4 or 5 left! He started looking around and couldn't find any. We just figured that we were both crazy! WELL.........


Alyssa came home, walked through the dining room into the kitchen and made up a plate of food for herself. Before eating, she went back into the dining room to give Huck so more food when we heard her say "what the heck is this"? I went in there and lo and behold.... there's a missing eggroll! One of these days...


Monday, January 18, 2010

Last night some friends and I went to a comedy show to benefit the Keep A Breast Foundation and the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. The woman that organized the event, Anne L., lives in my town in the house behind my friend. I knew her and her 'partner' Rosemary, from when I worked at the gym and I would watch their 2 kids. They're a very nice family.
As we walked into the theater, we started noticing a few things... a lot of the women actually looked quite manly! We sat down and started whispering amongst ourselves and how we're getting the feeling that we're in the minority here!
The show starts with Anne talking about breast cancer and 'Feel Your Boobies' (get me out of here NOW!) etc! Anne announces the host of the show... Kit S. We didn't know if this was a girl or a guy! ( it was a girl!) All we could do was laugh. She even brought out a poster of a kid with red hair wearing a big moustache in a 7-11 ad about being I.D.'d joking about how much she looked like that kid. She was right!
So the show starts with the first comedian and I looked at my friends and we all had our mouths open! HOLY SH*T!!! We could NOT believe what these comedians were saying! To make it worse, it seemed like the rest of the audience was picking up on even more jokes than we were and they were HOWLING! It was all about sex... ALL ABOUT SEX! There were 5 different comedians there. Some have been on Comedy Central, one co-hosted a C.C. show with Jon Stewart, some have entertained at Carolines, Gotham and The Strip Club in NYC.
One of the comedians asked the audience if there's an straight men in the audience... give a hee haw. There were only 3 men there at all and they all yelled Hee Haw. Then she asked if there were any gay men there... silence. Are there any straight women.. give a hee haw. My row of friends and maybe about 5 other people in the ENTIRE audience of 300 said Hee haw! We got a little nervous all of a sudden! Then the big question... how many lesbians are in the audience and the crown gave a HUGE HEE HAW!!! I KNEW IT!!! We were sooooo in the minority!!!
We had a lot of laughs but honestly not as many as everyone else! When we went outside, Andrea said I'd kiss each of you goodnight but with this crowd.... I think we should just wave to each other! This night will always be remembered and with laughs!!!
We all made a plan to email Kris to tell her that we all crossed over. She's the one who bought the tickets and ended up missing it because she was sick. I don't think she knew it was going to be the way it was.
GOOD TIMES!!!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

PJ and I were a little bored today. We ended up going to a 70 family indoor garage sale at a church in West Babylon. What a BLAST! I picked up a few scrapbooking items for less than $1, a nice handmade tote that was $3 and PJ got a few strands of beads for us to wear at the Mardi Gras event in Feb. THEN WE STUMBLED INTO MELISSA'S DIPS!! She has a farm in Mattituck, L.I. where she grows all of her herbs and makes all of the dip mixes, rubs etc. http://sweetmelissadips.blogspot.com/
What a nice person and her dips were delisious. PJ already picked out the one he wants to have while he watches the Jet's game today! besides her dips, she had a table of decor items that all had a Long Island and Gardening themes. I was happy! I got some pottery, a shovel coat hanger (sounds ugly but was really cute), and more items. Because of her booth, we said we'd be back next year!!! GOOD TIMES!!!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Just some pics of my walk at Jones Beach with Alyssa. Itwas beautiful down there! Not even a little breeze!









Friday, January 15, 2010

I got my packet of fabric in the mail for the Quilts For Kids project. http://www.quiltsforkids.org/
It looks easy enough to make the first part but I'm a little nervous to do the binding. It comes with full instructions so hopefully I won't have a problem. There's a few of my friends that are doing this also so if I have a problem, I'm sure they'll help me out!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

You gotcha gold in yo mouth
Yo hat on the side
Lookin like a fool with yo pants on the ground

I just had to post this. It's a link to General Larry Platt's Pants On The Ground song from last nights American Idol. It should be a ringtone!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am-Y5DVjZIA
It just makes you smile!!!

French Cream of Onion Soup SHOTS with Bacon Swizzle Stix

Last night I made Louann's recipe for French Cream of Onion Soup SHOTS with Bacon Swizzle Stix. All I can say is forget making them as 'shots' and use bowls! PJ had 3 bowls of this! Don't leave out the bacon. It's important! The recipe is on my cooking blog... http://mamazukecooks.blogspot.com/

After dinner, Alyssa and I watched American Idol together. She decided to paint part of the picture that's in my header above. She took that picture at Wantagh Park. When she was finished, she gave it to ME!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

A giggle for the day...
How would you like to see this guy at the beach? Scott forwarded me this picture that he took over the summer. The guys suit was a bright yellow banana hammock!! The following week, Alyssa saw him wearing that same yellow hammock!!!


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I can finally post pictures of the living room and dining room makeovers now that PJ has come home. He noticed the dining room right as he walked in the door. He's usually oblivious! He liked it! The bottom and chair rail were already freshly painted. PJ was disgusted and said to just leave the old 23 YEAR OLD wall paper up! I hated the way the colors looked together. I found this wall paper that in real life (other than in pictures), matches beautifully!
The flowers that Dave gave to Alyssa also matches the room!
I have to fix that molding. I tried to nail it back in using the holes that were already there. In that spot, the plaster cracked where the hole was so the nail wouldn't stay in. I might just put a dab of glue in that one little spot.

The living room color isn't really the same color as the pictures. It's more of a bluish gray but then again, when the sun shines in, it does look like lt. blue. The room looks much bigger and it gives a comfort feeling. PJ isn't sure that he likes the color but OH WELL!!!
Someday I'll change that picture but it will stay for now.
I also need to cover those pillows or just buy new ones because the definately do NOT match anything! They go with the sofa that used to be in the living room that we switched for the leather one on the porch. Also that blanket on the black sofa doesn't help but that sofa is so darn cold in the winter. We had to put that on it so we could sit on the sofa!



The color goes GREAT with this picture.



Sunday, January 10, 2010

Chris came home for a week long visit. He lost a lot of weight. One of the first things he did when he got home was get his banjo to keep in the dining room so he remembers to take it back with him!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

I LOVE CAST IRON!

I have a small collection (8) of cast iron pans that are in different sizes, shapes etc. I LOVE when they're old and have a story behind them. You could just feel the love that went into cooking with them! YUP! I'm romantic when it comes to cookware!
I had gotten this cast iron pan from a garage sale last summer for 75 CENTS! The woman that sold it to me said it was her Grandmother's pan but who really knows if that's true. I re-seasoned my other cast iron pans yesterday so I included this one too. I posted on 2 P's what people though gets made in this pan because all I thought of was corn bread. Quite a few people said they think it's an Aebleskiver Pan. After doing a google search, I think they're right. I'll have to try a recipe for them maybe this week!


Thursday, January 7, 2010

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog but I've been so CRAZY busy lately. PJ and Scott and down in New Orleans. While they are gone, I decided to tackle a MAJOR job of painting the living room a COMPLETELY different color and wall papering the dining room. Only Alyssa knows. It will be a complete surprise when PJ walks in the door tonight! He has our camera with him so I can't post pics yet. Stay tuned...