Fabulous Fun at BFF's Home

Last Friday afternoon I hit the highways and had a lovely drive to my BFF's place.

It was a balmy sunny day, the lakes were lovely, the traffic tame and I arrived at her school just as school was about to let out. I was invited inside to meet 8 sweet children, really, really cute kids. Respectful, smiling, a little glint of fun sparkling in their eyes, it was great!

Then she and I wandered through Brookshire's. She showed me different sauces and food to give my cooking a super charge and then we went home to her place on half an acre.

Once I rolled out of the city there was a peace, an exhale of stress. But nothing can match sitting on the back deck of BFF's home. Never mind when you pull into her driveway the cell phone automatically looses contact, it matters not...the trees in her backyard are tall and the sound of the breeze ruffles the leaves...Peace, pure peace to my heart.

Back inside, we chopped red onions, garlic, roasted corn her Hubby had just taken off the grill (and he chopped the onions so we wouldn't cry...sweet huh?) , rotisserie chicken, fresh green peppers and threw all that into a big saute pan with black beans to simmer. Talk about a fabulous fragrance filling the kitchen!



While all that simmered, she threw all this in a beautiful bowl.

Letting that chill, she threw flour tortillas on a baking sheet to crisp in the oven then she added the saute ingredients to each tortilla, topped with an assortment of cheeses and then back into the oven to melt.




Her older son, her hubby and I were patiently waiting to fill our plates. Not! Look at that cheese! Didn't take us long to fill our plates.



The next day we made nachos out of the left overs...YUM!

And ya know what?

She hooked me up with WOW...World of WarCraft...yep, I have a rockin' troll or elf...wherever, she is thin and can kill scorpions and wander through an amazingly beautiful world! It's a trial now but I will probably get the whole set up. You would NOT believe how much time flies when you are playing this game! And it is a great way for us to hook up during the week and visit.

A bit of Normal

I'm not feeling up to a quilting session or cleaning up the house just yet. But I am able to embroider those pumpkin drawings I showed a few posts back.



Turned out really cute!



You can see in the raw drawing that I included lots of curlicues. They are much easier drawn or painted than embroidered...those curlicues get shortened and/or eliminated at will...lol!

Orange isn't my favorite color so I chose to embroider the 8 pumpkins in 4 colors plum, burgundy, dark cinnamon and straight up pumpkin. Two shades of green provide contrast and accents on each piece.



They should look nice on the table runner for Thanksgiving.

Embroidery is very time consuming but should be pretty for years to come and if handled well, an heirloom. So I am wanting to make these as nice as possible.
Another help to me has be the Online Retreats the Texas Quilter group has the first of the month. Gives us a chance to plan and set goals and work to meet them rather than letting those plans take a place on the back burner.

What are you working on for the Holidays?

Let's see, one done, one ready for the leaves and curliques...6 to go.

That's what I'm up to,
Melissa

Fall in the Kitchen with Pumpkins

There is an old wooden tray I use frequently that is so Vintage with its chips and layers of paint, just reminds me of Fall. I turned it upside down on a fall table cloth then wrapped it a couple times with pretty Fall ribbon and topped it with those sweet little pumpkins I made last week...then pulled out my favorite fall tapers and I think it looks cute.



Can you tell those are pumpkins on the table?



This little vignette with my Great Grandmother's wardrobe in the background truly makes me happy. When I pass by it it says Family, Warmth, and Comfort.

And to make this week even more special, I'm going to visit my BFF this weekend! Have NO idea what we will do but there will be lots of talking and laughing...and a little embroidering.

I hope your Autumn is cool and crisp with all the comforts of the Peace He gave to us; the Peace He left with us

Warm fall hugs,

Melissa

Pumpkins for Autumn Fun!

Pumpkins are calling my name!

Look what I found online:

http://schlosserdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/09/tutorial-fabric-pumpkins.html

Aren't these cute? And she is offering a pdf download FREE so we can all have fun with these! I picked out this material at the fat quarter sale last weekend.



I selected cinnamon and paprika tones with burgundy and plums. Some I love, some were selected for me so I had a nice balance.

This is the weekend for the Texas Quilters Online Retreat. Its our first and like many retreats, we are each working on our own projects and keeping in touch online.

As you can guess, I am making pumpkins: Only three so far but aren't they cute??



For the biggest one I enlarged the pattern to 125%. The Medium is made per the pattern and the little one is shrunk to 75%. These are perfect Table Top or Buffet top size. I can see these at 200% for a bed or to set on the floor or on the porch.

Also, if you like the look where embroider thread is pulled between the pumpkin sections, this pattern would be so easy to do that way.

Oh, and I just sewed that stem in while I was sewing the sections together. Stuff it first, lay it inside the pumpkin, sew across the top and it will look great when you turn the whole thing inside out!

I hope you hop over and get your copy, I'm making a set for my MIL and her sister and my mom. They are fast to make! I'm addicted and will probably have these little things all over the house!

One more thing...I was inspired by a pumpkin online and I reworked it a bit for embroidery, as I am making the pumpkin embroidery part of a table runner with these same fabrics.



Well, that is what I'm up to this weekend.

Hope your weekend is fresh, cool and fallish!

Have fun,
Melissa

Hobbit foot and Beer

So what was I doing all this time?

Well, the AC was fixed that same day, yay! And we are still spinning the thing. Keeps the humidity low when the humidity is high. So we use the AC. Keeps things from warping, getting mildewed, that sort of thing, cause, as my son explained it to me: 100% humidity is not the same as a swimming pool. Ok, now I know. So there, it is a gas rather than a liquid. Fine, make your momma feel 'tupid.

ANYWAY

As luck would have it the MMA fights were on about 3 weeks ago. Have I mentioned I live with males? Come Monday morning I rearrange the fridge and later start cooking dinner. The older male is in the living room requesting salt or pepper along with more iced tea and I am not paying attention and pull the 'whatever it was I needed' out of the fridge only to realize WAY too late that a beer bottle from Saturday night is in a free fall from the top shelf of the fridge all the way down to the foot.

It fell perfectly and caused enough pain that I was going through my 'not nice' vocabulary rather quickly. I am SO glad it didn't break cause I might have stitches that I would want to scratch and clip with the tiny embroidery scissors beside me here.

Are you like me, you ignore the pain, that caution that floats through your head and just keep right on going. Well, Two weekends in a row I did just that. We had some fabulous sales here and I had coupons for LOTS of things so I wasn't letting a little gimp foot me out of the store...for 2.5 hours.

So Monday means the bruise swelled even further than it was, need ice, call Dr. Gorgeous if it doesn't get better and make sure to limp appropriately through the house washing and cooking and be careful, above all!

Next weekend my very very BFF came into town, we had a BLAST! and I stood on the thing looking at fat quarters laughing and chatting it up with other crazy quilt sale ladies at the quilt store. We were there talking walking/standing for maybe an hour and a half. Had a FAB time. Ran next door to our fav Mexican restaurant, sat and filled our plates with salt, chips, salt, cheese dip, salt and guacamole...it was luscious!! And most swell worthy!

Sunday, Hubby is now threating the emergency room. The foot is broken, may need amputating and then what will you do. Hmmm....it did look really bad. And BFF thought perhaps there was an ongoing bleed, small nick (she explained) that bled slowly. OK, thank you all!

I began to wonder what walking on a faux foot would feel like.

So Anti-Inflamatory diet, ICE, sit on bum and hope. I don't mind seeing Doc G but geeze, not surgery and amputation! Monday repeat, Tuesday hobble about with ice, Wednesday more of same...and be SO thankful the foot is close to normal size.

I knew you wanted the details first...now the foot which has been renamed Hobbit by the younger males.



The little black speck shows the very small space the beer bottle hit when it landed on my foot.



A very sweet friend in Oklahoma checked with me several times and worried over it. Thank you Joyce, it isn't even hardly green anymore.

Another friend very generously dropped something on her foot in solidarity and I think hers is hurt worse than mine. (((hugs)))

A precious friend in New York asked if the beer was OK. Yes, Terri, the beer survived, thanks for the concern. LOL, love Terri, you'd have to know her. 5 kids, pigs, gardening, moving all over the north east, it will give you a twisted sense of humor, bless her heart.

So, there you have it.

I think what really bothered me most about the whole thing was not being able to stand up long enough to shave my legs and thinking I might have to see another human that way. 'Did you see that fat lady's legs?' I could just hear it...

Well, now you know.

The Cat Days of Summer...

No AC.

I witnessed the destruction with my own eyes while starting out the window...the fallen wires whipped unabashedly by the fan blades of that giant thing outside, then no more blustery breeze blowing out the wonderful vents in the ceiling.

The slow melting heat overtakes and continues to overtake without mercy while I attempt to locate the AC Guy's phone number. Shaking hands hold the little phone and miracles are prayed for.

All I want to hear is the word 'TODAY'.

Not 'TRY for TODAY'. Not Tomorrow.

T.O.D.A.Y..



Even the fiercest among us is compelled to roll over and play dead.

And then I hear the melodious voice on the other ends ask: Today?

Ah, that would be awesome!

It may be 98* with a heat index of 101* but I am back to pretending it is chilly outdoors.

Denial, my August 'Happy Place' is once again a reality.

I hope your 'Happy Place' is on firm ground.

Melissa

Vintage Pink Cover Cook Book

The I Never Cooked Before Cook Book



It was 1963.

Modern was 'in'. Modern was NEW! Modern brought changes to the American way of life. And, along with The Sixties, LOTS of freedoms and, in the end...Lots of Men and Women were Single and Entertaining friends...

and a child or two.

Entertaining was to be Avant-Guard and Posh. And nothing like mom did it.

It was a time of change!

And a time when young (citified) ladies didn't always learn the homemaking arts from their mothers and grandmothers.

It also was a time when men were still very ignorant of kitchen skills and simply weren't expected to cook.

So it was the PERFECT time for Jo Coudert to write the book: The I Never Cooked Before Cook Book.

But wrap it in PINK?

What were the publishers thinking?

Perhaps it was a way to attract the ignorant but 'willing to learn male' while letting the female know she was on the right track.

Genius!



Sure seems right for today!

The cover shows sure sign of wear with a tear or two here and there.






The INSIDE is where the meat is...pun intended...lol.

And it should be given a place of honor at the kitchen desk or any place were curious minds will take notice, because it is just that captivating.

As with all Vintage books, the nips, tucks, tears and such are expected; all the signs of a well loved book.

But I love the way the copyrights are shown and the copyright statement is amusing as well.



Remember the old Mimeograph machines? How about tape recorders?

It's a trip back through the Old Days for sure.

And yet so relevant for today.



It's a keeper, for sure.
Enjoy!
Melissa