"Snowtorious B.I.G." visits Dallas

Those of y'all that are 55 inches deep in snow probably will laugh your tushies off at this, but for us Dallas folk, this is a LOT of snow! Over six inches in our area and more to come! We haven't had this much snow since the late 80's!

Here's the cute little snowman I watched my neighbor's kids build while I was in the kitchen this afternoon:



The corner of our house (on the left) where the dining room and kitchen are:



a big bush:



and here's what I was up to in the kitchen:



DE-FREAKIN-LICIOUS! It's Cinnamon Bun Bread and you can find the recipe HERE. You should make them ASAP! It was super easy and worth the very little time it took to make them. Yum!



I also made a HUGE pot of pinto beans and filled my iron skillet with cornbread and made mini pecan pie muffins for dessert, but we kinda ate it all before I could get pictures.
Now we're all stuffed full and some of us {ahem} found all this extremely exhausting and needed a nap ;-)



A couple of you have asked about Astro's bump on his face I'd posted about last month. I'm happy to say it was just a little cyst and it's totally gone now :-) Thanks for asking!

And more good news, the work is almost done in the laundry room! The tile is down and we should have the washer and dryer moved back in by tomorrow, providing the roads aren't icy enough to keep the guy away. Cross your fingers for me, I go through a LOT of dishtowels around here, lol!

Stay toasty!

have yourself...

...a merry little Christmas!



let your heart be light....



from now on



our troubles will be out of sight....



Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on
Our troubles will be miles away



Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years
We all will be together
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star
Upon the highest bough
And have yourself
A merry little Christmas right now

heart attacks and mcbutterpants

No, hubby didn't have another heart attack, thank God. But last time I was in the Costco laundry detergent isle putting my hand on the big ol' box of detergent we always buy, I almost had one! It went up in price over $6 from the last time we bought it!
So, my hand flew off that box like it was on fire and I slowly backed out of the isle, shaking my head in disbelief. No way. No how. Luckily for us, I'd been reading up on home made laundry detergent, how much cheaper it was and how much less of it you have to use than the commercial stuff. So my thought was, I can do this!

Here's what you need:



1 bar Fels Naptha (can use regular Ivory or Zotes bar too), grated finely
1 1/2 cups WASHING soda (NOT baking soda)
1 1/2 cups Borax powder

I found all of these items on the laundry detergent isle at Kroger. The first batch I made, I only used 1/3 of the bar, 1/2 washing soda, and 1/2 cup borax. Then I figured out, you could just make a bigger, longer lasting batch if you used the whole bar and tripled the amount of the powders.

Here I am grating the bar of soap, using gardening gloves so I can get that last little bit of soap through the grater and not my skin :-)



Mix it all together and store in airtight container. Mine is in an old, (large size) sour cream container. All three ingredients with tax cost a grand total of $7.43 and the boxes of powder will probably last me all year, I'll only have to buy more bars of soap (those were $1.19)

Here's the deal about this. And it's NO JOKE, we've been using it for over a month and so I know it works. You use 1 TABLESPOON for light loads or 2 TABLEspoons for heavy loads. Just mix it all together, don't worry about the amount of grated soap you get in each scoop, it all comes out in the wash! Yes, your clothes get clean!!



OK, the final kicker is this. Don't faint. I've been using VINEGAR as my fabric softener! Yep, regular white vinegar! And we don't smell like a pickle! In fact, all of our towels, sheets, etc. smell better than they ever have! And I'm a faithful Downy user from way back, so I was skeptical! Actually, I read somewhere that if you had any fabric softener left over, you could mix it with the vinegar for scent (some people add essential oils for fragrance, but it's not a must), so I've been adding 1 teaspoon to each 1/4 cup vinegar and putting that in the Downy Ball with each load. But when the Downy runs out, that's it. A huge gallon bottle of vinegar cost a little over $2 at the WalMarts :-)

I feel better about laundry now :-) Cutting back in small ways really adds up!

Speaking of cutting back....have you seen Muttley lately? He's one year old now and we're thinking it's time for him to get rid of that baby fat....

so here's Muttley, aka Fatty McButterpants, aka Laser Eyes



Yes, we have an Amazon pug!

Astro is not fat, but check out that face roll....



Happy Sunday y'all!

contemplating...

This is a shelf that is over the sink in the kitchen...pardon the dust, I'd usually rather stitch than do housework...



It's been there since we moved in 12 years ago and I've left it "natural" as the cabinets are dark wood (really crappy wood, but that's a whole nuther story).

So anyhoo, am thinking about painting it white, white-ish, or some other color...but can't decide...

Also thinking about getting rid of a whole bunch of my Mary E. stuff because I'm just tired of all the dusting (or feeling guilty over not doing it)! So maybe we'll just take this down altogether and put up one of those old fashioned dish racks....those are so cool!

Any thoughts?

ok, pictures!

Alright then, if it's embarrassing, so be it, just please be kind and don't tell me how awful it all looks, ha!

Here's over the entertainment cabinet. The big Mary E. print in the center will eventually be replaced with some BAP stitching projects, once they're done and framed.

(click on images to see larger)



And all of the crappy paneling, over the not so centered fireplace:




A small grouping over a shelf that a friends husband made for us years ago, this sits to the left of the kitchen entrance:




The whole thing, which shows some small seasonal things that I move around (and evidence of my crappy love seat which needs replacing after a kitty got hold of it with his claws):




To the right of the kitchen entrance, another small grouping:



That's all for now. I am getting some shelf things with pegs underneath them to put in the bedroom, my plan is to display some stitching smalls on them, mostly some of the out of season ones because it's really a shame to only get to see them for a few weeks out of the year.

so much goodness...

... more than I can even share! Recent finishes for friends, a couple of which I don't want to show here until they've been received, but then there's this one...



Hopefully, she won't see it here before the postal person delivers it to her house. Anyway, it's from a Birds of a Feather chart called Holiday Season's, which includes four different designs, but the summer one is my favorite. Hope she likes it!

And not only was Nancy kind enough to lend an ear (and a shoulder) last week when I was having a meltdown, as if that wasn't enough, all by itself, she also sent me these little beauties:






They are the cutest kitchen towels I've ever seen!! I absolutely adore bluebirds of all kinds, but the sweet little vintage ones like these are my favorite!!

Thank you so much Nancy! You are a real treasure and made my week with your thoughtfulness. Thanks for listening and actually caring.

Here's my progress on Willow House. Not that much to show...I've been too busy with whatever else...




And while waiting for something in the oven, I decided to take a picture of this corner of my kitchen.



It's the top and side of our fridge, lol. If you look closely enough, you'll see some dust.

Would love to redo the cabinets and repaint the walls but we're kind of looking for a new house, so not sure I'd like to put all that energy (and money) into this one.

Anyway, my house isn't anything fancy and I've certainly seen better pictures of homes on blogs, picture perfect, etc. But I'm so inspired by what's out there...people taking snapshots of their ordinary "things", that I snap away at my "stuff" too.

We haven't always done that, have we? I mean, I can't recall my mother ever taking a photo of any kind of object in our house other than the Christmas tree, lol. Well, maybe her Corvette...aw yes, pictures of our cars. And for years, I'm pretty sure that's all I ever photographed as well, besides children, relatives and pets. But now, there's pictures of our stitching , our gardens, our homes, our cooking, and little things like tea towels!

Am I crazy to buy hard copies of these photos? You can see some on the fridge there. That cupcake picture was too perfect to pass up! After a few computer crashes, I worry about losing these pictures forever.

So inspiring to see others cherishing, savoring, their everyday life, so full of extraordinary things. sigh....life is good.

rockin' my world

Here for your viewing pleasure, pictures of my brand new fridge!



There are no words to describe how happy this baby is making me right now.



We moved the essentials into the new fridge and left some stuff in the old one out in the garage.



We have a lot of butter...this is only half of the inventory, ahem.



This pull out deli tray (or whatever it's called)is the best thing invented since cupcakes!



As you can see here, ONLY the VIP food stuff made it into the freezer drawer. hee hee




Thanks for looking at my new love! What more could a girl ask for...a loving husband who indulges his wife in a new fridge we really didn't HAVE to have, a healthy family, good friends and a huge stash to stitch...stay tuned for more on that last subject this weekend. It's truly shocking.

a post from Astro

Hello!

I turned 4 months old today and celebrated with a roast beef bone.

And by soaking up some sun...



I did not concern myself with the sad state of the yard or things Daddy was busy fixing:



When Mom wasn't taking pictures of me, or the dilapidated birdhouse, she was inside playing with some new stash, which is really weird, all that stroking and purring...



And her recent order from Williams Sonoma...she said something about a "sale and free shipping" and how rocked her world gets by all that...

And she was so happy that she was done with block three on her Village, she ran right out and did a happy dance on the back porch!

Which indeed, was quite a sight to see.

all about cake

Out of all things I'd planned on doing/making for Christmas, making this cake is one of those things that didn't get done, that I actually was sorry about.

Until now that is.




It's the Irish Cream Cake!



and it's something that I've made for just about every holiday since finding the recipe on allrecipes.com several years ago.

You can find it here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Irish-Cream-Bundt-Cake/Detail.aspx

(sorry, I can't get the html to work for posting a link so you'll have to copy and paste).

The real trick to this recipe coming out great is beating the batter for the full 5 minutes and putting ALL of the glaze on the cake. It does take a long time to do it, you have to put it on, go do something else, come back, put some more on, etc. Use a pastry brush and keep slathering it on. It's worth the trouble, trust me.

This cake is very, very moist and delicious!




Next time I make this, I am going to use chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding mix and Kahlua. A reviewer on allrecipes said they did it that way and it turned out great. Sounds good to me, I'll let you know how it turns out ;)

How do you like my vintage cake carrier? In my favorite color, orange!



Found it on ebay a year or so ago, it's in almost mint condition and is great for hauling cakes around in, or just sittin' pretty on your counter.

With a cake in it, of course!