Sunday, December 28, 2008

cheesecakes and quilts

I have been learning to make cheesecakes and my new oven has a glitch. The glitch is that the temperature control runs one hundred degrees higher than the temperature in the oven. It is just as well though because you cook cheesecake really slow and then leave it in the oven to cool so that it doesn't split. So far, I haven't managed to make a cheesecake without a split, but I think it is because of the cold weather more than the oven. This house is not insulated.
I maybe have one of my quilts sold on the website so I am keeping the fingers crossed. One lady that has bought several quilts from me, (she must like my work) has asked me to hold it for her. She calls my quilts art and it makes me feel good.
Well, off I go to see what I can do in my sewing room now that I have a bit more space. If I can really manage to get the site addy of my quilt site out there it should generate some business.
The addy is www.sunbonnetquilter.webs.com so have a look see if you like. Remember they only seem expensive til you realize they will last a long long time with proper care. I only make about 2.50 an hour in labor, but it is something I truly love doing.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Essay by Maya Angelou--Hater

Hater
A hater is someone who is jealous and envious and spends all their time trying to make you look small so they can look tall.

They are very negative people to say the least. Nothing is ever good enough!

When you make your mark, you will always attract some haters...

That's why you have to be careful with whom you share your blessings and your dreams, because some folk can't handle seeing you blessed....

It's dangerous to be like somebody else... If God wanted you to be like somebody else, He would have given you what He gave them!
Right?

You never know what people have gone through to get what they have...

The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story...

If the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, you can rest assured that the water bill is higher there too!

We've all got some haters among us!

Some people envy you because you can:
a) Have a relationship with God
b) Light up a room when you walk in
c) Start your own business
d) Tell a man / woman to hit the curb (if he / she isn't about the right thing)
e) Raise your children without both parents being in the home

Haters can't stand to see you happy.

Haters will never want to see you succeed.

Most of our haters are people who are supposed to be on our side.

How do you handle your undercover haters? You can handle these haters by:
1. Knowing who you are & who your true friends are *(VERY IMPORTANT!!)
2. Having a purpose to your life: Purpose does not mean having a job. You can have a job and still be unfulfilled.
A purpose is having a clear sense of what God has called you to be. Your purpose is not defined by what others think about you.
3. By remembering what you have is by divine prerogative and not human manipulation.

Fulfill your dreams! You only have one life to live...when its your time to leave this earth, you 'want' to be able to say, 'I've lived my life and fulfilled 'my' dreams,... Now I'm ready to go HOME!

When God gives you favor, you can tell your haters, 'Don't look at me...Look at Who is in charge of me...'

Pass this to all of your family & friends who you know are not hating on you including the person who sent it to you.

If you don't get it back, maybe you called somebody out! Don't worry about it, it's not your problem, it's theirs.. Just pray for them, that their life can be as fulfilled as yours! Watch out for Haters...BUT most of all don't become a HATER!

'A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.'
Maya Angelou
This essay really spoke to my heart. I have a hater or two in my family--and it is nice to realize that it is not my problem; but their problem!

Blowing up the stove!

Okay here I go again. I think my last post got lost in cyberspace somewhere.

I have had a wonderful week spring cleaning my kitchen--it sort of was a God thing that I felt moved to do so. I pulled out the stove on Tuesday nite and sparks flew everywhere. It seems that the wiring was shot to heck and if I hadn't decided to wash all the walls in there, it would have been a real fire hazard. People: check your electric stoves now for worn wires. I found out a friend just had a bad house fire from the same thing that was wrong with my stove.

Bless our landlord--he went out and bought me a brand new stove and they are delivering it today. Good thing because I am way behind on the holiday baking and mom and dad should be thru here next week. I want to send a lovely box of goodies up with them to Becca's house.

Peter is driving me nuts and so is Claude. Claude just has a bad attitude. That man is the most selfish person I think I know right now. I seem to pick selfish men for husbands. I won't make that mistake again. This is my last try at marriage and if it doesn't work---I am done!
Peter is driving me nuts because he doesn't have a job right now and is super bored. I really wish he would get his teeth fixed so he can get a job. That lack of a high school diploma is really screwing him up.

The dogs are being normal dogs, in and out all the time. Puppy will soon be six months and weighs almost 60 pounds now. Goodness, she can eat the chow! At least she is starting to settle down and act like a dog, and is pretty much housetrained now. I am working on spring cleaning the whole house this winter in order to feel a bit better about the environment.

WE finally got a website up and running and it is located at www.sunbonnetquilter.webs.com and hopefully it will get our quilts sold. Peter and I really need the money from a sale or three so we can start more quilts.

Friday, November 7, 2008

stuff


Well I am freezing this morning and it is not really very cold outside. Made beef stew yesterday in the crockpot and it was so good with the cornbread I whipped up to go with. Of course, when the boys found out that I had done that they drove down to eat several bowls and take more off with them. After all the time spent not knowing how they were all doing etc. I am so thrilled to be attacked by locusts. I feel as if I am catching up on a lot of stuff missed.

I did manage to get some strips cut out of that nasty ugly polyester and think that the crocheted rag rugs will be wonderful. I am seriously looking forward to having those in the kitchen to ease my feet and legs as I do cooking and dishes. They should last well and be completely washable as well. Not to mention that the storage issues in my sewing room will be radically eased. I plan to set my happy butt down this weekend and watch television and quilt mom's quilt and work on those when my fingers get wore down....

Should be a productive weekend that way.

I plan to work on the yard today, pick up the rest of the walnuts and doggie bombs and then mow up the fallen leaves. Maybe this is a good thing but as rain is forecast tomorrow I figure it will look nice for that and I can get some exercise.

Peter wants to come over later today to try to get his quilt tied and I am hoping that staying busy will warm me up. His quilt is the one at the beginning of the post. I still haven't figured out how to put the pictures where I want them in the posts on here. My border for the black and white quilt is still in process so I won't post it for a bit. We are selling these jean quilts as we make em and hopefully we both can make a good living after we get the ball rolling.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Puppy dog tales



Well, here goes. I have a puppy that will be four months old tomorrow. I love the little booger but she is really hard to live with most evenings.


Her favorite games are trashcan diving, toilet paper running, and potty paws. Every time me or DH leave the house the person remaining has to deal with a puppy tantrum.


I started putting the trash can behind the dog food canister and that dealt with the first game, but nothing seems to keep her out of the bathroom.


We shut the door and she learned to open it. We closed the toilet lid and she noses it up, dives in and digs the water out of the bowl like mad. I am cleaning that toilet bowl a minimum of twice a day. If you can stop her from that then she grabs the toilet paper end and runs like mad through the house with it. I am reminded of when my sons were little guys. I wonder how I lived through them? I am too old for this stuff!


Is potty arm the universal language of toddling mammals? These are the questions that go through my mind as I deal with the demon doggy pup from hades. What was I thinking when I said, "okay honey, let's just keep one puppy." Some one shoot me and put me out of my misery. And I won't even go into puppy poo patrol, and housebreaking.




Her momma dog is a really laid back, scaredy cat rottweiler. I mean she is so scared of everyone and everything that she hid under my skirts all the time before this pup came along. She is older so she sleeps a lot. However, the other night we had a prowler. I don't know exactly what you would classify this guy as, but for the purposes of this blog I will call him a prowler.


He came into our yard and tried to get into our garage with the police in hot pursuit. Seems he botched a robbery just down the road from us and was running on foot away from the police, and instead of running into the 300 acres of orange trees surrounding our house, where he had a chance of escaping, he runs into my yard and tries to break into my garage.


The dogs want out and are not barking or warning me anyone is out there so I open the door. The old rottie girl clears the front porch in a superman type single bound, crosses the electric radio controlled fence that delivers a shock to her neck if she crosses it and knocks this poor dude on his keester. Then she sits on him and growls. She did not bite him. Thank goodness for that, because living in California if she had bitten him I would be in for a lawsuit. Never mind that he was on land that he had no business being on.


So she is just sitting there, growling and not doing anything else, he has his arms over his head in a defensive position, and the police car pulls into my driveway. I think to myself, O no, my dog is a dead dog, because she is sitting on this dude.


Mind you he found her fairly intimidating because he urinated on himself. I don't think it added any aroma to him that was not already present though, because he was a very rank individual. I would think that he was either homeless or a methamphetamine addict or both. They do seem to go hand in hand around here, along with home invasion robberies.


Anyway, the lady cop says can you leave the dog there for a minute while I get a tarp out to cover the seat in my squad car. I don't want that on my upholstery. So I did not pull the dog off for a little longer. This poor guy was whimpering, and I felt sort of sorry for him, until she frisked him and found the knife. Thank goodness he didn't stab my poor old dog.


I still have no clue how she got the nerve up to go after someone like that, she has always been so frightened of everyone. Claude says it is because she loves me and was protecting me, but I am more of the opinion that she was protective of her puppy. (the aforementioned demon puppy from hades)


Well that is all the stupid dog tricks for this week. I am off to bed and hope they let me sleep all night, instead of waking me up at 2 am because some critter is moving around in the orchard. Goodness knows that the pup doesn't go outside to use the facilities, housebreaking is a trial of fire with demon puppies.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

more stuff

Well it looks as if they aren't going to keep my blog restricted. I am still recovering from the creeping crud last week and wonder if I will ever get my sinuses back? It really threw me for a loop and I have been sleeping a lot more than usual.
I have been working on house and yard this week and the wind has blown for two days now. It looks like all the yard work I did on Monday was useless as I now have about 30 or 40 palm tree limbs to pick up. They blow down and make a horrible mess. Whoever thinks palm trees are low maintenance doesn't have old ones that lose limbs.
Doralee has dragged about six of em up on the porch as trophy's. It is so funny watching that pup do things like that. They are so much bigger than she is that it is just comical. Of course those big puppy feet get tangled up at the same time and that makes it like watching the keystone cops. She goes tail over teakettle pretty often when her back feet outrun her front feet.
It is so hard to believe that she weighed about half a pound when she was born the 21st of June. She is already up to 35-40 pounds and based on her feet; I think she may get bigger than her mom. I have to give her a shot today as well. I don't look forward to that at all. She is wiggly and it is hard to hold her while I give the shot.
Well I am working in my sewing room today after I pick up the limbs, and will be finishing up some mending and a shirt for the old guy that lives here. Then on to figure out which dress to make for Miss Carus.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

spam blogs

somehow or other my blog is now blocked and it seems that I have been identified as spam. I am so depressed by this.
Fall is so definitely here and the weather has cooled down more than a little bit here lately. I am not complaining, but with fall comes a whole lot of work.
I have to clean out the swamp cooler and drain it, then tidy up the back porch, prune all the bushes as the sap drops down, and generally have a work week or three.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Stuff and thangs

Okay here goes nothing! I have never really tried blogging before so this is a new experience. My daughter Becca says I should try it so I decided to give it a shot.

I am married to my second husband and we are empty-nesters. WE have four fur babies, who are absolute terrors. The oldest is a rottweiler named Shyla because she is a really shy dog. Bless her heart, she was a rescue and is timid.
Then is our little mutt dog named Charley's Angel. She loves to play ball, chase squirrels, and will count for a doggie treat. She also chases a laser pointer like a demon. She bites when scared, which is not often because she is pretty fearless.
The next fur baby is Kiki La Rue a kitty cat that beats up all and sundry. She runs the dogs with claws of steel. She loves to hunt and has brought in dead opossums from the orange orchard we live in.
Then the last fur baby is a 14 week old rott/husky mix pup that is an absolute cutey pie with demon characteristics. As with all pups she is a chewer and tends to get the puppy crazies. She also likes to play ball, chase squirrels, and chase the laser pointer. It gets pretty funny sometimes. Her feet are huge and she is a klutz still but I think she will be bigger than my rottie girl.

I have two sons here in town and they are really good guys. They come see me about once or twice a week and help with car repairs and yard work and pest control.
My daughter is in Oregon with her hubby and two kids and fur babies of her own, and my oldest boy lives in New Mexico.

I have two step daughters, one here in town and one in South Carolina.

I have seven grandchildren who are all the smartest and most beautiful kids in the world. Don't argue with me about this; because you won't change my mind.

I like to sew, garden, quilt and make music. I don't like to cook or clean, but do it because I don't like living in a sty.