Remembering........

The past year or so has been a whirlwind so to speak and I've hardly came by here. Actually, I come by here a lot, it's just that when I get here, I'm called away. I've always said that the phone, doorbell, and children's voices are linked to the power button on my computer. As soon as I click that button, I'm immediately called away by someone or something or another. But, isn't that the way it goes for any mom? It's ok, this time is fleeting and I'm trying to do my best in these times.

My little Roly Poly girl has been feeling very sad lately. She cries when she sees a picture of a gray horse. She remembers my Dusty quite well. Her sadness got me to thinking, to remembering.

Dusty was my friend of 25 years that passed away under an oak tree on May 4th of last year. He trotted, galloped, jumped, and honestly, shyed at every object I can think of over the years. He once ate a Whopper (burger) by accident when I dropped it and wasn't quick enough. He was known to gulp down Dr. Pepper or any other beverage you offered to him. You know what? Arabians really can drink from a tea cup like the old legends say....or at least Dusty could. He could count his age with his hoof (even if he eternally thought he was seven years old), eat mulberries from the tree limbs, crack and swallow pecans, jump in a river, cross a creek, shake his head, and dance. Yes, he could dance. He only danced when he was scared or nervous. I always made sure I didn't see him dance on purpose.

He loved me when my heart was shattered at the loss of some loved ones. He made me laugh and he was loyal. ......... (Alright, he was loyal to anyone that fed him), but he and I shared a friendship. He knew I loved him. I didn't make him relieve his past of getting beaten or kicked, or bitten. He knew he was safe with me, with us. I'm so glad that "O.J." caught my mother's eye across the road from our front porch, out in that pasture. I'm glad I was able to make his life a little nicer.

Roly Poly girl misses the only horse that ever paid her attention and carefully watched out for her feet while he sniffed at her pockets for a treat. We have our memories and they live on....

I wanted to share something special with you. Something about Dusty. Not many people can say that someone wrote a song about their beloved pet, but I can. Thank you Gray Lee (and A.D. for remembering) and for finding the right words.

Track #2 is a song about Dusty, a Song For A Horse...........

SCTEam on Etsy is Hosting a Spring Giveaway!

It's a scavenger hunt of sorts so be sure to click on over to SCTeam's blog for all the details on how you can participate. There are some great prizes to be won! The promotion begins on April first through April 4th so be sure to get your name in the running....hurry, hurry, don't wait, click here for full details!!

Sewing Daleks, Melvin's makeover, and a yarn obsession....

I'm back! Can you believe it? Live has been too busy or so it has seemed to me. Isn't always busy? I'm beginning to think I have too many pokers in the fire, so to speak!

Everything has been a whirlwind since Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, I made quite a bit of handmade goodies over the past couple of months. I tried to make as many Christmas gifts for my side of the family as possible (because they just eat up that sort of thing) and a few things on my hubby's side too. I think, if I remember correctly (and that is a big, "think") the total of handmade items was the following: a quilt for my mother, a quilt for Scott (unfortunately, it still isn't finished- argh), an insulated lunch bag for my sister, and some tapestry purses/totes for my two sister-in-laws and my niece. Everybody else got store bought or gift cards. I did give my other sister a disk of my favorite knitted hat pattern and the circular needles to complete it with (I think that counts as handmade- well, urrrr, sort of).

Speaking of knitting, I have become obsessed. I am still a beginner, (well, maybe an advanced beginner) and I do have a couple of hats under my belt at this point. Add a few scarves to that total too. I started trying to teach myself over a year ago and I guess I've done pretty well up until this point. I'm thankful there are tons of helpful videos out there in cyber world that help when I'm totally lost on a project! I have a few books that have helped too.

I'm constantly finding myself waiting anxiously for those 40% off one item coupons that Hobby Lobby puts out sometimes. Hey, those things can take a bite out of the price of a skein of yarn people. Take a kiddo with you and they can use a coupon too. (That's my little secret to economizing....)

We've had plenty of "knitting" weather too. Our little area of the south recently got 8 inches of fluffy, white stuff. Believe me, it was probably the most exciting event our area will have witnessed for quite sometime. The roads were sheets of ice for almost a week. Four wheelers raced up and down our highway at nighttime (which was a little irritating), schools were canceled, and of all things, I needed to go to the grocery store about 4 days into the icy lock down- geesh. We made it through though.....

During the storm, our tree dude, Melvin, got a makeover courtesy of yours truly.

Our white stuff is gone and we are cautiously awaiting another round of white stuff. After all, it's only January- eeeek!

I had a customer that had asked if I could make a fabric bunny. I tried 4 different times to get the head right and this little guy is the result (the last try too- I'm giving up!!). My son's friend named him Boozle. Boozle is a gender neutral name, I think, so if someone buys him (or her), they will be happy to decide if this particular bunny is a he or a she. Boozle will soon be for sale in the South Carolina Etsy Street Team shop. You can click on over if you want to see if he (or she) has arrived yet.


Remember the title of this post? I mentioned sewing Daleks. I'm not going into a long spill about it, but Daleks are bad guys on the longest running science fiction show, Dr. Who. My husband (and several of the kids) are obsessed with anything Dr. Who. I started Scott a quilt a long time ago and I tried (I really, really, really did try) to get the quilt done before Christmas. I didn't make it but at least a nice looking Dalek was the result.


This is the Tardis panel (what Dr. Who travels in) and the finished Dalek panel. The fabrics shown in the photo are so perfect in matching how the show begins. I bought them a long time ago when our local Walmart closed it's fabric department and had everything 50% off. They have been waiting patiently in my fabric stash up until the day I pulled them out and got to work.


This quilt is the one I finished for my mother. I didn't get to machine quilt it quite like I had wanted (I did the bare minimum) but my mother loved it anyway so it was worth it.




This is my latest little project that takes up all of my extra time. I bought a sock knitting book (Knitting Socks by Ann Budd). I don't know how I've managed to get as far as I have and I wonder if I will ever get a second, matching sock done but I'm going forward with it.


This is my yarn that I chose (Hobby Lobby- 40% off!!) It is a wool, mohair mix and the color changes gradually to a grayish blue to a deep blue so it is interesting. All I can say, is I'm going to have some strange looking knitted socks. (That is if I ever finish the first one and make a second one!)


I found this really neat pattern on how to knit fingerless gloves. It is wonderful because it has step by step with pictures! You can find the pattern on instructables.com. It's the "How to knit close fitting fingerless gloves" pattern.
I knitted mine out of some (very hairy) yarn that my sister brought back from Scotland. I love them and they were a good beginning project for me. I'm planning on making more in the future.

I'm hoping to start back having some tutorials for all sorts of projects soon, so be sure to check back with me.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from my house to yours. May you know the real reason for the season and keep Him in your heart.

Have you ever had "one of those days?"

"Huh?"

You know those days. The ones when everything is weird, backwards, and just didn't come out anywhere near how you thought it would? I'm proud to say that I'm old enough...er...wise enough to take life's punches.

It doesn't matter that when the wind blew, the power line that hooks to the house melted and caused power surges all over the house. (Yes, the Wii did survive-the kids are now dealing with their post traumatic stress syndrome over it all.) I was even able to handle waking up at 5am to the sound of the fish aquarium's pump starting up, ........over, and over, and over again because of the power surges. Yes, I did not bite my nails when I had to wait patiently in the dark for daybreak to finally come so I wouldn't be so scared if the house did catch on fire and we all had to run outside. Thankfully, that little scenario never came to life.

Thankfully, (and I vowed 6 years ago that I would never say this after being powerless for almost 2 weeks during a freak ice storm), our power company came to the rescue fairly quickly and solved the problem. The nice technician even disconnected the "juice" to the pole in the vacant lot next door. We had been worrying about that line falling down for a long time.... simple blessings...

Anyway, I guess we have a lot to be thankful for. Never mind that we didn't get the first thing done in school today- the kids didn't mind at all. I even had to run to the next town in the van (which, upon my late, and unfortunate discovery, was almost out of gas and the van didn't like the fact that it was almost out of gas.

Never mind that the roofers came unannounced to inspect the roof (Oh, please, oh please roofer man, don't ask to come in for some reason! After a day of hardly using power, nothing has gotten done and I'd be mighty embarrassed if someone seen the state of my house!)

I'm OK, really. I am. Like I said, I'm older, wiser, and I like to kid myself. I'll probably panic later. For now, I'm blogging (and still hoping the roofer guy doesn't need to come in). Afterall, I only get a free moment here and there. I'm taking advantage of the "there" right here and now.

Somebody else had a bad day too.....

I found this interesting photo on my camera today. Apparently, it's really a big deal when your army jeep crashes into the Lego sea and actually burns underwater.

You just gotta love those Lego games! You should see the time and thought put into creating scenes of mass destruction like the one above. Go Cart Boy puts most of these together. I don't think that kids can ever laugh as much as Go Cart Boy and his older sister do when they are creating Lego chaos....

Even though my day was weird and went totally haywire, at least I can say that my couch isn't haunted.....er...uh....smoking?....uh... covered in spider webs?? After all, I could be like this poor guy that lost his jeep and couch in the same day to unfortunate circumstances.

At least, I can smile and know that tomorrow is another day......

The Cheapest Halloween Ever , Spools, Cupcakes, and My Excuse

Yeah, I'm making excuses. I have neglected my poor blog for sometime. (Wow, the entire month of October in fact!) Anyway, my excuse is that I've had other things keeping me too busy to type, type, type. Mommy, wife, and responsible citizen issues. Actually, at this moment, I need to be getting ready to go to the grocery store but I wanted to visit the blog world at least for a few minutes today.

"Spools"

It takes time to resize photos so this is all I had done at this time-sorry. These spools are a collection that I have, that is actually for sale in my Etsy shop, Minnie Maes. There are 16 plastic spools for $1.00 plus shipping. Yes, people do buy empty spools. I have successfully sold all of the spools I have had in the past. There are people out there that make creative things out of spools. I don't. I'm just not that creative I guess. Anyway, the point is, I have these spools for sale so if you need them, grab them up while you can!


For this past Halloween I had to make my kids some costumes. I got all of my stuff out to get started and found that Roly Poly Girl had decorated my pin cushion.

Captain Jack and Link battle it out.....

I did a lot of thrift store shopping to find this and that for the kid's costumes and things turned out pretty good if you ask me.

This was the cheapest I've ever came out on Halloween costumes. Here is the breakdown of the two costumes pictured above:

Pirate Costume: Grand Total: $7.50
Pants- $1.00- actually a pair of men's extra large sweat pants that I sewed the waste up enough to fit my skinny son. It was on a clearance rack at Goodwill.
Shirt- $0.00- Old tee shirt we had on hand
Pirate Shirt- Goodwill find- $3.50
Bandanna- $0.00- Had on hand

Boots- $3.00 (I guess) Actually I found an old faux couch cover at Miracle Hill for $6.00- I made two pairs of boots between the two kids so if I divided the cost, it would be $3.00 each. I still have plenty of this material left for other things too!

Don't ask how I did the boots- it was hard and I will probably never be able to duplicate it again. There is a pair of sandals inside them in case you are wondering.

Link (you know, from The Legend of Zelda Video Game and Cartoon series): Grand Total: $7.50

Hat- $1.50 hospital smock from Miracle Hill- I simply cute two triangles and sewed them together.
Green Tunic- $1.00 hospital smock- was on the clearance rack at Miracle Hill- I just tucked the sleeves inside and tacked them so they wouldn't fall down.
White undershirt- $0.00 had on hand
Belt- $1.00 found at Miracle Hill
Pants- $1.00 on clearance rack at Miracle Hill
Boots- $3.00 (see above description on pirate costume)
Sword- $0.00- had on hand- (Thank you Go-Cart Boy)
Gloves- $2.00 fabric in remnant bin at Hobby Lobby

Not pictured was the makings for a fairy princess and an army guy. The fairy princess: $9.50
Army Guy: $3.00

That made the grand total for all 4 costumes: $27.50! Not too bad in my book... Now, if I could only come out that cheap next year.....



I made some cupcakes for the church festival. I got the idea for these out of a Family Fun magazine. You can find the recipe for these over at the Family Fun Website. Mine are certainly not as pretty as there's were, but I think they turned out cute anyway.


Sometimes I can turn my camera on and find strange photos that two of the kids "secretly" take when I'm not looking. Based on the feet in this photo, I think I know who the culprit is this time.... Roly Poly Girl.

And last, but not least, I've been sewing up some tapestry tote bags for my Etsy Shop. This is one of the cutest ones so far. It's reversible and has a totally different snowman on the inside. You can see all of these new totes at Minnie Maes.

Well, that's it for now- I promise I'll try not to wait so long before I post again- that's the plan anyway ;)

Mystery Squash Pie

Remember that squash that Uncle Bubba sent us the other day?

I had a plan.....

Roly Poly Girl helped me carry out my plan..... She scooped the "guts" out of the squash and we got it ready for the oven.

Here it is in the oven. I baked it at 350 degrees for an unknown amount of time- sorry, I didn't look at the clock- just went by smell to know when it was done.

We got all of these seeds out of the squash so while it was cooking, we laid these little guys out to dry. We are saving them for Uncle Bubba to plant next year. At this point I wasn't sure if having these squash in the garden was worthwhile but I soon found out that it was.

This particular squash tastes just like pumpkin when it's prepared in a pumpkin pie recipe. I didn't even put a crust in because I was that unsure if it would turn out a disaster or not. (After all, pie crusts make me nervous and I didn't want to waste the time and effort to create one from scratch if the pie might turn out "yucky")

The verdict- It turned out tasting and smelling just like a pumpkin pie. It is a strange color for one thing. The pumpkin, when done roasting in the oven, turned out a white color. I knew that the kids wouldn't eat a "white" pumpkin pie so I added brown sugar to the pie mixture for some color. It worked. One of the kids didn't even realize I had a "pumpkin" in the house to even make a pie from!

So, it turned out pretty yummy. I told the kids not to eat the last two pieces because we were saving those for Uncle Bubba- afterall, I'm sure he will want to know how his squash turned out.

Later that day, I made a jar of lacto-fermented sauerkraut. I used a combination of 2 recipes. One from the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook by Sally Fallon and the other that you can find here. I had some left over that wasn't going to fit into the jar so I just added some mayonnaise and, the three of us that like "slaw", had a treat.



....and last on the food agenda of the day, my in-laws blessed me with a bag of pears. I have no idea what to do with them but I'll have to do something with them soon.....Any ideas?

Corn Worms, Compost, and Curtains (Not necessarily in that order)...

I've felt kind of mischievous lately. It might come from the wonderful invention called, "vitamins" or something. Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm just glad to be feeling better lately.

I've even gotten the gardening bug. Well, uhm, I guess you could call it, the "next year" gardening bug. Remember that cold frame experiment from yesteryear? I figured one of those old, wooden frames might have another year or two of life in them- a new life so to speak. No one ever goes behind the playhouse in the backyard so, I figured starting a compost pile at the house would be a good venture. It would be out of the way. One of those old cold frames would make a good housing for some rotting good stuff.

Last time, I filled a 5 gallon bucket with scraps and about once a week or so, I took that bucket to Uncle Bubba's farm to join his compost. Now, I'll be able to make my own. My goal is to make enough good stuff to plant my seedlings in next year. With that being said, I'm planning to garden next year. Having not really "gardened" to any large scale this year, I realized that gardening makes me happy. Hey, you just gotta' go with what makes you happy sometimes. It took shucking some corn to make me realize that....but that story is to come....


Here is the beginning of my compost pile. It already has 2 spent heads of lettuce, several apple cores (and a few peelings), the watermelon that was cracked (and we didn't realize it until it was too late), some cucumber peelings, the leftover organic dirt from my cucumber plants, some leaves, and of course, all of the corn shuckings and cobs that you see in the photo.

Where did the corn come from? Uncle Bubba. He gardened pretty big this year even if he got started a little late.


Scott and Go-Cart Boy brought these ears home the other day. We had no idea what condition (or stage for that matter) that the ears were in since the crop had been ready for many days.

"Hey, what are you lookin' at?"

I guess you can figure that my insect loving daughter had a ball finding all of the corn worms. (This corn was totally organic- nothing was sprayed on it so it was bound to have some critters in it).

"This acorn smells like corn"

I've never liked the wiggly critters. Even when I was younger, I always passed the "wormy" corn to my Daddy. (Let me rephrase that- scream and throw the corn down on the ground). He would just reach down, and flick them off and break off the "eaten" pieces. It would gross me out a bit. Have you ever come across "wormy" corn? If you have, you understand how gross it can be. Well, with age comes wisdom. I can now "flick" corn worms and break off the "eaten" parts of a corn cob. Roly Poly girl had no problem with it at all from the start. She didn't get that from me!


This is what we ended up with. The two dark orange cobs were already dried out! In case you were wondering, this corn was an open pollinated variety (heirloom) called "Bloody Butcher". It's an all purpose corn good for roasting, animal feed, and grinding (think grits). Uncle Bubba is going to let a lot of it dry out so we might have a "grits" making post one of these days. I'll have to read up on that before we attempt it though....


Roly Poly Girl found one tiny, little ear. She squeeled, "BABY CORN!!!" and took off for the house to tell her "baby corn" eating brother about it. They actually washed it and halved it. I didn't ask them how it was.

Scott brought some other goodies home too. The yellow guys are some type of Asian melon that taste like cantaloupes. The big squash, we have yet to slice and cook. I hope it tastes like pumpkin. I love pumpkin....mmmmmm

Oh, what did we do with the corn? Since a lot of it was a various stages and it was actually showing it's, "Blood Butcher" hues, I creamed it. I had no idea what I was doing so you can figure that I made a complete mess of my kitchen. (Hence the absence of a creamed corn tutorial) The good news is that everything turned out alright and I ended up with enough for 3 quart freezer bags (and I didn't scorch any of it!!). I'm going to give Uncle Bubba some since he grew the corn in the first place.


The last item on my title says, "curtains" The curtains in question have nothing to do with corn or compost but it was a major event at my house this week. I had seen these curtains at a local home improvement store but shuddered at paying the price they had marked for them. Walking away from the curtain display was a simple thing to do since I'm somewhat frugal at heart. Speaking of being frugal, I went to a thrift store over the weekend and what to my surprise did I find (brand new and still in the original packages)? You guessed it, the very curtains I had sighed and walked away from at the home improvement store. They were more than 80% cheaper (did I mention, brand new and still in the package?!!) Needless to say, my girls have the "girly" curtains that I wanted and they love them. All it took was a quick run under the iron and they were ready to go. I love it when things work out like that... God is good.