Spring Planting

A couple of weeks ago I planted our spring garden.  The squash are now up, as well as some of the onions.  No sign of the green beans yet.  One of our bell pepper transplants is already growing a pepper, and I am thinking, "Your a mite small for that, aren't you?"  I have some teeny tiny patio tomato transplants that my daughter-in-law sowed from their patio tomatoes from last year.  I have a pot for them on the back porch once they get a bit bigger.
  
My big new experiment this year is potatoes.  With wanting to put more energy into our vegetable garden, I decided to reduce the number of decorative plants on our front porch.  The shift freed up two very large containers.  With potatoes being more of a staple in my diet now, I decided to see if I could grow some.  We moved the containers to the back porch so they could get plenty of sun.  I planted three potatoes in each pot.  As they grow dirt is mounded around the base of the plant until it reaches the top of the container.  Once the potatoes plants start to bloom you can begin harvesting a little at a time, or wait until the plant dies back and harvest the whole crop at once. So far so good.

Lessons Learned

It has been one year this month since I began this journey with my diet.  What a process it has been--struggle, discovery, letting go, acceptance, new lifestyle.  What have I learned this year?

For one thing, being on a diet of basically meat, eggs, fruit, and vegetables will cause a person to lose weight.  Every time I see some advertisement for dieting, I think to myself that I know something that works. Over the past year I have lost a little over 20 pounds and have dropped at least two dress sizes.  That I am now a much healthier weight is some consolation for what I have given up.  

The mind and body adjust to major changes.  People ask me if I miss bread.  I do, but I don't crave it.  Actually, I realized the other day that even if I could, I wouldn't go back to how I was eating before.  While it would be nice to be able to have rice or bread once a week or so, I am fine if I can't.  

A simple diet can be satisfying.  Cooking is not a creative activity for me, but I do want some variety.  One of the keys to my diet is to have a rotation of foods.  Too much of one thing too often causes issues.  So while I don't vary how I cook things much, all my meals are not the same.  There are dishes I look forward to eating, and I am generally satisfied at the end of meal.  Though I do find I get hungry some in between (there aren't really any snack options that I can see right now), I don't feel like I am starving when I come to the next meal.  

The farmers' market is a wonderful thing.  Not only do I find produce that are safe for me to eat, it has given me a new perspective on food in general.  Vegetables I thought I didn't much care fore have a whole different flavor when they are grown local and sold fresh.  For example, I have not in the past been a fan of kale, but fresh kale that is harvested when the leaves are still small is absolutely delicious.  The same with chard.  And the carrots--oh my, how I love the carrots!  Here is how my kitchen can look after my Saturday trip to the farmers' market.

From front to back:  chard, Romaine, Bibb lettuce

Spinach

Fresh kale

Eggs, carrots, beef, and mushrooms are some of the other regulars that come home with me.

Where I have to supplement from the grocery store, I try to buy organic, and then I peel most things.  Since vegetable preparation can take some time, I also fix enough for three or four meals if it is something that keeps well.  All in all, I am getting a rhythm down so that meals don't seem so overwhelming, and I don't feel as though all I do is either think about or prepare food.

All in all, I come to the end of this year in a much better place than where I was last March.  I am not through all the adjustments, but I am down to the small things now.  It will be interesting to see where this year takes me. 


 

Quilting Mojo

Where did it go?  It was here not too long ago.  What could have happened?  What am I doing wrong?

These were my thoughts last week when I started quilting on a quilt one of the ladies in my quilt group put together.  She did the in the ditch quilting around the blocks to stabilize them and wanted me to do some swirls in the sashing.  Here is a picture of the quilt I am calling Limeade at Evening.

And here is a picture of my first round of quilting on J.Jr.:

As you can see, the bobbin thread is pulling too tight around the curves.  I had been having this problem with Bernie as well, so I presumed it was a matter of technique.  Since I have a very important baby quilt to finish, this issue had to be dealt with.  I made four practice pieces so I could practice without having to worry about ripping out mistakes.  I set up Bernie, and gave it a go.  No good.  Definitely something wrong on the machine end as the thread kept wrapping around the bottom of the needle.  Fine--no time to take it in for repair right now since I am in the middle of piecing Dot to Dot.  

So I got out J.Jr. and decided to do a rework of my quilting foot based on some advice from a quilt blogger I keep up with.

The bar you see at the top of the foot came out straight and rested on the needle bar.  As the needle went up and down it would hit the bar, raising and lowering the foot.  Not only was this very noisy, but it was also difficult to maintain a consistent speed.  I bent the bar back, and then adjusted the height of the foot by using a ponytail holder above the spring.  Big difference.

Now that is more like it, and at least I know the problem wasn't just my technique.  Now with Bernie, here is the plan.  Get Dot to Dot pieced.  Buy a new bobbin case next time there is a sale.  Get some Teflon bobbin washers to help the bobbin spin more quickly, and a Supreme Slider to move the quilt more easily.  If it still won't work, then I will take it in for repair.  If I absolutely have to, I can quilt Dot to Dot on J.Jr. or the big Juki at my quilt group.  Bernie and I will get our quilting mojo back yet. 

iPhone World

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?

Lovin' my iPhone

 

Happiness

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!

Connecting the Dots

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.

One Busy Guy

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.