I am so easily distracted.....

Life has been a little bittersweet lately. Laurie and her Mr. B had a mutual parting of ways, and the Big Green Closet Formerly Known as Laurie's Room, is now Laurie's Room again. Though we are sad about the circumstances, and we miss her Mr. B and Bella, we are enjoying having her with us for as long as she likes, while she gets her feet under her again and decides what her next steps will be.

One huge positive next step:

She posed for a "First Day of School" picture for me this week. She is only six credits away from an associate degree.... Whoo hooo! She's taking a tough world history class with her friend Jenny.

Another bittersweet happening.... Our "adopted-son" Patrick's parents (our former pastor and his wife) traveled back here from their new home in Alabama, to visit friends, and visit Patrick, and baptize new great granddaughters (twins!).

Here Pastor PJ is talking to another member and I caught him from behind.... it was SO good to see him again.















Here is Patrick and Pastor and Nelda.




















And here is Patrick and Tijae and son Cage....




















Tijae is daughter Karen's BFF (it's becoming a very small world!) and her son Cage is the most awesome young man I've ever met. My hat is off to her. She is a fantastic mom, and her efforts with her son have sure paid off - he is an outgoing, polite, happy, engaging, curious and extremely smart little boy! He really likes Patrick too - so he has great taste!! :)

Here's a picture of the twins and their parents. I didn't get a really good picture, but I think those babies would have looked beautiful no matter what!















Watching Pastor in his old position at the front of the church, hearing his voice as he baptized his great granddaughters and then blessed us, it took me back about ten years to when my kids were teens and life was (unbeknownst to me at the time) much, much easier! I felt so many emotions that day; wistful for days gone by, gratitude for how well my daughters are doing and for their presence in my home, sadness that this may have been the last time I would see Pastor PJ..... who knows where the next year or two will take us.... if the housing market ever turns, we still want to get out of here and find some land and settle down to a simpler, quieter lifestyle. So we may not be here the next time he visits. :(

I keep getting side tracked. And blogging has been way off the radar screen recently. Mr. B has complained that "all he sees are those vegetables" from the last post when he checks my blog.

I refrained from reminding him that at least I blog a few times a month, unlike a certain Curmudgeon, who had me set him up a blog a year ago so that he could blog from a political standpoint, throughout the current election. Ahem.....

Not one entry yet..... Silly Curmudgeon!

Speaking of vegetables (and fruits).... my cantelopes stopped growing at a rather petite size and then ripened. And tasted GREAT. Karen loved them!




































Anyway, as you will see below, I've been pretty aimlessly flitting from activity to activity.... but I actually have accomplished a few things.

Three more blocks for my Saturday Sampler are done, including month #6, and two of the three extra squares originally included in the sampler.... I will take pictures later when I get all 16 blocks done. I have to make four blocks on my own (as I did not want to do a center medallion, and just wanted a king sized with four blocks where the medallion was). So I am thinking about making a few blocks from last year's Saturday Sampler for those four.... the finished blocks are the same size, so I will just have to see if last year's patterns lend themselves to the style of this year's blocks....

Michael sat down with some of my cooking magazines last week and started marking some recipes he "wanted to try". He even offered to do the cooking, and I would certainly be thrilled if he wanted to do that (and clean the kitchen afterwards, teehee!)....but I decided to try one recipe he found for something along the lines of "Cheeseburger Bundles". That was not the name, but I don't want to get in trouble for publishing a recipe on the blog that is from a paid subscription. I majorly tweaked the recipe anyway, so here's what they look like, and my recipe is below the pix. (He declared the recipe to be a "keeper", so I'll make them again in a month or so...















Cheeseburger Bundles

1 package active dry yeast (I used about a tablespoon from a bulk package)
1/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup warm milk
1/8 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter (softened)
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 to 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

I tossed all the ingredients above into my bread machine, ran it through mix and first rise, and then took the dough out and rolled it into a big rectangle. I used a pizza cutter to "rotary cut" the dough into 12 squares.

While the dough was in process, in the breadmaker, I made the following "filling".

1/2 pound sliced bacon, crumbled
3/4 pound ground beef
1 small onion, diced
salt, pepper
1/2 pound Velveeta cheese, chunked

I browned the beef and onions, microwaved the bacon and then crumbled it into the beef/onion mix. Then I put the Velveeta cheese chunks in the beef/onion/bacon mix and put a lid on the pan and turned off the heat. Five minutes later, I added salt, pepper, and stirred the whole thing and that was that.

I then put about a fourth to a third of a cup of that mix into each square, and then pulled the sides up and pinched them together. (I'm a lousy pincher, as most of them came undone!) They were baked at 400 for about 10 minutes. I brushed them with melted butter before and after baking. Karen liked them too, but I'm thinking next time, I will make about half of them with just vegetables and cheese inside. That might appeal to The Daughters more, since they really are mostly vegetarian.

The dogs were running low on treats, so I made some more dog biscuits... I used a new recipe, and for a little over a dollar's worth of ingredients, I got all of these! (Recipe link below) These were a huge hit and even more popular than my usual recipe.
















I found this recipe here. If you look closely (click to enlarge), you will see that a few of the treats are cut in the shape of fire hydrants. I have a traditional bone shaped cookie cutter also. But about five minutes into the cutting process, I thought - no way! The dogs don't care if they are cute! Out came the pizza cutter and once again, I rotary-cut my dough!

Yes, everything comes back to quilting for me....

However, recently I've tried something a bit new to me.... making cards! I'm having a ball, because there is "pretty stuff" involved. I am dealing with scissors, glue, paper, glitter, and coloring.....which I love, because... well, you know....I am FIVE.... (at heart). Here are some I worked on last night.






























And this morning, I sat down to work, then got up and went for coffee, then noticed the remaining unfinished cabinet doors sitting on the hearth, and then contemplated the fact that it was a three day weekend. I decided to end the Great Kitchen Kabinet Adventure of 2008.....TODAY. I finished all six doors and the two drawers and the island base. It is over!

















Yay. Then I lined the shelves and drawers with ladybug vinyl coated wallpaper. Just because I can!! No one will know it's there but me....















(click to see the ladybug cuteness!)















And I like it!

:)

Morning Harvest

Got these from my garden this fine Sunday morning!

















I picked some of the tomatoes a day or so early, because Karene likes them "hard" so I figure she can place them in her kitchen window and squeeze them/keep an eye on their color, until they are perfect for her! I'm taking some veggies to her and still have PLENTY for us. I am making a casserole the kids and I enjoy tonight. I simply layer sliced zukes, sliced yellow squash, sliced onion (already cooked to a nice toasty brown), sliced mushrooms, and spaghetti sauce and cheese. Only since Laurie (who is vegan most of the time) might want some for dinner tonight, I will omit cheese, and put in some cubed browned tofu... Bake at about 400 for half an hour and YUM! (Karen and I can add cheese after it bakes, or I will make two smaller ones, whichever works!)

My eggplants (6) are blooming up a storm! And my green peppers have baby peppers the size of peas! Yay!


Tuffboy and his sister Sadie got a bath yesterday. Sadi was too rambunctious for me to take a picture, but after we "raked" her coat - we had the usual couple pounds of discarded undercoat! She looks much skinnier now!
















Tuffboy was insulted by the entire bathing process....





































But he forgave us pretty quickly :)

Message to Le Tigre: You're next! Be very afraid!! ;)

UFO

I shoveled out my sewing/quilting room tonight. I managed to restore order in the room (vaguely) and I also threw out tons of papers and packaging and unwanted "stuff". Along the way, I found enough projects to fill two bins. Complete projects. With all the material needed, patterns, everything.

I basically have no excuse to shop until 2013. (Shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone!)

Along the way, I found this, the oldest UFO. And it's not even mine!

I don't recall where it came from. I think it might have been wadded up in a bin of old scraps someone gave me about three years ago.

I was intrigued when I found it, and I spent some time arranging it on the floor until all the half stars seemed to match.

I think there are some of those dreaded "Y" seams involved in the completion of this quilt (shudder). At a bare minimum, I need to take apart the extra little chunk of quilt seen here, iron the pieces, and make a template for the triangles.

It looks like there is a section of just white triangles used in areas along the edge to finish it. I think I'll be removing some half stars from the bottom row, and replacing them with the white triangle portions, to give me a bottom row that resembles that top row's design.

After that, I guess I will experiment with cutting some larger triangles and try "Y" seams at the end of the rows, all around the quilt. A narrow white border might be nice to float the whole inner portion of the quilt. Then, I think I will get a nice bright navy to use for a final wider border. And maybe a deep red for the binding?

I don't have any of the white that was used here.... I wonder how hard it will be to find something that matches. It's just a plain white - no design at all. Will take a portion to the store and cross my fingers! It certainly won't take more than 3/4 yard to finish this.

I think I'd like to try to finish this one, for Michael. He loves patriotic colors and designs, and of course, he loves quilts....

While cleaning the sewing room tonight, I also unearthed pile after pile of scraps of material. I filled another entire bin with good sized scraps. So I think there is a string quilt, or five, in my future! I've wanted to try this technique for quite a while and that bin of scraps gives me a perfect excuse!

All of our blankets are getting kind of worn and tired..... so I have a goal to replace them with quilts I make!

:)

Shakin' and Bakin' in SoCal......

Yes, we had a good earthquake today. Well, maybe that's not the adjective I should choose, but we had an impressive one. Yes, that's better.




















We live under that bright blue square with the smaller red squares. I was at a stop light, in my poor tired Tody-yody (which is in neeed of new shocks and struts), and was suddenly being bounced around at a pretty good intensity. What was funny was the SUV in front of me, which was jostling like an elephant on a trampoline....

And then it was over, except for one smaller (3.1?) aftershock I felt a few minutes later. (there have been more aftershocks; I just have not felt them.) To read the write-ups and listen to the television, we were just panic-stricken here....

LOS ANGELES - The strongest earthquake to strike a populated area of Southern California in more than a decade rattled windows and chandeliers, made buildings sway and sent people running into the streets on Tuesday. But there were no immediate reports of serious injuries or major damage.

The 5.4-magnitude quake — considered moderate — was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and as far east as Las Vegas, 230 miles away. Nearly 30 aftershocks quickly followed, the largest estimated at 3.8.

Not so. Didn't seem all that dramatic to me....but I was in traffic. Still, didn't see anyone running screaming from the strips of shops and businesses on either side of me. Daughter Laurie emailed me to let me know that evacuating from the 7th floor (likely in heels) wasn't a lot of fun.... Daughter Karen said that in spite of a small fire, maybe not even earthquake-related that resulted in air conditioner failure, sadly, she was not being dismissed to come home....

Sheesh. Of all the places I've lived (and I realize I'm tempting the universe by making this comment), California has been the most benign. We're veterans of:

Three Mile Island in PA,

a polio outbreak in PA,

blizzards in Chicago,

-9 degrees at the school bus stop in Chicago (-22 with wind chill),

tornados and fire ants and scorpions and well, blast furnace heat in Texas,

The earthquakes thus far haven't really fazed us. The yearly wildfires, mudslides, and tanker-sized black widows are a bit more concerning to me, but, that's just me....

Well, moving on....

I wanted to post some pictures from the International Quilt Festival at Long Beach! I went with Karene and Yvette and Karen..... We're now the Three Amigos and the Lil' Amigo.... and we had a ball! We had looked forward to this for MONTHS and it was like a high holy day in the Quilting Kingdom!

Here, we are approaching holy ground.....The convention center in Long Beach.
















Lots, and lots to see...............























































And look! Eleanor Burns! She was so nice, greeting every one patiently. She took a few moments to admire a new quilter's first quilt, applauding excitedly and making her feel wonderful about her accomplishment.
















I turned into what Karen would call a total "fangirl" at this point, and started hyperventilating.

(In my defense, it was 211 degrees on that aisle and I may have been having hot flashes to boot - so I gave up and stuffed my hair up and turned the corner and wouldn't you know it, THAT'S when we found Eleanor!) I hastily bought a book (hey, they were 20% off!!) and she graciously signed it for me!
















After she signed it (and I gushed about how she has influenced my quilting and I love her books and I love her methods and I have gotten my sister started even, and now SHE'S using her books, and, and......) she also graciously asked if we'd like a group picture.....
















Didn't have to ask us twice! We got done with the picture and she gave us each a souvenier boa as we left her booth. Yes, I was star-struck.

We plodded on, craning our heads and looking in all directions until our necks were using our entire range of motion......including backwards... There was So. Much. To. See.

Wait - who's that sweet lady in that booth?




















Whoo hoo! We found Marti Michell's booth! We got to meet her too! Fangirl Joy gushed again.....in tandem with Fangirl Karene (I love your templates, I love how your templates fit together, I will own all your templates one day, etc, etc!)















Karen grabbed this picture, and we mosied on down the aisle.

I also got to see the Last Supper. I had heard about this quilt on a couple of Yahoo group boards I read.....





























This lower picture of the Last Supper was NOT taken by me - but it shows the cute gentleman who designed it. The 15.3-foot-by-5.5-foot quilt, created by Donald E. Locke of Waxahachie, Texas, is comprised of 350 fabrics, some hand-dyed, cut into 51,816 half-inch squares. The quilt was machine quilted by Linda V. Taylor of Etna, Wyoming.

I really fell down on the job as picture-taker this time. I didn't bring my camera, and I completely forgot to ask Karen or Yvette to take a picture when we located Leah's booth and found Teacher Extraordinaire there, smiling and working hard! That was one of the high points for me and I was so excited to see Janet and grab a quick hug, that I forgot about a picture. Sigh.

Another highpoint happened around lunch time. We bumped right into Ellen and Jenny and had a quick lunch with them. Anne was there too!! It was like being at class, only no machines! I loved seeing everyone and I can't wait to get back to class for the month of August. I miss them all! Ellen looked so good! She is feeling much better and had her familiar twinkle in her eyes, and that makes me smile!! :)















This picture was taken by Eva after we returned to Yvette's house - still grinning....

And wishing we could go back and walk through it all again!

:)

My Ranch Recipe....

By popular request.... :)

Homemade Ranch Dressing

1 cup mayo (the real thing, not miracle whip, low fat, etc)
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. MSG (Accent -- this concerns some folks, and it can be omitted)
1/4 tsp. garlic/herb mix or just garlic powder (I just happen to have a humongous bottle of garlic with herbs from Costco)
1/4 tsp. onion powder (I prefer to use a tbsp. dried onions, also from a humongous bottle from Costco!)
1/2 tsp. dillweed

Mix all with a whisk in large mixing bowl, and store in fridge. (If you use onion powder, you could use it right away, but the dried onions need a couple hours to reconstitute which also serves to thicken the dressing just slightly).

Now, the above recipe is my own variation of a pile of recipes I collected off the internet... And I never make a batch this small!!

I get a 32 ounce jar of mayonaise, and a quart of buttermilk, and adjust all of the spices up accordingly (x 4). And for the dillweed, I absolutely REFUSE to pay the $7.00 a bottle pricetag on the little bottle in the spice aisle at the grocery store here. So, I went to Henry's, a market here that sells spices in the bulk aisle. I got a plastic bag and put a huge scoop of dried dillweed in it, for about a buck. I refilled the store-bought brand-name bottle three times from it!

Another alternative, before I found the bulk spices, was to purchase fresh dill in the produce department. A container of fresh dill cost me about $2.00 and when dehydrated in my dehydrator, and then crushed, nearly refilled the brand-name spice bottle.

I make so much of this stuff it's not funny! It keeps a long time. I saved my store-bought dressing bottles, and use a bottle brush to wash them, etc... soaked off the labels and then filled them with my own version of Ranch!

I am sure that you could make a reduced fat version of this easily enough, but this version is lower carb and that is helpful to me. I don't eat huge quantities of it at any one time, but I do use it pretty often! I started making it when Patrick was living with us, because there was never a time that boy filled a plate at our house that he didn't also plop a puddle of ranch onto it! He ate Ranch with EVERYTHING. Even with his Thanksgiving dinner plate!! I made this and he loved it! I figured that was high praise from someone who included Ranch Dressing as a food group in his eating plan!

Enjoy!! :)

For Karene, especially

For Karene, because I forgot to blog it earlier - my Saturday Sampler square.....















And for anyone amused by enthusiastic small dogs.....
















"I know if I keep pulling, I can get this toy in my bed!"















"I think I can, I think I can...."















"Can't I? Barkity-bark-bark!!" (canine cursing, I'm sure)

Yes, I put it in the bed with him right after I stopped giggling took the pictures.

(Also, I moved the electrical cord. I had been moving a portable fan when I noticed what he was doing and stopped to take the pictures. Fan/cord were removed immediately after I stopped giggling took said pictures... No enthusiastic small dogs were harmed (or shocked) during the creation of this blog post!!)

:)

For Jackie, especially!

Yesterday was the great Laundry Soap experiment! I have been reading a number of frugal sites (google for homemade laundry detergent and the vast number of recipes will amaze you), and I settled on a variation of the one that seemed to pop up the most. This one called for 20 Mule Team Borax, Arm 'n Hammer Washing Soda and either a Fels-Naptha bar or the easier to locate (sometimes) Zote bar. I assembled my "ingredients."
















First I cut the Zote bar into thirds. My recipe only called for 1/3 of a bar.















It cut very easily, and then it was grated into a sauce pan.















6 cups of water was added, and it was heated until the Zote had melted/dissolved (after first clumping up and defeating the purpose of the grating!) At that point, I added 1/2 cup (heaping) of the borax and 1/2 cup (heaping) of the washing soda. This was stirred in until it disolved. It was removed from the heat.
















I poured 6 cups hot water into my bucket, poured in my hot soap mixture, stirred it up and added an additional gallon of water. I ignored it the rest of the day.

It did indeed develop a sort of egg-drop soupy/half-melted jello salad consistency. Actually, it had a firmish layer on top, and thinner liquid layer below, but when I stirred it, it broke up easily into the half-melted jello consistency.

This was poured via a funnel into containers I had saved from the last several laundry detergents I had purchased. I filled them only 2/3 full, so that we can shake the container (that layer reforms each time it is left alone) before pouring half a cup into a load of laundry.

I tried it on a load of kitchen towels, sox and undies..... The scent is a nice clean scent, and it did a very good job. I actually think it may have done a little better than my Kirkland brand did on my sox. I wear little footies around the house all the time, because diabetics have to be careful of their feet. So, my sox are a challenge, and while NOTHING gets them white (including bleach), I felt this detergent did a bit better job than my usual.... Yay!

I had not done the math for this yet, but the site I copied it from stated that the writer had recently bought ingredients and made a batch and determined how many loads she could do per batch, etc. She estimated her cost per load was one cent.

I tried to follow her math, and with me paying 99 cents for my Zote bar, and $2.99 for my washing soda, and $3.49 for the borax, I came out to a total cost of 70 cents per batch. (tons of ingredients left over for next time!) The 70 cents divided by 64 half cups (makes just shy of 2 gallons) equals indeed, just over one cent per load.

ONE CENT! Whoo hoo! Even at two cents a load (if my math is off, or the amount it makes is off a bit), the Tide at Sam's today is $19.06 for 110 loads (17 cents a load) and the Kirkland Brand is $13.73 for 110 loads (12 cents a load) so I am saving money! (for not much time or effort either!)

I realize this is old news for many fans of frugality, but I'm loving it! I have this recipe stashed with my "glass cleaner" recipe! It's a keeper. Mr. B is scheduled to do his work clothes tomorrow - I'll let you know what HE thinks!

I was so stoked about the detergent (which only took me 20 minutes to make and get into the bucket!) that I had time to make my Ranch Dressing....

These, became this! In about 5 minutes!















Yum!

And for those of you keeping up with TuffBoy's practice regimen...















He continues to strive to become a True Tuff Boy.... Today he managed to nail Sadie's leg (more often than not, it's the other way around!)















(click pix to enlarge their teeth enthusiastic efforts!)


But she retaliated with an excellent "head lock"!

:)

Little Blessing - FO

I went to take a picture after sewing on a quickie label and, as usual, was amazed at just what a wreck my house is at the moment always seems to be. I could not find one single surface that wasn't covered in dust, dog hair, or home wrecking home improvement tools.....

I finally cleared a rocking chair and then the quilt, bears, and light would not cooperate. Anyway, it's done, and ready to go to Lisa who is way more than ready to welcome her new little girl into this world!



















A pic of the whole thing, just for reference.... In case I lose this picture, when I finally get around to making my "quilt book", I can refer here for a picture of this one! Yes, I'm disorganized.































Mom gave me these labels with my name on them, years ago when I first started quilting. They have truly come in handy! I just didn't have it in me to try to embroider a label today. Yay! Off to wrap it and then off to cut more bricks for Rick's quilt.

:)