Books and Bark

This is the fun part of my job. To look up and see this.

Birch trees are beautiful trees with white bark the Native Americans used to line the outside of their canoes. The bark peels off in sheets and has the consistency of stiff parchment paper. They are a very north, cold loving tree. Snappyfriends chose bark as the challenge for last week and I'm only one day late!

We are going to have a snow day Wednesday. A major winter storm is coming in and Wednesday we'll have at least 12 inches of snow to dig out from. Maybe more. Time to buy milk, bread and gas up the car. Make sure there are quilt projects to work on - yeah, right, like there aren't a dozen of those! and find warm socks. No one gets spared with this storm.

Birthday!

This was the scene when I walked into the teacher's lounge this morning!
Sixty years ago today I got my very own belly button. This number is a little different from the rest. It's a startling thing to say, I sort of swallow hard when it sits on the edge of my tongue and waits. My sister-in-law assured me it's ok on the other side!

Cupcake Cuties

My friend Sue makes the best filled cupcakes you'll ever eat.

She brought some to me the other day and I knew just who I was going to share them with....

I knew chocoholic Elizabeth was going to enjoy hers ...

but Adelaide really knows how to love a cupcake.

It really was that good!

January

Aren't these the cutest footprints? They're right ouside the front door, and they look like they were having a square dance - they just doe-si-doe all over the place! Of course they're looking for a handout and they'll get one.

Our yards look so forlorn this time of year.

This icicle hands off the dogwood right outside the front door (and just where the birds were scooting around.) Stay warm.

One Year!

Hey! It's been one year today that I started this blog and I almost missed it! No pictures, no books to recommend, no cookies, no quilts today. I'm home for lunch and just happened to remember the day and quickly before heading back to work I needed to mark the spot with an "X". So, I'm just mentioning it. I remember the work it took to get this thing right and I still wish I could do more but don't have the brains to figure it out on my own. I want to thank Carol for all of her help. She lives in town and we belong to the same huge guild but we've never met! She's been so very, very helpful to me by answering my "but how do I do...?" questions by email. The fact I can do anything at all on these pages is because of her patience with me.
I also want to thank the Snappyfriends for letting me play with them. I do love (and have for my whole life ) photography. In my other life I used to develop my own film. But years have separated me from that life and I've forgotten a lot. I love it and want my camera to play nice with me and being included in this group has been lots of fun.
I started this with the hope of making some friends in the quilting world. And I do have some people who actually check in on my space here. But I've also met crochet/knitting people and cooking people and stitching people all over the world. Those techie people certainly named the World Wide Web correctly, didn't they? I've spent countless hours reading blogs and know that if I want more followers I have to comment on their blogs instead of smiling as I read their pages and then moving on. But sometimes I'm grabbing a second here and there to read and just don't have the chance or time. I love this world I've discovered and find myself saying "I have a friend in....Gibraltar or Australia (prayers to you all who are suffering floods), or Colorado, or...." because I do think of you that way.
Happy first!

To Be or Not to Brownie?

I don't make brownies from scratch. I did once or twice but then I found a really, really good packaged mix from the Martha White brand. I couldn't beat it with a scratch recipe. But now, I can't find it anywhere. It would be awful if they discontinued it. At a loss for what to do I stood in front of the brownie mix display at the grocery store and pondered. What did I dare to chance? Ghiradelli is tops in chocolate so maybe their brownie mix? This decision really should not have taken as long as it did but, alas, it did. I went with the Ghiradelli brand brownie mix.
Saturday the girls were coming over for dinner so I could show Elizabeth what happens to mozzarella cheese when it cooks in lasagna.
I made the brownies. I like thick brownies so I always use a smaller pan than recommended. Being a new experience with a new mix I just had to sample:
Rest assured. I've found a new mix! An acceptable brownie mix! We, the 6 of us, almost polished off the whole thing! Adelaide ate two! They were still ever so slightly warm. And not even with the Martha White mix did everyone sit around licking fingers (I don't frost my brownies...overkill.) and commenting about how good they were. So, I can recommend with confidence Ghiradelli brownies! Not that you cared - but just in case.

New Year Knuffle Bunny

Happy New Year to all who find me!

This first week has gone by so fast and I'm almost to my first anniversary of blogging. We are back at work after a nice long school holiday vacation and as usual after about the first hour it seemed like there was no vacation at all. Time doesn't stand still in a school and you better either roll along with it or be run over.

I'm at a different computer for awhile and don't know my way around it. Apparently after many hours of clicking buttons I've discovered there is no easy way to resize pictures so I'm back to doing that at school on Monday and saving those pictures to bring home to post.

Friend Marilyn and I have been working sporadically on a quilt for Elizabeth's fourth birthday. It's a variation on a paper doll quilt with some cute rompers, dresses, dungarees, etc. in each square. I'm down to the last three of my allotment so this week I sat at the table and cut. I found this fabric while browsing at the store this week on one of my lunch hours. I fell in love with it. It reminded me of the book Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. Do you know that storybook? There really isn't any connection, it just struck me as Knuffle Bunny so I bought a fat quarter. Couldn't get my mind off it so next day I went back for two yards! Don't tell me you haven't done something like that! Anyway, I cut the pieces and placed them, ready for basting and appliqueing. Now just to get motivated!