much baking, Elsie

Another breakfast out on the deck Sunday (8/4) after the dog walk/bike ride…where I got a terrible phone call.  Willa (friend from Thursday quilting) had called me on Saturday to say that she thought Patsy’s (another friend from quilting and mother to Barrie, one of my knitting buddies) son had died.  Barrie called me Sunday morning to let me know yes…her brother had died.  He was only 44 years old and he and his wife were in New York at another fireman’s wedding (yes, Barrie’s brother is a fireman).  What an awful, awful thing to happen…and this was after last Thursday, when I got to Scrap Happy Quilters and found out that Loree (another friend) had been at SHQ for just a few minutes when she got a call that her brother-in-law had died  L.  I decided to start baking, thinking that it would be needed somewhere…I made a pan of triple chip bars:

 

then found a few of Jan’s crispy cookies in the freezer and baked those:

 

found another bag of peanut cookies in the freezer and baked those:

 

and mixed up a double run of those brownie/peanut butter cupcakes and baked those: 

 

 

While things were baking, I got white chocolate/oatmeal/craisen cookies mixed up and scooped out, but put that dough in the freezer until I found out what else was needed.  I also got a bag of shredded, cooked chicken out of the freezer and made up some chicken salad.  That took up most of the day…the rest of the day was spent reading and around 7 PM we headed over to Jan and Walt’s.  Jan made a birthday cake for me…her famous RUM cake…it was INCREDIBLE!!!!  We enjoyed rum cake with ice cream and visited for a bit before heading home and collapsing!

 

Monday morning (8/5) Michael left for golf and I did a bit of cleaning and made a ‘spanish coffee cake’ (an oldy but goody recipe from BG) and got ready for my guests to arrive at 9:30.  I had a group of ladies over for knitting/hand quilting/tatting, whatever!  Not everyone could come…but the 6 of us who were there had a really good time and EVERYONE loved the coffee cake.  I sat and read in the afternoon and finally finished LOVE SAVES THE DAY by GWEN COOPER.  I loved this book, just a really good read that you couldn’t wait to pick up again and find out what was happening.  Michael took a nap in the afternoon, and it seems someone else had the same idea:

 

 Michael and I headed out around 6 and dropped off chicken salad sandwiches and cookies and cupcakes for the fireman holding a vigil at Ben’s (the fallen firefighter) house, then picked up pizzas and headed home.  I got a bit organized for a few more things to bake Tuesday morning (the organizers want things dropped off at the church Tuesday morning) and did a bit of sewing in the evening before heading to bed.