Pi Day

                                                                    Happy Pi Day!

Black raspberry pie from the berries we foraged for most of July.  We pick at a friend's house and PH walks along the roadsides with a container.  It's hot and prickly and we really do crawl through, over and under but I keep cheering us on with "this will pay off this winter!!"  I make one in January and one for Pi day. 

Big News and Books

 First the BIG news!  I FINISHED QUILTING ELIZABETH'S  BA QUILT LAST NIGHT!!!  Just have to make and apply the binding but the quilting is finished !!!!

But I still can't show it.  

 March is Reading Month around the U.S. and the school where I read does a fun activity.  They list 16 books and every classroom reads all of the books and in an elimination bracket like the basketball tournaments a clear favorite stands out in the end.  Usually I have several of the books and have read some of them to the kids.  

This year the second of the Knight Owl books was listed and the kids in the class I read to had just heard the second book.  They didn't know there was a first book.

This is it, the first one.  Knight Owl wanted to be a knight his whole life.  When the big, strong knights begin disappearing a call is put out for replacements and Owl gets his chance.  He's perfect for the job even if he is teeny.  He's an owl.  He doesn't sleep at night so is perfect for the night watch. 

It doesn't take long to find out why the other knights were disappearing. A dragon was eating them.  Knight Owl uses his cleverness to dissuade the dragon from eating HIM.

This is the second book (because Knight Owl was such a success the author did another.) Knight Owl was a successful knight and along comes Early Bird.  Early Bird is a chatty little thing that won't let Owl sleep during the day like he's supposed to.  They have words.  Early Bird leaves. There is an adventure - like wolves in the night forest. 

 

I asked the kids - how do you read a wordless book?  One little girl said, "you look at the pictures." And I replied, "carefully."  I absolutely adore this book.  It's wordless and the nuances in the artwork are brilliant.  You simply must spend time on each page finding the story.  

The prehistoric humans are living in a cave and their fire goes out.  No matches, of course, so someone has to go find fire.  The red headed son raises his hand to volunteer.  He takes his roll of fur for a bed, his spear and off he goes.  He encounters saber toothed tigers, injures himself, rescues a baby wooly mammoth and well, finds fire.  Then he has to get it home.  

The Story

 I've got to stop using scraps.  I have to start using my stash.  I will never live long enough to use it and have to find a project that makes a start.  I'm tempted to not go so much for innovative and artsy and just cut it up and sew it back together in old fashioned squares.  

All of this has been coming home to roost lately since Friend Marilyn has moved into an assisted living home and her house is being dismantled.  Now, we've been friends for as long as her son and my daughter became an item back when they were 14 and 16 years old.  They are now 48 and 50.  Marilyn and I had adventures, went to MANY retreats, took some small trips so basically I know the story behind most of her 'stuff' because I was with her when she bought it, which makes me part of her stories and lately the keeper of them.

But I'm not the one clearing out her house.  I will only tell the stories so the kids know.  They dismantled her sewing room last weekend.  Marilyn had already called the local quilt guild months ago and donated all of her fabric and books to them but there were still boxes of unfinished projects, quilts, threads, bits and pieces.  A few weeks ago she asked for her embroidery threads and her wool for felting.  I brought them to her.  

This week my daughter brought to me the bits, pieces, a few pieces of fabric, some fats, lots of patterns, unfinished projects.  I canNOT absorb anymore into my stash, I'm in the process of being ruthless with my own stuff but there is a story behind everything I sifted through.  I found the pattern for a quilt she made that I LOVE so I kept that.  There was a pattern for a pieced turkey wall hanging that she bought when I bought the gingerbread man pattern.  There is the red and green unfinished Christmas quilt that is only as big as a nice sized table top, but it's NOT bright Christmas but her colors, deep, deep hunter green and very deep reds done in traditional blocks.  It looks just like her.  I kept that. I kept the thread.  She bought good thread and I will never have to buy thread again in my life. I kept very little and will take the rest - just a consolidated totebag of patterns and a couple of boxes of unfinished projects to quilt retreat at the end of March and if no one wants them then they will be donated.

I went to visit her yesterday to tell her what I'm doing with her things.  She gave back to me the box of embroidery floss and the wool for felting.  She said she doesn't have the attention span anymore and while the spirit is willing the brain isn't engaged.

I told my daughter when she found this I wanted it.  This was a flimsy Marilyn found at an estate sale one day and she hated it.  I loved it.  It is NOT her color palette but I loved the springy feel and the 30's fabrics.  She layered and pin basted the thing and dragged it along whenever we were doing a demonstration or to the clothesline quilt show we put on.  She had it on a floor frame and quilted it while people stopped to talk and she let the kids try their hand at it.   One day she cut it in half and gave half to me because I loved it and she hated it.  So when the kids were clearing out her room I asked for this half, the other half.  

Everything has a story.  Our blogs help us tell our stories or at least keep track of things for us.  In our house most everything we have is inherited from a grandma or purchased at an estate sale or made by me. I tell the kids everything in this house has a story and I can tell that story to you.  Taking apart Friend Marilyn's story has been hard for me and I'm not even doing it, but the pieces and parts make up the stash of our lives and when I go visit we talk about them. 

Reading Under a Tree

 

Here's my Temperature Tree with February finished.  I find it very blue with just a couple of peeks of green. February was very cold but it was February and it's supposed to be cold in February in Michigan. 

I don't mind the cold but I don't like the snow. When the sun came out this week you could see it in people's faces.  Smiles. In these very trying and troubling days we need something to smile about and in Michigan in winter it can be something as simple as seeing the sun.  

Everyone needs to sit under a tree and read a book don't they?  These are this week's books I read to the kids on Tuesday.

This is the one I talked about in the last post.  The one that left me blubbering as the author signed it. The pup isn't the one who did that to me, it was the other dog in the story.

Kate wakes up one morning realizing she needs to share her bed once again.  Her cat died and now she announces "let's get a pup!"  Off the family goes to the shelter and come home with Dave. Dave is 100% puppy energy but the family can't get the sad look of the older dog they left at the shelter out of their minds. So, next morning the four of them go back to the shelter and bring back Rosy, the old dog that is eternally grateful for a home. 

This one is just plain giggles on every page.  The kids, the teacher, everyone was giggling.

Prudence wants a pet.  Mom and Dad give her every reason why not - cost, trouble, mess, etc. She persists in her imagination.  She finds a branch but after dad tripped over it and broke it into bits she went for a stick, then an old shoe named Famous Footwear (the name is right inside!) then an old tire.  She keeps trying and finally, finally mom and dad relent.  Even on the last page there is a giggle. 

I'm following along with Kathleen Tracy's March Civil War era little project.  Each Friday she is posting a new little and I was trying to think of something to do with the Little Women towel thing in my head. So I thought "the squares are little, they finish at 3 inches, she did the math, they are quick to make so I'd do something Civil War-y because that's the time of Little Women, too. 

                                                                        Still auditioning.

Kathleen made 4 squares, I made twelve because I was thinking border.  This is NOT how I'm going to use them, they are too much for the softness of the picture but laid them out this way to show you. And if in the end I don't use them at all, they will make a good pillow.  

More books and a project

 Kids are back in school after mid-winter break long weekend- and this year to hopefully get them healthy after the sicknesses that are ravaging through town.  So Tuesday I was back reading to the first graders.

Kids all think the magic of life happens when they are grown up.  If they would only relish their little lives now!  These two stories are about wanting to be big, grown up, and stubbornly proving it.

I LOVE Bob Graham's books.  Oh, my.  I remember standing in front of him at an autograph table blubbering through tears because in the book he was autographing, Let's Get a Pup!, he drew the dog that looked exactly like our dog who we had just sent to heaven.  I know the poor guy thought I was a crazy lady but I wasn't over what we did to our Polly.

Anyway, April and Esme are tooth fairies and just got a call (on their cell phone) from Daniel's grandma that he lost his first tooth and she specifically asked for April and Esme to come take it.  Mom and Dad, of course, think April and Esme are too young at 6 and 7 years old.  But they beg to prove they can do big things.  Graham's illustrations are a treasure and studying the details is both wonderful and hilarious. You really have to look at every inch of the page to marvel at his detail.

Regina thinks she's big enough to go hunting on her own, even though mom told her to stay home till she gets back. Of course she doesn't and encounters her own challenges.  

Do you take photos of your projects in progress?  I try to.  I've always relied on a camera to see what I can't see because cameras DO see what we can't.  Maybe I should have tried that with those basket pillows, come to think of it.  

Anyway, I've had these ladies laying on the dining room table for a couple of weeks and am now trying to decide if they should float 

or sit on the bottom of the background, next to where a border will be.  I kept changing the layout and finally took the photo.  Seeing it this way I'm thinking next to the border otherwise they look like they are floating with no anchor. At least that's for this trip around the table. 

Progress on Elizabeth's Baltimore Album - all 20 squares are quilted and half of one border side. Had to let my needle pushing finger rest for a couple of days but the border will go well. First time I've done this but I've got three needles going at the same time on the border.  

The Sun Came Out

 The sun came out this week.  Real live blue sky sun for a whole couple of days!  Go ahead and laugh but in winter in Michigan that is RARE.  And it was just enough to get my juices flowing and start moving again.  I'm glad for so many reasons including my temperature tree leaves cross stitch will now have a different color because this week they are saying we will see the 40's!!  Open the windows!!! Wash them!!

Everyone is sick but not us and we want to keep it that way so we self imposed semi-isolation. So far so good. But the sun was shining and it seemed like such a waste.  So I cleaned out kitchen cupboards, taking everything out, tossing things that were embarrassingly well past their Best By dates, put down new, clean oil cloth and now I open them to just stare and smile. 

I also got some mojo back and started putting things out on the Thinking Bed.

There is a company called Elizabeth Wade Studio that makes dish towels with images of books and some universities on them.  I love the water color wash look of the images and bought the Little Women one because Little Women was the book that launched my reading life when I was ten years old. Washed it's ready to be the center medallion on a quilt project of some sort.  Not sure what yet but I started to audition pieces.  My habit is to leave things out on the bed for awhile while I walk past and think.  I am not nice to dish towels and they have a better chance of a good life if I don't use them in the kitchen.  

While cleaning out closets and drawers I came across some images I traced from something...don't know what or when.  But I'm in peasant mode right now and these ladies spoke peasant more than Matryoshka.  I started tracing out each of the women, going through fabrics that don't match and putting together packets for each of them.  I like that green for the background.  I'm thinking of getting them ready for retreat the end of March. I always have a hand quilting project I spend most of my time on at retreat but need something applique when my needle pushing finger gets sore.  That's the time I'm aiming for.  This is where Jo's project bags would come in handy!!  Have you seen her project bags?  She's having fun making them and they're beautiful.  I have some vinyl things I'll use for these ladies. 

These were the cut offs from the scallop border on Elizabeth's quilt.  They are the perfect shape of a funky tulip so I kept them-too nice and too big to toss.  Might find themselves on a border for the peasant ladies but I don't know. They sit on the Thinking Bed for now.

OK, here are the pillows I said I made a mistake in.  The basket pillows.  Do you see it?  Just nod your head when you do.  Like I said, if you have eyes you'll see it.  It isn't the first time I did a mistake and only saw it after the project was completely finished and in one case professionally framed!!  But I also decided after seeing it, I was not going to take it apart down to the studs to fix it.  It won't take long to fill this chaise lounge with pillows again!  I'm finding them a good and useful way to use orphans and scraps. 

Kids didn't have school Tuesday so I didn't go read so no books to show.  

Valentine books

 It's Valentine's Day Friday so I took in one book that was obvious and one not so to read to the kids. 

This one has been a favorite of mine for a long time and I didn't realize how long till I looked at the publication date - almost 30 years!

The author is great at shining a light on normal everyday everykid reactions to things.  But his one is one of my favorite of hers.  

  Gilbert's teacher told the class to write a nice poem for everyone's valentine.  Gilbert doesn't have any trouble with that till he gets to Lewis and Margaret.  Lewis once tweaked Gilbert's nose and it hurt and Margaret once made fun of Gilbert's glasses.  So he doesn't write nice poems for them and he thinks it's funny...but maybe they wouldn't.  What he does next always, ALWAYS brings a gasp or an "oh no!" from one of the kids listening. 

This one isn't a Valentine but it's about someone with a sunny disposition being nice to someone with a prickly personality. Sometimes all you need is a hug.  PH and I always told our kids "Never turn down a hug. You never know when the next one is coming."  Appropriate for Valentine's Day, I think. 

On the stitching front I am down to the last 4 squares of the BA quilt then have the border.  I'm well well ahead of my self imposed schedule so feel pretty good about that. 

We are trying to stay away from the flu that is galloping through town so are hunkering down when we can and not being frivolous out in the world. (As I say this I'm immersed with third graders at the museum this whole week and went to a first grade class to read and there isn't anything germier than kids.) But so far so good.  I spent the weekend making three pillows from scraps. After they were completely finished and ironed, on two of them there is one very glaring mistake that will stick out to anyone with eyes.  Yes, I did it twice-so I'm not showing them to you. But when I thought about what it would take to take them apart down to the studs I told myself I personally can live with it and ordered the inserts. 

Imagination

 How is it we raise chauvinists?  I mean really.  Yesterday when I brought these two books out of my tote and told the kids they were about dolls I heard groans from 6 year old boys.  Well, I hopped on that!

"Do you guys have action figures? Well, those are dolls." And one little guy said, "If that's true I'm never playing with THEM again!"  And then he said something totally inappropriate for this day and age and teacher said she would have a bit of a talk with him later. 

I then asked them if they have an imagination.  Yes, they said.  Do you use it? YES, they said.  Ok, good. Even though these books are about dolls they are also about people who have an imagination. And use it.

Elizabeti lives in a village in Africa.  She has a new baby brother and wants a doll to love like her mother loves her brother.  She doesn't have a doll.  She looks around and finds a stick but it's too pokey. She finds just the right rock and the rock becomes her baby doll and names her Eva. 

That got the kids' attention.  A rock? I looked at them and said, "Imagination, kids." 

Fanny wants a 'Connie' (read: Barbie) doll but mom says no. "They are too TOO" says mom. And I can remember feeling that way as I watched the age girls were given Barbie dolls fall from 8 or 9 to 5 and 6 and thinking the same thing.  She is too TOO.  But I wasn't as strong as Fanny's mom and caved when my daughter wanted one.  Thank goodness once owned the lustre wore off quickly for her.  

Anyway, Fanny decided to make her own Connie doll and proceeds to spend an afternoon sewing from scraps and yarn and clearly this isn't a true Connie doll.   Her friends laugh at her (and the doll.) Fanny is embarrassed but then comes to realize something she made herself has more heart value than something out of a box. 

One of the joys of Holly Hobbie's books are her illustrations.  Just studying her illustrations can take all day.

Speaking of things you make yourself, I thought I might poke my lost mojo with a stick by bringing the dreaded sewing machine out of the closet and onto the dining room table where it will be in the way, thus forcing the issue of doing something.  My intention is to make some pillows out of orphan blocks and the pink floral in front is going to be a pillow case for Elizabeth from the fabric she bought in Williamsburg.  I used a piece of it in her quilt so this might be an interesting pillow case. 

We have a chaise lounge that I had overflowing with pillows I've made over the years.  When the kids came for Christmas I told the girls to take them, "take them all.  I made all of these and they are now ready for new homes. Take as many as you want.  I'll just make more as I go along."  So they did.  There must have been 12-15 pillows. They took all but one so I was very happy.  I wish I had taken a photo of the chaise lounge before and after.  And here I am, my mojo project is more pillows.  But I find them to be much more useful than table toppers or wall hangings. I'm running out of wall space, too.

Yesterday I made a yummy buttermilk lemon cake. It was/is very yummy.  The glaze over the top is not one that sinks in but sits on top in a really intense lemony accent.  I buy bags of lemons and oranges and zest and juice them and freeze.  I discovered I have quite a few little bottles of both so will use them in this plus the buttermilk I want to use up.  The recipe is for lemon but orange will be good, too. It's a loaf pan thing but I used 3 smaller pans rather than one big one.  Better for sharing. 

Something New - Again

 Last week when Friend Laurie and I went book shopping we stopped at a Bosnian restaurant for lunch. It was a new experience for me and delicious.  But the most fun was the grocery store next door.  

As soon as I saw the package of Oblande wafers I had to have them.  They look like the wafer part of the Dutch Cream cookies (do you have these in other parts of the world?)  They are a tasteless wafer with a filling.   

I had no idea what to do with them but when daughter called to invite us to supper tonight I knew I'd have a captive audience and said I'd bring dessert.

I started by google translating the directions on the package from Bosnian to English but didn't like what it said.  I couldn't understand what they meant by 'ground wafers' - did they mean ground up shortbread cookies? Graham crackers?  And it called for ground walnuts, which is a non starter with the grands and my daughter.

So I went to Pinterest and spent a considerable time looking at all the variations of Oblanda.  It was like Grandma's spaghetti sauce, everyone's is the best and the only authentic.  Sheesh.  But I read lots of them looking for an option I understood the ingredients and directions for.  

I found some variations: wafer crumbs-but no mention of what the wafers actually ARE.  Ground walnuts. PH and I would love that but we also won't eat this whole thing so it has to be passed to daughter's house. One had no mention of semolina in the ingredients but did in the directions.  I know semolina would be flour but since it wasn't mentioned, did they really mean the wafers? 

One recipe, I cross my heart swear to you, said to spread boys on the layers.  Hello??  

The wafers are quite large, the size of a full cookie sheet.  

I settled on a filling recipe that was explained in English with pictures for a chocolate caramel.  As I kept reading other versions I found there are two traditional fillings. One with a chocolate caramel and one with the ground wafers, chocolate and nuts and the wafers ARE graham crackers. OK, good.  

The chocolate caramel was actually a process to make your own dulce de leche and it would take 2.5 hours.  I balked at that but thought ok, cancel my other plans and do it this way once then see what happens.  After two, TWO boil overs of the sugar milk mixture, many words said, taking the stove apart to clean up the sweet milk spillage immediately, adjusting the temperature, checking MORE recipes on Pinterest, finally, finally I got what resembled a thickened sweet milk, added the chocolate and the butter and proceeded.  But boy, did I need a nap. 

You spread the caramel on the layers while it's hot and it will ooze.  You then put heavy books on top of the whole thing so it will press the caramel into the grooves. I put a piece of parchment paper under the books.  You let it set on the counter for a few hours then in the refrigerator, wrapped, overnight and the butter and caramel will solidify. 

Next day ( this morning ) you trim.  Use a large sharp NON-serrated knife.  It will, surprisingly, cut nicely without crumbling the wafers.  I wiped the knife after each slice because you are working with caramel.

Because of my spillage at the stove I worried I wouldn't have enough filling for the whole sheet pan sized wafers so I cut some off before spreading.  I ended up with a piece about 9 x 10. On cutting day I measured them and cut about 2 inch wide pieces. About.

Cut into serving size pieces and plated for dessert for tonight at daughter's house. 

Observations:  

1. They are sweet. Very sweet. I cut them too big for a serving but hey. 

2. Looking back, they are not difficult, just time consuming.

3. Making dulce de leche was the challenge but I learned how long it would take, the temperature that would cook the juice in the 2.5 hours

4. DO NOT put a spoon or wisk quickly in the mixture when you give it an occasional stir because it WILL boil over and words will be spoken. The directions did explicitly say this but ....

5. I looked at the idea of possibly buying dulce de leche, heating it up, putting the chocolate and butter in and trying that way.  But I don't know. That's a big experiment process that might not work and if it DID work they would say, "buy a can of dulce de leche" wouldn't they?

Yes, I would do it again. But not today. 

Shop Hop

 I am a quilter.  I don't need an intervention for that because I've kicked the habit and no longer go to fabric stores just to fondle and pay for piles of fabric that will only sit in my stash for years. I am relying on that stash to see me through to my shroud.

But some would say I might need an intervention for this:

Yesterday Friend Laurie and I did a bookstore shop hop. What fun that was!  We chose three independent bookstores, two before lunch and one after.  It's a rule if you are a book person that if you go into an independent bookstore you must buy a book.  It's so very important to keep them in business.  Yesterday I bought six.  The one on the top was a birthday gift and the second one was a loan from Laurie but it sounded so familiar when I got home I searched around and saw that I had listened to the audio. The rest are new purchases.  There is nothing like the smell of a new book. Nothing like opening the first page and settling in.  Not even coming home with a pile of new fat quarters.  Yes, I enjoy used book sales, that's another avenue of ownership.

I buy books.  I also use the library and listen to audio books a LOT.  The buying started long ago when I worked in a bookstore and the employee discount was 30% off.  Well. So it began.   I'm not quite a hoarder but as any hoarder would say, I "collect."  Laurie and I discussed our criteria for keeping a book.  I have favorite authors so will buy anything they write and they are shelved together. She also has favorite authors but her criteria is more "would I read this again or would I press it on to a friend to read?"  Those she keeps.  The others she sells back to the bookstore so they can sell it as used and she gets store credit to buy more!   I must add that my Christmas gifts are gift cards to bookstores so I can shop all year at no cost to me.  Well, almost no cost.

I am getting fussy.  I am really done with WWII.  If a cover shows an airplane in the sky in the background and a woman standing in the foreground with her back to us, I don't even pick it up. You'd be surprised how many of those there are right now if your eyes are trained to look for them. I'm tired of the books about bookstores.  I won't read a romance nor fantasy nor science fiction nor dystopian. I want something different.  I love cookbooks that are more about reading about someplace new in the world, thus I ordered Cold Kitchen yesterday.  

Lunch was at a new place for me, too.  It was a Bosnian restaurant and wow, was it good!  There was a small grocery next to the restaurant and one of the things Laurie and I like to do is hit unique grocery shops so this one was really fun.  We left with our arms loaded with goodies and we had to rely on the picture of the product because we couldn't read the labels. 

Today being Tuesday I went to school to read. 

I bought this book yesterday.  I tell the kids all of the time that you are never too old to read or buy picture books.  Never.  Loren Long hardly ever gets it wrong.  The Yellow Bus is happiest when being used by children, then senior citizens then surprisingly, by goats.  We all want to be appreciated for who we are and Yellow Bus is no different.  I told the kids I read this in the bookstore to see if I wanted to purchase it, then read it again at home and then again in the car before going in to school.  Everytime you read a picture book you will see something you didn't before. And always, always, read the author notes at the end.  Always.  This one is a treasure.

Staying with the school theme I read this one.  Rick sits on the nature shelf in the classroom with moss, acorn and bark.  But he overhears a lesson on rocks and longs for adventure, like being shot out of a volcano or being a part of a rock slide.  He gets his chance but is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? 

Celebrate

 We celebrated Mike's and my birthdays yesterday with lunch halfway between our son's home and ours.  It works well for all of us, the weather was sunny so we could all drive safely.  That's an issue around Michigan, being able to get where you want to go. 

This is the continuing saga of Aunt Marcella's cake.  I've posted about it every year and it never gets easier.  Even DIL commented that the frosting was different this year than last.  Famous last words.  It's near on impossible and takes ten times longer to do the frosting than it does to bake the cake from scratch and cool it.  I will only make this cake once a year, for Mike. The things we do for our grands.

I handed Mike the knife and told him it was his cut.

Charlie is missing from this picture, he's away at college.  Next year we lose another one. The chicks are growing up and flying away.

I never thought I'd be this age.  Not that I thought I wouldn't be alive, but thinking of this number seemed so far into the netherland that I couldn't even see it.  But here we are.

OK, this is a perfect explanation photo of what I've talked about.  We call it lake effect snow.  When the cold air comes down from Canada and the winds blow they cross Lake Michigan and Lake Superior (and the other lakes, too, actually) and the condensation of the cold, arctic air crossing the yet unfrozen lakes creates snow.  If the winds are really strong the snow travels further inland.  But look at the immediate lakeshore, the western end of that mitten, directly across the lake from snow free Wisconsin.  The lakeshore get the worst of the lake effect snow.  Absolutely a lot. The wind has to be really strong to blow that snow the hour inland where we are but it does happen.  When it gets here, though, it's lost some of its bluster.  Michigan is a state of all four seasons.  People love us in the summer when they come to play at the lakes and some love the snow but you kind of have to be able to GET here.

This year the cold has frozen the smaller lakes so the ice fishermen are happy.  They've had some warm winters recently but not this one!

    The Upper Peninsula, the area between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan historically gets the worst.  As of now they have 117 inches on the ground with more coming.  No, thank you.

 No, we did not watch the felon being sworn into office.  No, we didn't watch the news recapping the day. No.  There is only so much a person with a brain (read: anyone who did NOT vote for a felon ) can take.  I sincerely thank Brian in England and Donna in Australia and Dianne here in the U.S. for checking on me yesterday. We are now the laughing stock of the entire world.  If you voted for the felon, shame on you.

PH and I spent the afternoon watching our Doc Martin DVDs.  We love Doc Martin and really love watching the DVDs over again because we took a trip to Port Isaac before covid and when we watch we reminisce about being there, recognizing buildings, streets, scenes, where I fell one night because the curb wasn't really a curb but I expected there to be a curb. We wanted to feel good yesterday.

AND I finished the tree!!!  It took ALL afternoon and into the evening and my eyes were exhausted but it's finished!  These are the cold colors for the first leaves and I'll do those today because the current temperature is 2degrees F and nothing is stirring out there.  The wind chill temperature is -15F.

Wind chill means how it FEELS when the temperature and wind combine.  We get those readings a lot in winter because while the temperature might be a balmy 2 degrees F, on your your exposed skin it feels -15. So we stay in and hunker down today.

Mid-month

 Well, progress report for mid-month Chookshed Challenge has me completing seven squares on Elizabeth's Baltimore Album quilt, which surprised even me.  I'm doing a cross hatch quilting on it so it's easy, uniform, and goes relatively well with the open blocks.  I can do close to a whole square in an evening before my hands tell me to stop.  Can't show a picture yet.

The Temperature Tree cross stitch is more difficult than I thought.  I haven't done cross stitch for probably 45 years and my eyes are 45 years older and the technique cross stitchers must use is long gone from memory or supplies. With this craft I am just out of practice.  So I have been spending these very cold and somewhat snowy afternoons watching A Town Like Alice and old movies while I struggle along.  It's coming but just not fast enough.  I want the tree done completely because I see that as the hardest and I don't want to have to come back to it.  I want to just add leaves as the rest of the year goes by.  Probably all of January's calendar squares will be noted with a number on them signifying the temperature that day.  I'll get caught up.  I will.

Yesterday was reading day at school and I didn't decide to go till the very last minute.  It was snowy and I wasn't sure of the driveway.  We have a very steep, long and curvy driveway and it doesn't behave well in the snow. We've already had two driveway adventures this winter and I'm not eager for another.  At the very last minute (the school is about 15 minutes into the countryside with open fields and blowing snow)  I was comfortable it was ok to go.

I always ask the kids what the word "terrible" might mean here.  Is he very good at being scary terrible or is he so bad at it he is a terrible monster?  Well, for Leonardo, he just isn't good at it.  He can't scare anyone.  He decides to remedy this by finding the most scaredy cat kid and scaring him.  

The first thing this book says is "I had the idea to staple my brother's hair to his pillow" and then goes on to list 16 other things that she tries and is told she can never do again.  There was one little girl listening who couldn't see how the child in the book was so wrong.  Oh, Dear. That child's mom might need a bottle of wine with a ribbon on it. Maybe a spa day.

It's below normal cold and we've been getting snow just about every day so when I passed a display of hyacinths at the store I had to bring a pot home.  These are my all time favorite flower because the aroma fills the house.  In the middle of January it's good to smell something.   When our daughter was a toddler she came running in the house one day and said, 'the hycynthias are blooming!"  so for us they have ever more been hycyinthias.

Learning Something New

 Last night PH and I took advantage of his Christmas gift - a sausage making class .  I have never been a big fan of sausage but he loves it so I thought this might be a fun time for him. And I've discovered I didn't like sausage because I didn't like the standard breakfast sausage.  But this! Wow.  There is a sign on the wall of this shop:  If you want to cook good food you have to eat good food.  Right.  And if you are a good enough cook you can read a recipe and know whether it's going to taste good.

This class was completely hands on.  While the shop instructors had all the ingredients on hand we did all of the slicing, dicing, chopping, mixing.  There were twelve people and we were all involved.  Each doing a different task.

We learned two recipes.  Ours was scallion pancake flavor sausage and it had chopped garlic, shallot,  green onions (scallions) lemon grass, ginger, pork stock and hoisin sauce, salt, some green leaf thing I didn't know what it was but it was kaffir leaves, and the scallion pancake which we decided was really a pita bread with scallion baked in so easily substituted at home with pita and some extra scallion chopped in. 

The Mexican Street Corn sausage had salt, cayenne, cilantro, cojita cheese, lime, jalapeno, red onion, and corn stock.  Now I had never heard of corn stock but they said to cook down your corn cobs AND husks like you would any stock you make.  I can't wait for summer to try this!

We put the meat through the grinder, two sizes.  This was the first and larger grind then it was put through a smaller grind.

Next the seasoning is added and it's done either by hand at home or a mixer because you obviously don't want the seasonings to get caught in the grinder.

Then we stuff 'em.  This is trickier than you'd think.  The casings are slippery, we really couldn't use gloves because you really have to feel it.  

The casings are delicate and easily break if the pressure we exert on turning the crank is too much.  We all had breakage. 

We came home with three of each recipe, PH was till working on his scallion pancake sausage.

We all got to taste what we were making because the instructors cooked up some of each. They were both delicious!!!  The Mexican Street Corn had a kick to it as you would expect from the ingredients and the scallion pancake was amazing.  I just might actually like sausage AND found a new fun thing to make on our own.  The possibilities are endless.