Thursday, April 30, 2009

Fallingwater

I was in Farmington, PA the past few days for a business conference at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort. I had a free morning and took the opportunity to visit Fallingwater, the famous home built over a waterfall - designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family.

I was intially disappointed to learn that there are no tours of the house on Wednesdays -the only time I was able to go - but was able to purchase a grounds pass, which is essentially a self-guided tour of the exterior. I figured this was better than nothing.

I was so pleased with the experience. Although I wasn't able to go inside the house, I could still walk around on several of the terraces, and peer in the windows. Since the outdoor spaces of Fallingwater are an integral part of the overall design, I still got a strong sense of the style and feel of it all.

the iconic view of Fallingwater


And the best part? THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE THERE. I am not kidding about this. There was one other car in the parking lot, and whoever it was, I never saw them. 135,000 people visit Fallingwater every year, and I had the grounds completely to myself. No people wandering through my photos. No pressure to hurry along. It was a wonderful silver lining, and I left not minding so much that I hadn't gotten the full tour.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Kitty's Under the Weather


I found a scary lump on my kitty's stomach, and took her to the vet last week to get it checked. Poor little thing has a hernia which will need surgery. :-(

The operation isn't scheduled until May 6. She also has a heart condition - well controlled with medication - but the vet wants her on a super-duper high octane medication for a month before doing the surgery. So I have to keep a VERY close eye on her in the meantime, and hope things do not go awry. If she gets worse, they'll just go ahead and operate and we'll hope for the best.

The good news is that she doesn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort at all - in fact, I'm not sure she's even aware of the hernia. She's probably just wondering why I'm fussing over her so much.

Keep your fingers crossed, okay?


Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Where the %!$#@ is Spring?

This is what it looked like outside this morning.


(sigh) I am SO tired of this. I want to plant flowers, and barbeque, and lay in my hammock.

At least I can feel better about procrastinating in getting the snow tires taken off the Beretta.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

A Kitchen Innovation

Mom got me this cool new gadget the other day...it's called a BeaterBlade+. It's a replacement mixing blade for my KitchenAid stand mixer. What makes it special is the rubber wings on the blade that scrape the bowl as it's mixing, theoretically eliminating the need to stop the mixer and scrape. Supposedly it will reduce mixing time by up to 50%.

Naturally, I had to try it out immediately. So, I made...a cheesecake. Shocking, huh?


It worked beautifully - I am very impressed. I don't think that it cut my mixing time in half, but it definitely made things faster and easier. This will come in quite handy when December rolls around and I am cranking out several dozen cheesecakes for Christmas gifts.


So, I had a yummy Oreo cheesecake stashed in the fridge when my friend Trig called about an impromtu get-together with friends at his house Friday night. Not much in the way of leftovers!