Feb2

Early spring?

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Groundhog day Old Phil the groundhog, up in Punxsutawney, PA didn’t see his shadow, so that may mean we have an early spring this year. With the rate we are going, it seems we are just ‘catching up’ to winter. Next week is suppose to be a doozie-arctic cold.

I’ve been a bit blue because of an accident that happened last Friday. A young lady named Blair, barely 20 yrs old was killed in a car accident on the next road down, one of the roads we all travel all the time. We know her boyfriend from church. Blair was in the class under Sean and he really didn’t know her. Her parents wrote a lovely statement in her obituary. I couldn’t get over it-so heartfelt and an everlasting tribute to Blair.

I knew Barbaro the race horse would be all over the local papers. There are some great stories about him.

I want to thank all you bloggie people who are stopping by here. I hope you come back again. I’m glad you like my music too. That is a fun music site and I recommend it. I’ll be changing the jaunty tune soon, but it seemed perfect to pep us up from this blah weather.

I need to go shopping or something. I failed miserably in the bread baking department yesterday. I tried a recipe and the bread didn’t rise. I used all purpose flour and even warmed up the milk and butter a little-not too much. Maybe my yeast was too cold-it had been in the frig. It needs to ‘wake up’ first I guess.

Have a great weekend!

Jan31

Sharing heARTS

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Inspired by Pea/Carole (over on the side bar)  and Sandy I decided to join the Valentine’s Day giveaway contest that so many artsy bloggers are participating in. I found this cute little accordian-pleated ‘brag book’ (about 4″ x 7″ with 12 sides) and a little porcelain angel as my giveaway. I made a new cover for the book using nice paper and stickers. There is a pink ribbon with some charms strung through the side there-that will be your surprise! I will also burn you a CD of a variety of my collages that you can make into cards or use as computer wallpaper. I’ll share my Valentine’s Day one tomorrow. The Harrison Ford design is a collage. So here’s what you do-I hope to get more than 3 comments-say something sweet-with Valentine’s Day in mind in my comments. I’ll give you until midnight SUNDAY (changed in hopes that more people will sign  my comments) and announce the winner Monday morning. You have to of course feel comfortable giving me your address. That’s it! Good luck!
Your goodies if you win!

Jan31

Want some?

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Excuse my paper plate…
Just like what my grandmom use to make-creamed dried beef. I think most people know what it is-dried beef cooked in butter and then doused with flour-you make like a roux. Finally the milk is added. Serve it over toast with lots of pepper. My choice of beverage-root beer! It’s a Pennsylvania treat for sure. Others-scrapple-made out of weird piggy or turkey’leftovers’, and I did eat it down the shore; cornmeal mush which is only sold in the winter in these parts and something Lee over at Lake Stitcher brought up-Taylor’s Pork roll. Such diet defying foods. What I made for Sean and me-the creamed dried beef had a bit of butter, but I used wheat bread and low fat milk.
The bread maker machine is on! It works-so far. I’m making Italian herb bread from a mix. It looks like it is rising pretty good. : )

Creamed dried beef

Here’s the bread! It rose pretty well and had partial collapse of the top when it was baking. Sean couldn’t wait to dive in  and it’s really good!

We have bread!

Jan31

Second Harvest Helper

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Contributors to Barilla Cookbook
Barilla pasta has a free ‘celebrity pasta lover’ cookbook available free here.

Kristin Davis, one of the contributors was on The Conan O’Brien show talking about it. I am printing it out-34 pages-some color intensive. When a cookbook has a Harrison Ford recipe, well I have to have it too!

The good thing about downloading this cookbook is that Barilla will donate $1 to Second Harvest to help the 38 million people (almost half are children) who don’t get enough to eat each day.

It’s a sunny but cold day here. Sean will be home soon and I will hear some complaining about Trig. He’s never had it before and is getting stuck on some problems. I hope he asked the teacher or his cousin Sierra (who is in his class) for help. He has a ‘math brain’, so hopefully he’ll catch on soon.

Jan30

Dusting off old appliances

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Bread machineBarbara over at ‘Mainly Stitching’ inspired me to locate my breadmaking machine when she displayed a photo of a freshly baked loaf of goodness. I haven’t used it in ages and it looks it. So nasty inside. That is entirely not like me to put something away without making sure it was clean. I probably stuck in the basement because I needed counter space and then forgot about it-opps. Today at the store I bought two boxes of the bread mix. I sure hope the machine works. I think it’s about 14 yrs old maybe? Did you have one? I’ll let you know.

What else do I have that I have used for a while? A pasta machine (pasta is so darn cheap to buy made already, but what a cop out not to use it once in a while) . We have a smoothie maker, which we have used this past summer. I have the panini maker which I have used only a couple of times. I did find a grocery store that sells the bread, but I know what you are thinking-make the bread! ; )

On the Rachael Ray show one of ‘her regulars’ investigates websites. I really liked this one-Buzzwhack. Remember Rich Hall who use to be on Saturday Night Live in the early 80s who did the Sniglets? Well these remind me of those silly things.
Sniglet example

i.e. regurgimailer: Friends and colleagues who forward everything that lands in their inboxes to everyone they know without checking to see if it’s true or even new. “My brother is the ultimate regurgimailer. He’s always sending urban legends that are at least five years old.”

Jan29

In memory of Barbaro

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3.5 year old Barbaro was euthanized today. What a gallant struggle.

Barbaro won four of his five career starts and over $1m in prize money.
He first caught the public imagination by winning the Kentucky Derby by nearly seven lengths – the biggest margin in 60 years.

When he broke his leg two weeks later, more than $1m was raised for a fund in his honor to help other animals/horses with similar injuries that he had. Christmas songs were written about him.

Here’s a timeline of what Barbaro went throught these last 8.5 months at the New Bolton Center.

A true fighter!

…Barbaro no longer is bearing weight on the right hind leg he shattered eight months ago in the Preakness Stakes after undergoing surgery Saturday to place two steel pins through a bone. The biggest fear is that the bone bearing the weight — the cannon bone — can break. From NBC 10 news

Barbaro has taken up residence a few miles from here where he still struggles to survive. When he first was brought to the animal hospital near Kennett Square, Sean and I drove by to see the signs left on the outside fence of encouragement, etc. I bet they are still there. That horse is surely loved around the world.

Jan29

Homemade-but semi that is

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I wanted to mention the cookbook I used yesterday-by Better Homes and Gardens-Homemade in No Time-400 great-tasting recipes from convenience foods. (The above link takes you to Amazon where you can get the cookbook for as low as $3.00! )Does that remind you of a pretty host on Food Network at all? Ms. Sandra Lee maybe? I watch Sandra all the time, but am concerned that some of the ‘convenient’ foods she uses have too much salt or other nasties in them. The cookbook I used has a ‘pantry’ checklist and most are pretty common items that make sense like canned tomatoes, tuna, Worchestershire sauce, you get the idea. One recipe, i.e. Fiesta Burgers used half a bottle of salsa and 1/3 cup mayo or sour cream-you can get the light versions.

Off to the dentist late this afternoon for my new crown.

Update-no new crown-the dentist’s office reception kept leaving messages on the voice mail and nothing came up on our answering machine. I have to wait until next Tuesday!

It’s a cold one out there, so better bundle up. We got a little snow, but it’s mainly on the ground. It always seems to happen on Sunday nights lately.

Jan28

Trying Foxfire

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Because I heard it was good and didn’t crash a lot. I wanted to see if it was infact better than Internet Explorer. I have a good pal Carole over at Pea’s Corner (see sidebar). Most times I look at her site, I get an error message and get knocked off.  Foxfire kicked me off too! Can you see if you can look at it? Especially if your computer is over 3 years old? Plez? And if you have any idea what’s going on with why I am getting dumped, do tell! She says only me and another lady have this problem unfortunately. It’s so frustrating.

Zoey-the lettering in comments are piddly little I know. I think it’s part of this particular template which I like.

An-I am doing better today. Thanks for asking. I made homemade soup, I was telling Barbara about it-with chicken, carrots, white beans, tomatoes and pasta-so good! I’ll tell you about the cookbook tomorrow.

Guess I’ll scoot off here and do a little stitching.