the winter of our content......

 like most of the country, we have had some pretty mild weather lately.  and when i say mild, i mean hot!!  it was 84 degrees here today and right this minute, at 10:39 pm, it is 70 degrees outside.  seventy degrees....seven-zero!  

tomorrow's expected temperature is 90 degrees.  ninety degrees.....nine-zero!  

tomorrow is march 21st.  not july 21st, march...

i am not complaining.  

no one is around here.  

normal highs for this time of year range from 26 to 45 degrees.  the temperature on this date last year was 36 degrees.  

the total snowfall for our area last year was 75 inches.  the snowfall this year so far???  33 inches.  

we have had temps 65 and above for close to two weeks now.  and with all of the 

whining and moaning that i did last year while waiting for spring, 

and more whining and moaning,

 this weather is heaven!!!

 we have tulips coming up in the yard,

and the rose canes are leafing out....

 the red maple trees, just look at them.

 my curly willow is green with new growth

it's green!!! 

everything has a tinge of green.

 and my lilacs are budding.

 the russian sage is sprouting and the spiders have added their silver strands to the design.

 the willow trees by the pond are leafing as well.

 we have never seen such growth on the butterfly bush as there is right now.  we usually have to cut all of the dead wood off each spring.  nothing died this winter.  it never got cold enough, really.

 the bradford pear tree will have their stinky white flowers blooming soon.  

 the weeping cherry tree still shows some of last year's remnants tangled with the new leaves.  

 i had fresh chives for our dinner salad this past sunday. 

 rhubarb, i have rhubarb......and i have visions of rhubarb crumble dancing in my head.

 the raspberry canes are abloom 

 and the strawberry runners are running amok....

even the weeds are growing.

and it looks like the grass is going to need cutting soon.

this just doesn't happen in michigan.  

we usually have snow well into march and even into april.  nothing starts blooming until the first couple weeks of april and the leaves on the trees usually don't start  budding until may.  we are supposed to have temps in the high 80's until the end of the week and then 20-30 degrees above average for the week following. 

the kids have been playing outside every day until nightfall, barefoot, bruised and mosquito bitten....

and best of all??? on saturday night, st. patrick's day, we went to ziggy's.

our local ice cream spot closes for the year on september 30th and reopens on april 1st every year....

it's been open since march 14th....

a really smart business move since i was in line for 25 minutes waiting for my first ice cream of the year.....well worth the wait...

      :D   <-----  that's me with a huge smile on my face....

i hope the weather in your area of the country is just as beautiful as it is here.  

another quilt....

I started another quilt last week.  actually, i started 3 quilts last week.  it was a busy week to say the least. my friend lisa came back to michigan from her new home in minnesota and spent a few days with me sewing and painting.  she brought a bathroom cabinet over for me to show her how to paint and fix up.  more on that later.  

i have been making a few vintage sheet quilts and i decided that i wanted to try something more modern and clean looking.  i decided that i wanted to try a circle quilt after seeing tons of them on pinterest.

it's totally sensory overload there and i was inspired to try my hand on one for myself. 

in a nutshell, i zig-zagged some circles onto some gray squares.  

so this heap of fabric was cut into circles.

because i am so incredibly lazy ingenious, i pinned eight layers of fabric together, placed a cereal bowl on the top layer and traced a circle. 

i cut them out all at once.  

and because i am so lazy ingenious,  i only screwed up a few of the circles...(that'll teach me).

then, i pinned the circles to the squares and laid them out to see how i wanted the placement to be.

after determining that, i sewed the circles to the each square.  

i got a little decorative with some stitching because i thought it would be too boring if i didn't.  

(it really wouldn't have been)

i only did this on about 7 of the circles.

 it does look cool, though...

 i used white fabric between the vertical rows of squares...which i didn't take a picture of.  

 lisa had a great old sheet in her stash that i thought would be awesome for the backing and she was generous enough to let me wrestle it away from her.  

right now i am hand stitching the binding on and will share a picture of the completed quilt when that is finished in the next day or so. 

we (lisa, my daughter shannon and i) decided that we would make quilts for the local cancer center.  it is the same center that don went to when he had his chemotherapy 7 years ago for colon cancer.  he told me that when he would get chemo, he was always cold.  i thought that with all of the vintage sheets that i have  i would make lap quilts for the patients. 

i started two of them last week too...

 a pretty flannel quilt 

 and a patchwork quilt using some of the vintage sheets...

 i asked lisa and shannon to help out and we are in the process right now of matching and cutting more fabric and bagging it up in sets to start making "quilts for chemo"....

more updates soon!!!

for the love of the game......

austen's football season ended last thursday after a very loooong season.

his practices for freshman football began last june, 4 days after getting out of school for the summer.

he had practice and conditioning every day from 2:30 to any time between 5:00 and 6:30.  this schedule lasted until the beginning of august when the schedule changed to 7:30 am until 4:30.  every.single.day. 

 in between football practices, we had to fit in a traveling baseball season.  surmise it to say, it has been a very, very long season.....but we all loved it.

austen's football equipment had to be turned in today, so saturday i wanted to do a sports photo shoot.  

i told him on friday that since his equipment didn't have to be turned in until today, he needed to be sure to bring everything home so i could do this shoot over the weekend.....

well, he's 14.

and a boy....

so of course, he didn't have all of his equipment when he came home on friday.  seems his coach confiscated his shoulder pads before he left school.

curses!!!!

after some brainstorming, i asked around for shoulder pads from all of the boys families in the neighborhood.  no luck. but one neighbor remembered that he had a box of hockey equipment in his attic.  he found me shoulder pads and we were off.

by this time, however, austen was no longer up to doing the shoot and was a little less than cooperative...

well, he's 14,

and a boy....

so i had to threaten to take away his x-box bribe him to cooperate with me. 

i wasn't really successful, but the attitude just adds to the whole sports vibe....

he wasn't smiling here, he was whining....

i figured a few action shots would help..

ooh, a little smile there...

it helped a little....

but he was done.

but i wasn't. 

 i figured as long as we were taking sports pictures he may as well put his baseball uniform on and get some of those too.... 

ooh, not happy with me....(hee-hee...sometimes i love being the one in control)

i love the faces in this set....

i couldn't get a smile for anything....

that's okay...i love them.... and i think that someday he will too!

fall baking.....

the weather yesterday was rainy, cold dark and dank....

you know,  typical michigan weather when winter is near....

i hate winter.

so what is a girl to do?  

hmmmm. i know what would make me feel better.

how about this....

upside-down pear gingerbread.

i had a few pears left in the fridge that were getting old fast. i haven't made something like this before

and to be honest, i just thought about cutting the pears up into cubes and

just mixing them into the batter.  

it was really easy to do this though

and i love the way it looked.  

warm spicy syrupy pear sauce on the top

and moist gingery cake on the bottom....

come to mama.....

now, my husband despises gingerbread. and pears.  

my son won't eat it either. but his friend jake came over last night and

had a nice healthy slice.  

at least someone appreciates my baking so half of what was left went home with him. 

(well, i couldn't just leave it lying around for me to eat, could i??)

anyway, here is the recipe, modified from epicurious.com.  you are supposed to make this in a 12 inch  iron skillet but i don't have one of those.  i used a 9 inch cake pan and had a little bit of batter and a half of a pear left over.  i diced the pear and added it to the batter and used a mini loaf pan.  i had to adjust the baking time of the loaf to about 38 minutes.  just keep checking... 

• For topping
• 2 1/2 firm pears (preferably Bosc)
• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• whisk the brown sugar and spices together. 

For cake

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup molasses (preferably mild)
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

• 
  

preparatioPerMake topping:

Prepare pears:

Peel and core pears and cut each into 8 wedges.

Melt butter in skillet over moderate heat until foam subsides. Reduce heat to low, then sprinkle brown sugar spice mixture over bottom of skillet and cook, undisturbed, 3 minutes (not all sugar will be melted). Arrange pears decoratively over sugar and cook, undisturbed, 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Make cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together molasses and boiling water in a small bowl. Beat together butter, brown sugar, and egg in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes, then alternately mix in flour mixture and molasses in 3 batches at low speed until smooth.

Pour batter over topping in skillet, spreading evenly and being careful not to disturb pears, and bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. (mine took about 55-60 minutes in the 9 inch cake pan).

Cool cake in skillet on a rack 5 minutes. Run a thin knife around edge of skillet, then invert a large plate with a lip over skillet and, using pot holders to hold skillet and plate tightly together, invert cake onto plate. Replace any pears that stick to skillet. Serve warm or at room temperature.

***recipe modified from epicurious****