Farewell February- Good Riddance

Are you still trying to keep warm? I'm kind of glad that February is such a short month. My brain knows that it's still very much winter, but in my heart I'm already celebrating spring. I did my best to "spring" up the house this week. Almost all signs of winter have been packed away and yellow is my current decorating color of choice. Yellow flowers, yellow lemons, yellow sunlight...Yellow just makes me feel warmer, until I look out the window and see the giant icicles hanging from the little house out back and the still snow covered grass.  The good news is that we "might" make it up to 60 degrees on Wednesday. Of course it will be raining so no one's going to get to enjoy it, but I'm hoping that all signs of snow will melt away. It's a start.
Hope you are having a sunny, warm weekend
Sally

Snug Hollow Bread

It's another YUCKY day in Kentucky and  I'm not leaving the house. It's a raining, sleeting, snowing, freezing mess out side. I'm so glad that I bought the Snug Hollow cookbook during our visit last weekend. Today was a perfect day for a mug of Trader Joe's Roasted Red Pepper Tomato soup and a couple of slices of Rosemary Bread. Here is a link to the recipe. Barbara told me the it could be made and baked in 30 minutes and I think that was pretty accurate. I made one big loaf and probably should have cooked it a few minutes longer. Next time I'll try making 2 smaller loaves and freeze one. As you can see from the second picture I bought some Nutritional Yeast and Tamari Sauce at the store yesterday. I found them both at Kroger which was a mad house of people stocking up for the big storm. I'm all ready to give some of her other recipes a try, but first I'm going to go to a Pampered Chef Freezer Meal party. Have you ever been to one. From what I understand we spend a few hours in the consultants kitchen and leave with 10 Zip-Lock bags full of crock pot ready meals. She sent out a shopping list of supplies we need to bring and we have all placed orders with her for spices and seasoning etc... Sounded interesting. Now I have to go make room in my tiny little freezer. Stay warm friends.
Sally

Hello Chicken

What do you do when the weather is especially cruddy?  I apparently dig out the brightest, springiest, fabric I can find and sew a chicken. My friend Bette posted pictures of the ones she's made on Instagram and like the copy-cat that I am I had to have one of my own. Such a quick and easy little project. Bette directed me to a tutorial on the Missouri Star Quilt website. The lady shows you exactly how to make one and it only takes her about 20 minutes from start to finish. My first one may have taken a few minutes longer, but that was because I had to wind my bobbin. I filled my chicken with crushed walnut shells because I had some and now it's sitting by my sewing machine making me smile. Good thing, because we are under another winter storm warning, expecting 3 more inches of snow which will then turn to rain ending in a big mess of ice. So glad that I can stay home all day tomorrow (sewing more chickens) in a nice warm, cozy house, unless the power goes out. I'm not even going to think about that. Have a great weekend.
Sally

What A Weekend (Part 2)

Continued from yesterday...
So, a BIG winter storm was coming and we had to make a decision. Do we stay at Snug Hollow and risk being snowed in for a week, or do we pack up and head down the mountain for the safely and comfort of home. We all voted and "home" won. We took a quick hike, packed,  loaded the car and headed back to Louisville, all the while not really believing that this so called winter storm was going to amount to very much. You have to remember, that we have had a very mild winter. A couple of inches of snow total and all that came in minor dustings. We made it home, unpacked again and went to bed. Needless to say we woke up Monday morning and low and behold the weather guys got it right. I think we might have had a total of 8 inches, but that was enough to cause some serious issues. They say it's the biggest snow fall in Louisville in 10 years. I know it's the most we have seen at one time since we moved here. Our Louisiana friends really enjoyed it the first day. When it became clear that they were not going to be able to leave on Tuesday morning it wasn't quite as much fun. We celebrated Mardi Gras with "Real"  King Cake and Beads and Alan wore his new LSU tigers hoodie.  With the threat of an additional 3 inches of snow Tuesday night and a new car battery, Angela and Dewy decided to brave the nasty road conditions and leave for Louisiana late Tuesday afternoon. They managed to make it to Tuscaloosa before stopping for the night. Good thing they left, because Wednesday morning we woke up to the predicted additional 3 inches of snow and seriously cold temperatures. I kind of wish I'd left with them. Schools closed, my clinic closed and my nail appointment even got rescheduled. You know things are bad when you can't even get your nails done...All in all it was a very memorable weekend. We laughed more than we have in ages and how can you beat spending time with good friends? You just can't. I hope they aren't scared off and will come back some day, maybe in July.
Sally

What A Weekend (Part 1)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend. Ours was way more exciting than we had planned on. Our good friends from our early college days Angela and Dewey drove all the way up from Baton Rouge LA so that we could spend the weekend together at Snug Hollow Farm. Ang an Dew had stayed there before  (in July) and really enjoyed their visit. It's a Bed and Breakfast located at the top of a mountain about 2 hours from Louisville. The owner is this amazing woman named Barbara who has been running the place for like 30 years. There is the main farm house and then 3 additional cabins on the property.. We stayed in the Cozy Cabin  pictured above and it was adorable. Barbara is an awesome cook and the two meals we enjoyed were delicious. The only little glitch is that everything is vegetarian, so some of us enjoyed the food more than others. I enjoyed it so much that I even purchased her award winning cookbook. We arrived Saturday afternoon, but had to keep in close contact with her due to the weather. Apparently any amount of snow can shut the mountain road down and they were expecting a couple of inches.  I wish I had pictures of the road up to Snug Hollow. Let me just tell you that it is narrow and windy, only room for 1 car at a time, no shoulder and a serious drop off. Kind of scary to be honest. Obviously we made it there and got ourselves all unpacked and settled in just in time for dinner. During dinner we talked and planned out how we would spend the next 2 days. We thought we would do some hiking, play some games, maybe venture down the mountain to a pottery studio and do a little shopping. Just relaxing and catching up. The next morning at breakfast, which was also fantastic, Barbara greeted us with the news that a BIG winter storm was coming and bringing with it about a foot of snow and if  we wanted to get home before Friday we pretty much needed to leave immediately.
To be continued...
Sally

My Sock Drawer

Over the past week I washed most of my hand knit socks. Some of them can go in the washer and some I have to do by hand. I thought I'd show you my lovely collection while they are all clean and folded nicely. I counted, and as of today I have 32 pairs. Now, you are probably saying "that's more than you need for an entire month". True, but 4 pairs of socks I consider "Christmas" socks and would probably only wear them during December. I hate to say this, but there are also a few pairs that I only wear as bed socks. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that they turned out a bit too loose and don't fit well in my shoes or boots. The other sad situation is that my most favorite pair (4th in from the top row in the picture above) are wearing thin in the heals. I knit this pair probably 8 or 9 years ago and I'm going to miss them when they finally need to leave the drawer for good. I could try darning them I guess, but since I'm always knitting new ones I don't really see the need. I'm going to try knitting more socks for other people this year. It's so hard to give them away, but I honestly can't fit anymore in the drawer. I wonder if Alan would rent out space in his drawer? Probably not.
Sally

Chaos In The Craft Room

I'd like to apologize up front for the poor picture quality. Not that my pictures are ever all that great, but we have had no sun to speak of lately and my phone camera really only works in natural light. I decided to just go ahead and show you what I've been up to. It's all kind of a blur anyway so the pictures are actually pretty accurate. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling very sorry for myself because all of my quilting buddies were together in Iowa at the annual Common Threads Sew In. With all of the driving I'd done leading up to Christmas and never knowing what the weather was going to be like I decided not to go this year. Poor me...  Instead I did what all good quilters do and started new quilt. I got the kit last summer when I was in Iowa, so I kind of felt like I was joining in (minus all of the fun and laughter). My friend Kandy sent me the  amazing pins and let me just say how handy they were while I was making this quilt. My other new favorite things are these cool little bobbin keepers. They just stick into your spool of thread and keep everything together. I have since finished that quilt top and will show you more pictures of it when the whole thing is done. I think I'm going to just straight line quilt it on my machine so that it can be finished. Did you notice my new yoga frog? He's sitting on the desk shelf reminding me to "relax" and quit taking everything so seriously. I get that way this time of year. My mind is full of all the things I want to do and just don't have enough time to accomplish. One day at a time needs to be my motto this year. If only they lasted longer than 24 hours. I hope you have all been keeping busy and staying warm.
Sally