Happy Birthday Maggie

Yesterday was Maggie's Birthday. Who knew? Apparently our vet did because Maggie got a birthday E-card from them. It was very cute. Not exactly Maggie but a Wheaten Terrier just the same. I'm hoping that if you click here you will be able to open the link.  Of course after finding out it was her big day I felt like a horrible pet parent so I immediately went to the pet store and bought her some of her favorite treats. She seemed to enjoy as much as she does on any other day. We figure that she is 6 years now. Hopefully that means she's going to start "maturing" any day now. 

you've gotta love that face.

Hope you are having a lovely weekend.

Sally

Spring ~ Snow ~ Really?

Enough is enough now. It's springtime. It's almost Easter. What the heck is going on around here?

 It has been snowing non-stop since Sunday. It's so crazy. The daytime temperatures have been hovering between 35 and 38 degrees, so nothing sticks to the roads (thank goodness) but it just keeps on falling from the sky. I will confess to you that Sunday I stayed in my PJ's all day long. No shower, no shampoo. I did brush my teeth, but since we had no place to go I just couldn't be bothered with the effort. I can't remember the last time I did that when I wasn't even sick. It was kind of fun actually, a real "lazy day" for sure.

 I've been spinning and knitting and reading a lot. Not much cooking has been going on because I have been on a mission all month to empty out the freezer of all of my stored up "winter" food. It's not winter any more so we should not be eating things like chilli, right? We should be eating lighter fair and grilling outside.  At least that's what I think should be happening. We have made a pretty big dent in our stored up food rations. The freezer is starting to look a bit empty. I think there might even be enough room in there now for one of those big frozen Margarita containers. If I only felt like drinking Margarita's. I'm still sipping hot cocoa and tea.

This basket used to be full and now all that's left are two packages of soup.Hopefully they will be eaten this week and by some miracle spring will just suddenly appear this weekend. That's what I'm hoping for. Keeping my fingers crossed. It's time to get outside. Don't you agree?
Sally

Hippity Hoppity

My card club met last week and we all exchanged Easter cards. There were so many cute ideas I thought I'd share them with you. The way it works is that everyone makes 6 of the same card and then we swap. It's always a surprise.

 This is the card that I made. I don't seem to have many Easter themed stamps, 

so I used my oval punches instead.

 While I was on a punching roll, I made some little sheep bag toppers.

Now all I have to do is get those cards in mail.

Sally

Spin A Little Knit A Lot

I finished spinning all 3 colors of my Fibernymph Dye Works 3 Ply Set and then plyed them all together. The funny thing is that I love all the colors, I'm just not fond of the finished yarn. It's a little neony if you know what I mean. I'm sure once I knit it up into something I'm going to be happy with it..... I do enjoy all of the stripy goodness. I have absolutely no idea what I will make with it. Any suggestion? I ended up with 388 yards worth of yarn, so I have a good bit to work with. Maybe an idea will just come to me...

Sally

My Favorite Part Of Quilting

 Call me crazy. I know you do anyway. My favorite part of making a quilt is sewing on the binding. There, I said it. I know some of you out there (Barb) hate hand sewing the binding and I can appreciate that. For me it's like the grand finale.  I get to sit quietly with my beautiful new quilt on my lap for hours and hours. It really does make me happy.

I finally got around to finishing this quilt last weekend. The top had been done for quite a while, I was just trying to get up the motivation to quilt it on my tiny little sewing machine. I have been so spoiled by Peg at Common Threads letting me use her long arm machine, but a trip back to Iowa is not in the plans, at least not any time soon.  You know how these things are. You always think it's going to take longer than it actually does. Once I got started I even enjoyed it a little bit.

 You can see that I just tried to sew straight lines. I used my walking foot which seemed to help hold it all together. I probably should have basted a bit, but who has time for that?

I think it looks quite springy all yellow and green. Some of the fabrics remind me of sheets that were on my bed way back in the 70's. So retro I guess.

Now I just have to finish the smaller one I made to go with it. It's a different pattern out of the same material.

Sally

Sassy Pants

OK, so it's really Sassy Water. Have you heard about this stuff? I've seen it mentioned a lot recently so I decided to give it a try. I like to call it Sassy "Pants" Water, but I think Dr Oz calls it detox water. Whatever you want to call it, you are supposed to drink a lot of it and it's supposed to do all kinds of wonderful things for your weight loss efforts, your skin and in my case bladder. I know that I should be drinking more water than I do on a regular day. I gave up soft drinks a long time ago, but coffee and tea are still my friends. Drinking a pitcher of water a day has been a little challenging for me, but since I do like the way it tastes I'm trying hard to make the effort. What you do is thinly slice 1/2 a cucumber and 1/2 a lemon, put them in a pitcher and add several torn mint leaves. Fill the pitcher with water and let it sit in your refrigerator over night. Start your morning with a large glass of the water and continue drinking it all day until it's gone. Dump out the used cucumber, lemon and mint and start all over. I was wondering if you could just add fresh water to the already used mixture, but apparently that's not a good idea. All of the important stuff gets used in the first go round. I think the lemon has a tendency to get bitter too. There you have it. I've been drinking the stuff for 3 days now. One of the articles that I read  said to drink the Sassy Water 3 days a week, another article said every day. I'm not sure how you are supposed to know if you are benefiting. Maybe the scale will determine how long I drink it.

If you have tried this, let me know your thoughts.
Sally

Sometimes You Win and Sometimes....

Here are a couple of my latest kitchen experiments, both inspired by Pinterest. 

The first one sounded interesting and you know how I like cake.

Wacky Cake or sometimes called Crazy Cake or Depression Cake according to the Blogger that posted the recipe. I first saw the chocolate version and then she shared the vanilla and spicy alternatives. I probably would have made the chocolate one, but I had no Cocoa in the cabinet. I went with the Vanilla Wacky Cake and frosted it with leftover chocolate frosting. I have to say that it all went together very fast and since I chose to bake it in two 4 inch round cake pans it was done in 20 minutes. I'm not quite sure how to describe the finished cake. It's kind of dense but sort of has a sponge cake texture. Mind you it tastes pretty darn good especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

My second experiment still needs some adjustments. I saw a picture on Pinterest of Zucchini Chips. What a great idea. I have been looking for another use for my fancy apple/potato chip maker and this seemed like a yummy way to eat my veggies. So, here is where I went wrong. The zucchini chips really shrunk up to almost nothing and I went way overboard with the seasoning. All that shrinkage really concentrated the salt to the point where the first batch of chips was not really eatable. The second batch I didn't season at all so they were kind of bland. In all honesty, the original poster of the recipe cut her chips a little thicker, said to use seasoning sparingly and cooked hers in her oven. I just tried to to wing it and really all I lost for my efforts was one poor zucchini. I'm going to give it another try, so stay tuned.

Sally

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 Hope you remembered to wear some green today

 My little shamrock plant from Trader Joe's is going strong.

 Yesterday it was 70 degrees and sort of sunny. 

Today it is 36 degrees and raining and snowing all at the same time.

Grace was home for most of last week enjoying her last Spring Break. While she was in Louisville, she interviewed for the Peace Corps and got a new driver's license, because she's 21 now. Since Alan and I still had to work she stayed home most days with the dog and the cat doing what she likes to do most... Knit.
We did squeeze in some shopping, pedicures, sushi and a delicious Thia dinner. It was a pretty nice week all in all.  Hope you had a great week too. Can you believe that Easter is only two weeks away? As I've mentioned before, I'm so ready for spring.
Sally

How We Celebrated Day Light Savings Time

We walked at the zoo
Alan did a bunch of yard work

He put our deck furniture out
and we grilled hamburgers.

We changed our clocks and
then we stayed up way too late because it was really an hour earlier...
I have mixed feelings about day light savings time. I love that it stays light later and I don't have to drive home from work in the dark, but honestly, the sun doesn't come up until 8:00 and I hate getting up before the sun. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.
Sally

First Zoo Walk of the Year

As promised the weather improved on Saturday with temperatures in the mid 60's. Of course it was still 30 something and breezy when we headed out for our first zoo walk of the year, but at least the sun was out. It was a great animal viewing day as you will see from the pictures below. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of us, the animals were just so much more interesting. 

We love our little zoo and the fact that we get to walk there on Saturday mornings for free is just a bonus. Come visit and we will take you to see all of our animal friends. Hope you are having a fantastic weekend. Did you remember to "spring" forward?
Our weather people keep saying that it is"meteorological spring" whatever that means. All I hear is the "spring" part and that makes me very happy.

Sally