Spring Break and Sewing Projects

We went to the High Desert Museum today, during spring break.....  yep, it's spring! I had some days off and the sky spirits decided to punish me, so the last two days have been snow and rain!

The front pond, neat reflections, right?=)

It was pretty neat walking through the outside exhibits with it all snowy. It definitely added to the atmosphere.

The wild life observation shelter, not much wild life out and about right now! Though the Bob Cat and Lynx were roaming around in their cages as opposed to the tongue lolling stupor we usually get to see them in!! So, that was pretty cool!

So happy!

Look closely and you will see how well the squirrel(Have I ever mentioned how much I love spell check? Who knows off hand how to spell squirrel, though I got surprisingly close!) proofing works on the bird feeder!

The root cellar. Back in my day you could go inside, but alas not any longer!

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A preview of some of the spring/summer sewing projects I have piled on my sewing desk!

I *heart* cherries!

Can these two very different fabrics be made into the same style of dress? Not in the same dress just to clarify, just made into the same faux halter style! I had a sister who was horrified when she saw me taking pics of these fabrics together, she though it was all going to be made into one dress!

Before.....shapeless and worn only once after 2 months of feverish crocheting.....

Pending after, you'll just have to wait to see what it turns into. It will be worn on Easter though!

(fingers crossed!)
The fabric underneath is a very light yellow, but obviously the camera washed the color out a bit, so sad.=(

Things That Make Me Smile!

~These are a few of the things that make me smile!~

My b-e-a-utiful cell phone cover!(technically it's a skin, but that just sounds so unsanitary(shudder)!!)

Tea in my brand new mug and a dark chocolate covered salted caramel from Goodys, yum!!

Lemon fabric that I am in love with. It would make such a cute summer dress. A penny for your thoughts??

My crazy family =)

On sale shoes....need I say more?

The dog eating the last of my favorite kind of ice cream.......

I can Post Videos!!! Yeah!!

Thanks to Mr. Tim for showing me how to post videos on my blog!=)
Even if you don't like country music you should watch this, the guitar playing at the end is amazing!!


I am so happy that I can post videos now! This guy also does A Whole New World from Aladdin, both parts. It's really neat to watch. It would be neat to see it in person. Hint, hint ;)

What was Lost has Now Been Found!

This is a rainbow Smorsel Bar. They were my all time favorite cookie as a kid but then when we moved up from Southern CA they didn't have rainbow smorsels here(chocolate chips covered in those round sprinkles) and as the recipe was on the back of the bag, we never had them again!

It seemed simple enough, just a gram cracker crust, marshmallow fluff, chocolate chips and sprinkles, right? Nope! Subtle differences made the finding of the exact recipe very hard. I mourned for these bars and was always trying recipes that seemed the same. Then I found the crust, the part that had been the big stumper, but it had normal marshmallows and M&m's on top.

I immediately wanted to try them again the next day and use the old school toppings, but as fluff is messy and hard to work with there was some resistance from the less dedicated among us. I finally got to make them my way and I once again was able to enjoy the best cookie in the world!

Rainbow Smorsel Bars

~Crust~

I cup gram cracker crumbs

1/2 cup butter softened

1/2 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350. Place all ingredients in mixer and mix on low speed until small crumbs form. Press into greased 9x13 pan and bake for 10-12 minutes.

~Toppings~

1-2 jars of marshmallow fluff(I used a jar and a half for mine!)

Milk Chocolate chips

Little ball sprinkles(or non pariels for those bakers among us!)

Using a rubber spatula very well coated with Pam, glob the fluff onto the fresh from the oven crust. Reapplying the Pam very often, spread the fluff into an even layer being careful not to tear up the crust to badly! Sprinkle with desired amount of chips and put back in oven until the chips look melty then apply sprinkles very liberally! Impatiently wait until crust has cooled and then enjoy!

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One warning, these are very messy to eat! I was going to bring some to a game night I was going to last night. But, they just seemed a little to messy for a game party!=)

Brilliant!

Okay, the computer world has once again stumped me. As a result of this stumpage you will have to follow the link below to watch the video. Though I think it may be the particular lap top I'm using and not me. At least that's what I'm telling my self!! hehe

I found this video a few days ago and though it was hilarious! It gets a little scary near the end though.....

(Edited to add) I can post videos now, so here it is!!=)

Happy St. Patricks Day!

I have a confession to make. I have a tendency to get a little obsessive and exclusive about things. If I get a bee in my bonnet about something or find something that I like I will hop on the bandwagon and not get off until I one day step off almost unknowingly. Like with American Idol, I couldn't miss an episode for years often to the inconvenience of my family. I even watched it on vacation...... but last year and especially this year I just haven't cared.

Sometimes this trait leads to good things, like finding the best price for things on the Internet, gaining a skill because I'm obsessed with recreating an outfit I saw in a movie, or learning all about a specific country, for argument sake lets say.......Ireland!

There it's out, I am obsessed with Ireland. It all started when I, wait, when did it all start? Think...think...think... You know what? I have no idea when or why, it just happened, maybe a leprechaun enchanted me one St. Patrick's Day long ago! What ever the reason, I love all things Irish. The history, the scenery, the food, fauna, people, of course the accents. I love the lyrical language and the faerie tales.

The constant mists in the air, the rugged landscape, the way it's so green, at least in all the pictures I've seen. I would one day love to go there and see for myself this place I've read so much about. I sympathise with the south, of course, the non British catholic part! If you know me at all that should have been obvious! Do you know that up until 1998 divorce was illegal in Ireland? Who couldn't love a country like that?

I've read multitudes of history books, fiction books, picture books and any kind of book about this beautiful and enchanting country. So much so that my parents said that I should stop obsessing and put some effort into learning about another countries, so I checked out some books on Italy, Spain and various other countries. It would be good to be a bit more well rounded, right?

I tried, really I did, but most the books were dry and took forever to get through. Not really especially considering that they were found in the kids non-fiction section so they probably weren't very long or boring at all!! I did find one other country that was almost as fascinating, I'll give you one guess as to which one it is.....Scotland!

I have become almost as enamored with Scotland as I have with Ireland, not exactly the well rounded interests that my parents wanted. Wales is also another one that can keep me interested, but neither one of those holds a candle to The Green Isle. My family finally gave up the goat and let me revel in the Celtic countries in peace. They have even hopped on the band wagon and aided and abetted the obsession.

For my B~Day a couple years ago they gave me the best present ever. They made me a Scottish Lady! That's right, I am a tittled land owner. I am Lady KatySue of the Lochaber Highland Estate. Yes, I may only own a square foot of this estate but I am officially a Lady! Whoever I marry will become a Laird and I can pass this title on to my kids. How cool is that?=)

Maybe one day this fascination will pass away like some of the others have, but I hope not. I truly enjoy and love this country and will one day go to see it for myself. I will stand on the green sea cliffs and look down at the pounding waves below. I will close my eyes, throw my arms out wide embracing the sea breeze. I will let the wind and waves fill my senses and carry my soul away.

Legos.....

As I once again am forced to remove a minuscule little Lego headlight from it's newly embedded spot on the bottom of my foot I wonder, why do girls always get flack for being the ones with the tiny toys? There was a commercial this Christmas where two men were frantically searching through trash bags of wrapping paper and they were both looking for Barbie things.

Before having a little brother whose obsessed with Lego's I would have agreed with this ad, between Polly Pocket, Barbie and the new Littlest Pet Shop craze girls obviously had the market on tiny toys. But now that I have a Bakugon(I know that that's not spelled right, but what can I say?), Lego, hot wheels obsessed brother, I know differently!

I know that girls have lots of tiny toys, but if you lose a Barbie hair brush there is most likely another Barbie hair brush in the house that they can use. My little brother loses a Lego piece and he can't finish the car/house/alien/space police/power miner or whatever it is he's building at the moment.

I've stepped on little hair brushes and Polly Pocket people, but nothing hurts as bad and stepping on a little Lego piece and having it get stuck in the bottom of you foot, Bakugons also do number is stepped on while open.

All colors, all shapes, all sizes, tires, bricks, windshields; or my personal favorite, tiny little heads come rolling out from under the furniture whenever you move it or sweep under it. All of this to say, I just thing it's funny that girls have the tiny toy rep and that boys don't. I do have to say, it's really nice to be finding this out now so when I do have kids it's not such a surprise!

Sad Day?

I didn't make it to the next round of ABNA.=( My pitch wasn't really what they were looking for, the winning ones seemed to run more along the lines of book reports rather then the more book jackety type one that I wrote. I waited and waited the 24th of February checking the main page every half hour or so to see if they had posted the results. Finally at about 4pm they had the list of names ready to upload. After an excruciating 2 minutes of download time. I quickly scrolled down to the P section and my heart gave a queer little jump as it went straight from Pe to Pl. No Pi to be seen.

I sat there staring at the screen for a few minutes, then I realized the strongest emotion that I felt was not of disappointment but of relief! In actually reading my book(weird I know, just reading it straight through!) I realized that there were lots of editing mistakes still and some old bits of the the first plot running through there. It wasn't ready yet and I have some more work to do before I will get my free proof and let people outside my family read it. So far it's just my Mom and me who have read it and we both really like it, but then again I think we may be biased!

I'm thinking that I have about another month of work to do on it before I send it in to get my free proof. After that I'll start passing it around to all the people who have said that they wanted to read it when I was done and nervously await the opinion of people not blood related and predisposed to like what ever I do! =)