Potatoes

Huh?  Potatoes?  

Well, anyone in my family can tell you that I love potatoes.  In fact, one of my mottos is that I never met a potato I didn't like.  I'm even briefly mentioned in an old video of a dinner my brother's family was having when he speared a baby red one from the serving bowl, said, "This one's for you, sister," and popped it into his mouth.  Yeah, I'm famous like that.  :-)

Recently I was cruising the produce department at one of our local supermarkets and spied a small bag of potatoes.  Intrigued, I looked more closely and discovered this:

The potatoes are grown and packaged by The Little Potato Company.  They have several bags to choose from and I chose the Terrific Trio which has tiny red, yellow and blue potatoes.  Yup, blue ones.  I've always loved the tiny reds, so I just had to buy the bag and see what was up.  Well, I'll tell you:  much yummy-ness! Boiled, with just butter and a sprinkling of dried basil, and I was in heaven.  And Dan loves them, too!

Here's a peek inside the bag which holds three pounds:

The family that started this company is Dutch and in Europe they're called creamer potatoes.  You can buy bags of just the red or yellow, but those blue ones make me smile.  And yes, they taste just like the other ones.  

Potatoes get a bad rap nutritionally, but really, they are quite good for us.  It's all the stuff we do to them that add the fat and calories.  Here's the nutritional stats from the bag:

See, look at all the potassium and fiber. And carbs are just eight percent. My poor potatoes get a bad rap!  ♥

There Is Life in the Sewing Room!

Yes, dear readers, there has been activity of late in my sewing room.  I am working on the last of the Laundry Basket Quilts (Edyta Sitar's designs) Trio tablerunners. (Click here to see the pattern and here to see pictures of the first two.)

This one has the same one hundred fifty-six pieces in the border, but thankfully the center is just a cut of a border fabric.  

All the sections are ready now to be joined to the center piece.  I just have to cut it and then stitch the sections on.  If I get myself jolted into action today I could have it done in an hour or so.  

There was also much action last Thursday when long-time friend and former neighbor, Cyndie, joined me and we spent the afternoon making ten big round tablecloths for her son's wedding rehearsal dinner this week.  Cyndie used my serger to stitch fabric sections together; I pressed, folded, and using a newspaper template we made, cut the rounded edge which Cyndie then hemmed, again using the serger.  We had quite the assembly line going, along with much fun jabbering.  We finished in under four hours and were quite pleased with ourselves.  :-)

Cyndie insisted on a picture of me stitching, so I did do one hem.  Some of the completed tableclothes are seen heaped on my not yet quilted Through the Winter Woods quilt.  

Well, that runner isn't going to finish itself, so I think I'll take myself downstairs and see if I can get some work done on it.  ♥

Bloggy Woes, Bears, and Little Boys

I logged onto my blog last night and was dismayed to see my background had gone missing.  I checked back several times and, yup, still missing.  I tried going the the website of The Cutest Blog on the Block, which was my source, but it was inaccessible.  I feared it had gone out of business.

When I checked this morning, I still had a stark white background so I tried another google search and found they had a page on Facebook.  There I discovered that the site seemed to be alive and well (a post by the owner the day before) and several messages by others who had also lost their backgrounds. A later check showed that the owner had been unaware her website was down and a message that her techs were working on the problem.  Since you can see that my background is back, you know they were successful!  Yay!  

And so, on to the bears and little boys.  Sunday we entertained our three local grandsons while their parents attended a wedding in Coeur d'Alene.  Cameron tuned right in to the Women's World Cup Soccer tournament, Keaton kept busy with Papa in the shop, and Daniel and I watched a little Curious George, played in the pea gravel and checked out the garden.  While I was in the kitchen cooking dinner, a laughing Daniel called me into the living room and presented me with this scene, of which he was quite proud:

"Look at the bears!" he giggled.  And don't you know they're still like that--it will be a while before this grammy will be able to right them.  ♥

A Memorable Breakfast

As mentioned in a recent post, breakfast is one of my favorite meals to cook.  Yesterday was Tuesday, Choose Day, and since I don't exercise that day (I'm a MWF girl), I decided it was time for eggs Benedict.  Mmmm.

They were every bit as delicious as I anticipated and worth every moment of the clean-up.  As I washed the pans and utensils, I realized I was taking a trip down memory lane and each stop led to people I loved.

The egg poaching pan was purchased in Boise on a trip to visit our son Matt and family.  The whole idea of being able to fix eggs Benedict at home was inspired by my sister-in-law, Karen. The cute little whisk and spatula were part of my Christmas presents from Ann and her family several years ago and were picked out by Daniel when he was just two.  

How can I go wrong with a delicious meal and happy memories?  ♥

Another Tiny Book Review

One of my favorite books is The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I have my own copy, a gift from Matt and Ann for Christmas many years ago.  Ann had the whole series growing up and I used to read through them every few years.  I also have a book of essays Mrs. Wilder wrote in the early part of the last century and I enjoy reading them.

Recently, there was an article in the paper about a new book called Pioneer Girl that piqued my interest.  It seems that Laura Ingalls Wilder hand wrote the history of her early life with that title, mostly for her daughter, but also possibly for publication.  Under that title and in that form, it never reached publication, but those penciled lines in tablet after tablet became the seed for her series of Little House books.

Pamela Smith Hill had previously done a biography of Mrs. Wilder and had access to the Pioneer Girl manuscript.  Now she has taken that manuscript, added many pictures and researched people, places and local newspapers, to create a large tome that is fascinating reading.  It is not cheap and so I decided against purchasing it, instead requesting it through our local library.  I found I was on a long list and despaired of getting it before next winter, but fortunately I got it much sooner.  

I enjoyed many hours of reading and looking at the accompanying photos.  Ms. Hill has done an extraordinary job of filling in blanks through use of newspapers, the census, and other historical records. There are literally hundreds of footnotes, which some people complained about in reviews, but they are easily ignored if a reader chooses.  I chose to read them.  :-)

If you too, love history, or simply love the Little House books, I can heartily recommend Pioneer Girl for a good (if long!) read.  ♥

Weekend

We had a lovely weekend.  Perfect weather and time with family.  We had the little man yesterday afternoon while Eric, Cameron and Keaton did some white water rafting and Ann helped with a wedding.  Papa and I had fun!  When Cameron, Keaton and their cousin Ryan were little, they all loved to play on a pathway down the east side of our house.  The path is covered with tiny pea gravel and is perfect for making roads and shoveling into buckets.  They spent hours there over a number of summers.  Yesterday, Daniel discovered the same fun and spent hours running up and down it with trucks and then filling the same buckets.  Don't you just know it made this grammy smile?  

Later in the afternoon we took D back to his house so he could play in his little pool, and after Ann came home we spent the rest of the day enjoying her shady back yard, visiting, and then eating pizza followed by key lime pie for an early Father's Day treat for Dan.  Our last treat of the day was watching CarTunes featuring Mater the tow truck "Tow Mater" from the Cars movie (and giggling away at subtle humorous phrases thrown in to keep grownups amused).  It's D's favorite.  ♥

A Little Shine

We ordered running boards for the new 4Runner last week and they came on Tuesday.  Dan went right to work installing them and they look terrific!

They're just the touch of shine it needed.  Now I have to get used to using them after just jumping up and in for over a week.  ♥