WHY OH WHY DO I SET ANNUAL TARGETS???

 Sigh.  Every January for the past several years I've set some targets for the year ahead of me.  If you don't know where you're going, you will never get there, right?

• Lose 5 lbs.  ha ha ha ha ha...  To my credit, I DID lose 1.5 lbs.  However I have since located those pounds. 😒
• Reduce stash by 80 meters.  ha ha ha ha ha...  I would have been down 20 m., but a quilting buddy passed away and left me two totes that contained about 20 m. 😢
• Finish three UFOs.  ha ha ha ha ha...  Although, I did clean up some sh*t.  Does that count?

HOUSE BLOCK SWAP

I make five blocks every month, with something 'cute' in the window, and give four of them to the other gals in the group.  We have a target date of the 15th each month to have them pieced so they can (theoretically) be delivered by the end of the month.

My January blocks turned out kind of cute.  Dark & gloomy, but cute. I put the goofy faces in the windows because we are all going STIR CRAZY with this awful weather.

I told DH to put on 'real pants' one Sunday a few weeks ago, that we were going for a drive to get the heck out of the house!  As far as guild meetings go, I've had one hellish drive home in the dark from an evening meeting - when I got home I swore I was not doing that again.  In the future, questionable weather will mean I'm staying at home.  Then my daytime guild was postponed for a week because of a blizzard.  We'll see what February brings.

But...back to my blocks:  Since I've been inside, I figured I'd make the February blocks early.  Oh, very bad words.  I remade all the blocks - they were THAT BAD.

Bad blocks on the left, better blocks on the right.

And since my last post, my cooking has not gotten any better!  This was planned as our Christmas Morning Breakfast.  Yes, I'm aware that Christmas is now a distant memory but there hasn't been a lot going on - I'm trying very hard to keep you amused.  A lovely pan of cinnamon rolls.  I prepped them on the 24th - this is what they looked like after they rose.  At this point I put them in the fridge, with plans to bake in the morning.

6 am Christmas morning I took them out of the fridge:  Whoooaaa Nellie!!  WTF??  I was pretty sure that some alien from Planet Zyborg stole my cinnamon rolls and left these in trade.

I'd never heard of 'over-proofing'.  Apparently (?) that's what happens when dough rises too much, and then collapses on itself.  Hoping to spare you from experiencing my angst,  if you're refrigerating dough for baking the next day, DO NOT allow the second rise to happen - it will do that itself in the fridge.

I'm very grateful that DH has low expectations when it comes to my baking.  It has been a long-standing joke that when the smoke alarm goes off then supper is ready.  If you read my last post about my Red Hat lunch you'll agree that this 'joke' is sad, but true!

This, unbelievably, is what they looked like after baking.  And he ate them.  That, ladies, is true love.

I have since redeemed myself with a lovely ham quiche (recipe from Dairy Goodness - you know, the Milk Calendar).  The recipe is actually for Asparagus quiche.  You may have noticed that I've got no qualms about editing recipes to suit myself and my supplies.  😬

Then there's my favorite tuna casserole, with my normal changes/additions (recipe from the Looneyspoons cookbook.  Truly, in my opinion the Best.Cookbook.Ever.)

And I'm two steps closer to heaven after quilting a couple of Binbrook Guild donation quilts.

To end on a humourous (sp?) note:

Janice came by for tea yesterday afternoon.  I guess I was backlit by the sun - she started laughing.  Then told me, between giggles, that I had an inch long hair growing sideways out of my neck. I gave her a pair of scissors and she thankfully cleaned me up.

 

the Sewing Watch, a Beautiful Border, and Strawberry Biscuits

Waaay back in 2013 my Singapore niece was married in Bali.  If you have insomnia some night, you can scroll back through my blog and find my stories about that.  BUT, on the way home from Bali I had a layover in Hong Kong.  While strolling around, killing time, I wandered into a little gift shop and saw a watch that was clearly made JUST FOR ME.

It was originally equipped with a red, fake leather band.  Which lasted about two weeks.  Seriously - that's no joke.  Two weeks.  On one of my adventures with Beach Girl Diane to a quilt show somewhere in the USA, I found twill tape printed as a measuring tape.  That self-made watchband lasted almost 10 years, but it truly needed replacing this year.  And what did I do as soon as the new band was installed?  I dropped the watch on a ceramic tile floor.  🫣  Had to take it in to the watchmakers and get new guts installed, which cost me $65.00.  How much was the original watch, you ask?  About $20.00.  (we will not add on the $5000 wedding trip cost).

This was a fun quilt I worked on last winter.  Love, love, love those borders.

It's high season for strawberries now.  My freezer still holds a large bag of berries from LAST year.  A few days ago I was awake at 4 am, so by 6 am I was getting hungry.  And I wanted sugar (which seems to be a companion to insomnia???).  Hmm.  What to do, what to do...

Strawberry Biscuits.  Very good. (**)  Used up some of the frozen berries.  The biscuits were totally gone the next day.

(**)  Recipe was adapted, because y'all know how I like to cook healthy, if I can:

• replaced 2/3 cup flour with Whole Wheat Flour.  
• for the buttermilk I used leftover whey from when I made yogurt a few days ago.  There wasn't quite enough so I topped it up with sour cream.
• I whizzed up a handful of walnuts in the food processor and added them to the mix, for the Omega 3's.  If "bad" food is on the menu I can at least try to get some good cholesterol, right?
• Slightly smaller size - I made 12 biscuits.  Although that didn't help much, as we still managed to eat all of them in the space of about 30 hours.

This message was brought to you by my cutting garden.