Squish

It was suggested to me that perhaps I could get by with a post of squishiness.  I know Rachel will approve.

I promise a real post when my sinus infection has passed and I no longer feel like I have a vise* clamped around my head.  In the mean time, my children are far more entertaining.  Do feel free to click the pictures and increase the squishability**.

*Fascinating side note (to me, at least):  “vise” and “vice” are not interchangeable, and have two different meanings.  Naturally, I knew of the two different meanings, but I did not realize they had two different spellings.  Gotta love homophones.  (Yes, I am a grammar dork.)

**Definitely not a word.  But who doesn’t love a good neologism?

Darren decided to cover his ears…naturally Leah followed suit. Why do I bother?

I have no idea what my son is doing. But Leah looks cute.

Again, no idea what Darren is doing. He used to pose for pictures. Note the phrase, “used to.”

For some reason, this picture makes me think of the Sweedish Chef.

NaBloPoMo

National Blog Posting Month

I’m going to give this a try.  Because I do like blogging; I like writing.  I’m just crap at doing it regularly.

Though, honestly, I think I tried this once before and didn’t last more than a couple days.

Awwwww, crap.

I just realized today is November 2nd.  I’ve already failed. 

Can we just pretend that today is the 1st?  (How unethical would it be to change the post date on this?)

Jealous

I’m insanely jealous that I did not think of this first:

 

It’s like the perfect marriage of baking and crappy-but-catchy-early-90s-music.  You can bet your Bundt that I will be participating.

(And yes, the picture is clickable, so go check it out!  This sort of brilliance cannot be ignored!)

It’s Done! I Rock! Gold Star for Me!

Okay, it’s not completely done, but the top is, and I’m pretty darn proud of that.  Don’t look too closely, lest you see all the mistakes.  (Among other things, it doesn’t lay very flat, but I suspect that it’s minor enough that it will quilt out.  And please, if you’re a quilter, do not remind me that “it will quilt out” is among the lies that quilters tell themselves!)

Close up:

The Whole She-Bang:

Now, the real test…can it get it all hand-quilted by mid-February?  (Really, I’d like to have it done by Christmas, so I can give it to her/them at the shower…but I suspect that, unless I plan on many nights of staying up into the wee hours of the morning, this may be but a pipe dream.)

So how big of a mistake did a I make?

On a bit of a whim, I attempted to color my hair red…at home.

Bad idea.  If you’re thinking about it….don’t.

Went to the salon today to have a pro fix it…this is how it turned out.

What’s the verdict, my peeps?

(And yes, those are bi-focals.  I’ve had ‘em since I was 21.  You can mock all you want, but I love ‘em. )

Just Some Pictures

Some of you have probably seen the first one on my FaceBook, but I like how it turned out, so I’m posting it here, too.  There are so few pictures of me with the kids, and even fewer good ones!.

The last two I just took.  The kids were sitting nicely, side-by-side, on the step stool.  It seemed foolish not to embrace the photo-op.

Click on the pictures to see them bigger.  For some reason, WordPress is only letting me do the GalleryView today, and I’m too lazy to fight it.

For Debbie (again)

You’d swear that Debbie is the only reason I blog, wouldn’t you?

From America’s Best Lost Recipes (a book published by the same people who bring you America’s Test Kitchen, people who can do no culinary-wrong), I present to you:

Runzas

Dough:
3/4 c. warm water
1/2 . sweetened condensed milk
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. sugar
1 lg egg
3.5 c. flour
2 pkgs rapid-rise or instant yeast (you can use regular yeast, but it will take longer for the dough to rise; you’ll also need to proof it as with a traditional bread dough)
1 tsp salt

Filling:
3 tbsp. butter (2 tbsp. melted)
1.5 lbs ground beef
1 lg onion chopped fine
1/2 small head cabbage, cored and chopped (about 3 cups)
Salt and Pepper
8 slices American cheese (I prefer Swiss)

1.  For the Dough. Lightly grease a large bowl with cooking spray.  Mix the water, condense milk, oik, sugar, and egg in a large measuring cup.  Mix the flour, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook.  With the mixer on low, add the water mixture.  After the dough comes together, increase the speed to medium and mix until shiny and smooth, 4 to 6 minutes.  Turn the dough out onto a heavily floured work surface, shape into a ball, and place in the greased bowl.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.  (I made the dough by hand.  I did use more flour as a result.)

2.  For the Filling. Melt 1 tbsp of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the beef and cook until just beginning to brown, about 6 minutes, breaking up any large clumps.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the beef to a paper-towel-lined plate.

3.  Pour off all but 2 tbsp fat from the pan.  Add the onion and cook until softened, about 3 minutes.  Add the cabbage and toss until just beginning to wilt, 2 to 4 minutes.  Return the beef to the pan and season with salt and pepper.

4.  To Assemble and Bake. Adjust two oven racks to the upper-middle and lower0middle positions and heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Coat two baking sheets with cooking spray.  Divide the dough into eight equal wedges.  Working on a lightly floured surface, roll each piece of dough into a 7-inch wide circle.  Place one dough round in a deep cereal bowl and top with one slice of cheese.  Spoon 3/4 c filling over the cheese and pinch the edges of the dough together to form a bun.  Transfer the bun, seam-side down, to a prepared baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining dough, cheese, and filling, placing four buns on each sheet.  Cover buns with plastic wrap and let rise until puffed, about 20 minutes.

5.  Bake the buns until golden brown, about 20 minutes, switching and rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking time.  Brush the hots buns with the remaining melted butter and serve.

These freeze very well.

Grandma

This is a post that’s been sitting in draft form since April.  After chatting with  friends about my quilting history, I decided I should probably get around to posting it.  I don’t seem to have a picture of the quilt I’m talking about in this entry, but I’ll post one soon.  (It’s still in block form now, anyway, and not particularly exciting to look at.)

Anyway, The Post…. (Forgive the weird formatting…I’m not sure how it happened, nor am I sure how to fix it.  Mea culpa.)

 

In a past entry I mentioned that the quilt I’m making will likely be donated to a church bazaar (I think from April sometime, but I’m not finding the post now…you’ll just have to trust me that I mentioned it at some point).  I alluded to a story behind that, and I’d like to share it.  There will be quite a bit of sentimental, poetic waxing about my grandma in the story that follows, so bear with me (or skip it all together).

For as long as I remember, my grandma (Mom’s mom) made the quilt for St. Helena’s annual church bazaar.  (Yeah, St. Helena is one of those towns that has just one church.  But what a church.)  Well, Grandma, in conjunction with my mom, as well as some other ladies in the parish.  Grandma would embroider squares, Mom would sew them into a quilt top, and layer the backing, batting, and top, and pin baste it.  Then it was put on a giant saw-horse frame in Grandma’s basement, where ladies would pop in as they had time and work on quilting it.  Mom would then put the binding on it and finish it.

 

As Grandma got older and her eyesight got worse, Mom spent a good deal of time fixing her embroidery as well (secretly, of course).  Ever a spend-thrift (she was born in 1915, so she well remembered the depression), Grandma would use up tiny scraps of embroidery thread—even if that meant finishing off a leaf in lavender, instead of green.  Her stitches became larger and clumsier over the years, as well.  While Mom left as much of Grandma’s original handiwork as she could, many places had to be redone, simply to maintain the “structural” integrity of the embroidery, lest it all come out in the first laundering. 

 

Grandma’s last quilt was raffled off in July of 2007, four months after she died.  While Grandma did do the embroidery of the quilt blocks, she was unable to do much quilting of the quilt.  She had lost a lot of her hand control towards the end, and simply couldn’t do it.  I had just had Darren, and was on maternity leave, so my mom and I spent many mornings at my Grandma’s house, quilting.  Many mornings, we would help Grandma down the basement stairs, and she would sit and talk with us while we quilted.  Though it was never spoken, we all kinda knew that this was Grandma’s last quilt.  (Side note:  she was diagnoised with thyroid cancer about a month before she died.) She had mentioned in passing a couple of times that she wasn’t sure who would make the quilt tops after she was gone.  I had a quilt top that I had finished several years before, but had never gotten around to quilting.  I told Grandma one morning, if it was all right with her, I would like to donate the quilt top to the church for the following year’s raffle.  After she checked with Mom to make sure that my work was up to snuff, she seemed pleased to have one less thing to worry about. 

 

Grandma died on a Sunday morning.  Mom and I were nearly done quilting.  We had planned on going to church, then over to Grandma’s to finish the last of the quilting.  Just as we were leaving for church, we got a phone call that Grandma was at the hospital, not doing well.  My aunt, Judy, who was living Grandma, had been unable to wake her that morning.  Mom and I talked about it skipping church and going straight to the hospital, but knew that was not what Grandma would want.  We agreed that we would be doing her more good praying in church than standing in a hospital room full of sniffling relatives.  We planned to go straight to the hospital from mass.  When we got out of mass, we found Dad had left a note on the driver’s seat of Mom’s car; Grandma had died while we were in mass. 

 

We went to the hospital as planned and said our goodbyes.  Several of Mom’s siblings (she has 12 of them) stayed at the hospital.  Mom and I went back to Grandma’s house and finished the quilt. 

 

And that, dear reader, is the very bleak, convoluted story of how Mom and I came to “adopt” Grandma’s church.  Even though we’re not parishioners, we feel obligated to continue providing them with quilt tops to raffle off.  As planned, I donated my quilt top to be quilted by the church ladies and raffled off at the 2008 bazaar (ironically, my uncle won it).  Mom donated a quilt top she had made for this year’s bazaar (it was auctioned off in July).  And the quilt that I am working on now will likely be donated for the 2010 bazaar.

 

I appologize for a not-visually-entertaining post, but this one had been languishing in my drafts folder too long.  Grandma wasn’t a particularly….emotional person.  She never kissed anyone; if a grandkid offered her a kiss, she quickly turned her head to accept it on her cheek.  And there were a lot of us grandkids (I think 37 grandkids and 37 great-grandkids when she died), and I was smack in the middle, so I can’t say that I have too many personal, one-on-one memories of grandma.  I really can’t say that I was particularly close to her. So in some ways, it really surprised (and still surprises) me that I took her death so hard. 

 

Slightly random side story:  when Grandma died, I didn’t cry much initially.  A little bit at the hospital, yes, and a few tears fell on the quilt as Mom and I finished working on it that day.  But the tears didn’t start gushing until a couple days later, as we were going through her stuff.  Tucked in her closet were banners that she had painstakingly embroidered years ago for church for the Feast of Corpus Christi.  They were enormous, and all beautifully and intricately satin-stitched.  Mom had always told me that Grandma used to do beautiful work, but her eyesight had been failing for so long that I had only seen her mismatched, clumsy stitches.  Something about seeing those banners, all those small, delicate, tiny stitches, that beautiful handiwork…I completely broke down into a sobbing, blubbering mess.  I had to go into the other room.  Even now, typing this out, I’m getting a little choked up, thinking of those banners. 

 

Out of our whole family, Mom and I are really the only ones who sew.  I guess quilting/sewing/emboidery was the one thing I really shared with Grandma.  It makes me happy to know in someway I am able to carry on her legacy.

For Debbie

It kinda seems like I’m always posting for someone else, doesn’t it?  Well, it my sporatic blogging certainly won’t win any awards, but I think I’m okay with that.

For Debbie (and some of my other friends), here is one of the blocks from the quilt I am making my boss and his wife (she is pregnant, due in February).  I know it’s not exactly “baby” colors, but they don’t know yet what they’re having.  (And, honestly, I’m not super big on “baby” colors.  I want this to be a quilt that the kid can use for a good long time, so primary colors seemed like a better choice.)

I should probably explain the center “Huskers” square.  My boss’ wife is from Nebraska (as am I).  Naturally, she is a die-hard Nebraska fan.  My boss…um, not so much.  After threatening to make the kid an entire Husker quilt, I decided I had to at least throw in a little bit of Nebraska.  The novelty fabric I found was perfect.  I fussy-cut around one of the squares and was left with the perfect size block for the center.  (Clearly, meant to be!)

The rest of the blocks will look like this:

As for the pattern, it’s called “Variation on Ohio Star”…from a book that I am too lazy to get up and look at the title right now.  If you’re simply dying to know, leave a comment, and I’ll check when I’m feeling more ambitious.

I will admit to being incredibly nervous when I started this block.  The book gives you an actual-size drawing of the finished block.  And that’s the pattern.  I suppose it’s really not a big deal, but it wasn’t something I had ever done before.  You also had to add the seam allowances on.  AND, as if that wasn’t nerve wracking enough, I decided to change the pattern slightly.  Where the book seemed to think you should use a template for the one triangle piece, I could see how it would be infinitely easier to simply sew half-triangle squares.  At least in theory.  Sadly for me, this involved yet more math.  (And such a bizarre fraction, too!  You add 7/8″ to the desired finished block size. )  But I dilligently did the math (by hand!), desperately calling upon my memory of sixth grade and common denominators.  Needless to say, I was a little less than certain of myself.  Even if my math was right, I was dealing with some pretty small pieces.  I did a test block.  (A very ugly test block.)  I was thrilled to discover that the block went together lickety-split, just as it should.  Seams matched and everything!  Even the small pieces didn’t seem to pose any problems.

I’m not entirely certain how I’ll be connecting the finished blocks.  The tentative plan is to have four rows of four blocks (each block is 12″…I think), and each row separated by strips of red and white.  I do have some yellow fabric, too, that I would like to incorporate somehow, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

(Debbie, what do you think?)

For Rachel

 

Because I know she likes my kids almost as much as I do

In the above picture, believe it or not, the kids spontaneously decided to climb up into the chair and sit to watch TV together.  Ryan just happened to catch them doing it and managed to snap a picture.  The fact that it not only happened, but that Ryan was able to take a picture of it (and a good one!) amazes me.

And this may be the only good picture ever taken of me and the kids.  Minus the fact that The Squishie One decided to put her hand in her mouth.  We attempted to get another picture, minus the hand in her mouth, but apparently one picture is their limit.