Category Archives: Family

Bringing the outside in

Those of you who know me very well, know that I don’t “do” outside. No garden, no flowerbeds, nothing that gets me outside in the heat and sun. I think it dates back to when I was a teenager and was living without sunscreen and sunglasses. Too many major sunburns and too much bright sun headaches contributed to an aversion to the sun and outside.

But, I have always loved plants. So at times I am able to have indoor plants. Only right now we happen to have a cat that loves indoor plants as well. Except, he loves to eat them. As a result,  I have to be very careful about where I put plants and what kind of plants I bring into the house.

For the longest time we just did not have any plants inside. Then at Christmas time I was given a terrarium and the rest just fell into place. The first terrarium did not do too well cause of lack of sunshine, or lack of proper maintenance or something. So I confiscated an aquarium my hubsband had in the storage unit and built my own. It is not a sealed system, it has a lid that allows the moisture to escape. It also has a light that allows me to put it basically anywhere I want. With the lid, the cat can’t get to the plants so all is set.

Well, all is set for a while and then some plants die and I have to replace them and get to reorganize the plants and so on. This last time I put the plants in there with their pots. So the plants that do not need much water are not affected by the water that the plants that need lots of water. Maybe now they will last longer. I put some succulents in with air ferns and there is even a small lucky bamboo in the back corner. I am having mixed results with the succulents. One just immediately dropped all its fat leaves while another is thriving. The plant that looks like stones grew an inch and a half in one month and no longer looks like stones. But over all it looks good.

The fairies have a little house in there along with a bridge over the stines/creek. There is a bench for them as well as a lantern. I gave them a pet hedgehog which requires no feeding or upkeep. Overall they have a great place to live.

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We can be such funny creatures now and then. Having a bit of green stuff growing in my house makes a lot of difference to me. Now, in addition to the terrarium I have some stuff in my kitchen window. What I really want to do is start growing African Violets again. But, it’s not to be with this silly cat we have. I love him though and will pamper him and keep him sweet without giving him plants to chew on.

We all make compromises for the people and things we love. At least we should. Its goes with being part of a family and group of people. Very few people would fit into our world without some sort of compromise. Though, at first glance cats may seem to have the better end of the bargain, one has to look at what they have given up to be a part of our family. Dayton gave up his front claws, his freedom and his manhood. Though, I don’t think he misses any of it, who knows?

Babies!

babybibs

It seems like we are having babies everywhere! At least on my side of the family. This year we are adding a total of four babies, three girls and one boy. The nieces and nephews have been busy!

Anyway, as the the self-designated quilter in the family I had to get busy and get some stuff done. Two quilts have been completed and mailed and now two more to do. One is in the works and almost done, the other is not really needed for another four months.

But quilts are not enough don’t you agree? So I got out the embroidery unit and worked up a batch of bibs. They were kinda fun to make, but I have already figured out a way to make it easier. (This coming month at the Sew and Quilt Club watch for a quickie way to make bibs! -will post here later about it.)

My favorite is the funky chicken bib. You can drop that into the deepest diaper bag and still be able to find it!

 

 

And so on

How does one start blogging again when there has been a long hiatus?

Do you start off by apologizing?

Do you make lots and lots of excuses?

Do you just jump in like nothing has happened?

Hmmm. . . how about all of the above?

The trend of my blog was slowing moving towards my sewing and quilting and less of my digital scrapbooking stuff and it became a little hard to figure out how to continue. Do I create a new blog? The answer to that was NO. I have had too much history in this blog to want to abandon it so I will just continue on each post with what ever comes up for the day/time I am writing.

A little update on me: Grandson is thriving and doing great, daughters are doing great, hubby is doing great. (Any details are theirs to share not mine.)

So lets move on

Cholatetini

Earlier this Spring the family and I were in a Bar and Grill listening to my nephew. (He is one awesomely talented dude for sure.) For fun I ordered a chocolate martini and fell in love. It was soo good that I was licking the chocolate off the glass when the drink was gone – oldest daughter even videotaped me doing it. We were destressing and relaxing after a very stressful two weeks.

Then on Mother’s Day the girls splurged and got me all the makings of the chocolate martini so I could make my own. I messed around mixing this and that and finally when the supplies were almost gone found the perfect recipe. It even has a little foam top even with the reduced fat milk.  Here it is:

Godiva Chocolate Liquer – 1 ounce

Vanilla Vodka – 1 ounce

Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup – 2 Tablespoons

Milk (I use Lactaid Lactose Free Reduced Fat Milk and it works the best for me) About a cup

Put some ice in your shaker, then pour the above ingredients in. Shake vigorously for a few minutes, strain into your martini glass.

Total Calories: 382  Total Carbs: 48g

(I looked the calories and carb info at drinksmixer.com, hersheys.com and fatsecret.com)

You can decorate the glass by dribbling chocolate syrup in a swirl around the inside and also adding some chocolate shavings. But, for me I like it plain, that makes the mixing and fixing faster. Also I like it better with the syrup mixed in with the rest of it instead of just using it for decoration.  By the way, older daughter gave me a set of martini glasses that she decorated and painted for chocolate martins – unfortunately, I did not use one for this photo. Sorry daughter.

Get your raffle tickets NOW!!

This spring my daughter and I created and made two quilts for APAC (Association for a Pet Adoption Center) here in Temple. They are being raffled off to raise money to build a no-kill animal shelter. These quilts were so much fun to make. Of course part of the fun was being able to collaborate with my daughter and work on a project with her, but I even enjoyed all the work that went into the quilts. One is a cat quilt, the other is a doggie quilt. We did not want to be considered biased or anything, but I will divulge that the cat quilt got finished first. You may purchase your raffle tickets by going to:

http://www.myhappytails.org/Dog-or-Cat-Quilt-Raffle.html

There is a PayPal button there. If you live out of town and win the quilt, I will personally be sure it gets mailed to you or delivered to you at no extra cost to you. So, see there is no excuse not to purchase a ticket!

The drawing is to be held on September 17, so see you can come back and purchase tickets several times – LOL

Cat Quilt

Dog Quilt

Close up of Dog Quilt

Cupcakes!

So, daughter wants to have a cupcake sale to make some money for the APAC group. APAC = Association for a Pet Adoption Center. They are trying to raise money to build a no kill shelter.

It was decided that these cupcakes would be the jumbo size – not cake size but bigger than the standard cupcakes. It takes just as much time to make standard cupcakes as it does to make the jumbo size, so we were going for the larger size since we could charge more for them. Four recipes were decided upon and at the last minute a fifth was added. They were Pink Lemonade, Margarita, Chocolate Martini, FlipFlops and Reeses PB Cups. We started in around 1:00 making them. (Late start was due to the supply shopping and a drs. appt.)

I have to say, we had lots of fun. The baking and decorating took place at my house since I had the most equipment AND the Kitchen Aide mixer. We had to be done by 5:00 so the daughter could take them to the APAC meeting and get approval for the cupcake sale. Here are a few of the cupcakes we made. Those Flip Flop cupcakes really turned out soooo cute!

Back AGAIN

I wonder why I am having so much trouble with my motivation to blog, to design and to get my rear end off the chair in and get stuff done!

Perhaps the blogging part is because my interests are changing and I find myself doing much more sewing and machine embroidery lately. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I worked on digital designs. So, its time to go with the flow and if I am not creating scrapbooking designs, then perhaps I need to write about what I am doing. This is MY blog after all     – LOL

Just a side note though. The store is doing fine and flourishing. I still work on keeping it up and going strong. We had some problems in November with the gallery and I had to spend a lot of time on fixing that. HostMonster came through for me and removed a bunch of  files from the trash that I had deleted in error. Sales are down just a bit this season but sales are down every where in the retail world.

So, lets talk Christmas  – -how was it for ya’ll? We had a quiet one here in Temple. Both girls were at other places this year for the second year in a row – not that I am counting LOL. So hubby and I cooked some things together in the kitchen and had a real nice meal. I fixed a roast in a different manner. First I slathered mustard all over it, then rolled it in Shake and Bake, then added seasonings to the top. It came out soooo gooooood. Hubby tried out a recipe by Paula Dean for potatoes that he had been wanting to try for a long time. They were cut in wedges, covered in mayonnaise, then rolled in cornbread dressing mix. Then, they were baked in the oven. He tried some with mustard and with the Shake and Bake as well. We decided we like the Shake and Bake ones better. There were several other items on the table (yep, we actually sat down at the table instead of in front of the television!). Then hubby went to daughters house to feed the critters she has in the back yard for Christmas and I cleaned up. Clean up was really easy as hubby had been keeping things clean as we went along. He sure comes in handy!

I want to share with you a quilt I made for my mother. Her birthday was December 21 and she was celebrating her 85th birthday. Hubby and I drove down to the Houston area to spend the day with her and had a good time. The quilt was made from a panel that had scripture verses printed  on blocks along with some symbols of Christianity. I alternated those blocks with crosses I embroidered with my Embroidery Machine. The whole quilt only took me a week to make and I told Mama to be sure and USE IT as I could make her another any time it was needed.

mamasquiltmamasquilt2

Hey that’s my Nephew!

Have you ever just sat and been amazed at this younger generation?

I just saw a link on my sister’s page about a song my nephew sang at church and clicked on it to see what the boy is up to. Well, guess I should not call him boy as he is kinda out of boyhood by a decade or so. Anyway, he just blows me away with his awesome voice and talent. Some of you all may remember that he won the Who’s Got Talent in Houston before even graduating from college. So, it is not just proud aunt thinking he is great, my opinion is shared by experts.

Check out this video and I bet you too will think this kid gots the talent.

Big Move Scheduled for Friday! (house move)

Big Cheer!! Movers are scheduled for Friday.

Yesterday, I had enough. After a month of driving back and forth to the new house from our old house, a 45 minute drive—dark both ways, I decided enough was enough. We have been working on things every day and it seems like we just can’t get the to do list done. Every time a new project is started it ends up with us having to back and do something else first. This weekend we started on the kitchen sink and ended up having to replace the dishwasher first – which still needs leveling and bolting in. Thank goodness hubby knows how to do all this stuff. But, I am learning through all this. I got my own screwdriver now with different attachments and I even know what these attachments are used for! I want my own power drill like my daughter has. I do have my own electric mouse sander, but that was a craft tool that I am using for other purposes.

I told hubby that our new hobby in our senior years will be getting the house the way we want it and we will be working on it for years! Can you believe this house was advertised as move in ready?

We put on a new roof
We pulled down the wallpaper in kitchen, painted with a oil based primer – two coats, painted with a semi-gloss – three coats
We pulled down all lights, wall plates, smoke detectors, and got the house ready for painters
Painters painted ALL ceilings, wall and trim on three bedrooms
We put up all lights, wall plates, smoke detectors and purchased a new light for living room twice – and will replace the second one too
Removed oven and drop in stove to move plug in for stove that was over the counter, then had to put back in after new outlet was put in (we are still uncertain about a piece that seems to just sit there-wonder where it really goes?)
When working on kitchen sink discovered dishwasher was leaking and had to replace it
Put in new faucet set for kitchen sink

Still to do:
Put in new cartridge for bath tub faucet
Put vents in through to roof for hot water heater (needs two), clothes dryer, bathrooms, stove and air conditioner
Move clothes dryer vent from venting to garage
Replace copper tubing for refrigerator with flexible tubing which means work on clothes washer faucet where it feeds from
Repair chimney which does not have a rain cap (rock holding down a plastic tub lid is on it now)
Fix closet door in guest room – needs epoxy to replace broken spot in top where hinge goes

In the next month or so I need to pull down the wall paper in the bathroom and do the walls – prime and seal, texture, and paint. I just wanted to wait until we were moved in before starting that.

Watching Paint Dry

Or to be more precise, watching spackle and joint compound dry. So much fun. OH, there is the noise of the roofers to help pass the time.

Yep, we took the plunge, searched for a house with the help of  a relator and found a great one. The only trouble is, it needs some work. But, when we looked around for an alternative, we just could not find one we liked as well as this one. It has three real nice size bedrooms, two baths, a two car garage with lots of storage space. It sits on a .63 acre corner lot. And most exciting to us, it is hooked up for gas. So, I get to cook on a gas stove again.

The kitchen is nice size and has lots of storage, but it had WALLPAPER which I really don’t like. Hubby was going to pay someone to take it out, but the bid was way too high. The younger daughter and I got started and was able to pull off all the wallpaper in one day. There was a little texture under part of it and the rest has something like backerboard on it. But, once I primed it with Kiltz, we decided it did not need any more texture but just needed to straighten out a few spots here and there. Only those few spots keep mulitiplying!

Hubby got tired of watching me work on the spots and has taken over doing the putty knife and joint compound routine. He is very finicky on this which is good so I just gradually backed up  nd let him take it over. Soon, though it will be time for color on the walls. I am going with a warm bamboo shade of beige – -can’t wait for all to be smoothed out and dray so I can start on the color!

Here is a photo of the kitchen in progress. See how messy I am! But, give me a break it is my first time ever painting or doing anything like this. As you can see, I maybe went overboard on the blue tape stuff. I sure hope it did its job as I went over it a few times here and there.

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