Randomness

Before I even go any further yall have to check out these plates!! I found this magazine that I totally love. Southern woman or something like that. These plates were on the first page! I cant seem to find them in a store but I will. Oh yes I will! The past few days have just been filled with randomness. I have strayed from making my lists. It shows belive me. I get to the end of the day and really havent accomplished anything. Just a bunch of littleness. I have a friend who is a list maker extroardinare. She color codes and makes them all pretty. At the top she writes one thing she doesnt want to do the most. She calls that eating her frog. Seriously. Eating her frog.........

She says that if she eats her frog right away then the other things fall into place. So today I decided to eat my frog. Right away I cleaned my bathroom and bedroom. I did NOT want to so this. WOW! After that I finished a customer quilt,worked on two WIPs, and loaded the mamoth bargello onto Gracie. I am almost ashamed to admit I havent quilted that thing yet.I even started a fun market bag that I am excited to finish tomorrow.

I must say eating your frog right away really works! Tomorrow I have errands to run(my frog again) and then home to play some more. So what frogs do you have to eat?

Baking day!

I wanted to sew today. BUT life had other plans for me. Good friends of ours here are farmers. They grow different things each year but this year its Flax and Wheat...I have had quite an education on farming since we have moved here and I have a HUGE appreciation that I did not have before.

This year has been a real bad year for the farmers. It has rained a LOT at night. While us homeowners have thought we were blessed this is not the case for our growers. The wheat and flax they need to harvest is not dried out enough by morning. These poor farmers are behind this year by atleast two weeks. I suppose it does not affect all the farmers the same as they grow different things but for the people I know they are hurting.

I woke up this morning ready to sew sew sew. Then I looked out the window and saw the rain. I knew that meant another day at home and another day behind. So knowing that it was not possible for me to go out and pick flax by hand I decided to bake something for my friend. He loves apple pie. Personally I hate apple pie but oh well. So I got busy.

If yall have never checked out the pioneer woman and her recipies you need to fix that and go STRAIGHT there! She has this apple pie that just looked amazing. Complete with a crumble caramel topping. Since I am not a lover of two crust pies I decided to go with that one.
I was out of caramel though so found a quick recipie online to make it. Boil a can of sweet condensed milk for about 2 to 2.5 hours. Keep it covered in water though or you could have it exploding on you.

I followed the recipie and boy did they look pretty.

Not pretty enough. So I decided they needed a touch of fall. I carefully molded little leafs,acorns, and pumpkins out of left over dough.....

NOT!!!! I used cutters from Williams Sonoma ( I looooooooooooooove WS)

When everthing was all baked I was very happy with the results! My friends were happy with their pie too.Ü. If I cheered them up just a little then it was worth giving up a sewing day. I made extra so WH and the kiddos could try it too.

My Journey Back

back into the sewing studio involved a little more shopping then sewing! I needed just a couple things for the project I was starting.

One trip the the local QS then JoAnnes for supplies and I walked away with patterns! I justified these at the time because I always NEED a new apron. I also need a couple new bags for our cruise....... Yeah I may have forgotten to metion the cruise..On one of my little meltdowns last month I booked us for a cruise. Southern Carribean. It was a MAJOR meltdown. I get dangerous during those. Thankfully WH is extremely easy going. I kinda didnt tell him until afterit was booked....Hehehe Ooops!

Well of course I saw the fancy schmancy new materials in for the holidays. Then that resulted in a trip back to the pattern table. Sigh. I know you see where this is going. I am spinning out of control and just couldnt help myself.....I love the red one.Ü

Bel went along for the ride. She was no help what so ever. In fact she all but took my credit card out of my purse and onto the counter! Yeah thats what happened.

Doesnt she look guilty?

I HAVE to share this website with you! Mila's Daydreams

This made me smile. I really think this is going to be my happy website!

We Interrupt

The craftiness going on for this very important YAY!!!!Bell could not contain her excitement Ü.... Ok now back to work......

Hey Crazy Lady!!!

I have taken on two new projects.

When I made my Dear Jane it became apparant that Skater boy was the most interested in it out of all my kids. He in fact is the one that came up with the name "I Love You Turtles", after a game we would play together. So I decided that when he marries it will be his.

Hmmm what do you do for your other children. Well I found the perfect quilt to start for Little A. The Farmers Wife. It is such an interesting read. What a great concept this lady had for designing a quilt. I havent started it yet but the book is in and I am getting ready too! I also ran across this in TN. I SWORE and I mean SWORE that I would never ever in a million years do another wedding ring. The first one I did was painful. I have jokingly told others it was worse then giving birth. I do still stick by that BUT......... I for some odd reason could not pass this up! Yes I may have lost my mind. That is still not clear.

Today was the first day in two months that I spent all day in the studio. OMG I have missed it sooooooooooooo much! I was so twitterpated to have a summer. I still dont regret taking advantage of the sun. But wow I missed Gracie and my fabric! I got 2.5 customer quilts done, an apron cut out, and a whole heck of a lot of playing! In the words of my Jan "GO ME!!!!"

BTW Thank you for being my friends and hanging in their with me!

Tennessee

So I havent really made a secret that this has been a rough summer on our family. I kind of just crawled into a cave and have been having a hard time coming out of it. I have been dwelling on all of it and thinking poor poor me. Its easy to dwell isnt it.... Well I had a real wake up call.

I have talked before about my girlfriends back in Alaska. My Martini girls. When we moved two of the 4 also moved. One here as our hubby's work together and one to TN, to join her parents. We left one behind..Leaving her and My Jody Bob was sooooo hard! These girls are my sisters. They have helped me through so much. M (I wont use her full name here) who moved to TN with her family is very very special to me. She was our little Martha Stewart. A sweetheart through and through. 2 weeks ago her baby brother died unexpectedly and through everyone for a tail spin. They were so close.She, her hubby,kids, and her parents are just so heartbroken.

WH and I didnt even have to think.Along with my other Martini buddy we loaded up the camper and took off. I am so happy we did. All of my problems which are still there are so dealable. So incignificant compared to what they are going through. How sad and broken they are. Yet how strong and beautiful.They are coping the best they can. We cried a lot, got mad a lot, and still we tried to remember the good things we remembered about him. There were so many good memories. Having to leave to come back home was not easy and it came way too fast. We have already made plans to meet up again.


Bel is a traveling dog!

This wonderful store was just down the street from M's.

I have fallen in love with Tennessee.

My beautiful Martini buddies (minus 1) and our newest member Ms mom.

I am so thankful to have them in my life. I can only hope that they found some comfort from our visit. It helped me so much to put my life back in perspective and remember that its not all about me. I love these ladies.