Making my own Rigid Heddle Loom

As you know from my last post I've recently discovered weaving/looming/twining! My beautiful frame loom has so far given me 10 rugs, 8 of which became Christmas gifts. In the process of working on the rugs our oldest grandson made a request for himself...he wanted a rug to look like the American Flag! Oh boy, I wasn't quite sure about it at first, but the more I thought on it the more I also thought I could pull it off. I wanted to try and keep it as true to life as possible of the original flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes. The stripes were really pretty easy to manage, it was that "field of blue" I had some trouble with, trying to tie off evenly at each section. It wasn't perfect but the grandson was sure happy with his rug. It was a pretty thing and he told his parents he didn't want to walk on it, he wanted it hung on his bedroom wall.

If you read my last post you also know I had discovered the various kinds of looms and was in the process of attempting to build my own rigid heddle style....and....WE DID!! Pulling up various brands of looms I decided to draw out my pattern based on a couple different models. I couldn't seem to find exact measurements anywhere, so in truth I was eyeballing it as I went. My prototype was a pretty thing, hubs had some cedar boards in the shop for me to use, but alas it wasn't as workable as I liked or as it should have been. I tried to leave off a couple of parts/pieces that I really didn't think would be missed....they were!! I was able to weave a small section, but I knew immediately it was not going to be something that would provide what I wanted for the long term. You most certainly need the warp beam AND the cloth beam and you definitely need the apron bars at both ends!

Those gears on the sides? Yep, you need those to, in order to get a better control over your tension and lock it down. Your cuts have to be right and your heddle the correct width or the sheds you get won't give you enough working room....or if like mine, you get a great upper shed, not so great lower one! ;) It was a learning process and with all that was learned I went forward with the next build...much better...not perfect, but definitely workable! It is this latest model that I've been playing with these past couple of weeks and I tell ya....IT'S FUN!!! So far I've played with weaving plastic grocery bags, plastic dollar store tablecloths, and recently I've woven a couple of table runners using four strands of various yarns I had on hand. I needed practice in tension as well as keeping the side true and straight...it's a lot harder than you might think it is. The plastics turned out well in straightness, the first yarn trial not so much! My second yarn trial turned out much better as I had a better idea of what to expect in the pull...it now graces the youngest daughter's entertainment center top and she thinks it looks just fine! ;) 

 The biggest problem in designing and making your own rigid heddle loom is in the reed dents...I've yet to figure out a way to make a homemade dent that will be as close as those with a purchased loom. Again, when making the first one, I "eyeballed" what I thought looked to be a good spacing and used popsicle sticks for the reeds. It works great, however, I can't get a very tight weave with it. It will work great for bulky yarns or other heavy warps, and it works with the actual rug warp, just not as close and tight as I need it to be....so it was on to fixing that dilemma!

Over coffee one morning I was expressing my displeasure with our resident carpenter/inventor (our son!) over the width of said reeds. Several ideas were tossed around, including using plexi-glass and a saw blade width to get what I wanted in spacing. Later, hubs attempted this for me with a piece of scrap he had....wouldn't work as the cuts were not smooth enough for the threads/yarns to be passed over. So we went back to the tried and true popsicle sticks! Son and I laid several out on the table one morning and discussed the idea of cutting pieces to use as spacers, then turning the sticks sideways. By cutting two separate length of pieces I could get the eye and the slot and I decided to give it a try. While at work that day, good ol' hubs took a handful of sticks to the shop and whacked me out several one inch and two inch pieces, to which I came home and began gluing them together. It didn't take me long to realize I wasn't going to get a long enough slot, so back to the shop he went and cut some 1/2" pieces. I've worked for the past couple of weeks trying to get all these little minute pieces glued and clamped together and then sanded smooth for dipping. They look good, are definitely closer in dent size and hopefully will work well once the son gets my cross pieces cut to fit them into. I do know though, they are still not as close as they need to be in comparison to a retail designed reed, but I'm sure
hoping they will do what I want them to do for the things I'm wanting to weave...it remains to be seen.

Now most people might think I've went to an awful lot of trouble (and am possibly crazy!) to do all this when I could have just as easily went out and bought this set up for myself. Well, that's not quite true...the equipment, materials, tools, and other things involved in learning to weave are NOT cheap! It is not something you can afford to try and if it doesn't catch your fancy, just say "oh well"....at least it's not for me! This "trouble" would have cost me several hundreds of dollars to purchase and that just isn't something I have to toss around for a hobby, whether I stick with it or not, so....where there's a will...there's a way...and this was my way!!! ;) It will never be cookie cutter perfect, nor do I hope to become a talented weaver, but I've loved the learning of new things and I have a real love for the "old ways" of doing things...so this is just another one of my quirks that may stick around for many years or pass in just a few. Either way I can say I've tried it and liked it! And thankfully the son and hubs is right there with me and indulge my longings and creativity, otherwise I'd never get to enjoy what I do! The

combination of minds around here makes for endless possibilities with little to no investment costs...that makes it even better! :) At present I have about $17 invested in the loom, including the price of a box of craft sticks for the reeds...not too shabby, considering the same thing would have cost me right around $300 to purchase just for the loom!

Hubs likes to add his own brand of inventiveness to the fray. It was his repurposing of several items to add to the loom that made it work better and to be built cheaper....like metal closet rods for the cloth beams. When I needed a loom hook in order to pull my warp threads through the reed, he heads to the shop with a steak knife in hand and proceeds to make me a handy dandy looming tool!! That little item right there saved me $10 plus shipping!! He came up with a pretty inventive idea for a stand as well using an old metal deck chair frame that was on it's way to the dump. Now I can set on the couch and weave while he watches (sleeps!) tv!! ;)

Today I am currently enjoying a snow day from work and am getting ready to warp up that lovely little loom to try out some more yarn for another table runner for my kitchen. I've almost completed two new rugs on the frame loom for the kitchen as well, so figured might as well make something to match on the island counter! By this time next year I may have discovered a whole new "something" to learn, but right now I'll just let the snow fly and enjoy both of my looms and the products they're allowing me to produce!

It all started with a hole in the rug....

I've been absent of late...with summer ending, finishing up the garden, replanting for the Fall garden, going back to work, and Halloween there just has been no time for writing. Between all this business though, a body must take the time to go to the bathroom...yes, I said the bathroom! While using said facility a few weeks ago I looked down and realized there was a hole in my bathroom rug. It was one of those microfiber things I found on a sweet Black Friday sale last year. I had gotten one in brown to match my bathroom colors, but being brown it also managed to show every speck of dirt and/or stray frazzling and lint so I was really not happy with it....after noticing the hole I became even less happy. It struck me that I was going to need a new rug, it also struck me that the hubs had brought home a multitude of t-shirts from the oldest daughter's leftover estate sale and that I would just crochet myself a bath mat.

I did a little research on the net on crocheting rugs, got a decent explanation and began cutting all those t-shirts into strips. Once they were cut and rolled into colorful balls I got out my biggest crochet hook and began just a simple single crochet. I was going along rather well and could tell that it was going to progress rather quickly too, however, as the rug grew so did my lack of ability to handle it. Not only was it straining my wrists, but the palm of right hand began to hurt...daily....all day long. I found I was only able to crochet about 10 minutes and I had to stop because it hurt too much to continue....I was sadly disappointed as I knew I wasn't going to get this thing completed. Back to the net I went thinking there must be another way to make a rug out of t-shirts and that's when I found it!!

A loom...a nice, big square loom used for twining rags into rugs....ah-ha!! I had to try it, but first I had to convince the hubs to build me one. While I was convincing I continued to read up on twining and rag rugs and all things that pertained to looming...do you know how many types and kinds of looms there are out there? Ohhh my goodness!! From sticks strapped together by our Native American ancestors to the giant barn looms used across the waters at the start of the industrial revolution there is a loom for all things and all reasons....holy moly!! My creative muse was caught and there was no stopping my imagination! Now to get myself a loom!

One morning, in the wee hours, over coffee, the son was here and in passing conversation I might have mentioned this whole loom thing and how I'd like to have one and I could make rugs (yes, I sounded like a kid trying to convince a parent of a much needed toy!). Son shoots one eyeball towards me and....grunts. As I'm speaking though, he is apparently searching on his phone to something that resembled of what I was speaking of! He turned his phone toward me and says, "is this it?" to which I replied, "YES...THAT'S exactly what I TALKING about!!!" He grunts again. I didn't think he was taking me too seriously, but he did comment that it was a pretty simple thing to make to which I agreed and followed with, "but would you be willing to make it?" He grunts and returns to his coffee!! ;)

A short time later the son heads home, I proceed to get ready for work and the morning progresses as usual. About an hour later I hear the back door open and look up to see the son coming through the kitchen packing...you guessed it....a loom!! It was minus the dowel rods since he didn't have any at his house, but he gave his dad instructions as to what size to get, then informs me to try that and if I think I like it he'll make one that's a little more "precise". Like a kid in a candy store I can hardly wait for the day to be over so I can come home and try my hand at twining a rug.....and that's exactly what I did!

Needless to say my first "rug" was a trial experience and while I did, in fact, come out with something resembling that, it most certainly wasn't what I had envisioned. It was barely square, did not come together correctly in the center as had been explained on youtube, nor was it very colorful, but hey!! I learned a lot from that first attempt. In the meantime, unbeknownst to me, the son is back up in his shop working on a more "precise" version. This time it took him a little longer than an hour to complete, but man! when it was done....ohhhh myyyy goodness!!

About a week after my first twining I got a call telling me to come up to the shop to take a look at this new loom he was working on for me. I had mentioned prior to about putting steel bars down the sides of the one he had already built that would hold the twining a little more square and I might also have mentioned a way to slide them across in order to make varying sizes...son decided to incorporate all these things (and more!) into his latest build...and what a build it turned out to be! As I entered in the shop and caught sight of "THE LOOM" my mouth fell open and I seriously, for once, was speechless!! Now call it a mother's pride if you will, but to me the thing was gorgeous, resembling a fine piece of furniture, and ohhhh the thrill I had as I immediately began envisioning, not only rugs, but other weavings as well! Needless to say I was/am very proud of my "Merry Christmas/Happy Birthday" loom and so far, since it arrived in my home I have cranked out four rugs!! Very pretty rugs I might add and it currently has another rug about half finished in progress now. Of course all these rugs require a lot of material, so hubs and I started early on a run of thrift stores in order to supply me with said materials (it's amazing what you can do with bed sheets!). With Christmas looming on the horizon (pun intended!!), you can about imagine what I'm working on THIS year as gifts!! ;)

And you might think that I would be happy as a lark and fully satisfied with all I've been given (as well I should be I know!), BUT, you might want to think that one again! LOL! In the meantime, I've spoken to someone, read up on, and viewed various things that can be loomed, twined, and/or weaved and that's how I found out there are all these different types of looms out there that sort of kind of have various uses...and yes, I want more!! Having found that these things are not cheap by no means, I naturally fall back to what you can see is this family's standard motto...build it yourself! And since son is knee deep in creating and decorating for himself for Christmas, the hubs and I are attempting our own model and version of a table loom. We're not progressing as fast as the son did, but I have a reason for that. I know that once a new one is finished I'm going to want to play on it and right now I need myself to focus on other things, so our creation is in several stages of "being finished". I hope, though, to have it done and working for when Christmas is over and the snow is flying and I will set in my comfy living room and weave away....yes, there is a difference between twining and weaving. The ideas are already flying and the stock is being built up for just that occasion. In the meantime though, I will continue to use my beautiful, one of kind, handcrafted loom that currently holds a place in my living room because it is such a beautiful piece. I'm holding off on decorating for Christmas this year, just because I know I will have to move my loom upstairs and I'm not quite ready to move it out just yet! :)

Oh, and that bathroom rug with the hole in it? Yeah, it's been replaced!! It was the first one I decided to make on the new loom. I can't honestly say that when it hits the washing machine that it will stay together, because it was my first attempt at incorporating the steel bars, but it sure looks pretty on my bathroom floor right now! And as with anything, there's always something to be learned on each new thing you try...I'm REALLY enjoying my learning.

Creative muses seems to run fairly deep within this family and this time of year, as we move into the holiday seasons, and realize all the things we have to be thankful for, I have a few more things to add to my thankful list. I am proud of all my children and each one of them has their own unique talents so to thank God for them doesn't just come at holiday time...it is an ongoing thankfulness throughout the year, but I can't help but be just a little more in awe and thankful during this time of year that I was lucky enough to blessed with the ones I have. They may not be perfect, but their ours and that's good enough for me.

So.....as the season progresses, the winds begin to blow, and the snow starts to move closer, I'll be tucked up here with a pile of rags and plastic bags working away on my loom completely satisfied...well, at least until the next muse strikes....then I'll be off to try something else!!

For the love of pastries....

I love my current job...and what I really like about it are the summers off! :) However, this summer I've determined I may be in the wrong line of work because I've discovered the fun of making pastries! I don't know how many times over the past many years I've looked at apple turnovers and thought, "I can make those", but never attempted to find a recipe. Then a few years ago it hit me again and with the internet it was easy to do a search for a recipe. Problem was the recipes I ran across seemed like they were labor intense and a whole lot of time and effort for something that I couldn't imagine would turn out as good as I wanted them to. I'm not one to waste things and the thought of all that butter going down the tubes cautioned me to not even think about trying homemade pastry.

After spending the first part of my summer vacation making ice cream in all kinds of flavors I was ready to move on to something else before the canning season started. I went back to my google search and rediscovered the pastry dough. I decided I would try the puff pastry and just see how well this stuff would turn out. All that time and work I had previously read about didn't seem quite so daunting after reading over the recipe several times before I even started and to minimize my "waste not want not" personality I decided I would halve the recipe and see what happened. As I was reading up on all these different ways of doing puff pastry I ran across what is known as the "rough puff" version...a little less labor intense, so that was the route I chose to go....I was not disappointed!

I have to say at the beginning of all this my mind just could not wrap around the fact that flour and butter would somehow come together to make this incredible puffy, flaky dough...just could not fathom it at all, but I went ahead with my project, worked my dough, did all that "fold then turn" thing and let it set in the frig until the next morning. You can't really tell by the picture I took, but there are many, many "layers" in that wad of dough. That's the whole purpose of the fold and turn...it puts all these layers in there that when they bake they "puff" up from all that butter....glorious!!

Now, I normally don't use canned pie filling, but I happened to have a can of apple and since apple turnovers were what I was aiming for I used it...doctored up of course, because canned pie filling has about as much flavor as I don't know what...but it certainly doesn't have flavor!! I rolled out my dough the next morning, cut my little squares, added a spoonful of filling, folded them over and crimped them with a fork, then gave them an egg wash. Into that hot oven they went and I waited with much trepidation and anticipation. In about 20 mins. I pulled out the most incredible turnovers I think I've ever seen! They seriously do just what the recipe said they would do, nice and golden and PUFFED!! I let them cool about 10 mins. and them drizzled them with vanilla icing....oooohhh my heavenly goodness...yes, they were!

I had some leftover dough scraps and decided I'd just twist those up and douse them with cinnamon sugar and they were pretty tasty as well! The youngest daughter came to taste test and declared "ooohh, these are good...these are REALLY GOOD!" She followed that with, I needed to make more in cherry! ;) The oldest granddaughter declared them really good to, and requested blueberry. The hubs said he'd eat whatever flavor I wanted to make, all the while shoving pastry in his mouth and mumbling, "umm....ummm"!! LOL!

Sooooo, having tried and conquered the puff pastry I decided I might as well go all out and attempt the danish kind too. Once again, I went on a search for a dough recipe, and halved it for my purposes. This time, instead of the rough puff, I decided I was going to do the classic "laminating" with a block of butter...it was interesting to say the least, but certainly very doable and yes....it worked just as well as the first one! Since we'd already tried the apple I wanted to give a caramel pecan one a try and I wanted to get "fancy" and try a braid. Yep, just as good! I actually had enough dough that I divided it in half and made some crescent rolls I took to the oldest daughter's house for supper and still had enough to make the pecan braid the next morning. I had some leftover pecan braid this morning with my coffee...it was still just as tender and just as tasty as it was two days ago when I first baked it....amazing!!

The real kicker for me in all of this is of course, is the butter. It has to be real butter and being frugal, paying the price for real stick butter was not something I would want to do very often, however, I do make my own homemade butter with goat cream, so it was the next on the try out list! I wasn't sure how well it would work because goat butter becomes very soft and creamy at room temp. With all that fold and turning I knew this round would take longer in the making because I would have to chill between all those turns, but I went ahead with the trial. It did require a little more "work", but I can attest that the end result was even better I think. My plan was to make Danish...hadn't really decided what KIND of danish, but I was going to do danish, then this morning I got up and decided I would half that dough and try some croissants....yes, well....if the danish turn out as well as these croissants we'll be making ourselves sick eating them! :) They are buttery, they are flaky, and they are amazing to watch as they bake in that oven! You must make sure you have your little ends tucked under though, otherwise they will pop out from under and make a not as pleasing looking little croissant! ;)
Once again the hubs is cramming and "umming" and enjoying all these experiments I've been trying...I honestly think he wakes up every morning in anticipation of just what new thing I'm going to come up with next!!

And that next attempt is to make the best of both worlds by using the rough puff technique with the danish recipe and save myself a little time.I'm pretty sure these little gems I've been cranking out the past week are going to be keepers, so I have to figure out a little less time consuming way of making them. After all, it won't be long now and I'll be heading back to work and all my creating and baking time will come to an end...well, at least an end to the daily basis creating! Unless of course I decide to go into a whole new line of work and open up my own bakery shop!! ;) Nah, then it really WOULD become work and no longer fun and I prefer the fun part!

If you've ever considered trying pastry, but was afraid of it like I was...don't be!! It really is as simple as it sounds and the work involved is not near what it sounds like when you first read a recipe. Whatever work is involved is absolutely worth it in the end. I'm going to include a link here to Joe Pastry, as he has all KINDS of things he makes and shows you in pictures and well written explanations...check it out for yourself and then go roll you out some dough!

Never too old to learn...

I've kind of embarked on a new adventure here lately...well, it's really not an adventure so much as it is a trial of sorts. It really all started with a pair of wrens back in the early Spring...yes, wrens...as in birds! We've had this pair since we moved here, they visit our front deck regularly, sit on the backs of our chairs and peer in through the slider door at us. This year these two decided they would also nest on our front deck in our barbecue grill...NOT a wise decision! We tried to relocate them, but they were having nothing to do with that and went right back and started rebuilding in that grill. Hubs came up with the idea to put an old mailbox on the railing in the hopes it would entice them to take up residency...it did! They built a fine nest, raised their babies (we got to watch them take their first flights), and we assumed moved on to whatever things wrens do once their families are raised. In the meantime, I'm looking at this battered up old mailbox and thinking, "that looks trashy!".

 As I was contemplating on how to make an eyesore a more decorative piece I remembered that once upon a time I had tried my hand at oil painting. This was in the days of Bob Ross and his "happy little clouds" and I watched him regularly and tried to recreate those clouds. It was also in the days when one of my s-n-l's had taken up oil painting and was creating some beautiful works of art on canvas, on hand saws, mailboxes, and just about anything else she could find to paint on. Between her encouragement and Bob making it look so easy I decided to give it whirl and I did manage to paint two or three "passable" pictures that now hang in my upstairs craft room.

I even managed to paint a rock that I was rather proud of and a few sycamore leaves that I framed and gave to each of my children...and then...my passing fancy....passed! ;) I did, however, hang on to all my paints, brushes, cans, and tools just in case I ever decided I would give it another go. Twenty years later a couple of wrens jarred my memory and I pulled out those paints and brushes and decided to see what I could remember. In the process of my figuring out the artwork, I encouraged the hubs to fix me a post on which to mount the mailbox. I wanted it close to our deck, since the wrens seem to enjoy the close proximity, and I thought it might look nice incorporated into the flower bed I have along the front. Hubs did his part and now it was up to me to do mine!

Picasso or Rembrandt I am not, and I know this, but it was rather fun to try my hand at painting again and for a couple of birds who will use it for their home it works. I started with what I knew....mountains and Bob's clouds and tried to work from there. I probably should have also stopped right there, but I remembered how Bob would throw in a tree, some water, or an old dirt path and figured "what the heck"...lets do it! The outcome

wasn't too awfully bad, I could live with it, but then I got the wild idea to try something different on the other side, after all, it was for the wrens, so let's put a wren on there! Having never painted a bird, or anything remotely close to a bird, I did what all good (wanna be!) artists do....I googled it!!! ;) And there on youtube I found a video that showed me how to use acrylic paint first to add the bird and then go on top of that with oils...and of course, this guy made it look sooooo easy!! :)

But, I tried it, got something passable enough for me, let it dry, and then we mounted it to the post. The birds have not been back to even check it out!! I've since thought that perhaps that huge, glaring, representation of themselves may have scared them off...they might possibly think a much larger species has laid claimed to the mailbox and will never return again...it worries me! Hubs did say he saw one of them the other day on the front deck, however they were checking out the new patio set's umbrella NOT the mailbox, so I may very well be covering up that mailbox before it's over with! It's a good thing we keep several cans of spray paint available around here because it may be required of me to spray paint over the top of my efforts to appease my birds!

But in the middle of this revisiting of my artistic skills I've been talking to that s-n-l who got me started in all of this in the first place and what does she tell me? "Watercolor....you need to try watercolor"!! And of course her excitement built into my excitement and the next thing I know I'm checking clearance prices for things to get me started...I did not, however, go immediately with watercolor, I went instead with acrylics because, short of a bad background, I was kind of intrigued with my bird I had managed to paint out and I'm starting to see cream cans, milk buckets, metal signs, and all these other things I could paint....should of listened to the s-n-l!! ;)

I finally did go get some watercolor paint, but frugal, cheapo that I am I did not invest in the "real" thing. I went instead with a basic set of kids paints (on the advice of that self-same s-n-l!!) and have been trying my hand at watercolor. I did some youtube searches and found some absolutely crazy videos that once again, make this look sooooo easy to do...yes, well...perhaps if you have an inborn talent for that kind of thing it might be...me? I have a tendency to produce pictures of muddy water!! In actuality, my best one so far was done with muddy paint....seriously! I was working on something else entirely and had too much leftover acrylic paint and I couldn't stand the thought of just tossing it out, so I watered it down and throwed it around on a piece of paper...took me all of five minutes and I got a reasonable picture doing just that!! The fact that it is monochromatic doesn't bother me in the least! :) It's the ones I try to put real effort into that just become a mess!

But I will not give up quite yet...I keep thinking if someone else can throw this stuff around on paper and make it look like a picture surely I can too. I'm also waiting on that s-n-l to pick up her own brush, because she's told me she intends to do some watercolor painting, so if I can just hang on until she does I might be able get some tips and tricks from her that will make all this make sense to me. In the meantime, I'll just paint mud and be happy! I just hope this new, passing fancy of mine doesn't pass before that s-n-l decides to get on the boot, otherwise, this round may have me passing along my latest tools to her! :)

Precious memories...how they linger

Hubs and I have been on a Spring Cleaning tangent pretty much since my first day of summer break! I'll admit I don't do a lot during the year when I'm working. Oh, the basics get done, dust, sweep, wipe the slider door down now and then, but the REAL cleaning doesn't get done until after the school year has ended. The good thing about this year is we've had rain...nothing BUT rain it seems like and since I can't get outside to do much we've put our energy in to the insides!

Our house is...well...LIVED IN! While I love beautiful homes and all things in their place, color coordinated pieces and well organized it just don't happen in my house. At any point and time there are grandkids running through the door wanting this or that (mainly food!) and grandkids just aren't always the cleanest of the human race...at least mine aren't! ;) And husbands aren't always the cleanest of beings either. Ohhhh, they like a clean house, but they have a tendency to lay things down in places where they shouldn't be, or stack stuff up that they'll "get to later" and later never comes...yep, that would be my husband! But the hubs and I are a lot alike..we can  only go so long and then it's time for a renovation, or in our case these days, a clean up, so that's what we've been doing.

Today the maker room made it on the list of clean up/clean out and at the end of the day I have to say it's quite an improvement. It's the only room in the house we never got finished (and probably never will!) so it leaves much to be desired in "looks" and after a winter times worth of my "making" it was a complete mess. The hubs griped and complained, but I told him to go look at his shop and then come back and talk to me about mine!! ;) Anyway, in the process of the reorganizing I went through another tote of Mom's things I'd set aside after she passed. I've put off going through most of it...while it's been three years, I'd still just rather not walk down that road yet, but today I did with some of it. Mom was a cook...a GOOD one and she clipped and saved a lot of recipes, some I remembered her making and some I don't. In there was the original Buckeroon cookie recipe I had gotten from my 4th grade teacher in my childish handwriting...I still make these cookies to this day and love them! A recipe for liniment she had labeled from my Aunt Opal that was my Grandma Fanny's, my Aunt Flossie's noodles and her German Chocolate Cake, along with many others she'd gotten from her church friends of things they'd brought for dinners. Many of the clipped recipes she considered good she had also hand written in order to keep them in her kitchen. It was a sad and strange sensation to see my mother's hand writing once again. Not many people realize that Mom was a writer and loved to do so. She wrote poetry in her younger years and had some published in the Capper's Weekly. Later in life she kept journals...daily writings of her life that consisted not only of her own trials and tribulations, but her worries over her children, grandchildren, and even her great grandchildren. Many of those pages were written prayers, not only for her own family, but her church friends and their families as well. I've yet to go through those because I have a pretty good idea of the sorrow and broken heartedness I'm going to find in those pages and I'm not ready to face those either.

But within this tote today I also ran across two Valentine poems my brother Steve and I had written for her while in school. I ran across a thank you letter from one of her granddaughter's and one from her grandson. Newspaper clippings of my brother Dale being shipped to California on his way to Vietnam, my brother Don's log home when it burned, and various items my own kids had drawn or written to her. There was a Thanksgiving "letter" I had written to her in grade school complete with a drawn and colored turkey, a post card from my sister when she went on a cruise, one from my s-n-l when they'd taken my brother Steve and drove out through Oklahoma and the west. I found a letter my grandmother had written to her dated 1969, filled with news from her week and asking about ours. I also found a letter from my brother Steve while he was in the Army, probably stationed in Greece at that time...it was a rambling, jumbled mess because he was in the middle of a discharge and wanted to be home.

I don't think it was the hubs intention, but as I was pulling things out of this tote and going through them he slipped in one of my CD's I had upstairs. It was bluegrass gospel, mostly instrumentals, but what should the second song happen to be? Precious Memories...of all things!!! I pulled out a sheet she had written on, not really sure what it's purpose had been, but it was started in 1956 and ran through 1958. It was a list, I'm assuming, of items her and my dad had purchased. She had written down things like "a new steam iron", "General Electric Washing Machine", "waffle iron" and a "49 Studebacker Truck"! There were also two packages of old negatives from photos she'd taken in the early years. Mom was quite a shutterbug too, when she could afford the film, and I guess that's where my daughter and I get our love of picture taking from. There were index cards of all us kids, when and where we were born, our weight, date, and doctor that delivered us.

All of this pieces and parts of a life lived, loved, and sorrowed through. Most of it just bits of paper, worth absolutely nothing to anyone anymore and yet I can't throw it away! My mother never had an easy life...she didn't have a fine home or fancy car...she didn't have a lot of money to fall back on in her golden years, but it never bothered her, or if it did we never knew it. These few bits and pieces of papers and notes were important to her, important enough to keep all these years tucked away in her bible and boxes...as foolish as it may sound, tossing it out almost seems as if I'm tossing her out as well.

I did throw away some of the recipe clippings, but the post cards, letters, and drawings went right back in that tote. Maybe one of these days I'll go back through it all and decide that it's really not worth hanging on to after all, or then again...it might still be here when I'm gone and then it will be up to my children to decide what to toss and what to keep! Either way, they're here for now and that is where they'll stay...memories, precious not only to my mother, but to me as well.

We're off to see the Wizard....

A couple months ago our oldest granddaughter decided she was going to join her Middle School Drama Team and be a part of their production of "The Wizard of Oz". Matti does nothing unless it's full on...the child has no fear, so being on stage since 4th grade is old hat to her. We're not sure where she gets all that from, but her outgoing personality and non-stop talking ability makes her a perfect candidate! ;)

I should have known though, that Ga would not be allowed to just attend the performance and brag...oh no!! Ga was expected to be a willing participant as well....in the area of costume design! When Matti came over to tell us what part she got in the play, she also informed me the costumes that were available were old...and stinky! LOL! And of course that was followed with, "I told them I'd just have my Ga make my costume"...uh....thanks child! Apparently she figured since I was able to whip out an Elsa costume for one night of Halloween I could surely whip out a Tin Man costume for the school play...well...all righty then...let's get started!

Having seen a totally cute and well designed Tin Man on one of my regularly followed blogs I thought it would be somewhat of a piece of cake...okay, a wedding cake perhaps, but at least I had a starting point!! I had actually thought of making one of the grandsons the very same costume for next Halloween, however I was informed by the granddaughter she wasn't actually going to BE the Tin Man...she was the Tin Woods GIRL...aka...feminine design!! Uh oh...I was possibly in trouble! But, up to the Maker Room I climbed, put my thinking cap on (where was that Scarecrow and his brain when I needed him!), and got to work. I had perused some images on the internet, but was still not quite sure how I wanted to design this thing...after all, most of the "costumes" on the internet were a little too "adult" looking for my tastes. Hip high skirts and plunging necklines was not exactly what I had in mind, but still, they gave me a few ideas. And as is usual in most of my makings, hubs and I headed off to the thrift stores to begin the search. My first thought was to start with a prom dress and work my way up (or possibly out!) if I could find one shiny enough and cheap enough...nothing! I was to be sadly disappointed in my search, but I did manage to come up with a .10 pattern and a pair of boots...it was a start!

Of course, being a Tin Man/Girl you're made from....well, TIN! Tin is shiny and when put together it is riveted. In the movie you can see the Tin Man's rivets, they are what rusts when he gets caught out in the forest during a rain storm. The granddaughter's opening scene is in the forest...rusted...hmmm, must have rivets!!! ;) The daughter and I headed off to Walmart looking for material. Luckily we found some super shiny stuff in stock. Not knowing exactly where the design was going to go as of yet, she bought the last couple of yards they had on the bolt. I picked up some tulle and some other kind of material that I have no clue what it was called, but it was darker, metallic, and meshy...I'd figure it out later! ;)

While I was busy working on the costume, I put her uncle to work on making her an axe and her Pa to work on a funnel and oil can and to coming up with ideas as to what to use for those rivets. Pa went digging in his workshop and came up with the funnel and oil can...a couple coats of paint and he had them ready to go. Her Uncle Patrick took about 25 minutes to whip out a wooden axe and then brought me a box of hex nuts to use for the rivets. He had intended to make her a wooden heart as well, complete with clock face and chain until we found out in this play the Tin Man receives a heart of gold. In one of the ending scenes the gold heart is attached, but of course it also had to be "un-attached" quickly and easily throughout all the performances. I racked my brain trying to figure out how to make that heart de-tachable. Patrick brought me a small washer and a small strip of strong magnet and told me to just sew the one inside the lining of the top and attach the other to the gold felt heart...worked perfect!! Once I had the costume done I pulled out those hex nuts and some jewelry glue and "riveted" it all together...pretty darn cute!! Her mother was in charge of make-up, so online to Amazon she went and placed her order. The countdown was coming and dress rehearsals were about to start, but we were finally ready!!

The kids had four performances, three to be done for the school and the finale for the community. Friday night was the final performance and the first time I got to see everyone in costume and in action....they did GREAT!! As a grandparent it doesn't matter whether your grandkids can really perform...they're yours, so naturally they're just going to be good to you whether anyone else thinks so or not, but I'm telling you...ALL of these kids did a super job!
I was so impressed, not only at their acting abilities, but their stage props, lighting, costumes...all of it! I'm sure their teacher had a lot to do with how well this performance went off...she's a super cool lady (my granddaughter's words!) whom the kids all love and she loves them...you could tell it in this play. Were they ready for Broadway...maybe not, but they were pretty darn close in my books! :)

Hopefully though, with the school year winding down, Ga will be off the hook for awhile in designing anything. There's still a few months until Halloween and I've already called a break in any other forthcoming endeavors...after all, it's almost gardening time and no amount of costuming is going to interrupt me in THAT! It was some fun in the making, perhaps a few hair pulling moments, and only a couple of pins that forgot to be removed, but it still ended up being a grand performance for all of us!!

Fifty Shades of Wrong...

Last year, sometime, posts began to crop up on my FB page about this new book that had hit the stands...Fifty Shades of Grey...and at first, being an avid reader I thought, "Ohhhh wow! I'll have to check this out once the price goes down", until....the posts began to be a little more explanatory! At first I was getting, "OMG!! What a great read", or, "You have GOT to read this book...AMAZING!", or, "I just couldn't put it DOWN!". Then the giggles began and the comments that started coming forth were leading more toward it was this steamy romance novel...not my cup of tea! Pretty soon it was being described as pornographic, or at the edge of, yet it was still being followed with words that lent a person to believe this was still somehow a great read...I began to wonder about that! Then, over the course of the last few weeks, my page has been swamped again with postings about "the movie" and the excitement of going to the theaters (and paying good money!) to see this...the comments were not encouraging. Apparently it hit the theaters this weekend and, to be honest, I'm a little surprised at the number of my female friends who left their kids, left their husbands, left their homes to rush out and see this production. Now, I will say, that most of those females are young...30 and under, so perhaps age plays a part here in what you'll subject yourself too, but it's apparent that the world we are now living in is also playing a major part in what we'll subject ourselves to. The reason I say this, is because many of these self-same females are posting regularly about church, Jesus, prayer, and blessings...many of those postings are then followed later on with a "girls night out", or some new cocktail recipe they want to try, or a new bar they've found that makes great food....seriously?? Seriously!! What is wrong with this picture?

And I'm sure I'm going to be condemned as being OLD!! Like somehow, once you pass the age of 30, you have no life if booze or sex is not a part of it and therefore you become a prude, a fuddy-duddy, or just plain "don't get it"! You're right....I don't get it!! I'm sure I would also be labeled as "Far Right", a "Conservative", or better yet, one of those "Bible Thumpers"!! Well, yes I am!! BUT...I've also read my share of romance novels in the past and some of them could have been described as "steamy"...I was young...I hadn't lived long enough yet to realize what was really important in life, or I should say, what SHOULD have been important in my life, nor had I come to realize yet that what you expose yourself to has a tendency to skew your beliefs and views on things as well! But at the same time, who doesn't love a fantasy now and then? Whether it's just to escape the humdrum of everyday living to take a walk in the Shire, or to be at a murder scene and solve the crime, or yes, even to sigh over that knight in shining armor who swooped in to save the love of his life! But whatever happened to "leaving something to the imagination"?? Do we not have one anymore that we need things spelt out in graphic details of word pictures? And what is wrong with us that we are okay with that? More over, what is wrong with us that the graphic details cross the lines of a normal, healthy relationship into a dark, sick, and dominating one and we find that stimulating?? I wonder if these same young women had daughters who found themselves involved in a relationship that is being portrayed in the Shades books if we would still think this was such a great read...would we still giggle and call it okay? If so, then we are in BIG trouble!!

I have not read any of the three books involved in the trilogy and won't...I haven't seen the movie, nor do I intend to. Why? Because I have already heard enough about it to sicken me and turn me away. I'm not even the least bit curious as to whether there is a hidden story line there that comes clean in the end...I don't care if it does...what I've been told so far should not be promoted as a "good read" or recommended to friends, whether this couple triumphs or not. I don't care if the books were intended to warn women away from relationships just like the one portrayed in that book...if that was the case then it should of began and ended in ONE BOOK! And I'm pretty sure if that was the case I would be hearing something more on the lines of "OMG!! Every young woman out there needs to read this to be aware of the psychos and sickos who will and can prey on them"...I'm not hearing any of that! I'm hearing way too much praise for a story line that involves domination, bondage, and cruelty based on nothing but continual sex. Of  the ability of one man to take and destroy the confidence and self-assurance of a young and vulnerable woman...of her lack of understanding of just how wrong a relationship like that is and her inability to get out of it...of her seemingly misunderstanding that she should "help him to face his demons" and it's her job to do so....no, No, and NO!!!

And they're finding the character of Mr. Grey appealing??! Really?? That his feelings are somehow being seen as caring and concerned? That because he's extremely wealthy, good looking, buys her things, and basically orders her every waking movement computes into a loving and worthwhile relationship? Good LORD people...WAKE UP!!! Whether we have daughters or not...is this how you  want your sons to grow up...is this the example we want them to follow...no, No, and NO!!!

I've heard more than enough about this book to know it is not something I will ever read! Even putting all the sociopath-ness aside, I have to wonder at a world of readers who actually enjoy reading about the type of sex that is being portrayed in this book...and apparently page upon page of it! What I'm really concerned about is the circle of friends I have who are enjoying this read. I've always thought of "the world" as just that...it's out there, but I'm not a part of it...I had thought the majority of my friends, family, and even close acquaintances were not a part of it...and I'm finding out, a little too frankly...that I was wrong. It concerns me, in a big way, and perhaps I've always been a tad naive, but what the world does and what we do ought to be and should be two very different things! It also concerns me that we're okay in promoting Biblical quotes and teachings one day while posting this book and our enjoyment of it the next!

I am at a loss anymore to understand how our "freedom of speech" has so blatantly meta-morphed into this kind of thing. I'm at loss as to how at one time there was a moral majority which has now turned into the "immoral" majority...how we've slowly managed to turned wrong into right and fool ourselves into believing it's okay or that this doesn't harm anyone. Whether or not you have a religious background or believe in any higher power other than yourself, there is a consequence to uncontrolled thinking and/or behavior. You cannot be astounded at the increasing rate of crime, rape, child molesting, or murder and think that freedom to do as we please is going to end in a better society. What it will end in is called chaos! You don't need a Bible to show you this...pick up a history book and you'll find that more than one nation has been toppled because of uncontrolled debauchery and lewdness...when the powers that be who deemed themselves as un-reproachable, allowed their behavior to flow into a society that soon became reprehensible and out of control. If you think that sort of thing won't happen again because we are somehow more intelligent and enlightened than our predecessors...I suggest you think again! There is a reason they say "history has a way of repeating itself"...and if what we're doing today is not "repeating" then I don't know what is! If this is your idea of enjoyment? Better enjoy it while you can because it's not going to last long....



~Patti

Getting ready for Christmas....

I always think I am so busy when Spring gets here, getting the garden ready, tending the plants,  harvesting the produce and then...next thing I know I have to start thinking about Christmas...and I get busy all over again! :)

I've had a multitude of thoughts over the past several weeks, however I just never had the time to  set down and write them out. The maker room has been going hot and heavy since about mid September when I started working on the grandkids costumes. From there my feverish brain began to get "ideas" on what I'd like to make and give for Christmas and the maker room became off limits to the family for the rest of the season. I'd already informed my children that this year would be a "homemade" Christmas to which I followed with the oft used phrase my granddaughters use: "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit"!! Not that any of my kids or grandkids would ever throw a fit over anything I might hand out, but it seemed a fitting remark at the time since I wasn't completely sure where all these ideas of mine were heading! ;) Let's just say those "ideas" got a little out of hand and I ended up with a conglomeration of things, but I think there will be a little something for everyone in all of it!

And....I'm not quite done!! I would have been done, but a certain item I purchased back in November to help me along went kaput on me over the weekend. It is however, being replaced, free of charge, and I have been assured it will be here before Christmas, so I hope they know of what they speak and it arrives within the next two days. It's not that I couldn't give what I have without this particular thing, but it just adds that extra touch to the homemade-ness of my gifts and that was the part I was striving for. In the meantime, the idleness is killing me...I don't do last minute very well at all. I commend those folks who can wait til the last day or two before Christmas to do their shopping/creating, but I would have a nervous breakdown if I ever tried that! So what have I done in the meantime? Come up with another idea of course! LOL! Yes, yes I know...that could easily be considered last minute, but in MY mind, I can relegate these particular things to the "not necessary" pile...if it works, I get it finished, then GREAT!! If not, that's okay too because I already have gifts ready and waiting...these will just be extras!!

But it's the fairness of things that always gets me in trouble! This latest idea came about after seeing the newest post on a favorite blog of mine...it was necklaces made from clay and one particular necklace caught my eye because it was one I knew the youngest granddaughter would love to have...yes, it has to do with Frozen!! ;) I didn't have all the things that were listed on the blog in order to make it, but I did have some things I could substitute, or at least thought I could substitute, so substitute I've done. I realized I had the clay, I had the stamps, and I had some paint, so might as well give it a try. I liked where I'd gotten so far, but then that fairness thing kicked in...if I made one for one granddaughter I probably should make one for ALL my granddaughters....see how I get myself into trouble?!!! So this morning I've pulled everything out and made two more, in a different format of course, since the other two are older and not into Frozen at all. So far, what I've pulled out of the oven looks pretty good, now I just have to paint, glaze, and string them all and I'm done (see how I convince myself this was a quick and easy process?!). There are times when I fully believe I am my own worst enemy...especially at Christmas time!!

While I might sometimes work myself into a corner, I do love the making, but even more so, I love the giving and for me Christmas is just the perfect time of year to do that. I don't make near what I used to, or give to all those that I did once upon a time. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that my time is shortened so much with working that I sometimes do well just to get my own family taken care of. It's this time of year, that I often wish I was retired, because then my list would get to grow. I'd still work myself into a corner, but it would be fun to know I had the time to get to that corner! Still, I do enjoy my job and I enjoy my making so I've learned to make the two things work together as best I can...and if I get an idle day now and then? Well, I just make necklaces!!

Merry Christmas everyone...and may your own corners be happy and bright!!




~Patti

Goblins and Grandkids!!!

It's that time of year when my grandchildren begin to anticipate Halloween and trick-or-treating...visions of plastic pumpkins full of hyper-ness float through their heads and they can hardly wait to hit the streets in search of all that sugar!!

I've been busy the last few weeks working on costumes for three of them. I don't normally do their costumes as their parents take care of that, but this year the youngest granddaughter wanted the costume of all costumes...the costume that probably every little girl in an age range from 2 to 10 will be wearing all across the nation...yes, it's Elsa from the movie Frozen!! It wasn't a costume her mother thought she could pull off and after checking the prices to purchase one, well, that wasn't happening either! :) And sure, she could of just bought one at Walmart, but let's face it...there's a lot to be desired in Walmart costuming!

After watching the movie back over last Spring, Shelby immediately hit me up to make her an Elsa dress, complete with train that flows down the back. I told her that probably wasn't going to happen and tried to convince her that she already had something similar to Elsa in the "winter princess" dress I'd made for her this past Christmas...not in Shel's book!! Yes, that one was blue, and yes, it had sparklies...it even had a tiny snowman top hat for a hair brett that could of possibly passed for Olaf, it  had a blue satin cape, but it wasn't long and it didn't have a train, the snowman did NOT look like Olaf, and there was no sign of snowflakes anywhere...{Ga sighs}! I knew I couldn't win the argument so I gave up and let months pass in the hopes the new would wear off and the idea forgotten...nope!!

So as October began to approach I started looking at all the "Elsa stuff" that was appearing on the internet, checking others ideas of what they had done and how they had done it, looking and searching ideas for a close facsimile that would pass her expectations without costing us the bank. I still had leftover tulle from the previous outfit that I knew I could incorporate into a tutu version, I just had to come up with the rest of it. Luckily, some other ingenious person posted a crochet hat idea to replicate Elsa's hair and I was off! I didn't let one word slip to the granddaughter that I was even considering the idea of making this outfit because I still wasn't sure I could pull it off and I wasn't about to have her disappointed.

As time passed, Shel began going into more detail as to how Elsa's outfit looks...including this fitted skirt part that had a slit in the side up to her knee...I was in trouble!! My plan was to do a simple tutu dress, throw a train on it and call it good...apparently Shel had other grandiose ideas that I was going to have to try and replicate! In the meantime, two of the grandsons also ask me if I'd make their costumes this year and I tentatively ask what they wanted to be. One wanted a pirate and the other the grim reaper...those I was pretty sure I could handle!

So with all these thoughts and ideas in my head I started on my search for possibilities and for me that meant...thrift store hunting! In the process a friend of mine had a few things she donated to the cause. One was a grim reaper mask, a purchased pirate costume, and some gray cheesecloth...those three things got me started and then I just ran with the rest of it!

I was able to find a ready made adult grim reaper at the thrift which I brought home and cut down to an eight year old's size! I added some of that gray cheesecloth as rags hanging from the outfit, put the hooded mask with it and presto!! Perfect costume!



I had the other grandson try on the ready made and he was happy with it, but this is my grandchild that would seriously be happy with a rag or a box of rocks. He's my happy-go-lucky child, never complains, whines, or any of that and well, Ga just couldn't quite relegate him to the ready made pile when the others were getting more homemade stuff, so I dug through the material pile and found enough white taffeta to make a balloon sleeve pirate shirt, cut up a black t-shirt for his vest, cut up another red t-shirt for his skullcap and sash, and then made him a neat little painter's cloth and leather scabbard to house his sword!! We used the pirate pants from the costume and borrowed one of Pa's leather belts to hold the scabbard...he was absolutely thrilled with the outcome!! Two down...now on to that Elsa costume!

Since the top of Elsa's dress has long sleeves, but sheer, I went with a long sleeved white leotard for the top..after all it's going to be cool out there on the streets and MY Elsa can't very well end up "frozen"!! ;) I found an extra large tutu band at Etsy in the exact color I needed for $2 and ordered it. Once it got here I began to start adding the tulle strips to the bottom. During my search of thrift stores I had ran across a pair of big girl leggings, that luckily also matched the color of aqua/teal I was using. I brought those home, cut the seams from the legs and then sewed it back together for the perfect "underskirt"....yes, it's form fitting and yes, it has a slit in the side up to the knee!! :) My "not very crafty" daughter (her words not mine!) suggests I flip the leggings around and the use the band at the bottom of the legs as the waist band for the top which also gave the slight flare for the bottom...PERFECT!!!! After getting those things all together, the daughter then suggested I take out some of the tulle in the front which leaves the skirt more visible, so that's what I did and it just made the outfit. Luckily our Walmart finally got in the sheer blue snowflake material so for $4.44 and one yard, I got the long and flowing train to hang off the back. I'm sure the train will not survive the sidewalks and streets and hopefully the granddaughter can be convinced to remove it for most of the trick or treating, but if not we can always make a new train after she's done! It was then time to "reveal" the outfit and oh my goodness...what a revealing it was!!

The granddaughter was very happy with the outcome...we've done a couple of dress rehearsals, and of course, she's adorable in it! Her only complaint was the "hair". I worked and worked trying to get a crochet hat size to fit and for some reason they just kept turning out too big, but after the third try I managed to get one that actually fits and fits well, so I untangled the original yarn hair and attached it back to the new cap and I shortened the braid...because I was informed that Elsa's braid was NOT that long! :) Mom found a sparkly Frozen tiara to top it off and now I do believe "Elsa" is finally ready to go!

I have to admit it was pretty fun putting those costumes together, and while they are a long way from perfect (do NOT look at the seams of  the grandson's pirate shirt!!), they will fulfill their purpose...and that was to make three kids ready and happy to dress up for Halloween. From the sounds of our weather for the evening there may be several little children that end up "frozen", but such as kids are, they won't notice that nip in the air one bit with all the excitement of the haul awaiting them! Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!




~Patti

Boxed Cake Mix Muffins...

When I went back to work several years ago I found I didn't have as much time to bake as I did before, yet my grandkids still liked their "treats" from Gaga, so with a little creativity I came up with a way to make their beloved "nanny cakes" (banana muffins) a little easier. And really, I don't know that it's less time consuming than making everything literally from scratch, but it sure makes good muffins!! This weekend I made up two batches...banana and pumpkin spice and decided I might as well share the recipe that goes with them because you can make just about any flavor/kind you want starting with just the base mix.


Base mix:
1 pkg. yellow or chocolate cake mix (I've found the cheaper, store brand makes firmer muffins)
3 eggs
1/3 cp. of oil
1/2-1 cp fruit/veggie of choice
1/2 cp (more or less)  oatmeal
1/3-1/2 cp (more or less) of ground flax seed
Water as needed to bring the batter to the right consistancy

I have two grandchildren who have stomach/bowel issues and their mom's needed a way to get some fiber into them that not only tasted good but would appeal to the kids. The oatmeal and flax seed does just that and helps to "clean out" their systems as well, so short of the boxed mix...I like to think these things can be healthy too! :)

For the pumpkin spice muffins I added 1/2 can (the small one) of pureed pumpkin (not the premixed filling) and 1 and 1/4 tsps. of pumpkin pie spice. They're even better with a "dollop" of cream cheese icing on top which I made with a 1/2 pkg of cream cheese and 1 and 1/2 cps. powdered sugar. After tasting these the daughter claimed them to taste like carott cake, which is something my family loves, so a second batch was made adding the additional 1/2- 3/4 cp of drained crushed pineapple along with 1/2 cp black walnuts. If you tossed in a 1/4 cp of shredded carrotts you'd have carrot cake for sure, just top them up with a pineapple cream cheese version of the icing.

When making banana muffins I just mash up 3 or 4 over ripe bananas and stir it into the base mix...done! Of course they are even better with nuts in them, but with most of my bunch not caring for nuts, I normally leave them out.

My grandsons' all time favorites are chocolate chocolate chip zucchini muffins. This is one where I use a chocolate cake mix instead, then add a full cup of finely shredded and drained zucchini along with about a cup of mini chocolate chips to the rest of the base. This is also one that has better "results" in cleaning out the systems! ;)

On all of these I only add about a 1/2 cp of water at the beginning just to get everything mixed in and then I use more as I need it because I want a thicker dough consistency than what a normal cake dough would be and the amount is really dependent upon what your fruit/veg's are. I don't think I've ever used more than a cup on any of them.

The biggest trouble with this recipe is my "abouts"...I have a tendency to not measure anything too much...I seriously use my hand to throw in the oatmeal, flax, and nuts, so take these measurements I've given as what they are...abouts!! You can add more or less of any of it and still have good muffins! The above three are my family's tried and true favorites, but I've also made these using apple sauce, a little finely chopped apple, and some cinnamon...sprinkle a strussel topping on them before baking and they are DELISH! The possibilities are endless and with the cooler weather moving in who wouldn't enjoy a batch of muffins! :)



~Patti

Sometimes there's much more to a classroom than education....

I fell asleep last night on the couch...early!! That's not a good thing for me because I don't STAY asleep which meant I was also up a little after midnight this morning...uggh!! It will make for a very long day, but it will also mean an early nap later on as well! :) I did attempt to go to bed and try to get back to sleep, but unfortunately I tend to toss and turn and my mind begins to think on things and I'm just better off to get up and get at it, which is what I did...am doing.

Knowing the weather was taking an abrupt change for this weekend I had started some sour dough mix a couple days ago for making bread...I decided to bump up the production a few hours! :) So while my bread machine was doing it's thing I also decided I'd use up those over ripe bananas I had stored in the frig for making "nanny cakes" for the grandkids and those are now in the oven baking while I decide what else I might want to whip up in the wee hours of the morning!

It's pretty "Fall-ish" feeling outside my door, you'd almost expect a frost, although it's not quite that cold yet..it just feels like it...but that Fall feeling gets me thinking on pumpkins and all those Fall things I love. With the thought of pumpkins (which I'm hoping to pick up a couple later on today!), I was also thinking about making some pumpkin spice muffins and that of course led me to thinking about a happening at work a few days ago that also had to do with baking and pumpkin!

I have a young lady in my classroom this year; she's not new to my classroom, she was here her Freshman year for awhile, left, returned a week or so her Sophomore year and then left again. For the program I work in things like that are nothing new..it happens...quite often. And to describe this girl as a "young lady" would be a far stretch of the imagination, not because she isn't young and female, but because she's as far from ladylike as a girl can get! She can cuss like a sailor, has anger issues that are readily detectable, and is not someone you'd be willing to meet with in a dark alley....BUT....I like her....I like her a lot! I do so because I see the potential in this child, and perhaps I also see just a tad of myself in her when I was that age. She's rough and she's tough, but only because she's had to be. No doubt circumstances beyond her control have made her that way in order to survive....that also saddens me because I see this every day in the kids I work with. I also know that her "acerbic" personality puts a lot of the other teachers off, that's understandable, but I think it also lends them to write her off as well. It's not because they don't care, it's because they have an entire classroom of students they have to not only teach, but control, and a student that can erupt at anytime is not one most teachers welcome with open arms. I'm lucky in that we have a much smaller population in our classroom, therefore I do have more time to spend with the individual and that's what I love about my job. I'm also lucky that God has blessed me with the ability to reach out to these kids and connect with them and for some of them, it's the only connection they'll ever get. Sometimes that connection comes in the form of something as irrelevant and minute as a recipe!

One day this past week my girl came barreling into the classroom, a tad on the cranky side (okay, she was looking for a fight, but I'm trying to be kind here!), announcing at the top of her lungs she had to "make freakin' muffins" for her Foods class. She'd missed a couple days due to sickness which meant she also missed out on the assignment in the classroom. In order to make it up the teacher had told her to find a muffin recipe, make them, and bring them in for taste testing. I spent the first few minutes just getting her voice level down and then proceeded to calm the beast within by telling her this was something very do-able. Now, I have to admit...I wasn't exactly sure it WAS do-able...I mean, this is not a child I would have imagined knew much about the workings of an oven, let alone preparing a food that might go in one, but as is her norm, she surprised me once again. Once we got passed her rantings of it had to be done THAT NIGHT and how hot my classroom was and how heat makes her angry and all the other CRAP (insert a different expletative, but know that I called her down for it!) homework she had to do, we went to work on finding a recipe!

Being somewhat calmer I asked her what kind of muffins sounded good to her that she'd like to make, her reply? Pumpkin Spice!! Because, you know, it's like Fall and everything, so pumpkin would be good right?!! Why yes..yes it would!! So I pulled up Google on my computer and went to search for a recipe for her. In the process she asks me..."sooo, what about some of that cream cheese stuff...for a filling, but how do you do that?" While I'm searching, I tell her about making cupcakes for my kids years ago that had filling and how I filled them, but I also told her since they were muffins maybe it would be better to just put a dollop on top and dust them with some cinnamon. After explaining what a "dollop" was she began to get excited, got her chair right up against my desk, and was watching the search...and that's when it hit me...I HAD a recipe of my own that would be perfect for this! I told her how I make muffins nowadays and that this particular concoction could be made in almost any form she wanted to make them in with just a change up of a couple ingredients....she wanted the recipe.

Now, when I say I had a recipe that's somewhat on the vague side...I tend to start with the base and then just toss a little of this and little of that and not really measure anything...if it looks like enough...stop...if it don't...add a little more! So the rest of our time was spent in me trying to explain what I meant and giving rough estimates of how much to use. What surprised me the most was her comments back...she got what I was saying...she understood the concept of what the dough should look like and what to do to remedy it if it didn't...including the instructions for the "dollop"! When the bell rang she went off with her recipe of instructions, a happy camper, a promise to bring me one for tasting, and me praying to PLEASE GOD let this work!! :) She was outside my door first thing the next morning with muffins in hand, complete with cream cheese dollop...they looked fantastic! And the taste? EXCELLENT!! I couldn't have been more proud of her than if she was one of my own kids! But the best part was the smile on her face! And yeah, she was a tad cocky over her production, but she deserved to be and I told her so.

Later that day we had her again for our tutorial and she informed me the Foods teacher not only loved her muffins, but had informed her she would now be the leader of their group!! Score!!! She also told me a couple of change ups she also made on her own and I could tell she was very proud and pleased with the whole outcome. We then yakked a little about changing them up to banana nut and just had an overall, calm, and intelligent conversation about baking...it was like talking to a completely different child, but it was THAT child that I knew had to be hiding in there somewhere and the one I've been trying so hard to drag out as the year has proceeded.

Don't get me wrong...I know that one batch of pumpkin spice muffins is not going to change her overnight. I'm well aware that there will be a day next week when we're huffing and puffing, ranting and raving in the norm. I also know that one batch of muffins might not be enough to keep her in school for the rest of the year...she may decide to cold cock someone before the week is out! What I do know is that she gained just a little bit of confidence in making those muffins. She also gained some pride in herself with being complimented over them, not just by me, but from all those she freely handed out muffins to. If I've learned anything at all about working with the kids I do it's that sometimes it only takes one little thing to spark their interest, one time of doing something "right" and being praised for it, just one moment of what it feels like to be "normal" in a less than normal world to make them want to feel that again and then work toward keeping that feeling. I also know, that with this particular student, she's came back this year with the willingness to apply herself and a desire to prove she can do it. She may still be teetering, but at least it's a start. She's very intelligent and a hard worker when she does apply herself, and she's got a great personality...yeah, she's a tad caustic, but she's also funny, when you can look past the layers of anger and self-doubt. Yesterday she told me she wants to be a nurse...it's the first time I've heard mention of any type of future, let alone a hope of getting to it and I'm thrilled to know she at least has the thought. I did tease her though, that in doing chest compressions for a heart attack victim she couldn't just punch them and scream "DON'T DIE!" I got a belly laugh at that one and told I was a "hooch"!! Coming from her, that was a compliment!! ;)

I honestly don't know where this girl will end up, but I hope and pray it will be somewhere good. I truly pray that she will one day see the potential in herself that I see in her. I can tell her until I'm blue in the face of what she's capable of and what she can do if she sets her mind to it, but until she sees it for herself, nothing I say will ever stick. I've had former students tell me they would of never gotten through high school if it wasn't for me...that's just not true...they would of never gotten through high school if it wasn't for themselves. I might have set the spark, but they were the ones that kept the flame going. They have to seriously want better for themselves and find a reason within for working toward it, otherwise nothing I say or do makes a difference... I've also lost enough kids to know this as a fact. Even so, I will continue to use my arsenal of weapons...past experiences..."been there done that's", and yes, even recipes if that's what it takes to get them started. Getting a handle on their education is the least of my worries...helping them get a handle on life is my biggest.



~Patti

Waiting on the apples...

We got a drastic change in the weather the past couple of days and I love it! I guess it really isn't THAT drastic, but after running through muggy, hot and humid days for the last couple of weeks, this new cooler, dryer air is wonderful! It's September, what we'd normally expect this time of year, and when it arrives my brain goes into overdrive on what to cook, sew, bake, or create!!  The coming of Fall has always been my favorite time of year.

But, I'm getting impatient...nothing really new for me, especially when I'm wanting to try out a new "homemade" something or other...this time it involves an apple tree and fermenting! No clue, of course, how or what the end result will turn out like, but I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens just as soon as that apple tree hurries up and gets done producing! :)

I've done a lot of canning over the years and with that came the use of vinegar...cider and white. Never really knew there was much of anything else but those two choices until one day I stumbled across a bottle of red wine vinegar and tried it...I love that stuff and keep a bottle in my fridge at all times. I use it in my coleslaw and potato salad dressings among other things and can't imagine ever being without it. I also keep on hand and use big jugs of both white and cider vinegar for all my canning needs. Most folks know there are a lot of healthful benefits to using vinegar, although, short of cooking, I've never really used it for much of anything else except maybe applying it to a sunburn.

With the help of the internet I'm learning a LOT about vinegar, more especially raw apple cider vinegar. Until just a few short months ago I didn't know there was such a thing, or if I did, I didn't realize the difference between it and that big, plastic gallon jug you buy off the store shelf. But in researching healthy eating styles I've ran across many blogs and articles that talked about using raw apple cider vinegar so I went in search of some. Of course, eating anything healthy these days seems to cost you an arm and a leg which is one reason, I'm sure, most people DON'T eat healthy...you can't afford to! And there are so many "organic" this and  thats, that you begin to wonder just really how organic is it? I mean, if everyone is buying organic then it's being produced in mass quantities as well..right? So, how can you really be sure it's as "natural" as they say it is? I get the really distinct feeling that much of what we're being told and sold as organic is just a wording affect and not really as natural as they'd lead us to believe....but I've always been a skeptic to a certain extent. To me, the only way you are going to be really, one hundred percent, assured of  "all natural", "organic" stuff is to produce it yourself!

Anyway, back to the vinegar! :) At our local Dutch store, which I visit regularly, I found a bottle of Bragg's Raw Apple Cider Vinegar...the self same brand that you'll find most bloggers and health food enthusiasts talk/write about, so I bought a bottle....and of course, I paid more money for it...I use it very sparingly. In that bottle is a small, foggy looking creature floating around on the bottom...they call it the "mother" and it is one of the reasons this particular vinegar is more healthy for you and also one of the things that should be present in a raw vinegar. I honestly don't know whether or not having a "mother" in your vinegar makes it more healthy or not...I also don't know that Bragg's is in anyway produced more organically than any other brand touted as such. I've not been to the factory where it's produced and I'm going to assume it's produced in one, which again makes me wonder, from the tree to the bottle, just how truly "natural" is this stuff over any other....I don't know!! That type of thinking is what usually gets me in trouble...and leads me onto further searching as to just what it takes to make my own and guess what? You can make vinegar at home...easily!! (You know where this is heading right?)  ;)

So, here I am, waiting on my ages old apple tree to finish doing what it does...producing apples. This lonely little tree was one of several my dad planted back in the day that was to be the only one that also survived. It's a dwarf Jonathan, although there is nothing dwarf about it! To me the Jonathan apple is the ultimate apple, it's sweet, tart, firm and can be used for just about anything that has to do with apples. This particular tree has stood for many years, usually producing...nothing!! After a severe ice and snow storm hit our area a few years ago, the hubs came over (this was before we had moved here) and "trimmed" it up. In fact, he butchered it!! Seriously, after I seen it I told him he might as well have cut it down it looked that bad! But guess what? The thing went crazy after that! We know next to nothing about fruit trees...okay...we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about fruit trees, so we just left it alone and low and behold we're now getting apples! Last year the thing was loaded, albeit the apples were really nothing to brag about. They were small, scrappy things with worm holes and spots throughout, but they were good enough to turn into apple juice that I canned to use for jelly. This year there are less apples, however, they are bigger...I'm watching them closely and yes, they still have some worm spots and dark patches on the skins, but they look much closer to being a real apple than anything we've seen so far....it also hasn't lost any fruit prematurely yet either...that's a good sign!

And during all this watching I'm preparing to try my hand at making vinegar. I've got a few weeks to go yet, but when that time arrives, I plan to pick my apples and see what happens. I'm hoping to maybe get enough good ones to make at least one pie, but all those peels and cores? They're going into a crock and heading down that fermenting road toward, what I hope will be a truly natural, organic, raw apple cider vinegar! I can't wait! In the meantime, I'll continue reading, hoping to have this process fine tuned in my head before I start, but really all it takes is some apples, a little sugar, some water...and time! I'd love to make actual apple cider for drinking on those cool October evenings, bringing the scent of cinnamon wafting through my kitchen, but so far what I'm reading appears to be alcoholic in content before it gets to the vinegar part. I don't want the alcoholic part and couldn't drink it even if I did, but now that I've got the vinegar process stored away in my head, I'll keep looking for a cider that's safe to drink as well. If I'm lucky and that tree continues as it's doing, I'll be making apple pie and bottling vinegar before too much longer and when I do? I will know that mine is as natural and organic as you can get! :)




~Patti

Alcohol can kill in more ways than one....

WARNING! This is not my usual type of post...it isn't funny, informative, or lighthearted. It is in fact lengthy, very real, and might be seen as slightly unnerving for those who know me. It is also one I feel the need to write...

I'm not a fan of consuming alcohol...in any shape or form. Probably because I've seen and lived through what it can do to an individual as well as those in close proximity to them. Alcoholism used to be considered a disease...I don't know if it is still classified as that or not, I quit following that line of thinking many years ago. I wanted it to be a disease, although by classifying it as such it also becomes an excuse and I'm not real big on excuses! But as a child of an alcoholic sometimes that's just the only way to deal with the questions, the "whys" of an alcoholic person's actions and/or words...it can sometimes help you deal with the anger you feel toward that person as well. But there comes a time when you just have to realize there really is NO excuse for any type of abuse...physical or verbal, alcoholic or not.

My dad was an alcoholic...he was what, over the years, became termed as a binge drinker. He didn't drink all the time, he didn't drink every weekend... perhaps that was only because my mother forbid alcohol in our home. He'd have a spell of a short period of time, sometimes once or  twice a year, but during those times he became quite literally a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide". My mother, who endured this kind of lifestyle for fifty four years of marriage learned early on when to detect the signs that would lead to a very unsettling evening. As a child, I learned to depend on my mother's detection to keep us from the worst of the onslaught. It's not my intention to run through the memories of some of those occasions...some things really are better off left unspoken and in all honesty, I have no wish to dredge up things now that certainly won't change things, nor do I have a desire to "beat up" the memory of my father....he was what he was and no amount of wishful thinking or prayer ever changed that. But to keep imaginations from building, my dad was never physically or verbally abusive to me.

That's also not to say I don't have fond memories of my dad...I do. I actually have several such memories and the older I got the more I came to accept that those were as good as I was going to get. Again I have to give my mother credit for that outlook. I don't remember ever seeing my mother "unsettled", she was in fact a rock, steady as could be and my dad's binges never seemed to shake her up. She didn't understand him, she could never wrap her mind around why he didn't want to change, or how he came to be the way he was, or why he said and did the things he did...but she also accepted the fact that it was just who and how he was. She never made excuses for him, at least never to me. She never expected us to love him unconditionally...I don't feel like it was ever "expected" of us to love him at all...she never handed us platitudes of "the poor man", or "he can't help it"..she allowed us to feel what we actually felt. She never covered up what he said or what he did. We did not grow up thinking we were not to talk about it, and while she never walked around announcing to the world how my dad was, she certainly never shied away from stating the truth of the matter when asked. She also allowed us to question the reasoning behind some of his actions and was brutally honest in telling us she just didn't know why. She did it with a calm, straightforwardness that thankfully relayed to me it wasn't her fault, my fault, ANYONE'S fault...it was his...he chose to live the life he did and he also chose to not do anything about it. I'm very thankful for that, because there came a point in my younger life that I hated my dad...hated him enough to wish him dead. I wasn't alone in those feelings, all of my siblings at one point and time had/have felt the same way...I'm pretty sure some of them still have those feelings. Thankfully there also came for me a time in my young adulthood that God, quite literally, showed me a picture of just what hating him was doing to me and with that epiphany, the hatred left me. I still hated the actions,  the words, and the alcohol, but I never again hated my dad. In truth, I learned to love him for who he was.

All of these thoughts came back to me after checking the messages on my answering machine. Unfortunately I had one from the only still living brother I have...it was drunken and filthy, something he is quite good at being, has always been good at. He's always been good at spewing forth his hatred to me and our mother and both of us have endured his litany of abuse for many, many years. He's also the only one of us siblings that is/was an alcoholic. He's the only one of us kids our mother ever attempted to make an excuse for...she laid blame at our dad's feet (which was justified), but also took upon herself some of that blame as well (which was NOT). Now that's not to say that Mom expected me to endure his rantings, or excuse his behavoir...she didn't. She just always said she felt like if our dad had been different maybe my brother wouldn't have turned out like he was. I think she also felt if she hadn't of stayed in the marriage and put up with what SHE did that somehow that would have kept my brother from turning out the way he did...maybe, maybe not. But what I know, and often told my mother, HE is accountable for his actions and (just like our dad) HE could choose to do something about it. And while this self-same brother would never believe it, our mother worried and prayed over him her entire life. I also know she cried many, many tears for the life he chose to live and that was something I never saw her do for our dad. He would also never believe.... that she loved him and she endured a more broken heart over him than she ever did over our father.

You often hear there is a real thin line between love and hate....I believe that...because I've experienced it. I loved my big brother for many years. He was my idol, I looked up to him, and I depended upon him. He took care of me when I was little and our mother had to go to work. He quite often would thump my other older brother (who was younger than him) when he was picking on me, which was also quite often! :)  He brought me cotton candy from the fair in town, of which to this day, I never eat without remembering my first one. He bought me a teddy bear that was almost bigger than I was when I was no more than three years old and I have an old black and white photograph to remind me of that. I also recall him hauling me out of a ditch around that same age when I had managed to stumble and fall into it because the other brother didn't help me across as he was told to do. He cleaned and bandaged my scraped knees afterwards too.  He fashioned a complete and believable tale of Rudolph pulling Santa's sleigh across our evening sky one Christmas Eve when I was no more than eight and used the airplane's blinking red light to prove it. I don't remember, but have been told, he also always held me on his lap in another room while listening to one of our dad's drunken rantings. I have no memories...none...of him ever being mean to me, of him ever getting angry at something I'd done, or yelling at me in any way...none. I laid in my bed and cried for hours when I knew he was being shipped to Vietnam...I was old enough to be aware of that war and to know that many didn't come back. I was terrified he wouldn't come back. He made me get out of bed and dry my tears because he assured me he WOULD be back...he promised me and he had never, ever broken a promise to me so I believed him. There is another old black and white photograph that captures me standing at his side, in his Army uniform, with his arm tucked around me, readying to leave. He was my protector, ten foot tall and bullet proof...just what you would imagine a big brother as being, and I loved him.

I don't know where that brother went...he disappeared one day never to return. That brother was replaced by another man who is more verbally viscous than his father ever thought about being. That man is cruel and mean, both physically and verbally and has done more lasting physical and verbal damage to his own family than his dad ever came close to doing to his. That man has spewed forth more vile and filthy accusations to me and our mother that I wonder at times has ever been produced by another human being. That man's hatred is so palpable that you see it in his every move and it drips with his every word. This man's hatred and anger has consumed him....and it has also consumed the love I once had. I'm ashamed of him, I pity him...and yes,....I hate him. I hate who he became and who he still is. I hate his mouth, his actions, his stupidity. I hate his weakness, his seemingly joy at hurting others, but most of all, I hate that he seems to be so proud of the fact of who he is, how he acts, and what he does.

I've tried time after time to overlook what he's said and what he's done...I've forgiven episode after episode of his verbal abuse, not only to me, but to our mother as well. I've tried year after year to curtail my own anger when dealing with him and to keep watch on my own words in retaliation. Through the endless filth, the accusations, and the spewed hatred I've worried, I've cried, and I've prayed for him. Since our mother's death two years ago...I've failed at doing pretty much all of those. I tried to overlook the fact he showed up at my house to our mother's deathbed in a totally drunken state. I tried to forgive the stupid and ridiculous rantings he carried on at her bedside. I've tried to block out the fact that my mother left this world still listening to his drunken carrying-ons, his railing at "her God"...I've also tried to forget that I even allowed him in to see her.

Once upon a time I had three brothers...I now have none. Two I lost to death...one to alcohol. I haven't spoken to my only living brother since a few weeks after our mother's death when once again I was subjected to his drunken abuse during a phone call. This time I did not overlook his words, I did not curtail my own, I could not and had no desire to pray about it afterwards. I slammed the phone down on him and I have not forgiven him for it since...and yet....he continues. Because of a drunken tirade in the store where my d-n-l works and him being asked to leave the premises due to it, he felt the need to call my house and leave me a message of how he felt and what he thought of me and my family...it was nothing new or unusual, it was pretty much par for the course, but it starts again the chain reaction of feelings and emotions that goes along with being tied to an alcoholic. Alcohol can kill in more ways than one and an actual death is the least of it's concern. It kills the essence of the real person who once lived inside the one that now is. It kills the structure of a family to the point it may never be repaired again. It kills the love that used to be and destroys any attempt at gaining it back. It kills the reason, intelligence, and the thinking abilities. It kills the desire to be anything but what you are....and for the one who is on the receiving end of it, it can kill your ability to forgive. Alcohol is deadly and just like actual death, once it kills, there's no coming back.

There are times when I think I still love this brother, no matter what he's said and done...but most often I don't. Most often it doesn't feel like he even is my brother. Time doesn't always heal all wounds, especially when those wounds are tied to such strong mental images they become total recall when triggered. If there is anything left of the person he used to be I cannot find it, no matter how hard I try to look. I can pull out every psychology book I own and try to reason why he does what he does, but I just can't quite make myself believe what I read. I could allow the blame to fall on our dad and those times he also became someone we didn't know, but, in reality, my brother is accountable for living his own life and has no one to blame but himself...he's chosen this lifestyle freely.

If you gain any insight from reading this I hope it would be this...NO ONE is to blame for the actions of an abusive person, alcoholic or not. You cannot be good enough, give up enough, do without enough, or suffer enough to make it right enough in their eyes they will walk away from their anger and take responsibility for their own actions.You can't cry enough, beg enough, or love enough to change an abusive person's actions. You can't argue, reason, cajole, or explain anything to an alcoholic...it's impossible because they choose not to listen nor do they want to be told they are wrong. I can also tell you this...there is NO EXCUSE for it either...and until they are ready to take responsibility for themselves, the life that surrounds them continues on and with it will eventually come a "killing" in some form or fashion, whether to themselves or those they claim to love. It's a viscous and ugly cycle that repeats itself over and over again and the only way to stop the cycle is to get out of it or get away from it. It's what I chose for myself and I'm glad I did. I have very little "family" left....most of my extended family has an addiction of some form or other and those addictions have destroyed any semblance of what it means to even be a family. Do I wish it was different? Most certainly...will I put up with the abuse, the mockery, the hurt intended or otherwise to have a mere tidbit of a family...I will not. I've made my choice and they appear to have made theirs.



~Patti