cooking mishaps

A few weeks ago while cooking macaroni noodles  (and cleaning the kitchen and pulling clothes from the washer only to throw them into the dyer and answering the phone and trying to clean off the kitchen table), I burned the noodles. You'd think after observing my Mom over the years I would have learned that you only burn things when you multi-task while cooking. Or perhaps I learned it, but have just failed to apply it. Regardless, here's what a burned pan looks like after a week of soaking and scrubbing and soaking and scrubbing....

And then, yesterday afternoon I made some banana bread for the class Bobby is facilitating at church. The videos that go with his class don't last as long as the other two classes, so there will be some nights we will have extra time. I figured no one would object to a little food and fellowship. Except when I was informed that we only had five minute till departure time and I turned the fresh out of the oven pan over to put the loaf on aluminum foil, here's what happened:

Needless to say, the banana bread didn't go to church. It tastes fine, but is just big plunks of bread. Guess I know what we're having for breakfast the next few days!

And not so much of a mishap, but the small corner shelves where I store our cookbooks have had a spring cleaning. After 11.5 years, the books suddenly decided they didn't want to stay up there. For two days, books would intermittently just crash to the floor. So I cleaned, and in the process pulled out a ton of recipes (okay, really only just 1/4 a shoebox full) that I had stashed until I could try them out and then file with the recipes I use/like.  Only I've never done it. So hopefully this year I can try one new recipe a month. Bobby says with all our cookbooks we should be trying a new recipe once a week, but seeing as its just the two of us and I only cook about twice a week anyway (we eat a LOT of leftovers), that doesn't sound very good to me. It could make life very interesting, though, but I'm just not that ambitious. :)

an exception to every rule

I love wood.  Seriously!  I LOVE wood. There's nothing that makes me cringe more than seeing a gorgeous piece of wood furniture painted.  (Disclaimer: I said a "gorgeous" piece of wood furniture...distressed or worn out furniture could often use a good coat of paint instead of stripping & staining). Yet recently through blog hopping I found this artist, and I absolutely loved her furniture portfolio:
http://www.karenhetzer.com/hand-painted-furniture.html
And the crazy thing is, I'm not sure I have a favorite out of all the many she has posted.  I like several of them, enough so that it wouldn't bother me in the least to have a piece like that in my house.

I'm one of those people that usually need to see an idea before my creative juices start flowing. Hetzer's artwork certainly does that for me. Yet as much as I like her work, I don't believe I'll be pulling out my paintbrushes and overhauling what furniture we have. My painting skills are nowhere in her ballpark and anything I attempted would frustrate me, not to mention, look quite bad. But should I ever run out of projects and have a gazillion minutes of spare time on my hands (year, right!), I might just head to the free section of Craigslist and see what I can come up with.

And now that my Sunday afternoon daydream has ended, before the week is out I hope to be sharing with you some very exciting progressions in projects. Life is busy, but good.

choices

Today I have to choose:

• either to wallow in self-pity or relish the day and its empty moments.
• between my health and my cravings
• between a Dr. Pepper or a glass of water
• between squandering my time or making the most of it
• either mopping the floors or ironing clothes
• to be thankful or ungrateful
• whether to focus on the expectations of others or my Creator
• and whether to fix my hair or just pull it back out of my face.

Not all choices in life are bad.

ice reflections

The above photos are from December's ice storm, but I was reminded of them yesterday while walking down the sidewalk. The sun had come out, and all the ice formations on the shrubs were falling off, while still maintaining their shapes. There were piles of little leaf-shaped pieces of ice in the mulch. I didn't have my camera, but was so impressed with how the water (aka freezing rain) molded itself to the shape of whatever it touched, from the shingles on our house to the mailbox.

And it made me think of my life and the teachings of Christ. More than ever I have been woefully aware of how short I come to adequately displaying true Christlike qualities.  Had I been that freezing rain and Christ the leaves, I'm not so sure I would be such a perfect reflection of the very thing I'm supposed to be. It's a sobering thought.

But on a much more cheerful note, the sun is SHINING!!! Nothing perks the soul like sunlight. And with this bright sunshine and its warmth, the next bout of precipitation is supposed to be just plain old rain. :)

the ice is melting, so...

It's January. That means if you garden it's time to start pricing and ordering seeds. Or you can be lazy like me and simply wait a few months and then buy them at Hudson's hardware.  Yes, I know, tomato seeds need to go into the ground now, but when I tried that last year I was totally unsuccessful. So rather than spend a fortune of time and a little money on seeds and soil and fertilizer only to turn around and buy plants for the garden, I'm just going to skip step number one. It makes life a little bit easier.

And I'm in a tad of a quandary. For the last three years, I have been unsuccessful with bean or pea plants. Thanks to drought, deer, bugs, lawn mowers, and goodness knows what else all my peas and bean plants have only harvested about two meals (with no leftovers!). As much as I enjoy watching them come up, I also know when I look at the time factor it's more cost effective to simply buy them frozen in the store. And truly? They taste just the same.

I'll plant tomatoes and okra. Those seem to be my staples, even if they don't always do well. And I harvested just enough cucumbers for pickles and eating & sharing this last year. So I'll put those back on the list as well.  And I'm contemplating beets. I really like pickled beets, so why not?  I'll probably forgo the cantaloupe and have a straight watermelon row, and I'll nix the peppers even though they did fine. We simply don't eat them enough to justify growing them. I might try onions again. Potatoes?  They did okay, so I'm not sure if they're worth attempting again. And quite honestly, that will just about fill my garden space. We joked about making it larger this past year (or at least adding a second space), but seeing as I seldom had time to adequately tend the space I had I think it would be silly to expand it. I even considered having a pumpkin patch, but truly, one pumpkin makes more pies and pumpkin butter than I care for.  Why would I want a whole garden full?

Sometimes I'm thankful my head corrals my daydreams before they get out of control.

warm fuzzies when frozen

the cardinal...(both the NC and the Alabama state bird)

I think we have more ice than we do grass!

Can you see the bluebird?

female cardinal...I was most disappointed to learn the male birds always have the brighter colors.

and....a bird I've never seen up close before...the red-headed woodpecker!

and our front yard, with an assortment of birds I don't know

We might not sit around and watch the turtles cross the road (my sister-in-law had a classmate ask her if that's what they did for fun on the farm), but we do sometimes sit and watch the birds. I've seen a very fat and gorgeous bluebird, but it flies away every time I try to get a shot.

So what are you doing on your ice day?

snow day

49 years ago a little boy told his mother he was NOT going to school on his birthday.
She informed him he was.
And on his birthday, he woke up to snow.
His Mom still shakes her head in disbelief when she tells that story.

Today he stayed home (but is actually working!) on his birthday, because of snow.

 Happy Birthday, babe! :)