I'm droopy from heat and all, but no doubt about it, I'll be eating pretty good this week -- red sauce, meatballs, homemade turkey sausage (never ever ever will I buy chicken or turkey sausage again! Thanks Penzeys and KitchenAid!), pasta salad with homemade dressing, leafy greens ready to go into salad, roasted chicken breast. There's corn on the cob, ripe tomatoes, cukes, peppers....
I better go get washed down so I can enjoy my dinner!
Dept. of Justification Today I went and did the big grocery shopping so as to put right the huge vacuum in our refrigerator/freezer after the couple of days of no power. Nothing like a fresh start I always say! No no - that's not it. Just that nature abhors a vacuum and there was nothing to eat in the frig.
In an effort to justify having bought the food grinder attachment for my KitchenAid, I made sausage today. Yeah, it was like a gazillion degrees in the kitchen, so I worked fast and kept everything in the frig while not in use. And I cooked all the resulting sausage up right away. Froze some and kept some in the frig to put into sauce tomorrow.
Making sausage isn't for the squeemish just because you have to work with raw meat, but it's quite easy otherwise. My recipe came from the newly-arrived Penzeys catalog. Their recipe, which urged the reader to make creative changes called for duck breast. In my shopping adventures today I found a great deal on turkey breast, so that was decided right then and there. Some freshly ground meat, some spices and herbs, a little wine and bam - you have sausage.
Tomorrow sauce and meatballs to replenish the freezer.
You may not know this, but before I was a quilter, I was a calligrapher. I studied for several years with a professional calligrapher and did all sorts of certificates, signs, cards and framed pieces. So you can understand the pitter patting of my heart when a stray CNN link lead me to this. Whoa baby - upclose and personal with a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. Even though the book was, after all, the first undertaking in moveable type as illustrated here, the quality of the font used and of course the fine nature of the illuminations and rubrics just makes my heart sing.
So thank the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin for making the decision and using technology so all of US can enjoy this milestone in history.
Wow. I knew I was a small dot in the online world but I'm proud to be one of the 3 billion plus! Thanks Google for making me both findable and timely! Thanks Designweenie for bringing it to my attention.
We survived the strong winds and rain last night but were without power and may still be yet. I took my cues from the cats. They didn't seem concerned most of the time and when they were worried, I paid attention too. Lot of damage in the Nassau NY area including some structures damaged but towards home, some trees down, lots of branches and leaves and melting refrigerators. Whew. Quite a storm. So much lightning that it looked like daylight outside.
Little more progress here this weekend. I think the sheep are turning out pretty well. They can't be real black-faced sheep but this gives you an idea. And in the far green area you can see just a hint of the other shepherds waiting with Jacob at the well.
Rachel is starting to take form. Her head scarf wouldn't stay put (makes sense to me that it would be ok to wear it around your shoulders unless you need it around your head) and so her hair is more exposed than originally planned. I did get the area around the well into a little better shape.
Spent the night pulling and ripping fabric to start this. It's a little different now than what's here.
This is a background for a 22" square piece portraying Rachel of the Old Testament -- daughter of Laban, sister of Leah, wife of Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin.
Tonight I kept up trying to clear the decks for some larger projects that I am itching to get into. Last night I actually put away thread and stuff like that. Tonight I did my July Journal Quilt. My original plan was to change to a white background fabric in June but that didn't happen. I used a pale grey instead. Tonight I did it -- I used a plain white pima cotton for July. Hopefully I can stick with it and do the last two in white also. It's all about the quilting remember! So I'll use colorful threads in at least one of them.
Written at:
7/16/2003 01:19:00 AM
I'm really grateful for some of the mighty fine webpages I've found along the way. Antipixel is one of those, as exemplified by Jeremy's philosophies of life. One of those postings that make you want to sit down and scribble out your own list of things to do daily.
Many of the sites listed in the blogroll at left are good reads, some are sources of food ideas or photo treats but all have their own take on things and are worth knowing about. Life's too short for links not worth keeping an eye on.
What a sort-of productive weekend it was. It started on Friday night with a trip to Petsmart. I bought a cage. A big cage. Granted it is one of those cages (aka dog crates) that fold flat, but I needed help putting it in my cart and then the man took pity on me and put it into my car. At home, I got it out of my car but had to take it out of the box to get it upstairs. And upstairs it was going! I barely got it up there but I did it.
We've been having some cat altercations, mainly involving Boopsie and Sam, with some help from Mo'. On the advice of reading material provided by our vet and out of sheer desperation, we decided to do the crate route.
A little background material first. Boopsie came to us on her own volition but her mother was feral. She's pretty well adapted to life inside, mainly by getting adopted by our head honcho cat Bill. Lately though, Sam has been pestering her, probably just wanting to play. Boopsie's reaction is to run. Sam's reaction is "oh boy, she wants me to chase her!" Boopsie ends up cornered somewhere and won't come out for ANY reason. Considering that she could easily whap Sam upside the head anywhichway from Sunday, that's silly but that's the way things are.
So, new home inside a home for Boopsie and piece de resistance - collars with bells on them for Sam and Mo'. Whatever you might imagine, the cage is actually a great solution for Boopsie, who spent a lot of time in one place anyway. She's got all the comforts of live and none of the annoyances. Plus since she's in the bedroom, Ron and I visit her frequently. If you leave the door open, she still stays inside. She is eating and drinking more and must feel better just for that.
Meanwhile Sam and Mo' are adjusting to life with bells on. It's really true that cats don't much like being belled but the mere act of separating the problem children and belling the playful bullies has resulted in much peace here, just in two days. We hope that Boopsie will choose to come out on her own but in the meantime she's one relaxed cat.
On a quilting front, I finished off one little quilt that's getting fed ex'd tomorrow and which will be on tour for a few years. And I made the extra sleeve for the quilt that is trying to be sold, as well as spending the day doing the paperwork/contract stuff. What a time sink that is!
Now, just enough time to pull some fabrics for the next project.
Great words from Chris Coleman about tuning up your writing. But oh oh -- he doesn't like bullet points..... darn. Thanks to the English Community at Wytheville Community College in Virginia for the link. I have to say I like the concept of an English Community rather than an English Department, don't you?
If you're following the iSight with interest, please use this link for my reports on various softwares to use and links to other information. Updated from time to time, but it's a good resource for those wanting to explore other options. Got a great link? please email me.
I wanted to mention that from time to time I'll be using the iSight as my web cam (as is happening as I write this). Sometimes there's just no one to chat with, so I'm giving you web cam fans the advantage of the better optics.
Written at:
7/06/2003 10:03:00 AM
Made a rare saturday appearance at work today. Was pretty busy and everything went pretty well. Came home late. Read a little Harry Potter (yeah, pitifully slow aren't I???) and now I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I hope to do some serious catch up in a bunch of departments!
I had a great time in Vermont at the Vermont Quilt Festival.
My friends had, as promised, a cold martini waiting for me when I arrived Friday night
I had all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday to wallow in great quilts and amongst people who were mostly quilt-loving folks. Some were even fanatical.
I got to say "don't touch that!" to people who took me seriously. Seriously enough that I only had to say it once.
I got to eavesdrop on people who were looking at my quilt.
Sometimes I even butted into the conversations of people who were looking at my quilt.
Sometimes I even introduced myself as the quilt's maker.
I got to take lots of pictures of quilts
I got to buy lots and lots of fabric even though I already own lots and lots of fabric
I learned, second hand, that if you keep your lots and lots of fabric for a long time it depreciates to the point of nothing and so then when you use it, you're basically using free fabric
I got to eat food that someone else made and then give my dirty dishes to someone else who made sure they were clean for next time.
I talked to people about all sorts of things relating to the quilt world
I got reassurance that things go smoothly and not-so-smoothly for other quilt show bureaucrats and shows
I got to drive home on a beautiful summery day and enjoyed all the quilt stuff crammed into my tired head.
