Today was a day for puttering; a day for relaxing and just doing things I want to do, not that I have to do. So Mom and I met up early and headed to the nursery to find some flowers. I wanted something in reds and white for the holidays, which proved a little more difficult than I anticipated. There were some beautiful blood red velvet petunias, but not enough to do the front garden. But they were gorgeous so I picked them up for the back patio.

The pictures don’t do these justice, because they are just a deep, deep red and a perfect color for Christmas.

For the front we went with begonias. White and red begonias with beautiful green leaves. We moved the bougainvillea to the back so it can get sun since Bob doesn’t want the tree on the side taken out (more on that in a second) and then alternated the begonias.

My hope is that these will grow together and blanket the front garden.

But the bougainvillea. My poor, poor plant. I bought it a few years ago because I though it was so beautiful. Variegated leaves and salmon flowers. So stunning, but it never did well in the front. And I didn’t want to add pots to the back so we kept it in the front and just hoped. Well … I finally found a pot I wanted to actually have in the back.

I still can’t describe the color exactly, but the blue is just stunning. Mom and I saw it as soon as we pulled into the nursery and that was it – this was the pot for the bougainvillea. So … We picked it up and replanted it in the back. It get lots and lots of sun so my hope is that by the summer it will bloom.

On the food front, I think I mentioned the pulled pork last post. I woke up Sunday really wanting pulled pork for some reason. So I hit the store and picked up a half picnic. I cut it in half (since there are only two of us) and seared it

with cayenne pepper and chili powder. Nothing else, just those two. After it was seared I added a bottle of hard cider and a cup of vegetable broth. Into a 250 degree oven for three hours (covered). In the meantime, I made up a batch of grandmom’s BBQ sauce

and some focaccia rolls.

I wanted to do something a little special for them so I added some fried shallots to the top before baking them.

To balance this just a little I made an apple, cucumber and celery slaw – just those three ingredients with salt, lemon and a lint bit of white balsamic vinegar.

the final result …

This was one of my best pulled pork sandwiches ever. I’m not exactly sure why, but this is what happens when you don’t write down what you do.