cleaning the loo

I get a lot of unnecessary help when cleaning the cats bathrooms.
Lily doing a once over to see if it is all up to par.

Sophie inspecting the unopened box and has pulled out the plastic through the opening.  She has spied Lily inspecting the clean box.



You can see her thoughts turning...what's going on up there, I need to be there too!

Now they are both inspecting.  Of course it's more interesting when it is not in the usual spot.  "Shouldn't this be down on the floor"?

Well it must have passed inspection...Now "what else do you need from us"?

"Oh, you're throwing this out"  Better make sure I left nothing behind."

"Uh, maybe it's none of my business, but you forgot something."

"I really didn't like those bowls on the counter and I wanted to eat out of the bottom one, so I just knocked them off to get to it....I'm sure you don't mind....Right?"

"Here, let me spread this out for you, I do such a good job!"  The cat litter flys out the back .

Thanks for the help you two!

Wok

This is a ginger root.  Its one of those funny looking veggies that you see in the grocery store that you don't quite know what to do with. 
A good friend of ours, at least 25 years ago, made up this stir fry sauce recipe and I had forgotten that I had it until the other day.  It is the best sauce I have ever tasted in stir fry and I am really glad that I uncovered it again. 

This is my $5.00 wok pan that I got from WalMart.  I decided I can't go wrong for that price even if it doesn't last too long.  It's good for a first time Wok Pan user. 

I am going to share this recipe with you, please use it...you will love it.....if you remember....send me a message telling me how much you enjoyed it. 

Stir Fry

Sauce:
1 Cup boiling water with 1 Tablespoon chicken bouillon. (I used 3 cubes)
2 T. Corn Starch
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. Honey
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
Ginger Root-Peel off 1/2 inch (use a potato peeler and don't use the outside, get into the meat of it.)
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. sesame oil

Mix together cornstarch, brown sugar, honey and garlic powder.  Add a small amount of the chicken bouillon water to make smooth.  Then add all the rest.  Add the ginger root, soy sauce and sesame oil, mix together and set aside.

Cut up vegetables:
cauliflower
broccoli
carrots
celery
green pepper
onions

Whatever you have on hand

1.  3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut up into bite size pieces.  Add peanut oil in the wok and add the chicken, stir frying until well cooked.  I like mine to show some brown on the pieces.  Cover with a lid and also I didn't have peanut oil on hand and I used canola oil.  It worked fine.
2. Add cut up veggies and stir and pour a little oil over them.
3. Lower heat and cover, cook for 5-7 minutes. Or until your veggies are done to the way you like them.
4. Stir the sauce again and then add it to the pan-stirring all the time until it thickens.

I had made jasmine brown rice before I started the sauce because it takes 20 to 25 minutes to cook. 

5.  Put the stir fry over the cooked rice and add cashews or peanuts on top.

Heavenly....enjoy....I know you will!

Thanks for stopping



 

Diana Sudyka

Today I received a print that I ordered from a nature artist who lives in Chicago. 
This is the postcard that she enclosed with my order.
Her name is Diana Sudyka and here is her Shop. 

First print that I bought was called The Backpack.  I loved all the detail with the animals finding the backpack and unloading it onto different branches of the tree.  I don't know why but I am drawn to pine trees and the focal point of this painting is just that.

Here is the one that I received today.  The writing at the bottom tells about each nature piece that she had illustrated,  It is patterned after illustrations of children's books. The name of this piece is The Wonders of Nature.  The jack in the pulpit was my drawing point with this picture.  When I took the Indiana Nature class last may we found many Jack in the pulpits while exploring the different areas. Lichen was also on our lists to find.  You can view my pictures here: http://watercolorstream.blogspot.com/2013/05/wildflower-woods.html.

Her pretty business card. 

Thanks for stopping by so that I could share.

some new a little old

I am really taken with this little doll.  She is all ceramic and is a little red riding hood.  She belonged to my Mother in Law but I wished I knew more about her.  She has a very serious face.

A charming laundry room sign.  I especially liked the big old clothes pin, my Mom used these when we were growing up. 

Found these sparkly red hearts at Michael's Crafts this weekend, enjoying this little tree but I have to change the lights, they quit working. I'll get around to it sometime.

My niece Angie gave me this beautiful glass heart for my birthday.  It is displayed in my foyer.

Paula Best was having a special on her greeting cards so I picked up 15 of them. Her art is funky and enjoyable.

Made this card for our neighbors.  Their boxer Daisy passed away last week and we all loved her.  She will be missed.

Sent them over some cupcakes with hearts to tell them how sorry we are. It's hard when our furry family members go away.

Wilton Sprinkle hearts.  I liked the size, they weren't the tiny ones, easy to handle. 

I hope that you stay warm....it's going to get really cold next week.
Till next time.....

Bracelets

I was organizing my jewelry box the other day and thought I should show my pretty bracelets off. 
I love hearts and this bracelet is so comfortable.  It's flat so that it doesn't bother me when I use the keyboard.  It has three different metals and the hearts design are all different too.  I got it from one of the home jewelry shows that the name is evading me right now.  The next leather bracelet my sister picked up from an airport.  I really love the design of it, she gave her daughter (my niece) a green one which was equally as pretty.  The black bracelet was made by my friend Theresa's daughter.  She has a nice Etsy shop called Centered Jewelry. I wear black all the time and this bracelet gets used a lot.  It looks nice with the red one.  My niece Angie gave the last red bracelet to me and it came with two more of different sized beads.  I absolutely love the color.

These three I uncovered again.  They were hiding under some vintage hankys which I think I will show at another time.  The first she had made, she does some very nice jewelry making.  She should have an etsy page..hint.  It has some interesting charms on it.  The next is a beautiful red and green baubley bracelet and the last with the stamped pottery.  I love them all and feel lucky to have found them again. 

Thanks for stopping!

Journaling

It was a very stressful week for at least 10 reasons that I will not bore your with.  This Saturday morning, when I woke up it was still with me.  I was not going to let this ruin my weekend.  I needed to get my mind going in another direction.  Journaling was my way out.  I scanned the music channels and tried different ones until I settled on the 60's.  Usually upbeat sounding, not blaring that would interrupt my thoughts but a complement to what I was trying to achieve.  The page above was the first I did in my journal months ago.  I am practicing with different mediums and this, as I am sure you can tell, are calligraphy markers.  I taped Canson marker paper to the journaling page because I hate bleed through.  It worked great, and I highly recommend it. 

The back of the journal page with Canson marker paper again.  While I am in school I need help keeping my "create brain" going because the working, school, business brain is in full mode and takes over.  For the help I used the Creative Lettering Books by Lindsay Ostrom.  They are FUN with tons of ideas to quickly put in place and practice with.

Again this 3rd page was not done today.  I was practicing with the graphite drawing pencils.  I was stepping out of the box and drawing things I wouldn't normally take on.  Suprisingly it was pretty fun and they don't look awful.  You can at least tell what they are and after all, journaling is practicing.  The building is one in downtown Detroit that I see when we go to Tigers and Lions games.  Tall and many, many windows.  The other is the craft lamp on my table in my studio.  It has the light head on it that looks like a bird, then it has a magnifying arm.  I don't really use it unless I have something stuck in my finger that I need to see.  It also has an arm with a clamp that holds paper.  At the bottom is a tray that holds all your items that are needed.  I always try to get values in them and they can always use more for sure. 

Here is Page 4 that I finished this morning.  I started this over Christmas Break and wasn't sure what I wanted to do....So I just put a big Do It in the middle and worked around it using a regular #2 pencil and the colored pencils.  I had my handy dandy Faber-Castell pencil sharpener that is my favorite.  I started out with new pencils that I received recently and then went to the Prismacolor pencils that the pigment is much bolder.  I use these thoughts for life.

These two have become great buddies.  They are the closest in age and when Tiger Lily came to our house so hungry for food she had been pregnant but there were no kittens with her.  She was very stand offish and mean at first to Sophie but as you can tell Sophie didn't give up and they are very close now. 

A look of contentment on both faces.  See Lilys' arm holding Sophie.  But of course then they had to start wrestling and had to be sent from the room.  It was all good when I was sitting there but going and doing something else and they get themselves in trouble.

And I wanted to tell you after I got my journal page done, I did feel much better.  I needed to get a monkey off my back for the weekend. 
Deep Breath and go on.

I hope you find something that gets the monkey off your back.

Thank you for stopping...from the bottom of my heart. 

Little Monkey Quilt

I liked the oval headed monkey (see below) and it gave me the idea of putting it on the block. I felt it would look good on the blue-greenish color. I had oval plastic templates that I used for the head, ears, nose and mouth.  Cut them out and appliqued onto the block.  I then embroidered the words. 

I found this picture in the 2012 Spring Quilt Sampler magazine.  It was at a shop called Pendleton Quiltworks in Pendleton Oregon (UPDATE-I originally had a link to this shop and it quit working-I found they had sadly closed their doors.  Here is a link that tells that and also has some other quilt shops to view.. 

Keep checking back I am working on ideas to cover up the spots on the block.

See ya soon......

3 days of weather

 Made by the kids across the street

 Sculpted by the kids next door

Day One-January 5th-approx. 9 a.m....the snow started falling, temps were in the lower 30's producing a heavy, wet snow making many snowmen pop up.

We had a snow earlier in the week so there was already a path cut out from the previous time.

Kevin went out a couple of times to stay ahead of the snowfall so that it wouldn't be so hard when it was time to dig out.  It ended up snowing at least 15 hours straight, I am not sure when it stopped because I was sleeping.

3 out of 5 had to see what was going on out there.

Sophie is just funny.

Day 2- Monday January 6th, the snow has stopped, the winds have picked up and the temps dropped drastically.  It looks like a documentary for the North Pole and polar bears should start lumbering across the field.

Heavy snow on the neighbors pine trees.

The wind is blowing and drifting the snow.

Day 3, Tuesday January 7th, 7 a.m.  It's so cold that door handles on the outside doors are frosted over. 

Frost at the bottom of the doors.

The garage door is more frosty since the garage is not heated but well insulated. 

Outside temp from our covered porch, the weather channel on the Ipad said 12 below in our area.  It was blowing the wind chime and the trees enough to move them so wind chill was 25 to 30 below zero. 

Pretty but cold sunrise this morning.  Good picture of the waves in the snow.

There is going to be a little work in front of the garage doors.

The swath that had been cut out for the front sidewalk is all filled in.  This was the coldest air that we have seen for 20 years.  We have had enough, tomorrow it will be better.  Some people had lost electricity, we were not one, thankfully.  People I know had family and friends to go to. 

There were warming centers open in the city of Fort Wayne and hopefully the people who were homeless and without electricity went to them. 

By the weekend they are telling us the high should be 38 degrees.  We are looking forward to it. In my area we probably got 9 inches of snow, it's always hard to tell because of the wind blowing.  Other places received 14 to 16 inches.  It was quite a storm.

I hope that you have faired well in this bad weather.