School is starting

Well, my first day of school for the semester is tomorrow, which I am looking forward to.  I have only 3 semesters left for my bachelors degree.  I feel all the classes this time are interesting.  1. Human Resource Management  2. Intro to the Bible taught by Sister Felicity.  3.  Ceramics.  I will have so many things to tell you AND show you, the good and the errors.

Above are my texts for Human Resource Management.   



These classes shouldn't be to awful hard.  This semester should be enjoyable.

Stop back later and see how I'm doing.

Journaling

A Journaling page I am working on with watercolors.  Sam had moved away in April and after a visit we had with him, I came home and started drawing things about him.
He has since moved back and I decided to paint it all in and keep thinking of things I need to add while doing it. 

My Sophie is a companion during these times.  She has her head or paw stuck in the water bucket or trying to drink my wet paint.  In this picture she decided to settle down for a bit.

Lily loves...no craves to be outside but would love someone to be with her at all times. 

Here is a flower put together with Tim Holtz grunge paper, a very pliable and inkable medium.  This was stamped and then colored with two colors of Distress Inks.  Cut out, stamped with black Stazon, then embossed with Darcies Glittery black embossing powder.  That's a brad in the middle that looks like a screw.  The background stamps were using my new Mega Mount, that I talked about in a previous post.  I hope to make a rose with this same stamp in the near future.  They are very neat. 

Have a fantastic day and thanks for stopping!

Inspiration Wall

Cleaned the house on Saturday and took down the inspiration wall to dust and find some other favorites to put up. 

Put up my small but fun VW collection. 

Sporty

One of my very favorites-it even came in its own case.  The VW bus.

A little ceramic box I found in Michaels Craft store dollar bin.  I was drawn to the old typewriter.

The tiger marbles I found at another dollar store.  They reminded me of the Detroit Tigers. 

My Mother in Law had found these at an antique store.  I like marbles because they are colored glass and I am drawn to that. 

These are not on my inspiration wall but they are more marbles I have collected over time.  I LOVE that the big red marble. 
The weekend went so fast.... 

I hope you don't lose your marbles this week and I hope they all roll easily for you. 
Thanks for coming by. 
 

Dinner

The other day I tried a different bread recipe.  It was very easy because there no kneading at all in it.  I didn't have to roll it out and it was made in one pan, an angel food cake pan!

It's called Sally Lunn and dates way back in the first Gold Medal Flour Cook Book of the early 1900's.

It says that it is named after a worker in a bakery in Bath, England. 
 

This is sour cream-banana bars. 
I had some ripe banana's and needed to make something with them.
This is great for breakfast and I made a mistake by leaving out the stick of butter.
Since it has sour cream it is still moist.  I also did not put on the frosting which cut down on the fat and sugar. 
Here is the correct recipe:

SOUR CREAM-BANANA BARS
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup dairy sour cream
1/2 cup butter softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
(3 large)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray jelly roll pan (15 1/2 X 10 1/2 X 1) with canola oil.
Mix  together ingredients with a mixer until smooth. Spread batter in pan and bake until light brown 20 to 25 minutes.  Cool and frost with Browned Butter Frosting.

BROWNED BUTTER FROSTING
Heat 1/4 cup margarine or butter over med. heat until delicate brown; remove from heat.  Mix in 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla and 3 T. milk until smooth and of spreading consistency. 
Spread on bars.

 

Vegetable Beef Soup
I started out with a boneless chuck roast 2 to 3 pounds.
I put it into a pan with some water and beef bullion cubes.
Onion powder and salt and pepper.
Cover it and bake at 375 degrees until it falls apart, 3 or so hours.

While the beef was baking I got a big pan out and put in:
5 peeled and chunked up potato's
1 large onion chunked up.
You can put any kind of vegetables in this. 
One large can tomato juice
can of green beans, corn, peas along with juice, peeled and chunked and carrots.

Add water and 4 beef bullion cubes salt and pepper to taste.
start simmering the pot and when the chuck roast is done tear it apart and add to the simmering pot along with the good juices.  Let simmer for 45 more minutes. 

SALLY LUNN
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup shortening (melted)
5 1/2 cups all purpose flour
In a large mixing bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm water and then stir in the remaining ingredients.  Beat until smooth, cover and let rise in a warm place until double, about 1 hour.

Stir down the batter.  Spread in a tube pan sprayed with canola spray.  Let rise to within 1 inch of top of pan, about 45 minutes. 

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake until loaf is golden brown and crusty.  45 to 50 minutes.  Remove from pan, serve warm. 
 

The finished soup

Can you smell it?

Thanks for stopping!

this and that

I have a subscription for this magazine and haven't had a chance to crack it open yet.  It's interesting to read how they started their businesses as I hope to open one some day.  I get some valuable information from these ladies.

Another subscription that I have.  I was thrilled when I found they started a magazine on the more traditional and primitive quilts.  A favorite genre of mine.

Picked this cute piggy bank up at an antique shop.  It was way too cute to pass up.

My niece Angie gave this neat bird to me.  It's body is an apple if you can't tell.

sweet face

rear end

birds eye view (pun intended)

A face that said "take me home Robin".

One Friday Toni and I stopped at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

Britt Schmiesing made this hand-printed canvas.  I always loved bookhou goods and this is the closest I can find. 

Sam and I went to the flea market in Decatur the first weekend in August.  I found this pretty blue bottle. 

I picked up this handpainted shore bird also.

This book was published recently and I picked it up.  I enjoy learning about the active quilt designers. 

This picture was taken on Tuesday.  Such a dreary, windy cool day for August.

A ceramic magnet I also picked up from the Museum of Art.  It is made by Ralph Stuckman.  The raised tree caught my eye. 

Fun stuff, I enjoyed sharing with you. 
Have a great day!

The Weekend

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I went away this weekend with my girlfriends.  We go to two stamping conventions in Ohio every year. Sometimes all four of us can go and other times only 3 or two.  We went to Sharonville Ohio this time to the Stampaway convention.  It's just a great time.  We have a routine downpat..get up early, go to Wapakoneta Ohio for breakfast, get to the stamp show, go to lunch at Macaroni Grill, and we picked up pizza to take back to the room.  Next year we have decided though to get take out Chinese. We rearrange the furniture so that we can stamp, bring out our snacks and drinks and take out our purchases to see what everyone bought and to decide if we need to purchase that too!  We watch tv, stamp, talk and have a great time.  I look forward to the stamping time in the hotel room as much as the convention. 

The next day, Marcos paper always has something going on and so we make a trip out there which is 45 minutes away at the most.  We spend a couple of hours there and then sometimes find other places to see or go home, depending on how much time we have. 
We found a great Mexican restaurant to end our international tour. 

In this picture is Toni and Michelle.

Theresa

These birds stamps came in a set of four and are by Dina Wakley.
The background I stamped also with Wendy Vecchi stamps.  I layered two stamps to make it.

It's fun going and learning new techniques.  This tag has dye ink and acrylic paint with stamped images. 

I just love this purchase.  It helps make the large stamps images stamp so clean.  Gonna get a lot of use out of this.  Mega Mount..

Thanks for stopping, so I could share my fun weekend.

Unusual Pair

When I came home on Sunday from a weekend trip with my girlfriends, these were sitting on my desk here.  For my husband I had gotten some nice martini glasses to make lemon drop martinis but we didn't have vodka.  So he picked up some along with the MiraLax (I'll get to that in a minute.)

Isn't this just a beautiful bottle?  You can see through it to see the flying geese.  I just love it and will keep it.  When we make the martini's I will share.

Now for the MiraLax-I don't share really personal stuff but this is important.  My Father passed away from Colon Cancer when he was 70 in 1995.  He battled it for 5 years and of course my siblings and I need to get colonoscopy's.  I am the youngest and probably the last one to get the test, which was 4 years overdue, because they recommend that one starts at 50 years old. 

I had the test in July and a large polyp (almost an inch) was discovered, clipped off and sent for inspection. It was not cancerous but the doctor felt sure that in a couple of years it would have turned cancerous so it is very good that I went.  Unfortunately the scope could not reach everything, I had a twist that it couldn't get through and since the doc had already clipped the polyp he didn't want to do any other procedure.

So, I had to do the cleansing once again for a barium enema and my caring husband picked up the drink of choice. 

The instructions are to mix the whole bottle with 64 ounces of light colored Gatorade.  This, my friends, is impossible for me to drink.  The best I did was to drink two very large glasses of this concoction. It did the job.  In July I threw up and was miserable, this time it was a much easier experience. 

I hope I don't have to go through the barium enema again. I will spare the details but your dignity is taken from you for a while. 

I am sharing this with you because especially if you have this cancer in your family, then GET IT DONE.  I know two people whom I am close to who NEED to get it done. The prep is tough, the colonoscopy is nothing.  You are put out ,it is over with, zip, zap, done.

Colon Cancer is Awful....Your families are counting on you. 

party cats

Finished my party cats picture today.

Here it is in the beginning stages. It was fun, I enjoy watercolor so much. 

This is just a pretty building decoration I snapped in Detroit. 

Flowers, flowers everywhere

On my travels around Fort Wayne I came across some really nice gardens.  This lady always has a pretty garden. 
 

My lovely friend Toni showing off this shops garden. 

Beer bottle border.

Pot with pretty yellow flowers.