Faith Hope and Love Quilted

My mother-in-law, Joan, has been talking about making a quilt sampler to frame.  After Nana passed away, I asked her if I could make it for her out of some of Nana's shirts.  Joan mailed me the shirts right away and then I stared at them for about three weeks.  Honestly, making that first cut terrified me even though I had it planned out in my head and knew exactly what I wanted to make.  I had settled on "Hope, Faith, and Love."  Those three words describe Nana pretty well :).

 

Once I did start cutting, I struggled a bit with the fabrics...how to make them fit together.  I ended up using three that I loved together and filling in with white cotton.



Here is everything basically made...





I can't believe I sewed on the border without noticing the spacing problem.



OCD would not let me leave it.  Much better!

 

(stupid blogger, it'll let me enlarge and caption the first two pictures, but no more)

 

Still working on my stippling technique.  I had two little oops on this one and I still need to work on my back tension, but it's looking better.

 

I wasn't sure about using the red as the border, but I love it.

 

 

Most bases have a frame shop where you can take a class and use the shop for the cost of materials.  I took the class and this was my first solo framing project.  I love how it turned out.  I hope Joan agrees :).

 

Happy Spring

Don't you love sprig flowers? I sure do!

The Shark

We picked up Dan's new car today (and said good-bye to Goldie).  It's a Mazda CX-5.  It feels very zoom zoomy like our Mazda Tribute of years past.  He's going to enjoy driving it...at least when he's by himself.  With the kids, he might hear a lot of "she's touching me" and "his feet are on my side."

 

 

My friend, Annie, says you have to name cars.  It's hard to see but this one has a little dorsal fin.  The color and the fin immediately made me think of a shark.  Dan might call her Jaws, but I'm going to call her the Shark!

Saving Money Pays Off

Caden is a good saver.  He saved his birthday and Christmas money with the goal of buying an electric scooter.  He hit the magic number last week and Dan took him to purchase this pretty blue baby!  We've only had one little fall.  He loves it and I love that he worked and saved and was able to see the "fruit" of his hard work!

 

My Completed Quilts

Did I ever share a picture of my finished quilt?  I still have to sew a pocket on the back for a dowel rod to hang it!  I'm pretty proud of it.

 

 

I started working on a birthday present for my Allie-Cat (hence the cats) last Saturday.  My tension is much better on this one.   If I can get good enough, I'm thinking of trying to sell them.  I am loving making the words and being creative without everything having to be lined up perfectly like a traditional quilt.

 

Introducing Eugene Field

The Fourth Grade held their annual Missouri Wax Museum project.  Allie was Eugene Field, a famous poetic from the 1800s.   This project was hard for Allie.  She's been struggling in school.  She has a laid back teacher who, honestly, to me, is useless at helping or motivating her to stay organized.  We are on our second ADHD medicine to try and get through the year.  We'll just have to pray for a more withit teacher next year.  Anyway, back to the project, it was like pulling teeth to get everything completed, but once we had her speech written, she had in memorized in a day.  It took Jaelyn at least a week.  The day of the museum, Allie gave her speech over and over without missing a word!  She rocked the presentation!

The Cast Room

I'm behind again.  Sorry.  Jaelyn fell on the ice a few weeks ago.  We got the splint and were told if it still hurt in a week, we needed to go back to the doctor to have another xray. 

 

A week later, it was still hurting; so after many phone calls, I arranged for us to have an afternoon xray and a morning doctor's appointment the next day.  We were pulling out the driveway when the doctor's office called to tell us her wrist was indeed broken and to head to orthopaedics at the hospital.

 

 

The odd thing is Jaelyn's wrist isn't broken where it hurt.  It's actually more the base of her hand than her wrist.  There's a piece chipped off.

 

There are two "cast" techs in ortho:  Grumpy and Happy.  They literally call them that.  Thankfully, we got Happy and he was awesome.  Jaelyn chose a neon green cast and Mr. Happy cut out glow-in the dark hearts to decorate it with.

 

 

We go back on April 1st to get the cast off for another xray!

Car Shopping

The Sienna has been such a good car...it's sad to see it go.

If only the kids would fit in this Mustang...

My Mazda CX-5 is coming from Kansas City so here is a pic of a Red one.

The Lighter Side of Cajun Chicken Pasta

This is one of my favorite dishes to eat out.  I found this recipe and tried it out last week.  We really enjoyed it.  Sure, eating the full fat version tastes better, but I was totally happy with this and it isn't sooo bad for you.  Plus, it's so pretty and I love to eat pretty food.  The only modification I made was to leave out the 3 cloves of garlic.  The garlic powder was plenty for us.

Ingredients:

8 ounces uncooked linguine (I used Dreamfields)

1 pound chicken breast strips

1-2 tsp Cajun seasoning (or to taste)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 medium yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced

8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced

1/2 red onion, sliced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1 cup fat free low sodium chicken broth

1/3 cup skim milk

1 tbsp flour

3 tbsp light cream cheese

fresh cracked pepper

2 scallions, chopped

salt to taste

Smart Balance cooking spray

 

Directions:

1. Prep all your vegetables. In a small blender make a slurry by combining milk, flour and cream cheese. Set aside. Season chicken generously with Cajun seasoning, garlic powder and salt.
2. Prepare pasta in salted water according to package directions.
3. Heat a large heavy nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; spray with cooking spray and add half of the chicken. Sauté 5 to 6 minutes or until done, set aside on a plate and repeat with the remaining chicken. Set aside
4. Add olive oil to the skillet and reduce to medium; add bell peppers, onions, and garlic to skillet, sauté 3-4 minutes. 
5. Add mushrooms and tomatoes and sauté 3-4 more minutes or until vegetables are tender. Season with 1/4 tsp salt, garlic powder and fresh cracked pepper to taste.
6. Reduce heat to medium-low; add chicken broth and pour in slurry stirring about 2 minutes.
7. Return chicken to skillet; adjust salt and Cajun seasoning to taste, cook another minute or two until hot, then add linguine; toss well to coat. Top with chopped scallions and enjoy!

More Adventures in Cooking

Have I mentioned that Dan and I are on a healthy kick?  Since Christmas, we've been watching what we are eating with the help of an app called the Daily Burn.  I am absolutely amazed by how much fat we were consuming.  I guess you could say we are counting calories and watching our calorie breakdowns, trying to get in good carbs, not so many fats, lean proteins.  You know the drill.  We are still cheating, but with moderation and within our limits.  So far, Dan has lost 15 pounds (I think) and I've lost about 8 and 2 notches on my belt - wahoo!!!

 

In that spirit, I've tried a few new things (those yummy black bean brownies).  Well, I've seen spaghetti squashed used on the food network, but I've never cooked or eaten it.  They used it on the Biggest Loser a few weeks ago in place of pasta in spaghetti.  I was living dangerously this week and bought one.

 

As soon as I got home, I put out a facebook request for help cooking it.  I know I could have googled, but this was easier :)

 

Step 1:  chop the thing in half and scrape out the seeds.  It smelled like a pumkin encase you are wondering.

 

Step 2: roast it in the oven until tender

 

 

Step 2 was taking way too long so I switched to plan B which was to microwave it with a 1/2 cup of water for 7-10 minutes.  I'll use step 2 plan B from now on...yes, there will be a now on.

 

Step 3:  This is the magic part folks.  Scrape the inside with a fork.  The "meat" shreds like pasta.

 

One squash gave me a heaping plate.  It was perfect for meals for me and Dan and for the kids to have a good bite with a side of chicken nuggets (you've always got to have a back-up plan with the kidlets when trying something new).

 

Doesn't this look good?  It was amazing.  I really, really liked it.  Dan had two helpings, which he could because it's not packed with carbs like pasta.

 

 

Encase you are wondering, Allie liked it, Caden gave it a sideway thumb, but ate it without complaint, but The Byrd, she didn't like it at all.  There was a huge fuss over eating it and much dramatic gagging as she swallowed.

 

I will be making it again and again and I'll be hunting more spaghetti squash recipes on-line.  Share if you have a favorite please.

 

Remember that moderation I was talking about...look at this.

 

 

This is the Baltimore Bomb Pie from A Slice of Pie in honor of the Ravens' Super Bowl win.  It's made with Berger Cookies and absolutely unbelievable.  I sure hope they add it to their regular pie selection now that the Berger factory is opening back up because it's better than any pie I've had in there and that's saying a lot!

 

Just Encase

The doctor couldn't see a break on Jaelyn's X-ray, but because of the location of the pain and the swelling, he said it could be a fracture right at her growth plate. It had a big long name that's written on her discharge papers. They splinted it for the week. If he still has pain mid next week, we will go back for another X-ray. He said if it is broken, they'll be able to see where it has started to heal. If there's no pain, we'll say goodbye to the splint and won't run on ice again.

Uh Oh