I'm not dead!

Just a quick post, with hopefully more soon. I'm not dead, just haven't been able to post. What have I been doing instead? I had a baby girl in May 2008! She has really been keeping me busy, not to mention my 6 year old son (where does the time go???) and husband. I'm hoping to post more projects soon, so keep checking back.

Freeze yer buns!

I signed up for Crunchy Chicken's Freeze Yer Buns Challenge. The challenge runs from November 1, 2007 through April 1, 2008. I pledged to not use my heat during this time frame. I had it set at 68 last year, and it only ran a handful of times, so I'm going to try to do without it this year. I had already thought about doing this as part of the Riot, so this will give me extra incentive. I may have to use my A/C a few more times, as it is still supposed to be over 90 this weekend, but hopefully that will be the end of it. I'm definitely looking forward to lower electric bills now that cooler weather has finally arrived. Anybody else want to join the challenge?

I'm still crunching numbers for my Riot update, and hopefully I'll have that up in a few days. Everybody get out and enjoy the weather!

I'm still here!

Just a quick post to let y'all know that I'm still here. Life has really happened in the last month. But we are all well, and still wrapped up in projects. I'll have more to post in the next few days. I'm off to water the garden and see how it is faring - we've had really high winds the last 2 days, so I hope everything is still standing. More to come soon!

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me....

Two weeks ago a friend and I took our families up to Date Creek Ranch north of Wickenburg to pick apples. This is the same ranch where we picked peaches in July. It was a lovely day for a trip and we had a great time. In under two hours we had collectively picked 68 pounds of apples (I think they were Golden Delicious). And they were yummy! Whew! Even the little ones got into the act, and my son climbed his first tree. :) We took our haul up to the stand and paid, grabbed hot dogs all around, and the kids fed apples to the horses. We had decided to each take half of the apples, and we would get together later in the week and have a canning party and split whatever we made. So the next weekend we canned apples. And canned apples. And canned apples. Boy, they sure do cook down to almost nothing! We ended up with 5 quarts of apple sauce, 10 pints of apple butter, and enough apples left over for a couple of pies or crisps. And now we are both experts in the use of the food mill. :)

I am in the midst of several projects at the moment, and I hope to have some done this week, and I'm also working on a Riot update. So hopefully (fingers firmly crossed) I'll have some more posts later in the week. Onward, to the sewing machine!

What do we do in the desert when there is no hope for snow...

...our kids make dirt angels.

Bunnies don't like sharks

Daaaaaahhhhh!!!!! My husband recently purchased "Rayman Raving Rabbids" for the Wii, and we have really enjoyed playing it. So much, in fact, that I made him a Rabbid for his birthday. His is the one obviously screaming "Daaaaaaahhhh!!!!". My son likes to watch us play, and will come to us holding a Wii remote, bowing, and saying, "We would like to play bunnies.". Knowing that he would run off with my husband's rabbid, I made him his very own, more benevolent-looking rabbid. I got the inspiration on craftster.org, just search for "rabbid" and you will find several entries. I made these with felt. The eyes and the smile are embroidered. The thing I learned doing this project: stuffed animals aren't that hard to make. I've made sock monkeys before, but never anything like this. I see many more in my future as Christmas, birthday, and baby shower gifts. Now I need to find patterns......

THAT'S what I was talking about!

Thanks to The Green Mommy for this link: Birthdays Without Pressure. This is EXACTLY what I was talking about in my previous post about making birthdays special. The examples they give about the excesses seen in children's birthday parties is eye-opening. What are we preparing these kids for? Gimme, gimme, gimme. I hope we can all grow backbones as parents and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to birthday parties. I personally love coming up with clever themes, decorations, and games for our at-home birthday parties, and I know that most of the kids in attendance have never seen such a thing. I hope that it makes for a special event for everyone involved. And I personally refuse to spend over $200 for a pizza parlor or play-place party where we will get kicked out in less than 2 hours. Parents of the world unite! We can make birthdays special and meaningful occasions again!

OK. Stepping off my soapbox now....

A little piece of sunshine...

That's what my new dress reminds me of. I *finally* finished the yellow gabacha yesterday and wore it to a baby shower. It was nice and comfortable, and I got lots of compliments on it. Have a gander:
Now that I know my son will be gone a good 4 hours a day 4 days a week (hooray mommy-time!), I can get some major projects done. I'm planning on doing the next gabacha this week in the blue floral that is pictured in an earlier post. I didn't get the baby blanket done - I wanted to do a Speed Hook Baby Blanket, but had trouble locating a size S (yes S) hook. I did find one yesterday, on the way to the baby shower, so we ended up picking a few things off the Target registry. Not ideal, but hey, all babies need clothes. :) The next baby blanket I make will be the 4 Hour Baby Blanket pattern by Lion Brand. I'm interested to see if the name fits with the reality of how I crochet. We'll see....

A few weeks ago I cooked in the solar oven again. I made Filipino Menudo, based on a friend's recipe, and it was excellent! I do the recipe by sight, so I can't really give any solid measurements, but your ingredients are: pork loin cut into cubes, a yellow onion, chopped, about 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, minced in a garlic press (more if you really like garlic), potatoes peeled and cubed, raisins (don't look at me like I have lobsters coming out of my ears, it's really good!), soy sauce and water. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions start to get a little soft, but don't brown the garlic! Add the pork and brown. Then add a few handfuls of raisins, the potatoes, about 1/2 cup of good soy sauce from the Philippines (I use Silver Swan), and enough water to cover everything. Then, slow cook it either on the burner or in my case the solar oven. The longer you cook it, the better it is. I think I left it in the solar oven about 3 hours. We eat it served over rice. I was really impressed by how much I could actually make in a 3 quart pan. We had 3 meals out of the one batch. I think I'll be doing this again soon. YUM!

I haven't been back out in the garden yet, I still need to locate row cover. I may have to order it. At least I can still plant for fall. We have had some good rain, and our front yard plants, which are desert plants, always say "Oh boy! Water!" and put out impressive new growth. I love the purple sage (is it Texas sage?, I'm not sure of the exact variety) that we have out front, and here's a picture of one happy bush. I hope the rain comes back soon - it's been hot and muggy with no rain payoff the last week or so. :( At least not in our neighborhood.

So, I leave you with hopes of rain and cooler temperatures, as long as the rain holds off until I'm finished line-drying the wash tomorrow.....

I guess this thing IS on....

I have received some comments from persons other than family and friends. Most welcome if unexpected. Hi! Have a look around and enjoy yourself. Leave a comment if you wish or continue lurking like I normally do. :)

Update on the garden: Something ate my sprouts. :( I emailed a local garden expert (Dave the Garden Guy) and he suggested birds as the culprit, but I'm not sure. I will be replanting as soon as I can get some sturdier row cover and hoops to support it. Such is the life of a gardener. *sigh*

My son goes back to preschool on Tuesday (yippee!!) so I'll have a few hours each day to finish up the many projects that have stalled lately. I hope to have the yellow dress done by Wednesday, and will be working on the blue flower print next. I also have a baby blanket to make by Saturday, and hopefully I'll remember to take a picture of it this time. I may also try to make bread in the solar oven this week. It is supposed to be hot and clear, so it should go well. Ambitious? Yes. So keep checking back and I should have more posts forthcoming. Now I'm off to figure out what to do for supper......

Lots of updates...

Whew! It's been a busy couple of weeks! Let's see.....I finished the pink dress, picked 50 pounds of peaches, read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", canned some peaches, planted my garden, crocheted a Hello Kitty purse (and just realized that I forgot to take a picture, d'oh!), and eagerly run out into the backyard every day to see what has sprouted. First, here's a picture of the pink dress. It is also a Folkwear Sporty Forties dress, and I LOVE it! The picture doesn't do it justice. I'm almost done with the yellow gabacha, and I'll post a picture when I'm done.

We went up north of Wickenburg to Date Creek Ranch and picked peaches last Sunday. We ran into a monsoon storm and had to pull off the road on the way up there, but it was nice and cool and drizzley the whole time we were picking. My son wasn't too discerning with his peach selection, but did well for a four year old. We picked for about 2 hours give or take and ended up with 55 pounds of peaches (we were picking for a friend, too). My husband had never had a peach right off the tree, and now he knows what a peach is *supposed* to taste like. We ate a bunch fresh, and I still had enough to try my hand at canning. I ended up with 3 quarts of spiced peaches and 4 pints of peach butter. Peach butter = yummy! We are already planning a trip for September to go pick apples. And we hope to order 1/2 a cow with the same friend we were picking for this fall from the same ranch.

I was finished with "Deathly Hallows" by Monday afternoon, and then it was my husband's turn to read it. No spoilers here, but we really enjoyed it and thought that it tied the series up nicely.

I planted my garden last Friday, and had sprouts coming up this Thursday. Aren't they cute? Our monsoon season finally started up in the past week, and my garden is loving the rain! (Doing a happy-dance for rain in the desert.) I have more coming up now, and the varieties are: Triple Treat, Small Sugar, and Jack Be Little pumpkins; pinto beans, navy beans, California Black Eye peas, Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Jenny Lind, Hearts of Gold, and Sugar Baby melons; sweet corn, and winter squash (I'm not sure if the Hubbards or Acorns are up). I'm still waiting for my California Wonder peppers to sprout. I think everything is coming up well considering the seeds are from when I last tried a garden 2 years ago. I also planted some sunflowers a few days ago in my son's garden. The only downside seems to be that crickets are munching some of the sprouts. I have everything covered, but not too tightly. I was more concerned with birds getting at the wormy-looking sprouts. :(

Hopefully it won't be another 2 weeks before I post again, but hey, life happens, right?