Hello Summer, Goodbye PLL

You know it is officially summer when you're able to finally get fresh strawberries and rhubarb. My father cut some rhubarb from one of his plants and he bought some strawberries from a local farm. I could wait to make a strawberry rhubarb pie, one of my favorite pies to make and eat! I discovered last summer, that the trick to a perfect rhubarb pie is the addition of an egg. I found this by accident when I was looking for a strawberry rhubarb pie recipe and the one I used happened to include an egg. What makes this so essential, compared to other recipes that omit the egg, is the way the fruit and sugars bake. The egg absorbs a lot of the juices and makes a thick sauce. I have had many strawberry rhubarb pies that tasted wonderful but were incredibly runny. By simply adding an egg along with the sugar to the fruit and mixing thoroughly, you get a nicer pie in the end. I had so much fruit, I ended up making two pies, one for my parents and one for myself. This is one of my favorite things about summer, all the pies that I get to make!

I repurposed pallets to make a compost bin.

Now that summer is in full swing, I have been putting a lot of energy into the house and the garden. It can get pretty exhausting, but it will be well worth it once winter arrives. The weather has been so gloomy lately. The week before was perfect weather, the week before that was nothing but humid and horrid. This past week, the weather has been partly cloudy with a chance of showers, almost every day. One day, I was trying to clean and organize my garage and that was tricky because the rain kept coming and going. in between rain showers it would be nearly sunny, then it would rain again. If I were just cleaning the garage, it would be fine, but I like to keep my dogs in our fenced in area of our yard. That way, they aren't left inside where they can get into all kinds of mischief. My goal for Monday is to get the garage cleaned.

I was very happy to finally get my compost bin built. It was very simple to do. I looked up a number or ways to do it on Pinterest and Youtube. I decided to take an easy way. I had my husband help me move the pallets to rest behind the garage. Then, I stood one next to another and tied the sides together using a thick yarn that is meant for macrame. I found that tying the upper and lower corners of each side was the easiest way. Then, I tacked a mesh material to the bottom and I used scrap wood slats to weave through the front and side of the bin and that created a brace for the mesh. The point of the mesh at the bottom was so that air could circulate all around the compost and allow it to break down properly.

Once the bin was built, I took all the leaf piles that we had throughout the yard and transferred them to the bin. I also added the extra apples that I had in the basement over the winter and the compost from the kitchen. While I'm tidying the garage, I hope to create a special area for the recycling and I'll be one step closer to getting the house organized. All of this is to help the household function better in the colder months.

What happens to abandoned dolls. It hardly seems dignified.

PLL SPOILERS! If you haven't watched the final episode, don't read this!

So, after seven years of faithfully watching Pretty Little Liars, the show came to and end. I have mixed feelings about this. It's bad enough that my beloved Orphan Black is heading towards the sunset, this was just too much. The only reason I started to watch PLL, was because House wasn't on one night. With nothing to watch, I found myself channel surfing and stumbled on Holly Marie Combs, so I assumed that a re-run of Charmed was on, so I settled on that. What I thought was one show, turned out to the pilot of the new show Pretty Little Liars. The show had a bit of intrigue and being the sucker for Agatha Christie that I am, I couldn't stop watching it. The show had its hooks in me. After that, I couldn't miss an episode. As an adult watching the show, I thought that many aspects of the story line were disturbing. "Ezria", for instance, was very creepy. I don't care about the fact that the teacher was fresh out of college, it was beyond inappropriate and also totally illegal. Yet, most fans wanted those two love birds to make it. Was it because he was charming and had a baby face? The relationship was a bit reminiscent of The Thorn Birds, but also a bit Lolita. It was very toxic and the relationship continued to grow more and more disturbing. Yet, in the end, fans gushed when they finally made it down the aisle. 

Poor Wren, that's ll I have to say about him.

The final episode was long and the first part of the episode seemed to drag a long bit. I honestly think the show would have been better if it had ended back when CeCe was revealed, but I don't think they ever should have made her A, in the first place. If the show was going to end, I think that it would have been okay to end the show on episode 19 with AD driving away. It would have really angered the fans, but if they had AD look into the rearview mirror, revealing their face, that would have been enough for me. However, the writers wanted to tie up loose ends and explain it all. The problem is, it seems like there were a lot of holes throughout the story, The never explained why their therapist had an existing file on Aria, or why AD favored Aria over the other girls. They tried to make three different A's, one picking up from the other. Also, when AD was revealed, it wasn't too shocking as many fans had picked up on clues from previous episodes of the final season. However, when it was revealed, they actual character, was annoying to me. As much as I like the actress, the character felt too much like a rip-off of the Sarah Manning character from Orphan Black. A London punk, grifter, with cockney accent takes over the life of a woman who looks exactly like her, taking her boyfriend and her friends. It wasn't direct theft, as this is a common story used in books and film, but the similarities were enough to irritate me. At the end of it all, I was glad it was finally over, not because I hate the show, but because I didn't like the way the story was going. I'm glad it had a happy ending, but I just wish it ended differently. I did love the last bit with Mona, she was a fantastic character. That part of the ending did have a bit of a Hitchcock flair.

With the show done, I will be a little bummed when winter comes and there won't be a new season. However, there is always Netflix and the books to read. So, if I ever need my fix, I can turn on the show while I bake cookies.  I will look forward to watching Lucy Hale in her new show, this Fall. It actually looks kind of cute and it would be nice to watch to balance out the emotions endured after watching Supernatural. 

That pretty much sums up what's been happening in my world. Gardening, cleaning, watching tv and trying to build a quilt. It may not be crazy exciting, but this is what happens when the weather isn't reliable. Also, the end of the school year was tremendously hectic, so I'll take the boring for a while. Things will be picking up again, soon, it is summer after all. Until next time~ Toodahloo!