Spring in January & This & That

  Good morning, This week we are in the '50's F, with sunshine-so feels like a spring day for sure. Good to see the sun especially and the pretty blue lake-reflecting from the sky. I was not able to see the wolf moon do to clouds-til last night.

   Yesteray my friends helped me get my car to the auto shop. It charged up pretty fast and then I drove it there with my friend following. She dropped me off at the local family grocery store while she went to the bank. I was so happy to see good produce there, I think the new managment has really improved this section of the store-which is what I needed to shop for.

  Larry has my brand new computer up and running-happy dance!!. The cables that hooked up the monitor were no good, so we swapped those out with some we had-and it is running perfect now. Wow what a difference for sure-I can see colors haha 

   One of the things I have missed is doing puzzles over on Jigsaw Planet-when I can't sleep I always enjoyed those puzzles-just completed one with wolves in a winter setting.. The only thing I lost on my old computer were my photos Didn't think to ask Larry if he knew how to save those-but no big deal really. On Facebook I have photos of Calico kitty and Nikita.

  Larry can get into his wheelchair pretty easily now, trying to stand and walk is still a huge challenge and it brings back lots of pain as well.  The physical therapist is coming twice a week now, and another day the occupational therapist comes as well. Three days a week really tires him out allot-but he keeps pushing forward.

  I am still not getting good sleep every night,  So, I am doing lots more reading. I found a new to me author I like-Ciara Knight, she writes contemporary stories about love, family, friends and community. I rarely read contempary stories but I am really enjoying this author. Her Sweetwater series is very good.

  I haven't been able to get into my craft projects, so I dug out my coloring books that I had bought several years ago. I really like Crayola's books as the pages are set up to tear out too. I have those two books completed now and will use them for my slow mail writing papers. I am using coloring pencils-which I have allot of . When I visited Yellowstone Park I bought a coloring book which I am working on again now. I had one more coloring book, that I don't care for and the pages are difficult to tear out-which I did get accomplished-Am not going to color these pages but will use also them for writing papers.  Sooo I feel like I will have this project crossed off my to do list-which is a good thing. Hoping I can get back to my quilt I am tying-have been too tired to concentrate on that.'

 Last week I was cooking something that I needed a bay leaf for-and I was out-I usually don't run out of things like this. Decided to check out Amazon and Ebay to see what was available and compare prices. On Ebay I found a seller from California that was harvesting and selling his own bay leaves.  They were 20 large fresh bay leaves, free shipping for just under $10.00 I am very happy with this find. I laid them out on parchment paper to dry and then bagged them up

  This year I am hoping to tackle projects that I already had started and  get those completed-and not start anything brand new, as I tend to jump around allot-which I do enjoy doing-just need to Not get side tracked with another new project this year.

    I did get the new to me mordant in the mail and will test that out on the cotton soon that didn't take up any of  the coffee dye color. I did wash it in soap after-but will wash one more time and then try this new mordant-it sounds much easier to work with too and will work on both cotton and wool fibers which is something really new to me for mordants.

   I have never fried chicken-ever, and Larry loves it. Thinking of surprising him soon. I will need to watch a you tube video on how to cut up a whole chicken-which I should know how to do as my Mom always did that-but I was never "in" to learning that.  Also, I have no clue on how to make fried chicken-so if any of you have a good recipe or how to tips please share. Thanks

Have an awesome week everyone

Update: Larry was able to walk with the walker late this afternoon-with his therapist today-good to see a big smile on his face-"and I am not staying in that wheel chair"    

Computer

 Good .morning, and happy weekend 

   If you watch pro football- the games to determine the superbowl teams will be on Sunday. I have also been enjoying watching the national figure skating event-I always enjoy that too.

   My computer is getting worse-whatever is going out is on the brink of really going out. Early in the morning, I get on and do a few things, but after that as the day progresses I can not read anything on the screen.

   My computer set up is old, the monitor was a hand me down from Hubs when he upgraded a couple years ago-so it's time.  I was looking at large chromebooks or similiar but those are much more expensive than a desk computer-which I have always had. I also need a new printer as well-ugh.  The new computer arrived yesterday, so when Larry is up to it, he will set it up for me. I know nothing about  them except to type on them-smiles.

  Larry is improving but then he has another setback. Last week he can finally put full weight on his legs. He worked with standing and walking with a walker with the therapist-wednesday and thursday. As expected the extreme pain has returned and friday he couldn't stand at all. This is still a challenge for him.

 About three weeks ago, just before the really bad weather hit-my car decided not to start. This happened last year as well.So thinking what ever is attached to the battery must be the problem as this is a new battery from last year.Our friend near us here on the lake, hopefully will have time to charge the battery and then follow me to the auto repair shop near us today some time. They are very busy people and are always on the go-so I don't like to ask for help unless I really need it.

  My freezer and shelves are always stocked with foods but I am out of fresh items. Always challenges .

  We were not able to view the wolf full moon this week as we have allot of fog and cloud cover here.

  Just thought I would pop in for a catch up post as I won't be online much til my new computer is set up.

  Happy weekend and new week ahead!

Too Cold

 

  I grew up in northern Indiana so we always had lots of snows, blizzards, and very cold winters there.  Same with northern Illinois where Larry and I  lived during my working years at the phone co. I had to drive through blizzards to get to work back then. I was a telephone operator back then-when we were really needed, so had to come to work no matter what. I usually would sleep over on the couches in the lounge area and work lots of overtime.

  My old senior bones are Not handling this bitter cold snap this time around. Supposed to end on Wednesday. 

   This lake house is soooo cold. I have the heat set to 72 F otherwise the bill would be too expensive. I don't remember being this cold all the time. I don't like wearing shoes in the house, I wear old socks or wool socks instead-so that's an issue I could fix I suppose. 

 Sorry about complaining. So glad Larry talked me out of wanting to retire to the western mountains. I wouldn't have liked the long super cold winters there for sure. My author friend lives at the base of mountains in Montana-where it is minus 35 and lower during the winters-ugh. With lots of snow. So I need to stop complaining as I look towards the warm up mid week.

  The first year we bought the lake house Larry had insulation blown into the attic. There is no insulation at all under the floors that are exposed to the basement. Temps at minus 4 F are really cold, and with a non working woodstove-the previous owners had a major chimney fire-I am just bumbed about being cold for the last several days.

  End of rant 

Coffee Dye on Cotton Project--Updated

 Brrrr it is sooo cold here this morning, and getting much colder by tonight and continues til next Wednesday  So miss not having a working woodstove-oh well.

  I have been battling sinus and allergies for over a month now-this morning with cold air in the house,  I am a bit nauseated along with it. Ugh 

   I am about at the half way point with the Galileo book I am reading-learning so much about the time period and the church back then. I will do allot more reading today.

  For a break from that I decided to coffee dye the bit of cotton I was gifted. I always keep a jar of decaf instant coffee around for when I need to make kaluha so I had it in the pantry.  I don't have allot of dye pots in the house, (they are in the garden shed) but I did find a spoon and a large bowl I use for crafts.(Only dye with designated dye and craft supplies-not items used for food)  

  Most of the coffee dye recipes are pretty much the same-found another article here  Suggested if want a darker brown use 3 tablespoons of the instant coffee with boiling water. Let sit in the coffee liquid from an hour to overnight.

    I put this together around 9:30 am this morning so am thinking I will let is set til around noon. There are spots of white that have not absorbed the dye yet. I had thought of washing the cotton in dawn soap first with a good rinse but then decided not to-I am thinking I want to do a needle felted "picture" again so it will be ok if bits of white show up.

   Here is the progress so far

               I soaked the cotton fibers in warm water til the cotton really absorbed the water well.

  Grabbed my craft colander to drain and squeeze out the water

I used 3 tablespoons of the instant coffee to 2 cups boiling water-stirred til dissolved in the bowl and then added the cotton.  About 30 minutes after this photo was taken very little white showing now

  The link has instructions on rinsing and then soaking in a vinegar-water solution to set the dye.

   Will Update this post with the next step.

It is now 1 pm here and I am quite disappointed-the cotton is Not taking up the color. I am thinking I should have washed the cotton first This cotton must have had a chemical on it or a pesticide.

  I am so surprised that this cotton did not take any of the coffee dye. Thinking since this cotton came out of the fields, it must have had chemicals on it. A lot of insects attack cotton so it could be pesticides. So I just rinsed the cotton-all the dye went right down the drain, Then I soaked it in a bit of dawn soap and rinsed.  This may need another good wash. 

  I also looked into mordants-I have mordants here for cotton and another one for wool but these are a bit of a process for this small amount of fiber. I did a search online about mordants for cottons and there is a new one, at least this is a very new one to me, that uses cool water and does not need to be heated, also more environment friendly to use.

  I found it on Etsy:  Aluminum Triformate ATF Mordant  for Natural Cellulose Bast Plant Dye for Yarn Fiber Dyeing Printing Linen Cotton Flax Hemp Mordent   The shop is Walnut Farm Designs     So stay tuned

Our First Winter Blast & Crows & Catch Up

   Good morning Friday

     Well we knew it was coming, our first cold blast of winter is upon us this morning. The temperatures dropped significantly over the last hour.  I put mail in the mailbox to go out-it was chilly and the hill and steps were wet. 30 minutes later i gathered up all the trash to take up and Wow the temperatures had dropped quite a bit and now we have the wind as well.  I waited another half hour or so, and yep the wet pavement was beginning to freeze-so I threw salt out on the hill and steps.

  I may not be able to get up there to check the mail today-and I do love mail-smiles.

We had a little of the homemade granola I had made left, but I decided to put it on the railing for the birds. The tupelo honey was too strong of a flavor for this recipe, and both of us got stomach aches from it if eaten a couple days in a row. The honey did not go bad, I just had forgotten how strong the flavor is.  However, the crows loved it-and came back for more. I am always amazed how large crows are when seeing them up close. I have always loved the crows-very intelligent too

   Sorry if the photos are a bit grainy-when I zoom in with the camera this is what I get sadly The crows really enjoyed this granola and came back several times I stayed in the kitchen to take the photos so I wouldn't frightened them away

Of course the squirrels are always eating all the bird food if I don't chase them off-but they were leary of the crows (ps those of you that are good with English grammar-I thought leary was the right spelling but google says no, so I looked it up and can be leery but most think that is the wrong spelling- thoughts?)

  I am thinking this will be a good day for chicken soup, perhaps I will make us dumplings too-not sure yet.

 I keep being tired during the day, thinking it is our crazy up and down weather along with my allergies that have been off since mid December.  I want to be more alert before getting back to ties on my quilt.

 I may just finish the book I am reading about Galileo today-I learned allot about his life. The end of December Amazon had a big sale on kindle books-I grabbed this one as the price is usually close to $10.00 for the kindle version. The book Is Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel Well written

  Larry had a good week, the physical therapist was happy and a bit impressed yesterday. We decided it would be better use of the medicare money to take two weeks off of therapy. We needed the new lower mattress, and Larry needed more time to heal. The doctors in the hospital never took x rays on the "good" leg, even though Larry kept telling them there was something wrong. This was really a horrible hospital experience-worst ever we have encountered. What ever had possibly cracked on the "good" leg is also healing now. He had an injury a couple years ago the cracked his pelvic bone and hurt is right leg-we think that got re injured from the fall.

   With the new mattress he can easily get into the wheelchair, and since last week he can finally get back into bed first try. Another week yet before he can put full weight on the broken leg that he says feels pretty good except for the hip area. Next week the supervisors of the therapists will be out to recertify for 8 more weeks of physical therapy and medicare will pay for that again. So I am thankful that our insurance has covered everything.

  I watched a little bit on the weather channel and looks like a lot of wintry weather all over the states, and southern states getting tornados.

  I am feeling better finally about getting back to crafts and projects. I am going to coffee dye the grown cotton I received with coffee. The black walnuts I would love to use but that needs to be boiled down outdoors-the smell is too strong to do indoors. I think the coffee will give a stronger brown color than teas. I know when Larry spilled his fresh coffee over a month ago on our bedroom carpet-that stain is Not coming out so far ugh.  Here is an easy how to for coffee dye   If Elizabeth sees this-what do you think of the recipe?

Made us a pot of homemade chicken soup-turned out delicious

Grabbed handmade pottery very large mugs-perfect for this-and fun to use

  Stay safe everyone-Happy Friday and weekend

Not Happy with the NFL

   Several years ago with the players disrespecting our flag with their kneeling I stopped watching sports. Players should not be allowed to do this while they are getting paid-my opinion of course. Rather protest on their own time-these players are over paid to start with.

   When those of us that watch pro football during the season, the playoffs and the super bowl are the fun part to see if your favorite team makes it through.

  So just a couple days ago, and now they are posting this on the tv as well-the KC Chiefs playoff game with the Dolphins will Not be aired on the tv but instead streaming on Peacock. This is the NFL doing this. The game will only be aired in the local cities on the tv.  Peacock paid allot of money to the NFL to do this. As a sports fan I am not happy about this at all. Not sure if this is the only game or if there are others that has gone to streaming only for the playoffs. 

  I am not into streaming-which is the future they are pushing I am thinking-so I am not going to pay more money to Peacock just so I can watch this game.

 Opinions?  on Facebook some are saying Peacock is free-it is not free you sign up and you are charged every month. One article says you can cancel after the game-but it is quite the process to do that according to another article I read.

 Hoping people don't cave to this money making deal Here is one article about it

  Shows me NFL cares only about the money not their fans-sad.

In My Mailbox Today & Update

  Hi Everyone,  a few weeks ago a long time online friend from eastern North Carolina asked if I would like a little local grown cotton for the seeds. The cotton was being harvested near her, and she spotted some on the ground-yes I would love some I said.

  It arrived in today's mail. Back when we first moved to Missouri after our retirement, I grew seeds from heirloom green cotton seeds-can find different cotton seeds at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange-here They need a long growing time, so I got just a little bit of cotton back then-thought would be fun to grow cotton again-can use the cotton for needle felting pictures-which I would like to do again.

   I am hoping this photo turned out-still need a new monitor so can not see photos well

  The seeds are inside the cotton which takes patience to get them out. I can see why the invention of the cotton gin was a huge time saver back in the day.

  found online  The cotton gin is a device for removing the seeds from cotton fiber. Such machines had been around for centuries when Eli Whitney made his improvements in 1794. However, Whitney's was the first to clean short-staple cotton; and a single device could produce up to fifty pounds of cleaned cotton in a day

 The cotton plants need a very long harvest, so I will start some in my greenhouse bottles early this spring.

  A few hours after I started writing this post-I separated the cotton from the seeds and dried plant material

   We may wake up to snow tomorrow morning. Northern Missouri is already getting several inches of snow as are some bordering states. Today we had strong winds, rain-sleet-and a few snow flakes-so will be interesting to see what nature brings us by tomorrow morning.

    I don't drive in bad weather any more-so not going to worry about no car at the moment.

   I also got a new weaving book in the mail today. I am in a group on Facebook which is only for Structo looms-my little 4 harness loom- and someone posted about this book and that she had also just refurbished her vintage loom  The drafts-patterns-are designed for the small width looms-so thought it would be easier for me to set up. (have never been great with math problems like this)

  I think I finally have the knotting pattern figured out for my quilt-haven't been able to get back to it-hope to do so tomorrow.

    I needed to use up a bunch of apples so I made us one of our favorites-an apple crisp. For this one I soaked to soften dried cranberries to add to the apple layers-yum

     Enjoy your week

Tuesday Morning update: those of you that have read the books about the wolves in Yellowstone especially the loved wolf 42 will appreciate  this video.

Can Not Comment

 This started last night and again this morning-I can Not leave a comment on your blogs. No idea how to fix it either.

After I comment I am to check me, annoymous etc but google will not let me check any of the boxes-so not accepting my comments.

any ideas how to fix this? thanks

update: I restarted my computer-still will not let me choose from the options when commenting but one of my comments did finally post  will see what happens going forward

Making Granola & Snowmen magnets

 Do you like to make your own granola??

   I haven't made this in years, back in the '70's and '80s I would make it all the time.

   Lately I am finding that these gluten free granola cereals-the good ones-are in small packages and really just too expensive. To get myself off of salty snacks I eat a little granola in the evening instead.

  The other day I searched online for recipes-I settled on this one  I found Bob's Red Mill old fashioned organic gluten free oats in my freezer. Grabbed organic sliced almonds, and also organic coconut along with little bags of mixed quality dried fruits that needed to get used up.

  I like different honeys but I really don't use them very much any more so I grabbed a couple jars that really needed to get used.  We were gifted a quart jar of tupelo honey from one of Larry's customers back in 2017-it was a local product from him. Searching to buy more last year-this is rather rare and very expensive to ship. It has a very unique flavor profile  which I thought should work out for my first batch of granola. Here is the history about tupelo-it is Not your ordinary honey

 I never add salt to any recipe-even baked goods, but the author made it sound like it was necessary so this time I added the fine pink himalayan salt that I keep around for popcorn. Hoping I won't taste too much salt in this.

  While I am waiting for the oats to cool so I can add the rest of the ingredients, I forgot that I wanted to share these winter snowmen magnet-clips for the frig. They have me smiling when I see them I do have two of each color-the 6th one is not in the photo  Oh and didn't realize til Deb mentioned it in comments-she made me a little green frog magnet-that I loveeee-he is on the paper bottom left corner.

  The granola is cooled now and the rest of the ingredients added. The tupelo honey flavor stands out but that's ok

    The recipe said to cool down for 45 minutes, I wanted it to be slightly warm for the dried fruit to soften up a bit so added i around 35 minutes. 

   The nice thing about a recipe like this is that you can add what you want to and like-just go by the quantities and don't go over that for the add ins.  I love nuts but I can't digest them well-so I added less nuts, no seeds this time, but added more of the dried fruits and the large dried coconut. Also if you  don't have to make gluten free there are all sorts of grain flakes available besides just oats.

   I am pleased with this recipe, I like chunks so I broke mine into small chunks-you can smash it up a bit if you don't want it chunky. Next time I will not add the salt I can really taste it and I put in 3/4 teaspoon instead of the 1 teaspoon. Next batch I will also use a lighter honey as the tupelo is a strong flavor-but I like it. I have just a little bit of the tupelo now-so I guess next batch I will add it in so all used up.😀

  Out of the oven and cooled

after the add ins

  No wintry weather here so far, but bummer yesterday morning early I had errands to run and my car would not start. huge bummer, as I have never driven Larry's suburban-too large for me and it's the newer push button vehicle which I know nothing about-my Mountainer is a 1999-so not a good idea to figure out his vehicle. 

    So I called my friend Mary down the lake from us and she said she had errands to do too-she had allot of errands and they were an hour's drive away. I hadn't planned on being gone that long in case Larry needed me, but it was good for me to get out of the house. There was the new Aldi store near where she was going-so I went in there to pick up all the fresh items. I really miss not having a Aldi near me, they also had the ground bison meat which I love-I like it better than ground venison-so I picked up one of those as it was more pricey than I remembered. 

   So I guess Monday I will call the place we go for our cars and see if they will make an exception and do a house call-otherwise not sure what I will do for help-ugh.

  Can you believe it is the 6th day of the new year already??

enjoy your weekend

T Stands for Tuesday & Tea Page

   Good morning and first T of 2024.

     This morning was the first time I have done anything creative in my craft room-since Larry's accident. The last that I had spent any time here was to ,work on the Christmas cards and letters in November.

    I had saved a few tea bags and cut out a few of the tea boxes-so decided to make a page in my German cookbook now mixed media book-which I had started in 2021

   I had fun making this page, and was soooo good to do something creative-since early October Simple but fun This is my  "ticket" for T

 

  

   In my paper stash I found a snowy mountain picture, the snowflakes are from a Christmas card envelope and I grabbed one of my now favorite teas-part of the box, a dried tea bag, a couple stamps

Happy T and thank you to our hostess Elizabeth-link here