Good Morning to You Too!

The librarian, Earlene, my BFF...see post below, had a meeting to attend this morning and a dentist appointment this afternoon, so I worked for her. On the way in this morning, I noticed our neighbor and friends' horse. I was watching her thinking what a gorgeous body she has when I realized that she was watching me. I KNOW that she was thinking the exact same thing! ;o) Nothing behind me so I stopped, reversed, and rolled down my window (well, I flipped the button and it rolled itself down). She nickered at me! What a glorious GOOD MORNING!!

I've been sewing away on my quilt top. I've got all the blocks sewn together but am still contemplating how I want to do the borders. Thought I had a photo of the sewn together top...but not yet.


Here they are all laid out on my bed. I had enough fabric for the side triangles, but not the corner triangles. Plan B.

I've been playing with Quilter Assitant, a free program. This photo was taken last November after Thanksgiving.

This is what it would look like rendered in fabric.

It needs some tweeking. If I can come up with that many shades of the different colors...

Happy Birthday to ME! What a Day!

...And what a night! Can't believe I got up this morning before 8 a.m. Especially since it was after 1 before I crawled in bed.


I thought Sam was going to be out of town so planned to go bar hopping...LOL! Those of you who really KNOW me are going riiiiight. Neither of us are smokers so don't tolerate smoky places very well, and he generally prefers not to go. We are big drinkers...I've got a one drink limit when we are out. And before any of you say riiiight...sometimes when Sam is there, I'll have a second drink. I just don't. Drink much that is. Sam has one or two beers. Maybe a gin and tonic. That's it.


Anyway...he changed plans so that he could be here for my birthday. So, I cancelled the bar hopping...;o)...with Earlene. Yesterday Sam asked for THE plans. He knew that I wanted to eat Chinese - which we did at noon...but what about after he asked. I didn't have any further plans. He asked about going to 'the bar.' Told me to call Earlene and go. So I did! I also notified my high school classmates via our Yahoo group. Got a call from another friend...so it was three of us.


We have yet another classmate, Richard...who has a band. Lady Chazzz and the Tramps. (I think I've mentioned them before.) http://www.myspace.com/ladychazzandthetramps Richard did a career in the US Navy...THANK YOU RICHARD! After retiring, he and his wife moved to northeast Texas and started a band. (That's Richard doing his Ray Charles imitation last night.) I like to go hear them as often as possible, but the smoky atmosphere in most of the bars really gets to me. They were playing at a restaurant in a nearby town last night. I was pleasantly surprised that the smoking was at a minimum! I didn't have to shower before crawling in bed. (Usually...you're going to get a big kick out of THIS!...I strip down to the nothings in the garage and leave my clothes out there...then tra-la-la through the house and step into the shower, washing my hair before throwing a towel over my pillow and crawling in bed. Visual image you can forget...or if you do think about it...think about Sophia Loren please.)


We had a great time! Chazz WORKS the crowd. She is the ultimate entertainer. While she is harassing...I mean entertaining the crowd, she sometimes gets so tickled she has to stop. Last night was one of those times. The poor guy she was picking on, patted her back. She said he had the most expressionless face...

Richard sings a lot of oldies...

On occasion, someone in the audience has performed with them. I didn't get a photo of Chazz's daughter...but that young woman is GOOD on vocals. While Chazz was out doing her thing...that woman can dance! The daughter would break out in a smile from ear to ear.


Last night, a young man (teenager) in the audience requested a Gun n Roses song...Knocking on Heaven's Door. Richard said he didn't know GnR rendition...he knew Bob Dylan's and Bob Marley's...but Richard sang it his way...and would only do it if this young man would sing along. He did his part GnR's style...knock, knock, knocking on heaven's doe-ah. The boy had a blast! Can't you just hear him at school?! What did you do this summer? "I sang with a band!"

Here we are...Richard and Earlene standing. Me and Melanie seated.

I moved here and started the 3rd grade. Melanie was my first best friend. The school district did some shuffling and sent me to a different elementary school, and I started 5th grade at the other elementary school in town...where I met Earlene. Richard I met in 1967/68 in high school. Thanks to my BFF for helping me celebrate my birthday!


Note: Going into Junior High, 6th and 7th grades, we had kids come in from three elementary schoolsGoing into High School kids came in from three junior highs.

Julia, BIRTHDAY!, and Napkins

Like many of you, I am so looking forward to the new movie Julie & Julia. The resurgence of interest in Julia Child is evident on television programming. Our local PBS station, LPB out of Louisiana, has been running reruns of some of Julia's shows. I grabbed pen and paper when this one came on. I didn't catch the name of the lady with Julia in her kitchen...

Scandanavian Pastries

To start:

¼ cup warm water
1 package yeast

Dissolve yeast in water.
********
½ cup milk
1 egg
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Whisk together. Set aside.
*********
2 ½ cups flour
2 sticks butter, chilled and cubed

Cut butter into flour until large pea size. Stir yeast mixture into milk mixture. Stir flour into liquid just until mixed. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Next morning...
Dust surface with flour and dust pastry with flour. Roll into a rectangle. Fold over in thirds. Pat. Dust top and bottom with flour. Roll into a rectangle. Fold over in thirds . Pat. Dust top and bottom with flour.

See those chunks of butter? That's the way it is supposed to look.

Once again, roll into rectangle. Fold by thirds into a square. Cut in half. Wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Or At this point you can freeze the dough. My question is WHY?!

Take half the dough…
Dust with flour. Roll out in a 10 x 20" rectangle. Roll slowly. Cut into 5" squares.

Put 1 heaping teaspoon (or more! I used a good tablespoonful) of filling in center.
Brush edges with beaten egg white. Pull up corners, pinch and twist together.
Or
Cut through corners toward filling. Pull every other tip to the center. Looks like a pinwheel.

Or
Pull two opposite corners to center.
Or
Fold over in a triangle like a fried pie.

Brush all edges that meet with the egg white.

Place on parchment. Set 30 minutes to rise a bit. Brush with egg white. Sprinkle with pearl sugar. (Okay. They don't sell pearl sugar in Daingerfield. I found it online for nearly $5 a pound. So...I went to Brookshires looking for coarse sugar crystals. I found organic coarse sugar. That's what I bought. Never thought to go to the cake decorating section for those white sprinkles until after I had these in the oven.)

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

Aren't they soooo gorgeous?! These are prune...

These are apricot...

These have been drizzled with glaze...

Glaze:
2-3 teaspoons water (recipe called for milk, but I had some glaze to sour one time ruining the bread pudding it covered)
½ cup powdered sugar
Whisk. Drizzle on pastries


These are plated and one is half eaten. OH MY GOODNESS! SOOOOO good.

My birthday is tomorrow! In 2000, Daddy and Mama gave me this set for my birthday. Daddy himself handed me the cup and saucer stating that they were from him. I placed them in my China cabinet (in previous house) to admire. He died the end of October. One day I was sitting in the living room watching some inane something on television, I'm sure. I looked up and spotted the cup and saucer. Couldn't take my eyes off them. Then thought, WHY NOT? I finally had a cup o' tea in the cup Daddy gave me. I had been so afraid that if I used the set, it would eventually be broken. What's the use of having something and not using it? Save it for the son or grandkids to sell in an estate sale? Not me. I'm using my pretty stuff!

Including these gorgeous napkins.
Martha over at http://linesfromlinderhof.blogspot.com/ has some beautiful vintage napkins. Mine aren't vintage and the napkin on the far left...the Battenburg lace doesn't show up. The other three are hand embroidered and hand finished. Mama was in the antique business for several years. Knowing that I use napkins on a daily basis, whenever she found some pretties, she purchased them then gave them to me.

As I mentioned, we use cloth napkins daily. They are about the only thing that I don't mind ironing. I have everyday napkins and special napkins. I have a set bandanas in assorted colors...they are great for barbeques! Except for the bbq napkins for obvious reasons, I do not gather up the napkins at the end of the meal to launder. Like Martha mentioned on her blog, we reuse them...not necessarily for a week, but for several meals. I try to be observant in case someone wipes their...so sorry...nose on their napkin...then that one is removed and replaced before the next meal. After a meal, the napkins are folded and left on the placemat. (I want to make certain I use MY napkin not one I overlooked handling the nose-wipe...)

Since my table seats 8 easily, most of my napkins are in sets of 8 or more. Two of the sets that Mama gave me have a dozen napkins. REALLY, nice!

OH! Almost forgot the filling recipes!

Apricot Filling
1 cup sugar
1 cup dried apricots
1 cup water
Stir. Microwave 10 minutes. Stir 2 or 3 times.
Cool a bit. Puree in food processor.
Add
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon almond extract
Stir. Refrigerate.
　
Prune Filling
1 cup sugar
1 cup dried prunes
1 cup water.
Stir. Microwave 10 minutes. Stir 2 or 3 times. Cool a bit. Puree in food processor.
Add
2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Stir. Refrigerate.
　
Pastry Cream
1 cup cream
1 ½ tablespoon cornstarch
2-3 tablespoons sugar
Whisk. Microwave 1 minute at a time. Stir each minute until thick. About 2 – 3 minutes.

1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix together.

Temper egg yolk with hot cream mixture. Stir egg yolk into cream. Microwave 30 seconds.
Refrigerate.

I did not make the cream filling. Sam just wanted fruit. The cream is used to top the fruit...not for a stand alone filling.

The other half of the dough? She made this:

Berry Braid
2 cups crushed berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)
1 cup sugar
Microwave 18 minutes. Cool and add
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Take remaining pasty half. Dust with flour and roll out to 10 x 16" rectangle. Cut strip 1/3 into dough ¾" apart. Spread Berry jam down the middle. Top with cream filling. Brush fringe with beaten egg white. Cross fringe over middle like a braid. Brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with pearl sugar. Let rise for 30 minutes.
Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Two Days....

...without Sam. I had two days 'booked' so Sam decided to go visit his son. An overnighter.

Today I went by and stopped long enough to swap over to Mama's mini-van and off we drove to an out-of-town doctor's to pick up 'film' (x-rays) and report from her mylogram. Then on to the surgeon's office in another town...only to find when we got there that we should've been given about an inch worth of paper and film...not two sheets of film. The office contacted the initial hospital to fax what they could and also to mail the rest of the film. eye-roll...sheesh.

Long story short...nothing short of another surgery will help her back. She's not willing to do that at this time. She's already had two laminectomys (however it's spelled but that's how it sounds) and the last surgery fussed four veterbrae in her lumbar area. The new problem is just above the screws and plates.

Tomorrow I had a library meeting to attend, but now find out that the trip has been cancelled. So...a-shopping I go.

Off to do some more piecing on my quilt. Oh! I have a photo. I've made 15 blocks...two more to go. This is from a twin-full size quilt pattern. And I have not done the math to enlarge it...so I'm just making blocks and pieces as I need them. ;o)

I'm in Heaven

Somewhere before this, I posted about several of my loves including but not limited to...
Sean Connery
Tom Selleck
Sam Elliot
http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-got-to-thinking.html

In the last three days, I've seen three movies on TV with...
Sean Connery
Tom Selleck
Sam Elliot

I've decided that I will probably never marry again. Sam is #2. He's 17 1/2 years older than me. I think that if a husband 7 years older dies, and then I have no more sense than to marry someone almost a generation older than me...I need to call it quits with 2.

That is...unless...I get to meet Sean, Tom, or Sam in person. Any of the three would be just fine thank you very much!

What can be better than that...other than another batch of those delicious Oatmeal Raisin Cookies?! I baked them three or so days ago...let's see...Last Wednesday. There's not but 3 left and I feel that I have to leave them for Sam. Sigh. Sacrifice.
http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/2009/06/cookie-day.html

WAHOO!

That's what Sam hollered when he came in the house about 11:30 a.m. today. I jumped when he stuck his head in my sewing room door where I was working diligently piecing my new quilt.

I helped him earlier this morning on the final plumbing. When I got in the house I was almost as filthy as I was when I was a kid making mudpies. Even though the dirt hadn't had water added to it, the sweat on my body did a good job. I was coated with mud. (I was down in the ditch while he operated the tractor...what's wrong with this picture?)

Here's everthing covered up and smoothed out. He still has to do a bit more leveling, then top with topsoil. I asked if he going to landscape? He thought I was serious, so answered seriously. Nope. He doesn't want anything that he has to trim around.

He purchased the toilet paper holder, towel bar and ring. It's a good thing he got what he wanted from Lowes. I would'a never thought of buying something there. While even though inexpensive compared to some of their other fixtures, I was going to make a stop by the dollar store and buy cheapo. LOL That's probably exactly why he got them. (Hmmm...no photo of the toilet paper holder. It's made like the towel ring so no roller with the spring in the middle to hit the floor.)

I stocked the cabinet over the commode with a towel, a change of clothes, and some toilet cleaner...like that'll ever happen. Well, it probably will if I do the cleaning. I remembered the toilet brush and plunger too. Sam put the toilet paper in the cabinet. ;o)

See the mirror over the sink? It looks like a window, but that's a reflection. Would you believe that he complained about the old towel? It looks better in the photo than up close. You can see the holes and the ragged edges. ;o) I told him that I could do better for him. I'll make a raid in the camper and do a bit of rotating with older towels in the house.

We made a special stop by Lowes today for the sign. He thought it would be fun. I told him that it was false advertising. It says, "Restrooms." There ain't but one.

Sam wanted to go celebrate so we went to Longview and ate at Olive Garden. "I" have leftovers!

Comments to Comments

"The" bangs. When I got older and looked back at my photos, I once asked Mama why my bangs were so short. She said she didn't have to cut them as often when she cut them short. Okay...saved her time...made me look like a dork. At least everyone knows it was her fault at that time in my life and not mine.


You didn't see any high school photos of me did ya? I started gaining weight and wasn't happy with how I looked or me. High school was not the best time of my life. Nothing bad or drastic happened. I hate for this to sound like a cliche' but I just didn't know who I was. I wouldn't go back to that age or time in my life for no amount of money! The only thing that kept me in school my senior year is because I intended to go off to college. Instead...I got married. But I have my high school diploma and in 1996 got a 2-year degree from the local community college.


"Cheekbones"...This photo is from 1979. I'm supposed to have some Cherokee in me. Daddy's mama always said that her grandmother (my great great grandmother) was full blood Cherokee. We have no photos of her. Her marriage to my great great grandfather was her second and all we have is her first married name...no maiden name. She was from Pauls Valley Oklahoma. One day I'll get back in the genealogy and look again.

"Chantilly Lace"...Jonathan, my son, and I sang in the car while running errands. This was one of his favorites. One time he was with Mama. She said when they got back to the Daingerfield city limits he started singing... Dain...ger...field... nananana... Dain...ger...field ...to the tune of some song about Hollywood. What can I say? It helped to pass the time, especially when he needed a potty break and there was no place to stop. We would Sing...sing a song...sing out loud...sing out long...Don't worry if it's not good enough for anyone else to hear...Just sing...sing a song...

"Cars"...Daddy was a caraholic. For a while there when he had three little kids at home and was gone on the truck all the time to feed those babies, he traded cars every year. Mama was pretty meek and mild back in those days (somewhere along the way she developed some teeth and put her foot down). She especially remembers bringing a new baby home...to find a new car in the driveway. Maybe that's why they only had three with a ten year gap before the fourth one. ;o)

"Chubba"...yeppers. Mama had 10 + pound babies. Junior was the only one who slimmed up...rather down. I was put on skim milk at 9 months old...bottle baby. I did outgrow the baby fat but...as I mentioned above was a heavy teenager. When Sam and I got married 12 years ago, I told him that I'd been fat all my life until my skinny young adult years. We were watching home videos taken by Daddy with an 8mm no talky camera. Sam looked at me..."I thought you said you were fat all your life." I guess those teenage years really drug me down. That and Daddy called me Crisco. Really a self-image booster.

"Horse in socks"...LOL At least Joey didn't put rocks in her plumbing! When you have horses, you are constantly messing with their hooves so that they don't jerk around when you are handling them. Makes it especially tough on the farrier when it's time for new shoes...with nails to secure them to the hoof. A jerky horse can cause severe damage to a careless farrier. Nearly every time we were out in the pasture to feed or pet or whatever, I carried a hoof pick in my pocket...picked up their feet and cleaned them up. My horse any way. At the time of this photo we were all grown and gone except Joey...I think that all of us had horses at our houses.

Junior was into competition. He had a horse that was great at keyhole. (A large-size keyhole was drawn in the dirt just inside the opening to the arena. At the go sound, you ran your horse in the middle of the circle, did a 360 turn and ran out again...without messing up the outline.) Billy and I weren't interested in competing and didn't have horses at that time. When we married and left home we eventually all got just riding horses. Photo on the right is Joey on Junior's horse, Wrangler. Junior had a crazy horse before this one...I think before. His name was Lobo...but it should've been Loco. I may have mentioned him before. We were told in no uncertain terms to stay off him and away from him. Junior took care of him...period. One day while everyone was gone, I caught Lobo and rode him. I got caught taking the saddle off. Junior caught me. He thought I was putting the saddle ON. When I told him I had just gotten back from riding, he looked so funny.

Joey had a HIGH powered horse. ran barrels, poles, and other events. Joey on Star. I think this was his third horse. Pepper, then Dottie, then Star...I don't remember another in there. Star drank cokes straight from the bottle. He kicked Mama's Oldsmobile 88 in one of the doors. She put the bathroom plunger to it and pulled the dent out. Star loved pole bending...a row of poles set a certain distance apart. You weaved in and out on the way to the end, then turned around and ran like the devil was after you. Star would swish his tail in circles...and knock a pole down. Joey had to tie it up and wrap it with ponytail bands. LOL...For girl's/women's hair.

"ALS"...Horrible disease. Daddy's was an isolated case in our family. Sometimes it can be familial. That would be devastating. I don't understand why families that have something like that running through it for generations continue to have children.

Parents

Daddy's family was pretty close to being dirt poor. We have very few photos of him. Even though Mama's family was just poor folks, they took photos.

Would you ever think from looking at this baby that she was so puny when she was born that the doctor laid her across a trunk in my grandparent's bedroom?! My great grandmother walked in the room and wanted to know why that baby was laying there. The doctor replied, "She's going to die." Mama's grandmother took her, cleaned her up. I think it's fairly obvious that she didn't die.

She snuck out of the house with a coat on. This photo was taken by a pond on my grandfather's property between DeKalb and New Boston Texas. She said he'd'a skinned her alive if he caught her doing this!

She had just turned 16 and Daddy nearly 20 when they married. The story he told her was if she didn't marry him he was going to enlist and go to Korea. She fell for it. ;o)
Daddy worked for Lone Star Boat Company in Grand Prairie. He and one of his best friends received their first million mile award working for them. They hauled boats from coast to coast. When we moved to Daingerfield, Daddy brought his personal boat with him. We still had it when Joey was little. The boat was deep enough that Joey couldn't fall overboard. Eventually, Daddy sold the boat. A couple of years ago, Joey was doing some mechanic-type work for the local scrap yard and found the boat. He's a "collector" ;o) and it is at his house now.
Photo from the old Polaroid Land Camera.

Mama's horse, Missy. Mama has had bad knees since forever. When she would get ready to climb on, she would tap Missy's front hoof, then rear hoof. Missy would spraddle out and get lower to the ground making it easier for Mama to mount. LOOK at Missy's hooves. Joey put socks on her. I forgot that! See the stripes?!

Getting ready to do what they loved best for several years. Launching their flat-bottom boat in the White River north of Mt. View Arkansas to trout fish.

August 2000...Daddy died the last of October 2000. He had been diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - aka Lou Gehrig's disease - one of those diseases that affects so 'few' that major funding for research is not available) the first week of July 2000. He was still driving his truck and had to park it. He couldn't explain away his symptoms and kept them hidden from Mama. The beginning was evidently when he had trouble swallowing as early as 1996. Doctor's found an esophageal pouch...a previously undetected birth defect...so the swallowing problem was attributed to that. Since there's no known reason or cure for ALS (which is included in the Muscular Dystrophy family), we were so thankful that he didn't receive the diagnosis and death sentence any earlier...

Mama...I'm shaking my head...we figured she would be the first. She has had triple bypass surgery, at least one stroke, numerous TIAs, degenerative disc disease, hip replacement, three back surgeries with the last a fusing of four verterbrae in her lower back. And thank God, she's like the Energizer bunny...