Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Clutter

Last night I noticed that quite a lot of stuff had accumulated on the kitchen windows. So this morning I did 5 minutes of decluttering and it looks much better now. All the stuff no longer on the window has been put into proper places, not just dumped somewhere else.
Here are some before and after photos:

I am currently working on decluttering and reorganizing my workarea, the chaos was detrimental to my creativity and needed to be dealt with. I will post photos of that once I am finished. Might be a while since I am also fighting a cold.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Sunday Lunch

The "recipe I never made before" for February was Teriyaki Pork and Vegetables with Noodles. I used different mushrooms (my grocery store did not have fresh shiitake mushrooms so I used baby bellas instead) and made my own teriyaki sauce. We liked it, but the chili-garlic sauce was not necessary, it just makes it overly hot.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Friday Dinner

On Friday morning I usually check the fruit bowl and the fridge for things in dire need of being used up, add some stuff from the pantry and - dinner. :)
This mornings search yielded:

2 bananas
1 kiwi fruit
1 small head of cabbage
3 green onions
1/2 green pepper
whey left over from making cream cheese
4 lonely maraschino cherries

Added to these were:

1 can of diced tomatoes
some white beans, soaked overnight and cooked until just tender
some bacon from the fridge
1 can of pineapple slices
some fresh ginger (which I almost always have around)

Dinner tonight:

Cabbage Soup
Buttermilk (whey) Biscuits
Yummy Fruit Salad

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Meow!

This morning I took a few more photos of feline visitor #2, she is the one that seems to be very familiar with our place.


And I finally got a picture of visitor #5, she is the least shy of the bunch and actually hangs around when I am outside watching me hang laundry.


And here is the resident princess, not happy with me going after strange cats. :)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Bath Mitts Anyone?

They are like eating potato chips, one is never enough. ;-)

Signs of Spring?






Sunday, February 17, 2008

Tea Cozy Swap

This is what I received from my swap partner Karen. The tea cozy is felted and embroidered. It is so pretty and I love it. I also got what I think is a pot scrubber, but which is way too nice to be used in that way, I might use it to scrub my ugly old face instead, a pretty mug, some yummy sounding tea and a ball of yarn. A big thank you to Karen for the lovely gifts and to Rhonda for hosting this fun swap.

More Feline Guests

I managed to take pictures of feline visitor #3 and #4. The yellow guy looks pretty tough and has a torn ear, he must be a fighter. He hung out with one of the other cats for a while and I really hope we don't end up with kittens in the shed. All these cats are rather big compared to my little girl.

Lent

Yesterday I added a visual reminder of the season to my mantel. Both the cross and the bowl of dirt will undergo a transformation at Easter.


This is the table topper I made last year.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Thursday

I took it easy today. We exchanged gifts in the morning, I got a cute heart shaped box with dark chocolate hearts and I gave Del a book about the Three Stooges (talk about romantic ;)). During the day I watched racing on TV, baked cupcakes (lemon flavored yellow cake with lemon icing - all made from scratch), knitted another bath mitt and a matching face scrubby and cooked quiche for dinner. After dinner we watched a hockey game and I started another bath mitt.


I also managed to take a picture of feline visitor #2, she seems to feel very much at home in our garden and car port.

Look what we got!

A few pictures from last night and this morning. To be honest - I could have done without it. :)

Miss Kitty

Just wanted to share a few pictures of my crazy old nut cat. :)

Knitting

My latest knitting project - a bath mitt from a free pattern on the Bernat website. The pattern says the size fits the average lady, but it also fits my husband. :) I just got some new light blue cotton yarn and I plan to make a few more of these, they are easy and fun to make.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

WIP Wednesday

I worked on my two baby quilts today. The top of the pink one is almost finished, the next step requires a trip to Staples because I need to blow up an appliqué pattern (pink and brown are the colors the mother chose for the nursery). I machine appliquéd the bears onto the background squares, now I get to amuse myself with pulling out the paper templates, gives my hands something to do while listening to tonight's hockey game on the internet. :)

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Tuesday

I swear my cat can puke on command. Whenever something does not go the way she wants it, she throws up. Today there is no sunshine - that was reason enough, her highness demands there be sunshine every day. And although I very much prefer sunshine over that drab and dreary weather we are having, cleaning up cat puke was not on my agenda today. She managed to leave some under the bed which required quite a bit of furniture moving and an unplanned laundry run. I hope she is done for today, I got a lot of other things I'd rather be doing.

First thing this morning I sneaked out in my - purple penguins - jammies to put some cat food in the bowl for our feline guests. A bit later I was able to take a picture of one of them, that was the first time I have seen that cat in our car port. I will try and take photos of all of them, they will be a bit blurry because I have to take them through the bedroom window. Our guests are a bit shy and high tail it out of here when they see me coming.


I finished the shawl last night and it is ready to be mailed. I also wrapped Del's Valentine's gift and a birthday gift which also needs mailing. I like that I am able to print the shipping labels at home and all Del has to do tomorrow is drop the packages off at the post office.


Then I cleaned the bathroom (according to my cleaning schedule) and the cat box (vet's orders, once a week complete with bleach and new sand to avoid further bladder infections). I used baking soda and white vinegar for cleaning, it works just as well as the commercial cleaners, costs less and is easier on the environment.

Today's morning teas was Raspberry Zinger from Celestial Seasonings, homemade cookies and an apple. Yesterday's sugar cookies taste pretty good. :) For lunch I have leftover casserole from last night's dinner.


Today is movie night. We will have pizza with canadian bacon and pineapple (Del's choice), the movie is "The Diamond of Jeru" (a good old fashioned adventure movie with another one of my favorite actors).

Monday, February 11, 2008

Monday

Monday is usually my day for "messin' in the kitchen". Today I prepared radish and alfalfa seeds for sprouting, baked two loaves of bread, made a batch of granola (this time with pecans, raisins and flax seed), made ginger beer from a plant I started last weekend and baked cookies (lemon scented sugar cookies) for Valentine's day.

While the bread was rising and the cookie dough was chilling I watched a French movie (Tous les matins du monde - All the Mornings of the World), had my morning tea (green tea with mango) with dried fruits, nuts and a banana


and worked on a comfort shawl for a friend who is going through a rough time at the moment. I started the shawl on Saturday and hope to finish it tonight.

I ended my day with washing dishes, wiping down the counter and the window sills in the kitchen and fixing a pasta and tuna casserole with homemade garlic bread for dinner.


After dinner I am going to watch CSI and finish the shawl.