While the Cat's Away

Blissfully Busy

2011-10-20T07:36:00.000-04:00

Oh my how busy it's been, but wonderfully so! I'm really loving this time right now as we get ready to welcome our little baby. Everything feels so exciting and new and fresh. Well, most everything. Even dark clouds, like my Aunt's death and my company being sold to our #1 competition (we just found out last Friday), can't really dim our joy and excitement. Aunt Jan is definitely in a better place making mischeif and dancing, and, since there's nothing I can do about the uncertainty at work, I've decided to just focus on all the great and wonderful things happening around me! And to that end, here are a few pictures of the fun we've had over the past few weeks.

Michele and I at our first childbirth class. We decided to
do three different classes: This one, a yoga-based labor positions class,
a hypnobirthing class, and a traditional, natural childbirth class.
We want the FULL experience!!

We got new outfits for the class!
Here's Michele, proudly sporting hers!

The baby's room: painted "pencil" yellow, prepped and ready
for flooring!

New windows, pretty walls, and soft, foamy, play-friendly floors
- baby's room re-model DONE!

Oh, it's just waiting for a sweet little bundle of joy!
Thank you, Daddy and Gloria, for the gift of the crib and
changing table and the extra special gift of a visit to put it all
together with us!

A family photo shoot!! My dear friend and coworker, Diana,
took these and many more wonderful shots of Michele, Me and
our baby! I can't wait til the next photo shoot when little Zordan
will be giggling in our arms!

Goodbye, Aunt Jan

2011-09-12T06:18:00.000-04:00

There is sadness throughout my family as we mourn the loss of my Aunt Jan. It's probably the first time in my life that I have associated sadness with Aunt Jan - she was always the life of the party, making everyone laugh, no matter what the situation. Actually when I think of her now, I can't help but remember how much she made me laugh.

Michele and I were talking to my mom on Friday morning just before Mum found out that Jan had passed. We were recounting my fondest memory of my aunt: whenever we would visit Aunt Jan when I was a child she would say, "Lord, Shelly, I can't wait until you outgrow that squeaky high voice of yours. It sets my ears to ringing!" I would giggle and say, "Oh, Aunt Jan!" And then I'd sit close beside her and look at all the rings she wore - so many! I always thought Aunt Jan was a sort of gypsy because of all those rings.

When I visited her as an adult, somewhere in my late twenties, I said, "Aunt Jan, I bet you're glad that I finally outgrew that high, squeaky voice, right?" And she laughed and said, "Who says you have?! It's just as high and squeaky as ever!"

This past Friday, as Mum, Michele, and I were chatting about this memory - a memory that came upon us out of the blue - I remember commenting that I couldn't wait for Aunt Jan to meet our baby, who I imagine will have the same high, squeaky voice that Jan so teased me about as a child. I imagined we'd come full circle. And then, just a few hours later, we learned that she'd passed away. I have a feeling that she's already met our little baby and is already teaching her or him lots of naughty things. . .and already teasing her/him about that high, squeaky voice that I'm sure I passed on.

You are dearly missed, Aunt Jan, but I bet you've got all the angels in heaven laughing up a storm!

Have Tools, Will Travel!

2011-09-07T16:32:00.000-04:00

Michele and I have been busy, busy getting the house and ourselves ready for our January new addition. We've thankfully been blessed with many friends lending us time and hands. I was able to repay some of our friend Sue's generosity with a little labor of my own! Sue helped us so much by priming and painting our baby's room, so when she mentioned wanting to build a little stage for her baby, her four-year-old baby, I was all over the idea! Our friend Joe and I spent part of this past Sunday building the sweetest little stage that I just imagine will be party to lots of little productions - productions that Zordan will hopefully be a part of when s/he's a little older! It's always fun to have a good reason to get out the drill and build something that you know will be loved for years to come!

Joe and me standing before Sue's freshly-constructed stage!

Summer Shows

2011-09-05T10:04:00.001-04:00

Just a couple of weekends ago, I got to have a fun day selling at my first summer show - and my first outdoor show. It was a real treat! It was a hot day, but under the tent it was nice and shady and there was a wonderful breeze. The crowds were friendly - it was a neighborhood festival in an area heavily populated by young, trendy folks, so people watching was one of the highlights of my day. The real highlight, though, was that the area's farmers' market was set up just across from my booth and they advertised their space with huge canvas carrots - how I wanted to steal one of those carrots, but I resisted!

My first summer show - in my favorite outfit, which, of course,
matches my shop colors.

You just don't know how hard it was not to take one of these carrots,
but I feel like I need to be a good role model for the baby. Though, when
it comes to carrots, I should get some latitude, right?

Work of Our Hands

2011-09-04T14:50:00.000-04:00

Although we weren't able to put in a garden this year, we have gotten the chance to do some canning. I didn't get to make pickles or barbecue sauce this year, but we picked fruit several times and made lots of jam: blueberry, black raspberry, and sour cherry. Surprisingly, to us, the sour cherry is our favorite. Neither of us had ever tasted a sour cherry, but we thought we'd make some jam anyhow. . .and we are SO glad we did! Oh, yum!

Freshly picked and washed blueberries. I love how they look
against my favorite gold colander!

Black raspberry jam - yum!

Blueberry jam - so good!

Michele and I ending our afternoon of picking with a
sour cherry pitting session. It was her idea to pit cherries
on the futon. Thank goodness that cover is washable!!

Freshly pitted cour cherrie - so pretty!

Sour cherry jam and canned sour cherries. The canned cherries
are amazing warm and over homemade vanilla ice cream - oh yum!!

And Then There Was Furniture!

2011-09-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

Michele and I were like little kids on Christmas morning this Wednesday when we got the call that our furniture was five minutes away. Two wonderful men brought in each piece and set it exactly where we wanted it. And just like that, our living room was done (well, except for the window treatments I still need to make)! It immediately felt so warm and welcoming. We hadn't realized how little warmth our previous parlor had until we removed the wallpaper and redecorated. It really feels like home! One neat thing is that at practically the same moment, Michele and I looked over at the new chair and the Winnie the Pooh books on the nearby shelf and said, "I can just imagine sitting there with little Zordan on my chest reading Winnie the Pooh." It's wonderful to be of like minds, though I have a feeling we'll be arguing over who gets that chair!

Two lovely delivery men bringing our new couch

The most comfortable chair ever! Perfect for cuddling
a little angel and reading Winnie the Pooh!

A salsa red couch adds just the right balance of color
against the butterscoth orange walls. Oh, how I LOVE that couch!

A pretty new TV stand with lovely storage for all our
DVDs and CDs. And, of course, Star Trek on the TV!!

Dinner with Deb

2011-08-31T16:48:00.002-04:00

Two lovely ladies joining me
for a meal! What could be better?

This baby is bringing out in me a desire for friends and home. . .and food! That's a lot of fun! We got to enjoy a weekday dinner with our wonderful friend, Deb. I don't know why, but having friends over for dinner on weeknights is such a fun thing - maybe because it feels a little naughty (friends on school nights was a big 'no-no' in my childhood home).

We had a really yummy, but super simple meal of pasta with chunky vegetable sauce, salad, and garlic bread, heavy on the garlic. I did make the salad dressing myself, but following the recipe made a very thick (thick like pudding) dressing that I really had to doctor up to make it applicable to a salad.

Michele made the salad - so good!
And, yes, those are more of our
volunteer tomatoes!

The pasta sauce was actually made in response to a comment Michele made when we had the Tomato Venus Soup I shared the recipe for last week: "Yum, this would be good over pasta!" At the time, I thought that although it was a kinda thick soup it was far too soupy for a pasta sauce, but the idea stuck with me. To make it more sauce-appropriate, I chunky-cut a bunch of veggies (carrots, zucchini, broccoli, green peppers, red onion, and pretty much anything else I had in the crisper) and sauteed them up, then I went pretty much along with the recipe for the soup - just didn't garnish it with butter or sour cream at the end. It turned out really good and was an excellent way to clean out those last bits of half-used veggies in the fridge!

I really love this chunky sauce! And it's really pretty, too!

Gifts from Heart and Hands

2011-08-30T16:32:00.000-04:00

In addition to the wonderful gifts of time, labor, and friendship we are being showered with, we've been blessed with some other wonderful things, too.

I know I mentioned previously the wonderful pregnancy organizer from our friend Deb - it has SO come in handy - well, my mom, who also knows us well, recently sent us a package. One of the best parts was that it was addressed to M + M and Zordan (our baby's temporary name until we meet and find out if s/he's a she (Zoe) or a he (Jordan)).

And inside, was a reference guide to babies (in response to my frequent comment to my mom: I really hope there's a book on that!) and a Michael Jackson DVD, for Michele, MJ's biggest fan.

To join the Dr. Suess book the the lovely Bridget gifted us with early on, we now have a collection of Winnie the Pooh books from Sue. They are currently gracing the book case in the new living room - right next to where the awesome accent chair will be - the perfect spot for reading time!

And then there are the baby blankets! Our dear friend Sue collected many, many baby blankets when she was pregnant with her now four-year-old son, Max. And she's started us out right with the beginnings of a collection of our own. One very special one was hand-knit by Sue! I know it will be a favorite!

We just feel so blessed with all the love in all these gifts and know that little Zordan will feel blessed as well!

Operation: Making Room for Baby: Progress Report

2011-08-29T16:31:00.000-04:00

Beautiful windows that
open and stay open
without the need
of props!
So wonderful!!

And much progress there is!! The transformation of our workout room/den into our baby's room has been really fun to watch. I'd like to say that I've been watching patiently, but it's been really hard for me since I haven't gotten to be involved in anything in that room up to this point, except a little pre-transition cleaning. But it's still all really exciting!!

Lovely windows
that tilt in for easy
cleaning! What a joy!

Today, Michele and her wonderful friend and coworker, Julio, installed beautiful new, energy-efficient windows. It was such a treat to come home to these gorgeous new, functional windows! Oh, so exciting!!

This week, Michele will be putting the final coats of paint on the room and the closet and then I get to get my hands in on it! I'll be laying the floor this weekend and installing shoe molding. And then I'll be hanging the window treatments and outfitting the closet with a closet organizational system, similar to what I installed throughout my studio. I imagine I'll finish the floor and molding this week and I'll start the closet system next week, but soon, very soon, the major work of our baby's room will be finished!!

Our old, retired windows!
Thank you for your service!

AND we get our new living room furniture this week too!! It's a fun, fun week at the Wescott house!

Funky Fruit

2011-08-26T16:06:00.001-04:00

I just picked this funky tomato. Pretty cool - almost too cool to eat (almost, but not quite!)

Conjoined Twin Tomatoes

And I have recently become addicted to lemon in my water. Not a slice or two, but half a lemon in my bottle. This morning, the sight of the bright yellow lemon in my lime green bottle with the sun shining through was too beautiful to pass up for a photo-op.

As pretty as it is tasty!

Tomatoes and Other Yummies: Recipes Galore

2011-08-25T16:11:00.003-04:00

I have a few more recipes to share from my recent abundance of tomatoes. Actually we've only had a moderate number of tomatoes, but they've been SO good that I've been building meals around them and it seems for the last few weeks, every meal has been tomato-heavy. I hope you enjoy these yummies.

from Cooking Like a Goddess (my favorite cookbook):

Tomato Venus Soup - can be served warm or cold
1 Qt can of crushed tomatoes
3-4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup oil-packed sundried tomatoes, drained and chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion (I had used 1/2 a Vidalia onion in another recipe, so I substituted that for the red onion and it was DELICIOUS!!)
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil, or 1 tbsp dried
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
sea salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1-2 tbsp melted butter (optional and only if the soup will be served warm)
sour cream as topping (optional)
I also added a dash or two of cayenne (of course!)

In a bowl if serving chilled or in a saucepan if serving warm, combine all ingredients down through the black pepper. If you are serving warm, simmer for about 10 minutes, then, if desired (oh, you desire, it's so good!) add 1-2 tbsp of melted butter. Warm or cold, it's yummy to top each bowl with a dollop of sour cream and basil leaves.

Tomato Venus Soup

I paired this soup with the following salad:
from new vegetarian cuisine (another favorite cookbook):

Cherry Tomato Gazpacho Salad (using those lovely volunteer tomatoes from my garden!)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup peeled, seeded, and diced cucumbers
1/2 cup diced zucchini
1/2 cup diced sweet red peppers
1/4 cup chopped Vidalia onions
2 tbsp red wine vinegar (I used balsamic since I didn't have red wine vinegar)
2 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp minced shallots
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp finely minced jalapeno peppers
1/4 tsp Mrs. Dash
1 cup of garlic croutons

In a bowl, mix together everything from tomatoes down through onions. In a seperate small bowl, whisk together every else except the croutons. Pour sauce over salad and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Divvy up and top each serving with croutons. Yummy!!

Cherry Tomato Gazpacho Salad

Later in the week we enjoyed the following:
also from new vegetarian cuisine:

Mexican Stuffed Potatoes
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup drained canned Mexican-style corn
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I left this out since Michele and I are not fans of cilantro)
1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp minced red onions (again, I still had some Vidalia left over, so I used that)
2 tbsp minced scallions
I also added diced zucchini since I had some and thought, "why not?!"
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I really hate cumin, so I left it out. Used my customary dash or two of cayenne instead.)
2 large baked potatoes, warmed (I used this technique to bake my potatoes)
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
sour cream (optional)

In a bowl, mix everything from the beans down through the cumin. Cover and refrigerate for at least one houe. Split the potatoes lengthwise and top with the salsa. Cover with cheddar cheese and pop in the microwave or oven to melt. Michele and I never pass up an excuse to have sour cream so we added a lovely dollop to the top of each. Also, I quadrupled the recipe to make enough for the week and baked 10 potatoes and just stored it all in the fridge. The longer the salsa mixture sits the more intense the flavors (i.e. the yummier it gets!!)

Mexican Stuffed Potatoes

Transition from Parlor to Living Room: A Pictorial Review

2011-08-24T16:52:00.000-04:00

As I think I mentioned before, part of our "make room for baby" plans involved creating a living room (a relaxed space to visit with friends, hang out as a family, watch Star Trek (and other things, I guess), read, and just veg. Since the baby's room is what was the workout room/den, we needed to get this room started so that we could get that room cleaned out. So, we began the transition from what we called our parlor (a place to sit and contemplate the cosmos with friends over copious amounts of tea) into a comfy, cozy, colorful living room. Here's how we're doing so far:

This is the room before. Yes, I forgot to take actual before pictures.
This is from Christmas, but ignore the pretty lady and take note of the
less than comfy yellow couch and ivory silk wallpaper.

Wallpaper gone!
Prepping and priming and priming and prepping!

And finally color! I've been waiting for the entire six years we've lived here
to have some color on these walls. Oh how I love this color.
Butterscotch - Low VOC Martha Stewart paints

And painting is complete! It's really hard to get accurate color
in these pictures, but Michele keeps saying "Oh, I want to eat
the walls. It looks just like butterscotch pudding!"

And a new rug! We love this rug so much - it coordinates SO
well with the colors of the room!

And the original sheers have been washed and returned to their place of glory.
I still need to make the accent drapery panels - it's on my incredibly long to-do list!

And then there was light! One lamp from the previous parlor and one claimed
from the dining room. The room is really coming together now!

And, of course, a room is never fully dressed without a cat!
Pollux had to be the first to check out the new room and new rug!

Now, we just patiently await the delivery of our comfy new couch and accent chair and ottoman. Just wait til you see what color those are! We put a big ole check mark beside "colorful" in the qualifications for our new living room!

Garden Volunteers

2011-08-23T16:36:00.002-04:00

My friend, Anne, commented a few posts ago that I haven't mentioned my garden this season. She's very right and the reason is that I didn't put one in this year. I prepped my 4 square-foot boxes and had them ready and waiting and then six straight weeks of incredible morning sickness (lasting from the time I woke up til 4 pm, at least!) kept me from every planting anything. I was blessed by the garden fairy, however, with garden volunteers: tomato plants that just decided to plant and sow themselves from fruit that fell last year! We've had a wonderful crop of unexpected orange and red cherry tomatoes that we've enjoyed so much! I LOVE garden surprises like this!

A garden full of volunteer tomato plants! What could be better?!

Finding beautiful unexpected fruit is such a blessing!

Red and orange and simply delicious!

Exciting Changes

2011-08-22T16:36:00.000-04:00

Everything is so exciting right now. So much is up in the air, or rather, so much is to come that right now could be an impatient time of waiting, waiting, waiting for me, but it's not. Our friend Sue was over for dinner last night and the three of us discussed how impatient I normally am and I was thinking about that this morning. I really am VERY impatient, but with this whole journey to our baby's arrival, I just feel super excited. I think it's because every day is full of something fun and new, some exciting change. And since I'm finally feeling most excellent, I get to enjoy them all.

Here are a few things I've enjoyed over the past few weeks:

Me - I'm really enjoying the changes with my body as our baby grows. I had a hard time with this in the beginning, I think because I was SO sick, but now, it's just thrilling to experience how my body is creating everything our little miracle needs.

16 Weeks - Heading off to my first
prenatal yoga class. Oh how I LOVE yoga!!

17 weeks wearing what has turned out to be my FAVORITE
pregnancy outfit to date!
Comfy, comfy, comfy, all my favorite colors, and a citrus-fruit
covered skirt! Who could ask for more!?

Our home - I've always been a collector of things, so I thought the drive the purge would really freak me out ("Oh no! Where is all my stuff!"), but it's been really great! I love seeing my house more organized and weeding out the un-needed that has just been taking up space. I also LOVE having a reason to re-paint or paint rooms! Decorating my home has always been one of my favorite things, so taking this perfect opportunity to redo a few rooms has been a joy!

Michele prepping and priming our new living room for paint.
She is helpfully assisted by the lovely BethAnn who does not
like her picture taken, but was a huge help in getting this room ready!

Friends - We've always been surrounded by loving people, but with the baby coming, love has just been overflowing! We're so grateful to all our wonderful friends for the calls, Facebook messages, visits, dinners, and especially for the painting and reorganizing assistance! It's really all been such a wonderful blessing!

The meal we're about to serve our dear friend Sue (who also hates her picture taken)
after she spent the morning putting the first coat of paint on our baby's room.
Mexican Stuffed Baked Potatoes (recipe in a post to follow)

Work, Work

2011-08-09T07:34:00.001-04:00

This will be a busy week! We have a lovely friend coming over on Sunday to paint our baby's room. For some that may mean just cleaning out the room and prepping it for paint, but not for me. For me, that means, clearing out our current parlor and prepping it for paint, painting, and transitioning the items from the current workout room/den into the parlor, which is becoming a living room. And then prepping the former workout room for paint as it becomes the baby's room. And we're doing it all this week. We actually got a really great start last night: Michele and I transitioned the currrent parlor rug into the foyer and sorted all the parlor furniture into keep for living room, transition to another room, or sell at yard sale. Then our lovely friend, Beth Ann, came over and helped Michele remove all the wallpaper in the parlor - thankfully it was the original silk wallpaper, so it came down in wonderful big sheets. Michele's next step for that room is to sand and prime the walls so they are ready for painting on Saturday. My next step in that room is to decide on a paint color. For the six years we've lived here, that room has been a kinda formal tea parlor with off-white silk wallpaper, an antique gold brocade sofa and armchair, and fancy gold, scarlet, and seafoam brocade drapes. Now that it will be a living room, I want something fun and lively. And I'm finding it hard to decide. . .

We are well on our way to being ready for painting on Sunday and baby in a few months, which is VERY exciting! The only thing that Michele and I just realized last night is there is no longer anywhere to sit and relax in our house. The couch we picked out for the living room won't be delivered for about 3 weeks and we've disassembled the futon from the workout room/den to clear out that room. Well, there's always the sunporch and cool glasses of iced tea to celebrate an evening of hard work - or ice cream, like the yummy raspberry truffle the wonderful Bridget brought over to cap off our work day! Ahh, ice cream with friends after a hard day of work, what could be better?

Fun Food and Drink

2011-08-02T20:37:00.000-04:00

Michele and I - okay, mostly me, but Michele's a great sport - have always had fun trying out new recipes. It's especially been fun trying out new things during this pregnancy. We're of course trying the eat really healthy - even healthier than normal! - but we have to be pretty creative because I get tired of things a lot quicker than usual. I thought I'd share a few of my favorite recipes so far.

Oh so yummy: Lemon Arugula Soup
I actually found this recipe in Whole Living magazine, but you can also find it on this blog. The blogger made some of the same adjustments that I did - substituting vegetable stock for the chicken stock. I also added some cayenne pepper - because I add cayenne to pretty much everything. The only further adjustment I'd make is to add the arugula to each bowl - that way if you don't eat it all in the first sitting, you can reheat the soup and then add arugula to that bowl too. I added the arugula to the pot as the recipe suggested and arugula in the leftover soup was pretty gross on reheating. The soup - after picking out the limp arugula - was super yummy, though!

My favorite Refried Bean Salad
Michele and I have loved this salad since we each first tasted it. It used to be served at a restaurant in Columbus and I think we went there and had this salad on one of our first dates. At the time we were really broke college students and together with drinks, the whole meal for both of us cost only $7 (for BOTH of us, not EACH, BOTH!!)! So we ate this salad A LOT!!

Here's how I make it now:
Refried beans: I use canned black beans - 2 cans. I heat a little olive oil in a pan and mash and fry one can, then add the other can - unmashed. I then add a couple tablespoons of sour cream, a dash of Mrs. Dash, some salt, and a liberal pinch or two of cayenne - of course. That's it for the cooking for this meal.
Lettuce: We used organic romaine and a spinach and mixed greens blend.
Cherry/grape tomatoes: garden fresh is best. Cut them into quarters.
Sliced red onions
Salsa, sour cream, and cheese on top.
Just about the best thing I've eaten, well since the last awesome thing I ate - I have really been enjoying eating lately!!

Pink Frosties
I found the recipe for these on the Ocean Spray website. I must give credit where credit is due, but also must admit that I didn't use Ocean Spray in my version (don't tell Ocean Spray!) Wegman's has a version of the sparkling juice that OS used in the recipe and since I have loads of that at home, I used that - the Pomegranate Cranberry sparkling juice. I paired that with Pomegranate Passion Fruit sorbet - also from Wegman's (hey, Michele works there, I've got to support them!). Oh, these drinks were amazing!! And SO easy and quick to make. Just the two ingredients, plus a straw, because that makes it fun!

Fifteen Weeks and Feelin' Fine!

2011-07-14T18:11:00.002-04:00

15 weeks in my
Dr. Suessian tank

I've been feeling very good the past couple of weeks. I think I mentioned that my first trimester was a nightmare of sickness and fatigue, but I am finally over that - yay!! I'm getting my energy back and, as my friend Sono promised, my wierd dreams have settled down. Over the past few weeks, I've only had a few and all have centered around type of tiny human we may be having. So far I've dreamt that I've birthed:

Twins - a perfectly normal boy and girl
Identical twin girls + a boy
A baby boy and the puppy he brought along from heaven - the baby could speak at birth and I asked him about the puppy. He said, "Well, I knew I'd want a puppy eventually, so I decided to save time." I said, "You couldn't have brought along a baby sister instead?" He said, "Yuck, girls are gross!"
A litter of kittens.
Twins - a boy with the plastic, muscled body of an action figure, who was really hard to diaper, and a perfect baby girl who was only 3 inches big, but was a really good nurser.
A solo baby (not sure if boy or girl) who Michele and I kept putting in a crib on the curb and forgetting that we are parents. We'd remember and rush out and then put the baby back in the crib and go inside.

I really hope none of my dreams come true - except maybe number 1 - that one I could handle, but the others, oy vey! I'd lovingly take the baby part of the last one too, but I'll depend on all of you to remind me that it's not a great plan to put the crib outside on the curb, just in case by then my brain is even more adled.

Dreams of Paris

2011-06-29T23:49:00.001-04:00

The view from my living room window
Courtesy of World City Photos

Last night I had another odd dream. I actually have odd dreams nightly, but some stand out for their oddity. This dream wasn't about the baby, but I was pregnant in it. I dreamt that Michele - who is driving for Wegman's, our local grocery store, which has stores throughout NY and in PA, VA, MA, and some other places I can't recall - well, Wegman's decided to open operations in France, headquartered in Paris. Michele was asked to transfer there temporarily and we decided to go for it.

Now, I spent my junior high and high school years in Europe and have been to Paris and didn't really like it, so I don't know why it was the focus of my dream, but in the dream I LOVED it there! We had this gorgeous apartment right next to the Eiffel Tower - I mean REALLY close! I could reach my arm out the window and touch the Tower - that close.

Anyhow, the main part of the dream was that we made the decision to transfer and moved but forgot to tell my parents. We'd been in Paris for two weeks and still hadn't let them know, so I finally called my dad. Not surprisingly, he was pretty mad! Steamed is more like it! Then I woke up.

One other interesting thing is that when we left, we filled up the cats' food and water bowls, but didn't ask anyone to come and refill them. That's fine for a weekend, but we were going to be away for six months at least! My hope is that I'm a better mother to this baby in real life than I am to my cats in my dreams!

Pregnancy Dreams

2011-06-27T23:07:00.001-04:00

My dreams have been so wild lately! Over the weekend I dreamed that my work team went on a field trip and while on the bus in the middle of nowhere, one of my coworkers (who had a baby several weeks ago) went into labor. Since I'd been reading up on childbirth, I graciously offered to deliver her baby for her. And I did a bang up job of it, if I do say so myself!

Last night, I dreamt that my allegies were acting up and I let out a huge sneeze and the baby flew out of my mouth! I freaked and caught her/him in my hands and panicked because I couldn't think of a way to put the baby back where babies belong! I woke up in a panic and calmed myself down with the realization that:
1. My baby is safely in my uterus.
2. My uterus is not connected to my stomach or lungs.
3. Since there is no tube running between my uterus and stomach or lungs, it would be impossible to sneeze out the baby.

I seriously had to do the science on it before I could rest. Oh how I hope for peaceful sleep tonight!

Hosting a Tiny Human

2011-06-21T16:52:00.000-04:00

It's been so long and life has been speeding by! Life for the most part is par for the course here in Michelleville - well except that I've taken on a passenger (or two) recently. I'm hosting a tiny human for the next few months - tee hee. I'm 12 weeks pregnant and so excited about this journey to mommyhood! I went through a rough patch with six weeks of sickness, but am now on the other side and feel like life is grand. Michele's been such a support and comfort during the weeks of sickness, she's just going to be the very best mom!!

Our little tiny human decided last night that s/he would like a blog, too, so if you'd like to follow our journey from the baby's point of view, definitely check it out: http://zordansworld.blogspot.com/

Here's to the joys of parenthood!! Yippee!!

Color Test

2011-04-12T13:22:00.000-04:00

I took a very cool color personality test and I think the answers are pretty spot on. It's fascinating to think that the colors I like say something about me (well, something more than "Hey, she's a bright, cheerful lady!)

My color choices say:
I am 63 % extrovert and 37 % introvert.

Independently of any order of importance :

I am dynamic, my actions are only directed by my own will and I know how to lead people.
I am also a leader, I know how to organize the groups of persons and give them my energy.
I am attentive and cautious, I take into account the needs of others before setting up the defined goals.
I am dynamic and active, I am determined in my actions, I know how to communicate my ideals and your energy, and thus, I know how to boost people.

Contemplating the Dawn

2011-04-02T20:34:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the dawn sky just seems so thoughtful. I snapped this picture last week and just found it again when I downloaded the images off my camera. The snow is gone now, but this sky is just amazing so I thought I would share it.

Happy Socks

2011-03-21T20:02:00.000-04:00

Sometimes there's just one article of clothing that makes me happy just to look at it. A few days ago it was a pair of absolutely awesome socks. I fell in love with these in the store and love just having them in my drawer! When I get to wear them, I feel happy all day. They are definitely happy socks. I hope to one day have a week's worth of them!

Heartbroken for Japan

2011-03-14T21:44:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking so much about the devastation in Japan. We talked about it today in my local Etsy team meeting and are planning to do something to raise money as a team. Right now, I'm just sending thoughts and prayers to all affected. I always feel so helpless at times like this - I want to do more, but am often at a loss. Any suggestions? What are all you crafty people doing to support relief efforts? Any creative ideas?

My Continuing Carrot Collection

2011-03-09T18:18:00.000-05:00

I love this time of year: carrots galore in every store as the Easter decorations come out!!

I, of course, am adding to my carrot collection whenever I can and Michele and friends are lovingly enabling me.

These carrot chocolates are from Michele - they are
actually hazelnut and chocolate and are carrot umbrellas, which really
adds to their coolness. I have to say that they will not last long enough to
be added to the collection, but I LOVE them!

In addition to the carrot chocolates, Michele has recently given me other consumables, like carrot hair conditioner, bath wash, body butter, and carrot lip balm. I'm carrots head to toe, inside and out.

My friend Carole, an art teacher, found a stack of carrot-themed creations
from a long gone student as they were cleaning out cabinets at her school.
She gifted me these beauties! I hope that Nate is somewhere and I hope he's famous!

This makes me think of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Attack of the Killer Carrots!!
I should be scared, but am not at all.

Could this be more perfect for me?

I would love to ride a carrot train . . .

. . . to this carrot hotel.

And to cap off this phase of my collection, a gift from the lovely and talented painter and sculpter Randy Duncan, husband of the awesome and talented crochet artist Karen Duncan:

An Original Randy Duncan work of art! How I love this! There are no words!

My collection is growing by leaps and bounds and I feel so loved when friends remember this quirky obsession of mine and gift me carrot-y lovelies like these. I'm truly living the dream! :)

Mug Rug Swap

2011-03-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

I participated in a fun swap for mug rugs hosted by Michele Foster at the Quilting Gallery. I'd never heard of a mug rug, but the concept is pretty simple: it's like a coaster on steroids or, alternatively, like a miniature placemat. It's big enough for a large mug of coffee (tea) and a treat. Right up my alley! I LOVE LOVE LOVE these!! Whoever originally thought of the idea is brilliant!

I made a coffee-themed rug for my swappie. I fussy-cut sections from
Debbie Mum's Coffee Break and set those pieces into the coffee bean
on blue. I really like how it came out. It looks simple, but the piecing
required quite a bit of math. I like that difficult piecing looks simple in the end.

My swap partner really likes selvages, so I wanted to incorporate
them into one of the rugs. I really love this fabric line: Rainy Days
and Mondays by Riley Blake. It has really pretty selvages which
I never noticed until I started looking through my fabric to find one
to work with. I don't know if I will use selvages in the future, but it
was really fun to incorporate them in this and I like how it turned out!

I got this beauty in the mail from Eindhoven - in the Netherlands.
Oh, it's gorgeous isn't it!! Maya, from Maya's Scrap Basket did
an amazing job! I love the fabric - reminds me of apple picking. I
plan to keep this one on my sewing table for the cup of tea that
rarely leaves my side. My little tea pot fits right beside it! Nice!

This is rug #2 from Maya. So fun! I really love this one, too!
Watermelon is a real favorite of mine and I love that I have a fall
and a summer rug - though I'll use both all year round! This one
is heading to work with me to grace my desk and allow my
little work teapot to rest upon it. Now this is living! Thanks Maya!!

It's Been Forever!!

2011-03-07T21:28:00.000-05:00

Kitty Leeloo - a collaboration with my
clay artist friend, Sabra. Just a little something
I worked on over the last few weeks.

I just realized that's it's been forever since my last post - over a month!! Things have been great but so busy after the holidays. I can't believe it's March already. Dirty secret: we still have our Christmas tree up!! It's driving Michele crazy, but I get a little happy every time I see it! There are boxes underneath - we opened the gifts and left the boxes under the tree and just haven't gotten rid of them yet. It really makes me feel like Christmas is on the way!

Well, I have certainly been keeping busy and out of trouble. I'm working hard on the shop and to that end have started another blog. I really need to use blogging to promote my shop, but wanted my friends to have a choice about whether to know more about my shop or to know more about my quirky life, or both! So, hop on over to A Blog's Eye View into the Studio of The Quilted House if you'd like to know what I'm doing in the studio and shop, and stay here if you'd like to know what I'm doing in my life - though the two will often overlap! I promise to do a better job of keeping this blog up-to-date!

Creating for a Contest - Mug Shots

2011-01-29T12:34:00.002-05:00

I've been having a great deal of fun creating two entries for a competition at the gallery that is part of my favorite coffee shop, Equal Grounds. Each participant can enter up to three 5x7 images of their travel mug in the location of their choosing. The fun part is that the "images" can be in any medium. That immediately caught my attention and I decided to make two 5x7 quilts of my travel mug in, where else?, my studio! And boy did I have fun!

I started by taking an actual picture of the mug in the two places I wanted to immortalize in fabric: my cutting table in front of a stack of fabric from my stash and my sewing table in front of my favorite sewing machine (I actually took the image in front of my 2nd favorite machine because #1 was in the shop, but since they look identical, I didn't think it would matter (just don't tell the machines!)).

After I had two pictures that I liked, I sized them in the computer to 5x7 and printed them out. These would become my patterns for color, placement, and size. I wanted the mug and a feature item in each shot to be 3D, so I needed to choose the feature items. For the sewing table quilt, I, of course, chose the machine, and for the cutting table shot, the only thing I could choose was the fabric, so that was pretty easy. Since the fabric stack is so colorful, I chose white for the background for that piece, and, conversely, since my machine is so white, I chose a pieced rainbow background for the sewing table piece. That pieced background was inspired by the crazy-pieced curtains I made for the window behind my machine, so that worked well.

I started the projects by making the most complicated items first: the mugs. These were actually less complicated to make than the sewing machine, but since there are two of them and they are different sizes and perspectives, they became a bit more complex. I immediately fell in love with the completed little mini travel mugs - they came out so adorably well!

I then moved on to the sewing machine and the stack of fabric. At this point, I decided to make the sewing machine match the actual machine as realistically as possible, but to create the fabric stack more abstractly. I thought it would be fun to work on both a realistic piece and an abstract piece for the same project. And at the end of the creation, that's exactly what I created: a very realistic quilted sewing machine and a very abstract stack of fabric - I can't decide which I like best! (I actually think I will make a series of small abstract fabric stack wallhangings at some point in the future - I really like the look of them!)

The final part of the creation was the main quilt. This part was so simple. The finished piece needed to be 5x7, so for the fabric stack quilt that had a simple white background, I just cut two 5x7 pieces of white fabric, made the quilt sandwich, quilted, and bound it and was done. The sewing machine main quilt needed to represent the curtains and the wood table, so some piecing was involved, but it was still very simple in comparison to the more complicated 3Dish quilted pieces that would be attached.

This one is "Sapphire and Cider" named after

my #1 machine, Sapphire, and the beverage

of choice in my mug: caramel apple cider

Once I had all the pieces assembled, I used the pictures I'd printed out to guide me in placing each quilted piece on the background quilt and attached them using my machine. Placing and attaching them was a piece of cake (not counting the many many errors I kept getting from my machine because the presser foot was too high - these are VERY thick little quilts!).

This one is "Abstraction and Apple Cider"

I can't believe how very well they came out! I really love them both and can't wait to see them hanging in the gallery. The staff of the coffee shop and the gallery will vote on the best "mug shot" and the customers will get to vote as well, so I hope one of these two little beauties wins - but, honestly, I already feel like they're winners - they are simply gorgeous and I had THE BEST time making them!

Life Modeling

2011-01-13T21:22:00.000-05:00

First sitting

I recently had the opportunity to do some life modeling for a friend's oil painting group. When I first heard that I would need to hold a pose for four hours, I was very nervous. I new I would get frequent breaks, but it was the length of time of inactivity that had me worried. I am not often inactive. In fact, I'm known for my constant activity. Michele and I are exact opposites in that regard - she loves taking breaks and resting and just sitting. I need to constantly be doing and going and accomplishing something. I sat for two four-hour sessions for the group and was amazed at how wonderful it was! Since I rarely rest, it was such a treat to just sit and not have any choice or opportunity to do! I just sat and thought and planned and had a great time (I guess technically thinking and planning are doing, but you know what I mean.) This sitting happened in the midst of the holidays so it was great having a nice restful break.

Same model + different points of view = four different paintings

I thought the whole process was amazing. Seeing myself on canvas in oil paint was so cool! The painters are very talented and each painted a very different painting. They were all positioned with a different point of view, too. At first it was odd having a group of folks staring at me and commenting on this feature or that, but soon it became so interesting to hear what they noticed about features that I just kind of take for granted. None of the painters finished their paintings by the end of the second session, but all plan to finish at home. I work with one of the artists and hope she'll bring the painting to work or take a picture of it completed for me. For now, I've been enjoying my pictures of their works in progress. Thankfully, I'm good at sitting and staring and the group would like to have me back. I can't wait to see what my next costume will be! This sitting I ended up as a kind of African queen, so we'll see what/who I am next time. And I'm excited about the rest and relaxation!

End of second sitting

Gifts of Our Hands

2011-01-06T20:49:00.001-05:00

Just the prettiest carrot wall pocket ever!!

Michele and I both gave one another a very special Christmas gift made from our hearts and our hands. Michele's gift to me was extra, extra special because she's never actually made me anything before. She worked with our very sweet friend and brilliant potter, Sabra, to make me a ceramic carrot - that's right, I said "ceramic carrot!!" It's so very gorgeous and wonderful and beautiful and perfect!! Plus, it adds to my collection - I didn't have a ceramic carrot yet! This gift touched my heart like none other could! It's actually a wall pocket, which could hold flowers, but I think that would detract from the carrot. I think I may make little beaded carrots to live in the pocket, but we'll see. I still need to find the very perfect place to hang it.

I cannot wait to have this on the wall, but I MUST find the
perfectest most perfect place!

Now, I make Michele gifts quite often - in fact, it's rare that I give her a gift that isn't handmade. But I am particularly proud of this one. It's a simple design - nine patch squares - but I designed the kitty myself. I call it Kitty on My Quilt since it's a good bet one of our three cats will be cuddling with Michele on this quilt at any given moment. And I accidentally made it a bit too big - in my head I thought lap quilt, but it's actually twin-sized, so it's "accidentally" big enough for two!

Isn't that an adorable kitty?

Definitely big enough to share!

A New Year

2011-01-05T19:53:00.000-05:00

Ahh, I adore the freshness of a new year. I hope it's starting out great for all of you. I feel so hopeful that I'll:

Be more organized
Be nicer
Complete more
Have a better memory
Find more time
And so on and so forth

I never really change year to year, but I always feel hopeful that it's possible - at least through January. By February, I've realized that I'm pretty much the same, but that's still pretty great.

I did actually complete quite a few things in December, so maybe I was most of those things already? Anyhow, I finished that baby quilt I mentioned last month. Oh, so pleased with it! But how could anyone do a bad job with such a fun feature fabric and such a great pattern. Star sashing is one of my favorite piecing patterns and it's just perfect when you want to feature a fun juvenile print like this monkey one. Plus, I was lucky enough to find the exact same print in a flannel for the backing. So cozy! I feel pretty confident that mama and baby are loving it right now!

I loved the pairing of the monkey and the polka dot fabrics.
Inspired, if I do say so myself!

A finished project is always a treat. One this cute is especially wonderful.

There's nothing cozier than a flannel-backed quilt! Ahhhh!

A Belated Merry Christmas to You!

2010-12-28T21:26:00.002-05:00

A hilariously well aimed fall!
What are the odds?

Oh how I hope you all have had a very merry Christmas! Michele and I had a wonderful time together and with wonderful friends! We started the holiday week putting up our tree - a little later than usual, but time has been getting away from us lately! We went through about 4 CDs of Christmas music getting the lights on the tree. We wanted to finally get all the lights blinking - we usually has only one string of blinking lights around the middle of the tree with all the other lights steady as an oak tree! We couldn't get them all blinking so we went blink-free. Our special ornament this year is actually two: I found initial ornaments at Michael's and got an M and a W made out of little bells. Michele was thrilled and so am I!

We spent Christmas Eve at church as always. It's my very favorite service of the year. Half in candlelight, which is just so charming. Plus, I get to sing my favorite carol: O Holy Night. Michele shot a video of it which I'll post one of these days if I can figure out how!

Merry Christmas from us!

Another Christmas Eve tradition is to have anyone who will come over for snacks after service. We had four lovely friends nosh on tapenade, cheeses, roasted tomato slices, homemade pickles, apple and pear slices, and mini muffins. I'd made the muffins from a recipe that came into my head a few mornings before: a regular banana bread recipe (actually this recipe was my favorite recipe which is vegan and was given to me by our beloved friends Cindy and Jeremiah) to which I added two handfuls each of chocolate chips, dried blueberries, craisins, and diced dried apricots. Boy were these yummy! Our friends and we just sat around eating and chatting until nearly midnight - a wonderful night before Christmas treat!

So delicious!

Christmas morning means homemade donuts and phone calls with family in the Wescott house. Oh, what lovely treats! The donuts were especially good this year, though combining donut making and phone calling meant that I forgot to let the donuts rise the first time - went directly from kneading to donut forming and rising instead of kneading, rising, punching down, donut making, and second rising. Next year I'll get them right! Regardless, they were WONDERFUL!!

I need to do a special post about the extra special gift Michele made for me and the special one I made for her, so I'll save any discussion of gifts. After chatting with all our loved ones, we spent most of the day eating donuts, drinking soynog, watching Roseanne (we're working through the series from beginning to end as it was both of our favorites when we were younger (I'm totally neglecting Star Trek, but that's OK.)), and eating more donuts. We rounded out the day with a dinner party with more wonderful friends - which was a good thing because we'd eaten nothing but donuts all day! Our holiday was full of blessings of wonderful friendship and love and I hope yours was as well!

Our special MW ornaments for 2010. They jingle so sweetly!

And Winter Begins

2010-12-22T13:57:00.001-05:00

I had fun with pockets and
playing around
with fabrics for a guy!

I hope this the beginning of winter finds you all well (weather issues aside!). The end of fall and beginning of winter heading into the holidays has found me pleasantly swamped with work - both my day job and my quilting shop! It's been great fun at both jobs!

I've been doing alot of new things and creating lots of new patterns for things. It's been so fun! Probably the coolest thing so far was a very custom iPod Touch pouch for my friend, John. I love all the little pockets!

These dog collars kinda
make me want to get a
dog! But not quite!

I also had a ball making quilted dog collars - never thought I'd find myself making dog collars, but they are really very fun to make and look so cool when they're done!

Little squares ready and waiting to become star sashing!

I think my favorite thing over the past few weeks is the baby quilt I'm making for a friend of a friend. I don't make many baby quilts - in fact this is only my third - so it's a special treat. This baby's colors are lavendar and sage, but I went a little more intense with a brighter purple and green. I just had to once I found the adorable monkey fabric! It called to me and begged to be used for this quilt. I'm almost done and will share the finished product as soon as I am! I hope you've all had as much fun getting ready for the holidays!

Four patch squares ready to be added to the quilt!

A pile of monkeys! Giggling and having fun! Who could resist?

Gallery Opening Debrief

2010-12-08T16:40:00.004-05:00

The display in the studio - this was the
view when you first walk in.

The showroom space - This is where
the exhibit will be til the 19th

Oh boy, was this weekend an amazing time! The opening went great - we had hoards of people on Friday night and a nice flow of serious buyers on Saturday. I loved the crowds on Friday, but really enjoyed having the time and space to talk to people on Saturday. My step mom, Gloria, came to see the show and we put her to work helping Michele keep the food restocked - boy did the Friday visiters EAT! On Saturday, Michele had to work, but since most folks were more interested in shopping than eating, there wasn't much food restocking. Spending time with Jennifer and Sabra from Crocus Clay was such a treat - I really loved getting to know them better. After the show on Saturday, we set up the "exhibit" that will be up in the showroom until the 19th and off we went to dinner and a show to reward ourselves for our hard work. And work hard we certainly did! It was so worth it, though! What an amazing time!

The overflow shelf - pleasantly

decreased by the
end of the weekend!

A bowl of overflow ornaments - very popular

and very gone by the end of the show!

End of day one getting on the freight

elevator - Gloria's first time and it made

us all feel VERY urban!

La-Tea-Da

2010-11-30T16:58:00.005-05:00

Nice, wet, flaky, white stuff. A delight at 4 am!

Since Michele has been home, I have been crazily busy with the shop and she has been wonderfully supportive and helpful (she's even been put to work in the studio!). My beautiful wonderful friend, Karen (of Duncan Creative - just THE most wonderful place for hats and other crocheted items!) gifted me a Groupon for afternoon tea at La-Tea-Da Tea Salon, so I took the opportunity to treat Michele to an afternoon of undivided attention. To get that afternoon, I trucked myself off to work before the crack of dawn and found this lovely surprise on my car!

After stuffing eight hours of work in before Noon, I picked Michele up and we headed off to tea delight! It was really wonderful! It's such an eclectic place, just a feast for the eyes! And afternoon tea was amazingly DELICIOUS!! We drank way too much tea, of course, and ate way too many delicious nibblies, including their signature scones with Devonshire creme and jam! Oh wow! It was a really great afternoon and it was really great to take a break and spend some time talking about everything except work!

The have hoards of hats to wear to make you feel elegant
or just downright silly. These fit both categories.

One lump or two? It's fun to have the opportunity to say that.

Pretty little teapot table decor! Our actual tea was served in a

good sturdy workhorse of a teapot complete with cozy. I really

need to make myself some cozies for my workhorses at home!

Can you imagine how delicious? Look up the definition of
YUM in the dictionary and this picture will be right beside it!

Menorah, Thanksgiving, and Insanity

2010-11-29T16:52:00.000-05:00

I'm finally taking some much-needed time out to 1. show you the completed Menorah quilt, 2. tell you about my fabulous Thanksgiving, and 3. explain about the insanely awesome happening that has been keeping me so very busy.

1. I've kept you waiting far too long to see the completed Menorah quilt! It took a bit longer than I'd planned, but that was all my fault. I decided to make the Menorah two layers and it took quite a while to cut each piece . . . twice!

Layer 1

And then layer two

Plus the candles and flames. The menorah, candles, and flames
are made by layering a top fabric, batting, and backing and then
satin stitching the edges before stitching the to pieced quilt top.
So, technically, each piece of the menorah, candles, and flames are quilts!

Finished! Hanging in my hallway for picture taking before
packing and sending to its new home!

Close-up #1

Close-up #2

I truly loved making this special gift and hope the recipients love it as well!

2. Thanksgiving was a delight - I hope yours was as well. Michele decided that she wanted to make dinner to give me a little extra time to prepare for #3 below. I tried to insist on helping, but she would have none of it! It was just the two of us for the first time in a long time, so that was a nice treat - and it made it so that we could have whatever we want (when we have company we try to introduce folks to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, vegetarian-style). This year we had vegetarian meatloaf topped with barbecue sauce we made and canned over the summer, whipped potatoes, corn, cider glazed carrots, dinner rolls from Michele's grandmother's recipe, and pumpkin pie with real freshly whipped cream. I cannot tell you how delicious it was! WOW! Michele will be cooking a lot more often - this is a skill that she has been hiding under a bushel for the 13 years we've been together!

Dinner was SO yummy! And I enjoyed the leftover "meat"loaf
on dinner rolls for the rest of the week - little meatloaf sliders! YUM!

Pumpkin is Michele's favorite pie, but I am not usually a fan.
Boy howdy, I really loved it this year! I'm now a fan!

3. The insanity that has been keeping me so busy is that I have what Michele is calling my "one woman show" coming up on Friday! I was chosen as the featured artist at a local gallery for First Friday festivities! First Friday here in Rochester is when all the participating galleries open late and have wine and nibbles while folks browse all the gorgeous treasures. My show is called Quilted, Quaint, and Quirky: Stocking Stuffers and Fashionable Finishing Touches. I am over-the-moon excited! It's really an amazing accomplishment and I keep pinching myself that it is actually happening! You can check out my and many other artists' shows here. I'm at the Crocus Clay Works, which is the seventh gallery on the list on the left of that website. So, needless to say, I have been working like crazy to be ready for what I am referring to this amazing opportunity!

This is the bookmark that I made and handed out at the MayDay Underground show.
I think it's adorable!

Stained Glass

2010-11-16T21:34:00.000-05:00

I love how this background turned out and
would like to make another, but some of
the squares are so tiny (1x1.5) and the
"leading" is so thin (.25") that it takes
a LONG time to piece! The effect is worth
it though, don't you think?

I've been overwhelmingly busy getting ready for the biggest show of my career so far: a solo gallery exhibit and sale! I'm very excited and will tell you more about it in the next few weeks. Suffice it to say that all my energy and concentration has been directed towards that event, but I took a break this week to work on a very special commission from a lovely family who wished to bless their neighbors with a special Hanukkah gift: a quilted menorah. I designed a quilt that I hope my client and the recipients love. I haven't been doing a lot of intricate piecing lately, so working on the background of the quilt over the last two evenings has been really fun and challenging. I felt like I cut pieces for days last night and sewed and sewed and pieced and pieced tonight. I was getting really tired by the time I was cutting the pieces for the last two rows, but surprised myself by only making two cutting mistakes - and both pieces were cut too large, which is easily fixable! I wanted the background to look like a stained glass window. I used batik for the "panes." I love how you can get many different colors and shades out of a single piece of batik - I thought that would add to the stained glass effect. The "leading" is done in a solid bluish grey. I really love the way it turned out - so much so that I plan to use this pattern to make another wall hanging using a brighter, jewel-toned batik, and maybe black "leading." Tomorrow, I start work on the elaborate menorah applique I designed. I'll use that dimensional applique technique I used on the shoe and dolphin quilts over the summer. I'll give you another sneak peek tomorrow.

Priorities, Vacation, and Juggling

2010-11-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

Hello! I just had a big show this past weekend and preparations for it made me neglect telling you about days seven and eight of our vacation. Day seven was particularly important because Michele interviewed for a local job and GOT IT!! We had a dual celebration of Michele's success and Mum's birthday at our favorite place: Red Robin! Fun was had by all!

Day eight was Mum's actual birthday, but it was also Mum's last day with us, so we made her a special breakfast: homemade shortbread with warm peaches, peach syrup, and whipped cream - we used peaches I'd canned over the summer and it was divine!

Michele's now been home for a week and a half and started her new job on Monday and this wonderful event has presented me with the following lovely challenges:

Since the "cat" is no longer away, what do I do about my blog title? Change it? Leave it as it is as a reminder?
I started my business to keep me occupied for the long weeks Michele was on the road and now it's really taking off. I've never been good at prioritizing and finding balance, but I really need to do both to keep it all together.
Michele HATES Star Trek, but the only time I have to sit and watch TV is time that I could be sitting and watching TV with her. How will I ever get through TOS by sneaking episodes here and there when she's out of the house?

OK, so maybe challenge number two is the only REAL challenge I need to deal with, but one and three are pretty fun to contemplate! It will also be fun to see what kind of trouble I get into right under Michele's nose now that she's home and will likely say things like "Don't rip up that floor, hon!" and "Michelle, I don't think you need to take the oven door apart in order to tighten the handle!"

Vacation: Day Six: the Scenic Route

2010-10-28T21:22:00.000-04:00

I would like to say that on the sixth day of our vacation we rested from the hard work of apple picking and apple making, but we didn't. We got up early and made fried apples and biscuits, on which we ate apple butter. Actually, Michele sliced the apples and Mum fried them and Mum made the biscuits - I just took pictures and tasted as necessary.

Slicing apples for frying

After breakfast - which was YUMMY!!! - we decided to go to an outlet mall in Buffalo to do some shopping. My bright idea was that we take the scenic route to Buffalo and take a look at the lovely fall colors on the way. About halfway there Mum and I became like 3-year-olds with our whiny "are we there yet?" It seemed to take forever to get there! My two lovely travelling companions only reminded me ten or fifteen times that it was all my idea that we take the scenic route! It was a fun trip, regardless. And made even more fun by the 100 truffles we bought at the Lindt store in the outlet mall - heck, that alone made the "scenic" route worth it!

Are we there yet???

While at the mall, we entertained ourselves by convincing Michele to try on bright yellow high-heeled patent leather boots. Her face says it all.

The boots are cute. The jeans and flannel are cute.
The boots, jeans, and flannel are not - the face makes that completely clear.

On the way home, I entertained myself and my companions by taking pictures in the dark. I think this one was our favorite.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!

Vacation: Day Five: Apples: Sauce, Butter, and Rings

2010-10-27T20:39:00.001-04:00

That's right, you guessed it, this day of "vacation" was all about making stuff with all those apples we picked! It was not a very restful day - in fact we worked from dawn til beyond dusk - but it was great fun!

Stirring, stirring, stirring . . . and smiling!

We made and canned smooth and chunky applesauce, apple butter (yum!!), and dried apple rings. Oh, my, I don't believe I've even tasted applesauce before in my life that was as good as the sauce Mum, Michele, and I made!

I seem to always can on sunny days because I always get to take a
gorgeous picture of something freshly canned glowing in the sunshine!

And the apple rings are like heaven! Now, I was a little skeptical about the apple butter - I've never liked it - but I really felt like we should make some. Total convert! I LOVE APPLE BUTTER - at least this apple butter! It's so amazing! We were exhausted after canning all day, so we ordered a pizza and each spread apple butter on the crust - that's how good it is!

The "fruit" of our labor!

Vacation: Day Four: The Gift of Song

2010-10-26T21:40:00.002-04:00

Mum and me about to leave for service. Isn't she PRETTY!!??

On this fourth day of vacation, a Sunday, Mum and I gave a special gift to the pastor of Michele's and my church. It was his birthday and Mum and I sang a song together for him after his sermon. We've sung together once before - well technically many times before since we sung in the church choir together when I was a kid, but this was only the second time in my grown-up years. Our pastor and every church member who has met Mum adore her and get so excited when they know she's coming into town, so there was a lot of anticipation for our song - Rev. Jim had requested a song and announced that we'd be singing one the week before! We concluded the song, Swing Down Chariot, to rousing applause - our church is SO loving - and then spent the rest of the day being lazy: napping, reading, and drinking tea! We'd earned a rest after the previous day's appling!

Short Addendum to Vacation Day Three: Rhode Island

2010-10-26T10:20:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned yesterday, we were pretty obsessed with finding the Rhode Island Greenings during our apple picking venture. Well, since my dad's side of the family is from Rhode Island, I feel a particular connection to that apple - though last weekend was the first time I'd ever heard of it. Though we didn't find the apple, I did find out some interesting bits about it and about RI in general:

The oh so sought after RI Greening

The Rhode Island Greening was the first named apple in America and is the official state fruit of Rhode Island.
Greenings are the perfect apple to make apple slumps with - I have no idea what an apple slump is, but if we'd found some Greenings, I certainly would have made a slump or two.
Rhode Island's official state name is The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which is the longest official name of any US State - which is very funny because Rhode Island is the smallest state!
Rhode Island was the first of the 13 colonies to declare independence from Britian and the last to ratify the US constitution.

Vacation: Day Three: Brunching and Appling

2010-10-25T19:08:00.002-04:00

Our vacation was so fun and so full that I didn't take the time I planned to blog about it. Now that it is over, I'm dedicating some time to share it with you.

So, day three: oh what a fun day this was. We had sweet Deb over for a birthday brunch - Deb's birthday was the week before and Mum's would be the week after. Michele and I made the blueberry stuffed french toast recipe I'd made for my birthday brunch, but this time we used apple and golden raisin bread and plums instead of blueberries for a taste of fall - oh how wonderful it was!

Wonderful women enjoying a wonderful brunch - who could ask for more?

We then went appling - I think I made up that word! - or apple picking - at the prettiest orchard I've ever seen!

We couldn't have asked for a lovelier day or a lovelier orchard!
Doesn't Michele look great amongst those pumpkins!

We started the day with an applesauce tasting to see which apples we'd be sure to pick since we planned on making applesauce. All four of us fell in love with the Rhode Island Greenings, so we drove out to that orchard and started looking for them . . .and looking . . .and looking! We couldn't find them anywhere, so we decided to head farther into the orchard - driving as they'd directed us to do - and I got the car stuck in the mud! A crazy mess indeed!

Millions of apples on hundreds of trees and of course
the shortest of us wants the highest apple!

Well and truly stuck! We tried adding items from the car to provide traction:
paper, Wegman's bags, plywood, Deb even volunteered her coat - all with no success!

A lovely tractor driver pulled the car out of the orchard - and informed us that they'd been out of RI Greenings for quite some time! - and we went on our way to fill our baskets with other apples. We got massive amounts of apples and wore ourselves out on this lovely day! It was just a perfect day - getting stuck in the mud not withstanding!

Hey, is this what they mean by a "tractor-pull"??

After all the stuck-in-the-mud drama, we were tired, but we
still had a ball picking beautiful - and yummy - apples!
These three ladies were great sports - though they all became backseat drivers
everytime I came within feet of anything that even vaguely resembled mud!

Vacation: Day Two: Shopping

2010-10-15T20:46:00.000-04:00

Today we did nothing more strenuous than shopping for a lovely outfit for my mom to wear Stepping Out with her brother when she returns to Boston. We actually began the day with doctor's appointments, one each for Michele and I, and then dallied over breakfast. Mum and I then hung out in the craftroom while Michele napped. THEN we went shopping. It was a fun and laid back day and allowed us lots of rest in preparation for apple picking tomorrow. What fun!

Vacation: Day One: Introductions

2010-10-14T20:22:00.001-04:00

The first day of my vacation wasn't exactly relaxing. I did sleep in, though I shouldn't have because I still needed to clean the house. Earlier in the week I cleaned the bedroom and the workout room - which doubles as a guest room - and of course the new bathroom is spotless - every speck of dust or dirt gets cleaned up the second I see it! So the upstairs hall, stairs, and the entire downstairs desperately needed to be cleaned - and I of course decided to leave it until today. So I worked really hard and got the house looking its best before Michele got home - she hasn't been home in nearly a month so I wanted it to look especially nice. So, I spent the morning cleaning and then Michele arrived at the truck stop and we had lunch. It was nice to spend a few hours with just her before Mum arrived. I introduced Michele to the new bathroom - she's seen it in stages and I sent pictures after Lisa finished her final tasks, but she hadn't seen it all put together with the tiling and finishing touches. Then Mum arrived and we introduced her to the bathroom - we sat in there for about half an hour chatting. It's just that kind of room. So, day one was half work and half relax and wholly wonderful because I got to be with two of the most wonderful women I know. And below is one of them using the bathroom for the first time - she wouldn't let me take a picture of her trying out the toilet, I'm not sure why. :-)

It's such a lovely space that even washing your hands is a dream!

Exciting Week

2010-10-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

This is indeed a very exciting week for me. My mom will be here on Thursday for her annual October birthday visit - her birthday, not mine. She also comes in May for her annual May/June birthday visit - Michele and my birthdays, not her own. So I have been aggressively cleaning the house in preparation for this wonderful visit. It's amazing how dirty EVERY room is not matter how far they are from the room where the construction happened. It's also amazing how much paint I accidently tracked throughout the house. I even got paint on the kitchen wall - the kitchen is through the upstairs hall down a flight of stairs, across a small landing, down another flight of stairs, across another landing, down a few more stairs, through a foyer, and across the side entry way - in other words, it's a LOOONG way from the new bathroom!

My other excitement is that Michele is coming home on Wednesday or Thursday for her very first vacation since starting her trucking career. Oh, so thrilling! I'm off for a week and a half starting Thursday to enjoy my time with these two wonderful ladies! We are going to have SO much fun! When Mum visits we spend copious amounts of time hanging out on the sun porch drinking tea and reading, talking, and napping. We rarely make plans, but this time we have plans for a Saturday morning birthday breakfast to celebrate Mum's and Deb's (my lovely friend Deb) October birthdays and then we're going apple picking. I'd like to then make some apple sauce and apple butter and do some canning. All summer, with the exception of the first batch of barbecue sauce, I've been canning solo, so it will be so much fun to have some canning company!

Well, so far, I only have the upstairs bathroom, workout room, and bedroom clean, so I'd better get busy!

Accidental Hiatus, Final Five

2010-10-08T23:34:00.000-04:00

21 - 24. FINSHED THE BATHROOM!! I know, I know, but it's really worth four! I LOVE this bathroom and I love that it is finished! I've REALLY missed taking a bath! Sundays just aren't Sundays without a bath.

The final reveal!

Finished and accessorized

I tiled that mirror all by myself! Isn't that soap dispenser divine!

Sometimes I just stand in the doorway and gaze upon the pretty space!

25. And the most exciting thing I did over the past five weeks - oh the most thrilling - was take a bath in the very gorgeous, freshly finished bathroom. I swear I felt like I was in a luxury spa! I made a pot of my favorite tea - strawberry rooibos cream - and a bowl of chocolate peanut butter ice cream - Haagen Dazs not Wescott - and dark chocolate dipped cheese cake bites. It was a special occasion - the completion of the massive project - so the cheese cake bites were my extra special treat. I also bought a new, very good book to read - I won't tell you what book since I'm a secret romance novel addict (oops, I wasn't supposed to say that!). I got new bubble bath and body butter, too, to tip the event over into true bliss. Oh what a wonderful Sunday afternoon!

Running my first bath! Oh how excited I was!

Thanks for bearing with me while I recounted what I did in the five weeks I was away! It was great fun, let me tell you! I learned so much from Lisa and really ended up with the bathroom of my dreams! Michele hasn't seen the finished product except in pictures, but she'll be home on Wednesday and I can't wait to show her!

Accidental Hiatus, 4 of 5

2010-10-07T22:44:00.000-04:00

16. Tiled the tub wall - Beautiful tiles for the new wall Lisa built to make my tub faucet work for this tub arrangement. Originally, the faucet was mounted on the side of the tub wall - a wall-mounted faucet, but I could not find one that I liked for the life of me. So to make the deck-mount faucet I ended up buying work, Lisa rebuilt the tub wall, made it lower and more substantial to support such an impressive faucet and then together we tiled it. Then the next day, I grouted it - my first time ever gouting - and did a great job, if I do say so myself!

You can't imagine how much I love to look at this beautiful tilework - the real and the faux!

17. Spray painted ALOT of things "oil rubbed bronze." And when I say ALOT here, it's not like the claim that I painted a lot of things white. I really did spray paint practically everything to coordinate with the new metal. Originally everything was chrome or was painted white. So I stripped the white paint from the heat register and the hardware on the medicine cabinet and spray painted that. I also sprayed odd things like the toilet pipe and the door threshold. I must have gone though about 10 cans of spray paint - well, maybe 7.

These lovely candle stick - or candle stands - were a gift
from my mom to Michele and I years ago. They were originally
silver/steel, but now look lovely in oil rubbed bronze with copper highlights.

This register had about 6 layers of paint on it. Once removed it was a very
bright chrome, which, while lovely, didn't match at all, so shake, shake, and spray away!

I chose this rope trim to trim out the glass tiles on the wall and spray painted
it bronze. It looked nice, but was missing something, so I got a copper leaf pen
and "painted" copper leaf in all the indentations. In real life, it looks very much like
metal and adds just the right touch around the tub.

18. Met a new neighbor across the street whose name is also Michelle. Such a sweet family! And went to a Scentsy party in her home - Scentsy is scented wax that you put in holders on pretty ceramic lamps. I of course got just the perfect night light for the new bathroom. The scents are a bit strong for me, but I really love the lamps!

I love how the little bee hive shoots light out across the ceiling and wall.

19. Bought and obscenely ridiculous number of oil rubbed bronze accessories. My two favorites are the toilet paper holder with extra roll caddy and the pretty little container to house toothpaste and brushes. How I love picking out the little finishing touches!

I'd planned to make a toilet paper caddy with roll holder myself, but I saw
this one and really loved it. I decided instead to use the supplies I'd
bought for the caddy to make a little cabinet to sit beside the tub
and hold my Sunday bath pot of tea and bowl of ice cream. I haven't
designed or made it yet, but I bet it will be awesome!

We've always laid the toothpaste on a shelf in the medicine cabinet
and held the toothbrushes in an old mug on the same shelf. This container is
completely unnecessary, but it makes me feel very fancy, so I got it - plus it
was on clearance (clearly everyone agrees that it is pretty frivolous.)

20. Took one evening off and didn't work on the bathroom. I ordered a pizza and watched Star Trek, the Original Series. I'm half enjoying it - I love the history and their over the top acting is quite humorous. The other half of me rolls my eyes constantly at the over the top acting! Wow! It's really bad sometimes - yet oddly appealing!

OK, the final five and the finished bathroom reveal will come tomorrow. Plus, you'll find out the MOST exciting thing I did over the last five weeks! Oh boy was it thrilling!

Accidental Hiatus, 3 of 5

2010-10-07T00:04:00.000-04:00

These next five have a common theme - of course these last five weeks have had a common theme.

11. Scoured the internet to find and purchase the perfect lights for the bathroom, upstairs hall, and foyer. . .and then had an awesome electrician install them. The upstairs hall and foyer required rewiring and we also had him install a light in the newly renovated bathroom closet, so he nicely switched out the bathroom light, too!

Bathroom light - how I fell in love with this one

Upstairs hallway light. I actually bought this one for the bathroom closet,
but NY law only allows flourescent lights in closets, so into the hallway it went.

We now excitedly have have a light in our foyer - we've always had table lamps
and now have an actual light that runs on the same switch as the upstairs hall light.
I can't tell you how excited that makes us!

12. Scoured the internet and read every review I could find to choose the perfect toilet. How I love this toilet! It's a dual flush toilet that stands at chair height - eco-loving and comfortable to boot!

Is it okay to have a love affair with a toilet?

13. Painted ALOT of things white. Not really, but it sure felt like that. Conversation with Michele: Me: I need to paint the shelves for the closet. I am SO tired of painting things white! Michele: But you've only painted the trim and the ceiling white - everything else is color, color, color.
I guess it just feels like a lot because it's white - why paint white when I could paint yellow, right?

Our newly renovated bathroom closet with six lovely white shelves that I haven't even half filled.
I was so tempted to paint each one a different color from the selection of
colors I'd used on the bricks, but by this point I was SO tired of cleaning paint brushes
that I just stuck with white. Plus, it makes the closet look crisp and clean!

14. Scoured the internet to find the perfect vanity. Actually, I chose the perfect vanity and designed the rest of the bathroom around it.

This is without a doubt the most gorgeous vanity we've ever owned.
It's actually our very first brand new, didn't come with the house, never used by another
person vanity. Very exciting for us!

15. Scoured, and I mean SCOURED, the internet for the perfect sink and tub faucets. My whole design really hinged on finding the right faucet for the tub. Not because the tub is the focal point of the room - though it is - but because I needed to find a faucet that would fit on this tub that did not have an attached shower. . .that I liked. And I couldn't do it. So, I found one that I loved and worked with my wonderful handy lady to make it work for my tub. I'll show you the faucet today, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it works. You can see the perfect - and matching - sink faucet on the image of the vanity above.

I do so love this faucet!

Accidental Hiatus, Part 2 of 5

2010-10-05T20:09:00.000-04:00

Thank you so much for the warm welcome back comments on yesterday's post. And now for five more things I've been doing over the past five weeks.

6. Observed recycling in action. Michele hauls for a company that makes paper products. A lot of the time she hauls the finished products, but she often hauls the materials that they recycle into the finished products. I'd like to think that some of the items I put in my recycling bin end up in one of Michele's trailers.

Bales of paper "hay" in the trailer of Michele's truck

7. Ate potatoes and beets from the garden. Michele and I have enjoyed copious amounts of potatoes and beets from the garden. Oh yum!

Freshly dug beets and potatoes from our square foot garden

8. Took my car for an oil change and watched the car next to it explode. Thankfully no one was hurt. It started with a little smoke and then a little fire - at which point they moved my car - and then a big kaboom as the front of the car exploded. The lady driving got out of the car while it was only smoking, so really the only damage was to her car. My car got a free car wash to remove the foam from the extinguishers the oil change folks used while waiting for the fire department.

A very grainy picture of the fire

A very grainy picture of the fireman and car post "kaboom"

9. Made second batch of barbecue sauce. I don't know how I neglected to capture this on film (or on storage card), but I made a second batch of barbecue sauce. Not because we gave it all away, but because we ATE AN ENTIRE BATCH (about a 15 half-pints) in about a month! My handy lady and friend, Lisa, wondered what two vegetarians could put that much barbecue sauce on and I explained that nightly when Michele is home we'll use a half-pint of bbq sauce to marinate Gardein meatless chick'n and then roast it with freshly dug potatoes - oh yum! So I made a batch of about 20 half-pints and 10 pints to tide us over for the next month or two! Ha!

10. Finished painting the bathroom walls. This picture shows all nine of the colors, though the variation between the dark green and the next lighter green is so subtle, it looks like the same color in the pic - so I numbered it for you! I used Martha Stewart's line of paints. They had such cool names like persimmon, custard (really exactly the color of custard), fortune cookie, and tahini.

Not for a million dollars will I attempt this kind of paint job again, but I do so love how it turned out!

Check in tomorrow for 11-15!

Accidental Hiatus

2010-10-04T21:30:00.001-04:00

Well, I've accidentally taken a five-week hiatus from my blog. Life has been so good, but so busy! Well, to make it up to you, over the next five days, I'll share five things I've been doing over the last five weeks.

1. Picking peaches - OH SO FUN! I picked two baskets of peaches and had a ball doing it!

A tisket, a tasket, lovely peaches in a basket . . .or two

The trees were full of beautiful fruit

2. Canning peaches and making peach butter. I brought home a lot of peaches and was very excited to try my hand at canning them. Well, peeling that many peaches took FOREVER - I tried dipping them in boiling water and then slipping off the peels, but that didn't work for me. But I canned bunches the day I picked them and the next day I made the rest into peach butter. YUM!

freshly washed peaches

Pretty cans of peaches lined up like soldiers

3. Auctioned off two quilted wallhangings at my church fundraiser - fun and a great cause!

I really loved making these and watching the ladies go ga-ga over them at the auction!

4. Took some "before" pictures of my bathroom. You may recall that when Michele went out on the road I ripped up the floor. . . and then never touched it again. Well, I've been working with my beloved handy lady Lisa Golden to renovate the room.

The bathtub doubled as a landing pad for the paint and supplies

Bathroom sans vanity and toilet - can you really call it a bathroom?

5. Began the weeks-long effort of painting the "bricks" on the embossed wallboard on the lower half of the bathroom walls. I think by color #2 I was cursing myself for thinking of doing this. By color #9, I was no longer on speaking terms with whoever's bright idea THIS was.

First pass with colors 1-6

More on the past five weeks tomorrow! Thanks and it's great to be back!

Featured Square, Week Whatever: CORN!

2010-08-27T19:29:00.000-04:00

One of our lovely ears of corn!

Yes, corn! We were so excited when we saw the first ear of corn pop out. We'd just had two ladies on two separate occasions tell us that we wouldn't be blessed with corn because we "didn't plant the seeds right." The said, "corn will only grow if planted three rows by three rows." They both said the exact same thing and do not know each other, so we believed it must be fact. Well, fact or not, we have about 30 ears of corn growing wonderfully in out garden! We haven't tried any yet, but there are a few ears that will be ready when Michele comes home next week and try them we will! SO EXCITED!

I love the look of corn stalks in the garden...and I
love it even more that there are ears of corn upon them!

Church Fundraising

2010-08-26T20:21:00.000-04:00

This little beauty goes on the auction block on Sunday. I wish
I could keep it, but it's for a good cause. (And I COULD make
myself one.)

I'm on the fundraising committee at church and it is surprisingly fun! We get together and plan wonderful events that will 1. raise money, 2. attract new members, and 3. increase community within the church. I love being so involved and brainstorming with the three other folks on the committee. This Sunday we're having a silent auction and I am coordinating it - a first for me! It's fun collecting things from the congregation to auction off. I planned to contribute two items myself: a mini quilt and a prayer journal. I've been so busy with everything that I just started making them yesterday, though! I got the quilt done, but have yet to start on the journal. Hopefully I can get that done tonight (because tomorrow I need to get all the auction sheets done and Saturday I plan to make more pickles (yes, more pickles) and can some peaches (yum!)) I actually had so much fun designing and making the quilt that I am really tempted to make another one instead of the journal. Hmmm. We'll see. So, what do you think? Will it do well at auction?

Star Trek

2010-08-25T15:25:00.001-04:00

As I've mentioned before, I have a Star Trek mission: to watch every Star Trek episode and movie in the order they happened in "real life." I started my mission after I'd already watched several seasons of The Next Generation (TNG), so I just went from there through Voyager (VOY) and then started from the beginning: Enterprise. Well, I've been slowly making my way through Enterprise these past many months. It's the only series I'd never seen and it is my very least favorite. I really had to work to get through it, but there were some points I enjoyed. They ended up explaining things that never really made sense, like why Klingons in The Original Series (TOS) looked human, but don't in any other series. It was fun to learn the history of the Federation, too. That being said, I'm glad I'm done with Enterprise. Now, I get to watch the latest Star Trek movie, which actually fits chronologically between Enterprise and TOS, and then I start on TOS - I know, it's full of flaky over-acting, but I really love it! I figure I'll just keep watching all the series and movies over and over in order for the rest of my life - I doubt I'll get tired of them (except maybe Enterprise, but it's worth the pain to continue my life-long mission).

Birds, Birds, Birds!!

2010-08-24T15:24:00.000-04:00

Bald eagle - see how
she eyes me!

This weekend, in addition to the fun I had at our church picnic, I went to a fabulous craft show at the Braddock Bay Raptor Research Center. Yes, that's right, I said RAPTOR. It was fearsome at first because at the very first booth was a display of birds of some sort - living ones that were not in any sort of cage. I hurried by and the rest of the show was lovely - full of wonderful crafters whom I know and adore. I was about to leave when my friend Casey, whose bird I've actually held and petted, said "Oh, why don't you stay to see the eagles." And I said, "well, that sounds like a really good reason to leave." But I stayed, oh boy did I stay. And I swear those HUGE birds eyed me the whole time - and they are bred to kill and eat, so I think it's completely understandable to fear them! Those talons and hooked beaks look just perfect to peck my eyes out!

She's looking right at me hungrily,
don't you think?

Golden eagle - staring me down

I'm so proud of myself, though, for staying and being in a very small room with two very big birds. I mean, I'm afraid of little birds that eat bugs and worms and have no interest in people. It's uncommonly crazy to be that close to birds that are actually MADE to eat meat and that are probably strong enough to at least rip off an arm. Baby steps to facing my fear (actually, I would consider this a great big giant leap, which should satisfy my quota of fear facing for the decade.)

On Display

2010-08-23T08:02:00.002-04:00

How fun to have my work displayed
for all to see - and looking SO gorgeous!

My work is on display in a local Michael's! It's actually to show folks how lots of different items can be framed. My friend Karen's husband Randy, who works in Micheal's framing department, used to work of local artists and crafters to create the display. I can believe how awesome my hotpads look! Thanks Randy!

The mat he used for this one looks like it
was made just for it!

The framing makes a pair of simple
hot pads look like a work of art!

Canning Addiction

2010-08-21T10:43:00.001-04:00

Sweet pickle spears - oh yum!

Absolutely the most divine bbq sauce

Pickled tomatos - so pretty!

Salsa and hiding behind in the quart
jars is roasted roma tomatos

I've become addicted to canning. It's just so fun that I can't stop myself. Last Friday, I made sweet pickle spears, roasted roma tomatos and garlic, and salsa. Saturday morning I made pickled cherry tomatos with garlic and rosemary. And Sunday afternoon, Michele and I made barbecue sauce. I just love the whole process from planting to harvesting to preparing to cooking to canning to enjoying the fruits of my labor! This weekend I have a craft show to visit (not vending just supporting friends), our church picnic, another church event tomorrow, and I'd like to wedge some canning in there tomorrow afternoon. I don't even know what I want to can, but it will probably be variety #4/5 of pickles (I've already made bread and butter, garlic dill, sweet pickle spears, and relish (though I don't know if that counts as a pickle variety, hence the 4/5)). I plan to do either kosher dill or a zesty sweet - I'm really leaning towards a zesty sweet this week and a potential kosher dill next week if I can harvest more pickling cukes. Like I said, it's an addiction!

Zucchini Cupcakes

2010-08-20T22:43:00.001-04:00

Zucchini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - I'm sure my
icing piping skills will improve with practice!

I've never made cupcakes before that I can remember. I've only actually made cake a few times. So, I wanted to try making cupcakes for our church's anniversary picnic tomorrow. I also wanted to use something in my garden to make them - enter the zucchini cupcake. I just used that zucchini cake recipe I made for the Squash You Very Much dinner, but I tripled the recipe. I had no idea how many cupcakes that would make, so I ended up with 70! Oh well, they are really yummy so any not enjoyed at the picnic can be taken to church on Sunday for after-service socializing. And since I really like trying lots of new things all at once, I wanted to trying piping on the frosting (my friend Karen does that and it just looks divine!) After a bit of trial and error and a LOT of mess - i.e. icing on the floor, counters, hands, feet, and most body parts in between! - they turned out pretty good looking - and they taste just awesome! If you remember from the dinner party post, the recipe calls for raisins in the cake, but I substituted craisins. Well this time, I used half craisins and half dried apricots - oh heaven!

We All Scream for Ice Cream!

2010-08-13T17:05:00.004-04:00

Making vanilla ice cream for the first time

I'm not sure how I keep forgetting, but since April, I have been making ice cream about once a week (I don't eat the whole quart in a week. I have about 6 in the freezer at a time so I can choose from a variety). Small batches of creamy dreamy ice cream. Oh, it's been so fun! Michele and I made vanilla together when we first got the ice cream maker - it was wonderful. We even made some the morning of my birthday brunch to have atop the blueberry stuffed french toast - so decadent!

Yummy bowls of vanilla - Michele's fave!

My favorite flavor so far is sweet potato. I know it's a bit unusual and not at all a standard flavor, but it tastes amazing! It tastes simply like sweet potato, but icy cold. It even retains its sweet potato texture. Michele does not at all enjoy the sweet potato - in fact of all the flavors we and I have made, she really only likes the vanilla.

Jack Fruit ice cream

Tied for favorite in the exotic ice cream category is Jack Fruit! I brought a bunch of Jack Fruit home with me from Georgia and used most of it to make the most amazing ice cream I've ever had. Since Jack Fruit has flavors of several other fruits, Jack Fruit ice cream has a flavor that is uncatagorizable. Michele actually conceeds that Jack Fruit ice cream is very good, but she doesn't like the aftertaste. I admit that it does indeed have an aftertaste, but to me its like getting to enjoy the deliciousness twice!

Sweet potato &
chocolate chocolate chip sweet potato

And because I am me, I am going to make carrot ice cream as soon as my carrots are ready to harvest. I've found several recipes online (I guess carrot is a popular Thai ice cream flavor), but I'm not quite happy with any of them. I think I will make up my own recipe: Carrot ice cream with crystalized ginger chunks. I imagine it will taste like ginger glazed carrots (but cold.) I'll keep you posted. And now I think I will have my after dinner bowl of ice cream - Jack Fruit tonight!

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag. . .and Wallet

2010-08-12T17:09:00.000-04:00

All my favorite colors - and of course they
coordinate with my carrot bag charms!

About a year ago, just after I opened my shop, I designed a tote bag that I wanted to offer for sale. Before selling most items I make, I give them a trial run to make sure I like the design and that they hold up well and function as expected. So, I dutifully made myself one of my Perfect Big Sis totes and have been carrying it day in and day out for a year (I've never been the type to switch bags often or coordinate my bag with anything, like my clothes. I just use one bag until I'm forced to retire it.) My bag has held up so well and its use has provided me hoards of information so that I can continuously work to perfect the design. And now I've decided that it's time for me to make a new bag for myself. And so I did - I made my dream bag (I have indeed actually been dreaming and thinking about it for months!)

I simply love just taking this out of my
bag and opening it - simple pleasures!

Making a new bag also provided me with the opportunity to make a matching wallet in a new design I have been working on for a few weeks. It is a billfold-type wallet with space for six credit cards, business cards, or IDs and space for money. I'm very pleased with the design, but I want to use it for a few weeks before I introduce any to my shop. It's such a fun process to design and make and test and redesign and make and . . . ahhhh!

The card slots in this wallets are SO fun to make!

Fire and Ice

2010-08-11T15:42:00.000-04:00

While I was sick, I looked through the pictures I've taken this summer - I missed my garden so much, but "flipping" through the pictures made me no so sad that I couldn't go out and play. Well, while looking through them, I found two images that I took while Michele and I were in Georgia. It was hot, hot, hot. It had been 107 the day before we got there. The day after we arrived, we drove to Atlanta and I took this picture that morning:

100 degrees at around 10 am! WOW!!

And then later that day, I noticed this car and thought 1. what a great juxtaposition against the heat and 2. the person whose car this is must feel even hotter than Michele and I are feeling!

An Alaskan in Georgia in the summer heat

A Simple, Garden-Grown Meal

2010-08-10T16:30:00.001-04:00

A delicious, simple, garden-grown meal!

I don't always take pictures of my meals, though it seems that I do throughout the summer when that meal is made up of garden fare. This meal was very fun. I made mini grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes from our garden and asiago cheese. I paired it with a pickle slice I made from a recipe a friend sent me - oh yum! - and some tomato slices that didn't fit in the sandwiches. It was a simple, fun, and fresh meal for a lovely Sunday afternoon.

The pickles we so fun to make and they came out so crisp and delicious. The recipe is from a very popular local restaurant to which Michele and I have never been, but we always mean to go. It's a barbecue place, but I think they have something vegetarian. Regardless, their pickles recipe creates a divine pickle!

Dinosaur BBQ Garlic Dill Pickles

Getting Up to Date: Squash Patties, Blueberries, and Broccoli

2010-08-09T22:19:00.003-04:00

I have been sick in bed with the flu for the last week and a half (and then on Thursday I ventured outside for the first time in a week to get a little fresh air and after five minutes got stung by a bee! After which event I discovered that I have a "vigorous localized reaction" to bee stings, which means it caused a very itchy, painful rash radiating away from the sting halfway down my arm and side! Not a good time!)

So, I thought I would quickly update you on what's been going on with me, aside from my lovely summer flu and bee sting.

1. While Michele was home last, we made yummy, yummy squash patties. I found the recipe on a very wonderful blog, Turkey Cookies, which is written by a Rochester woman, though we've never met. We used yellow squash for our patties and they turned out so yummy. We made two varieties - one with pepper jack cheese and one with smoked gouda - oh they we so good and got even better as leftovers!

Yellow Summer Squash Patties with Michele

2. My friend Deb and I went blueberry picking a couple weekends ago. So fun! We picked loads of berries - and tasted loads of them as well.

My picking bucket of blueberries, very nearly full

And then I made Very Very Blueberry Jam - it is so incredibly intensely blueberry. It tastes like heaven!

Jelly jars of jam all in a row

3. Last week's Featured Square would have to hands down be broccoli. I have never seen broccoli growing, so it amazes me to see it in our garden. Beautiful heads of broccoli. Michele should be home this weekend and then we will feast - a great broccoli feast!

A beautiful head of broccoli

Fun in the Sun

2010-07-30T13:07:00.000-04:00

It's funny how something so simple
can be SO fun!

My local Etsy team, RNEST, has a ball monthly participating in team challenges. This month we are having fun in the sun with summertime or picnic themed crafts. I had a great time over the weekend making a summertime version of my tic tac toe sets and then Michele and I had a ball "testing" it out! I swear we played tic tac toe for about two hours! Check out all the talent and vote for your favorite here.

Bumblebee "Os" and Blossom "Xs"

I am the Pickle Master

2010-07-26T20:57:00.000-04:00

All the yummy ingredients for
pickles and relish

Oh boy did I have fun making pickles this weekend! Wow! And I canned for the first time in my adult life - we canned when I was a child, but I don't remember helping. I was VERY fun. I made bread and butter pickles and zucchini relish - except that I had such a wealth of yellow squash in the garden that I used that instead of zucchini, so I guess I should say I made yellow squash relish. I cannot wait for more things to ripen so that I can 1. eat them and then 2. can them!

Pickling cukes and onions taking
a COLD salt bath

The finished product: bread and butter pickles on the left
and yellow squash relish on the right. YUM!!

A Squash You Very Much Dinner

2010-07-21T16:17:00.003-04:00

I wanted to have Deb over for dinner to thank her for caring for my garden during my Georgian vacation. I thought it would be lovely to feed her the very items she'd been caring for (which is a concept unique to garden-sitting and would be not at all appropriate for baby-, house-, dog-, or cat-sitting.) Unfortunately (or fortunately since everything was DELICIOUS) the only thing ripe, ready, and meal worthy was summer squash - zucchini and yellow squash. Well, that and pickling cucumbers, lettuce, and basil, but that doesn't really make a meal, does it? I had my doubts about making a meal out of squash, but it was really fun!

This was as delicious as it is pretty!

We enjoyed a Marinated Squash Salad - which I did serve on a bed of lettuce from the garden. This salad was SO good and refreshing, not to mention colorful!

Blossoms patiently waiting
in my messy fridge

Our entree was as fancy as can be with a Squash Blossom Frittata. Squash blossoms are best picked at dawn, so I arose from my bed this morning and dashed outside to pick these lovelies, then stored them in a glass of cold water in the fridge to keep until dinnertime. The frittata itself came together in a jiffy and was simply delicious!

Here it is while it's still cooking and before it is

topped with the cheese. I used both female

and male blossoms (the females are attached

to the tops of the two baby squash in the center.)

And here it is topped with asiago
cheese after a few minutes
under the broiler. YUM!!

This was so good! Oh, so good!

Now, I was at a bit of a loss about dessert. Since I'd hit on a theme, I didn't want to stray from it, so I googled "squash desserts" and got about a million hits! Whodathunkit?? I decided to try Zucchini Cake. I thought the green of the zucchini would look pretty against the white(ish) cake. For the same reason I used craisins instead of the golden raisins the recipe called for (color, color, color). The cake is like a light, fluffy cake version of its denser cousin, zucchini bread. The cream cheese icing lets the enjoyer know that it is closely tied to sister dessert, carrot cake. Zucchini cake is the less sweet, less dense sibling.

Deb, I and the garden thank you VERY much!

Featured Square, Week Six: Pickling Cucumbers

2010-07-18T16:41:00.001-04:00

I get so much joy everytime I walk past this week's featured square and see fat pickles hanging off the vine. It's a very cool sight! I cannot wait to try my hand at making pickles - oh how I love pickles! Bread and butter pickles are my favorite.

I have two pickle-related goals: 1. to eat a carrot dog topped with my homemade bread and butter pickles and 2. to send my mother a jar of homemade pickles - I got my love of pickles and olives from that dear lady (oh how we had fun eating copious amounts of pickles, olives, and cheesecake when we shared an apartment!) So, to get started toward my goal, I need to find one of those fancy crinkle-cut slicers so that mine come out all ripply and cool like those that are commercially made and I need to settle on a recipe. Oh what fun!

Fruit Tastings, Year Two

2010-07-14T18:00:00.002-04:00

On our visit to Georgia, I decided to reprise my exotic fruit tasting adventure from last summer. What fun. We went back to the same two farmer's markets, but I picked totally different fruits this time (except for guava, but this guava was totally different.) Here are the results:

I found three that I did not like at all: Dragon fruit, Horn Melon, and Papaya. I don't think it was the fruits' fault though. Dragon fruit was so beautiful it really raised my expectations. The taste wasn't awful, it just wasn't as fabulous as the outside made me think it would be. Horn Melon must have some use other that eating it straight because it has absolutely no flavor. And then there is papaya - again, my expectations were too high. I fully expected to love papaya, but didn't like it at all!

And then there were three that were OK - not great, but definitely likeable: Korean melon, Pepino melon, and guava. The Pepino melon tasted like a combination of every melon you've ever had, which was fun. The Korean melon was a richer tasting honeydew melon, and the guava, well it tasted like guava, though I didn't like it as much as last year's pink guava.

And now for my absolute favorites - the fruit I would eat again and again if I could: Mangosteen, Guinep, sour and sweet Tamarind, and Jackfruit, glorious jackfruit! Now, I'd had mangosteen juice, but a conversation with a Thai woman in the stored informed me that mangosteen juice is made from the skin of the fruit, while you eat the white flesh inside - oh how yummy it was!! Guinep reminded me of lychee in looks - eyeballs - but its taste is very unique, wonderfully so! Tamarind, sweet or sour, is just divine! There is nothing I didn't like about it. And now for my absolute favorite: Jackfruit! WOW!! It looks extraterrestrial, which in and of itself is cool; it tastes like everything good about tropical summer: bananas, mangos, peaches, mystery, heat, love, joy, everything heavenly and sweet! I adore jackfruit! I even tried a few boiled jackfruit seeds, which I think taste like mashed potatoes without butter and milk (which would normally be bad, but works in jackfruit seeds.)

I had a ball tasting all these lovely fruits, Gloria, my stepmom, had fun eating them with me and telling me stories about growing up eating many of these in her native Phillipines, and my dad and Michele had fun refusing to taste anything and watching me eat too much jackfruit and get an upset stomach! A grand time was had by all!

Missing You

2010-07-09T21:27:00.001-04:00

I'm actually in Georgia for the weekend having a wonderful time with my dad, stepmom, and Michele. . .but of course I am missing my garden. I found this picture of the daisies in my front yard and can't think of anything more cheerful!

My great and wonderful friend, Deb, is watching over the garden for me (and my wonderful neighbor, Rita, is likely watching over Deb!) so I know it is in good hands, I just am so afraid that I will miss something new and wonderful while I'm away. It's so worth it, though, to get to spend time with my family!

Secret Garden

2010-07-09T04:21:00.000-04:00

My yellow squash truly amaze me. At first glance it just looks like a wild bunch of huge leaves:

But there's a secret garden of beautiful golden goodies underneath! It's just amazing!

Featured Square, Week Five: Peas

2010-07-08T09:20:00.000-04:00

A special request from Michele was that we have peas in the garden this year, so I planted a box of peas and found my first pod today! They really seem to sneak up on you and are even pretty hard to see in this photo:

Can you find the pea pods?

I really couldn't bring myself to pick just one box this week, so here are a few of my favorite things:

Potato Flowers - I had no idea they would be so elegant and beautiful

Pickling Cucumbers - aren't they adorable!

Literally a "busy bee"

Boy am I proud of our garden! It amazes me every day!

My Fourth of July Weekend, Part 2

2010-07-05T14:44:00.005-04:00

I also spent part of the weekend working on another mini quilt. This one is for a very dear friend who loves dolphins. I named it "Dolphin Frolic" and I used the same technique that I badly described in my last post about quilting. The water and the dolphins are individual "quilts" that are partially attached to the main quilt. To give the sky a bit more dimension, I did the same with some of the clouds.

I'm off this week - my company closes for a week for 4th of July every year - and it is very hot outside, so I think I will be spending a lot of time quilting. I'm excited to get started on the next idea that's in my head!

My Fourth of July Weekend, Part 1.5

2010-07-05T11:50:00.001-04:00

While I was sleeping and then later while Deb and I were mooning over the lilies, Michele was navigating her big truck through the streets of New York City! She sent me some pictures that I thought I would share with you:

This image is just quintessentially NYC!

Central Park

Central Park, too

Taken through the windshield! I love this picture because you can see the hood of the truck - it's exactly from the driver's point of view! It's also just a little scary because that underpass doesn't look quite big enough for a big rig!

My Fourth of July Weekend, Part 1

2010-07-05T09:43:00.001-04:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Fourth of July weekend! Mine was great. Michele is on the road, but will be meeting me in Georgia this coming weekend to go visit my Dad, so I didn't mind that she was away for the fourth!

I got to spend some wonderful time with my very good friend, Deb. We went to a day lily garden and an arboretum on Saturday. Oh, how lovely!

Here are my favorites from the lily garden:

I see another Lily Garden quilt coming in the near future!

And here are my favorites from the arboretum:

Now this birdhouse is gorgeous! I'm thinking about building a replica of our house as a birdhouse (but I'll display it in the sun porch, not outside! I'd hate to actually ATTRACT birds!)

Quilting in the Rain

2010-07-01T15:33:00.000-04:00

OK, I wasn't really quilting in the rain, but it was gray and rainy outside this past Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, so I decided to spend some time making a couple mini quilts for two wonderful friends of mine. This first one is for a friend who is very fond of bright colors. I thought it would be fun to pair a bright, bold pieced tumbler block background with a white flower applique. I named this one "SummerSault" as a little play on the tumbler block and summer flower and colors. This one will is in the mail on the way to its new home!

This second one was so fun to make. It is for a very fun friend who loves Converse All Stars / Chuck Taylors. I've had this quilt in my mind for quite a while now - about a year! - and I've finally got it down on fabric. I wanted to try something a bit three-dimensional and I think it turned out really great! It's definitely a technique I'll use often. The way I did it was to make some parts of the shoe little quilts in and of themselves: pieced front, batting, and

backing - and then instead of sewing the whole piece down, I only sewed parts of it, so that the rest would stick up a bit and give the piece dimension. Then, once I had the whole shoe pieced together, I backed it again with batting and backing before sewing the whole thing to the main quilt. I'm probably not explaining it well, but in my mind it was a very easy process - though I'm sure there are lots of other ways to do it, too! This little baby is called "You're an All-Star" because, well, it just makes sense, plus the recipient really is an all-star in my book! Wish I could see her face when she receives it!

I had fun this weekend and kept myself busy. You know what they say about idle hands, right?

The Birds!!

2010-06-30T17:06:00.000-04:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am afraid of birds. By the way, there has not been a conclusion to the mystery of that feather. I was going to take it to a friend's for identification and it disappeared! Maybe Carol's comment to that blog post was correct:

You must have walked in on an angel and scared a feather off of it while it tried to leave quietly.

And the feather must have disappeared, as angel feathers do.

Anyway, as I've mentioned I am afraid of birds; however, I try to face that fear when I can. I attended a talk at work from a coworker who volunteers at a bird refuge. He brought in huge owls and other birds and I was in the same room (way at the back) and I was OK. Well, I once again decided to face my fears and went to visit my friend Casey - a bird lover extraordinaire. Now, I'd agreed to go to her house before I remembered that she has birds, but I didn't back out. She took me to visit the birds, nice and tidy in their cages and it wasn't bad at all. She asked if I'd like her to take one out and (I desperately wanted to say no) I said "Sure!" And it flapped and jumped and fluttered and totally freaked me out, but I maintained my composure and even touched its head! I was a big brave girl, however I still won't get out of my car if there are birds flocking in my backyard! It's the wild, untamed ones that will peck your eyes out!

Garden Pooper

2010-06-29T15:46:00.002-04:00

Someone is pooping in my garden! I want to blame the dog down the street. I often see him walking around loose. We also have some outdoor cats in the neighborhood. I am no scatologist, so I have no idea how to determine what species the culprit is, but I'm pretty steamed about it! The problem is that with poop come flies! I took my morning garden walk and inspection and swear there were about 200 flies swarming around a nice pile of poop. I scooped it up and called for the flies to follow me to the trash, but they didn't. They instead resettled on the nearby fence rail like a flock of crows, just watching me and waiting for me to leave so that they could lure the pooper back to my yard for some more goodies! They are definitely in cahoots! I just know it! They will not get the best of me though! I am the master of my domain and I will deal block the problem pooper with a nice bit of chicken wire around the bed. Of course, a cat could climb or jump over the four foot high wire, but if she is willing to make that much of an effort, she really deserves the right to poop in my garden!

Please note my love for you, the reader, in that I resisted including any images of the offenses in this post. Who loves ya, baby?

Featured Square(s) Weeks Three and Four: Zucchini, Yellow Squash, and Cucumbers

2010-06-28T17:06:00.000-04:00

The past two weeks I have been amazed by the zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber in the garden - both in the square foot garden and in my traditional bed (I had too many things to plant, so I did a traditional bed as well.) I think it is the gorgeous squash blossoms. Last year, we got our first blossom in July or August and we only got two zucchini - we had no cucumbers at all! This year, everything is in bloom and it's so lovely!

Week Two Featured Square: Leaf Lettuce

2010-06-16T23:46:00.001-04:00

This is my favorite square this week because, besides the rotten strawberry that Michele "ate", this is the first food I've enjoyed from the garden. I worked at home yesterday and at lunchtime skipped out to the backyard, picked a few leaves of lettuce and some basil, added some blueberries leftover from the french toast, and had a YUMMY salad! Oh how I love eating from the garden!

Michele's Birthday Weekend - Part Three: Garden Decor

2010-06-14T09:45:00.008-04:00

Now, we did spend most of Michele's weekend relaxing, but we also opened a package we'd received from a delightful stained glass artist in Florida: Glass of Many Colors. I had commissioned this husband and wife team to make a set of four stained glass veggies for our square foot garden. Michele and I spent a fun-filled hour deciding where to put each of the four and then just admiring our handiwork. Aren't they gorgeous! We've decided we'd like six more: a beet, cherry tomatoes, a red pepper, a head of broccoli, an onion, and a yellow squash to join the current corn, green beans, carrot, and beefsteak tomato. When the sun hits these it's like you're in heaven! And, in addition to the beauty they add to the garden, the carrot is a welcome addition to my carrot-themed art collection: glass!

Michele's Birthday Weekend - Part Two: Gardening Edition

2010-06-13T09:44:00.001-04:00

All week I've been excited to give Michele one particular, extra special birthday present: the first fruit from our garden! I've been watching and praying over this strawberry, hoping that no one (read: squirrel, bird, ground hog, rabbit, mouse, etc) ate it, and that it keep growing and and be ready for picking when Michele got home. I thought it would be the perfect present for her. And it was! She was so excited to see the very first edible thing (besides basil) in our garden. We weren't sure, though, if it was really ready to pick, so we just visited it a few times yesterday and marveled over it. Then, yesterday evening, we decided it looked ready. I picked it and presented it to Michele - oh, the perfect strawberry! She took a bite and . . . immediately spit it out! It's really too bad that it was thoroughly rotten inside! Well, as they say, it is the thought that counts, right?

Michele's Birthday Weekend - Part One

2010-06-12T09:19:00.000-04:00

Michele and I have birthdays very close together, so we're having another bunch of fun to celebrate her 38th birthday! Her actual birthday was Friday, but she got stuck in New Jersey and didn't make it home until today. That, however, didn't stop us from having a ball! I made her a surprise brunch for this morning - I had tried this recipe for the first time for my birthday brunch and Michele loved it so much I wanted to make it for her as well: Overnight Blueberry French Toast. The logistics of getting the french toast in the oven and letting it bake at the same time I needed to go and pick up Michele was a bit tricky, but I just threw it in, drove like a fiend, picked her up, told her I left the kettle on so that she wouldn't be suspicious about my hurry, and made it home just in time to uncover the casserole and let it bake and brown for 20 more minutes! She was very surprised and happy and the french toast was DELICIOUS!!

We've spent the rest of the day just relaxing together. It was so very nice and so very different from my birthday, that's why we work so well together. I love to pack activity into every minute, while Michele loves to relax, have an iced coffee, and spend hours reading at our favorite coffee shop. It's a lovely change of pace for me and it's exactly what she wanted for her birthday, which made the day just perfect!

Blog Redesign

2010-06-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

I had some fun and redesigned my blog! I thik it looks cleaner and I'm really loving the color scheme. So, what do you think?

Week One Featured Square: Garden Beans

2010-06-09T23:07:00.001-04:00

I am particularly proud of this square in my square foot garden. If you've been following for a while, you'll likely remember the garden beans I feasted on last year, the purple, green, and white ones. Well, this box was planted with seeds I harvested from those beans. I'm thrilled each time I look at it because 1. last year was my first year gardening in my life, 2. these are the first seeds I've ever harvested in my life, and 3. it makes me feels extra successful to have had a grand harvest of garden beans last year and still be reaping the rewards of them this year!

Special Delivery from Australia

2010-06-07T16:41:00.000-04:00

A beautiful bundle of fun arrived for me in the mail today all the way from Australia! My sweet blogging friend Sue sent me this adorable tote as well as a set of cute buttons and some kitty newspaper fabric! I'll share some photos of the fabric later - it's so windy out that everytime I tried to get a shot the fabric blew away! Thank you so much, Sue! The craftswomanship on the tote is wonderful - look at the button and tassel! A really beautiful finishing touch!

It was extra fun to receive this, too because 1. I've never gotten a gift from Australia and 2. the wrapping was so pretty! (Isn't the twine and tag a wonderful touch!). Now, this gift was Sue's PIF to me and I am proud to say that I am ALMOST done with the last of my PIFs - I've sent about 1/2 and am putting the finishing touches on the other 1/2. I can't remember what I last said my goal was for completion, but let's just pretend I'm on track.

Thanks so much, Sue! This will all be cherished!

A Good Account on the Court

2010-06-04T16:55:00.001-04:00

Well, I survived yesterday's basketball bout and gave a good account* of myself on the court, if I do say so myself! Driving home, though, I felt like every bone in my body had been jarred loose from its moorings! I'm hobbling a little today, but I kept up with the guys yesterday, so what's a little pain, right? And, in case you're wondering, that's not sweat darkening my t-shirt - at least it's mostly not sweat - we played in the rain. Yes, that's right, in the rain. Being the only female, I had to represent and if the boys weren't stopping for a little rain, I couldn't either! Chad, who you may remember from football, threatened to invite me to play with them again - oy vey, I'll need to learn how to dribble, move, and shoot before then!

*Note: A "good account" in my book is not leaving the court without making a basket. I think I made at least two baskets, so I rocked!

Mysterious Feather

2010-06-03T17:57:00.000-04:00

I found this feather on my dining room floor. I'm incredibly afraid of birds, so, no, I have no pets it could have come from. The cats are indoor cats and I see no evidence of a bird that may have gotten into the house and left this single feather. We don't have feather pillows and the down in our coats is quite a bit smaller that this feather. I really have no idea where it came from. I've scoured the papers to see if there is a rash of break-in-and-leave-a-feather burglaries in my neighborhood, but no reports! Last year I was tormented by squirrels - maybe this year the birds are taking their turn?

OK, I have to head across town - tonight is football night, but instead we are playing basketball. I am tall, but I am clumsy, so things don't bode well for me. Also, I'll be the only woman playing with this pack of rough and tumble guys. If you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know that either the bird got me or I lost it on the basketball court. (Rochesterian friends, will you see to my cats and my garden??)

Carrot Dogs, They're What's for Dinner

2010-06-02T17:15:00.000-04:00

On the evening of my birthday, we'd planned to have a barbecue, but Michele and I were so pooped we decided to follow out customary birthday tradition of dinner at Red Robin and a movie (we saw Date Night, which I highly recommend! SO funny!) Now, the most exciting part of the whole barbecue plan was that I was going to try my first carrot dog. Don't be disappointed. I didn't do a carrot dog barbecue for my birthday, but I did make one for myself last night and all I can say is YUM!!! They are really, really good! So good! I put mine on a grilled bun, topped it with grilled red onions, hand chopped relish from bread and butter pickles, and peppadew mustard, and paired it with roasted asparagus and homemade mac salad - quite the gourmet feast! You've really got to try it. Just steam a carrot, chill it, and then grill it and voilá! You have a yummy carrot dog!

The Best Weekend Ever, Part 3 (The Final Chapter)

2010-06-01T22:14:00.000-04:00

Today marks the end of my amazing birthday weekend. It was just the best weekend ever, truly! Yesterday was the height of fun. I hosted my first ever brunch with two very good, very sweet friends, Jena and Sarah (Bad influence Sarah of football and sledding fame). It was such a treat having them over!

Then, that afternoon when I opened my gifts from Michele, I got the best surprise! OK, first I've got to tell you the back story: every six months, at Christmas and my birthday, Michele heads to the local Lindt store and buys me six months worth of chocolate. Well, the local Lindt store closed and the closest ones were in Niagara Falls and Syracuse - both about an hour and a half drive from us! And my extra special birthday surprise, you ask? Michele, sweetheart that she is, drove to Niagara to buy my birthday chocolate! I felt so touched and so bad at the same time - I mean, she drives for a living and the day after she got home, she turned around and drove to Niagara just to make sure that I would have my favorite chocolate for my birthday! I'm still overwhelmed! It is such a blessing to have such a wonderful partner and such wonderful friends and family (both here in Rochester, around the world, and in cyberspace) to spend this special birthday with! Thank you everyone for you lovely birthday wishes!

The Best Weekend Ever, Part 2

2010-05-30T23:47:00.002-04:00

Oh boy, has this weekend been amazing so far - and there are still two days left in it for me!

So, where did I leave off? Friday morning. OK, so I planned to fill the boxes, add the grid, and plant on Friday, but blending the five different composts and then mixing the compost with the peat moss and vermiculate took forever! By the time I was done and realize that I needed just a bit more, it was time to pick up Michele.

Off to the truck stop I went and then we came home and, while Michele took a nap, I mixed up the last batch of "soil" and topped off the boxes. Michele then helped me tack on the grids and the boxes were done! Aren't they pretty? At that point, I only had the seeds I planned to plant and didn't really have time to go buy seedlings, so we called it a very productive day.

Saturday morning we went to the public market (a farmer's market type establishment here in Rochester - very cool) and got about a million seedlings and a flat of the prettiest marigolds (which happen to be my favorite flower tied with tulip). We still didn't have time to plant anything on Saturday because I had a date planned with my very favorite friend, Deb: lunch and a show. We saw the best show, Five Course Love, and I highly recommend it!

Bright and early Sunday morning found Michele and I planting the seeds and seedlings. Oh, so wonderful. We planted tomatoes galore, cucumbers - three kinds, melons, lettuce, strawberries, beets, potatoes - red and white, broccoli, cauliflower, white, purple, and green beans, red, green, and orange peppers, orange watermelon (strangely no red), onions, chives, corn, squash - yellow and zucchini, and, of course, carrots! We planted the expected orange carrot. Plus, I got a pack of seeds that shows a picture of purple, red, and white carrots, but in actuality the carrots will be salmon, white, and yellow (no clue why the purple, white, and red picture is on the front.) [And, inquiring minds: it is believed that the first domestic carrots where purple (5000 years ago)! Orange carrots are pretty "new." There are still purple, red, white, yellow, etc. carrots around, but just salmon, yellow, orange, and white in my garden!]

After planting, Michele and I met our lovely friends Tina, Kathryn, and "baby" Ada for my favorite breakfast at IHOP, after which Michele jumped for joy at the prospect of heading home to more gardening! Much fun was had by all!

Now, tomorrow, my actual birthday will be even more extra special. We're having a barbecue and guess what's going on the grill? If you guessed carrots, which will become carrot dogs, you guessed right, but more on that tomorrow!