Sunday, August 9, 2009

Busy, Busy, Busy!


For the past three weekends in a row my hubby and I have gone to our teeny, tiny cabin in the Stanislaus Forest. We're making up for lost time. When I say this cabin is small, I really mean it. It consists of two rooms, one is a bedroom and the other is a living room/kitchen although there is no sink inside and no stove. The sink is located just outside the front door and instead of a stove we have a two burner electric hotplate. Oh, and the bathroom you ask? That is in the shed about 20-30 feet away from the cabin. There is running water and a flushing toilet along with an ancient shower. It still is a shed and houses the boat motor and tools and such. The benefit of our cabin being so small is that there is very little upkeep required. We get there and can just relax there or go to the lake or many reservoirs to fish and/or swim.

I told my hubby that this last weekend I needed to stay home and get some things done. Canning and sewing was on my list.


About halfway between our cabin and our home is a fruit/vegetable stand called Fisher Farm. I bought some delicious yellow freestone peaches and made some wonderful peach jam with them. It's my new favorite! I also made blueberry jam, which is yummy too, with blueberries from the grocery store that were a great price.
Our tomatoes are ripening and I've just finished canning my first batch of salsa. Last year I made a few batches of this salsa and I think it lasted until January. Now my husband grows our tomatoes just for this salsa. He calls it his salsa and tries to control his inventory by hiding it. He doesn't like it when I give it away. : )
I made a sweet little outfit for our granddaughter that will be born in November. Sorry, I can't show a picture on this blog because it's going to be part of a shower gift. The fabric was very stretchy and difficult to work with. For some reason, my sewing machine thought it was delicious and kept eating it! Just a bit frustrating!!! One thing that also was a bit frustrating was that the pattern for the little pants said to measure the waist of the baby and cut the elastic accordingly. That's a bit hard to due when she won't be here for three months!
I promise, after the showers, I will post pictures of everything I make for this little girl.
Now I think I'm going to see how that salsa came out with the help of a couple of tortilla chips!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Lovely Colorful Dishes

About four years ago, we remodeled our kitchen. It's really beautiful. We have dark granite counters and Mission style cabinets custom made from quarter sawn (hope that's how it's spelled) oak wood that is stained a warm red wood tone. Our walls are as my husband calls it, Chevy's orange. I prefer to call them Pumpkin spice. I would post a picture, but it's a mess right now from canning peach jam and making peach muffins. Anyway, ever since the remodel, I've wanted to change our dishes to Fiestaware. I just love all the colors! The only problem was that I had perfectly good dishes in my cupboards already. They have served my family well for quite some time, probably the good part of 20 years. Here is a sample picture of the Pfaltzgraff, Tea Rose pattern dishes that we've used for so many years now.

They are very pretty dishes and I have loved them for a long time. They just aren't colorful enough for me now! Also, how can I justify spending money on dishes when I already have this set. It occurred to me a little while ago that I could have my family gift me a dish or two on my birthday and Christmas for the next 10 years or so along with a gift or two from myself from time to time. It's definitely not necessary for family to give me any gift let alone these dishes, however, if they would like to give me a gift on these occasions and can't think of anything to get me, now they know!

So, here is the start of my new collection of fiestaware! I hope to have lots of different colors so I can mix and match. Maybe not so much matching!
Color makes me so happy!!!