Monday morning (7/28) Jan and I were off early to Gastonia….we hit Mary Jo’s first (Jan needed backing for a quilt) then it was off to SEW MUCH FUN (a fabulous quilt store) with an incredible gift certificate from a group of ladies that came to the birthday party…WHOO HOO!!!  Even though I said ‘no gifts’, I had a FABULOUS time spending it  J.  By the time we got home it was almost 2 PM and I was beat (shopping for fabric is hard work!!)….Michael came home from Mint Hill shortly afterwards with a score of 87 and he was beat also.  We took a nap for an hour and I woke up to find out I had missed my hair appointment.  Lisa is such a doll that she will fit me in at 2:15 on Tuesday.  I spent a bit of time in the studio, back to working on secret things J, and after restaurant leftovers for dinner, we watched TV and headed for bed.

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Tuesday morning (7/29) Michael left early for errands and I spent the morning writing thank you notes, and then tackling paperwork….and paperwork…and more paperwork.  The problem is that just because you retire, the paperwork not only doesn’t stop…but it seems to increase…and you totally resent it more!!!  Just after 1 I headed up to Stitch & Chat, and then left just after 2 to get my hair done.  I was home around 4, and headed over to Jean’s to drop off thread she wanted….we ended up sitting in the driveway talking for over an hour.  Donna came over as well and it was very nice to chat with her…I rarely get to see her.  By the time I got home, Michael was just finishing up his dinner and he headed out to the movies with Larry to see LUCY.  I knit for a bit while watching TV.  The movie was short…he was home by 9:30 and we watched TV for just a bit, then hit the sack.

PS – I leave early Thursday morning to visit Ginny in Virginia, so no blog posts until probably next Tuesday morning, August 5^th.

Bithday Party!!

Michael left before 8 AM on Saturday (7/26) for golf here at SCCL.  I read my book for a bit in the morning and finally finished THE ROSIE PROJECT (written by the same guy who wrote Silver Linings Palybook)…and it was excellent.  Jan picked me up for a big grocery shopping trip after that and we had a great time, talking and shopping!  In the afternoon I was in the studio, trying to get everything straightened up (BG and I dragged out a bunch of stuff while she was here).  Michael came home with a score of 85.  Susan came over at 5:15 and we left to meet Lisa & Dean for dinner at Mama Ricottas (heaven….and the FOURTH time we have eaten out this week!!!) and then DREAM A LITTLE DREAM (the story of the Mamas & Papas) at Actor’s Theatre.  The play was wonderful and the music was better.  We got home around 11 PM and I stayed up until 2 AM trying to finish a book.  I was reading 2 books at once, as the 'brothers' book was kind of dark.  I didn’t finish it until Sunday evening…it was an EXCELLENT book: ONCE WE WERE BROTHERS, a personal perspective on the Nazi occupation in Germany.

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We had an early breakfast on Sunday (7/27) and spent the rest of the time until 2 PM making caramel pecan bars,

 

 

peach crisp and unwrapping my spectacular birthday cake

absolutely loaded with chocolate curls all
around the 9 inch edge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

before our guests (and more food) arrived at 2 PM.

 

Paula & Dee

Beth, Jan & Jean (Jean will be coming to the Fiber Floozie's Retreat!

Howard, Doug & Jim

Susan & Ann Mary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loree, Debra & Gale

Jim & Phil

Reg & Bill

Dennis (with a mouthful of cake...I guess I could have timed
that better!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sue & Ann Mary

John

Miss Anne, Mary Lu & Ginny

Howard & Larry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ralph & Bill

Paula, Sue, Gale, Loree & Debra

Ginny's famous Chocolate chip cookes, decimated peach crisp in background

Jan's famous rum cake and Paula's fabulous lemon bars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill & Beth

beautiful flowers sent from Sally

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in what might be my favorite gift of all....a crown from Joanne

 

entire caption on crown reads 'OLD FOOD & FIBER FLOOZIE' and even
has a picture of me on the front!!!  I LOVE it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I got almost everyone's picture....there were 33 people here and again, if the noise level was any indication, everyone had a good time.  We cleaned up a bit after the party, and then I was absolutely exhausted, so I took a nap for an hour, then Michael and I talked about stuff for over 1/2 an hour and by then it was around 8 PM.  We watched TV for a bit, finally cut and wrapped the rest of the cake, watched a bit more TV and headed for bed…it was a delightful day!

Cookie, blueberry pancakes, tumbling blocks

Somebody really didn’t want to get out of bed Friday morning (7/25)

 

even though we made fresh blueberry pancakes for breakfast (to be fair, she didn’t get any!) 

 

Then it was another day of diagnostics on the long arm.  Finally at 1 PM I found out that JUKI is shipping a new machine….an actual machine…that means that the ONLY things that have not been replaced are the frame, roller bars and rubber belts!!!  I am still trying to be optimistic…I do feel like there has been a change in attitude (for the better!) from the store where I bought it…and they don’t even know 1/2 of the stuff I’ve gone through in the past week.  I spent the rest of the afternoon ironing tumbling blocks…then teeny blue ones are all done.

here are all colors of the largest size...along with 3 of the teeny ones!

 

Ann Mary & Jim once again picked us up at 5:30 PM and 11 of us went to BRAVA for dinner.  It was WONDERFUL!  Michael had the eggplant parmesan, while I had lobster ravioli.  Of course now, there are  even MORE food leftovers in our fridge.  After dinner we all went back to Howard & Dee’s for dessert (pies & brownies & ice cream) and lots of talking and laughing.  We were home by 9:30 and I read for a bit while Michael watched TV before bed.

Thursday morning (7/24) Jan picked me up for quilting just after 9 and we got home at 2 PM!!  We went to Rock Hill after quilting looking for a specific fabric, which we didn’t find….oh well…guess we’ll just HAVE to go to Gastonia and Mary Jo’s at some point (it’s a dirty job, but someone must do it).  I worked on my long arm for a bit…I re-threaded the machine, changed the needle, oiled the bobbin case and changed bobbins all to no avail….it is still skipping….when I called the store they asked me to try free motion quilting and this I did with the front handles…no dice…still skipping….so I turned to my trusty tumbling blocks and got all of the tiniest blue ones sewn.  Hopefully I’ll get them ironed tomorrow and I’ll have a picture. 

Ann Mary and Jim picked us up at 3:45 and the 4 of us, along with 7 others, headed to Gastonia for dinner, and then to see the Smithills Brass Band (from Bolton England…home of the Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch in case you’re a fan).  We saw them first 2 years ago, when the conductor, assistant conductor and the sound guy stayed with us for several days.  You should have seen their faces when they recognized/remembered us…it was terrific!  We even got a mention when Chris (the conductor) was wrapping up his program, as the wild people with the souped up golf buggy!  It was a fabulous concert, and when we got home after 10:30, I poured a glass of Amaretto and went to send off some emails (the internet was down all afternoon).  Well, it was still down at 10:40 and after spending 15 minutes on hold, I finally decided to deal with it in the morning.

Birthday & Asti!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!  My honey was up and out early for some kind of scramble golf tournament on Wednesday (7/23), and I treated my self to reading an hour of my favorite blogs before getting my day started J.  I had hoped to be on my long arm first thing…but between showering and taking tomatoes over to Jan and planning our strategy for tomorrow at quilting, then hitting the farmer’s market, balancing the checkbook, skyping with Janice for an hour and talking to my honey when he got home from golf (he said it was hot, humid and horrible…but they changed it to an individual tournament (which he likes better), he was in 7 sand traps, but ended up with an 88…which I think is wonderful…but he was still crabbing about) I didn’t hit the LA until 1:30 PM.  Luckily, shortly after I got down there, my honey arrived with this:

ASTI!!!!  our favorite

I played around with my LA and as usual there was good news/bad news.  The machine is stitching out patterns by itself (YAY), but it is skipping stitches here and there for an inch at a time (BOO!).  Usually that happens when there is a burr on the needle or the bobbin case.  I finally stopped (too tired) and dropped back to working on my tumbling blocks.  Susan came over at 4 for a small happy hour, then Michael and I continued to have Asti and added puffy things for dinner before snuggling on the couch and watching romantic shows for the rest of the evening.

a million chores, tutorial on pesto

Tuesday morning (7/22) I had about a million piddly little things to get done…but I felt very productive once I was finished.  I got a chicken carcass in the crockpot:

It will cook all day on the back deck, and then after dinner I will pour off the stock and freeze it.  I also got the hummingbird feeder filled….unfortunately we recently decided to move the hook so that the feeder is in the shade…and I can no longer reach up far enough to hang it.  We’ll have to get some kind of large “S” hook to fix that. 

I made up new salt spray for the weeds peeking through our brick patio:

4 cups hot water to 1/4 cup regular table salt.  Once salt is all dissolved
and water is cool I pour it into a spray bottle.  It works like a charm,
but only on areas where you will NEVER want anything to grow (like
between the bricks on the patio and in the cracks of the driveway)

After that it was beyond time to harvest basil

 

and make pesto.  

strip off the leaves (you don't want any stems).  Wash and dry, then measure
2 packed cups of leaves into food processor/blender/whatever

measure out 1/4 cup of pignoli nuts (also called pine nuts) and toast in microwave

this took about 4 minutes...I did a minute at a time and stirred them around
in between each minute.  Trust me, I've tried it with and without the nuts and you
can definitely taste the difference, so even though pine nuts are very expensive,
I still use them.  You are only using 1/4 cup a batch and I throw the rest (untoasted)
into a zip lock bag and store in the freezer.  You may also use walnuts or pecans...you
should still toast those in the same way, then throw into the processor



a standard recipe will say 2 - 3 cloves or garlic...obviously I like more !

traditional pesto uses olive oil...add enough to make a thick paste, but if you want
an almost fat free version (the nuts will have some fat), this KEN's salad dressing
is a GREAT substitute



that's is....whirl it all up and freeze in ice cube trays or small containers.  a
little goes a long way.  Again, traditional pesto has Parmesan cheese in it,
but many years ago I read that if you were going to freeze it, don't add the
cheese beforehand...so I don't.  Instead, when I am actually using the pesto in
something, I make sure to add freshly grated Parmesan or Manchego cheese



ready for the freezer (and actually labeled....a miracle)!



 

I planted more basil seeds (something I’ve been supposed to do since the end of June L) because we do not have nearly enough basil to get us through the winter and next spring until we can get new, fresh basil. 
In the meantime, Michael cut 3 bouquets of flowers, 2 for us and 1 for out neighbors across the street:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After breakfast, he left to run a bunch of errands for me…he is SUCH a good doobie about those kinds of things.  Cheryl (a member of Volunteers) came over just as I was finishing up the pesto and we sat for about an hour going over the SCCL website and how to do things on it.  She has been struggling and I told her I would be glad to help.  I think she felt more comfortable once she left…and I told her to go right home and practice some more, so she wouldn’t forget the things we went over.
Someone asked me about freezing the bananas as I do for banana bread, so I thought I’d show you what I mean.  When bananas look like this:

 

Michael sets them aside for me (as he did this morning) because they are too brown for him to eat.  I peel them and put them into a zip lock bag and put it in the freezer:

 

When I get 6 bananas total (usually only 4 fit in a bag) I thaw them out and make banana bread.  Now trust me, when you thaw them, they look positively disgusting….they separate into brownish water and dark looking lumps…never fear…I just get out my potato masher and mash them up with the other liquid ingredients and it all works out fine. 

By this time it was close to 1 PM, so I packed up my stuff and Joanne picked me up for Stitch & Chat.  We had a nice time…Nancy A hasn’t been there in forever (a combination of vacation, and then a virus that just won’t let her go) and she finally felt well enough to come.  Joanne and I hit the library afterwards, and made a quick stop for FROSTY’S on the way home.  Michael and I read our books for just a bit, then I headed downstairs to work on my long arm.  When I pressed one of the guys who was sending me new hardware, he told me what to look at on YOUTUBE for videos on my software.  I found the first lesson and was determined to get through it.  I got everything set up on my machine (and this was farther along than I have ever gotten before…so I was kind of excited) and the machine thinks it is stitching… but the needle is not going up and down.  By this time I decided to be happy about how far I had gotten, but I did put in a call to the GRACE company at 5 PM.  “All representatives were busy”, so I left my name and number and started to sew again on my tumbling blocks while Michael headed to FIGARO’s for pizza.  We had dinner and I called the company back at 6:30 PM (they are in Utah and 2 hours behind us).  I was on the phone for over an hour, but my machine finally stitched out a pattern by the end.  He wanted me to do it again, but I was already late for Sally’s, so I told him I’d try again in the morning.  I headed over to Sally’s to drink sangria and solve the problems of the world, and I slid into bed, beside my sleeping hubby at 11:45!