I/J IS STARTING OFF INCREDIBLY TASTY

Posted on March 4, 2026 by abcsisters

Grandscape has been a great pool of a place for us to dip our toes into new experiences, shops and eateries. This month we found two additional places to try and they sure were winners.

New eatery: JUGO

It is definitely a bit hard to find the store you’re looking for in Grandscape but with some help from others we found it. Jugo sells smoothies and juices, but Laura is fond of bowls, so we looked at the menu and opted for the PB Bowl. We shared the 12 oz. bowl, and it was more than enough. This bowl was made up of acai, strawberries, blueberries, peanut butter and bananas and topped with crunchy granola, coconut flakes, and a drizzle of honey.

OMG. We’ve never said “delicious” so many times while eating something as we did at this sitting.

New Ice Cream: BAKED BEAR CUSTOM ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

We convinced ourselves that we had a healthy lunch so there was no problem if we just took a look at a new ice cream shop. After a half an eye blink, we walked into the Baked Bear Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches store. Although one could get just a plain old ice cream cup or cone, we felt it was our duty to try out a custom-made sandwich. First. we picked out our cookies. Barbara chose a chocolate chip and a snickerdoodle; Laura chose a chocolate chip and a gooey butter cookie. Then we chose our ice cream flavors: mud pie for Laura and caramel pretzel fudge for Barbara. We opted out of a topping but did get them warmed up. Delicioso!

This Grandscape trip received a 10 out of 10!

New Book – I LIKED MY LIFE by Abby Fabiaschi

Barbara: The theme of this book is how one’s loved ones would be affected if they are told their mother/wife has committed suicide. I love it when a book has characters that I enjoy hearing from and then doubly love when the book is told from their different perspectives. (I’m always floored when people in my book group hate going back and forth between characters or time periods, but I guess that’s what makes the world go ‘round.) This book has both. It has 4 major characters, each nicely developed and because of the back and forth I never felt as if the story was going on too long. I was also looking forward to how it would be resolved. If your taste in novels coincides with mine then I recommend you read this book.

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INTERNATIONAL CELEBRATION

Posted on March 1, 2026 by abcsisters

Yes, we realize this happened on the last day of the previous month and therefore not technically I/J month, but what better way to break our hiatus than by watching a lovely Lunar New Year Festival. Kroger Marketplace in Plano had an array of booths with both liquid and solid treats to sample, all of which we enjoyed but the main attractions were the small orchestra playing some Asian music, youngsters showing their acrobatic skills, and most importantly the Chinese Lion Dance. The weather was ideal for this and it was nice seeing the young children watching the show with wide eyes and open mouths.

BUT I AND J ARE ON THEIR WAY!!

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HIKING AT THE HEARD

Posted on September 22, 2025 by abcsisters

New Activity: Bat Night Hike

Ever since we were under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin just as hundreds to thousands of bats took flight, we’ve been wanting to revisit the bats. Fortunately, we noticed that the Heard Museum offers a Bat Night Hike. Being a lot closer to us than Austin, it was calling our name.

We were divided into five groups of roughly 14 people each. Unfortunately our tour guide had lost her voice so unless you were right next to her – nothing was heard at the Heard! Not fun when you are depending on the guide’s knowledge to make things interesting. And on top of that, we didn’t see one bat! It’s laughable but what we did see was a spider web, heard an owl and had a coyote’s dried up poop pointed out to us. So although the hike was a bust, the 20-minute slide show and talk preceding the hike was interesting. For example, we learned that:

* There are more than 1,400 species of bats worldwide – 32 of which are in Texas. That’s the most in any state.

* The largest bat colony in the world is in San Antonio in Braken Cave. It houses a summer maternity colony of up to 20 million Mexican Free-Tailed bats.

* Bats love to eat a wide variety of insects and save farmers roughly $23 billion each year.

*And if you think pregnant humans like to eat a lot – a nursing bat mother can consume about 4,500 insects every night!

*If we didn’t have bats, we wouldn’t get to enjoy avocados, bananas, mangoes or chocolate since these foods depend on bats for pollination.

*Bats are the only flying mammal (sorry Superman).

And we also learned that not every outing scores big because this one definitely didn’t bat one out of the ballpark.

TAKING A HIATUS

For the next month or two, we will be taking a break. Traveling and the holidays are taking center stage!

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HEROES WITH HOSES

Posted on September 15, 2025 by abcsisters

New activity: CITY OF PLANO FIRE DEPARTMENT CITIZENS’ ACADEMY

Barbara: Before Covid, I had enrolled in the City of Plano Police Department Citizens’ Academy, and it was a great experience except that it was cut short halfway through by Covid. But I had also heard that there was a similar Academy for citizens through the Plano Fire Department and I finally had the free time to go to their classes so I enrolled. Now my long-time friends probably laughed when they heard that, considering the thing that frightens me the most is fire or actually anything the least bit hot. When I was a young girl, I understand that I kissed the toaster because I loved toast so much and it burned my lips, which could explain the fear of hot things. But I decided I wanted to learn as much as I could about fire and fire fighting.

Boy has this experience been an eye-opener. First, to learn all the things there are to learn about fire and to have wonderful hands-on experience in, for example, opening a hydrant, running a hose, forced entry, and I’m yet to do the day where we possibly get to drive the engine, climb a ladder as though we were saving someone and other activities.

But some of the truly good experiences are our ride-alongs. This is where we pick a time slot and a station and spend several hours with the firemen, learning about them and going with them on calls. I have such a new respect for our brave firemen. I won’t go into some of the things I learned about them here, but what they have to face every week is not easy and yet they love their jobs and would do nothing else. As one gentleman said “every day we get to help someone“. I understand that the city of Plano has many such academies, including the two I’ve mentioned but also one with the Prosecutor‘s office, one with the city government, one with the Sheriff’s office and I’m not sure if there are any others. Definitely these academies are something I would suggest enrolling in as they are very worthwhile.

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HOT DOGS AND HAMBURGERS

Posted on September 14, 2025 by abcsisters

The summer is nearly over but not so for our love of two summer favorites: hot dogs and hamburgers. This month we discovered three restaurants we had not yet tried to give us a last feel of summer.

New restaurant: Oh K-Dog

This was definitely a unique experience for us. We reached the address in Richardson where the restaurant was supposed to be but couldn’t find it. After calling we found that it was in a food court within a large Korean market. Looking at the menu above the food counter, the dogs looked like nothing we’d seen before. We opted for the Sweet Potato Mozz Dog but there was no one cooking in the restaurant. It turned out there is one large ordering counter where you placed your order, and it wasn’t until then that someone came and started cooking it. Then when it was ready it was broadcast over a loudspeaker. The cook gave us an option of dipping the coating in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, which of course we took. It was huge and quite delicious, but what we didn’t realize was that we should have specified a dog with sweet potato and mozzarella added because the way we ordered, we received a “dog” made up of melted mozzarella, coated with sweet potatoes. Delicious, but we still hadn’t really had an actual hot dog!

So now we were on the hunt for a traditional hot dog…

New restaurant: TJ’S DAWG HOUSE

TJ’s is a food truck that at lunch time stations itself for now in the Lowe’s parking lot in Richardson. We were guided there by the 70s music coming out of his loudspeaker. TJ himself was very friendly and looks like he has a lot of fun in his job. Per his website, “Everybody that comes to this window gets my family and friend’s discount. I’ve watched kids grow up here—kids who came at five years old are now driving themselves to the truck. They tell me, ‘I used to come here with my dad.’ That hits you, you know?” He admits that it’s no easy feat to run a food truck and “it taught me how fine the line is between work and life, and how important it is not to cross it. So, if I don’t show up tomorrow, it’s probably kiddo Sunday. Don’t get mad at me.”

TJ’s truck was as fun lovin’ as the man who cooks in it. The music set the tone and the many signs on his truck were fun to read: “Never argue with a woman. If you win, things might get worse”, “No ketchup unless under the age of 17” (that one rings a bell with hot dog purists!), and many others.   The hot dog choices were many. Barbara chose the Beantown Dog which had cheddar cheese and baked beans on a ¼ pound hot dog and bun. Laura opted for the New Yorker, which came with that same dog covered with sauerkraut. The prices are extremely reasonable and we loved our hot dogs but TJ himself is what brings people back time and again and will for us as well.

FUN FACT:

“The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates that Americans eat about seven billion hot dogs between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This averages to about 20.6 hot dogs per American per summer.” We’re just doing our part!

New restaurant: HAT CREEK BURGER

We went into this establishment thinking their burgers would just taste like any other fast-food burger, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that none of their burgers are frozen and are made from Nolan Ryan beef, which is a high quality beef sourced from Black Angus cattle. The burger was very juicy. We both ordered the Pretzel Jack, which is made with pepper jack cheese, pickles, avocado and honey mustard all on a pretzel bun and can even be ordered gluten-free. Loved it!

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“G” GAINS MORE GROUND

Posted on August 18, 2025 by abcsisters

New gallery: Skypony GALLERY

Can one tire of visiting an art gallery? Not these sisters! You never know what you will discover and Skypony Gallery, located in the Willow Bend Mall, was a lucky find. This large gallery houses a great collection of creative art by local and national artists! All types of art, all styles, all mediums…truly a feast for the eyes. Barbara bought a beautiful pendant and fought the temptation to add another hat to her collection. Laura was thoroughly impressed with the various prints that were modestly priced and wished she had discovered this place years ago. In addition to the art, Skypony boasts an extra feature that distinguishes them from most other galleries in that they have a meeting room complete with full bar and often host a variety of events: rock bands, comedy acts, book signings, discussions and other fun ways for patrons to connect.

New restaurant: The GYRO Shop

Have you ever passed a local restaurant hundreds of times but never set foot inside? We’re sure that’s as true for many as it is for us. We both really like gyros, so for our G month it was only fitting for us to finally try our neighborhood restaurant – The Gyro Shop in Plano. The colorful wall mural set the tone for a relaxed experience

but it was the Lamb Gyro Sandwich that made our day. Huge and delicious! The lamb was scrumptious and the tzatziki topping was like icing on the cake. (Surprisingly, we learned that residents in northern Greece often top their gyros with ketchup or mustard – a definite “no no” in our book.) Now when we drive past this shop, the pull to stop will be hard to ignore.

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GETTING A SLOW START WITH “G”

Posted on August 12, 2025 by abcsisters

New food: GOAT BALLS

For some reason, this month just crept up on us and before we knew it 11 days had gone by and we hadn’t done anything for our ABC Life. We decided to correct this immediately by revisiting one of our favorite casual restaurants, Rodeo Goat. We have a soft spot for goats ever since our experience with Goat Yoga many years ago.

We started out splitting a Nanny Goat burger which had, of course, goat cheese on it and then for dessert, an order of goat balls (shown above). These were beignet type balls filled with chocolate and graham crumbs and accompanied by melted marshmallow for dipping. How can you go wrong?!

LEARNING CENTER

Speaking of goats, where did the saying “got your goat” originate? Turns out those cute little guys are calming influences on other animals. The phrase “got my goat” means to annoy or irritate someone. Its origin is believed to be related to horse racing, where goats were kept with racehorses to calm them. If someone removed the goat, it would upset the horse, leading to a loss of performance. So… on a particular day that we feel very out of sorts we will now blame it on someone stealing our (imaginary) goats.

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FARMERSVILLE FINALE

Posted on August 2, 2025 by abcsisters

New city visit: FARMERSVILLE

Oh, how we love to visit a small city we haven’t been to, and Farmersville was no exception. Did you know it was known as the Onion Capital and sold onion cough syrup, cold cream and lotion, among other oniony things. (Hmm..not sure we’d want to lather ourselves with onion scented lotion, but to each his own). We started with the Farmersville Heritage Museum and learned quite a bit, in large part due to the friendly curator, John. He was more than happy to walk through the museum and comment on what we saw. Audie Murphy, war hero and actor, though not actually born in the town, is claimed by them and they have nearly half the museum dedicated to his wartime honors and then his movies. We had no idea he made so many movies, even one named after both our home town and new state, “Texas, Brooklyn, Heaven.”

The rest of the museum mentioned some other men and women of a bit of fame but the thing we thought was funny was when John talked about their old-fashioned telephone booth. He told us that when he shows it to children and tells them that the first thing you do when you want to make a call is to see if there’s a dial tone, they look at him with blank stares. We had seen some kids in the past who didn’t know how to work a rotary phone, but it never dawned on us that the youth today haven’t even heard of the concept of a dial tone!

On we went to the 12 Stories Coffeehouse for a wonderful cup of espresso and a combination croissant/cinnamon bun. Their motto is: “We pride ourselves in embodying the stories of 12 people and organizations that exemplify the characteristics we value.” Their 12 characteristics are excellence, innovation, invitation, education, journey, humility, unity, service, discipleship, honor, passion and equality.

Last but not least, we visited a couple of antique stores where we gave in to our impulses. Laura likes to buy something that makes her smile or laugh when she looks at it so this little monkey hit the key and Barbara loves to wear vintage hats so this hat from the 30s suited her just fine.

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F IS FULL OF FACTS

Posted on July 30, 2025 by abcsisters

New activity: FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF DALLAS

Barbara: Laura’s schedule didn’t allow for this visit but luckily, I had 3 wonderful people who were game for a drive to the Federal Reserve Bank. My friend, Pam, already had been but she grabbed her hubby, Steve, and I grabbed A.D. and off we went.

The early bills looked quite a bit more lavish than those we have today.

I learned so much. I didn’t realize that originally “coins” were actually “paper coins” and they were nicknamed “shinplasters” since soldiers lined their worn out boots with the notes. Also, that in the 1800s states, railroads, stores – even the city I live in – were able to issue their own currency.

There were many more plus some interactive areas and I’m proud to say I was able to recognize 4 out of the 5 counterfeit bills. Definitely worth the visit.

LEARNING CENTER: FECES

Yes, I said feces. Get this: according  to the Encyclopedia Brittania, each year in April hundreds of people in the southern Indian village of Kairuppala, throw cow dung at each other in a celebration called the Pidakala War, which recalls a mythological marriage dispute between two deities. Can you imagine if that was a holiday here? What do you think it would be called?

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FANTASTIC FLAVOR/FILM FAILURE

Posted on July 22, 2025 by abcsisters

New Baking Success : FLUTTERNUTTER BLONDIES

Who can resist that name? Not us. Plus, the picture also enticed us. With the typical ingredients of flour, eggs, sugar and heavy cream, the recipe also contained the goodness of creamy peanut butter and marshmallow creme. The FlutterNutter Blondies were delicious. Really yum – and they were interesting in that the first bite was good but each consecutive bite increased the flavor. All in all, it made the “let’s do it again” dessert list.

New movie – The Bride of FRANKENSTEIN

Don’t you just hate when you revisit movies from your childhood and they don’t hold up? The Bride of Frankenstein is touted as a trailblazer for horror comedies. It’s the second of the Frankenstein movies and the director wanted it to be a bit different, aiming for high style, witty sophistication and satire on monster movies. We were not impressed. The viewers back in 1950 when the film was released might have felt differently, but with our 21st century viewpoint, the film missed the mark for us.

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