Cardinals and Cookies

  Tonight the arctic air arrives. We will be right a 0 f or a bit less but with the strong winds way below 0 wind chills-brrrrr I will be staying indoors for sure.
   Nothing here though like what is happening in the Chicago area where we used to live-this is a repeat forecast that we experienced in the 80's   The wind chills back then was 75 degrees below f That was sooo cold that year. I won't forget that one-we had ice inside some of the walls.

  Yesterday after I threw out the cracked corn and black oiled sunflower seed-the cardinals must have been watching me. Here are a few photos and a video-you can see some of the strong winds.

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Doves

If you click on the video it will go full screen size-then just push esc to go back-it is a bit blurry as I moved the camera a bit

Hubs went up to the lake house to work today (Tuesday) and I stayed home and baked up some cookies. I made two batches of chocolate chip mint cookies. One batch with wheat flour, coconut oil, and splenda and coconut sugar, and a gluten free batch with gluten free flour, almond flour, coconut oil, and stevia naturals and coconut sugar and to this one I added some fine shredded coconut.
  Both batches turned out super moist and delicious.

Wheat

Gluten free

I froze half of both batches for later. Tomorrow I may bake up a batch of soft molasses cookies.

Stay safe and warm everyone during this cold arctic blast. what's funny-- we will be in the 60's f  Friday Saturday and Sunday-craziness in weather here.

T Stands for Tuesday & Vision and Fabric Art Book

I think this is our last Tuesday for January-kinda glad to be getting towards the end of January as that brings us closer to Spring.
   Tuesdays is where we share a drink related post (show a photo of your beverage) and visit friends at the T Party. You are most welcome to join us with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth-find link in my right hand column.

  It has been an interesting week-vision wise. Last Thursday I had my right eye done for cataract surgery. 
   It went well, our doctor tells us every person is different and even every eye is different. My husband could see clearly same day after surgery-I did not have mostly clear vision til Sunday. and since I have been wearing a strong prescription for eye glasses for years now-it was difficult at first since my left eye couldn't see well with no glasses and the right eye was getting clearer-but in the end will need close up glasses for sure.
   I do not do well at all with anesthesia and even though this was suppose to be a small amount I said please very little. When I explained what happens when I have it- they let me opt out entirely which I was happy about. Definately an experience to Not move a muscle, and not to "freak" out. lol   I did good though.
   This week Thursday I will get my second eye done. I think the hardest thing for me right now is not being able to read in the evenings for a long period of time-sometimes I will read for 4 to 6 hours or more. 
   But all is good, and I am excited at the prospect of no longer wearing glasses all the time-which will be an adjustment I think since I have worn them since around 6 or 7 years of age.

   Since I couldn't read I worked on my second fabric art journal book. I finished the cover and started working on July. I may go back and add some more stitches on the cover it seems to still need a little something more.


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This little snowman was from a piece of Christmas candy that I picked up at our Aldi store. There were santas and snowmen. Inside was chocolate-yum. 
    I tried saving a few of these which was difficult as the foil tore apart very easily.
  In my stash I still have different colors of tulle and misty fuse. I layered a piece of cotton fabric-a piece of misty fuse-then the foil-then the misty fuse and on top the tulle-I ironed over it with a piece of freezer paper on top (the shiny side was folded together)-the misty fuse melts away and the tulle seals the foil inside.

I had one piece left of that little vintage bead (I had three of these on the cover of the first book), the little frog was the last of a larger piece that I had rust dyed, and also in my bag of fabric scraps etc I found several quilt blocks that I inherited from my Mom's sewing room.  i plan to use several of those in this book.

I had picked up these little sheep buttons-I decided to use it since I am using allot of wool in my books

Close up the little frog that was rust dyed

These next pieces were my Mom's. She loved making star quilt blocks-I may make this one into a pocket at the end of this book I am using her cat for Friday the 13th on my July page

July page so far
   July is the full buck moon    I did allot of eco dyeing in July and August so am going to sew this one into my book

This morning early (Monday) I went in for the second check up for my eye and I also needed to get a few groceries to get us through the super cold weather coming in, and Hubs needed some things for the lake house projects. So I grabbed my go to small hot thermos added hot water and a green tea bag for the road trip. 

This little thermos I had picked up at a marked down price and it is just the best ever-stays super hot for around 10 or 12 hours.

In the mornings I have started making me a hot cereal (my carbs for the day) and grabbing one of these little drinks-found at Aldi-this is really good tasting

  This is probably meant for kids but it is just the right size.

Now is the time of year when sometimes allot of deer show up at one time. I took this yesterday after we warmed up enough to melt off all the snow and leave wet and mud everywhere. This is the muddiest this area has ever been. I stopped putting the cracked corn on and around the stump while this is so soft.

Not the best photos but I was trying to get as many deer in the photos as I could-there were around 8 or 9 deer.

Those of you getting or already have gotten the newest winter blast-stay safe and warm out there

Happy T everyone.

Brrrrrr It's Cold Outside, more Cardinals and Pie

It is very cold here and still windy, well I know it's winter but I just don't like super cold anymore. We had ice on the roads this morning too.

Late afternoon I spread out lots of black oil sunflower seed, cracked corn, filled the two finch feeders with niger seed, and also tossed out some leftover plain macaroni noodles and a half bag of corn flakes they had gone stale really fast.

The cardinals came in as soon as I went indoors.

Hubs and I really like the flavor of fresh cranberries and blueberries, so I wanted to make another pie and improve it a bit. 
    I am using a deep dish glass pie pan so this time I doubled the filling so the fruit came up to the very top. I made another cashew nut crust. This turned out soooo delicious. I used splenda in the filling with instant tapioca to thicken it, and stevia naturals in the crust.

  
Tomorrow early afternoon I go in for my first cataract surgery. I am working on staying calm about this. I know this seems to be a "senior" thing that needs doing-lol I am feeling old about this I guess.  We found a really good eye surgeon so all will be good.


On another note-I don't like to get into politics here on my blog, but I wanted to share a link for information about the Constitution and the State of the Union address.
   I was actually shocked at Pelosi not welcoming the President to give this speech. 
    What stung is "Not in My House"actually it is the Peoples House which too many forget. 
   Anyways I didn't remember my history about this issue. I learned that the President has to be invited to speak in the House-he can't just arrange to speak without being invited. 
   He can give this state address at another location, written, over the radio etc. and it is not required in the Constitution  to give this address every year.  I didn't remember all that.
   It would be nice if All the politicians would go to work and stop acting like unbehaved children   Just my two cents worth

T Stands for Tuesday & Howling Winds

Happy T Day everyone
  Tuesdays is when we gather together over at our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth and share a drink related post. You are most welcome to join us, find link in my right hand column.

  Where I live we missed for the most part the ice and snow, but wow have the winds ever been howling for several days now. Today we had 40-50 mile an hour winds that continues through tonight and tomorrow. So the feels like temperatures are in the low teens. I will a cold week ahead.
  Hoping those of you living more south of me or the east coast (USA) didn't end up with loads of ice and snow and or loss of electricity. Been thinking of all of you.

  In my Friday post I shared that I had completed stitching together part 1 of my fiber art journal. I am really happy with it, and have started working on the cover for part 2-the last 6 months of 2018

  I wanted to share a video of my book, and have made about 6 of them lol either my voice could not be heard or the images were a bit blurry. I am sharing this one-it took forever to download on my slow internet.
   Those of you that weren't following me during the beginning of this adventure-find the inspiration tutorial for joining the pages into a book in my right hand column

For my beverage reference I am showing a previous photo-of my drink this past week-vanilla chicory with cream

   

When we get really cold winter temperatures I throw out black oiled sunflower seed in the back yard along with the cracked corn. This saves having to keep the squirrels out of the feeders, and more birds at one time can enjoy the food.  
   If you enlarge the photo and look close you will see lots of little birds and a few cardinals, perhaps a dove

   I wanted to share a link to nut milks that I just learned about. I quit buying them in the stores because there is too many other ingredients that I don't want-or they have added salt or sugars which I don't want either. I buy allot from Nuts.com They have gourmet dried fruits and nuts and lots of other good things-they just sent me an email of their new nut milks that are only nuts and water if you choose the unsweetened ones.

Were you able to see the super blood wolf moon? We were so cloudy here I could not view it, but I did find many different live videos of it online-awesome.

Happy T

Just Completed Part 1 of My 2018 Fabric Journal

  Happy Friday everyone,

    I worked a few days on book work in the beginning of the week and decided yesterday enough was enough for awhile lol  I was eager to get back to working on my fabric journal these past couple of days.
    My goal was to get the rest of the 6 month pages sewn in plus the cover. I just finished and am quite pleased with this project.
   How I had originally thought I could make this into one huge book I have now decided would be a bit too crazy. 
    I think it would have been neat all in one book-but would have been cumbersome to get the last of the pages sewn in. I think I will like this journal being two books.

  I made a short video but will save that for next Tuesday, but here are a few photos.

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This photo shows I am almost finished sewing the back cover onto the last page

I added beads and things to the top and the bottom of the pages

This is the turn side of the pages and I had messed up and sewn in beads on one of the pages-but I decided I liked it for a little whimsy or interest.

This shows on the bottom corner I sewed in a circle of beads or something different

This is the top of the pages

Now on to designing a cover for the second book and get pages prepared for the next 6 months.
  Was quite excited with the finish so had to share with my art friends.

Another Dreary Day & Comment Moderation

  The weather people keep saying sunshine but where I am in the woods-no sun. Foggy most of the mornings and then deep in cloud cover.
   A little warmer though-building up to the 50's F before it crashes over the weekend-down to single digits plus wind chills. Brrrr
    
   I wanted to share that I fixed the email notification on my blog here-again. It has been many months since this has worked for me.
   I know many of you are set up to no reply and also don't want notifications in your email either-but I love this set up as responding (to those that are set to reply) is much more personal between friends, and this also tells me if someone has commented on a much older post-how else would I even know that?
   I thought I had it fixed with Mia's instructions several months ago, it worked for awhile and then it just quit again-so on Tuesdays especially I have gone back to responding under your comments or if you have a question I go to your blog and respond in comments.
  Anyways I went through settings again and found a different spot-at least I had not noticed this one before.
  Click on settings and then click on Posts, Comments, Sharing. Under Comment Moderation it says email moderation requests to-and then add your email. In a couple days after I did this I got a request from Google asking if I wanted this-and I said yes. 
  Now I am getting notified when someone comments in my personal email-I do not need to go to the comment page on Google and look for comments that need to be approved. 
    So I am thinking perhaps this is now set up that one needs to moderate comments and then one now has this option to also go into our email as well. 
    So comment moderation is now going into my personal email, and the several blogging friends I have that are also set to reply allowed-I can now reply and answer comments direct to you-again.
  Hope this all makes sense. lol
   Anyways, I am happy now 😃 For me a much better blogging experience to be able to have a conversation with friends back and forth with emails-

  Yesterday was a long day in town-many errands to run. I also needed fresh produce and more bottled water in case we lose electric over the weekend 
    I think the only business I will miss when we move to the lake house is the Aldi store. I really love this store. They always have interesting foods from Germany, great gluten free line of foods, good produce and this one has been selling ground bison meat from time to time. When ever they have it I buy a couple to throw in the freezer. 
   If you like the organic grass fed low fat ground beef you would love this. The meat is very tender, no fat and a mild flavor I like it better than venison. I have saved a bison meatball recipe I have been wanting to make but I was not into something new today so I made us a goulash with the bison meat. 
     and Aldi is the only store near me where I can buy pasta sauces with no added salt. Now that we really have to watch the salt for my husband I couldn't believe that most pasta sauces are over 500 to 1000 of sodium per 1/3 cup serving-that's allot of salt. The Aldi brand is only 25.
   I meant to take a photo before I served this-but this is what is left over for tomorrow I used gluten free elbow pasta made from corn

   Today is catch up with laundry day-whenever bad weather is coming in I now always make sure all the laundry is caught up, house is clean, and we have water.  I am a little concerned with  the weather coming in over the weekend-along with single digits in temps we will have very very strong wind gusts. brrrr sounds cold to me.

   We just found out this afternoon from the seller of our lake house (Hubs is still connected to her on facebook) that just a couple houses down from us and one of her good friends-was badly burned in her house fire-that is totally destroyed. How sad and a bit scary being so close to our lake house. 
    Hubs will find out more tomorrow when he goes up. He usually goes up with helpers to work on Thursdays and I go with him one day over the weekend. Since we had wintry weather last weekend we didn't go up. The house fire was last Saturday. Am hoping most of the snow has melted in our steep driveway-that area was to get 5 to 8 inches of snow.

  Well I have rambled on enough-
Happy Wednesday

T Stands for Tuesday

Happy Tuesday everyone,
  Wintry and cold here in Missouri. 

Tuesdays is also where we share a drink related post with friends and link up over at our hostess-Bleubeard and Elizabeth-you are most welcome to join us. Find link in my right hand column.

  Right where I live in the Ozarks in Missouri-we got just enough snow to be pretty here in my woods. No real accumulation perhaps a couple of inches, and no measurable ice-a good thing. 
   Many in Missouri though got lots of snow, and lots of thick ice-not good -we went through that here about 10 years ago, when we had no electric power for 19 days which also meant no water or sewer. I was very thankful for our survival skills and two wood burning stoves back then.

   Over the weekend, I broke my three season avoidance of football-and I do love my football but just would not condone the politics going on. Sports should not be a pawn for that.  
    I am a die hard Packers fan since 1967 but Over the last few years I have been keeping an eye on the Kansas City Chiefs pro team and it's new coach. They have a great coach-Andy Reid- that just misses getting to that big prize-the super bowl.  So I decided I was ready to watch me some football-and what a game it was-I enjoyed it-Love their quarterback. Hopefully they can beat the Patriots-hope so. I have to say I am sick of seeing the Patriots always in the super bowl.

   Most of the weekend I have been working on taxes-always a bit of  a job as we still have a business-and I save all of the paper work til now. Perfect cold weekend for that project. 

  I did get one page of my fabric journal pages sewn in-but I was not paying attention to what I did for the other pages, and added beads on all three sides. Didn't want to take all that stitching out so will just leave it in for interest. The next page is ready to sew.

  
    This week I got back to reading the second novel in the Outlander series Dragonfly in Amber by Gabaldon. She is really an excellent writer 
     I am so glad I decided to search this series out to read. This book though, I needed to take a break from for a bit-it was just so full of information about the goings on and war getting ready to start. Not a book I can read straight through at 6 or 8 hours at a time-just too much to grasp. 
    I may even re read this one again before I go on to the third book. 

   We are both working really hard not to snack in the evenings-a really hard habit for me especially to break. Instead we eat a little fresh fruit or a little yogurt.
   I did find at the Aldi store a really interesting snack so I grabbed me a bag of the organic corn and veggie chips, and the container of guacamole with pineapple and roasted poblano peppers-interesting so wanted to give it a try.      
    I tried it tonight-very good. Simple ingredients so one could make this at home too.
   These chips have very little salt and are thick and hearty so I was full after a good handful of chips. So that was a good thing, in my younger years I have been known to eat a whole bag of chips instead of dinner-lol 

  
   Wow I am typing this up with the news and weather on-we are headed to the 50's f mid week but over the weekend we are going down to 8 f degrees with 40 mile an hour winds-I am thinking the Chiefs-Patriots football game will be freezing cold.

  For my drink share I brewed up a pot of my chicory decaf beverage and topped it with cream
     Have you seen the Redi Whip whipped cream with almond or coconut?? I tried them both and I love them-not much in the cans so rather expensive and you have to read the directions on getting the cream out of the can or it won't work-shake shake shake-and turn the can up side down then push for cream. No sugar or carbs in the almond just a couple in the coconut I think my favorite was the almond.

I also wanted to share a recipe I just found-I added this blog to my blog reading list and she shared these protein bites   I think I may make some-very simple ingredients-any nut butter, almond flour, sweetener, cinnamon

How is winter where you live??

Happy T everyone!!!

A Movie and a Book & Winter has Arrived in Missouri

The other night on the tv they were playing a movie that I have enjoyed, and usually will watch again if I am in the mood for it again.
  It is a time travel movie, I liked the story line and I also liked the actors in this one. The time travel is about how an 1800's duke accidently gets thrown into the future-and of course no one believes that he is from the past.

   Kate and Leopold a 2001 movie

Here is a trailer:

    
More about the movie here  
    It didn't seem to get high reviews from most critics-around 3 stars. It is a romance movie and I really liked it   Meg Ryan is always so good in these movies.


and something really different for a book suggestion

. Many of you know I love anything and everything about Yellowstone National Park. On Facebook where I am mostly there for the groups-I follow several photography groups about the park which I enjoy every day, and I also follow the Park's group and also the non profit for the park's group-where they sometimes will share  stories from the very early days of the park.
    I have purchased several books now that were either written from when people visited the park in the very early days, or an accounting of those early years.
   Last week I was intrigued over a story about young newlyweds that visited the park for their anniversary and encountered a Native American attack, and how they survived-and mostly the bravery and determination of the wife to save her husband. 
     The story was a recap about one of the women in the book Women in Wonderland by Elizabeth A Watry  
    and more about the book here too

     
                                         


I found a like new used book on Amazon that just arrived yesterday-am anxious to dive into this book about 14 incredible women during the early years of the Park. The author includes women from the late 1800's and the early 1900's as well.
    


Missouri got hit with winter on Friday into Saturday

  So far we didn't get hit with allot of ice-it snowed hard for 10 minutes in the afternoon and then stopped. During the evening after dark I heard it raining for several hours-so we may have ice after all. St Louis Missouri was to get upwards to a foot of snow-north of us up to 8 inches of snow. Where our lake house is up to 5 inches or a bit more. Here in my woods so far just a little.

I grabbed the camera-I had put the corn and bird seed out earlier than usual as the temperatures were dropping and the deer must have been just inside the woods watching me as they came as soon as I got back into the house and it started to snow

There were three deer-but this one shooed off the others-didn't want to share the corn  lol

Early evening I decided to make a lemon meringue pie. 

   I had fresh lemons in the frig, and my neighbor gave me a small bag of fresh Missouri pecans that she had shelled-just the thing for the crust. I am mostly making nut crusts these days for the flavor and to save on carbs.
     This will be perfect for breakfast Saturday morning

.
 Enjoy your Saturday

Craft Room Today

  I will have to say that my craft room is quite over whelming. I decided to go through some trunks today.
  I would like to eliminate one of them

I have these two steamer trunks that I had opened up and set up back to back-these are now empty for easier moving.
  I will wipe these down good and close them up-will be ready to take up to the lake house when we get help

These two were never really organized-vintage sewing items, wool fabrics, wool weaving yarns and more. At the lake house I will organize better.

Here are my weaving yarns
   This shelf holds bags full of quality weaving yarns

And that cool wicker piece and this big and little bag are full of quality weaving yarns wools, silk, linen, cotton, more

I had picked up frames to use for my fabric art-need to just pick out a few of those. Underneath is a trunk filled with recycled wool fabrics which I would like to eliminate that trunk.-the other trunk is either full of more wool fabrics which I think it is or more wool weaving yarn. 

This vintage wooden wine box sitting on top of my vintage box of drawers filled with vintage buttons---I have used for silk and different embroidery threads
   I have removed all the threads so I can clean that box 
Hanging are vintage rulers

I am thinking this button box will be too heavy to move as it is now

I think I am overwhelmed enough for one day lol

T Stands For Tuesday & Spring in January

Good morning Tuesday,
  Today we gather for T with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth. We share a drink related post with blogging friends. I really enjoy visiting everyone here. Find the link in my right hand column.

  Wow we have been spoiled here in the Ozarks in Missouri with Spring temps-60 plus f degrees for several days in a row now. It has been lovely. Some days lots of wind or clouds but I am enjoying it. 
   It seems to be extra nice on the weekends so we go on one of those days to work and I have been filling the suburban with craft books and fabrics so far. I now have all of my books and most of the fabrics from my craft room up in it's new room. I forgot to take a photo of the filled up shelving for fabrics (set up in closet)-will do that next time. I was hoping to not add sturdy shelving in that room to save on floor space but I think I will need to for my books and some other things. I am not good at visualizing space so will see how things work out.
   This week I will start going through more items and see if there is anything I can eliminate.

  If you missed it I posted about using crayons in art a couple days ago. If you have done anything with crayons and fabrics I would love to know more. This will be a must do project to try out once settled at the lake house. Looks like much fun to be had.

  I may also start sharing books that I am reading in a seperate post during the week. 
    I have been trying out a few new authors for me. I have lived in rural areas for many years now-so I do not have a convenient library to use. and in many cases now if you don't live in the city where the library is located than that library card is very expensive-upwards to $200.00 for the both of us-that's too much money for me.
   I did not think I would want an ereader because I do love books especially for cookbooks, how to books, and favorite authors. Probably about 4 years ago now I purchased the Voyage which is not hooked up to the computer, it is only a quality ereader from Amazon. I buy the books on the computer and then the free 3G downloads to my ereader. Since we have never lived in an area with good computer speeds or wifi access this has worked out well for me. I love the light on this reader too and nice that one can change the font style and size as well. 
   Do you have an ereader?  For me do to where we live it has worked out well for me-cheaper access in most cases to lots of novels I would not otherwise get to read.  I do go to the real books though if the price of an ebook is outrageous-over $5.00 is outrageous to me especially when in most cases I can find a used book with shipping for less than that.
   Hubs spotted a used bookstore in the town nearest to the lake house-next to a thrift shop so I will be checking that out too.
  Any opinions on ereaders and books? for us rural folks the ereaders I think have been a blessing.

  I started sewing the pages to my fabric journal this week. Will share a photo when that is completed.

   For my beverage reference I finally tried out my new Yellowstone cup-I am loving the feel of the large handle. I brewed up a pot of my chicory beverage with cream.

If you look close you might be able to tell that these are two bucks. I am thinking they are a pair of twins that visited us with their Mom when young-as their antlers are identical
  Hubs spotted them first and when I grabbed the camera they took off-more skittish than the does
  (photos will enlarge to full size just click on them)

I took this over the weekend-not a real good photo do to the sunshine-but I have the pull curtains opened up all the way for the view

  
Happy T everyone