Friday was my birthday and it was so nice-got a ton of birthday greetings, went out for dinner with husband, daughter and MIL (son was working) and really appreciated the gifts of good health, my family, work I love, a home to shelter me and friends to wish me well. This afternoon my dad and stepmother are hosting a family pool party/barbecue to initiate the family birthday 'season'--in our large extended family between my birthday on August 31st and my son's on January 22 there are 16 birthdays! Today will also be the first time my sisters and I have seen each other in several weeks so that's always a party :). Can't wait for swimming, lounging, gossping and laughing with the people I love most in the world. Tomorrow I'm going out diving and lobster hunting with my husband. A boating day along is our special time, what a joy to be on that gorgeous blue ocean with the peace and calm of the day all around us. Ann

blizlady, that would be Sherry (sheshebop), she makes the spinach "brownies" and I love 'em. How many people do you have to serve appetizers to, Dawn? Little pate choux puffs, tiny cream puffs, can be filled with various fillings including chicken salad, egg, tuna or seafood salad, a thick southwestern chicken kind of filling, whatever you like. I make rye puffs and fill with reuben fillings and they can be done ahead of time easily. Reuben Puffs 1 cup water 1/2 cup butter, cubed 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup rye flour 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 4 eggs Caraway seeds CORNED BEEF FILLING: 2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened 2 packages (2 ounces each) thinly sliced deli corned beef, chopped 1/2 cup mayonnaise 1/4 cup sour cream 2 tablespoons minced chives 2 tablespoons diced onion 1 teaspoon spicy brown or horseradish mustard 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring water and butter to a boil. Add flours, parsley, garlic powder and salt all at once; stir until a smooth balls forms. Remove from the heat; let stand for 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat until smooth. Drop batter by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets or make puffs with a pastry bag. Sprinkle with caraway. Bake at 400° for 18-20 minutes or until golden. Remove to wire racks. Immediately cut a slit in each puff to allow steam to escape; cool. In a large bowl, combine the first eight filling ingredients. Split puffs; add filling. Refrigerate. Yield: 4-1/2 dozen. I make these cheese thumbprints filled with hot pepper jelly, they are pretty popular. I make my own habanero jelly to fill them with, but anything you like could be used, including salsa. I got the recipe from Carol (Readinglady) and she's never given me a bad recipe! Savory Cheddar And Jalapeno Jelly Cookies 8 oz (about 2 1/2 cups) finely grated (use smallest holes on grater box) extra-sharp cheddar cheese 6 tbs (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 cup all purpose flour 1/3 cup jalapeno jelly, apple butter, or chopped chutney Place cheese ad butter in a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add flour and process until mixture forms a soft dough. Gather up dough and divide into two flat disks. Wrap in wax paper and freeze until chilled, about 45 minutes. Position two racks in center and top third of oven. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone pads. Place the jelly in a small plastic bag and force it into one corner. Snip off the corner of the bag to make a small hole. Set bag aside. Using 1 tsp of dough for each, roll the dough into small balls. Place the balls 1-inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Using the end of a wooden spoon or a 1/2-inch wide dowel, poke an indentation in each cookie. Pipe the jelly from bag into the indentation. Return to the oven and bake, switching the position of the sheets from top to bottom, halfway through baking, until the tops are lightly browned, about 10 minutes (the cookies will continue to crisp as they cool). Transfer to a wire cake racks and cool completely. Can be prepared 2 days in advance in stored in air tight containers at room temperature. OK, first I use a spoon, not a bag, for the jelly, I made a big mess with that ziplock bag thing. Second I bake them one pan at a time, I don't do the remove/switch thing, it's easier for me to do one pan at a time. Third, this dough is very similar to another one posted here by Weed, so you could wrap it around an olive or pecan, etc., and make a whole difrferent kind of appetizer. I doubt I'd take the time to wrap the dough, I'd probably plunk an olive in the middle of the "cookie" and call it good, LOL. If you don't do something like the puffed sandwiches, Ann T's Gougiere would be lovely, I think. An antipasta plate could be nice and could be entirely assembled ahead of time and I've had Caprese-on-a-stick, which was basically a cherry tomato, a chunk of marinated mozzarella, an olive and a leaf of basil, all skewered for serving. Meatballs would stay hot in a crockpot or small Nesco roaster without any last minute prep at all, as would chicken wings, although those could be messy unless they are boneless. Do you need something sweet, or just savory stuff? Annie

Our family reunion is tomorrow. We plan on going and spending a fun day with family, those we see all the time and those we only see on this day. If we aren't too tired, we are going out dancing saturday night (I need a drink). Sunday is the big University of Kentucky and University of Louisville (this is where my daughter is currently enrolled) football game. Go Cards!!!. This is a big rivalry, a friend of ours is having a cookout/Texas hold 'em/watch the ball game/ all day event at his house-it is a great time. There will be lots of people there rooting for both teams, so it should be a lot of fun. Monday morning is our town's annual Labor Day Parade-our county fair has been going on this week, it ends Sunday with a horse show, and then monday the icing on the cake is the parade. After the parade we all gather at my house for burgers and dogs on the grill. I'm tired and happy just thinking about all the fun stuff planned for the weekend. Maybe next weekend we can have a nice quite time.

If your wife is wanting some distinct separation between the kitchen and family room, there are a lot of ways to achieve that other than a second island. However, it is somewhat of a personal thing what feels right to her. There's people who pretty much want the kitchen to feel as if it's in the family room. EVERYTHING open. There's people who want the kitchen nowhere near living spaces. EVERYTHING closed. And then there's the nebulous open-but-not-TOO-open-kitchen people, and that relationship is harder to pin down. I suspect your wife is in this category, so I'd suggest she comb through pictures on Houzz and Pinterest and look specifically for spatial relations that she likes between the kitchen and family room. Like, ignoring finishes and other elements of the kitchen, just pick out pictures where the connection between the living and family room is the amount of defined/open/closed she would like. For example, the following are pictures I've pulled for myself to help me grasp what kind of spatial separation I want and to help me to explain that to others. I've always liked the relationship between the kitchen and the dining and family rooms in this house: Here's a link to more pictures of that house (including showing how the kitchen overlooks the family room a bit while still being a very separate room): http://www.hammersmith.net/cottage-design/ With that house, definition comes a central hallway, doorways, and the general fact that kitchen is offset from both the dining and living rooms rather than having all the rooms centered on each other. I also like how the kitchen here is separated from the family room with a fireplace: My favorite of all these is from this house: http://hookedonhouses.net/2013/01/11/designer-betsy-burnham-updates-a-1930s-tudor/ That house has a kitchen with a real kitchen table and a small TV area (more of a keeping room situation): And then it has a completely separate living room (visually, aurally, and olfactorily separate from the kitchen) in another part of the house: This really isn't at all to suggest that you will like what I've picked for myself. It's more to show you that there are options for creating room definition beyond a second island. A fireplace, built-ins, half walls, wide doorways or archways, a hallway, a change in flooring (type or level), a change in ceiling, etc. can all be options to would create definition between rooms, and I'm sure there's more that I'm not thinking of. Even just off-setting the rooms as in the first photo above goes a long way. Here's built-ins, archways, and a change in floor level all in one: Here's a big doorway and some extra space between the kitchen and living room creating definition: Here's a ceiling change between the two rooms: