Garden Tuesday on Wednesday

Yes, that's just how my week has gone. Tuesday escaped me.

We bought another 20 trees; these are maples. The guy will come plant them in a day or 2, when the rain stops. Then next summer will be a little greener and cheerier!

Some Kind of Chicken

I'm working from the back of my fridge and freezer, holding off on the food delivery until Friday, so I can get my turkeys then. So the pictures today don't have anything to do with dinner last night!

SOME KIND OF CHICKEN

4 whole chicken breast
2 tbsp sherry
2 small onions, cut in eighths
1/2 pound sliced mushrooms, fresh or canned
2 cups water
3 chicken bouillon cubes
2 tbsp dried minced onion
2 tbsp sherry
1/2 cup cold water
4 tbsp cornstarch

Arrange the chicken in a baking dish; pour the sherry over them, and arrange the onions and mushrooms over and around them. In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil with the chicken bouillon cubes and dried onion. Whisk the cornstarch into the cold water, and whisk that into the saucepan. Add the sherry and cook until thick. Pour over the chicken, cover, and bake at 350F until done, uncovering at the last minute. Serve with rice and green veggies. (This is where I should have taken pictures, but did not. Oh, well.)

So, how about a picture of a Lemon Poppy Seed Bread I made last night?
Or maybe my refrigerator containing mostly leftovers (everyone always needs lunch)?

Because aside from that, I've got nothing.

Calvert School's State History Course

I bought the Calvert School PA State History course for my youngest son last year, and never did use it. I have been able to find time this year, and he's been enjoying it.

Tuesday's assignment was for the child to draw a map of the state. My boy decided this was boring, and made a 3D map.

He knows the mountains go farther north than this in Pennsylvania, but he put his mountains on the south central border, where they are the highest. He also made a tiny paper capital building for Harrisburg, and towers for the most important cities in the state: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton and Erie. Allentown wasn't important enough to him to try to shoehorn it between Scranton and Philadelphia.

And I love that he made rivers, too. While it's certainly not complete geographically, the little guy had fun. And that counts for something in school, right?

And Happy Veteran's Day to all of our veterans and their families. You are always in my thoughts.

Let the Holiday Planning begin....

Dan's fixing a few things i didn't like about my kitchen cabinets. He's a handy dude.

I'm thinking about my pre-holiday food order. That takes a lot of brain power, which I feel mysteriously lacking this week. One thing that's certain is that we'll have 2 big turkeys, plus about 6 or 8 extra drumsticks. That's a big-time tradition.

I'm depressed by my dust, which I usually ignore (and it ignores me). That might just be because it's cold and rainy today.

School is going right along, which is good. I still miss my assistant teacher, of course. We'll stop at lesson 50 and do partial testing next Friday. My little guy can have the whole of Thanksgiving week off.
I've changed my mind 3 times about my Thanksgiving dress. I was going for white stretch velvet. Then I thought maybe pink brocade, followed by sapphire blue brocade. Right now the red ribbon fabric is winning. But I still have another week before it all hits the fan and I MUST choose, right? HAH! More like 2 days.

So, has anyone else started planning for Thanksgiving, or at least fretting over it a bit? Or is it just me, because I have to make airline arrangements for some of the kids?

Garden Tuesday: Sunshine

Our oak grove has lost most of its leaves. The trees look really spectacular with the blue sky behind them. We still have plenty of leaves clinging to other trees, however, so we're nowhere near even starting the fall cleanup.
Closer to sunset, we had a magnificent sunburst through the evergreens at the bottom of the driveway!

Election Day is Coming...

...and with it, Election Cake.

I found this a few years back in my Fannie Farmer cookbook, and we enjoyed it. Since it's supposed to sit and rise for 6 hours, there are no pictures of the cake. But here's the recipe, so you can get started on your own, and be primed to go out tomorrow and vote.

ELECTION CAKE

1 cup warm water
3 tsp yeast
1 tbsp sugar
2-1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp oil

Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let soften. Add the other ingredients, beat together, and set aside to rise for 6 hours or overnight.

1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp lemon rind
1 tbsp lemon juice
1-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups raisins
1 cup whiskey*

Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside. Cream the butter with the brown sugar, and add the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the lemon rind and juice, then the dry ingredients. Then beat in the yeast mixture until thoroughly combined. Add the whiskey (if desired) and raisins. Turn into 3 greased loaf pans, and let rise for about an hour, then bake 40 to 50 minutes at 350F.

It can be a real pain to get up early or get home late because you've dragged your sorry behind to the polling place, and it seems even worse during an "off year" election. But let me tell you about why I'm voting in my little corner of the world: My town government is all good. Town taxes are low, plowing is good, police are friendly. No changes needed there. School board? Well, a union leader is running for a seat on the school board, and it is incumbent upon me to stop this. There can be no negotiation if the union has seats on both sides of the table. Plus, with salaries eating up 75% of the school district budget, we need non-union people to try to keep tax increases in check. No one in this school district could possibly be happy with our school taxes, and they're talking 4% to 5% increases next year even without bigger increases in salaries. (Sorry, Pam, I know you're a teacher, but teachers make more money here than average citizens do, and that's just backward) As for the county? Twenty One Million Dollars in debt, facing at least a $3,000,000 shortfall next year, the county commissioners decided not to submit a budget on October 15 as required by law, instead announcing that an "outside committee" was going to advise them after the election of what they should do for the budget shortfall. Oh, by the way, the current commissioners have a 6 part plan to reduce the deficit. Hmmm. I wonder why they didn't implement it in the last 4 years. Curiouser and Curiouser, as Lewis Carroll's characters would say.

We can make a difference at the local level, even if we feel like our vote doesn't amount to much in the national elections. And on that cheery note, how about a lovely picture of our sky yesterday?

October Sewing

Somehow, I did a lot of sewing in October. Part of it is that I used the yellow sweater fabric I ordered during the summer to make a number of items last weekend, and I was able to sew Monday night, which almost never happens.

First up: A yellow sweater. I've used this pattern for long sleeved, short sleeved, fluffy sleeved and other assorted tees. It just seemed right for a sweater.

Next: Sleeveless a-line dress. Silly thing to make from sweater fabric, right?
Not when you put a little sweater jacket over it!And the little sweater jacket is dandy over a sweater cami, too. Boy, do I look cranky. I should never have my picture taken at midnight.

Earlier in October, while gazing up at my...umm...collection of fabric, I noticed this fabric. It's like a lightweight, ribbed sweater knit. It's lighter than this picture.

It made a perfect square necked a-line dress. This shows the color well.

I also used it for a cowl necked top, from a new pattern I bought, V9771. I'm not wild about this pattern for myself. It has big shoulders on it. I actually ended up lowering the shoulder seam by about 3/4" in order to make it look like I hadn't just ripped the pads out of a football jersey. I'll stick with some other patterns I've used in similar style.

And this was an off-shoulder, half length sleeve top. The sleeves are only half length because I ran out of fabric. And here you can see me trying out my remote camera activator thingy. It makes the position of my arm look weird. Le Sigh.

Other miscellany" I bought a crystal pleated black fabric, and paired it with the 1/2 yard of the black summer weight fabric I had used for the a-line dress and jacket in August or September. Now I have another dress that the jacket will match. I love when that happens!
And another version of the V1250, in my "floral camoflage" nylon knit. Sadly, I can't wear it for 6 months. But I'm happy to know it's waiting in my closet with the other two V1250s.
I also bought these fabrics for next spring's sewing. I know I didn't need them, but the aqua at the far left was 5 yards for $2.50, and the others were $2 per yard. They all needed adoption. They can spend the winter dreaming of what wonderful things they will become next summer!

This weekend's sewing involves altering a bunch of shirts for my dearly beloved, followed by some maroon sweater fabric becoming warm clothes! Next week likely involves maroon velour, maybe a little gift sewing, and the hope that Thanksgiving dress inspiration will strike!

In Honor of Thor

Today, Thor would have been 10-and-1/2 years old. I had planned to make him a cake, never believing he wouldn't make it to this milestone. So, today we are having applesauce meringue cake in honor of Thor.
And, in honor of another senior giant dog, stop by and wish Honey the Great Dane a happy 8th birthday! I'm happy that her people held a nice birthday celebration, complete with cake!

What He Did!

So, I know you've all been just dying to know what Dan did. Here it is. And I'm delighted.

Before:
After:

This allowed great cleanup on all of my other counters, giving me enormous working space. All of my small appliances have a dedicated home, and it works out just fine. Honest, I'm the only idiot I know who had about 40 lineal feet of counter space, and 4 square feet of work area. So here's the outside wall of my kitchen (or half of it), before:

And after:

And the inside wall, which has long been worthless, what with cookbooks and whatnot stacked all over it to the left and right of the microwave, before:
And after:
My dearly beloved's binders are still to the right of the microwave, but I don't care. And Halloween candy and pumpkins are on the counter, but we're calling that seasonal decoration. You all understand that, right?

Suffice it to say I'm very happy with Dan's work, which, as usual, was absolutely top notch. But I fear I'm going to have to seriously curtail my cookbook purchasing, because space is pretty limited!

Halloween

Again, I'm a little late in posting for the holiday, but stuff happens.

My little guy went out for Halloween with 2 of his friends. My boy, of course, is the Roman soldier. The green guy is 4 months older than my boy, and the blue chicken is 11 months older. I didn't realize just how tall this child is, because he's short when compared to his 6'4", 15 year old brother.

All of these holidays that come up are the first ones in a decade without Thor, and it's sad. But at least this year I didn't have to worry about whether Thor might decide to go outside and play with the 3 Trick-or-Treaters who showed up.
Yes, this picture was 6 years ago. And, yes, I made the tiger suit. It was a nice warm fake fur. The little guy loved it.

Happy Birthday to my Little Guy!

Saturday was my baby's 12th birthday. When did he get to be so old? And why do my boys insist on trying to make me look short? OK, so I am kinda short. Still and all....
With no power outage, the cake got baked, the presents (which had previously arrived by the magic of dudes in brown outfits) got wrapped, and then unwrapped. And, of course, candles needed blowing out.
The favorite present was a Nerf axe, which Dan proceeded to vigorously try out on Ryan. It works without any harm. Dan heartily recommends this to boys big and small. Ryan says the jury's still out on it.
This was our first birthday without Thor, so it was strange. Still, it was a good night, and a fine end to a freak snowstorm.

Garden Tuesday: Snow

Friday:
Saturday, same location (while the snow was still flying):
Thankfully, although we got at least 6", it melted without incident. We only lost one branch off a tree, and didn't lose our electricity. Happy Sunny Tuesday, everyone!