Housewife, 54

I really don't think that I have been all THAT busy!  But I guess I have... or have simply not thought to post an entry here. Yes, considering the previous post, I have been doing a bit of sewing.  I finished a quilt for Jasper's first birthday and had it done and mailed before the Big 1 Birthday.  Here it is: Then in April, we were going out to visit for his Baptism.  So I finished a dress, discovered the weather was going to be cool again, and made a skirt.  Here they are: Myself, Son, Grandson, Daughter-in-law, other son. at the Baptism. So I AM making good use of my new machines!  I am continuing to sew as the weather has been a real roller coaster this year.... we will have lovely warm weather, have the windows open and want to be outdoors all day...then we get a cold front in and want to be indoors with sweaters on for the next week! We had quite lovely weather occasionally in March.  I was thrilled to be able to get some o...

I'm so excited! After the holiday season, I usually get into an organizing mood, but in recent years I guess I feel I am organized enough - so I get into a sewing mood.  I have a lot of fabric and tons of projects lined up, so there isn't any problem about what to do.... just WHERE to start.  This year I began with a good tidying-up. I won't embarrass myself with a 'before' picture, but here is one angle of the 'after'. My storage wall, all reorganized... and TIDY! I have a lovely Bernina sewing machine that I bought when working in a Quilt shop back in 1997.  A couple of years later I bought a used serger to extend my sewing ease....  But the serger is old and cranky and I had decided that I needed to get a new one. So one rainy morning I set out to visit a couple of shops to try out new machines.... but didn't intend to buy.  And I DID try some out and I did NOT buy one.  I came home and thought about it some more.  And I went online and lo...

The corner has been turned!  Looking at the calendar, I knew in my mind that the days would be getting longer after the winter solstice, but today I have EVIDENCE!  You see, we have a lamp attached to a timer in our living room, set to come on just at dusk and to turn off around 11pm.  Today is the first day that the light has come on and IT IS STILL DAYLIGHT!                                                     See!  Light on.... daylight still glowing through window! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.... even though there is snow on the ground and I almost froze as I was shopping this morning.                                                        I think I will go catalog shopping ...

A couple of months ago, my son called to ask if we would come out to babysit Grandson so he and Daughter-in-law could go on a winter vacation with friends.  Now you must understand that I do NOT like to travel in winter weather, in fact I am a terrible weenie if it is snowing or icy.  ESPECIALLY when traveling such a long distance (it is 9 hours across open prairie).  However, I love my son, and who wouldn't treasure a whole week with a little drop of sunshine like my Grandson, so I said yes! All fall and through December, the weather has been unnaturally fair and warm, but I would have bet big $$ that it would get nasty when we had to travel, and it did!  We made it across 2/3 of Iowa and just close to sundown, the temperature dropped, the rain turned to snow, and the roads started getting tricky. So we pulled off for the night (good thing) and continued the next morning, when all was cleared off.  We knew we were in South Dakota when the pavement turned to ...

AS you can see from the date of my last post... it's been a while.  It would seem that I may be afflicted to some degree, by that nasty malady known politely as "winter blues".  Starting sometime in late October, my energy and zest seem to fade until by December, I am dreading the Holiday season.  It happened this year a little more than most, so I decided to do something about it.  I got one of those daylight lamps to try "light therapy" to see if it will help.  I didn't get the lamp until about Christmas time, but I seem to be having a bit of luck with it.  Let's hope it works (and I can start with it earlier next year)!  Already I am being more productive each day! (It could also be that the expectations of the holidays are behind me too, so next year will be the true test ;-) I can't blame my malady on the weather as we have had a long and beautiful fall.  We did have a HUGE snowfall in mid-November (14") but it was all melted in a very ...

Here it is already November 2.  Hard to tell from being outdoors today!  It is sun-shiny and the temperature is a wonderful 71 degrees (F) with only a very slight breeze.  Perfect, right?  But for November it is a gift from heaven!   Elvis posing on our walk today.   Most of my garden is in and stored, but I still have brussel sprouts and parsnips to harvest.  I sampled a brussel sprout as I walked past the garden doing yard work yesterday. It tasted like a baby cabbage!  I'll give them a little longer as they are still quite small. Today I did want to make a vegetable soup, so here is what I came up with.  Anything that I did NOT grow myself, I will mark with an *. All vegetables were chopped. In a large Dutch Oven, saute: 2 Tbsp olive oil* 1 small onion 1/2 C celery 2 small carrots 2 medium potatoes 2 cloves minced garlic* then add liquids: 32 oz stock* (I used beef, but it was organic) 3 Cups oven-roas...

 Summer. Gardening. Amish Paste Tomatoes and Tongue of Flame dried beans. Here is a basket full of goodness.  Altogether I harvested and processed 4 Cups of the beans (after they were shelled out) and 7 pints of canned tomato sauce, and about 10 pints of frozen tomato sauce. Green beans were good, too. This is the result of just one picking.  I have quite a lot of beans in the freezer, two different varieties, Blue Lake bush and Italian Pole.  I packaged most of them in portions for 2 people.  I have also purchased sweet corn and froze a bunch of that as well... but that was kind of cheating and not organic like the things that I grew myself. I have also grown and froze a few bags of peas! Pesto made from basil that I grew from seed!      Potatoes were another really good crop, we ended up with 1 and 1/2 bushels!  Here is just a sample: Onions, peppers and cucumbers were better than usual...