Monday goals

Today I had high hopes of getting a lot done. You may have noticed I quit doing the Sunday stash report I got tired of having nothing finished to get my numbers down. I had thought I'd finish Landon's quilt (grandson #5-due in December), I started quilting in on Sunday...not done.

• mail quilts to California-done
• quilt Landon's quilt/put customers quilt in
• clean kitchen
• wash 2 loads of laundry-done
• get Andrew's new contacts-done
• manicure and pedicure-done (that was had work; sit in a massage chair and have someone tickle your feet.)
• grocery shopping-not done, we're still out of eggs and apples, and orange juice...
• fix dinner- done but not really, we ordered pizza.
• pay red light fine (yes, I went through a red light and the cameras got me.
• pay overdue sales tax.
• make a deposit (to cover the check that I need to write for the red light ticket.)
• fold laundry-it'll still be there tomorrow...

Okay it wasn't as bad as I thought; but I'd planned on getting more done. I had a week of staying up late and sleeping late and now getting up at 5:30 is catching up with me.

gifts

The season of thanksgiving is over? Well, at least Thanksgiving is over and now we constantly try to come up with gifts we can give others. My niece quoted Howard W. Hunter in her blog; I really like it so I'm repeating it here;

This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.

The quote is from a Christmas devotional, 1994. The whole address is found here.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all did this? In the last couple of years I made contact with 2 friends form High School and it has been wonderful to e-mail them. Be kind, be gentle; now that is hard.

new foods

I tried a couple new things over this long weekend. so far all are successful.

I made this sandwich with charred tomatoes for Roger and I for breakfast. Very good; but do wait a few minutes to bite into it; no one wants a charred mouth too. I used monterey jack cheese, even added a very thin slice of onion that I put in the pan first.

Last Tuesday I decided to make a surprise for the returning boy scouts, mine anyway, and made these from the pioneer woman's blog. I had had a bag of chocolate chips near the crock pot the last time I cooked in it... well they were not chips anymore; I needed to use them. I also had a bag of ground up almonds that I'd ground in August for an experimental crust that didn't use flour and I NEEDED to use them. So I relied on my memory and made them using the only bread sticks that weren't garlic from walmart....they had sesame seeds and I forgot the Nutella. they were so good. So Wednesday I made more, used up all the nuts, chocolate and breadsticks and remembered to add the Nutella. SOOOO good, better than before, the nutella keeps the chocolate from getting hard. So Thursday Jeffrey made another batch; this time with freshly chopped almonds, really big pieces, and they were the best. Unfortunately we still have bread sticks left over from the last batch...and almonds; do you suppose a 14 year old would like to make another batch?

Finally my third experiment is with oranges... Liz sent me a link to orange candy that looks fabulous but take 2-3 weeks to make. Andrew and I started this morning. This way we'll get to taste them on December 20th...wait, we'll be in the car, I'll have to finish them enroute...... that'll be a mess...... I think I'll shorten the process by a few days.

Oh, no Christmas is so close.....

Assumptions

Do not assume, as I did, that if a casserole dish comes with a stand that has spots for candles to keep it hot that the pot can actually handle have a candle burning under it for more than 5 minutes. Last October I bought these wonderful dishes for our big dinners. We never got around to putting the candles in. This year to keep everything hot, and to involve a teenage boy, we put the candles in. Twenty minutes later I heard a loud snap and one dish had a down the length of it.

See, how lovely? Notice the handle on the lid. It is not designed to be actually used as a handle it is only there for decoration. I know because the first time it was actually used the handle ed! Unfortunately I bought these at a store that has gone out of business. It was one less thing to wash, right; an eighteen dollar disposable dish.

cutting stone

My amazing husband is using this:

to do this!

fixing quilts

Liz visited in August and brought me this panel that had been a gift to her. I got it quilted last month; it just took awhile to get it photographed. Small and fast to do even with lots of ruler work; then I did a border that was taught in one of the classes I took at Quilt festival. Then I cut off the binding that was already on it and reapplied it. Do you think this quilt will get used now?...well not until baby #2 is born in about a month!

road to oklahoma OPAM

Evidently the road to Oklahoma is long and bumpy. I did an exchange...years ago, early 90's late 80's? I chose the block Road to Oklahoma and made 2 quilts. Since I was busy those days I tended to finish a quilt just enough to hold it together so I could use it. Then when I noticed that it needed to be washed I'd do the rest of the quilting so it could be washed and then I'd call it finished. This quilt is one of those; it has been used as a cover for a round table for 16 years, (the date on the quilt says 1992-93). I finished it last night. This first picture is how it looked in 2008; notice there is quilting in only 1 border. I'm assuming that I couldn't figure out the corner so I stopped. This is after it's 2nd session of quilting, the first one was just diagonal lines to hold it together. The second added lines in the green squares and lines around the red star points.

Can't really see it can you? This photo was taken this morning with the borders done!

Here's the back and you can see the cable in the border. I left it large so when you click on it you can see the quilting.

This is my November project to finish for myself. I think I have only 1 more quilt that is being used but not quite finished. Maybe December will see that one done.

Thanksgiving

When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord…and ye shall rejoice before the Lord, your God. Leviticus 23:39-40

What a beautiful day today has been. I've been cooking for 2 1/2 days and won't have to cook for about a month... I cooked enough sweet potatoes for ALL my extended family and Roger's...look at what is left. Jeffrey went around and took pictures of everything that was left...we will spare you from looking at all of them, but really maybe next year I'll cook 1 sweet potato.

Yesterday when I was making the rolls I thought I should make a double batch, for 4 people mind you, and I did. Jeffrey had a couple when they came out of the oven...yesterday...he had several during the morning and then only 2 for dinner. Hours later we were all ready for pie...'except Jeffrey. Guess why? EVERY roll is gone, mostly to Jeffrey! He did not eat any pie.

I'm sure you're wondering how the cranberry relish went...well, we have a lot of that left over too. I actually ate some and I think it would have been okay if the onion hadn't been so strong. The recipe said to use 1 small onion; it should read 1 small mild onion, mine was an old yellow one and was too much. I loved the bright pink color, and it looked wonderful on my new pink and green china, but the relish, not so much.

Last week I got to speak in Sacrament meeting about Gratitude, then the lesson I taught to the 11 year old s was about keeping the Sabbath holy. The lesson emphasized that the Pioneers kept the Sabbath Day holy to show their gratitude to God for their blessings. thinking about traveling for months and stopping 1 day a week and that day was not for doing laundry, it was for scripture reading, prayer and singing. I can do better about showing my gratitude by keeping the Sabbath Day better.

My talk went very well, although I had a difficult time speaking through tears, I managed to speak a little about Brian. About how grateful I am that we had him for 16 years and can be with him again; won't he have wonderful stories to share with us.

radio

A few days ago I got tired of talk radio and started hunting for something else to listen to. I found NPR, I only listened for a few minutes but they were talking about a cranberry relish dish that sounded interesting...so I went to their web site looking for the recipe; cranberries, onion, sour cream, sugar and horseradish! I'll let you know if we like it.....it was easy. Looking around we learned that ants count! there's even an animated ant show. Then we found a mix of Thanksgiving music...now I'm not sure if I like the music, it's all the songs about food they could find? but it is different, the one I'm listening to now is 'red beans and rice' different. So go and listen and let me know what you think.

books

I went to get my sewing machine today and stopped at The Painted Pony and Quilts. I got to sit and looked at 3 new books. I'm trying to remember what they were.....

• Some new strip pieced book that had a fabulous plaid quilt; sew strips of color coordinated plaids into large squares, then make it into a drunkards path with a different set of strips of plaid. I loved about 4 quilts in the book. I think its 'STRIPS and STRINGS' or it could be Strip Easy.
• New Cuts for New Quilts; more ways to Stack the Deck was very interesting to me. I've never done a quilt using this method, but she has a couple in there that would be fun and easy. I saw the book and the quilt at Quilt Market this year. This is the wrong book too. it's this one. Both books use a similar technique and have the same author.
• Stash Magic reminded me that I could make my scraps up into fabric then cut out a star or another simple pattern to use it up. The quilt we made this year, color block log cabin could have been in this book; I loved using up lots of scrap in the log cabin quilt .

Last night (I mean this morning 3 a.m.) I finished another quilt that I'll post at my other blog; thequilterupstairs.com some time tomorrow.

condiments

How often do you need to go through your refrigerator and throw away the accumulated packets of catsup, sour cream, mustard and mayonaise? I decided that at least once a year...before Thanksgiving is a good time. It'll give us time to accumulate more before the next camping season starts...Roger hunts down packets of mayo to take on hiking trips...but there is no way of knowing how long 1 has been in the fridge.

I threw out the spicy hot mustard that I made for Liz's wedding... 2007. At least I don't have 3 jars of bacon grease; but it's close, well actually, I have no bacon grease but I've accumulated other things. Like walnut oil... What am I going to do with walnut oil? Mustard; nobody eats mustard here, but it's on the list of things you must keep at all times. Now horseradish is important to have, at least to put on my smoked turkey sandwich that I have once a year!

What's in your fridge that you never use?

Christmas home tour

Nearly every year since we moved here I have managed to visit the homes on the Christmas home tour. This year I was very disappointed. It was obvious that the owners had money and lots of it. Where were the creative inexpensive touches? The tags were still on some of the ornaments and decorations like they were going to return them after the tours. One home did have a tree decorated, heavily, with antique ornaments that were interesting to study; another had a couple of interesting small things, a room with grandma's furniture and candlesticks used to hold ornaments..

That's it, I should have stayed home and quilted.

procrastination

This is what I do when I should be preparing a talk. Doodle...not much structure there to deliver an address about Giving Thanks at church tomorrow.

Sweet potatoes

Here's the recipe Melissa needs to make so that she'll love sweet potatoes. Unfortunately my original is not on the computer on in the 4 notebooks of recipes that I looked through. That could be a good thing since I know it had butter and cream and coconut.... in it.

So here is Amy's:

Sweet Potato Casserole

From Amy Hansen

3 c. mashed cooked sweet potato

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup skim milk (I’d use evaporated here)

2T butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon salt

2 egg whites lightly beaten

Mic together and put in 8 inch square baking dish (lightly sprayed with veg. spray)

Top with;

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup flour

2 T. butter

1/3^rd cup chopped pecans

Bake 350 for 30 minutes.

pumpking pie

My boys love pumpkin pie...I'm tempted to mess with it this year and add a few more calories...I think everything is improved with a few nuts so check out this pie recipe and let me know if you think it will ruin the meal.

I think one of the great pumpkin pie traditions in our house is pumpkin pie for breakfast the next day....it has egg and vegetable so it has to be healthy, right?

Mashed Potatoe Casserole

A friend asked for this recipe.

I always found getting the mashed potatoes just right and hot at the right time one of the bigger challenges of Thanksgiving dinner so last year when I read this recipe in 'Cook's Country' I was excited...then so pleased when it worked out great. I know I'll be making this the day before Thanksgiving!

Mashed Potato Casserole

Cook’s Country Dec/Jan 2008

13x9 pan

4 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

½ cup half and half

½ cup low-sodium chicken broth

12 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 garlic clove, minced

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons salt

4 large eggs

¼ cup finely chopped fresh chives

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Bring potatoes and water to cover by 1 inch to boil in large pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

2. Heat half-and-half, broth, butter, garlic, mustard and salt in saucepan over medium-low heat until smooth, about 5 minutes; keep warm.

3. Drain potatoes and transfer to large bowl. With electric mixer on medium –low speed beat potatoes, slowly adding half-and-half mixture. Until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Scrape down bowl; beat in eggs 1 at a time until incorporated, about 1 minute. Fold in chives.

4. Transfer potatoes to greased 2-quart baking dish. Rough top up with fork tines. Bake until potatoes rise and begin to brown, about 35 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes. Serve.

Make ahead; before baking cover with plastic and refrigerate up to 24 hours. When ready to bake, let the casserole sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Increase baking time by 10 minutes.

I hope you this makes Thanksgiving just a little bit easier for you.

Andrew's thingy

Last year Andrew asked for an Arduino for his 12th birthday. What did you ask for for your 12th? I've lived with this thing for 6 months and I'm still not sure what it is. (the green computer looking thing is the arduino.) I know it's; 'a programable'......thingy. Every once in a while he'll tell me that he has to go to Radio Shack or Fry's and get something....we go, he gets it. I'm still not sure what I gave birth to 12 years ago....is this a child? Or a geek in a child's body?

He is taking theater and loves it...no one else was interested.... He does not mind throwing a fit in school; nothing embarrasses him. Although he did come and talk to me about one of his latest disappointments instead of acting it out....He was in a play last year; he was a fish in 'The Little Mermaid' We taped it and his voice is about the only one that is heard and understood in the show.

Here is posing with a baby blanket I knit last year. I also have one of him posing in an apron I made for the girls. He's always willing to hold a quilt for photographs; so is Jeffrey, but Jeffrey makes sure very little Jeffrey is visible.

It is always interesting around Andrew. He is constantly learning new things about the world around him. For years he would rather read nonfiction than fiction so he will share the odd things he learns with us.

He has decided to read The Book of Mormon and so I've learned that it is really hard for a parent to insist on the lights out when your child is reading scripture. He thinks it will take less than the year it took our family to read it. I could guarantee it; He devours books. He told me it is exciting to read a true story that isn't boring.

I couldn't think of a thing to write about this morning Mom; so decided to look for a picture of Jeffrey and write about it....can you tell I'm easily distracted?

busy week

No blogging means I was too busy to blog. The weekends are always shot if there is any down time both computers are busy and I don't get to blog. Roger actually said the words; 'we need to get you a lap top'. I'm not going to hold my breath but the seed is planted. If I had a laptop I could be designing the quilting on the next quilt while one is quilting. I have to stay in the room and keep checking up on the quilting so I could do something else...

I finished my first all computer quilt...oops, not quite it had some free hand fillers between the Noah's pantograph. Now I'm working on my second mostly computer quilt, it'll have a freehand border though. I have at least 5 more in the queue.

Football season is over, marching band season is over; but wait, we made it to the playoffs so there was a game Friday night and another Saturday. Friday night the band broke out of their routine and did some funner stuff..the tuba's were the stars of the evening and they were dancing while playing.

Concert season is starting for band so I got to wash a dozen dresses in preparation for the fittings that go on next week. The boys have tuxes to wear so I will only get to hem pants and not a flared big skirt hem. :) So instead of going to marching band early 3 mornings a week Jeffrey will go to sectionals early ...but I don't know how often yet.

We're hoping to have some free time soon...Roger has some extra vacation days he's taking in December; yeah!

Popsicles

I know it's past the season but I wanted to share this with my kids. One of the things I loved to feed my kids was fruit juice Popsicles. I tried, I really tried to feed my grandkids Popsicles this summer; even sitting next to the pool it was more mess than I could handle. So this morning I found this idea and had to share...maybe it'll work for a certain 3 year old I know. If it does I expect pictures!

Pumpkin cookies

I tried a new pumpkin cookie recipe this morning;

Pumpkin Cookies

1 box spice cake

1 can pumpkin

1/2 bag miniature chocolate chips

cinnamon and sugar mixture

Preheat oven to 350. Mix first 2 ingredients. Stir in chips. Using cookie scoop put cookies on cookie sheet. (I use a silicon mat so I don't have to grease the cookie sheet.) The first batch were kind of high so the next batch I sprayed the bottom of a glass with fat and dipped it in cinnamon and sugar then flattened the cookies. The first 'hill' cookies baked 15 minutes; the flat cookies were done in 10.

You can see the pumpkin hill cookies in the next to the last row and the cinnamon and sugar dusted ones in the foreground and far back.

The reason I wanted flatter cookies was so I could add cream cheese frosting between them. Yummy. I think they would be good without the chocolate; try it with apple bits next? I'm chilling them now so they will travel to the High School football pre-game dinner better.

Cream cheese frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

4 Tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons vanilla

powdered sugar...about 4 cups (just a bit less than 4 cups)

Beat the first 2 ingredients while you hunt for your vanilla..or try, without success, to open a new bottle. Then add the vanilla, beat, then add the sugar in 2 batches. (I'm adding some chopped pecans to my cookie but not for everyone.)

I'm not sure where the recipe came from...I'd heard somewhere that cake mixers worked to make cookies. My daughter makes them all the time. My sister made some pumpkin/cake mix cookies last week. I saw some pumpkin 'whoopie' cookies on Martha's web site (I saw the picture but didn't read the recipe.) I saw on this website a recipe for pumpkin cookies with cream cheese filling while I was baking mine and after I'd bought the ingredients for the frosting....

They taste a bit like a pumpkin roll...but a bit easier to serve.

t-shirt quilt

Carolyn made this with a bit of help from me. It's her second t-shirt quilt. (Her first is shown here.)

This is NOT an average t-shirt quilt. Wow! I think it looks great. I asked her if she was ready to start her next quilt.....she is. I asked her what she was thinking about doing; 'anything but t-shirts!' was her reply. I think she'll find that there are a lot of 'anythings' out there.

Voting

I worked yesterday; 15 hours for the election. We had 988 people come through to use our 4 booths and there was a line ALL day. Although most people thought we were volunteers we will get paid; last year my check came in January. We had more lines than last year at the presidential election. I expect that more people made it to early voting then and we expected to have a heavy turnout and had more booths and workers than this year. It sure involves a lot of paper work and equipment that has to be hauled around.

Last Saturday it was my job to go get the stuff in Galveston. I was on the roads with 10,000 motorcycles so it took at extra 30 minutes each way. With my GPS I went on some back roads in Galveston and really enjoyed the ride home looking at houses. I stopped at a new quilt shop halfway home so you know it was good.

Jeffrey's high school marching band made it to State and got home at 2:30 this morning. They made it to second place! He enjoyed the trip.

I'm proud!

At least my mother likes my blog! She told me she checks it everyday 'cause I always have something interesting....I'm not sure I can live with the pressure.

These are the 2 quilts I'm working on this week.

I call them spotty dotty. I think the pattern is original but I've seen many quilts similar; I think circles are IN, I know black and white is in. Although I chose it 'cause very young babies like the high contrast. I can see that this looks like a Drunkard's Path. I may have to make it again with traditional fabrics...or maybe batiks... how many quilts does one small baby in Idaho need? You know it is REALLY cold there. I wonder about a black border on a baby quilt but the green inner border turns it into a green quilt to me. The other quilt won't get a border until we know if the California baby is a or boy...the gets a red border the boy gets a blue.

NEVER put minky in a border; in fact never sew with minky at all! I did not like it. I have black bits all over the white carpet in the sewing room...all over the house, up the stairs and on the kitchen floor. I think I'd rather put velveteen there if you want the soft feel for babies....maybe satin since some babies love that.

I did a tutorial over at my other blog; the quilter upstairs.com

Andrew's Scary Costume

Friday the Junior high kids were allowed to wear costumes to school. Andrew forgot but found a piece of duct tape on his desk so he put it on his mouth and went as a hostage!

Saturday night he came up with a different costume.

The scary part are the grades.

Andrew has been spending part of his time on the bus memorizing the periodic table....he has 60 of them done and is working on the next 4.

He loves to learn stuff... anything ....especially science/ technology stuff.