Graditude Day 2

SO I need to make this very clear. The topics of gratitude are listed in no particular order. They are just what I am grateful for in no particular order. Today, I'm grateful for the internet. I have one daughter in Alaska and one in Missouri, that is really, really far away. Through the power of the internet, I can skype them whenever I want and see their smiling faces. I can email them, whenever I want.

And with the miracle of the internet, my daughters have created a private blogspot to keep our family close. It's called D and D chronicles of the adventures of the  Duchess and daughters league. THe biggest wahoo? They invited me to be a part of it. So any day that I'm missing them I can go see what they post and view pictures, current favorites include my grandsons in their halloween costumes and pictures from my daughter's adventure in Ireland. (still waiting on Kat to post). Yes, I'm very blessed.

My gratitude Project...

As many of you know, I've had a rough year. But even in my darkest moments I've recognized the Lord's tender mercies as well as my many blessings. In an effort to say "Thank you", I'm challenging myself to return to blogging by focusing each day on one of my many blessings.

Here are my four biggest blessings. They have been my anchor and my rock this year. The little guy on the end is now in junior high but he still gives me hugs and tells me he loves me through out the day. He blessed my life by being constant. Everyday he is the same.
Next to him is my daughter in Alaska. Even though she is so far away she remains so available to me. Across the distance she lends a hand and offers a listening ear.
The girl in the middle sporting the belly button does such a good job as a mother, I wonder who was her example. She is my oldest and I often tell her, she was the trial child that we made all of the mistakes with.

She blessed us with these three amazing boys and one more last August. Having initially raised only girls, it's a little intimidating to be immersed in all things "Star Wars".
And on the end is the daughter that refers to herself as "the favorite daughter" and she means it. Little does she know, they are all my favorites. Being the youngest girl, she had more time to grow into responsibility, but she really stepped up to the plate and performed beautifully as we cared for my mother as she died. She took the roles that each of her sister normally play and did it all amazingly.

And here is the rest of the crew, some making a reappearance. I've been blessed with an amazing husband and each of our married daughters made equally good choices. So far, the son-in-laws are still vying to be my favorite. They can keep that up for 30 or 40 more years. So join my challenge and consider each day what you are grateful for.

Pinterest Strikes Again!!!

Pinterest really speaks to me. I love discovering new and interesting things and being able to file them in cyber space until I can get around to using them. I recently used 3 ideas from pinterest.

Witches Hats

What is more appetizing than a barfing pumpkin? (This is my famous family guacamole, all from scratch.)

And this got the most compliments.

Chilled Pumpkin Dessert
30 oz. pumpkin pie mix
1- 12 oz. evaporated milk
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 box butter yellow cake mix
1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
1- 8 ounce cream cheese
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
12 ounces Cool Whip
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method of Preparation
Oven 350
Line 13 X 9 pan with wax paper and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
In medium bowl combine pumpkin pie mix, and evaporated milk. Stir to combine. Whisk in eggs and vanilla. Set aside. Melt butter in a small bowl. Set aside. Place chopped pecans on a baking sheet and toast in the 350 degree oven until fragrant. Set aside. Pour pumpkin mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle cake mix on top of pumpkin mixture. Next, drizzle butter over cake mix layer. Sprinkle with chopped, toasted pecans. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees until golden brown. Cool completely and refrigerate overnight.
In mixer combine cream cheese, confectioners sugar and vanilla extract. Combine until smooth. Fold in cool whip. Flip the cooled pumpkin dessert onto a serving platter.(I flipped mine into a 2nd 13x9 pan.)  Frost with creamy topping and refrigerate until cold. Freeze 5 minutes before serving if desired. Cut into squares or slices & serve. (It worked creating it the same day as serving, I mean who thinks far enough in advance to prepare the day before?)

Be forewarned, it's very tasty and it makes alot. About 4 rows with 10 pieces a piece.

A moment to celebrate

For the first time in months we can pull one car into our two car garage. Sadly, it will be omnths more before two will fit.

Now before you think this a recovery episode of "Hoarders", this stuff stored in my garage was not mine and it was not invited, it was made homeless when we got renters for Mom's house and had no where else to go.
When mom passed away she left 2600 sq. feet of stuff to be organized, sorted, stored, given away or treasured. With the exception of the freezer, a computer, a queen size mattress and some other furniture that my brother's family could use immediately, everything else has taken up residence in my garage.
At one point even with the garage door up 10 inches our cat couldn't get in or out of our garage. One day, out of necessity a neighbor had to enter my home when I wasn't there. She was making tracks for my bedroom on a day I hadn't planned on visitors. One of my family secrets is I rarely make my bed on any day of the week that has a "s" in it or Monday or Friday. I knew my neighbor would see my unmade bed. That didn't alarm me as much as knowing she would have to pass through my garage first.
It's tough to absorb all of one house into another home. We've got foil, wax paper, powdered milk and toilet paper, enough for a month of family reunions. Mom bought in bulk to use her coupons and there was only one of her.
We used many methods to empty the garage. We put it on KSL, had a garage sale, gave it away and even considered door bell ditching it like you do your garden zucchini. Well, maybe we did abandon that one chair on Katie's porch. In fact we left it out one sunday morning while we attended church and came home to one less kitchen chair to out dinette set. It would have been really tempting, it had wheels on the bottom. I imagine by now guilt has caused it to be abandoned. We may find it when they dredge the canal 2 blocks down. I bet it was a great ride.
So I'm embracing my crowded garage and hopin you call all assist me. There's still some really great stuff out there. Need a chair, table, china cabinet, television, book case? Call me. PLEASE.

Success with pinterest?

Per mamakats blog I have been challenged to report on a pinterest idea I tried. And I've been hinting about a recent project following pinterest instructions, well more or less.

It all started when I couldn't find a certain accessory in a light fabric with alot of turquoise. Not that I'm the best shopper in the world anyhow and not that I was any where near fashion capitals. (St.Louis, Missouri and Bozeman, Montana) It started like this...

It was described as a "delicate tangle of threads". It required a water soluble stabilizer 18x60. Mine was "wash and gone" 22x72 because the lady at the fabric store couldn't figure out what 5 ft. was in yardage. Anyhow, that's the "less" part of me following directions. Note the scraps of yarn, ribbon etc.

You make a "sandwich" with your stabilizer, placing ribbons etc. between the two bread layers.

Then you start sewing. Back and forth and back and forth. A great first project if you want to teach straight lines. Throughout all the sewing I kept thinking of the farmer on his tractor creating straight rows in his field whenever he focused on the tree and less straight when he focused on the meandering cow. I focused alot on the meandering cow. But this project is very forgiving.

Once you sew it one direction, you get to sew it the other way. This took 3 spools of thread and 6 bobbins before I was done. Both threads show in your project so they should coordinate with your ribbons.

Added some embellishment once the the grid sewing was done. Then you add water and it becomes a science project.

Water dissolves the "wash and gone" so that all you are left with is threads.

I let it dry overnight, after soaking it thoroughly.

And there you  have it. A light and airy turquoise scarf. I'm thinking it needs a fringe, how about you?

Lots of minesweeper and pinterest

And you know what else I've been doing? Well, video games, old school. I play an alarmingly lot of "minesweeper". It's a thoroughly frustrating game. I have to turn the sound off, because when the bombs blow up and they usually do (I'm up to a 2% success rate) it hurts my self esteem.  So why do I wile away my extra minutes playing "minesweeper"? Elementary, my dear Watson. It's because it's free, it came with my computer, it's mindless (thus the 2 % rate), no one actually gets hurt when the bombs go off and numbers are not emotions. A number is always a number and it can not lie to you. Now the written word is a whole other subject, that whole "i" after "e" except after "c" and in "neighbor" and "weigh". That's when the letters start to lie, or is it lay? In any case, I also stalk a number of my friends and a fair number of total strangers on pinterest.
I never did figure out the whole "facebook" thing.  I'm just not the interesting or clever. Trust me, there is very little I need to share on social media. But, I'm starting to develop a very bad pinterest habit. Look what I did today...

 Just be fore warned, this is not for the dieter or the faint of heart. I used an entire pound of butter, that's right all 4 sticks just for the brownie batter.

I was reminded of a valuable lesson, just because you read it on the "web" doesn't make it so. Just like all your favorite television shows.... they have producers, they set the stage, they are fiction. So even though the recipe said to bake for 15 minutes...it lied. It was more like 28, otherwise we would have had "chocolate soup".

Once it's baked, you frost it. I used doterra peppermint oil to flavor. Then you put it in the fridge, like who has room in their fridge for a full sheet cake, but then I like challenges, remember all those attempts at "minesweeper"? Once it is sufficiently chilled, you melt chocolate chips.

This is a tricky process that requires that the butter frosting layer be HARD, otherwise you create swirl patterns. And then you chill again.

And then you serve. Okay, my offering may not look as good as the picture on pinterest... but I can pop mine in my mouth.
Here's a teaser of what else I'm creating with my pinterest boards. (You know they only count if you actually do the things you pin, right? Otherwise it's just cyber-hoarding)

Take a guess, as to what I'm up to if you dare?

Where have I been?

I was recently queried to "where have you been?" And it's true I've been absent from all of my usual haunts. I haven't shown up on facebook except to express my dismay when someone backed into our car, damaging 2 doors and drove away. Not one of my better days. I haven't returned phone calls, text messages or emails. I've been in a dormant state. Truth is I've been grieving.
I'm trying to learn a new "normal" that doesn't include daily visits to check on and care for my mother. I'm not picking up the phone to call her and tell her about the cute thing her great grandson said. Grief is a wide chasm that can devour you whole if you are not careful.

Some of my days since my mother's passing have been better than others. The day my daughter fell from her bike during a triathalon and suffered a subdural hematoma, not so good. The day I held my new grandson for the first time and looked into the faces of his brothers that were so happy that "duchess" would fly all the way to Missouri to be with them, better.
The grief comes and goes, not everyday is painful. When someone dies and leaves you in charge of everything they ever owned on earth, you have occasion to open a box and wonder, "What on earth was she thinking?" My mom's treasures were her own. Some make me giggle and some make me ponder her sanity. I opened a box today and found a yellowed newspaper clipping with a photo and a caption announcing the success of a recent March of Dimes Walk-a-thon. Valueable? It's absolutely questionable. But there in the center of the photograph was a 12 year old me walking with her best friend. This clipping had value to my mother.

I've come to understand something about empathy. It's that emotion you have when you are truly listening to what someone else is saying. Being so involved in their "story" that you forget to prepare your response. As you grieve, you push people away. You don't know what to say. They don't know what to say and so everyone is just uncomfortable.
Recently, an 11 year old girl through her arms around me in a hug and told me she knew just how I felt. She had recently lost her new puppy. Before you judge, realize that her empathy was perfect. Her words a little flawed. Her puppy was probably the only thing that she had thus far in her life loved and lost. She is a shining example of not being afraid to say something stupid. She didn't keep me at arms length, she plowed right into my personal space and empathized. So my challenge to all of you out there that may know of someone grieving. Do that hard thing, get past the fear of possibly saying the wrong thing and at least say something. From experience, I can tell you that the silence is nearly as debilitating as the grief.