Sorry about the silence

but my computer is driving me nuts. Half the time it won't let me publish pictures with my posts and sometimes it won't publish anything, In fact, this is the 3rd time I have tried to publish this particular post and so far, no luck. But the good news is we're getting high speed internet next week! Yippee! Maybe that will solve some of these problems, we'll see.

I am so bad, and a new kitchen toy

 

 

 

O.K., so this is just the plain ugly truth. I am really, really, really bad about letting this happen to my flowers. Gross and yuck! I don't know why I do this. Everytime I pass by, I think to myself, "Get rid of those dead flowers!" Hasn't happened yet tho. I'm thinking that revealing so a nasty thing might shame me into cleaning up my flower act. Probably not. And the really sad thing is, I have oodles and oodles of thriving flowers right out in my backyard that I could just go a replace this pitiful things with. It's hot and my garden flowers are bursting with petal-ly beauty right now. Tommorrow, I promise I'll do it tommorow.

New kitchen toy! My hairdresser is Mexican. One day while in for my cut and color she was making homemade tortillas for everyone's lunch. She let me sample them and boy oh boy, were they good! I haven't forgotten it and have been on the look-out for a tortilla press. Found one the other day at World Market. I also got a bag of the special corn flour you need. I made a practice batch today. Very simple and straight forward. And good! So tommorrow I am going to make a big batch of them, and then do up some stuff for tacos, some homemade salsa, fresh avocado...I wish it was tommorow night's dinnertime now!

Crafting and cleaning

that's why I'm not posting so much. I am trying to clean out my workspace. It is just about impossible to work in right now, it is so messy. Problem is, as I am cleaning, I get distracted so easily. I'll run across something I bought weeks ago and forgot I had or just plan lost it in the chaos, and I'll stop my cleaning to play with whatever I found. Happens over and over as I sort and trash stuff. All sorts of creative rabbit trails.

Just yesterday as I was cleaning, I stopped to try my hand at rolled fabric roses. Then I ran across some vintage crochet work and I had an idea to use it so I spent a good hour fooling around there, then I got the idea to put a really cute rub-on on a small wooden mirror my husband made years ago. Then I found some great old ribbon and wanted to put a bow on the mirror's handle and put it in one of my guest rooms, well you get the idea I think. No, I'm not usually ADD. Unless I'm cleaning my creative space.

I'll try to do better, but until I get this place cleaned up, I can't promise anything....

I've been tagged!

Kelly over at belle ame tagged me to blog about 5 things I love the most.
1. Well, of course, my family is a given.

2. Creating. I love to create all kinds of things using all kinds of mediums. Sewing, quilting, cooking, gardening. I can't imagine going through a day and not creating SOMETHING.

3. My home. I am a die-hard homebody. I can go for days without leaving my house. After a few days of being out of town, I really start to miss all my "stuff".

4.Autumn. Oh how I love a crisp fall day, the sky full of migrating birds, the trees all aglow in reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. I love the energetic feeling that fall gives.

5. Winter holidays. I love planning meals, decorating, the excitement and anticipation of having my family under my roof, finding just the right gifts for everyone. Sigh...I can't wait.

Now I have to tag 5 people and I sure hope this works. I am going to try and post their blog links here.

http://treasuresfrommyheart.blogspot.com/

Peaches and Posh

THE B HIVE

BeadnTat

Wings of Eagles

The more things change....

So today daughter B and granddaughter Hilary came to my house loaded down with peaches wanting a lesson in making peach butter. It had been years since I had performed this task, but it was fun and I remembered almost everything without having to do too much consulting of cookbooks. We ended the day with jars of glistening gold butter seasoned to perfection just waiting for its meet-up with some good bread and liberal spread of creamy butter.

At one point as we worked, I remembered something. I asked B if she remembered years ago in our Arkansas house making jam? "Oh yeah, I remember that." I think we both had forgotten it but the fragrance of the bubbling peaches triggered the memory for me.

On that particular day 20 years ago, I had the presence of mind to write down rather quickly on a sheet of onion skin paper our experience. I am going to re-write it here just as I jotted it down that day.

"June 10, 1988
Today Kelli and Brittainy and I made plum butter from plums gathered in Papa's orchard. Kelli and B washed the plums and picked out the wormy ones for me to take care of. Then we cooked them and put them through a sieve. When we were through, we had enough pulp to make butter and enough juice to make jelly!

Kelli and B helped to stir the butter as it cooked and that was a big help because it takes a very long time(about 45 minutes). As the butter cooked, we added 1 cup sugar for every cup of pulp, a dash or two of mace and two gratings of nutmeg. Next we poured the butter into sterilized jars and sealed them. Nana came to see us and took a jar home with her. It made 6 1/2 pint jars. For breakfast we will have toast with homemade plum butter. Next we plan to make raspberry jam."

Pretty staight forward, just the facts, but I sure am glad I wrote that down and stuck it in my recipe file. For some strange reason, I stick a lot of my writing in there. Or did. Before I began to blog. Now it's all pretty much here.

In the Pink

 

 

Nothing much really going on here. Yesterday was the MOTH's 54th birthday, so we celebrated at my daughter's house. She makes really good fajitas and we always request those when does the cooking. While she labored in the kitchen, I walked around the house, chatting with Hilary and just taking pictures of different little vignettes around the house. Hilary is the queen of pink let me tell 'ya. Right down to her cowgirl boots. I guess she had her cowgirl going yesterday, because that was her footwear of choice, with shorts. Love the dresser top arrangement and the memory box packed full of littles.

the middle age woman and the yarn

 

See this pile of lovely sock yarn? My camera does not do the colors justice. They are bright, deep, and rich. And limited idition colors for what it's worth. Never again will Lorna's Laces produce these colors once they are sold out. Kind of a good sales gimmic I think. We sock knitters hit the web site the first of the month when the new colors are added and quickly snatch up enough for a pair of socks. What a tragedy if you miss that month's limited edition! That stuff pretty much flies off the shelf of the yarn shop.

Blueberry was June's color. It's beautiful blues, lavendars, purples, and rich almost black blue. I chose a lovely lace pattern for my socks. It has driven me crazy. I have ripped out, picked up dropped stitches, re-read directions until I can't stand that pattern anymore.

It has begun to remind me of the horrid story that was required reading in high school. The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemmingway. Frankly, I've always thought he was over-rated. I hated, hated, hated anything I was ever required to read of his. This is coming froms someone who loves literature and always has a book going. But back to the issue at hand. I remember it was just the old man, the boat, and the sea. That's all there was. It's just me, the yarn, and the pattern.

I had the first sock within one inch of completion when things went horribly wrong. I studied the thing, I studied the pattern and the longer I looked the greater the horror grew. A dropped stitch 6" down that I somehow never saw,and poorly written directions. So I began to rip hoping to be able to fix things. Nope. I now have my lovely blueberry limited edition yarn rewound and am seriously considering burning the pattern as a cleansing ritual of sorts.

After perusing some other sock patterns I picked up July's limited edition "Fireworks" and cast on and so far I am knitting happily, no horrible story analogies coming to mind. Perhaps "Blueberry" will be used for something else. But then again, I may be completely over the blue stuff for a while.