As of this past weekend, I became a new citizen of the iPhone World, and I must say that it is very nifty cool. I spent several hours (literally) playing with it yesterday--not surfing the web or sending e-mails, though. I don't plan or really care to use my phone as an internet device. What I love are the organizational possibilities. No surprises there, right?
I found a neat list-making app called Paperless. It will, I think, let me make lists and use them according to my particular preference, and help me to not use so much paper printing out tweaked variations of my daily schedule. (Yep, I still do that, kiddos.) I also made friends with iCal now that I don't need to print anything. I have the little "note pad" app that I can use for reminders of things I need to tell my hubby in the evening. Grocery lists, cleaning lists, to dos--optimum organizing fun. Plus it is pretty, which being a visual person, I find very appealing.
Being a citizen of iPhone World, I wondered how we might describe ourselves. Here are some possibilities:
iPhonees (Granted, this has a bit of a negative connotation, but I find the play on words amusing and a reminder to not take this too seriously)
iPhonsters
iPhonians
iPhonistas
What do you think?
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| Lovin' my iPhone |
Not eating anything in the grass family means not eating cane sugar. Not eating cane sugar means it is hard to find anything chocolate. Chocolate deprivation is not a good thing. Once again I am indebted to the internet for helping me survive my diet issues.
The first dessert option I was able to find for myself was a pumpkin pie filling made with coconut milk. That got me wondering if there might be some kind of chocolate pudding recipe out there. My search led me to this recipe:
Coconut Chocolate Pudding
However, the semi-sweet chocolate in this recipe was not an option, so I came up with an alternative using unsweetened baker's chocolate. It is rich, thick, and very chocolatety. Tummy happiness!
Here it is:
Elzbee's Chocolate Heaven
1 14oz. can coconut milk (full fat--hey, it's dessert!)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons arrowroot starch, firmly packed
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3 squares unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla
Because coconut milk separates, I first like to spoon/pour the coconut milk into a large measuring cup and whisk it until blended. Pour 1/4 cup of the coconut milk into a one cup measuring cup. Add 1/2 cup maple syrup to the large measuring cup and pour it into a small skillet.
Add arrowroot starch, cocoa powder, and salt to the coconut milk in the 1 cup measuring cup, mixing well with a spoon. Mixture will be very thick.
Chop the baking chocolate into small chunks.
Heat coconut milk mixture in the skillet on medium-low heat just until it begins to simmer (don't let it boil), stirring constantly with a whisk.
Add three to four large spoonful of the heated mixture to the cocoa mixture, stirring well.
Pour cocoa mixture into the skillet. Keep the mixture on medium-low heat and stir with the whisk until thickened.
Remove the skillet from heat. Add baking chocolate and vanilla, stirring until the baking chocolate has melted and the mixture is thoroughly blended.
Divided pudding into five or six containers, depending on how much indulgence you want. I find the 1 cup Ziploc containers work very well for this. Chill. Enjoy.
The pudding also freezes well, so I keep the extras in the freezer and then refrigerate one container the night before or morning of the day I plan to eat it. Ahhh, chocolate heaven!
The weather is colder than normal here today and, of course, the computer is in one of the coldest parts of the house. I have borrowed the fingerless gloves I made for my husband. Really need to make myself some of these. A standard of case of the cobbler's wife having no shoes. Besides, those shawl patterns keep alluring me with their lovely lace designs. Someday I must make myself some gloves (and hats)--someday.
With some help from my husband, who so kindly went fabric shopping with me, I was able to find all the fabric I needed for Starlight. Here it is:
I love the colors for this quilt--bright, cheerful, and warm. Because I want this to be my grandchild's quilt and not just a baby quilt, the goal was to find fabrics that were playful but not too childish. Since I don't know if the baby is a boy or girl, I also needed something either would enjoy. All of the fabrics except the golden yellow have dots in their patterns, so I am officially renaming this quilt Dot to Dot.
In the meantime I have continued working on Starry-eyed Grandma and have almost all of the blocks pieced. Rather than put it aside at this point, I am going to continue to work on the blocks as I get started on Dot to Dot. Once I have all the blocks pieced, I will set it aside.
In quilt group news, I have not made any further progress on the animal blocks, and one of my fellow quilters gave me one of her projects to do some quilting on, so I will be working on that for a bit. Hope to have some pictures before too long.
Until then, I am off to have some fun with fabric.
We have a sayin' roun' here: Make hay while the sun shines. Well, the sun was shining last weekend and my husband made hay.
About four or so years ago, we planted a lacy oak in our back yard, but it has done very poorly the past two or three seasons. A couple of weeks ago my husband dug it up and here is what we found:
The roots never spread out from the original ball, so the tree had never really gotten established. We had a small oak that had come up volunteer that my husband decided to put in its place. So the process of tree moving began.
He got a neighbor to help him get the tree up out of the ground.
Its new home. He re-dug the hole.
Set it in place.
All settled in.
I hope it likes its new home. The root ball fell apart in the move but hopefully it is a sturdy little oak with dreams of becoming a mighty tree.
Remember our mini-meadow? Not content just to move a tree, my husband also started getting our garden ready for planting.
Before:
The digging begins:
Now that is one beautiful sight:
And last, but not least, my husband trimmed our trees.
He was one tired guy at the end of the day.
