Last of May

You know how some weeks are nice and quiet, nothing much happening?  Well, this wasn't one of them. We started the week with a holiday, but Dan had work to do getting ready for workshops he was helping to conduct Tuesday through Thursday, so there was no playing that day.   I worked on the shop quilt and got more blocks done.  (As of tonight, I only have four left to do.)  

Tuesday Dan left and I got some more sewing done. Wednesday I watched Daniel all afternoon, and I'm here to tell you that boy loves to be outside.   I plopped him in his stroller and we went for a long walk, but when we got home, he decided he needed to be outside and have some freedom, so we played, wandered, and went for another walk, this time with both of us walking.  And running.  For sixteen months old, that boy can move!  It was so fun to watch him explore the world--precious times.  

By the way, here's a fashion tip from Daniel's last visit to our house:  When you roll around on the lion chair while taking off your shoes, you get a rather unique hairdo!

Today I worked at the shop all day.  I took my completed blocks and arranged them on the design wall.  (I should have taken my camera, but I didn't think of it.)  Anyway, the end result was that two customers fell in love with it, requested a class, and bought the fabric.  Yay!!  

And now it's Thursday night.  Dan got home a while ago and we're both so tired I'm sure we'll be heading for bed very soon.  Tomorrow Cameron's class is launching hot air balloons made from tissue paper in the morning and then in the afternoon he'll be running in the annual 5th and 6th grade track meet.  We'll be there to cheer to cheer him on!

Buddy Poppies

From the time I was little, I can remember Buddy Poppies. Every memorial day, Dad would come home and have a red Buddy Poppy and I would look and look at them.  As a veteran of World War II, buying the poppies was very personal to Dad.   

Saturday Dan came home with a Buddy Poppy (it's personal to him, too) and I was instantly transported back to my childhood and those days when soldiers and veterans were honored, seemingly by all.  

Buddy Poppies are a project of the VFW, Veterans' of Foreign Wars.  I remember Dad telling me that injured veterans made the ones he brought home and I'm pleased to learn it's still true.  To read the history of Buddy Poppies, click here.   

Our flag is flying.  I am once again so thankful to those who gave years of their lives, and those who gave their lives, so I can live in freedom.  

Stitchin' Away

Yes folks, I'm still here.  I've been busy stitching on blocks for a sample quilt for the shop and it's slow going. Or maybe I'm just slow.  :-)  There are thirty blocks and each of them has a flower applique.  The original pattern called for dimensional flower petals, but when the fabric order came in, instead of fat quarter packs (needed for the pattern) we found we had fat eighth packs.  Uh oh. After some thinking, I figured out a way to do the flowers with the smaller sized fabric pieces by using a new shop tool:  an Accuquilt GO! Fabric Cutter.  

I'll show you some photos of the cutter, but first I want to give praise to a simple little sewing helper that made doing the eight-point star blocks much easier.  It's called Clearly Perfect Angles, and it clings to the bed of your sewing machine.  By keeping the front point of the block centered between the black and green lines, it's easy to stitch from corner to corner without having to draw a line to follow.  

The cutter made it so much easier to do the flower petals and center.  No more tracing on the back of fusible web, ironing, and then hand cutting.  Of course you do have to iron the fusible web to the back of the fabric, but the GO! does the rest.  

Here I'm getting ready to cut a circle for the flower center:

I just scooted the die up to the roller, turned the handle, and voila!  A perfect circle.   In the next photo I show the fabric cut into sections, ready to stack and cut into three petals.  

Here are some finished blocks (each one is different):

After ironing the flower pieces in place, I button-hole stitch around each piece with brown thread.  I have nineteen of thirty blocks done.  Wish me luck!  Oh, the fabric line is called Urban Cowgirls by Moda fabrics.  

Sorting

It's purge time here at the Resort!  The other day I walked into our closet and thought, "What's with all this stuff??"  Since I retired from teaching three (!!) years ago, I've lived in my blue jeans.  I already confessed that I wear them even to church, and here was a closet full of "nice" pants, some skirts, jumpers, and blouses.  They've just been hanging there for three years and, I'm ashamed to admit, gathering dust.  So I began to sort. Pretty soon I had a hefty pile on the floor in the boys' bedroom.  

Fast forward to today.  Dan is out of town and won't be home until after nine tonight, so I had plenty of time to continue my purge.  I hauled all the clothes out to the Explorer and began to work on my shoes.  We all know I have a horrible love affair with shoes, so I had plenty to work with.  Again, since I'm retired, there were many shoes I haven't worn in three years.  Nice shoes.  But when one doesn't "dress" every day, a few pairs of cute (this is an imperative) shoes are all that are needed.  I have piles of shoes already hauled to the car, piles in the basement, and a pile in the upstairs hallway.  Going, going, gone.  I'd take a picture, but it would be just too embarrassing.  (Let your imagination go wild and you'd probably be right on.) 

I'm telling you, sorting and tossing is therapeutic!  I feel refreshed and renewed!  It's true.  Too much stuff will just drag you down. 

House Update

Yes, we (and I use the word "we" loosely), are still working on the house.  The next phase of the update has taken place and the "popcorn" ceiling texture so popular in the '70's and '80's, has been removed in the entry way, the hall, and the breakfast nook.  Eric came over and he and Dan were very successful in their efforts.  I can include myself in this phase because I scouted out removal processes on the internet, complete with videos. It was surprisingly easy, or so they tell me.  My other contribution to the removal was to watch Daniel so Eric could help.  (He was in charge of Daniel that day because Ann had previous commitments.)  Little D (as his brothers call him) and I had a fun day at his house while Dan and Eric sprayed and scraped.  

Here's the current state of the breakfast nook:

And the entryway:

And the hall.    

Yes, the fun never ends in a renovation project.  And I know how envious you all are of our new lighting.  :-) No sense putting up the light fixtures until everything is completed.  

Next up is texturing.  That may be a while because we've now bumped into Dan's busy season with his consulting business.  Rest assured, however, that I will keep you updated!

The Birthday Cake

Long about Christmas of 1963, when I was a freshman in high school, some old friends of my parents came for an afternoon's visit.  As newly weds, Mom and Dad had spent a lot of time with Fern and Andy Goin, and the joke was always about the "Cummings and the Goins."  On this particular Saturday, Fern gave Mom a copy of the Peck Cookbook, one of those community cookbooks full of everyone's best recipes.  I had fun looking through it and came upon a recipe called Poor Man's Cake.  Of course the title intrigued me, and when I mentioned it, Dad said his Grandmother had made that cake for his birthdays when he was growing up.  Well, say no more--I was all over that recipe!  :-)

I'm not certain how many of these I have made for Dad, but it's been a few.  It's a wonderfully heavy, moist cake and it gets better and better with age.   Here's the recipe:

Poor Man's Cake

3 cups water

1 cup raisins

Boil for 10 minutes, remove from heat and cool

Add:

1 cup butter (I stir into the warm water and let it melt)
2 cups sugar

4 cups flour

2 tsp soda

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes in a greased 9x13 pan.

Dad said his grandmother used to frost it with a "mocha frosting", which I was never certain how to make, so I've always used a coffee frosting.

Coffee Frosting

l box powered sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla 

3-4 T cold coffee

Mix powered sugar and butter and vanilla.  Slowly add coffee until you get the desired consistency.  Will frost the top of a 9x13 cake.  

I recently looked up Poor Man's Cake on the internet and apparently it was a staple of the 1920's and '30's.  There are no eggs or milk in it, so I assume that's where the name came from.  Some of the recipes I saw called for lard instead of butter.  

Birthday Bash

Saturday we headed down to my hometown to celebrate my dad's eighty-ninth birthday, my nephew's twenty-second birthday, and my Bruder Bear's, um, birthday. :-) By the time everyone arrived, my parents' house was overflowing with people!  There were fourteen of us, from little Daniel to Great Papa himself.  

I took the camera and got pictures of the kids (of all ages) playing in the living room, and then when it got down to the important event--the cake, I was busy lighting the candles and all of a sudden realized I was missing the most important picture of the day!!  Ack!  

So here are a few of the pictures I did get.  Ann and Eric brought down their Geo Trax train set to entertain the little man, and everyone had fun with it!  The big boys brought their Lego Mindstorm robot (see Cameron in the first picture) and it, too, was a hit.  

Gigi enjoying having everyone home:

Cameron, Jillian and JR having fun with the toys:

Karen, Kirsten, and Ann enjoying the view:

Ann took a video of the cake and candles, but she did send me this picture that actually shows Dad and Bruder Bear as I'm cutting the cake.

I still can't believe I didn't get a picture of Dad, John, JR and the cake.  Sheesh...