Enjoy The Fall

A beautiful season of wonderful colors, warmth, good smells, and CANDY!

 

~Ready for the tricksters~

This candy corn is Really Good!  Try it!  In the jar is my homemade crushed cayenne pepper!

HoT HOt! hOt!

Happy Fall Season~Happy Halloween~Happy Everything!

Happiness and Blessings

Quilts, Quilted, Quilting…..and more

 "A day patched with quilting seldom unravels"

When we sleep under a quilt, we sleep under a blanket of love.

Don’t you just love a good quilt…old, new, raggy, bright, pieced, appliquéd, all sewn together with love, talent and lots of patience! ---Patience which I do not have!--- I like projects that do not take long to complete. I started a quilt years ago and my mother-n-law had to finish it! I’ve since started another one because a dear lady I used to work with was always quilting and I thought it would be fun ---again---hahaha…well needless to say…it’s NOT finished and I do not see a finish in its future! It’s really beautiful…BUT! Quilting is an art I appreciate and admire but do not possess the talent for!

I visited the Wiregrass Heritage Festival at Landmark Park, Dothan, Al. on Saturday. It was one of the biggest quilt shows I have ever seen. They were beautiful!

I had friends there working a booth and showing quilts….etc. It was fun.

My friend and wife of Jackie’s cousin, Janan Doster; had her quilt on display. It is the "Log Cabin" pattern and was quilted by June Baumann.  Isn't it beautful?

Janan Doster and "Log Cabin"

Janan also had her "Raggy Jacket" she made and won Second Place in the competition. It was made using a Marjorie Webb and Sandra Noah pattern by Four Corners. Yay Janan!!

 This beautiful flag quilt was made by Joan Kloenne from Dothan, Al.

This one---so beautiful----was made by Julie C. Green from Dothan, Al.

using a Jackie Robinson pattern called "Reel Fine".

...and who doesn't just love this?

 Simply Unique~Ozark, Alabama

And here’s another look at Simply Unique….Paula set up a booth at the quilt show to sell her goods….such goody goods! Beautiful fabrics, patterns, ideas.....the list goes on and on…
To see more about Paula and her store click here.

Here are some of my dear friend Libby’s sewing for the little ones ….aren’t they just too cute!

~Paula Carroll~

Such talented people! These "material girls" are so awesome at what they can turn out!

"Blessed are the Piecemakers"

"May all of your UPS and downs in life

be with a needle and thread"

My Childhood Passion

As a child we think as a child, we play as child, we dream big, sore high, and imagine the impossible. Children possess the ability to play hard, create, pretend, and discover all things new. Memories were made….built from love and the talents of our young minds which were pure at heart.

One of my many childhood passions was playing Chinese Checkers with my granddaddy Sam. This was something we both loved to do. Hours would go by before we realized it. It was a pastime passion of fun, laughter and competition. This passion was among many which include my drawing set,
my paints, playing in the dirt, and Barbie dolls.

Go back to the time when you were younger….a child….and recapture your passion.

What were you infatuated with as a child? Where did your passion lie? What do you remember that was
"Oh so very precious" to you?

It’s good to remember our passions…….Please share your childhood passion with me!

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child, I thought as a child……"

1 Corinthians 13:11 KJV

This is a part of our 52 weeks of sharing a selected theme at Lens.Us.Together.  This week was my pick for the theme~"A Childhood Passion".  Share some of your passions with me that you had as a child.

Into The World He Came....

10.21.2009   4:35 a.m.   6.7 pounds  and  19.25 inches later….baby Evan has safely arrived. Labor Day began Tuesday 10.20.09 at 2:30 in the afternoon and lasted 14 hours…..14 hours of high blood pressure, vomiting, pain, mishaps and many prayers for mommy, daddy and baby!

The afternoon is gone and we were in for an all-nighter. 

As the night unfolded like this…

People came…people waited.....people went….people stayed.....people waited........

9:02 p.m. ~Who are all these people anyway?

11:15 p.m. ~Just how long does deodorant last anyway, does anyone really even know? Look there goes a baby boy….awe…so sweet!

12:00 midnight ~My hairspray finally gave in and said "I give up".  How long does it take for yesterdays makeup to turn into a new look….say a Halloween mask maybe? Ugh!

12:35 a.m. ~Just how many crossword puzzles and word searches can you do when your eyes start crossing. Loooooook…there goes another one…another boy!

2:05 a.m. ~"What’s so funny?"… "Oh I don’t know, what are you laughing about?"  "I don’t know either!" "Well why are you laughing?"--- I got so tickled at something ----Lord only knows now what it was---that I had to get up and go out of the waiting room….. Loooook, another baby boy…oh my, we are having a baby boy boom!

2:45 a.m. ~Why are the chairs in waiting rooms connected? Who thought of that dumb idea? And yet another boy…no wait, Look......it’s a girl this time! Finally a girl!

3:10 a.m. How long is it before your panties stink to you and you have to peel them off?

3:14 ~Did you know that you can effectively brush your teeth with your index finger and some toothpaste found in “daddy’s” overnight bag?

3:47 a.m. ~Who eats BBQ potato chips and drinks a Coke at this time of the morning? OMG…that goes against all the rules, especially after you have just finger brushed your teeth!

3:55 a.m. WE’RE PUSHING! Finally! Praise the Lord!

4:00 a.m. ~Why do you say strange, dumb, and somewhat funny things when you are sleep deprived?

4:15 ~How many pix can you possible get of family waiting and waiting, waiting, waiting…….?

4:26 a.m. ~Did you know that if you sit on the floor in front of those big double doors that it will cause labor to progress faster? It’s true according to “Nana”.

All in all and all through the night……I’m not complaining mind you. I was not the one in labor, I was not the mother, I was not the mother-n-law and I was not even the new “Nana”. I was not in pain, I was not pushing a baby, I was just the faithful good ole friend of Nana, there for the support, the laughs, the anticipation of it all and because I didn’t want to miss a thing! Jackie had went home just before midnight leaving me to get a ride home with my friends……all because I was NOT leaving until everything was safe and sound and I got some pix of Evan…..He’s so cute and little! What a blessing and a true genuine miracle! Thank you Lord!

Congratulations: Jason and Miranda, Ricky~aka Pawpaw, Becky~aka Nana, Aunt Katie, and all the other family members! This baby will not lack for some loving!

Baby Loves!

Disclaimer notes to protect me: The times of this all-nighter may vary by a few minutes, several minutes or even hours…who really knows and who really cares. I’m running off about 2.5 hours of sleep here! But I’m freshly showered, changed and wide awake at the moment! No names were changed to protect anyone, innocent guilty or otherwise.

Frost On The Pumpkin

The heat is on ….my "Warm Spices" Yankee candle is burning, and my "mini has paused", those pills really work! No more hot flashes for me! I’m freezing!! It’s really too soon to be this cold in October, with 39 degrees this a.m. in south Alabama. I love it when you go through that seasonal transition of summer air conditioning to opening the windows and letting the cool breeze of fall flow through the whole house! *sigh* What happened?

I’m relishing the upcoming holidays going through my Gooseberry Patch Cookbooks. Love them! My faves are "Magic of Christmas" and "Homespun Christmas". They have great heartwarming recipes and crafty gift ideas, thoughts for making holiday memories and homemade tree trimming treats. The hand-drawn art in the books---sigh--- is awesome! I love these books. I swear I smell cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg scents while reading these holiday cheer ideas and recipes while combing through each page!  Visit the Gooseberry Patch Blog too!

“Christmas is not in tinsel and lights…its lighting a fire inside the heart” ~ Wilfred A. Peterson

Sunday was our family---husband’s side---reunion. We gathered the family in the usual place seeing loved ones we had not seen since last October. We also saw people we didn’t know and some we had never seen before. They could have just come in off the street and no one would have been the wiser about who they were!

My cooking for this event began Saturday afternoon ---after another baby shower attendance--- with a 10+ pound ham, slow cooked to perfection and carved to the bone and a Lemon Cheesecake Pie – recipe blogged here.  After I swore I was not cooking anything else, Sunday led to some deviled eggs, oven fried cornbread, collards, and a gallon of sweet tea. Jackie prepared the collards to cook, I boiled the eggs and deviled them---ha, that sounds funny. Now about the cornbread---jalapeno style, oven fried NOT baked! Jackie’s grand idea…So Yummy GOOD!


Oven Fried Jalapeno Cornbread


Fine ground plain cornmeal
Jalapeno peppers- chopped in small pieces
Salt
Water
Cooking oil-enough to barely cover the bottom on the skillet, about ½ inch deep
A good old seasoned iron skillet


Preheat oven to 450 degrees. We don’t measure…just pour up some meal in a medium bowl and add salt to taste. Stir in the peppers and enough water so that the mixture will easily drop from a spoon when placed on the oil. They should be fairly thin so they will cook evenly. Fill the skillet without letting each piece touch the other, approximately 7 pieces per pan. Sometimes they will stick to the bottom of the skillet so we spray a little Pam before pouring in the oil. Bake—I mean fry--- turning once until golden brown. If you don’t like the peppers---leave them out---plain is good!
With all this good food, including some of my homemade sweet pickles; in tow...we headed off to the reunion.

This time of year also lends to all things spooky and scary on TV. Horror movies galore! I do love to watch a good scary movie---only because I know its all fake---but there’s something about watching them alone…it’s NO fun! Holly and hubby Richard are my scary movie buddies---Jackie hates to watch movies period! Well since they are in Louisiana and I’m here in Alabama, I have no scary movie buddies to watch them with. So we are planning a scary movie night when they come home for Thanksgiving…

Saw V---yes I know Saw VI is out but I have still not seen V yet so the plans are on…I smell popcorn and cappuccinos and feel some goose bumps brewing. Can’t wait! No Wrong Turns here!

Boooooooooo!

Items on my grocery shopping list for this week:

Orange drink mix

Lemon tea drink mix

Allspice

Cinnamon

Carrots

Cream cheese

Nutmeg

Artichoke hearts

Frozen spinach

Mayo

Monterey Jack cheese

Romano cheese

Parmesan cheese

Can you guess the 3 recipes I’m making?

PS….all the food I took to the reunion and I do mean ALL of it was eaten …leaving us with no leftovers for supper Sunday night! Not a smidgen left!