Making Bias Edging

In case you, too, wanted to know, here is a great tutorial on making bias tape for edging your quilts.
If it works for me, I'll soon have another quilt to show you.

Neighborhood View

Here is one of our neighborhood walking paths. It is so refreshing.

Easiest Peanut Butter Cookies

Here is a recipe I received as part of a wedding shower gift. The giver was a mother of eight children, so the recipe was well-tested. It really works. You simply mix one cup peanut butter, one cup sugar and one egg. Roll the resulting dough into little balls, place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and flatten them with a sugar-dipped fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. You will love them.

One Soldier

Sometimes, the best way to remember the fallen is to remember them one at a time. Here is a remembrance page for the uncle of a dear neighbor and friend whose husband is also a Ranger. How thankful we are for those who serve.

Chocolate Pudding

I made simple chocolate pudding for our Sunday afternoon treat. Here is the recipe.
In medium saucepan mix:
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup instant non-fat dry milk
Whisk all these together until well blended. Stir in two cups warm water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture just begins to boil. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Pour into four serving dishes and cool. (Cover with waxed paper if you don't like the skin. We loves the skin.) Serve warm.

Carpet Upkeep Made Better

Here, on our carpet, are six Humanitarian Dolls I made recently.

After three years of weekly vacuuming, I was disappointed that the vacuum cleaner no longer left interesting patterns in the rug. I assumed it was because the carpet was no longer new. But, recently, the belt broke on the vacuum cleaner, so FarmBoy cleaned up the machinery and changed the belt. Now, I'm getting the patterns again, and vacuuming is almost a pleasure, as in the beginning.

It's sometimes just little things that make such a big difference.

My Favorite Jazz

(Click on the picture.)

Another Quilt

I finished another quilt! I'm calling this one the Atenolol Quilt, because I'm attributing this new ability to finish projects to the Beta Blocker I'm on for migraine prevention. I truly never, ever thought I would make a quilt, let alone two. This one took a bit longer than the first, because I hand-quilted the borders. (You catch that? I hand-quilted the borders.)

Wildlife

FarmBoy and I were blessed to see a live Western Bluebird while on our walk yesterday afternoon. They are indigenous to this part of our state, but not to where we moved from, although we were only twenty miles away, so I had never seen one before. I felt honored.

We also ran into a weasel headed straight down the dirt road toward us, with--I am sorry to tell you--a dead baby rabbit in its mouth. The rabbit was about the same size as the weasel, so he had to keep stopping to rest and adjust his load, and he trotted with his tail stuck straight up in the air, which we assumed was for counter-balance. He was awfully cute, in spite of his grisly load, but I don't think he was happy to run into us. He stuck to the road for quite a while, then finally turned off into the marsh grass when we got too close.

The other day, while walking back from a visit to the local medical clinic, I had a deer walk right across the path a few yards in front of me. She just looked at me, and I walked on forward. But I hadn't realized there was a second deer, who stepped out to cross and was startled by my presence. I heard her frantically retreating, breaking branches and splashing around in the marsh water as I moved on. So sorry.

I never thought I would get to live in a place with so much wildlife about. We have also crossed paths with a coyote, on the same old road through the marsh behind our house, which was quite exciting. We have also seen beavers and opossum and raccoons around, as well as squirrels and chipmunks and little brown rabbits, and a wide variety of birds.

I feel very blessed to live here, once again.

Journey Into Capricorn

In all of our traveling to and from schools for the past five or so years, this is the one CD that we have had most often in the CD player. We never tire of it.Thank you, Mr Kenton.

Favorite Foreign Films

These are some of my favorite foreign films:
"TheTwilight Samurai" (Japan);
"The Way Home" (Korea);
"Together" (China);
"Secret of Roan Inish" (Ireland);
"Rabbit-proof Fence" (Australia) ;
"Au Revoir Les Enfants (France);
and the beautiful film from which the picture above comes, "Children of Heaven" (Iran).
All are about families, and about caring for others. How blessed we are to have access to such lovely works of art from around the world.

Refrigerator Storage

I found these flat-bottomed glass bowls at an estate sale years ago, and they are some of my favorite possessions. I put leftovers into them with a plate for a lid, so they are easily stacked. In the background is another clear storage container, which I purchased new. I am a big advocate of clear storage for the refrigerator. If I can easily see what is on hand, I might eat it. If I can't see it, it will probably never get used up.

Friends

Today I am thinking how blessed I am to have such wonderful sister-friends in my life. Thank you for being humble, loyal, caring, generous, considerate, creative, intelligent, honest, friendly, hard-working, fun-loving, responsible, helpful, happy, gentle, loving, lovable, witty, determined, cheerful, and thoughtful. The women I know, young and old, are awesome.

Great Music, Great Memories

Stan the Musician played and sang in concert last night. Highlights for me included his beautiful feature solo on the trombone in an arrangement of Lush Life, as well as some amazing scatting as a vocalist. Another highlight for me occurred with the performance of "Our Love is Here to Stay" by the vocal group. They did such a beautiful job, and it took me back to a very special event on the San Diego waterfront when another excellent soloist sang that song to her parents in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary.
How thankful I am for the blessing of having people in my life who share their gifts of music. In this regard, I have been blessed abundantly.

A Sewing Closet

Three things intersected in the last few weeks that changed my life in a very happy way. The result is, I made a quilt, and I am working on a second one, and having lots of fun at it. First of all, I started on some new medication, which I think has connected some wires in my brain to counteract one aspect of ADD, which was my inability to finish projects. Secondly, I found Amy's blog, which features, among other wonderful things, pictures of her quilts, which have inspired me, like no other quilts, with their simplicity and beauty. And thirdly, I now have this sewing closet. It is messy, and not nice to look at, I know, but that is just the point. When I am done sewing, I just put the chair back across the room, curl up the extension cord, and close the doors.

This is a luxury I have dreamed of for a long, long time. Thank you to Middle Son for vacating the closet, and to Doodook for giving me Grandma's little drop-leaf table. And thank you, God, for orchestrating it all. I am quite thrilled with the outcome.

Inexpensive Storage Boxes

To organize many of our belongings before we moved, I bought these storage boxes from an office supply store for about a dollar apiece. They were not pretty enough for me, so I tried painting them (see box on the right), but that didn't work well, as the paint didn't cover the generic black labeling of the boxes. So one evening I took my stack of mail-order catalogs and cut pictures out of them, sorting the pictures into groups of clippings with similar themes or appealing color combinations. From these collections of harmonious clippings, I then created rectangular collages and stuck them to the ends of each box with clear adhesive paper. Now much prettier, I have these sorts of boxes tucked away in many closets in my new home.

Decorating in Check

There are so many beautiful things in the world. When I began decorating, I took a tip from a professional who advised finding something--a piece of fabric, or a rug, or a painting--with a color pallete and style that you love, and then using that as a guide. The idea is to keep from having too many conflicting styles and colors in your home. I found that to be the best decorating tip ever, and it has saved me many times from going too far astray in my choices of acquisitions. When there is a decision to be made, I think of these little plates, and they help me keep my focus.

Mother's Day Quilt

Here is a close-up (but not too close) of the quilt that I finished at midnight. Just as Mother's Day dawned this morning, I was amazed to acknowledge that I actually had in my lap a fully-formed quilt. I had really finished it and it was really as beautiful as I had hoped all along it would be.

In making the quilt, I made many mistakes and encountered many problems. There were some tears that needed to be patched, some excesses that were discarded, some crookedness that had to be tugged around into relative straightness, and some errors that left their scars, even after mending. It is by no means a work of perfect execution. But, because I loved the fabrics so much, and wanted so much for something warm and whole and beautiful to result from my efforts, I did what I had to do and kept working at it for as long as it took. And now it is, somehow, in its own quirky way, perfect.

As I finished this quilt, at the onset of this often-difficult holiday, something in my heart told me that this project had felt so very important, and that I had felt so strongly the need to complete it, because it represented for me my family. I understood with a new depth that we are like a quilt in progress. As I looked upon what I held in my lap, I could feel that our family is even now being straightened and mended and stitched together into something warm and whole and beautiful, too.

This is truly my Mother's Day quilt. Happy Mother's Day to you, whatever stage your quilt is in. May it all come together beautifully, some day. May mine come together, too.

For Mom

I don't know what my Mom would enjoy more than a frugal-living blog. So, Mom, click on the highlighted name which follows and you will be taken to a blog called Like Merchant Ships. I know that you will enjoy it. (She is a big fan of the Tightwad Gazette, too.)

Happy Mother's Day!

Blue and White Dishes

If you love blue and white dishes, as I do, you will want to follow this link over to Allsorts. Pretty stuff!

The Soap and Pepper Response

A loved one went through a rough time recently, and witnessing it taught me a new lesson. I had long been aware of the soap and pepper response. There is a science experiment wherein you sprinkle pepper into a bowl of water. The pepper floats randomly over the surface until the experimenter sticks the tip of a piece of soap into the water. In an instant, the pepper flees. It shoots to the sides of the bowl, leaving the tip of soap alone in the center, with a ring of pepper all around.

Such an effect happens with people, too. People with problems can be like the soap, and their friends and neighbors like the pepper. I once saw it happen with a prominent member of our community, whose life had been suddenly and publicly revealed as one weighty with woes. Mere days after the revelations, in a great room full of associates, he looked just like the piece of soap, all alone in the center of a distant ring of people. It was a striking image. The soap and pepper response was clearly evident.

I got a new insight about all of this this week, however, watching what happened with my loved one. As she struggled and blogged about some difficult challenges, I saw that she was somewhat in the center of the soap and pepper response. It looked all-too-familiar to me.

But, then came the lesson. What happened as soon as she was through the worst of her dark time was heartening. Once she was able to mix in just a little better, friends rushed from all around to give her what amounted to a verbal group hug. It was as if they had been waiting, eager to run in.

Pepper does not flee of its own choice in the experiment. It has something to do with surface tension. Eventually the soap dissolves and mixes with the water, the tension is lessened, and the pepper floats all over the surface again. And now, I am thinking that people don't pull back from a person in need because they choose to, either. For whatever the reason, for the most part they feel paralyzed and unable to move in any closer. Once the chemistry is altered, and they can move in, they do, and often with a great outpouring of love.

Hepburn Therapy

Remember in Bringing up Baby, how the leopard was tamed by the song, "I Can't Give You Anything But Love"? It turns out, by a strange coincidence, that the movie, Bringing up Baby, tames the black dog. TCM is having a Katharine Hepburn film festival right now, in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth. I have seen many of my favorite films in the last few days, as well as some new to me. Last night featured four of my favorites. Stage Door was followed by Bringing up Baby, which was followed by Holiday, which was followed by The Philadelphia Story . I fell asleep eventually and missed some. But what a lineup! It sure makes depression and insomnia lesser curses, having your favorite film star on the screen all night. Thank you, Miss Hepburn. Thank you, Turner Classic Movies. The black dog is still here, but he spent some time last night curled up asleep in a corner, thanks to you.

Doggy Girl

Last evening, while watching Katharine Hepburn movies, I managed to finish this new soft friend. I hope that Tony, Jr. doesn't mind playing with girly girls.

More Beautiful Quilts

There are more pictures today of inspiring quilts at Happy Things. What is it about quilts that makes me feel better about life?

A Visit from the Black Dog

This is a photograph of Doctors Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey, who wrote the book Delivered from Distraction from which I am going to quote today. I wish I could tell you about myself from within myself, but I find they describe what I am experiencing far better than I can. I have these passages bookmarked so that I can reread them in times such as this.

From pages 288-89:

If there is such a thing as "the ADD condition," there certainly is this dark side to it, at least for most adults who have ADD. . . It is composed of pessimism, frustration, moments of despair, surges of self-contempt as well as baseless rage at others, unpredictability, lapses into addictive behaviors and substance abuse, ongoing struggles to get organized, feelings of being ineffectual and feckless no matter how successful the person becomes, and periods of being remote, cut off, and impossible to reach.
Dealing with this dark side is like dealing with your teeth and gums. You must work on it every day--brush and floss and rinse--but not be surprised if inflammation still sets in. I realize that this is a homely comparison, even vulgar. I intend it that way. It is best to approach this dark side in as practical and irreverent a way as possible.
All the tips and principles of treatment that have been mentioned in this book apply here. But a few deserve special emphasis:

. . . Above all, make sure you have an ally--spouse, friend, doctor, therapist, hairdresser, anybody!--who knows you well enough to point out to you what's good about you and your life when you start to feel in the grip of what's bad. This is crucial. People with ADD typically lack the ability to reassure themselves. They quickly get overwhelmed by feelings of frustration, pessimism, and all the rest. The need some trusted ally, someone who really loves them for who they are, so they can turn to that person and get a shot of encouragement when they need it.

. . . Don't be surprised when you get visits from what Winston Churchill called "the black dog." Expect that you will go through dark, depressed periods. Don't feel that all is lost when this happens. Just connect with someone else. Get help.

. . . When you feel that all else has failed, when you feel that nothing will help, when you feel that everything is bad and that there is no hope, you are wrong. Don't listen to yourself. You are in the grip of a poisonous state of mind. Get yourself into the company of another person, or get someone on the telephone, or watch mindless TV to distract yourself. Just don't believe what you are telling yourself. It is all subjective. It will change. Give it time.


So today, I am concentrating hard on not listening to myself.
I am "in the grip of a poisonous state of mind."
I know this will pass. It always has before. I just need some time.

Thanks for trying to understand.

Quilt Temptation

I am being tempted to quilt again. There is a new tutorial and pictures of a gorgeous quilt at HappyThings today. Soooo pretty!

Lighted Shelves

I think it was on the television program called Neat that the host suggested adding pretty lights as a way to keep shelves in order. She said that when shelves are prettily lit, we are less likely to allow clutter to gather. I added some Christmas lights to my shelves. The picture doesn't begin to capture it, but they really do look festive in person, and I really have kept my shelves more orderly since putting the strings of lights up. (It also makes the pantry a kind of beautiful wonderland for little children.)

Spring View

This is the view out my window now. Thank you, FarmBoy, for so beautifully filling the window boxes. And thank you for three years in our lovely home. Happy anniversary!

Two New Friends

Yesterday, while blowing my nose enough to fill a whole paper bag with used tissues, I somehow also managed to finish these two new soft friends for Tony, Jr. to play with when he comes to visit. Making them was great fun. The rabbity fellow was finished in time to watch the end of Porco Rosso with us. The sharky-doggy wasn't finished until bed-time, poor thing. It took me a long time to sew a strip of silky ribbon to his spine, but doing so gave him just the smoothness he was lacking. Both are eagerly waiting now to be carried and caressed by someone with pudgy little fingers and hands.

Combatting Kitchen Messiness

I don't seem to be able to overcome my inherent messiness, so I try to keep things as organized as possible to combat it. One thing which has been helpful is to keep my ingredients for cooking in these canisters. In the ones with baking ingredients, which are all stored in a designated baking cupboard, I also keep measuring spoons or cups, which suit the recipes I most frequently use. The sugar canister, for instance, has a 1/3 cup measure in it, because I use sugar the most frequently for making muffins, and that recipe calls for 1/3 cup. Most of my measuring cups and spoons are from estate sales, where I paid very little for them. The salt container, however, has an adjustable measuring spoon, since the amount of salt required varies so much from recipe to recipe.

I find I like to prepare food much more when I don't have to add hunting to the required activities.

Whey Away

Thanks to Anna at her lovely blog, I have been going Greek lately with my yogurt.
I make the yogurt my usual way.
Then I put a coffee-filter in a colander, and place the colander in a bowl to catch the whey that drips off, and gently pour the yogurt into the colander. It begins to filter off the whey immediately, and in a few hours the colander is laden with very thick, creamy yogurt.

I also get lots of whey, which I have been storing in a glass jar in my refrigerator.

Today, I used the whey in place of sour milk in my crunchy wheat cereal recipe. It worked!

Can Storage

FarmBoy and I had lots of fun designing (mostly me) and building (mostly him) this system for storing our canned foods. We needed some inexpensive way to provide storage in the skinny place behind the two doors of our pantry. (The door you see in the photo below leads to the garage, and the door into the house is opposite.) I stewed for some time on what to do, until one day I jumped up, grabbed a can of beans, and set them, sideways, on the drapery rod above the kitchen sliding glass door. I realized then that what I needed was sort of a wall of parallel drapery rods. FarmBoy and I headed off to the hardware store without really knowing what we would ultimately use for the project. What we ended up with were conduit rods, which are ten feet long (he sawed them to fit) and these large hooks that you see , which he screwed into the wall studs, a couple of inches deep.

The wall holds over a hundred cans now, and the project cost less than fifty dollars to make. It's been up for a couple of years and so far, so good.

My Popcorn Trick

Here is my trick for ultra-low-cost microwave popcorn. I put 3 tablespoons of unpopped popcorn into a brown paper lunch bag. I fold the top of the lunch bag down so that it sits on itself. Then I put it into the microwave and push the popcorn button. A couple of minutes later, I have my snack.