Fighting the funk #7- Start some big projects. These little packages are the smallest of some large purchases (size-wise, not cost) made today at Lowe's for the boy's little kitchen. I'm so excited! I love a new project (and a jigsaw is just plain fun-- ask Molly!).
Have you seen this? Great stuff every day, and they even have my favorite, Nikki McClure, on there again.
Gotta go. I'm updating the little shop!
#6 Warding off the February Funk Pic- The real pic of yummy, yummy scones is on the way. For now, you see my problem. I'm out of sugar! Warding off any kind of funk with me generally includes some sort of baking. Bake often. Eat it all up. Enjoy. Share the goodies and share the recipe!
I know they just weren't into scones over at Colorfool, but neither was T until he had this version. They are SO GOOD, and you must, must douse them in sugar and cinnamon. Yum! The recipe is adapted from my All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking book which I don't like nearly as much as the older versions. I asked my grandma to keep an eye out at garage sales for an older version for me and she found a beautiful copy of The Betty Furness Westinghouse Cook Book, which my great grandma enjoyed and passed along to my grandma. It has a wonderful meat loaf recipe (lots of great basics) so if you ever see it, snatch it up! Anyhow, here's the adapted recipe (from the Classic Currant Scones recipe on page 791 of the All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking book).
Classic Scones
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Mix:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
Drop in:
6 T (1/2 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into little pieces.
Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives, until the largest pieces are the size of peas and the rest resembles breadcrumbs.
Stir in (they say whisk it together and then add it all at once but I hate using more than one bowl!):
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (they say heavy cream which would probably make them much better!)
Mix until dry ingredients are just moistened. Knead dough together with hands, then transfer to a lightly floured surface and pat dough into an 8-inch round (about 3/4 inch think). Cut into 8 or 12 wedges and place at least 1/2 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet.
They say to brush the tops with 2-3 t cream or milk but I never do.
I COVER the tops with sugar and cinnamon.
Bake about 12-15 minutes and eat warm.
Yum!
Okay, aside from baking around here we're also grooving to the music. We just got this at the library and I think it might be worth a buy. I like about half of the songs on it (better than most kids' CDs!) and I love The Rainbow Connection by the Dixie Chicks. I'm not a country fan but they do a beautiful cover of this and it makes me think of Kermit and the gang singing in my childhood! I also love Baby Mine by Bonnie Raitt and How to Be Strong by Rosanne Cash (all on this CD). I might need to make a little mixed album for us to dance to and include that Wilco song What's the World Got in Store and Great Lakes Swimmers' See You on the Moon which I discovered on Sweet Juniper's blog. Oh, and Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles would have to be on there... Other suggestions?
Random, but also have you seen this index of amazing tutorials for bags of such from Craftster, courtesy of not martha? It'll give you enough great ideas to use up a weekend or two!
I'm making a bit of progress on the little cat (two more episodes of The West Wing last night)!
Aahhh... And in the ideas category once again have you seen this banner Laura's friends made for her shower? We have one like this in plastic that I whip out every time anybody has a birthday around here. It's wrinkled and, well, plastic. I'm going to make one of these! Would interfacing between two layers of fabric work to make it two-sided?
Shower. Must shower while the boy naps.
#5 Look for signs of spring (hope!).
Our little mini-daffodils started to come out last night and I called the boy over to take a look. He got super-excited, raced over to the door, and wanted to go out. Immediately. I couldn't figure out what he wanted or what he was thinking for the longest time but then I realized... We had been playing outside yesterday, of course, and I showed C where the tulips are just starting to poke out of the ground. We (I) talked about how they would grow and grow and grow and then, POP!-- they'll be flowers. C thought that since our flowers inside had "popped," all of the flowers outside must be popping too. He wanted to take a look!
This book is amazing! Remember those dogs? The book finally came in at the library and I dove into a cat. I now have two ears and a bottom, courtesy of the first ever two episodes of "The West Wing" from Netflix.
T says he'll have to bring the laptop home this weekend and do a little work and I thought, "Oh, sad... Oh! I'll work on splat mats. Oh, and finish Valentines. And make those purses (that fabric from a not-too-long-ago post?!). Finish the cat? Start a dog? Do the, gulp, taxes." Aaahhh... With the choking drama and this blasted head cold (and no sleep) there's been very little housework happening around here. Looks like a busy weekend.
We did work on our Valentines yesterday, and here's what just a touch of Valentine craftiness looks like after about a minute with the boy:
It's about five minutes of doing and about 45 minutes of clean-up, which is about how I remember it being (if paint was involved) with my first graders.
Speaking of craftiness, I have to remember to link to all of the amazing ideas I see out there when I see them (before I lose them)... After our next grocery trip I'm definitely going to make some of this granola (yum!) and I know I don't have a little girl to sew for but I have to try some of these dresses. I don't think I'm a tea cozy kind-of gal, but these flowers in felt make me think of my sister and I know I could make her something beautiful, inspired by this idea. Okay, see-- I've lost the link already. Where was that? I also need a new label for "When he's older" because there are so many wonderful, crafty ideas out there that would be such fun to do when the boy is a bit older. Like these crayon hearts. And I still love these tubs (it helps, probably, that I have a busy, busy boy and over 200 tubs in storage from the aforementioned first grade experience!).
Fighting the Funk #4
When life gives you rain, put on your froggy boots and jump in the puddles; embrace the weather if you can!
I'd rather have the blahs of February than the excitement of yesterday. The boy choked on a little, soft piece of melon (very, very strange) and I had to call 911. We took an ambulance ride to the emergency room and then spent several hours there. Last night T and I watched the boy to make sure his breathing was fine (the melon never came out, so there was a concern that it might be in the lungs). He seems fine now, and was just exhausted with all of the excitement. I'm exhausted too, but I think I can make it through the day. We have to head to the doctor's this morning for a check-up on the lungs. Anyhow, perhaps a better picture will show but for now here's my "Warding off the February Funk picture #3," awfully similar to the Soule Mama picture from yesterday:
#3 Read, read, read some more. Escape with books, cozy blanket & slippers nearby. A Wednesday trip to Book Babies at the library can help flush out the book collection.
#2 Play lots every day, preferably with toys that have been hidden away to enhance the novelty of it all! Use lots of imagination. Play together.
Here are some WIPs laying around the house (but really, do they count as "works in progress" if I haven't actually made progress on them?). Look at this fabric:
Oh, and this:
Can you see those little sock monkeys? The envelopes are for our Valentines (yet to be created):
Here's a new project I started while T read out loud last night. Notice the word "Beginner" in the title?!
And here, for everyone dying to see the back of T's beautiful card, is a not-so-good picture:
I tried to bring my cards and a mat to a meeting I went to on Friday and they were so incredibly rude to me. It's a meeting of a group I'm a member of, and other people have their cards out all the time. I left feeling so terrible, wanting to quit, and wanting to cry. Okay, I cried. It's a club for moms, for goodness sakes, and I thought the whole idea was to support one another.
Phew. That's out now. Looking at all of the color in those photos reminds me how much I've changed in how I view color in recent years. More on that to come as the boy needs to get up and we need to get to playgroup!
#1 Play outside, every day. Explore and breathe the fresh air.
Many of the blogs I like to read mentioned the "February Funk" last week. In anticipation of a long (though short) month, this mama invited everyone to join along in her effort this next week to shake up her blog and to post a picture each day... Kids or no kids, snow or no snow, the whole idea I think is to just show things you're doing to ward off a February Funk. So here's our Sunday entry, brought to you by the whole family. C & T spent a lot of time outdoors this weekend, playing away and letting me nap (warding off not only the funk but a cold too). The boy's in love with these pine cones lately, and we have to play with them every time we leave the house. I'm trying to get out every day with the boy, playing outside even when it's super-cold (that's 35 degrees around here-- I'm definitely not mid-west material). Here it's not so much the snow but rather the RAIN we are usually tormented by in February. Today was sunny once again though, and that little thrifted pack gave us an excellent walk downtown this morning, through the capitol campus.
I have lots of-- oh, they're called WIPs around the crafty blogland, right?-- works in progress sitting in piles around here. I have some really amazing fabric I'll show you tomorrow, waiting to be made into some wonderful little things. There's also tons of oilcloth in our little abode, and I need to get going on some more splat mats (the sock monkey cloth really is pretty cute).
Did you see my sister's new site? She's a talented artist and I'm so happy she's started a little blog.
I added a light bulb in our kitchen. I know. Stop the presses. Fascinating. One of the two upper bulbs had been out for a week, and I just hadn't gotten around to fixing it. It's so much BRIGHTER and it makes me so much happier when I'm doing those never-ending dishes (we are the last people in the US without both a cell phone and a dishwasher, right?). I'm making a mental list of little things I need to just do around here like this.
My goodness, was yesterday ever a big day! I suppose it mostly felt like such a long day because the boy is a bit miserable and off his game. The two of us haven't been sleeping, and Slow Mommy that I am I couldn't for the life of me figure out why my normally sweet boy was having such trouble (and screaming through the night when I'm used to his glorious, long stretches of sleep !). Aren't you wondering too? Well, TA DA!! Last night T and I found two little pointy, dagger-like new eye teeth poking through in C's mouth. They look like shells filed by a prisoner for use as weapons! They are so sharp and probably quite painful too. Poor boy.
Here's a little something making me happy lately:
It's so not perfect, with uneven stitches (a bit on purpose, I'd like to think), but it's pretty cute. I forgot how much I love to sit down and to a little free-form embroidery "art" like this. I used to do these all the time when I was little and then I'd frame them with popsicle sticks and give them as presents. My skills haven't improved much but the frame looks pretty good.
Something else making me happy was Molly's post linking to my little blog. When I was little the neighbor girl was named Molly; she was about a year older than me and she was the cool girl with the pretty blond hair and all of the answers (hmmm... makes me think of Alicia's post the other day though this was when we were about 9!). Anyhow, it was always special to me when Molly would spend time with me and give me the time of day. I got a similar little lurch of excitement (the 30's version, perhaps?) when I saw the mommycoddle post!
And then, last night when I thought I was beyond functioning, I saw Jojo's comment via email. I got an adrenaline kick and then couldn't fall asleep. I never win ANYTHING! And she will make me something? Handmade? With care? Have you seen that amazing quilt she created? See, the adrenaline is back.
Did you see on her site that this other site's author feels someone is blatantly copying? Did you go read? Strange, eh? Reading all of this started this big debate/conversation between T and I last night. I was thinking about this early this week because the name "Write, Mama. Write." was inspired by the name of another site (I emailed, checked with her-- offering to do something different-- and all was good... Phew!). When I wrote to her I said I was small potatoes but I'm also full of integrity. I suppose that's what this all boils down to. You want to assume that others will handle life with integrity and then, too often, people seem to disappoint in this arena. Wait. Maybe that's just too cynical. Think of the numbers of people who do the right thing (especially when it comes down to giving credit where credit is due in Blogland) all the time... This is why I switched the boy's big blog (one year old this week-- the blog, not the boy, but he is 15 months old!) to an invitation only blog after reading about Sally's troubles with pictures of her beautiful boys (forgive me-- I can't find the actual posts right now). And that's why I say T & C here, and why the boy will only ever been shown from the back on this site. It's public and so, to make me feel okay about it all this is how I'm doing it. One of my favorite parts of other blogs is seeing the kids, so I'm struggling with that decision. For now though this is the approach. Even from the back C's pretty darn cute, so don't count us out yet for fun kid pics! Okay, it's all too much right now. I'm off for more coffee and now look:
This beautiful sunrise (not as beautiful in my pic, but you get the idea) is outside my window. And do you see Norah perched up there on the sill? She came to me yesterday (T's early order from Christmas adding a bright spot to the day) and those little mini-daffodils and hyacinths?-- With a little moss from our mossy, mossy yard peeking at me from the top of the dirt?-- It's all very good and very happy.
The boy and I got our orders ready to ship early this morning. A trail of bubble wrap extended through the kitchen, into the living room, around C's foot, through the hall and then back into the kitchen once again (it's a small house!). C's holding one of the packages up to his head like Carnac the Magnificent, hoping to intuit what's inside!
Speaking of magnificent, we printed a bunch of T's cards and I think I actually jumped up and down when I saw them all done in a stack!
More soon. We're off to run errands and we're working on Valentines this afternoon! Very fun. I was inspired by this post from Colorfool via Happy Things; that lucky, lucky Keely! I think C's ready for some of those pasta strings and colored rice (but not the buttons... We can't do the buttons yet!). I've got to get busy!
