House of Hodgepodge

Book Review: The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

2012-01-31T13:34:00.002-05:00

I don't do many book reviews here, but this book is worthy of a mention because of its fun format. The book is presented as a scrapbook of a young woman, beginning in 1920 when she is 17, and ending in 1928. Every page is filled with ephemera of the era: postcards, food wrappings, ticket stubs, advertisements, photographs, souvenirs, fabric swatches, and more. The story is fairly interesting, too. Even though I never quite made an emotional connection with Frankie, I still wanted to know what would happen to her next!

Here is one of my favorite pages in the book, with souvenirs from her visit to the Eiffel Tower:
I find little trinkets endlessly fascinating.

Here is another page from the book, when Frankie sets up her first apartment in Greenwich Village after college graduation:

The author, Caroline Preston, used her own collection of ephemera, and bought lots more on Ebay, to make the book. What a fun and creative endeavor! If you want to read more about that, here is the author's web site.

Another thing I like about this book is that it demands you read the actual physical book. This wouldn't translate to an e-format very well.

I've been thinking about books and e-books a lot lately because I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, and I have to say, I'm still on the fence about the whole thing. While I think it's wonderful that practically any book I might want is immediately available to me at any hour of the day, I am so hard-wired to use the library that I just cannot pay money to read a book! On the occasions that I am willing to pay to read a book, I'd rather have the book in-hand to put on my shelf when I'm done. I just cannot bring myself to pay $12.99 for an e-version of a book.

I do admit the e-reader is convenient. I've downloaded many of the free classics, and I am taking advantage of the Amazon lending library available to Prime members (although the lending library selections leave something to be desired). I've even bought a few of the less expensive books available (I haven't paid more than $3.99 yet), but I am going to be a slow adapter to this. If my local public library ever makes the borrowing-of-e-books process more streamlined than it it is now, I will be one happy person.

Folk Sampler

2012-01-18T11:20:00.004-05:00

My friend Lynn is going to recognize this quilt right away. When I saw her version of this many years ago, I rushed to get the pattern and make one of my own. I can't remember how long ago that was now. It's been awhile!

The pattern is Folk Sampler, by Cordie Gary, and I see that it's still available here. The original pattern has 12 folk motifs, and they are all lovely, but I knew 12 would be far too many for me to tackle, so I selected four.
I knew I wanted the rabbit for certain. He was my first choice. He's the least colorful of the lot, but he's just so sweet.

This is a seasonal decoration in my house, perfect for winter time, but a bit too dark and heavy for spring and summer. We will enjoy it for a few more weeks before it gets packed away again.

crocheted rock

2012-01-11T13:43:00.004-05:00

I've been seeing rocks covered with yarn and fabric out in the blogosphere and on etsy for a few years now. I've always thought they were pretty, but not something I particularly coveted for myself, until this tutorial was posted. This seemed just 70s-cover-everything-with-macrame enough that I wanted to try it. Even though my past experiences crocheting with thread have been rather ugly, I thought I'd give it a go, one more time.

I looked around the house for a suitable rock, because goodness knows with my daughter's geology obsession we have plenty of rocks here, but all of her rocks are specimens and samples for scientific study, geez, Mom. I ended up buying river rocks from the craft store. I know, I know.

The other day I finally felt confident enough to tackle it. I sat down in front of the computer with the tutorial open and started hooking.

I had to start over five times. Size 8 thread and a size 9 hook are just not my thing! At one point my hook disappeared, and after searching my lap and the floor all around me I finally found it up my sleeve. I am not kidding!

But! I struggled through, and if you don't look too closely to see where I made counting errors and hook-placement errors, it looks alright. I did have a really hard time getting it snug on the rock I initially choose, so I solved that problem by finding a bigger rock. Ha!

File this one under useless but pretty!

Afghan Completed!

2012-01-10T11:49:00.002-05:00

Hooray, I finally finished it! This was five years in the making, due to neglect, not difficulty.
It's a giant granny square made with Lion Brand Wool Ease yarn, which was nice to work with. There were so many ends to weave in (endless!), but I sat down with it Sunday night in front of Downton Abbey and got it done. Perfect way to spend the end of winter vacation!
I like how it looks on the white couch, but it clashes horribly with the rug in that room, so this will live in our family room, where the couch and carpeting are brown. We could use a burst of color in that room.

Old Crocheted Scarf

2012-01-06T15:14:00.002-05:00

I made this scarf for my mom when I first learned to crochet five years ago, before I took photos of the things I created. I had forgotten about it, but when I was visiting her for Christmas, she wore it, and I was shocked by how gorgeous it is! Did I really make that? I was impressed with myself! I asked her if I could photograph it for my catalog (aka my Flickr photo set). Unfortunately, the photos just don't do it justice. It is rich and shimmery and nuanced in person.
The pattern is the Cluster Stitch Fiesta Scarf from the book Vogue Knitting Crocheted Scarves Two. I used the same yarn they featured in the book: Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi (silk) in the color wild oak, which if I remember correctly was not inexpensive yarn, but seeing the scarf again 5 years later, was totally worth every penny.

Welcome 2012

2012-01-04T20:18:00.005-05:00

Our big Christmas gift to the children this year was a 2-night New Year trip to a ski resort in northern Michigan. We took them four years ago, and they have been begging to return ever since. We don't downhill ski, but there are snowshoe trails and cross-country ski trails, an indoor/outdoor spa pool, and (the main attraction for my two children) a very large indoor water park!

The lodge still had all the Christmas decorations up, and they were still piping Christmas music into the public areas, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed seeing and hearing.

We had blizzard conditions the two days we were there, but that didn't stop my children from riding the Zip Line!

Our room had a nice view of the ski hills. I enjoy watching the bustle of the skiers, but I can't imagine standing at the top of that "mountain" myself with boards strapped to my feet and feeling anything but sheer terror.
The outdoor pool is a fun winter time feature. It's a bizarre feeling to swim outside when the temperature is in the low teens (Fahrenheit).
The indoor water park is a balmy 84 degrees Fahrenheit. That is where we spent the majority of our visit! My children love all the slides, but I personally stick to the lazy river, or the hot tub.

We did venture out to find a sledding hill. Conditions were blizzard-like.

One minute it would be clear for a lovely view of Lake Charlevoix:
The next minute a squall would blow in and obscure the view:
Late in the afternoon my husband and I decided to brave the storm again and snowshoe for a bit. The children refused to join us. I still had on my snow pants from the sledding outing, which I normally wouldn't wear for snowshoeing, but I was too cold to take them off.

(Oh my, I look like my daughter in this picture! We don't think we look alike, but seeing this photo makes me think that all those people who say we look alike must not be crazy after all!)

And of course the morning we had to head for home, this is what it looked like outside:

However, as it was only 6 degrees (Fahrenheit) out, I was secretly glad we didn't have time to stick around!

I brought my crochet afghan to work on. I started this project at least four years ago, maybe even five.
It's a granny square, worked in the round, that gets bigger and bigger and bigger as you go. I haven't worked on it much because it's a cumbersome project, requiring many skeins of yarn. I can't leave it out at home because my cats steal the yarn, and taking it on trips is not easy because of its size. I am determined to get this finished, though, especially since I am so near the end, so I stuffed it into the front seat with me for our long drive. My project bag isn't big enough to hold all the yarn plus the afghan, so I carried the afghan loose in my arms when we went to check into the lodge. My husband asked me to "do the talking" as he likes to say, so there I stood at the desk, clutching my afghan like it was some kind of security blanket. I felt a little bit silly! And then on the return trip home, the sliding passenger doors on our van were frozen shut, so the children had to enter and exit the vehicle by crawling over the front seats, which meant I had to gather up the afghan and my project bag every single time. Such a hassle! I did make some progress, though. Only three rounds to go now!

Dec. 2 Yard--early winter

2011-12-30T18:13:00.006-05:00

I forgot to take my first-of-month photo on December 1, so these were taken on December 2 to complete my year-long project of chronicling the state of my yard every month in 2011.Winter has been slow to start this year. We had a snowfall on November 30, which was still on the ground two days later when I took these photos, but it melted shortly thereafter, and the flurries we've had here and there since then haven't stuck. It keeps raining!
It's been nice not to have to bundle up, but I am not fooled. I know we will eventually get slammed, and my fear is that winter will hold us in it's grip until the end of April, like it did last year.

Christmas Bear on the front porch. I bought him when my children were very young. He lights up and changes color at night.

Two finishes for Christmas

2011-12-21T12:10:00.003-05:00

I finished this little tree in time for Christmas! I saw this over on Karen's blog last year and thought it was so cute, so I tracked down the pattern for myself. (Oh Tannenbaum, by With Thy Needle and Thread). I followed the instructions exactly, which meant I had to coffee stain the fabric before stitching. I had never stained fabric before, so I considered skipping that step, but it's always fun to try a new technique. We are not coffee drinkers, though, so I asked my husband to check the break room at his office to see if he could find some instant. He couldn't find any (I think he didn't know what to look for!), so he ended up stopping at a fast food restaurant on the way home to bring me a cup of coffee. Ha, so bizarre to imagine him ordering coffee at a drive-through!

This next little ornament is from a Mill Hill kit.
My daughter's best friend is obsessed with all things popcorn, so I made this for her. Those Mill Hill kits are always a fun, quick stitch.

I am trying to get one more ornament stitched to give as a gift, and I still have some gifts-from-the-kitchen I need to make, not to mention preparing food for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals, so it's busy here. I'm sure you all are busy, too. All the blogs I like to read have been so quiet lately. I think everyone is trying to get stuff done! For those of you celebrating Christmas, have a joyous holiday, and thanks for stopping by this space.

I mog di

2011-12-15T16:04:00.004-05:00

One of the booths at Christkindlmarkt had lovely little pewter ornaments from Munich. I was admiring them, trying to choose between an edelweiss and a stocking, when I spied this ornament made to look like a lebkuchenherz. Tears immediately sprang to my eyes. My love for hearts is well known, but this time it was the "I mog di" that did me in. My Oma moved to the U.S. when she was in her 60s, and she never did learn English. She was from the southern part of Germany, so she didn't say "Ich liebe dich." In her dialect, the words for I love you were "I mog di." (Pronunciation: "E mawg dee", at least the way she said it!) I can still hear her voice saying "I mog di" to me. I had never seen her words for I Love You spelled out before. I guess I assumed it was her own slang and therefore didn't realize "I mog di" could actually be spelled out that way! Seeing it spelled out on a heart-shaped ornament made me feel like she stopped by for one of her fierce hugs. I had to pull out a tissue and blow my nose.

I bought one for my sister, too, even though technically we aren't supposed to buy things for each other. She's getting it for Christmas. I can't wait to see her reaction.

I hung mine in my kitchen where I see it all the time.

Thanksgiving weekend trip

2011-12-11T17:59:00.009-05:00

After spending a lovely and yummy Thanksgiving day with my parents and my sisters and their families, my own little family traveled to Chicago for the rest of the holiday weekend. I wanted to see the Christkindlmarkt, which runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

We spent a lot of time walking around the city.
For the first time on a Chicago trip, we did not visit American Girl or the Lego store. Shopping was not our goal that weekend, but having the children be content not visiting their old favorites gave me a little pang.

I took this next photo because I liked how that lone dress looked in the window. It's begging to tell a story:

All the store fronts were decked out for Christmas:

Gritty scenes blend right in with the glitz in a big city:
We spent some time at Shedd Aquarium. Geez Louise that place is expensive.
I love the architecture in Chicago.
We also went to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hadn't been there since 1985! I wanted to see the Thorne Rooms. These miniature rooms are built to the scale of one inch to one foot, and represent European and American furnishings and architecture across the centuries. Some of them are decorated for Christmas to accurately reflect holiday decorating for the time and place of the room.

I love this alcove bed!
We saw some famous paintings, including this one:
A recent(ish) issue of Midwest Living had an article featuring the woman who currently lives in the American Gothic house, but sadly, they didn't show any photos of the interior. The article did say that her lease requires her to keep lace curtains in those iconic windows.

I got excited over the painting below because I had a pack of Doublemint gum in my purse.
The Chagall Windows are absolutely stunning.

I tried to get my husband to kiss me in front of them, but he refused. Oh, well, neither one of us is that fond of Ferris Bueller anyway, even though he was of our era.
Obligatory self portrait in the Bean. I am the one wearing the striped scarf and carrying the dotted bag:

Oops, the jelly fish photo was supposed to go up in the aquarium section, but it's too hard to move photos in Blogger (for me, anyway).
The Christkindlmarkt was way too crowded on Friday afternoon. It was sunny and in the mid 50s, and I think everyone in a 300 mile radius tried to squeeze into the plaza. We couldn't move, we couldn't breathe, we couldn't see a thing, so we left, and came back the next evening when it was raining.

Much less crowded, and very beautiful! I wouldn't recommend making a special trip to Chicago just to see the market, but if you are there anyway, or can plan to see other things, it's definitely worth a look. Just wait until it rains.

Sad

2011-11-29T11:00:00.002-05:00

My family is fine, but other families in my life are not right now, so my Thanksgiving post must wait, and my Christmas decorating must wait, while we mourn for a life that was much, much too short, and do what we can to help support the grieving parents and siblings.

Some stitching!

2011-11-22T17:31:00.002-05:00

A while ago I promised I'd be focusing on cross stitch only on the crafting front, and that is indeed what I have done these past few months. It feels good to get some of these back-logged projects finished! I am gearing up to start another holiday piece, but I do admit, I am suddenly feeling an urge to knit. Knitting is not the most zen thing for me to do, though, so I'm surprised I am thinking about it. I'll keep you posted if knit happens!

First up, from Bent Creek's photobooth series, Northpole Party Pics:
I just loved these three characters when I saw them. Pointy-hatted elves get me every time, and I adore the expressions on the faces of Santa and the reindeer in the third "photo."

The linen is a little bit warped, but if I take it in for framing, they can straighten it out for me.

I shared this next piece on Flickr a while ago, but here it is now, officially blogged:
Schoolgirl Lessons, by Little House Needleworks.
Who doesn't love reading, writing, and stitching?

Before and After

2011-11-16T15:40:00.007-05:00

I always like getting sneak peeks into people's homes, so I thought I'd do a little tour of my living room.

We've lived in this house for 17 years. It's our first house. A lot of people don't stay in the first home they buy, but this home has worked for us and we've been happy here. It's not perfect, and it's not fancy, but it really suits our personalities.

I took these photos in September, the day that I was waiting for an interior designer to come do a consultation. For years I wanted to have an interior designer come help me arrange my furniture. I'm very confident in choosing colors and furniture by myself, but when it comes to arrangement, I tend to plunk things down and never ever move them because I don't have a clue where things should go.

Here it is before the designer saw it.

Bookcase in the middle of the big wall. Piano next to it. Tree by dining room arch:

Couch under window, chair at a right angle to it. Table "belongs" to couch:

It's nice enough. It's fairly spacious. I didn't want to fill the room up with furniture, but I wanted to add a bit more seating if possible.

Now here is what it looks like after the interior designer moved some things and made some suggestions. (I did end up doing a little shopping and bought two new pieces.)

Ta da!

The couch is now centered under the window. The bookcase is next to the couch (I never would have thought of that!!!). The chair is turned at an angle, and the table now "belongs" to the chair. The tree moved from the dining room arch to the corner behind the couch.

The decorator suggested a coffee table, but I really didn't want a coffee table in the middle of the room, so I decided to get an ottoman instead. The ottoman can be used as a coffee table, but it can also serve as extra seating, and it is easily pushed out of the way if we need the floor space. Plus, if we had a coffee table, the kids would just put their feet on it, so why not get something that is actually designed to have feet on it?

The decorator also suggested moving the piano to be centered on the big wall, but that didn't float my boat. If the piano were centered, that would leave awkward empty space on either side of it--too big to look good, but not big enough to do anything with it--so I opted to leave the piano as-is and get an accent chair:
I need to fix the art work on that wall. It was hung around that bookcase being there, but now without the bookcase, it looks awkward. I am going to keep the photo over the piano, but my plan for over the chair is to hang four separately framed blackwork pieces. I'll get to that after the holidays.

So that's my "new" living room! I liked it before, but I think it looks more pulled together now. My only fear is, where are we going to put the Christmas tree? I think we'll have to remove a chair for the holidays!

Oct. 1 Yard and Nov. 1 Yard--a few surprises

2011-11-13T21:38:00.007-05:00

I took photos of the yard on Oct. 1 and Nov. 1 to continue my 2011 project of first-of-the-month-photos-of-the-yard series. I just didn't get around to posting them until now. The yard is a little messy, and it's kind of embarrassing. Oh, well, it is what it is, and I am determined to finish my photo catalog this year.

Here is Oct. 1:
Russian Sage and cosmos still blooming away:
ornamental grass looking more autumnal:
mums on the porch:
surprise asters blooming along the fence:
deck garden completely done for the year:
back fence looking neglected:
fairy door!
And Nov. 1:
Russian Sage finishing up. It gets trimmed back in the spring:
Fothergilla turning red, cosmos still blooming:
Ornamental grass a nice golden color:

Leftover jack-o-lanterns from the night before (the top one a victim of a squirrel):

Oh, look! I did clean up the deck garden! All the dead coneflowers have been cleared out:
Surprise rose:
And the weigela put out a few surprise blooms, too:

Caught in the Act

2011-11-12T21:00:00.003-05:00

I was taking photos off my camera today and found this cute series. My daughter took these when she was home sick last week (with pneumonia. She's better now.) The squirrels just love this time of year, with food aplenty on every front porch in town.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

2011-10-26T21:35:00.005-04:00

Last year as a fundraiser, we put together a community cookbook at my daughter's elementary school. It was our family's last year at that school after 9 years, so I was really excited to have a keepsake that would last longer than the children's outgrown sweatshirts and t-shirts.

Over the past year I've tried quite a few of the recipes, loving that they came from friends and neighbors, and many of the recipes have become staples in our home. These pancakes are from the cookbook, and while they aren't exactly a staple for us (we don't eat pancakes all that often, maybe once every couple of months), they have certainly become a favorite with my children. I like them because they are filling and not too sweet, especially if you forgo the syrup in favor of a little whipped cream. I made them tonight for dinner to accompany scrambled eggs, using pumpkin instead of milk, and they were a nice light orange color, perfect for an October evening.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (I use white whole wheat flour)

1/2 cup almond meal (or ground oats, or more whole wheat flour--I use almond meal)

2-3 T sugar (I use 2)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup vanilla yogurt

1/2 cup milk, or pumpkin puree

2-3 T melted butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

whipped cream for serving

Mix the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir in the chocolate chips. Stir until combined. Using 1/4 cup of batter per pancake, cook over medium high heat on an oiled griddle. Yield 12 pancakes.

If you try them, I hope you like them!

Halloween cookies

2011-10-25T12:26:00.002-04:00

121: Halloween cookies, a photo by besomom on Flickr.

I almost forgot to make these cookies this year! I'm so glad I remembered, because they are as tasty as they are cute.

First blogged here, with full recipe and instructions (and a cuter photo, too).

Just "Merried"

2011-10-21T12:21:00.004-04:00

My niece's wedding was last weekend. It was a blustery day outside, but it didn't rain. The ceremony was beautiful.
My niece made all of the decorations herself. She used silk flowers for everything: her bouquet; the bridesmaids' bouquets; the corsages for the groom, the groomsmen, the parents, and the grandparents; and all of the floral arrangements in the church and at the reception. If you see something floral in these photos, my niece made it.
The hanky was her something old, borrowed, and blue, courtesy of me! It belonged to my grandmother, brought from Germany when my mom moved here over 50 years ago.
Here is their getaway car! The misspelling of Married is a little joke between the bride and groom. I must say, they were quite a merry pair on their wedding day. At the end of the ceremony when the pastor presented them as the new Mr. and Mrs., my niece raised her arms in the air and shouted "Woo hoo!" (She's always been an open book. That's one of the things I love about her.)
All of the cupcake trees and the pie serving plates belong to my sister and my niece. The decorative touches are courtesy of my niece. The bride and groom had pumpkin pie, and the guests had cupcakes!
I bought her the forks from this etsy shop and gave them to her as a shower gift. I know some women would despise being thought of as Mrs. anything, but not my niece. She couldn't wait to be Mrs. E!

She was my flower girl in my wedding in June 1992. Every time I think about it, I get a little misty.
Godspeed to the happy couple!

We are family

2011-10-06T10:30:00.004-04:00

My latest cross stitch! I saw a custom family cross stitch design posted on Feeling Stitchy, and that old I-must-stitch-now feeling swept over me. I think this is adorable and hilarious at the same time. I look pretty good in cross-stitch (love my hair!), but my husband is way better looking in person than his cross-stitch counter part.

The pattern is a custom design from weelittlestitches. They have patterns for characters from many movies and TV shows (Star Wars, Big Bang Theory, Harry Potter...). I had to restrain myself! I sent them a photo of us, and within two days they sent me the custom chart. They were easy to work with, and I love the end result. If you're not a stitcher, I believe they offer an option to stitch your design for you (on the custom orders, anyway, maybe not on the character designs).

I had to get this done now before my son is taller than I am!

Our full name is stitched on the design, but I covered it for privacy.

100 Days

2011-10-05T11:52:00.003-04:00

I have been pretty faithful about posting one photo a day for my 365 Flickr project. Yesterday was the 100th day. I have missed one or two days, but some days I post more than one photo because I can't choose just one! Nearly every photo was taken with my phone. I always have my phone with me, and uploading the photos I take with it to Flickr is as simple as hitting the share button, so I haven't run out of steam yet.

This project has perhaps made my photostream a bit dull to an outsider, but for me, I like looking back and seeing what was worth remembering that day.

The last day of September

2011-09-30T13:00:00.000-04:00

Wow, September 30th sure got here in a hurry. I keep thinking it should still be summer, but here we are, four weeks into the school year already. This week has been busy for me, but today I am puttering around, putting out our autumn and Halloween decorations. I just hung a Halloween cross stitch on the wall, and the wall felt COLD! Summer really must be over.

The start of this school year has been a significant beginning in so many ways, being not just the start of school, but of a whole new era for our family. My son began high school (9th grade), and my daughter began middle school (6th grade). So many changes! I was expecting some drama, tension, and/or anxiety, but other than my daughter getting a little hyper when all her friends got their class schedules in the mail two days before she did, it's been a remarkably smooth transition for both of them. They both seem happy. Well, my daughter is happy. My son is not unhappy, and for him, being not unhappy about school is a good start!

They are both suddenly more self-sufficient. I am not needed for transportation, and since we are no longer enrolled in an elementary school, the demands on me as a school volunteer are much less demanding! It's been strange for me, but I haven't been as sad as I thought I would be. I am enjoying having a bit more freedom in my schedule, and I am taking advantage of it.

I did sign up to volunteer once a week in the school store at the high school. I cleared it with my son first, because the school store is right in the cafeteria, and not every high school boy wants his mom there at lunch time, but he said he didn't mind. Of course, he completely ignored me the first time I was there, and truthfully I am so busy the entire time that I couldn't spy on him if I wanted to! It's nice to still be volunteering for school, but in a whole new capacity than what I'm used to doing.

I also signed up for a Bollyfit class. I have always been a regular exerciser, but it's been over a decade since I had a group fitness class, so this was really stepping out of my comfort zone. We met for the first time this week. I haven't seen myself in a mirror during a workout in, um, maybe ever? YIKES! This body does not move like the instructor's body does! But that's okay, it still felt good and it was fun! A friend signed up with me, which makes it even better.

And finally, I have an unexpected opportunity to start doing some freelance proofreading. (If you are reading this, S, thanks again!) It's very low commitment, once a month, for a local publication that I've always enjoyed reading. I've never done anything like this, but writing/editing/proofreading/publishing are all things I've been interested in for a long, long time, so I am thrilled to have this opportunity!

So, so far, so good. Things feel new around here, but the newness feels good. And, of course, other things haven't changed, like the kids wanting home-baked goodies in their lunchboxes, and me needing to get dinner on the table at just the right time so we have time to eat it before evening activities begin, and the fact that the dishes don't do themselves, and that it always looks like a bomb went off after the kids get home, but nothing gets picked up unless a) I pick it up myself, or b) I nag someone else to do it. And, of course, laundry. Ugh, laundry.

Back from framers

2011-09-23T10:34:00.002-04:00

I picked up the wedding sampler from the framer today, and thought I'd share the finished product. I am really pleased with how it all came together. I just wish I could get a better photo of it. Once stitchery is under glass, it's difficult to photograph. Also, I've been less than thrilled with the quality of my photos in blogger lately. They look fuzzy and small. I still can't figure out how to get the images to show up as large as they used to.

I am thinking of asking for a new camera for Christmas. Either that or a piece of cookware from LeCreuset. Which one would you want?

Pumpkin Stitching

2011-09-22T15:47:00.000-04:00

Here is a little seasonal cross stitch I worked up this past week. I needed to destress after all the drama with the wedding sampler, so I chose something nice and straightforward, not to mention quick. This is from the Harvest Littles chart by Hollis Designs. The full design has four motifs (you can see it here), but the acorns and the squirrel are chock full of colonial knots, which do not fit my criteria of stress-free project!! So I chose to do just the pumpkins. I stitched on 28 count linen (as opposed to 32 count that the pattern calls for, because I now know that 32 count fabric also does not fit my criteria for a stress-free project). Using 28 count, this finished up to be small enough to fit into a frame with a 3-inch square opening. Alas, I don't have a frame that size in my mini-frame stash, so I now have "3x3 frame" on my errand list!

I had big plans to work on all of my backlogged Christmas cross stitch patterns this year, but I ended up spending all of my cross stitch time on the wedding sampler. I am realizing that NOW is the time to start on the Christmas stuff if I want to have it done for Christmas, but I have one more cross stitch to do before I will concentrate on tackling the Christmas patterns again. I am really excited about this next cross stitch, and can't wait to stitch it and share it.

My craft focus has been pretty much limited to cross stitch lately. I was getting overwhelmed by the chaos of running off in different crafting directions--sewing! quilting! crochet! knitting! embroidery! This was resulting in too many supplies, too many charts, too many books, and too much mess, with yarn here, fabric there, thread everywhere, and an overflowing unfinished project basket. Right now I want things calm and orderly, so cross stitch it is!!

Histoire d'Amour

2011-09-12T12:50:00.000-04:00

My niece is getting married in October. When she announced her engagement last Christmas, the first thing I did was search for a wedding sampler pattern. I thought about embroidery, but I really wanted to do cross stitch. I spent a lot of time--days, maybe even weeks--looking for just the right pattern. When I discovered this one, Histoire d'Amour, by Marie Suarez, I knew it was the one.

Unfortunately, this pattern was almost my undoing. It's stitched on 32 count, mostly over two threads but with some areas over one, and the pattern is very scattered. So much spacing! So much counting! Such teeny stitches! Oh my goodness! My eyes are not what they used to be! I was squinting and swearing and sweating over this until I broke down and bought myself a pair of cheaters. Ahhh, much better. (It caused quite an uproar in my home when they all discovered me stitching away with glasses perched on my nose. Photos were taken. They are not flattering.)

Alas, even with the cheaters, I found myself making little errors here and there. It's hard to stitch perfectly with 32 count and a challenging pattern. I started to think of the chart as a mere suggestion for stitch placement. There was a lot of adjusting on the fly as I stitched this!

After I took these photos, I re-stitched the letters r and e in "histoire" with a darker color. The thread is variegated, and after viewing the photos, I decided I didn't like the light lettering. I didn't take photos after the adjustment, so you'll just have to imagine it.

The original pattern had only first initials stitched into the hearts. I chose to squeeze in their full names. I also added the wedding date to the bottom of the design.

I also had to improvise on the tiny flowers scattered all over the design. They are supposed to be done using the whipped spider web stitch. I had never heard of that stitch before, let alone used it. I researched how to make them, but I really struggled with making them consistently. For every flower that I made well, I had five others that were twisted and snarly. I spent one sleepless night fretting over how to fix this, and finally decided to snip them all out and restitch the flowers with a simple straight stitch coming from a center point, using two strands of light pink and one strand of dark pink. The flowers are not quite as sweet as the flowers in the sample photo, but it's much better to have consistently neat flowers than a big ugly mess!

my flowers:

flowers in the sample photo:

I started this back in February, but didn't give it my full attention until the middle of August when I realized time was ticking away. I set myself the deadline of finishing it by the last day of summer vacation, which resulted in some looong days stitching (7 or 8 hours a day!), but I got it done, and now it is off being framed. I love sending things off to be framed! It should be back in plenty of time for the wedding.

(P.S. This new blogger interface is driving me nutso. My photos are now appearing smaller than I would like them to, and I cannot figure out how to make them bigger! Ugh, I hate it when updates complicate my life!!!)

Sept. 1 Yard--summer wanes

2011-09-08T14:51:00.000-04:00

Not a lot to say about it. It looks a lot like the August 1 yard, possibly even more neglected. The trumpet vine in the second-to-last photo belongs to the neighbor behind me, but it grows over the fence and graces my yard with its beauty.

I need to spruce up the bed to the right of the front porch. Plants don't thrive there. I've lived here 17 years, so I know what I'm talking about. Maybe I just need to do potted annuals and stop fretting over it.

I think the herb garden (the photo with the rain barrel) is unfortunately going to be dug up and regraded this fall. Every time it rains even a tiny bit we get a puddle in that corner of the basement. I can't even set up a sprinkler for 5 minutes at the very front of the bed without finding a puddle in the basement later, which explains why a lot of plants in the herb garden look a little withered.

Blogger has presented itself with a new interface which I am using for the first time right now, and consequently I feel like I'm typing in a foreign language. Or, I could feel that way because my face is completely numb after a trip to the dentist this morning. I had crown prep done a few weeks ago, but I got a call saying I needed to come back in before they could make the permanent crown. Silly me, I just assumed they had to redo the impressions, so I skipped innocently into the office today, but they actually had to grind away at my tooth again. Normally I am not wimpy about dental work, but today the novocaine made everything in my head numb EXCEPT for my tooth! OUCH! She kept giving me more shots, and my tongue went numb, my lip went numb, my cheek went numb, even my ear lobe tingled, but every time she touched my tooth I wanted to shoot up out of the chair. I felt like a dishrag when I left the office, and now I'm completely exhausted. I have to go to a 2.5 hour school function tonight, and I'm afraid I'm going to be drooling all over the place and greeting people with a lopsided smile.

Garbanzo Bean Tomato Salad

2011-08-29T18:52:00.003-04:00

67: garbanzo bean tomato salad, a photo by besomom on Flickr.

One of my favorite ways to use the tomatoes that are so abundant in my garden this time of year.

Recipe here

August 1 Yard: Overgrown

2011-08-23T13:06:00.005-04:00

The herb garden (which includes some sweet and delicious orange cherry tomatoes!):(Unfortunately our rain barrel, in the very upper right corner of the photo, has sprung a leak and caused a puddle in our basement which has plagued us all summer.)

Flowers by the deck:

Bee balm along the back fence:
Ripening apple in the backyard:
(The squirrels eat these before they ripen, leaving us with none. The apple tree in our front yard is not bothered by critters, so those we get to eat. Unfortunately, that tree only produces fruit every other year for some reason, and this is its off year. Sigh.)

My neighbor's Rose of Sharon, with my cosmos in front of it:
The Russian Sage along the driveway:
Tidy front yard:

Back yard:
That play structure may be going to a new home this fall.

So that is my overgrown, weedy August 1st yard. Photos were taken on August 1; I just forgot to do the post until today!

Hey, It Won!

2011-08-17T11:25:00.003-04:00

Turns out, Sleeping Bear Dunes won the Good Morning America Contest for the Most Beautiful Place in America! I guess the secret is out now.

Here is a link to the story, and a short video (which shows many of my favorite places, such as The Pine Cone, Cherry Republic, and Good Harbor Grill, not to mention the beaches and the lake).

It really is some place special, and I feel very lucky I get to spend time there every year.

A Few More Zucchini Recipes

2011-08-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

Here are a few more favorite zucchini recipes. I love zucchini for its versatility. It's good in a main dish or a dessert! Some of the recipes below are from long-time online friends, but I can't remember exactly who now, so if it's yours, thank you! I love it!

Zucchini Pasta (on Allrecipes. I double the entire recipe and use 3 cups of chicken)

Herbed Zucchini Soup (delicious warm, but I didn't like it cold)

Zucchini Quiche

3.5 cups diced zucchini

1 chopped onion

8 oz cheddar cheese, grated (divided)

1/2 cup canola oil

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup Bisquick baking mix (I use Trader Joe's multigrain baking and pancake mix)

salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste

Mix all ingredients together, reserving some of the cheese for the top. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan. Spread mixture evenly over pan and top with remaining cheese. Bake in preheated 350 F oven for 35-40 minutes. (It seems like there is not enough batter to spread in the pan, but it expands to fill the pan as it bakes, so have no fear.)

Another Zucchini Quiche (from an online source which I can no longer identify)

4 c. sliced zucchini

1 onion, diced

2 T olive oil or butter

2 eggs

2 tsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp each of garlic powder, dried basil, oregano, salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 cup shredded cheddar

1 tsp mustard

Saute zucchini and onion in oil (or butter) until tender; drain. Whisk the eggs, parsley, salt, garlic powder, basil, oregano, and pepper together. Whisk in the mustard. Layer zucchini and cheese in a pie pan. Pour eggs over the top. Bake uncovered at 400 F for 35-40 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Zucchini Cake

1-1/4 cups flour

1 c sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup shredded zucchini

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips.

Heat oven to 375 F. Grease an 8x8 pan. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together. Mix in oil, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in zucchini just until blended. Spread into pan. Bake 25-30 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and let sit 5 minutes to soften, then spread the chocolate to cover the cake. Cool in pan on rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing. You may want to refrigerate to firm up the chocolate. (The original recipe says you can mix all the ingredients right in the pan without dirtying a mixing bowl, but you need a non-stick pan for that, and I don't have a non-stick pan, so this is how I do it.)

Summertime Cooking

2011-08-15T17:51:00.009-04:00

We've been getting a CSA share this summer and splitting it with my sister-in-law and her family. I haven't decided that we'll do it again next year. I find it stressful getting a huge box full of fresh produce and then needing to figure out what to do with it. I am realizing that I usually plan meals ahead, but with the CSA stuff, you have to work with what you get, and now every Saturday morning I find myself staring at things like chard, kale, leeks, potatoes, cucumbers, beets, and fava beans, and feeling slightly hysterical! It's a lot of work, all that washing, grating, and slicing, not to mention searching online for recipes to prepare things in a way that makes it palatable to picky eaters. (My husband insists he is not picky, but oh, he is. He thinks he's not picky because he is very fond of certain vegetables and will eat those vegetables in great quantities, but there are really so many he won't eat, and our CSA has been very loaded with the stuff he dislikes.)

That said, despite the stress and work, I do admit it's been tasty to eat things so fresh and in season!

We've been getting a lot of cucumbers in our share (a no-eat veg for my hubby). My mom makes a delicious cucumber salad, but she makes it up on the spot without a recipe, so I've been left to develop my own version, and based on watching my mom make hers, here is what I've come up with:

Cucumber Salad

1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced

Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt

2 T red wine vinegar

1 T olive oil

1 tsp sugar (I tried to make it without sugar, but I think it's better with sugar)

Place the sliced cucumber in a bowl and sprinkle lightly with the Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt. Whisk together the red wine vinegar, the olive oil, the sugar, and 1/2 tsp of Krazy Mixed Up Salt. Pour the dressing over the cucumbers. (You won't use all of the dressing, so save the leftovers for future use. It doesn't need to be refrigerated!) Put the cucumber salad in the fridge for at least an hour. The longer it sits, the better it tastes.

If this is too salty for your preference, don't salt the cucumbers before you dress them.

I also made a cabbage/beet salad, because I needed to do something with the CSA cabbage and beets (both no-eat foods for the hubby). I found the recipe below after a lengthy session with Google, but I didn't bookmark it, nor did I print it (I just scribbled it down), and now I cannot find it again! If anyone recognizes it and knows the original source, please let me know so credit can be given where it is due. This is the kind of salad that tastes better with age, so make it a day ahead if you can.

2 raw beets, peeled and shredded (use your food processor for shredding, otherwise you will have a huge stained mess on your hands)

1/2 head of cabbage, shredded (I used one small head of cabbage)

3 carrots, peeled and grated

1 c raisins

1 apple, diced

1/4 c lemon juice

1/4 c oil (I used canola)

1/4 c water

Combine the beets, cabbage, carrots, raisins, and apple in a bowl. Whisk together the lemon juice, oil, and water, and pour over the vegetables. Toss to coat.

We also got potatoes and leeks this week, so my husband suggested Potato Leek soup. (Hey, something he'd eat!) I found this recipe and made it on Sunday. It was a very decent basic soup. The only change I made was to use only 1 tsp of salt instead of 1 T, and it was just fine. I had one quart of potatoes from the CSA (I believe they were Yukon Gold), and the leeks I had were pretty small, so I did use three of them; three large leeks would have been way too much. I used my immersion blender right in the crockpot, rather than pouring the soup into a blender. I served the soup with cheddar cheese sprinkled on top. It seems like this recipe would be a good hearty base for a creamy soup if you wanted to add meat or other vegetables to it after blending.

And, finally, what to do with all that zucchini? I grow my own zucchini, so my sister-in-law has been keeping all of the CSA zucchini, but I still have plenty from my own garden. Here are links to some zucchini recipes I've posted before:

Cheese Zucchini Lasagna

Orange Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread (or muffins)

And here is a new one I tried for Banana Zucchini Bread. I omitted the pecans, and instead of 1 cup of oil, I used 2/3 cup applesauce and 1/3 cup oil. I stirred one cup of chocolate chips into one of the loaves, and that was pretty good, though a little intense. I think I'd add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips per loaf next time.

My kitchen is such a mess. I wish there were a way to use it and keep it spotless at the same time.

It's not summer without this trip

2011-08-14T15:13:00.010-04:00

Ahh, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Leelanau County, Michigan. Recently the Dunes were a finalist in Good Morning America's Most Beautiful Place in America contest (see the video here. Sleeping Bear Dunes is featured in the second half of the 5-minute segment, and it looks just as beautiful as it truly is!).

We love it for so many reasons.
We have some things that we must do there every year, and other things are on an every-other-year-or-so rotation. We decide what to do when we are there, depending on the weather, and our mood.

This year we visited Northport and the Grand Traverse Lighthouse.

I love lighthouses, and all the furnishings in them.
Here is a photo of a photo of a shipwreck not far off shore from where we were:
View of Lake Michigan from the top of the Grand Traverse Lighthouse:
I love signposts! I keep wanting to make one for our yard! I like to think about what destinations my signpost would feature. The Dunes for sure.
The shore at Grand Traverse Lighthouse is rocky, so it's not really a beach-goer's paradise, but we like to walk the shoreline anyway.
This anchor is on display at the Northport harbor. It was discovered on the lake bed about 30 years ago, and is believed to be from a mid-1800s era ship.
Sunset over Sleeping Bear Bay:
We did our must-do hike up the Empire Bluff for this beautiful view of Lake Michigan, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and South Bar Lake:
Then we headed down to the beach and put our kayak in South Bar lake, and I took this photo of the bluff from the lake:
Most of the beaches in the area are remote and not developed at all. The beach in Empire is the most accessible, and therefore the busiest, and every year it seems we see something unusual there.

This year's oddity:
An amphibious vehicle! I felt like I was seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in action!

Those guys had everyone's attention, that's for sure!

Another day we hiked to Pyramid Point. The weather was moody. We watched the rain sweep across the Manitou Islands, and the clouds and wind made the lake change color every minute. I was sad to see my favorite tree has fallen over:
(previous photos of this same tree here and here)

The kids found charred wood on the beach and left some fun rocks behind for other people to find:
I love it there so much, it's almost an ache.

Now that we are home again, I dream of it every night.

edited to add: more photos of this vacation in this flickr set

saving the zucchini

2011-07-16T08:00:00.001-04:00

Last year when I planted my garden, my zucchini plants sprouted right on schedule, but shortly after the leaves spread open, they turned lacy and the plants died. I had to buy my zucchini at the farmer's market. That was a bummer.

This year my zucchini sprouts started going lacy again, so I took a good long look at the plants. With the help of google, I identified that I had a cucumber beetle problem. The community gardens are required to be organic (which is my preference anyway), so I had to find a non-toxic solution to my problem. After some reading, I made a pepper-spray solution: one quart of water, 1-and-a-half teaspoons of ground cayenne pepper, and two squirts of liquid dish detergent in a spray bottle. Every day I went to my garden and sprayed all the leaves of my zucchini plants, tops and bottoms, with the pepper spray. So far so good! On Wednesday I harvested my first zucchini of the season.

I'm still not certain my plants will survive the summer, as I've seen loads of squash bugs, and there are reports of vine borers in the garden, but I'll harvest as long as I can!

Harry and Me

2011-07-15T11:29:00.006-04:00

Harry Potter and I go way back. I read the first book before the second book was published in the US. When I read the first book, I didn't even realize there was going to be a sequel, let alone a whole series, and I never imagined what a sensation the whole enterprise was to become. I have loved watching the wizarding world take on a life of its own these past 14 years.

My daughter is a huge Harry fan. When she turned 11 in April, she received an acceptance letter to Hogwarts. That was quite a thrill!

At her violin recital in June, she played two pieces: a Bach minuet, and Hedwig's Theme.

We went to the movie last night. We had an opportunity to see a 7:00 p.m. screening, five hours before the midnight release, which was awesome, because I don't do midnight screenings.

I haven't always been pleased with the movie versions of the books, but I really have enjoyed watching the maturation of the actors portraying Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and I adore the who's who among the supporting cast. I am a Masterpiece Theatre geek, and I love love love Jane Austen film adaptations, so it's fun for me to connect the Harry Potter characters to their period pieces. Last night I immediately spied Captain Wentworth in Aberforth Dumbledore. Captain Wentworth. Sigh.

I am eager to get my daughter to watch A Room with a View with me. I shall coax her with the fact that the movie pairs up Bellatrix LeStrange and Minerva McGonagall. Who, I ask you, could resist that?

Oh, and at the movies last night, we got vouchers for the concession stand, so I ordered a medium popcorn and a medium soft drink for myself. I was dismayed at the size of my "medium" soft drink.

I drank maybe a quarter of it at the theater and brought the rest home. I measured the cup's capacity. It was a full 32 oz. That is one full quart of soda. I would hate to see the large.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that I absolutely adored Luna Lovegood's crocheted-flower-embellished sweater in this final installment. She really stood out among all that darkness.

Embroidery for a baby

2011-07-13T09:14:00.002-04:00

My husband's cousin had a baby girl recently, so I made this little embroidery to send along. The pattern is from Bumpkin. I used her recommended colors because I thought they were so sweet and perfect.
My original intention was to make this into a little wall quilt, and I could see it so perfectly in my mind, but once I finished embroidering this it languished untouched for weeks because I never felt like making the quilt! Just one of those mood things, I guess. Finally I decided to finish it in a hoop, and I think it's adorable this way.

Baby Sweater

2011-07-12T13:31:00.002-04:00

I've been cleaning house (again!) and went through all those mysterious giant rubbermaid containers that were under my basement stairs (mentioned in this post). I now have 6 large garbage bags full of clothes to donate, and I reduced my under-stair rubbermaid collection from 7 to 2.5! Yay for me.

One thing I found, which went back into storage rather than the garbage bag, was the sweater I knit during my first pregnancy. It was the first thing I ever knit, and one of the few knit things I've managed to complete. I'm still amazed I made this!

I used a variegated yarn in soft blues, greens, and lavenders. I was expecting the effect to be stripey rather than splotchy, but I still liked how it came out. I didn't know I was having a boy, and I figured blues would be better than pinks regardless of gender. Both my son and daughter wore this sweater as wee ones.
As evidenced by the spit-up stain on the front.
Seems so long ago, but not really.

We have a winner!

2011-07-10T17:46:00.002-04:00

Lemon La Croix tastes like furniture polish smells. I like the other flavors, just not this one. I've had a case of it in my basement for a year now, not knowing what to do with it, until today, when inspiration struck on an overly hot summer day. I made a batch of simple syrup (one cup water, one cup sugar, stir over medium-high heat until it comes to a boil and all sugar is dissolved, then let cool). Add a tablespoon of simple syrup to a glass of Lemon La Croix, drop in some ice, and yum, you have sparkling lemonade! My daughter liked it, too. I might have to go buy more Lemon La Croix to get us through the heat wave!

July 1 Yard: Full-on Summer

2011-07-09T16:29:00.004-04:00

It's looking a little unkempt in the back yard. It always does.

The herb garden is doing well.
The Russian Sage along the driveway was just about to bloom when I took this photo on July 1. It's now all purple, and the bees are a buzzin'.
Cosmos are springing up along the wall. By the end of August they'll be hanging over the driveway and making our comings and goings a bit of an adventure.
Ornamental grass is standing tall:
These geraniums have since had a nice trimming. I can hack away and hack away at them, and they still look full and lush:
This side of the walkway needs a tiny bit more oomph. Every year I think this, yet I never do anything to improve it. I think I am waiting for the lavender to spread:
Here's a nice tidy shot. Pretend like I started at the end!

Mornings

2011-06-29T16:24:00.002-04:00

For the past few summers, every single morning beginning at 4:30 a.m., a cardinal perches in the topmost branches of the apple tree in our backyard and sings his freakin' heart out for two hours straight. This tree is right outside our bedroom windows. Every morning at 4:30 a.m.when those dulcet tones pierce my slumber, I stagger out of bed to slam the windows shut. To completely drown the bugger out, I have to turn on a sound machine, too. I keep the sound machine on the nightstand right next to my head so it's loud enough to cover up that cheerful sunrise melody.

We find ourselves wondering just how long the life span of a male cardinal might be. I mean, really. He shows up in mid-May and stays until mid-August for three or four summers in a row now. Love him. It has to be the same bird. I pray it's the same bird. I am hoping he is getting old and feeble now.

We try to have a sense of humor about him. Last year I tracked down a cardinal cross stitch pattern and whipped up this little fellow for my husband, adding the cheeky "Good Morning!" at the bottom to be sure he got the joke. Right now the cross stitch is perched over our fireplace. It cracks me up.

Other morning goodies:

Oatmeal! Thanks to a discussion with some online friends, I am now on an old-fashioned oats kick, no cooking involved. Put 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats in a bowl. Add a smidge of brown sugar and a sprinkle of frozen blueberries. Pour on enough milk to cover the oats. Let sit for 10 minutes. Eat. Perfect!

Photo Project

2011-06-23T17:40:00.004-04:00

Last year I tried a 365 project on Flickr but stopped after 100 photos. My enthusiasm flagged when I got tired of having to upload photos every day from my camera onto my computer, then post them onto Flickr. It got tedious and time-consuming, and many days I felt like the photos I had weren't really worthy.

I do, however, still like the idea of a simple chronicle of a daily photo. Earlier this month I got a new phone. Not the iPhone I've long coveted (see this post here), but a phone my son insists is even better: an HTC Evo. It has a camera, and uploading photos from it onto Flickr is ridiculously easy. I find myself thinking a 365 deal may be doable after all. The photos won't be wonderful works of art, but they will be a chronicle, and as I am already feeling that now is a time of transition for my family, a photo diary of life from this summer solstice to next summer solstice might be an interesting thing for me to keep. Watch it evolve on Flickr if you care to (a link to my Flickr account is on the side bar). Hopefully I will keep it up!

Art and Other Things

2011-06-23T11:51:00.004-04:00

Before my children were even school-aged (lo, those many years ago), I bought two Pocketful of Memories books from Hearthsong. The books have nine envelopes spiral-bound together, one envelope each for kindergarten to grade 8. The outside of each envelope has a place to write memories and attach the child's photo.

It's been a tradition at the end of each school year for the children to fill out their envelopes, and for me to sort through all the paperwork and choose what to store in the envelope. Report cards always go in the envelopes, as do some photos, participation certificates, ribbons, and the like. This is one thing I am SO glad I started right at kindergarten, and that we've kept up every year. The kids enjoy filling in their information and reading back on years past. My son's book is now complete. I'll have to come up with a similar plan for his high school things!

My daughter brought home all her art work for the year. This is her family crest:
Notice how her shield is in the shape of an open book! She decorated it with things that are important to her: her violin, a baseball, chocolate, and her cat.

She also made this beautiful clay tile:
I love her impressionistic field of flowers behind the tree.

Finally, she made a mask this year. My son also made one in 5th grade. It is a plaster mold of her own face, which she painted to look like the ocean.
All of the fifth-graders' masks decorated the hallway of the school during their promotion ceremony, and after the ceremony the parents were instructed to find their child's mask and take it home. Looking at the masks in profile down the hallway, my daughter's was immediately recognizable to me.
That is definitely her sweet face!

Budget cuts and all that fun stuff have made art in middle school almost an impossibility. The middle schoolers are limited to two electives every year, and if you take music and a foreign language, that eats up your electives. Gym class is squeezed into 6th grade by alternating it every other day with music. She might get to take art for one quarter in 7th grade, but it's not a given. Art has always been one of her favorite things about school, so if she really wants to keep it up, we will have to look at the art classes offered by various art centers in town (which is much less convenient than if she could just do it at school!).

Weekend Food

2011-06-19T20:54:00.002-04:00

In honor of Father's Day today, I made bread pudding for breakfast. It's very much like French Toast Casserole, but easier to make and lighter to eat. I followed Angry Chicken's recipe, using Trader Joe's frozen mixed berries, and served it with powdered sugar sprinkled on individual servings. So yummy!

This year we are splitting a CSA share with my sister-in-law and her family. Every Saturday we head to the Farmer's Market to pick up the week's distribution.
So far it has been very heavy on the lettuce and bitter greens. I do like a good salad, but I am the only person in my house who will eat it, so it's been salad three times a day for the past few weeks. The lettuce has been so plentiful that even the half share we get is too much for me. I am happy to be splitting the plentiful share of leafy greens, but other things like the full quart of strawberries and the 8 spears of asparagus seem stingy when split between our two houses. So far it's a fun experiment, and I am eager to see how this progresses through the summer and fall. We will get five full months of produce, June through October.

Nine Years Ago

2011-06-17T09:08:00.003-04:00

In August 2002, my son started kindergarten. That was almost 9 years ago. For nine school years, I have walked one or both of my children to the same elementary school every morning, and gone back to walk them home again at the end of the day. For nine school years I have been a room parent, volunteered in the classroom, baked countless batches of cookies for parties or bake sales, and chaperoned field trips.

Nine years ago when my son started kindergarten, he was 5. My daughter was 2 (and still in diapers). I was 35. So was my husband. My mother-and-father-in-law were still alive. My little niece, the same age as my daughter, had not yet been diagnosed with cancer and was still alive. September 11 had been less than one year before.

Now it is nine years later, and the last day of school. My daughter has promoted from 5th grade. She is moving on to middle school. My son is moving on to high school. For nine years, I have defined myself as an elementary school mom, but I am not an elementary school mom any more.

Nine years has been a lifetime, gone by in the blink of an eye.

Present for a baby

2011-06-08T10:20:00.004-04:00

The woman who babysits my little niece and nephews is expecting a baby of her own any day now. She has always liked the pocket pillows I made for my niece and nephew, so what could I do but make one for her baby?

Dolly pattern from Annie Oakleaves.

(P.S. I changed my settings to make my blog format better on mobile devices. Let me know if anything looks wonky!)

June 1 Yard--It Looks Like Summer!

2011-06-07T21:05:00.009-04:00

I bought this hanging basket of flowers but forgot to water it!
Fortunately it revived after a good drink. Now it's part of my morning routine to get out there and water it.

Compare the yard to

This project is making me realize just how much of our year is cold and dreary! So we must make the most of summer while it is here.

Start of Summer

2011-05-31T10:49:00.004-04:00

Memorial Day weekend, the official start of summer! Even though we still have three weeks until school is out and SO MUCH to do between now and then, we spent the weekend in a very lazy, nothing-to-do way.

We had tickets for our favorite baseball team on Saturday night. All day the skies were non-threatening, and the temperature was moderate. Our hopes were high.

(The DMC on the scoreboard made me wonder why DMC floss would be advertising at the ball park. Then I squinted to read the fine print underneath: Detroit Medical Center. Duh.)

We settled into our seats, getting ready for the game, wondering why things weren't getting underway, when this message appeared:

What? It wasn't even raining! I whipped out my phone and checked the weather radar, and was dismayed to see a big green blob headed right for us.

Right at game time, it started to rain. We moved to a sheltered area. We watched people drinking too many beers. I went to the souvenir shop and spent too much money on a souvenir for my daughter. We ate icky food. Finally the game was officially rained out. Sigh.
So that was that!

Other weekend activities: we tried to plant our plot in the community garden, but the ground there is still too saturated. I can't believe what a late start we are getting with it this year! This week should be dry, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that we can do it some evening this week.

My son was driving me crazy all weekend with his teenager antics. He asked my husband to borrow a projector from work, one that plays DVDs and has ports to hook up computers and gaming systems. My husband obliged. This resulted in my house being turned upside down as my son experimented in every room, rearranging furniture, taking things off walls, trying to find the best place to project the image. He ended up taping up a white sheet in the living room. It got more humid as the weekend went on, so the tape stopped sticking, which led to further shenanigans as he tried different methods of hanging the sheet. I told my husband to get that projector outta my house!!

It was fun while it lasted, but bye bye projector, I will not miss you!

We also visited the cemetery where my husband's parents are buried. We don't go that often, as it's not near our home and we are never in that neighborhood for any other reason, but this weekend he wanted to go, and so we did. My father-in-law died very unexpectedly in 2005, and my mother-in-law died after a short but intense illness in 2007. When we got there this weekend, there were grass clippings all over my mother-in-law's headstone, and I was touched almost to the point of tears when my daughter, without any prompting, dropped to her knees and brushed all the clippings off the stone.

Feels Like December

2011-05-26T07:54:00.001-04:00

It feels like Christmas around here, and for once I am not talking about the weather! (By the way, I do apologize that the weather has been such a focus with my posts lately, but this spring has seriously been so disappointing!)

No, it feels like December because I have so much to do! I am working on stitching two baby gifts, which I hope to share here soon, and I am also baking up an absolute storm. So many school events this time of year need baked goods. This past week I made Lemon Bars, Blueberry Crumb Bars, Peppermint Brownies, Arctic Fudge Bars, and Oatmeal Carmelitas. My children weep every time I pull something from the oven. "Why don't you ever make that for us?" they wail.

I am also getting my daughter ready for camp. I had to really search for the sleeping bags. My hunt found me crouched under the basement steps, hauling out large rubbermaid boxes filled with....maternity clothes? Baby blankets? Toddler clothes? Good gravy. I feel like I am forever hauling away things to thrift shops and charitable organizations, yet I still seem to have plenty to give away! Honestly, if you'd asked me about my maternity clothes, I would have told you I gave it all away years ago. I had no idea...

I was in the basement just before we had yet another torrential rain fall. My back yard flooded and then water seeped all over my basement. They say this is nice weather for ducks, and here is proof in my front yard this morning:

Ten minutes later I peeked outside to see if the ducks were still there and saw this instead:
We are a suburban wildlife refuge today!

I'm not really a royal follower

2011-05-17T20:21:00.003-04:00

I'm not really a royal follower, but I am a bit of an Anglophile. Actually, I think most people who read a lot are Anglophiles, whether they realize it or not, simply because so many fabulous books are written by British authors and set in Britain. The culture sort of soaks into our brains, as if by osmosis. I swear I lived a past life in Regency England (though hopefully not as a scullery maid!).

When my husband had a business trip to England at the end of April during the week of the royal wedding, I pretty much demanded he bring back a royal wedding souvenir for me. I wasn't interested enough in the wedding to bother buying a souvenir online, but when I realized the significance of the timing of his trip, I wanted something. I didn't really care what it was. Something small. Maybe a spoon, or a coin.

The mug pictured above is not what he brought me. He brought me a tea canister filled with bags of English Breakfast tea. The canister has a photograph of the couple, along with their wedding date. I love English Breakfast tea served with sugar and milk, so this was a good gift.

He also brought me a newspaper from London, and it was all about the royal wedding. I sat reading it while I drank a cuppa, thoroughly enjoying myself, when I stumbled upon a small article near the back of the paper about royal wedding souvenirs. The royal wedding, it seems, was quite a boon to local artisans and handicrafters. Gift shops were doing a brisk business in royal wedding gewgaws, and for some people, this extra business was what was keeping them in business.

A London-based potter was featured in the article. She had some wedding mugs that were quite lovely, featuring the couple's name and the wedding date, and decorated with Union Jack bunting. Those are cute, I thought. Then I choked with laughter when the opposite side of the mugs were revealed:
Oh, oh, oh! I had to have one. The wit and cheekiness of the design, paired with my daughter's love of Harry Potter, made it irresistible to me. I flew to my computer and tracked the mug down. The price was a bit steep with shipping (shipping was more than the price of the item--that never happens when I buy things from the UK on etsy!), but sometimes I think to myself this is worth it. This is so worth it! It's cute, it makes me laugh, it's unique, and by purchasing it, I am supporting an independent artist. I can be frugal and careful with my spending most of the time, but not all of the time!

If you are interested in seeing her other designs, here is her website.

Cheers!

In which I emerge from my home

2011-05-11T23:02:00.000-04:00

After a miserably cold and wet spring, we have finally had some very lovely weather the past few days. The temperature hit 80 F today, and I could almost watch the blossoms open on our backyard apple tree. Early in the morning the whole tree shimmered in pale pink buds, but by late afternoon, the blossoms had opened to white.
This is what one of the front beds looks like now, now that spring seems to finally be here:
We have a plot in the community garden again this summer. This year, because of our very wet spring, the coordinators decided not to till the land for us, so we have to do it ourselves. My son didn't have school today, so he and I walked over to get started.

The whole neighborhood has burst into bloom!

I felt like a mole coming out of a hole today. I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt for the first time in a long time. The sun was warm on my skin. I put a few things into a drawstring backpack and settled it on my shoulders. My son carried a rake and I carried a hoe. As we walked down the street, I told him we must look like the beginnings of an angry mob, which made us both laugh. There were bees buzzing around, and the sweet scent of blossoms hung in the air. I was snapping photos left and right, when suddenly I felt something cobweb-like brush my arm. Trying not to panic, I did the oh-my-gosh-something-yucky's-on-me flail and nearly clocked myself on the cheek with the handle of the hoe. I felt really foolish when I realized the "yucky thing" on my arm was just the string of the backpack sliding off my shoulder. Even spring takes some getting used to, I guess!

Here is what the garden looked like when we arrived:
Sigh.

We worked for about an hour, turning over the soil with shovels and breaking up dirt clumps with the rake and hoe. We didn't finish, not by a long shot, and now I feel like it's a race to get the rest of the soil turned and all the seeds and seedlings planted before the weeds pop up again.

Here is what the field adjacent to the garden looks like right now:

Lovely!

Sweet Potato Lentil Stew

2011-05-05T08:00:00.001-04:00

With cooking, I tend to repeat the same tried-and-true recipes over and over again. It's simplest to serve a meal I know my family will eat! The repetition gets a little dull, though, so every now and then I comb through my cookbooks to find something new to try. This week I decided to make Sweet Potato Lentil Stew for the first time. It's a dish that seems more appropriate for autumn, but with our lingering chilly weather, I have been in the mood for warm suppers that have simmered all day.

Before we had children, my husband and I ate lentils a couple of times a week. Lentil soup, lentil spaghetti sauce, Mexican lentil casserole, lentil salad... We love lentils! The children, however, are not fans, so lentils fell by the wayside, and we have them just a few times a year now.

My husband is not a fan of sweet potatoes. Given the children's dislike of lentils and my husband's dislike of sweet potatoes, Sweet Potato Lentil Stew seems like an odd recipe for me to try, but I like both those things, so with this meal, I was aiming to please myself, and the others would just have to deal.

It turned out quite delicious, and the happy news is that my husband liked it just as much as I did. The kids were iffy, as I fully expected. They grudgingly ate a bowlful, but didn't ask for seconds.

Sweet Potato Lentil Stew (adapted from Fix and Forget It Lightly)

4 cups vegetable broth

3 cups (about 1.25 lbs) sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed (I had two largish sweet potatoes and didn't measure how many cups they yielded when diced)

1.5 cups lentils, sorted and rinsed

3 medium carrots, peeled and diced

1 medium onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro or parsley (I didn't have fresh, so I tossed in about 1 T dried cilantro)

Combine all ingredients into a 4-quart slow cooker (unless you are using fresh parsley or cilantro, in which case you add it just before serving). Cover and cook on low 5-6 hours. I cooked for about 7 hours because I was worried the lentils wouldn't be done after 6 hours.

The recipe gives optional add-ins to stir into the pot after cooking: 1/3 cup raisins, 1/4 cup chopped nuts, 1/4 cup grated coconut. I just put those ingredients on the table and let individuals sprinkle them into their own bowls as desired. I thought the raisins were a bit much, and think they would have tasted better if they had been cooked with the stew, but it's not an addition I will make. However, the sprinkle of coconut and walnuts I added to my bowl were scrumptious! I had sweetened coconut on hand, and that little burst of sweetness was yummy!

The sweet potatoes were quite squishy at the end of the cooking period, so I smooshed them with my spoon in my bowl. I didn't smash them in the cooking pot because I wanted certain picky eaters to be able to eat around them if said picky eaters found it necessary to do so.

I will definitely be making this stew again!

No pictures of the stew, since it doesn't look quite as good as it tastes!

May 1 Yard: Slow Progress

2011-05-03T23:28:00.008-04:00

This is the spring that isn't. We have had a lot of rain, not very much sun, and chilly temperatures. I don't feel thawed out yet. I don't think the yard does, either, because things are taking a long time to flower.
Things are coming up, though.

We had a heavy rainstorm that knocked all the hyacinths over.

The bulbs in my yard are an odd bunch. The ones that continue to come up have been coming up ever since we bought the house 17 years ago. That explains these tulips forcing their way through somewhat new shrubs:Then we have that Lone Ranger tulip back there:
I have planted bulbs in various places to try to fill in and balance the spring look, but every bulb I have planted over the years has perished, so we have a very odd straggly look in the spring.

My Forsythia seems to by dying. I don't know if I should hack off the dead stuff, or just remove the whole thing.
We are quite proficient at growing dandelions, though!

Home Sweet Home

2011-04-27T07:50:00.001-04:00

Things have been disrupted lately. My husband has been on more business trips than usual. My children have after-school activities that on some days don't have them coming home until after 5:00. My son spent three days at a friend's cottage during spring break. My daughter is flying to New York City on Thursday with my husband's sister to visit my husband's other sister. Me? I'm staying home and thinking "what's happening?"

They are growing up. When I started this blog only three years ago, the children were still pretty young. One of my first posts was about my son's dread of going to overnight camp. Since then he's been to camp twice and to his friend's cottage three times. In June he will go on his 8th grade trip to Chicago for 4 days. He is still a homebody, almost to a fault, but he has less than two months of middle school left, and then he'll be in high school, and then...college, hopefully.

My daughter is excited about her big trip this week, and I'm excited for her, but at the same time I feel a certain dread, both about this weekend, and about things in general. She will have her turn at overnight camp in May. She has less than two months of elementary school left, and then she'll be in middle school, and then I'll be the mother of a middle schooler and a high schooler, when not that long ago they were both in elementary school and home all the time. I wonder what my days will be like when the children get busier and aren't home as much. I am starting to actually experience that now.

I am enthusiastic about the new opportunities opening to them as they age, and it is thrilling to see them grow into themselves, but it's challenging, too. Before I had children, they were never older than toddlers in my fantasies. I didn't dream about mothering tweens and teens, about overseeing Algebra homework, about visiting the orthodontist, about watching them go off without me. I'll bet most mothers don't, before they have babies.

I stitched the Home Sweet Home piece many years ago during a difficult time when I was feeling lonely and wishing I could start to create my own home sweet home. It's a little piece, from one of those kits you used to be able to buy at places like the grocery store. It hung in my kitchen for years, until I changed my decor and it didn't fit in any more. I unearthed it during a recent cleaning project, and thought its rediscovery was very timely. Wherever my children go, whatever they do, I hope they always feel this place I have created is Home Sweet Home for them.

A Mini Vacation

2011-04-19T09:54:00.007-04:00

Today's post is a mini vacation for everyone. My husband (and my camera) were in Athens, Greece a few weeks ago on a business trip. While the children and I were home with our dark, cold, soggy spring weather, my husband was half-way across the globe in sunny, warm, dry Greece. He was holed up in long meetings most days, but one day was free for site-seeing. It is still bone-chilling cold here, but looking at these photos almost makes me feel warm.

They have flowers!

And ancient ruins!

I marvel over how densely the city is built.

Beautiful blue sky, and wild flowers (weeds?) rooting in the ruins. Ahhh.

He had fun puzzling over the Greek letters. This one says "exodos".
There were stray dogs and cats everywhere.

This next photo was taken for our daughter.

Moon over the Acropolis.
He had his birthday while he was there. He got up early and went for a pre-dawn run around the Acropolis, and watched the sun rise over the Parthenon. That's a pretty cool way to start your birthday!

What month is this?

2011-04-18T14:55:00.002-04:00

You can never guess what month it is around here in the springtime by judging the weather alone.

Today (April 18, 2011):
Fifty-one weeks ago (April 25, 2010):
Let me know when it's June.

April 1 Yard--Finally, some signs of life!

2011-04-06T21:06:00.004-04:00

Things are very slowly getting underway in the yard.

Hooray! I was happy to see the crocuses emerge. They were so much later coming up than most of my neighbors' crocuses. I found a big clump of crocus bulbs on my sidewalk back in October (courtesy of a busy squirrel), which I didn't bother to replant, so when my neighbors had crocuses a few weeks ago while I had none, I assumed mine had all been dug up!

Spring is off to a slow start in general around here. We had one warm day in the middle of March, but other than that, it's been cold and gloomy, and winter starts to feel endless. The signs of life in the yard are giving me hope that it just might eventually get warm!

They're ba-aaack!

2011-04-01T11:42:00.003-04:00

Last night after dinner my husband and children were noticeably quiet. I know what it means when they are behind closed doors on the eve of April Fool's Day. When they came out chuckling and looking smug, I asked the kids "Why don't you ever plot to trick Dad?" My daughter answered, "Because he doesn't scream."

Oh, man, I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning. I proceeded with caution. First thing I noticed was that the laptop lid was closed. It is never closed. A-ha! I opened it very slowly.

Whew. Got through that one. My son had already left for school, but my daughter was waiting for breakfast. I opened the cupboard door, truly expecting to find this:
Amateurs.

The next one did startle me a bit:
But I didn't scream. Go, me!

Some of the blinds were still closed, which was a big clue, so when I opened them, I wasn't surprised by this:
But it does give me the creeps. I mean, just look at it!
Okay, I hadn't been too surprised by anything yet. I still hadn't screamed. However, my confidence was not growing because I knew, I just knew, something diabolical was waiting for me somewhere in the house. Last year they got me with the toilet lid. I still hadn't been to the bathroom, and by now I needed to go, so I crept ahead cautiously. Closet? All clear. Mirror? Nothing. Toilet lid? Blank.

I stood in the middle of the bathroom and turned a slow circle.

SCREAM!

It was in the shower!!!!!!
Dang, they're good.

Busy Hands

2011-03-29T22:52:00.005-04:00

This past weekend we attended a concert comprised of performances by multiple bands from area middle schools and high schools. My son was playing in one of the middle school bands. I figured there would be a lot of down time between songs while one band moved off the stage and the next band got settled in, so one hour before the concert began I was madly searching the internet for crochet dishcloth patterns. I had never crocheted a dishcloth before, but at that moment, I knew I needed to start.A few hours later I was the proud owner of a dishcloth hooked out of Lily Sugar 'n Cream yarn in the color buttercream. I am not wildly crazy about the color. It reminds me of a bedspread I had back in the 80s. However, I am sure the dishcloth will serve it's purpose, and I sense that I have developed a new addiction. It's very likely that from now on, I will have an in-progress dishcloth tucked into my purse at all times.

Strawberry Pincushion

2011-03-24T16:57:00.006-04:00

I gathered my courage to finish my latest alphabet cross stitch into......a strawberry pincushion!

I didn't realize just how large it would be. It's as big as my hand!
When I first started this pattern I was picturing it being much smaller, something I could put on a string and hang up somewhere, but it's so big, I think I will just give it some shelf space somewhere in the house.

The finishing of this project was fraught with stress and mess. I keep half my craft supplies on the second floor of my house, and the other half is in the basement, but my preferred work area is on the main floor of the house, so this project had me running up, down, and all around. I needed fusible interfacing, an iron, an ironing board, poly pellets, stuffing, floral wire, floral tape, wire cutters, pliers (to manipulate the wire), fabric, and glue. Some things were where I thought they should be, while others were not, so it took more effort than it should have to get everything gathered. (That is entirely my own fault and I am strategizing how to improve my storage system around here.)

Assembling all the supplies was only half the battle, as I also had several mishaps during the actual making-of-the-pincushion. The gathering thread I stitched around the top of the strawberry broke when I tried to gather, so I had to redo that. I misread the instructions and made the wire shapes for the leaves too small, and the strawberry looked really silly with that cap of too-small leaves, so I had to redo that. And then, once it was all done, I thought to myself "Strawberries don't have brown curly stems! Pumpkins do!" But alas, making the stem brown and curly was called for in the instructions, and I followed them blindly. I do think the end result is pretty cute, though, and it truly was fun to make, even if it was a little bit stressful.

Now I will go back to a sampler I am stitching on 32 count fabric, which I swear is going to be the project that ruins my eyes for good. I have to make a serious effort to focus on that tiny count! I've been slightly near-sighted all my life, and so far this has served me well for reading and needlework, but I just may need to get a pair of cheaters to get me through this next sampler!

Pattern Info for pincushion: Blackbird Designs Secret Garden (Loose Feathers Pattern #20)

Ox-Cart Man

2011-03-22T12:45:00.005-04:00

Our elementary school's used book sale was this week. Every year I find a treasure at this sale. Ox-Cart Man, by Donald Hall, illustrated by Barbara Cooney, was this year's find.

The cover illustration really caught my eye. Well, no wonder, as this book won the Caldecott Medal.

The story is told very simply, but conveys so much about living simply and how there is a cycle to the seasons, and the tasks that go with those seasons.

It begins with the man packing his cart to take to market in October. "He packed a bag of wool he sheared from the sheep in April. He packed a shawl his wife wove on a loom from yarn spun at the spinning wheel from sheep sheared in April. He packed five pairs of mittens his daughter knit from yarn spun at the spinning wheel from sheep sheared in April."

It goes on to tell of the food from their garden, including the maple syrup they made by tapping trees and boiling away the sap.

The man walks 10 days to market, and sells everything. Then he buys things his family needs to make more things: an iron kettle, an embroidery needle, a Barlow knife. He also buys them a treat--two pounds of candies! I love that he buys them candies! There is some play among the work.

He walks 10 days home, and the family settles into another year of work, preparing things for themselves, and to sell at next year's market.

This book goes on my keeper shelf.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T10:44:00.001-04:00

74:365/rainbow, but no pot of gold a photo by besomom on Flickr.

This is a photo of the salad I made last year for St. Patrick's Day. I will make it again today! St. Patrick's Day feels like the beginning of spring to me, with the fresh green color scheme and the shamrock motif.

Today we have sunshine and warm temperatures. It is the day I have been waiting for to go outside and start doing some spring yardwork. It will probably snow again before warm weather is here for good, but that makes a day like today seem like a mini vacation, or like a little unexpected gift.

Now I'm off to research blenders. My daughter wanted a smoothie for breakfast today. I must have been half asleep, because I started up the blender with a spoon still in the pitcher. Oy! The spoon was mangled and the blade isn't looking too good, either. Oddly enough, it didn't make that much more noise than usual, even with a spoon getting crushed, which proves to me that the blender I have really is unnecessarily loud. I was thinking I'd get a Vitamix, but I just looked at them on Amazon and am reeling from the outrageous price!

In the works

2011-03-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

My current WIP. Stitching is done (and oh my goodness, it's another alphabet. Sorry for the redundancy, but I just can't help myself!). Now I need to make it into what it is supposed to become. I am slightly terrified to carry forward with this project, because I'm worried I'll mess it up. But if I'm successful, it's going to be awfully cute. Wish me luck!

Meow

2011-03-02T16:45:00.002-05:00

I stitched this kitty alphabet for my daughter while we were in Florida. She is not as enamored with the alphabet as I am, but she does love kitties! I saw the design in the photostream of my Flickr contact kwgronau. There wasn't a pattern available for it, but it was easy enough to recreate. (Kwgronau didn't use a pattern either--I asked her, because I always buy the pattern if one is available.)

This is stitched on 14 ct aida. The design area is pretty small, about 3 inches by 3.5 inches.

My favorite "pose" in this alphabet is the letter N. I always get a kick out of watching cats stretch out their hind legs!

March 1 Yard: More of the Same, Unfortunately

2011-03-01T16:47:00.004-05:00

Those of you who live in warmer climates can now officially feel sorry for me, because we are still covered with snow over here. If it still looks like this on April 1, I think I will cry.

Usually we have one or two very warm days in March (temps in the 70s F), and that is when I go outside and clip back all the dead stuff I didn't cut back in the fall.

I hope we get those days soon!

The snow from February had actually almost all melted just before we went to Florida, but while we were in Florida, home was dumped on again with almost 10 inches of snow. Luckily I had had the foresight to hire a snow removal service just for the week we were gone. We only had to pay them if they ended up having to remove snow, so it was risk-free. I think they had to come twice!

I do like snow, and I like cozy clothes and my down parka and my fur-lined boots, but I am ready for winter to be done now. I hope the yard looks more springy for my April 1 photos!

Break from the Cold

2011-02-28T09:44:00.006-05:00

My parents spend their winters in Florida, and this year, we decided to join them for a week. Tennis anyone?

They stay in the panhandle of Florida, so it's not the warmest part of the state, but we had excellent weather while we were there, the warmest days they've had in those parts this winter.

All but one day were sunny and bright, warm enough for shorts, and nicely humid, which felt wonderful to my poor dessicated northern winter skin.

Even though we had lots of sunshine and bright clear skies, I have more photos of the cloudy, windy day, because I like how dramatic the beach looks in such conditions.

This was a science museum, which looked intriguing, but we didn't go because we wanted to be outside!

Ocean beaches (technically, the Gulf of Mexico here) have much different debris than we find on the shores of the Great Lakes. We saw lots of small jelly fish, and this huge one:

My daughter was shell-hunting instead of rock-hunting, and instead of a Rock Shop, we stopped at a Shell Shop!

We don't see pelicans on Great Lakes beaches.

A heart-shaped impression in the sand.

Ocean beach still-life:

We drove there and back. This next photo is for you Glee fans:

Trivia: my paternal grandfather was born in Lima, Ohio!

We arrived home to find that my daughter's friend, who had been feeding our cats, left us with a surprise treat to welcome us home to the Cold North. Snowman cupcakes! What a sweet treat!

This is the first time in 8 years that I've gone someplace warm in the middle of winter. It was a nice break, but now I think spring is going to seem even farther away than it usually does.

Valentine's Festivities

2011-02-14T11:29:00.002-05:00

With my love of all-things hearts, this time of year can be dangerous for me to be out shopping. I saw this felted heart with chain-stitched embroidery in a shop window downtown a few weeks ago, and I resisted it for days, thinking to myself I could easily make one myself, but then I didn't make one myself, and as the number of hearts in the shop window dwindled as more and more shoppers snatched them up, I panicked and bought the last one on Saturday. Little things make me so happy.I finished stitching this funny little valentine last night. I want to make it into a small pillow, but that's not going to happen today, so I will have to present it to my valentine still in the hoop. The pattern is from Wild Olive.

Treats for the children. My husband had to go to Germany on business a few weeks ago, and he had one free day for site-seeing, so he went to a chocolate museum! Ooh, good choice of activity! I told him to be on the lookout for Valentine things for the children, and this is what he found. They will have to go on their Valentine's Day Treasure Hunt to find them.

I have had this heart necklace forever. My grandma gave it to me when I was a child. I don't remember exactly how old I was, maybe 9 or 10? I wore it for special occasions, and then when I was a teenager I stopped wearing it. I am not sure why. Maybe I felt like it was childish or out of style or something. As you can imagine, I have collected quite a few heart-charm necklaces over the years, and I love them all, but this is one I never reached for, until a few days ago, when I saw it hanging in my jewelry box and thought, you know, that's a really cute necklace.

Not too big, not too small, really just right. And I don't think it looks childish or out of style.

My grandma was born on Valentine's Day. Happy Birthday, Grandma. I miss you. Thanks for the necklace. I love it.

It wasn't as bad as they predicted

2011-02-02T16:33:00.003-05:00

I know some places really got slammed by this storm system that covered much of the country, but we got off pretty easy here. It was very windy and snowy last night, and I was glad to be tucked in safely at home, but all in all, I've seen worse storms. Much worse!

It was too windy for the trees to get coated in snow, but I like how the bare branches look against the blue sky.

Outdoors it was a minor blizzard, but indoors we have spring.

Feb. 1 Yard: The Calm Before the Storm

2011-02-01T19:32:00.005-05:00

We have a blizzard warning. I took these first-of-the-month yard photos about six hours before the storm started. The flakes started coming down right as it got dark this evening.

Normally my walkway is cleared, but we had an inch or so of snow last night (a pre-blizzard snowfall), and I figured with 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 or 15 inches of snow on the way (predictions have been varying), I wouldn't bother to shovel until it's all done.

My January 1 photos weren't all that exciting, because it seemed like nothing was going on in the yard, but when there is snow on the ground, we have proof of activity:

Rabbit tracks!

We shall see what this storm brings.

Alphabet Girl

2011-01-25T12:27:00.003-05:00

I completed the stitching on this embroidery a while ago, but haven't finished into anything yet. I need to concentrate on finishing this and some other languishing embroideries!

This was fun to stitch, but I had a really hard time getting her facial features and hair to my liking. I got the pattern last winter from Follow the White Bunny (here), but this pattern no longer seems to be available.

Thanks for the feedback on the frames! Your votes were a pretty even split! I ended up sending the heart in the black frame to my newly-engaged niece for a little surprise. My daughter preferred the gold frame, so I kept that one for us. I think the opening in both frames is 2 inches by 3 inches, so either heart is one of those fun little things you can set anywhere. That's my favorite kind of decorating, to have random bits of whimsy here and there. I try to stop before the look crosses the line to cluttered. This is why I am forever swapping decorations out for the seasons. I can't stop making things, so I need to rotate my stuff. My husband says museums don't display everything at once, so I don't need to, either. Ha.

Two hearts, two frames

2011-01-21T14:25:00.002-05:00

I saw a little cross stitch heart on flickr that I absolutely loved, so I decided to make my own. I stitched it twice and framed it two different ways.

Which frame do you like best? I can't decide.

Gingham heart

2011-01-16T16:40:00.002-05:00

"Needlework is the art that tells the truth about the real life of people in their time and place. The great arts...are the work of a few unique persons...Needlework is anonymous; the people create it. Each piece is the work of a woman who is thinking only of making for her child, her friend, her home or herself a bit of beauty that pleases her." --Rose Wilder Lane, Woman's Day Book of American Needlework.

Heart was stitched on Christmas Day while we drove to visit my family, but instead of making it into a Christmas ornament (which was my original intention), I framed it in the hoop to be a winter/Valentines' Day decoration.

All You Need is Love

2011-01-11T09:19:00.000-05:00

I went through my back log of cross stitch patterns a week ago with the intention of working on all the Christmas patterns I've collected over the years. Instead, I found several small Valentine's themed patterns I had completely forgotten about, so I started those.

Here is the first.

It's a free pattern from The Drawn Thread, titled All You Need is Love. Direct link to the pattern here, but if that doesn't work for some reason, here is a link to list of all their free patterns.

I'm not fully satisfied with how mine turned out. The pattern calls for Gloriana Silk threads, which I do not have, so I substituted DMC (substitutions listed below). I also used a 28 ct linen. An evenweave, or a tighter weave (the pattern calls for 32 ct), would have resulted in better-looking satin stitch (all of the leaves, plus a few of the hearts). I do like the water-color effect of the undefined edges, but I think I would prefer a cleaner, sharper look. In any case, it was fun to do, and I am pleased with it, even if I do think it could look better. Now I need to come up with a way to finish it! It's little, about 2 inches by 3 inches. I love little cross-stitches like this. They are quick to stitch up and can go just about anywhere.

Oh, and silly me, I went looking for more free cross stitch patterns last night and felt my heart skip a beat when I saw this one at Tom Pudding Designs. Red, white, and Scandinavian? Yes, please.

In random news, the dying maple in front of my house was cut down yesterday. So sad. We knew it was coming. It had been looking sickly for several years. It's on city property, so I called the city to come trim dead branches a while ago, which they did, but then more branches died, and when I called again, they told me it would need to come down. It has had the painted mark of doom on it for almost a year now, and I was hoping they'd forgotten about it, but yesterday they pulled up, unannounced, all noisy and hard-hatted, with chain saws and a big chipper. In less than 20 minutes they had that poor tree cut down and fed through the chipper.

When my children were toddlers they liked to be lifted to sit on the lowest branch of the tree, and when my daughter grew older, she would find lots of cicada shells on the trunk every summer. Last year the tree harbored a hummingbird nest, which hung at the end of a very thin branch, right over the middle of the street. We marveled at how tiny it was, and at how it must weigh nothing to be able to hang on that thin branch. Once my son hit a ball, which soared (unintentionally) right into the bottom of the nest. The nest swung up, and the hummingbird shot out of it so fast! I could almost see the indignation on his face as he hovered over his home, assessing the danger. Eventually, to our great relief, he decided it was okay to settle back into bed. Sigh. I hate losing a tree.

Fortunately there are still lots of nice old trees in the neighborhood. This time of year we have a flock of crows that hangs around all day. They are a raucous bunch, and frankly, they give me the creeps. They seem so sinister. For some reason yesterday afternoon they gathered in the trees near to my now-gone tree and screamed their heads off. I don't know if it was just a coincidence, or if they truly were discussing why a tree had just disappeared! I am currently reading The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper, in which rooks lend to the eerie mood right in the first chapter. The way those rooks are behaving, you just know something is up! It's hard not to think about that when I have these crows over my own head. I will just have to concentrate on stitching to keep my mind off the crows, I suppose!

(My DMC substitutions for All You Need is Love: Elizabethan Green--987; Poinsettia--814; Antique Pink--761 (wish I had picked something with a bit more oomph!); Forest--895; Raspberry Parfait--600; Rosewood--777; Desert Rose--760)

Into 2011

2011-01-04T14:48:00.006-05:00

Last year I started a 365 project, to post one photo a day on Flickr. I made it to 100, and then I didn't take a picture for weeks! I am not going to attempt a 365 project again, but I did give myself a new project to photograph my yard on the first day of each month this year. I am interested to chronicle how things change from one month to the next.

Our yard is pretty tiny. We don't have sweeping views or rolling terrain. We do have quite a few flower beds packed into it, though. I took these photos on January 1. All of the snow had melted the day before when we had a warm (mid 40s F temperatures) and rainy day.

There is not much going on out there right now!

Inside the house things are looking a bit sad, too. All the Christmas stuff is put away. I still have out some winter decorations, but I haven't rearranged anything yet to fill in the gaps where the Christmas things were, so things feel half-done. I need to get to work on that.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T16:46:00.002-05:00

A mosaic of what my daughter and I made this year. I made most of it, but she gets credit for the porcupine pillow, the kitty, and one of the beaded hearts.

This year I think I'd like to take charge of my excessive back log of cross stitch patterns. I have at least 5 (maybe more!) Christmas patterns in my to-do stack. The year of 2011 might be all Christmas, all the time for me. That could be kind of fun. I would definitely feel a sense of accomplishment to clear out that back log!

Wishing a very Happy New Year to all who stop by this space. Thanks for reading!

Christmas Past

2010-12-27T17:40:00.002-05:00

We had a Merry Christmas here, and hope you did, too. The kids are happily busy getting acquainted with their new things. We had dry roads for our long drive to and from my parents' house, where we gathered for the holiday with my whole family, including my newly-engaged niece. She was the flower girl in my wedding, so I really can't understand how she is old enough to be getting married!
Pictured is a quilt I made for my mom a long, long time ago, when I worked part-time and didn't have children yet (and when my niece was still a little girl). I would not have the time or the patience to make this now. Even back then it tested my patience. The machine appliqueing was fussier than I expected, and it started to drive me crazy! But the end result was worth it. I used some busy prints in this, didn't I? It's not easy on the eyes, but I think the overall effect is joyful and jolly.

I have blogged before about when I first got my sewing machine. The final push to me buying a machine was when I saw a pattern for a little felt bunny family that lived in a carrot-shaped purse. The bunnies could be made by hand, but the sewing for the carrot purse required a machine. I wanted to make that bunny family for my niece so badly, and they would not be complete without that carrot, so I said That's it, I'm getting a machine. I made the bunny family for my niece for Christmas that year, and the following year I made my mom this quilt, plus an advent quilt for myself and a second one for my sister (mom to my niece). It's nice to see some of my early hard work on display every year.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-20T22:09:00.000-05:00

Here is my Sampler Snowman, by Homespun Elegance, all stitched up. I've since finished him into a little wall hanging, and now he's hanging over my window on an old curtain rod hook. I took down the curtains in my family room years ago, but left the hooks intact so that I have a place to hang all my seasonal decorations. All the hooks are full this time of year!

This week is going too quickly. Today I made spiced pecans to give to neighbors and the mailman. They are an old holiday stand-by I've been making for 9 years now (recipe from Family Fun here). So yummy! I have a tiny bit of handsewing to finish up on some fabric candy canes. The candy canes will embellish the containers that will hold the pecans. I made sugar cookies today, which my nephews and niece (ages 7, 5, and 3) will come over to decorate on Thursday, after I give them a lunch of Star Wars shaped pancakes. My daughter and I hope to see Tangled tomorrow. On Wednesday we are going to see Mary Poppins on Broadway (except not actually on Broadway). Friday is Christmas Eve! Love this time of year.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. Have a wonderful holiday!

Snow days

2010-12-14T10:42:00.008-05:00

We had our first snowstorm over the weekend, and school was closed yesterday. Yay, snowday! The kids and I ate our breakfast while we watched the movie Elf. I hadn't seen it in a few years, so it hasn't gotten old for me yet. What makes me laugh hardest is the fact that Will Ferrell is willing to walk around NYC in that get up!

In this season of short daylight, I fully appreciate a bright and sunny day, and when the sun comes after a snow fall, it's blindingly beautiful. This morning when the sun came up, the gel gems my daughter put in the dining room window really lit up. You have to appreciate the unique beauty of a winter's day. Yesterday I brought out the Christmas picture books and put them near our tree. One of my favorite books to look at is Christmas Trolls, by Jan Brett. The illustrations are so gorgeous and detailed. I would love to have such color and coziness in my home. Just look at that tree!
As I examined every detail in the book last evening, I started to realize that my own Christmas tree actually does look like the one in the book.

Now, does anyone know where I can find an anorak, boots, and mittens like these?
Because I would totally wear all of that.

Christmas Spice Cookies

2010-12-09T19:14:00.003-05:00

There was a cookie exchange for teachers and staff at my daughter's school today. Parents were asked to send in two dozen homemade cookies, and this is what I made. I don't make these every year, but whenever I do, I think I should make them more often. They are similar to gingerbread or molasses cookies, but so much easier to make because there is no need to get out the stand mixer or the cookie cutters. (My kitchen is tiny, so I have to keep the stand mixer in the basement, and sometimes I don't feel like hauling it out.) If I remember correctly, this recipe was printed in a Wisteria catalog several years ago. I tried to find it online, but was unsuccessful, so here it is:

Easy Christmas Spice Cookies

3/4 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1/4 c. molasses

2 c. flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg, beaten

Melt the butter in a large heavy saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and molasses. Mix together well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the melted butter mixture and stir well. Add the beaten egg; stir well.

Spread the batter in a greased 9x13 pan and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

While the cookies bake, make your icing:

1 c. powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

1 1/2 T cream or milk (water also works)

Stir all icing ingredients together, adjusting sugar or milk amounts slightly if necessary to make it smooth and not too runny.

Spread the icing on the cookies while they are still warm (about 5 minutes after they come out of the oven). Let cool completely and be sure icing is firm before slicing into bars. Store bars in an airtight container.

That's it! Nice and easy, and yummy.

Tis the Season

2010-12-08T10:55:00.002-05:00

I think I finally have all the Christmas decorations out. It's such a huge job. I always face it with dread, but once we get started, it's fun, and when the house is all festive, I'm glad we made the effort.

I'm not doing too much crafting this year. There are plenty of things I want to make, but I don't want to get stressed about it, so my approach has been less frantic and more relaxed. I'm trying that approach on all aspects of Christmas this year! So far I feel pretty good about things.

I do have one cute cross stitch that I recently completed which I need to share, but my son has been using my camera, and he changed all the settings, and I don't know how to change them back. Grumble grumble. He has a half-day of school today, which means he'll be home at 11:30, which also means I can kiss the computer good-bye for the rest of the day. He drives me crazy and makes me happy at the same time. He is taking a bus trip to Chicago on Friday with his German class to visit the Christkindlmarket. I must get myself to that sometime. It looks wonderful.

I did want to share links to two Christmas craft tutorials I posted in the past, just in case you yourself are in a mad crafting frenzy and want some ideas. These two are very simple to make:

Sock snowman tutorial here

Fabric candy cane tutorial here.

Thanks for your kind comments about Michele. It seems strange to go about my holiday business knowing that she is gone, and that her husband and daughter are without her.

My friend

2010-12-03T15:07:00.000-05:00

The heart ornament I featured in my previous post was made for my friend Michele. I've known Michele for almost 14 years. She passed away on Monday, after a 12-year battle with two different cancers, leaving behind her loving husband and 13-year-old daughter. I mailed the ornament to her before she died. I do hope she was lucid enough to see it and feel the love I put into it when I stitched it for her.

I know Michele from a pregnancy listserv. One wouldn't think online friendships could feel so real, but they are indeed very, very real, and I will (already do) miss her more than I can say. I think my other list moms know exactly what I mean.

Our group, which is still together today, was founded in the winter of 1997, when a bunch of newly-pregnant women ventured forth onto the Internet and somehow found a listserv devoted to pregnant women who were due in September that year. None of us knew each other. We came from all different walks of life, from all over the world. We jumped right in, introduced ourselves, gave our real names--including last names!--pinpointed our precise locations on this planet, and started discussing Things right away.

Michele was one of those moms, so willing to share so much of herself. She was one of our more prolific posters, and I found her quite entertaining, warm, and helpful. If you needed a recipe, she had one. If you needed a product review, she probably had the item in question and could give you excellent feedback. If you were having a bad day, she'd say something that made you recognize there had been good parts to the day.

She was so honest and open about her life, sharing with us the good, the bad, the hopeful, the heart-breaking. You would think with all she had to deal with that she would retreat into her own problems and stop worrying about the rest of us, but she continued to be an active participant in our group. I could post about the silliest little problem, and she would treat it as if it were the most important thing. And the times my problems weren't so silly, when they were very real and very horrible, she offered true wisdom and true strength, both by what she said, and by the example she set with how she lived her own life.

When she went into hospice at the beginning of November, we were devastated. What could we do to show this woman how much she meant to us, and how much we love her? One mom came up with the brilliant idea of sending her a table-top Christmas tree, and we each sent an ornament to decorate the tree. The heart was my contribution. She gave all of us so much, just by being. I hope she knew, not just in the end, but all along, what she meant to us.

A Hodgepodge Post

2010-11-19T14:27:00.004-05:00

Here is a little something I worked on recently. The design is from an old Tom Pudding pattern I found free online in 2004. Good thing I printed it out then (and didn't lose the printout!) because it doesn't seem to be available any more, but they have other free patterns here. I may have to do something with that snowflake design. (Edited Feb. 13, 2011: The pattern is available on their new blog now! Hooray! Go here.)
This is stitched on 14 ct. aida with DMC 600, two strands for the outline, one strand for the design. The finished design area is about 2 inches by 2 inches.

I had a handmade ornament inspiration the other day which required red gingham fabric. No problem, I thought, as I headed to my stash. Would you believe I had NO red gingham in my 20-year-in-the-making fabric stash? NONE. I was shocked. Time for a fabric store run.

I am doing little things for Christmas this year, mostly cross stitch stuff, but I may try to knit these tree sachets from a couple years ago. Unfortunately, my left hand has begun to ache like crazy lately when I try to stitch, knit, or crochet. I wear a therapeutic glove while I work, but it doesn't seem to help much. My mom's hands were crippled by arthritis when she was in her 60s, so I am a little fearful. I am not ready to give up stitching. What will I do if I can't stitch???? I spend the time I am not stitching massaging my hand and fretting.

Yesterday I had my volunteer shift in the elementary school library. Two boys came rushing in, breathless, waving a piece of paper at me. "We need to find the definition for this word!" they panted. I said "Sure, go ahead." I expected them to rush to a computer and go online, but to my surprise they headed straight for the Big Dictionary. I was actually very touched to see them wrestling it off the bookshelf, and gratified to see that they knew how to use it. The word they were looking for was "runcible." They found "runcible spoon", and scribbled down the definition (which sounded an awful lot like the description for a spork!). Last evening on a whim I googled runcible spoon, and this is what I found. Hmmm. Now I want to go back to that dictionary in the school library and see if it mentioned that it's really a made-up thing! I feel a little sad that the dictionary may not have the full story.

And from the department of totally random: news of Prince William's engagement reminded me of the day he was born. I was a teenager at the time, so I spent a lot of time in my bedroom listening to the radio. That day the dj mentioned that Diana was in labor, which I thought was newsworthy, so I opened up my bedroom door and shouted out to the household at large "Hey! Princess Di's in labor!" My dad misunderstood this as "princess dies in labor". Much hilarity ensued.

Great American Road Trip, Part XIV: The Road Home

2010-11-15T09:08:00.000-05:00

The last few days of our trip were mostly long-haul drives. When we embarked on our journey, our plan had been to take time on the road home, to drive through Kansas and go to Independence to see the Little House on the Prairie site there, and then to drive to Mansfield, Missouri, to see Rocky Ridge Farm (where Laura lived most of her adult life, and where her home is now a museum. I've been there before, and wanted to see it again). However, at this point in the trip, we had been on the road for a long time, and my husband felt a need to get back to work. My son's birthday was coming up, and we wanted to be home for that, and school was also looming on the horizon. So, we drove I-70 straight through to Missouri without any site seeing. Not even the world's largest ball of twine!

My mother-in-law grew up in a small town in Missouri. My husband spent a lot of summers there when he was a child, and some of his relatives still live there, so we did some visiting for a day. Our children have been there before for family reunions and weddings, but it had been a long time and they didn't really remember much about it (other than the oppressive and horrible humidity, which is very memorable!). My husband grew up not far from where we live now, but most of his best and favorite childhood memories are from the times he spent in Missouri, so it is important for the children to see those places. I know my mother-in-law (who passed away three years ago) would have been so happy that we included a stop in her home town on our big vacation!

And then, of course, there is always something interesting to see on the Mississippi River.

We happened to be there in 1993 when the river was at its highest. Even though we were there and saw it with our own eyes, it is still hard to believe it was actually all the way up to that mark on the flood gate!

The last leg of our journey home took us through rural Illinois, where we passed a campground called "Rest In Peace Campground". Seriously? Whose idea was that? Does anyone camp there? I wouldn't!

And finally home again.

where the scenery behind the bison mascot really isn't all that spectacular or interesting, but it is home, and we were glad to be back.

Four thousand nine hundred fifty miles. Sixteen days. Nine states (four of which were new to me). Six state capital cities. Two state capitol buildings. Six national parks. Two Laura Ingalls Wilder sites. Twelve picnic lunches at rest areas, historic sites, town parks, or in national parks. One horrible storm. Countless memories to last a lifetime.

The Party Porcupine Pillow

2010-11-13T20:26:00.004-05:00

My daughter was invited to a friend's birthday party, and she really wanted to make an embroidered rendering of this friend's signature doodle, the Party Porcupine. It took a few days to secure a doodle, then a few more days for me to transfer it to fabric for her, then another few days for my daughter to find time to do the crayon tinting and embroidering (I did the french knots in the party hat for her), then thirty minutes of her rejecting most of the fabric in my stash, until we finally unearthed the gum-drop fabric which was declared perfect, then a late-night, last-minute session with me at the sewing machine, but we managed to complete the pillow on time!

Great American Road Trip, Part XIII: Denver,Colorado

2010-11-03T23:29:00.009-04:00

The day after our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, we spent the day in Denver. Denver is known as The Mile High City, so I was picturing it IN the mountains. It's not in the mountains. It's near the mountains. This really blew my mind. Who knew? It looked a lot like Minneapolis to me. (My husband didn't get that same Minneapolis impression.)

The week before we were in Denver, when we realized what exact day we'd be in Denver, we tried to get tickets to tour the U.S. Mint, but, sadly, all tours that day were already completely booked. You can do this complicated thing at the Mint to get on stand-by, but by the time we got there, we were too late even for that. This was extremely disappointing to our children. We asked the security guard how far in advance tickets get claimed, and he said in the summer, about one month. There's just no way we can be that organized, not when we are making up our itinerary as we go along!!

We didn't have anything specific in mind we wanted so see in Denver, so we just strolled around town. The sun felt piercing to me, not really hotter than usual, just stronger.

We visited the library, and admired this beautiful wall of books outside.

We wandered over to the capitol area.

They had their own little mini Mall (ala Washington, DC) in the capitol area. I can't remember what this building was opposite the capitol, but see, they even have a tiny little Washington Monument.

Does the D.C. in Washington, D.C., not stand for District of Columbia, but Denver, Colorado, instead??? One wonders.

We found out later that things carved in stone aren't necessarily true. The REAL spot on the capitol steps that is exactly one mile above sea level is up another step or two. Oh, well, close enough.

We went inside the capitol building.

We got to go inside the dome. The views were lovely.

After leaving the capitol we walked around a bit more and found ourselves near the convention center, where this giant blue bear peeks in the windows.

Kinda cute, kinda weird!

We wanted to find someplace local for lunch, but sadly, the pedestrian mall where we looked was all chain restaurants. I'm sure there are fabulous and unique restaurants in Denver. We just couldn't find them, so we settled for a chain we'd never eaten in before. We strolled along the pedestrian mall for awhile, but I didn't take any pictures. I remember they had painted pianos scattered along the way for anyone to sit down and play, which seemed whimsical and festive.

We left Denver mid-afternoon. It was time to say good-bye to the mountains as we began our eastward journey in earnest on I-70. Sniff, sniff. Good-bye, Rockies! I can't believe how beautiful and dramatic you are!

Shortly before our trip, I heard of the I-70 Diner in Flagler, CO, and was excited when I realized we'd be passing by it. Good timing had us arriving in Flagler right at dinner time, so we knew just where to go to feed ourselves.

Cute, cute, cute, and the food was delicious!!! I would go there all the time if I lived there!
I think my children agree!

We crossed into Kansas as the sun set. Kansas was yet another new state for me. Poor Nebraska. I've never been there, and on this trip I just circled right around it!

Halloween Here

2010-10-31T20:43:00.004-04:00

Candy for Trick or Treaters:

(Bucket is from a McDonald's Happy Meal circa 1989--I bought the Happy Meal just to get the bucket, and timed my visit to get the ghost bucket because I didn't want the witch bucket or the pumpkin bucket. And to spare you the math, yes, I was 22 years old!! I felt a little silly ordering a Happy Meal for myself, but 21 years later I still have the bucket, so you can see I really did want it!)

A trio of ghost lanterns:

A jack-o-lantern lantern:

Hippie:

Man of Mystery:

Pirate:

Our favorite baseball team:

Peace sign (carved by the hippie):

My son wasn't going to go trick-or-treating this year, but my daughter's trick-or-treat plans fell through at the eleventh hour, so I asked him to please please please go with her. He threw his look together in less than 5 minutes, and then they went trick-or-treating by themselves.

I don't like that daylight savings time ends in November now. It's still daylight when trick-or-treat starts. The thrill of Halloween when I was a kid wasn't so much the candy. It was going out in the dark!! My kids wait until it's dark to go, but by then there's only about an hour left of trick-or-treating. It's just weird!

I have eaten way too much candy today. I feel shaky! I will have to eat a high-protein breakfast tomorrow to counter-act the junk.

Three Crocheted Scarves

2010-10-27T14:06:00.003-04:00

I kept my hands busy on our 4,500 mile journey. Nothing like long hours in the car to get a few back-logged crochet projects stitched up! When I wasn't staring in awe out the window, I crocheted.

The pattern for the first scarf is from Ella Rae: Island Holiday (Book 18). The book is Australian, but I stumbled on it at a local needlework shop. They had this scarf on display, and I loved it.

The cowl pattern is the Cardiff Cowl from Lion Brand Yarn, available free on their website. I made it using their recommended alpaca, which was really easy to work with.

The neckwarmer pictured below is from the Flower Warmers pattern by Lisa Gentry, available on Ravelry.

I didn't make the crocheted flower embellishments because I wanted something simple, but I did use rhinestone flower-shaped buttons for closures! They may be a bit too small, though, so I'm thinking a retro stick pin may be in my future. I wonder if I still have mine from the 70s? I should go look.

I love cozying up in scarves this time of year. It hasn't really been cold yet, which is weird, but I know it's coming, and when it does, I can keep the heating bill down by fighting off the chill with one of my new neckwarmers!