First Sale!

Woo! I have a business! My first sale. I'm so excited! I also have an order for three more scarves! I'm totally grateful and super excited. Oh wait, I've said that twice. Well, it must be true then... :)

Guacamole

Just had to share some pics of the most delicious guacamole ever! Want some, too?

First, let me say that the best tasting avocados are Haas. They are smaller, so it's tempting to go for the larger ones, but resist... resist. The Haas have a better flavor, which Duh! makes a better guacamole.

Second, like everything else, I think it's the most delicious because it's tailored to my tastes.  Your favorite guacamole might vary based on your tastes. But, this is seriously good guac!

2 avocados, diced (I'm just going to assume you know how to do this)
1 Tbs fresh lime juice.
2 green onions, diced
8 grape tomatoes diced
1/2 fresh jalapeno, seeded, diced very small
1 clove garlic, minced
1Tbs fresh cilantro diced.
salt to taste

Begin with the avocados. Once you have the diced avocado in the bowl, add the lime juice and stir to coat all the chunks. Mash the avocado with a fork to the consistency you like. I like mine chunky, so I don't mash until smooth. Add salt and mix again. Taste. Add salt as needed. It's easier to get an even distribution of salt at this point, but you can also taste and add at the end. Add remaining ingredients and stir.  Eat delicious guacamole with chips, on a sandwich, with pitas, by itself. Oooo, did I say that out loud?

As you can see, I like my guac lime-y. It adds excitement and it keeps the avocado green! I remove the seeds from the jalapeno, but when you make your own, feel free to leave them in. In fact, experiment with the ingredients you like and share your results.

Avocados are good for you. They contain "Good Fat". More importantly, they make guacamole, which is SUper delicious!!!

Mini Cheesecakes

For Thanksgiving, I made mini cheesecakes...

I used this recipe from the Kraft website.

I made two versions, chocolate chip and fruit.

I used a Chips Ahoy Chewy chocolate chip cookie as the crust for the chocolate chip version. For the other, I had planned to use Nilla Wafers, which I'd been led to believe you could just drop them in as the crust. But, the size of the wafer is too small for regular cupcake tins and too large for mini cupcake tins. So, I crumbled them and used them just like graham crackers as the recipe calls for.

When the cheesecakes came out of the oven, they were very puffy, which when they'd cooled left the top concave. I decided to put a dollop of whipped cream into the indent to camouflage. I let them cool completely on the counter, then into the fridge for an hour.

I keep heavy cream in the fridge, so I whipped up a 1/4 cup with 2 t. sugar. While that was whipping, I peeled the liners off of each cheesecake. A dollop in the dent, which I swirled with the back of the spoon. Once I'd topped all the plain ones, I added cocoa and a little more sugar to the remaining whipped cream for the chocolate chip variety. Then I set fresh berries on the plain and a sprinkling of chips on the others.

They looked very pretty and tasted even better. Both were delicious, the cookie worked perfectly, but the fruit are my favorite. I love the contrast of the tart fruit with the creamy silkiness of the cheesecake.

Well, I have a pic of the chocolate chip variety, which I took on my phone and I'm waiting, waiting, waiting on it to ever arrive in my email, so I can edit and add to this post. Sometime, when that ever happens, I'll post the other pic. Whew! The internet finally caught up with my impatient self, so the pic is posted!

For now, take a look at that countertop! I still very much love it. Everything looks great with it as the back drop!

Happy Thanksgiving

Gobble, gobble to you and yours! For the first time in years, we are going somewhere else for Thanksgiving. We've spent the last few years, staying in, just us. It's a quiet and wonderfully intense family day. I will miss that, but am looking forward to today because it includes some of my favorite family members.

I've spent the morning making two kinds of home-made rolls, mini-cheesecakes and green beans. Okay, we are also making a turkey because we can't stand the idea of no left overs! Ha!

May your day hold things to make you smile!

Vanilla Extract Update

16 oz

Here is a picture of the extract I started mid October... It's been sitting the lower portion of

8 oz

the hutch all this time. It's fun to watch it progress. Initially, the liquid was clear, as vodka is. Each week, the color deepens. The two bottles look the same in the small pictures, but you can tell the smaller bottle because the vanilla beans are cut in half so they would fit. I opened a bottle to smell it today as I was reading a Pinterest post that says as soon as it smells like vanilla, it's good to go. It smells heavenly, but I think it needs to darken, so back into the hutch it goes.

Fabulous Friday!

I am always off on Friday's, but what makes this day fabulous is yesterday's activities.  Because I was so busy yesterday, today has a much slower, do what you want pace to it.  Woo!

I have discovered some new favorite things and wanted to share:

Microfiber towels:  Not new to the market, but new to me.  Here are my thoughts.

1. They clean fingerprints off the fridge without any sort of cleaner.  Dry.  
2. Amazing duster.  Again Dry & no cleaner.
3. Soaks up an amazing amount of water.
4. Bright vibrant color that doesn't dim in the wash.
5. Super soft.
6. When dirty or dusty, goes right into washer.  Don't use fabric softener as it reduces the fibers ability to collect oil and dust and dirt.  (to the microfiber, the oil in fabric softener is the same as fingerprint oil - it's collected and trapped there til the next wash.) 
7. I have both dish towel and dish cloth size.  As I've mentioned before I like the dish cloth size for a lot of different things and I find them perfect for dusting.  But I like having both.

Corelle Dishes:  Not new to market, but I've never owned a set.  I've been thinking about new dishes for a long time. I've owned and used: Pfatzgraff, heirloom china, hand made pottery and some vintage glass dishes.  Some were priceless and some were bargain priced finds.  Some were gifted to me.  What's different about these dishes is I picked them out myself.  They reflect who I am and where I want to dedicate my time.  They also remind me of the dishes I liked the best, which were the vintage glass set (a very incomplete set).  Why did I go with Corelle?

1. Durabilty
2. Availability
3. Selection
4. Mix and Match
5. Dishwasher safe
6. No pressure. God bless the people who can use heirloom china without worry or breakage and happily hand wash it all.  I cannot.  These are readily available, easily replaced, reasonably priced.  
7. They make everything in Corelle - serving dishes, dessert bowls, ramekins, etc.  
8. It looks great with the French White pieces I've owned and loved for years.  

I picked out 4 sets of black and white dishes.  I'm only picturing 3 here because the 4th one is larger (be sure to read the dimensions before purchasing - - which I did not.) and it's going back.  I really like to have 12 plates.  It's a lot, but we've had 12 in both the china and hand made pottery and I discovered how handy it is.  Having 12 means that we can have people over and not have to wash dishes if we've (gasp) used plates for lunch! ;-) (oh geez, I crack myself up).  The patterns don't match, but because they are black and white, they 'go'.  Corelle has everything you can imagine to go with your dinner set, so I cleaned out all the hodgepodge bowls and platters and now everything is white or black and white.

I love these dishes.  I shopped at multiple sites because some patterns are exclusive to different merchants.  

Some people say it's wrong to 'love' objects.  I disagree.  I think that objects can enhance our lives and feeling positive emotion about a better life is natural.  Maybe it's the word love that people object to.  Since I am not Gollum and haven't started calling anything My Precious, I think I'm all right.  But if you find loving dishes objectionable substitute like-like or appreciate.  

Since it's Fabulous Friday, think I'll go and dig in the dirt!  Enjoy! 

Thoughts on gifts...

We have a lot of family and friend birthdays in the winter. A lot. Virtually every week from November through March, even doubling up here and there. A lot.

The picture is of my 'finished basket'. A place where completed creations rest until a birthday or other holiday comes along.

I often crochet and knit for relaxation. While watching TV or traveling or waiting for this child or that, I put yarn to hook or needles. A scarf, a baby afghan, a hat, a shawl - whatever strikes my fancy at the moment and I add it to the finished basket.

If I'm sewing an easy project, I'll often make more than one and put the extras in the basket. Easy projects are great 'assembly line' candidates.

I also occasionally get the beading bug. When that happens, I make at least two things so I can add to the basket.

Today I went 'shopping' in my finished basket and found a scarf for a friend from work who has a birthday this weekend. While I was perusing the scarf pile, I discovered a baked potato bag in the basket and decided to include it, too. Easy, stress free shopping.

All these extras become great gifts throughout the year, but especially during this time when the holidays take precedence on time and energy. I highly recommend it.

Another thing I recommend... step outside the box. I am a sucker for clearance yarn (think I might have mentioned that before). Mostly because I can try out all the different specialty yarns at much more affordable prices. Also because it get me outside the box of what I would typically purchase as far as color or texture. It's kind of a challenge too... unusual colors, maybe not enough to actually make a complete project out of one yarn so you must combine with another.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, some people when they create things their color pallete or material choices are so focused that all their finished projects have a certain look. Branded if you will. Shopping in the clearance section gets me out of that branded-ness. It helps me to expand beyond my natural tendancies. What's really cool about that is I can almost always find something in my 'finished basket' that suits the recipient. Instead of giving away a gift that looks like me, I give gifts that look like the recipient.

I love the library!

I have always loved books, as long as I can remember. My mother was an avid reader and so am I. Books have a smell all their own and a really good book smells of knowledge.

My earliest favorite book was 'The Snowy Day' by Ezra Jack Keats. I remember reading it over and over in kindergarten. I could feel myself inside this book. Feel myself track through the snow with Peter as he adventured. It was magic.

Lately I don't have as much time for reading, but have found the most amazing thing at my library. Needless to say, I love the library, from the feel, the look, the stacks and stacks of books to the technology and the people who run it. The library is filled with mystery, adventure, exploration, excitement, learning, knowledge...

Anyway, back to the amazing thing I found at the library, it is called a Playaway. It's a recorded book, but in a small MP3 type player. Simple, only has the one book on it with just a few buttons to operate it. It's a book on tape, only current. Being a true bookworm, book lover, bibliophile, I definitely prefer to hold the book, feel the paper, smell the binding and read myself. However, this little invention is perfection for books I know and love. I'm currently working through Jane Austen!

To be certain, this is not new technology, but to me it is and I'm excited. I've been grocery shopping, gardening, and marathon cooking, all with the sounds of Jane Austen's heroines filling my ears. I'm keeping up with other goals and still feeding my soul with beautiful words.

So, if you need me, I'll be sewing some new shorts to go with my new blouses (see previous posts), listening to Elizabeth Bennett struggle against her love for Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Favorite Things....

These two, simple beaded chains are among my favorite things. A friend had a new, really cool anklet a couple of summers ago, and I had the envy. So, sitting at my kitchen table with the beads I had, and much trial and error, I finally settled on the tiny colorful glass seed beads. They reflect light like crazy, are dainty enough for an anklet and I had hundreds of them. I decided to make the anklet long enough to go around my ankle twice. I like the movement of two layers.

A short time after, I found the glass cross with the embedded floral pattern. I know this has a name, but arrrghh... I can't remember it. Anyway, the funny thing is, the anklet can be a bracelet, wrapped three times around a wrist. And, it can also be a necklace. And the colors of the flowers in the cross match and it makes a terrific pendant.

Because I liked the short version so much, I made a longer version. Long necklace, three wrap anklet, five wrap bracelet, double wrap short necklace. All worn with or without the cross.

Simple, versatile, fun.