Did It!

First, a short story.  Friday night, about one-thirty, Dan was awakened by something.  Then, as he says, he saw a bright light and then heard a boom!  Turns out a car hit a power pole on the highway just east of us, and the bright light and boom were the end of power for us.  We got up to a cold house and were thankful for a gas fireplace in the living room and the wood insert in the basement. Brrrr!   We have our own well, so no power means a limited, as in very small, amount of reserve water.  No flushing!  We got ourselves together and drove downtown, hoping they had power, and discovering they did, rewarded ourselves with a yummy breakfast at the Breakfast Club.  

We got back home about ten and found that the power had just come back on.  Yea!!  Unfortunately, we had no cable (apparently another victim of the accident), and since our only choice for high-speed internet is the cable, no internet.  Until after noon today.  It was actually kind of nice.  

So, onto what I did.  I made the runner for the coffee table to match my "Valentine" quilt!  I found the bag of scraps from the pink, brown, and red quilt, went all through them looking to see which colors had enough to use, and came up with this:

I was stymied for a while because I didn't have enough of the border fabric (or any of the other fabrics) to do the binding, but then I remembered I had purchased the rest of the bolt of one of the red fabrics in the same line (Buggy Barn's In the Pink 2), and so I had a solution.  

Here's how it looks with the quilt:

See the little wood bowl on the coffee table?  A gift from Kathy, my oldest friend (as in time of friendship, not age!), for Dan's and my fifth anniversary.  It's made of myrtlewood and has made it through thirty-five years of children and grandchildren with hardly a scratch. Something about its size is irresistible to small ones and it's seen a lot of action, right up until now.  

And for any quilting readers, may I recommend these little clips made by Clover:

In addition to being cuter than cute, they are perfect for holding the binding edge in place while hand stitching it down.  I love them!  They come in packs of ten and can be found at your local quilt shop.  

Decorating

I got the last of the Christmas decorations down last week.  It always seems strangely empty when I'm done, so this year I decided I'd get into Valentine's Day.  I've never really decorated for it beyond a bowl of M&M's or setting out cards, so I'm basically starting from scratch. Add to that an aversion to shopping, and you can see that I didn't have much to work with.  But I love a challenge!!  

I did have two table runners I'd made, so I started with them.  One I made last year after Valentine's Day and another I made several years ago.  The older one is just done in reds and creams, the closest to Valentine's fabrics I could find in my stash (and that was when I discovered that most of my reds were Christmas fabrics!).  Now my challenge was to figure out what to put on the runners.  It took me a while, but I came up with two ideas I kinda like.

Here's the dining room table top:

The candle holders and the candy dish are reproduction pink depression glass.  I got the candle holders well over twenty years ago at a Women's Ministries Council gift exchange at church and I've loved them.  The candy dish is from the same company (whose name I can't remember) and I purchased it a year or so later.  It's been gathering dust on top of a bookcase for years as an object d' art, and is finally being used for its true purpose.  Of course, the final pieces are the M&M's, a mix of plain and peanut.  

In the kitchen I finally came up with this idea after prowling the internet and looking (mostly in vain) for ideas:

It's simple:  a luncheon plate, a bowl, a candle, and some conversation hearts.  I love our crazy grocery store. I call it crazy because it's always so packed with other shoppers, but it does have what you want.  In the bulk foods section, I bought a couple scoops of red beans to put in the bottom around the candle, and a couple scoops of those hearts!  Sprinkle, sprinkle, and I was done!

I have a quilt I did several years ago that I'd like to put out in the living room since it's done in pinks, reds and browns, but at the moment it doesn't go with other things too well.  I'm thinking I'll see if I have some fabric left and make a small runner for the coffee table, and maybe a pillow.  If I have fabric.  Stay tuned!

Weather report:  Still lots of snow!  It didn't rain, for which we're thankful.  Blue sky and absolutely gorgeous out as I type.  

Snow!

Yes, the storm that we were supposed to get this week actually came.  It's beautiful, but I'm not sure how Dan is feeling about it as he's out plowing once again and also contemplating shoveling the roof.  There's been no school for the last two days, and even the universities shut down, which never happens.  We were without power last night for about five and a half hours, just in time for me to have to throw out a loaf of partially baked bread in the bread machine.  

Here's a little look-see from our house:

Looking east:

The snow has stopped and the sun is trying to come out. Rain is forecast, but I'm hoping not as that would be a fearful mess.  For now, I'm enjoying the beauty.

Impromptu Fun

While I was talking on the phone with Ann yesterday, she happened to say that one of her little men had been mentioning that he'd like to come stay overnight at Grammy's and have aebelskivers for breakfast.  Since today is a holiday, Papa Dan and I decided to issue an invitation for last night.  Both big boys decided to come, and so we had a sleepover.  They came bearing bags with pajamas, books, reading headlamps, and MP3 players.  

Years ago we found a good deal on an electric race car track and they hauled it out last night.  It's a little worse for wear after years of putting it together and taking it apart, but they got it going.  After staying up until 9:30, they headed for bed and their piles of books.  By the time we went to bed a little later, they were sound asleep.

They heeded their mom's advice and slept in, but we were all finally up by 8:15.  I headed to the kitchen to make a double batch of aebelskivers, and they played games on the computer and my iPod and decided to create the ultimate race track in between.  Get a load of this!

The aebelskivers seemed to be a hit.  I'm not certain how many I made, but it was close to fifty, and we had four left.  

What a fun time this Grammy and Papa had with the boys!  We'll leave you with one last picture of the track:

  

Forty Years

In 1972, the first spring we were married, a new song came out on the radio, The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA, and I loved it.  It was my theme song and I felt like it had been written just for me.  I hadn't thought about that song in years, and I heard it on the car radio this week.  It took me back.  (Yes, I came home and downloaded it from iTunes.) 

On Monday, Dan and I were married forty years.  How can that possibly be??  Truly, it seems like just a few years, maybe ten, or fifteen.  But it's been forty years since January 9, 1972.  I've been so blessed to get to spend these years with with my sweetie.  Here's just one reason why. On Christmas day, I picked up a smallish box, a gift from Dan, that was heavy.  When I opened it, here is what I found:

Yes, it's a good sized river rock, so it is "written in stone."  I love it!

Aebelskivers

Or ebelskivers.  They're spelled both ways.  

I mentioned in my Christmas post that I received an aebelskiver pan and recipe book from Ann and Eric for Christmas.  I first ate aebelskivers during a trip to visit our son and family years ago.  Amy made some for us one morning for breakfast and I was fascinated by them. Little round balls, kind of a cross between muffins and pancakes, they were eaten with jam and a dusting of powdered sugar, and they were quite tasty.  

I've seen the pans in several kitchen catalogs and toyed with getting one, but didn't.  Then this Christmas came and a list was requested.  Ponder, ponder.  I must confess that at this stage of our lives, there's not much we don't have, so I pondered some more.  Several things came to mind, and then the aebelskiver pan popped in, so I added it.  And then forgot I did, so when I opened the package with the pan, I was completely surprised! And then I opened the recipe book--recipe after recipe. Too fun!

Several days after Christmas, I decided I needed to jump right into this new method of cooking before it became a "buffalo", and totally forgot to take pictures.  I assure you, however, they were delicious.

This morning, I decided to make them again, try filling some, and take pictures.  For those unfamiliar with an aebelskiver pan, here's a shot, along with the cookbook I received:

Here's the first batch:

And flipped over:

And ready to serve:

I filled the first ones with grape jelly and learned that wasn't such a good idea--the jelly turned too liquid and ran out when I took them out of the pan.  I used strawberry jam in the next batch and that worked well.  I also did some plain ones.  I liked the ones with the strawberry jam best; they had just enough filling for me. Dan likes them plain so he can add as much jam as he likes, and he likes more than I do.  

Aebelskivers are a Danish creation and quite famous there.  I can claim no Danish blood, but I am a quarter Norwegian, so that's close enough. While these are definitely not an every day breakfast item, for a leisurely morning treat, they are wonderful.  Thanks, Ann, Eric and boys!  

Fancy

My long time pal, Kathy, and I have had a running conversation over some months about our kitchens.  I subscribe to the theory that a room we spend so much time in must be attractive and be filled with attractive and useful tools.  In short, I like it when the things I use make me smile.

The kitchen in this house is an unusual shape.  Our house has an angle in it and one wing of the angle forms a kitchen wall.  That means the room does not have four ninety degree corners; it's a trapezoid, with a peninsula in the middle of it which contains the sink.  When we bought the house over twelve years ago, the kitchen was the room that needed the most immediate attention. We've done a lot:  stripped wallpaper, put up bead board, taken down cupboards over the peninsula, redone the lights and counter tops, and the work continues.

In our last house, the original sink was avocado green, and I hated it except for one thing; I absolutely loved its configuration.  The right side was huge and deep, and the left was small and shallow with a garbage disposal attached.  We replaced it with an almond sink of the same style.  This house had an almond sink, but it was the conventional two, same size, both useless, basins.  When we redid the counter tops, we replaced it with the style I loved and added a new faucet, also in almond.  I liked the look, and liked that I didn't have to continually buff it to get rid of hard water spots because of our well water.  

Fast forward a few years, and we made the discovery that our lovely water ate away at the almond finish on the new faucet, causing it to chip away in places.  In November, Dan completely redid our water softener system and we no longer have pipe and faucet eating iron in our water, so today he installed a bee-u-ti-ful new faucet.  It's pewter colored to match the door pulls on my new cookbook cupboard (we're nothing if not coordinated here at the Resort).  

Pretty fancy, huh?  It looks great from any angle, and yes, it makes me smile.