Cranky Blogger Ahead

Oh my goodness, but I'm cranky today! I was going to just post something like "closed for attitude adjustment," but then I thought maybe venting a little might help. Please click away if you don't want to "listen."

My hand--the one that I had surgery on--has been pretty achy lately. I kind of think it's just part of the healing process, but that achiness sure gets old after awhile. And, of course, I can't sew as much as I'd like. Mostly I spend at least half the day reading. And reading's not BAD--don't get me wrong, because I really enjoy reading. But it gets old too. And a little boring.

The other thing that makes me cranky is that I'm having some trouble with the workers' comp insurance company. I won't go into details but nothing seems to have gone very smoothly, unlike my experience with them when I had surgery on the other hand a little over a year ago. The medical side of things has been great--I've spoken to the nurse manager assigned to my claim a couple times, and she's really on top of things. Unfortunately, the claimsperson assigned to the financial stuff . . . well, I'm not entirely sure that person really exists. Frustrating.

On the up side, there are several good things happening in my life, but the crankiness is keeping me from enjoying them. Tomorrow I'm getting together with a friend for a couple hours; maybe I'll ask her to slap me out of it. Spending time with friends always perks me up, so I'm cautiously optimistic. Check back tomorrow--I suspect I'll be a happier blogger then.

Sunday's Stitchery Gathering

The other day, our little group of six stitchers gathered at Sandy's home for the day, and as always, we had a wonderful time! My friends are all so generous, kind, and fun, and they're all good cooks on top of it!

Each of us take turns hosting the gathering at our homes. The hostess usually prepares or provides something for a light breakfast (normally something like muffins) and a main dish for lunch. The rest of us bring a dish to contribute--salads, dessert, appetizers, etc. This month, Sandy chose to make a clam chowder that was as good as any I've had in a restaurant--yum! I'm going to make it for my family soon, and I'll share photos and the recipe when I do.

My contribution was the cupcakes I mentioned the other day. I ended up trying out Mean Chef's Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes this time, although I still want to make the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes--soon! I thought the cupcakes turned out like I hoped, but I need to find a different frosting recipe--my standard buttercream frosting is too sweet and heavy for these, I think. I guess I'll have to experiment--and don't you just HATE having to taste test stuff like cupcakes? Such a burden.

I can show you now what I've been working on for my friends--Halloween treat bags. I originally made similar bags last year and posted instructions--there's a link in my sidebar. This year I purchased another digital download and printed the graphics onto muslin as I did before.

The bags were filled with either a pumpkin or apple bread mix, a can of cinnamon pecans to mix into the bread, and Halloween candies.

There's never any pressure at our gatherings to exchange gifts, although most of the time we do. And none of us are in a position to spend a great deal of money, but the gifts are always thoughtful and valued by the recipients. I believe most of us enjoy thinking during the month about what our friends might enjoy and planning for our get togethers. I've already started on the little gifts I'm making for them next month--but, of course, it will be awhile until I can show you!

I don't know if you remember, but I mentioned our group was going to start working on the Garden Club applique quilt. With that in mind, Imelda gave us a lesson in her method of applique, which uses freezer paper, starch, and applique glue. She drew up a little design and put together kits for our lesson, and we each came home with a little pumpkin applique.

I want to make my little pumpkin applique into something, but I'm not sure what yet. Maybe I'll just add some embroidered words and put it into a frame. I'll have to give it a little thought.

When I mentioned in my blog that we were going to work on the Garden Club quilt, a couple of you said you were working on it or planned to make it soon. How is your project coming along? I've made a start on it, and I'll show you in the next day or too what I've done so far.

I'm glad you could stop by for a visit!

Rocky Got Lucky

Remember my recent Doggie Viagra post? I had a comment on that post from "Aunt Jacques" suggesting maybe things didn't work out because the female, Sophie, wasn't ready yet. Well, guess what? She was right!

Rocky, aka the Drooling Dog, moped around the house all week, missing his girlfriend Sophie. In the meantime, Sophie's humans realized she was "still" in season when their male dog was rather interested in her.

Early on Saturday morning, Sophie's humans called the Wild Child to arrange a conjugal visit--and things progressed in the manner they hoped.

What a relief! We thought Rocky was just not a very aggressive male--which, in many, many ways, is something we really enjoy about him! Now we know that's not the case--he's just smart enough to be a gentleman when any other behavior would be fruitless.

Rocky and Sophie had another successful "date" on Sunday, and will probably get together on Monday too, just for good measure. After that, we'll just have to wait and see if it "takes."

Yay Rocky! Good boy!

Go Orange!

Apparently it's not enough that I've littered the house with pumpkins. Oh no. Not nearly enough.

Maybe I'm just anxious for fall to REALLY arrive--no more of this cool-down-and-then-heat-back-up-again weather! And since I haven't gone to Apple Hill yet this year, I guess I have to settle for pumpkin products to get me in the mood.

A recent shopping trip to Trader Joe's yielded these goodies:

This morning, I made pumpkin bread and slathered it with pumpkin cream cheese. For good measure, I sprinkled some cinnamon-sugar on top. Yum!

What's YOUR autumn temptation?

Ennui

I haven't done a post about a word for awhile now, and this one is particularly appropriate. Ennui. Do you know what it means? Here's a definition: "Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom." It's derived from the French and is pronounced "on-we." Bonus points if you can use it in a sentence when speaking to your husband, kids, or grandkids this week.

I think maybe one of the causes of ennui is too much pain medication. After the pain pill earlier yesterday evening, I took a Tylenol PM before going to bed rather late, because by then I could barely move my mouth without pain. Boy, oh, boy did I sleep soundly! And long! In fact, several efforts to wake up and stay awake this morning were defeated by the lingering effects of the medication. I finally managed to breach the surface of the sleep pool around 10:45 a.m. and drag myself out.

For all I got done the rest of the day, though, I might as well have just stayed in bed. Ever have days like that? I knew there were things I had planned to get done today but I just couldn't muster up the energy or interest to even begin. And you know what? I didn't care.

Ennui.

There IS an upside though--not everything is doom and gloom around here. When I woke up, my mouth and face felt fine again and my knee barely bothered me at all--so I can't use pain or illness as an excuse for laying around the house doing nothing today. All I've got is ennui. Now I'm going to head to bed for a drug-free night's sleep, because I have twice as much to get done tomorrow, and I can't afford another day like today.

"Did You Have a Nice Afternoon?"

That's what Hubby asked me when I got home this evening. Normally, I'd appreciate his interest in finding out whether I'd spent a pleasant day, but not so much today.

Does your spouse pay attention? Mine doesn't. Sometimes, like he did today, he tries to fake it, but he's never very good at it. I could tell right away that all Hubby knew or remembered was that I'd been gone all afternoon doing SOMETHING, but he hadn't a clue what that was--even though I'd actually told him at least two--maybe three--times ahead of time.

Want to know what made me realize he wasn't paying attention? I suppose it was probably the fact that I'd spent the afternoon at the dentist, getting stuck with needles and drilled before having cords that taste like stiptic pencil wrapped around my tooth. And then having gel harden in my mouth, sticking my teeth and lips together, except for the one opening between my lips where drool dribbled out and onto my chin for four and a half minutes. And just in case that wasn't fun enough, I was asked to pay an outrageous amount for the pleasure of this E ticket ride. So I was pretty sure, rather quickly, that when Hubby inquired about my afternoon, he had absolutely no idea what I'd spent the afternoon doing, because no one in their right mind could ever think my afternoon's experiences might have been "nice."

Thank goodness I still have plenty of pain meds left over from my carpal tunnel surgery.

My face hurts. My left knee hurts too--it nearly gave out on me a few times this evening when I stood up. Why? I've been amusing myself--after the pain meds kicked in--by imagining that maybe my knee hurts from all the kicking I did while the dentist sat on my chest, a drill in each hand, instructing his assistant to strap my head to the chair and handcuff my hands to the arm rests.

But maybe not. Maybe it didn't happen that way, even if my body FEELS like it did. I suspect I probably strained my knee tensing up or something. Since I've been known to injure myself just sleeping, I guess it's possible. Hopefully my knee will feel better in the morning. But, if not, I still have pain meds.

And that reminds me. When I sat down in the living room with Hubby this evening and made a little groaning sound from the pain, he asked, "What's the matter? Did you eat too much?" Seriously? How have I let him live this long? I wonder if I can get Hubby's doctor to recommend he have a colonoscopy soon?

I go back to the dentist in two weeks for another round of fun. If the dentist finally kills me then and if I haven't killed Hubby first, please, someone, propose me for sainthood, okay?

Cupcake Hunting

I found out tonight that some of my stitchery friends were hoping I was making those small Halloween Carpenter's Wheel quilts for them. Ha! Boy, were they bummed when they read I gave the quilts to the guests at my Halloween House Party last Saturday!

No, I have something else in mind for them when we get together this Sunday. And really, they should know by now that I try to keep that kind of little gift a secret until after we've had our get togethers; which explains, a bit, why I haven't shown you what I've been working on lately.

When I unpacked all of my Halloween decorations this year, I found I had two heavy cardboard cupcake/treat stands I'd purchased last year but hadn't used, so when it came time to think about what I wanted to take to our stitchery get together this coming Sunday, I thought cupcakes would be perfect. The only problem is that I don't have a tried and true cupcake recipe.

The last few times I've had cupcakes, they've come from bakeries (two separate bakeries), and they've been different from the cupcakes I've had before. Maybe it's a trend in the rather trendy (but quickly becoming passé) cupcake industry. At first, I wasn't certain I liked them, but they rather quickly grew on me (and I don't just mean my hips). These "new" cupcakes were more dense and crumbly than the cupcakes I'd eaten before.

An internet recipe search wasn't very helpful. It seems that most reviewers associated "dense and crumbly" with "heavy and dry." Nope, heavy and dry cupcakes aren't what I'm looking for. Just nice, moist, dense vanilla cupcakes.

I ripped off the photo above from a recipe for Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes at Food.com. It really LOOKS like the cupcakes I want to make. Some reviews were positive and some were negative, but overall it seems to have received four out of a possible five stars.

What do you think? Should I go with it? Or do you have a cupcake recipe you can point me toward that sounds like it's what I'm looking for? I really can't let my stitchery friends down now, especially since I already disappointed them when I made those cute Halloween quilts for other people. After all, they'll be armed with scissors, rotary cutters, and sharp pins and needles on Sunday, and I'd hate for the day to devolve into a scene similar to the one where angry villagers march on Dr. Frankenstein's castle with burning torches.

Creative Resources to Share

Now and then website owners email me to ask permission to link to and/or reprint some of my project tutorials, and I'm usually happy to say "yes, most definitely!" I thought tonight I'd mention a couple such websites as resources for those of you looking for projects for the holidays--and, of course, other times of the year.

If you click HERE, you'll get to FaveQuilts' website; specifically, you'll find yourself on the first part of my Homespun Thanksgiving Table Topper directions. From there, you can click on some of the other patterns and browse the site for the perfect project. If you're still looking for Halloween projects, there are several cute ones HERE.

Of course, Moda Bake Shop is an excellent source for patterns. If you haven't visited lately, click HERE to see what's new.

Finally, another good resource for project ideas and patterns is Quilting Gallery. Click HERE to visit. I also like to view their weekly quilt contests and cast my votes for my favorite quilts.

Do you have any websites to add to this list?

Cheers!

On Sunday night, the local weather forecaster told us there was a chance of showers on Monday, but that any precipitation would likely remain to the north of us. Good news for me and my friend Lisa, since we had a road trip planned for the day. As usual, though, whenever a person has plans, the weather forecaster seems to get the weather wrong. Monday morning, I woke to a light drizzle that increased to showers, and the showers lasted much of the day.

Luckily for Lisa and me, our planned road trip took us south and out of the rain, although cloudy skies followed us all the way to Modesto. Our destination? Vintage Gardens where we planned to meet friends for lunch.

That's Vintage Gardens. That's where we DIDN'T have lunch after all. Why? Because the restaurant decided to close today to take care of some repairs, believing that a Monday would be a slow day. While we were waiting in the parking lot for all of our friends to gather, we saw the restaurant turn away at least 10 to 15 customers--and that was just in the space of about 20 minutes!

Before long, we settled on another restaurant, Appetez.

It was a really fun gathering. All together, there were five of us; originally we met through our husbands who had been close friends since their teens, if not before. Oh, the stories we've heard of their exploits! Given all the crazy stunts those "boys" got up to, it's a wonder they lived to turn 30! At some point, though, they met and married us. As we settled down to raising our families, we all moved away from San Jose. Lisa and her husband and Hubby and I moved to Sacramento and the other three couples moved to Modesto, an hour and a half south of us. Over the years, I ran into two of the Modesto gals a couple times in passing but we lost touch as we all had kids and families that took priority in our lives. Now that we're older and our kids are grown, we all have a little more time and expendable income. We hope, now, to meet for lunch every few months and plan get togethers with our spouses too--after all, it was our husbands who brought us all together to begin with.

After a long lunch filled with talk about the past and the paths our lives had taken as well as plans for the future, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Returning to Sacramento meant returning to rainy skies and traffic accidents--everywhere, it seemed! At one point, about 20 minutes outside the city, traffic on the freeway was completely stopped. And you know when you see truckers get out of their rigs to chat with one another that no one's going anywhere soon. As it turned out, though, Lisa and I ended up stopped just before a freeway exit, and we were able to detour off and wind our way through farming country; eventually we made it home, safe, sound, and relatively dry.

Being able to spend time with old friends is a gift, isn't it? Cheers!

A Haunting Day

I hope you didn't miss me too much this morning. Our Haunted House Party on Saturday was so much fun that by the time the festivities were over, I was just waaaaay too pooped to write a blog post. I'll tell you a little bit about it though.

I should start the story by telling you that the Drooling Dog's sleepover was spectacularly unsuccessful, so the Wild Child brought him home on Saturday morning, accompanied by his date. Yes, apparently the Wild Child saw nothing to be concerned about in trying to mate two dogs while also entertaining guests of the human variety. Oh, well, what can a mom do? I simply banished the Drooling Dog and his girlfriend to the garage for the duration of the Haunted House decorating portion of the afternoon with Hubby to oversee and monitor any progress and offer encouragement.

Remember the Halloween mini quilts I made? Well, now I can tell you I was making them for the Ghoulish Gals attending Saturday's festivities. And I can show you a photo of three of the finished tabletoppers.

My guests for the house decorating were the Wild Child, Soccer Son's Lovely Wife to Be Someday, and the Mother of the Bride--truly a mother/daughter day for our two families. I set up the table outside, as the weather was perfect.

The Wild Child had to leave for work in the late afternoon, so her house was a bit minimalist but still a fine creation. She hasn't quite decided whether she will add more to it later or leave it "as is"--either way, I'm sure it will be terrific!

Here are photos of the other three houses--which are quite done, and possibly even overdone!

But really, is there ever such a thing as too much candy?

Later in the day, when the houses were loaded with candy to capacity, the men joined us for a food fest. Seriously, there was probably enough food to feed twice as many guests and still send everyone home with leftovers. We started, while waiting for Soccer Son to arrive (he had a late soccer game to coach) with beer battered onion rings and stuffed mushrooms. And that was AFTER most of us had been snacking on chips, salsa, guacamole, bean/corn dip, and perhaps even a margarita or two for most of the afternoon.

By the time we were ready for the "real" dinner, no one was very hungry, but we still managed to choke down some fully-loaded burgers and a couple side dish salads. Sadly, though, the dessert Hubby picked up, a tiramisu, was as ignored as the Drooling Dog's girlfriend. Doesn't it look yummy though?

I have since learned that the tiramisu is just as yummy as it looks. Now that I think about it, maybe I wasn't just tired last night after the party; maybe I was suffering from a serious food stupor. That kind of seems appropriate though--I think I was probably just helping our Canadian friends celebrate their Thanksgiving. Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!