How's Your Blood Pressure?

I'll start off with a little quilty-stuff, then move on to the topic du jour.

Pieced at Tobermory retreat but not yet quilted:

 Started an embarrassingly long time ago, finally quilted, and heading to the hospice as a guild donation:

TOPIC DU JOUR

Dad died of a heart attack when he was 72.  He was a tough guy.  A contractor, specializing in drywall I think.  I was one of those teenagers who paid zero attention to the people who really had some import in my life, so I don't honestly know.  As a teenager I slept until noon, by which time he was more than half way through his day.  Dad made himself bacon and eggs, every. single. day.  In spite of his hard, physical labour, his diet may or may not have had something to do with his early demise.  I fell heir to his 7" cast iron frying pan, which has so many years of seasoning on it that NOTHING will EVER stick to it.  DH and I have a pretty significant collection of cast iron pans now, and in spite of their weight, they are the BEST things to cook with. 

Next...

Mom developed alzheimers, most likely caused by several small strokes.  She lived to 94, but her last, um, 10 years or so (?), were not good.  And the 10 or 15 years before that were filled with sticky notes on the bathroom mirror reminding her of coming events and appointments, forgetfulness, repetetive questions, and confusion.  I didn't realize what was going on with her for a long time.  She'd ask me over and over again "how much money have I got in the bank?" and I'm ashamed to say that after answering this question 10 or 15 times during my Friday visits, I would lose my shit.  For the last few years she couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't hear, couldn't see, lost her teeth several times, and another stroke had left her unable to safely eat 'real food' - everything had to be pureed.  There was a day when my brother told me that he'd been to visit her.  He'd brought a box of Timbits, and she'd scarfed down every single one.  OMG.  "Bruce!!  She can't eat solid food!!  WTH!!  She'll choke!"  Well, no, that didn't kill her thankfully, since he was telling me this story after the fact. 😳  She passed quietly at the nursing home on a cold March night.

My sister Sharon, who was 10 years older than me, died at 72 of a heart attack.  She'd been suffering with several forms of cancer, along with non-alcohol-related-cirrhosis for several years prior to her death.  Everyone in our family drinks so much that the "non-alcohol" bit surprised me, but she'd also lived in China for several years and may have contracted Hep C?  I know she had a heart attack while she lived there - that was during the SARS epidemic and the Chinese government keeps all news of that sort very quiet.  I don't think she knew about SARS while it was going on.  Now, I'm unsure if the fatal heart attack was an inherited weakness, or incidental to her other health issues.

The firstborn in the family, my brother Ted, also died at 72.  He was felled by cancer.  In the mid-80's he left with his boat and his girlfriend for the islands, and basically disappeared from our lives. His life was a complete mystery to us after that, until I received a call this summer from his wife (who'd been his girlfriend at the time of his departure so long ago).  She was surprised that none of us knew that he was dead.  Um, hello???  He never contacted any of us. Ever.  How he managed to show up for dad's funeral 39 years ago remains a complete mystery to this day.

My 70-year-old brother Bruce, 1 1/2 years older than me, is still kickin' up a storm on Vancouver Island. 💕  We are the only ones left from our family of origin.

Now you've got the lay of the land.

DH does most of the cooking around here, for which I'm very grateful.  We get into some ahem disagreements over nutrition occasionally.  Based on my story above you can see that three out of four deceased family members died at the age of 72.  Three out of four deceased family members had disastrous results related to heart troubles.  I'm already on cholesterol meds, thyroid meds, and heart meds.  And I'm 68.  

If you follow me around the grocery store you'll see my cart filled with apples, bananas, lettuce, avocados, peppers, sweet potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower.  I gave up cream and sugar in my coffee a looong time ago. I mean, I'm no saint - don't get me wrong. I can empty out a bowl of cheezies faster than you can say 'Those aren't good for you, you know, and by the way I like your shoes.'  I'm really lucky in that I like healthy food.  I don't wrinkle up my nose when faced with brussel sprouts. But as a rule, I try pretty consistently to stay away from salt.  Outside of baking I don't use it when I'm cooking.  I rarely add it to food on my plate, unless we're talking about potatoes - in which case all bets are off. 

Last week I was cleaning up after another good meal cooked by DH when I noticed the salt shaker on the cooktop.  

me, pretending to ask an innocent question:  "Honey, why is the salt shaker on the cooktop?"

DH:  "I salted the pasta water."

me, fanning away the steam that was spurting out of my ears:  "YOU PUT SALT IN THE WATER???!!  WHAT??!!?"

DH, wondering when my hormones came back:  "Um, ...yes?  It was only a little?"

me, carrying on:  "Blah blah blah (about my health issues), blah blah blah (about high blood pressure), blah blah blah (about how he's trying to kill me), etc..."

DH trying very hard to be cooperative:  "Um, ok. I won't do it any more?"

Last Friday I bought two lovely cabbages at a farm stall.  Half of one was made into coleslaw.  For the second half I suggested a recipe that I cut out of the newspaper several years ago, but have never tried.  The cooking fell to DH because I ended up having a quilting buddy come by to talk about her book.  When she and I were through and she left for home, I wandered into the kitchen to check on hubby's progress.  The casserole was heading into the oven at this point.

DH:  "Did you see the first ingredient on the recipe?"

me, looking at the recipe:  "Uh, cabbage."

DH:  "Nope."

me, looking at the recipe again:  "Yeah, cabbage!"

DH:  "Nope."

me, getting a little annoyed:  "Yes it is!"

DH, wandering over and pointing at the first word - salt.  Sigh.

Don't ya just hate it when someone does that to you?

CABBAGE AND POTATO GRATIN

This was very good.  DH added some cooked & sliced Italian sausages to the mix.

Of Spring, Sewing, and Bats

WORLD NEWS:  Spring is in the air, AND in the ground.  I have snowdrops and crocuses blooming in the front flower bed.  And dandelions that have turned a lovely bright green, in time for St. Patrick's Day which is this coming Sunday.  Yesterday was sunny and 17c., perfect weather for walkies on the rail trail.  Today will be 18c. and maybe sunny (?).  That's VERY warm for this time of year.

GUILD NEWS:  I did a demo for the Binbrook guild on Improv Curved Piecing.  Working on these was quite fun.  Prep involved a few Youtube videos.  I swear, you can learn anything on Youtube.

SEWING NEWS:  A client gave me a big box of fabric for use in donation quilts, so I've started with the panels that were in there.  These need to be trimmed and bound. 

STORY TIME:  I'm pretty sure everyone has at least ONE bat story.

It was summer, several (many) years ago. DH was sitting in his chair in the living room, minding his own business.  Reading a book.  It was evening...8 pm?  9 pm?  I was in the kitchen, also minding my own business, reading the newspaper.  Enjoying a bowl of ice cream because being summer, the weather was hot.  I was having a problem with my eyes, though. I kept noticing a dark swirling as I was reading the paper, but it was very intermittent.  I'd look up -  things were fine, then I'd look down and dark swirling would start again, then the whole scenario would repeat.  Finally, one of the times I looked up I saw that something was flying around the room.  At first I thought it was a bird, but then the "thing" landed on the small kitchen speaker up in the corner at the ceiling.  Holy Mackerel Batman!!  (Hah, notice the pun?)  And, yes, I am a girl at heart, so of course my first response was a bit of a scream.  Then another scream for DH who, as many men would do, said "whaat?"  I continued screaming:  THERE'S A BAT.  THERE'S A BAT.  THERE'S A BAT.  And again, as many men would do, he said "what do you want me to do about it?".  I'm thinking to myself:  Uh...wtf?  This is why I got married?  I did a little more panic-ed screaming at him, until he finally came into the kitchen... to make sure it was a bat and that I wasn't imagining things.  Since, you know, ladies don't always understand these wildlife things.  Apparently.  Uh huh.  Then he got a light jacket out of the closet and managed to fling it over the bat as it was whirling around the kitchen.

The poor thing was lobbed out the front door, jacket and all, where it eventually made it's way to freedom.  We assume that it flitted into the house from it's normal roost by the front door when the dog took a little too long to come inside.  

I no longer say "Oh, look,  honey - there's a bat living by the front door.  How cute is that?"

 

She's having what for lunch??

 This is a bowl of leftover green beans (DH does not like green beans) and pickled beets (DH also does not like pickled beets, the weirdo) and feta cheese.

This is what I have picked so far today:

That's 5 sweet peppers, 2 lovely tomatoes, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, 2 strawberries (now gone - they were my lunchtime appetizer), a container-thingy of purple beans (which turn green when you cook them), and 3 zucchinis.  I already have 9 zucchinis in the fridge and I gave away 3 yesterday.  I have to go back out again to pick the Roma tomatoes.  And don't get me started on the kale - OMG, so much kale out there. 

This is what I picked two days ago.

That was 7 sweet peppers, 4 zucchinis, 2 lovely tomatoes, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few peas, and another container-thingy of purple beans.  Along with a whack of Roma tomatoes which are still sitting on my kitchen floor.  I pick them a little bit green, hopefully before some pest starts nibbling on them.

If food is medicine, then... I should live to be 248 years old.  God save us all, lol.  Which is why I will indulge in some not-so-healthy chocolate later on.

Tonight's supper will be Charlie's Beef & Zucchini.  My friend Sue gave me this recipe years ago - it's one of my favorites (although as you can probably guess...not DH's favorite!).  I suggested that he could make himself hamburgers but he's decided to grin & bear it.  😫 ⬅His face at the supper table.

What I also have in the fridge is about 3 litres of fresh raspberries from the neighbour.  Mmm, raspberries & yogurt for breakfast ❤.  She already gave me that many a week or two ago, which are in the freezer.  

And I've frozen three cookie sheets worth of Roma tomatoes.  The last few years I've been canning tomatoes but I still have several jars from last year, so I'm going to skip all that labour.  I do plan on doing a couple sheets of roasted tomatoes...they are sooo good.  I'm almost out of what I roasted two years ago.  Roasted tomatoes make an excellent base for pizza, instead of tomato sauce.  And I'll throw in a couple dollops whenever I need a bit of tomato flavour, or sometimes I use it instead of tomato paste.  I freeze it in little half-cup portions, which is close to the size of a can of tomato paste.

I've also frozen sheet #1 of diced sweet peppers.  We make a lot of soups/stews/stirfries and, fyi, sweet peppers are very expensive in the winter.  I can save that money for chocolate.

I was wide awake at 3:15 am today and had my nap from 8 - 10 am.  Crazy.  Here was the lovely sunrise, though.  Taken at 6:52 am when I'm sure I was the ONLY person on the planet who'd been awake long enough to have had two cups of coffee already.

QUILTING

And when I get sick of PRODUCE (which is starting to happen most days, some years I'm very glad when November rolls around), I'm working on this lovely quilt:

The stitch-in-the-ditch is all done.  I'm now quilting the motifs in the blocks.

Two Modern Quilts & ....

 These were two beauties that both wanted the pantograph Modern Curves.  

That's such a striking quilting design and it shows up really well on solid fabrics.

And, HEY!  I MADE A QUILT!  This was for a young man who's gone off to university.

Here are the strips of geese.  My original intention was to use a border print as sashing between the rows, but I didn't like the look, so I opted to stick with the solid black.  These are 4" x 8" geese made using the Quilt In A Day ruler.  Definitely one of my favorite rulers.

DOG STUFF

You may have seen this goofy pic already if you follow me on facebook or instagram.  A few people have suggested that we get another dog to help Coco relax, so...yup.  Being a crafty girl I made another dog.  Since this was taken I have brushed out this much fur AGAIN.  TWICE MORE in fact.

Here's another fun one - this one's from daycare.  Obviously neither one of these goofs has gone to Etiquette Class.  Elbows on the table??  Helloooo!

KITCHEN STUFF

Oh, hubby, hubby, hubby.  After one of my weekly chats with the Beach Girls I mentioned to DH that three of them have air fryers, and they were pretty surprised that I didn't have one.  Well, hubby doesn't need more than one reason to go shopping. 

 

I used it last night to bake frozen shoestring fries and onion rings and they both turned out pretty well.  Better than in the oven, as in crispier.  I don't think it did anything to make them healthier though.  That would require an act of God.  In a pointless attempt to make him repent I was reading the recipes to him that came in the little book... lots of sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and fish recipes.  All on his personal list of "foods to avoid", ha ha ha. 

I'll close with a bit of beauty from Sept. 8th, courtesy of The Universe.

SUNSET

MOONRISE

A Day In The Life (or five weeks worth of days)

I'm reading Her Turn by Katherine Ashenburg.  It's a good book, and I noticed that each chapter represents a week.  Since I haven't posted in quite a while I thought I'd borrow that format.

Feb 6 - 12

I started the week by giving myself another covid haircut.  I was due for a proper cut at the beginning of January, but it's not like anyone cares what I look like.  37 years married...if you get my drift.  Most of the time DH is happy if he notices that my shoes are still in the closet.  Coco is not settling in yet...some days she only has one pee, which freaks me out.  Everyone is stressed and she's still terrified of DH.  I talked to the rescue's dog trainer who had a few suggestions to improve her comfort level, we'll see how that goes.  

This week's treat was the spinach ravioli that DH brought home from Costco.

Feb 13 - 19

This week included both Superbowl Sunday when I make a wee quilt top, AND Valentines Day which often includes too much chocolate.  I'm burning off the chocolate by taking Coco for three walkies a day.  We are not letting her go out in the yard by herself because we're pretty sure she would not come back in.  Two seniors chasing a dog around the backyard, in the winter, trying to corral her is not something that appeals to us somehow.  So for now, I'm getting lots of exercise.  

The Beach Girls are scheduled to arrive for Winterruption soon, and I'm trying to clean up a lot of crap.  Several years ago my brother & nephew & DH installed built in speakers in the living room.  The old Technics speakers went in the office, and have been collecting dust ever since - but it is time for them to go.  I flipped them down on to a sheet and hauled them out into my workroom (friggin' heavy bastards!) where I vacuumed and wiped them down, then took photos and listed them for free on facebook marketplace.  Holy Sh*t - my devices immediately blew up.  Who knew they were a collectors item???  

More Coco walkies stories include stopping at the neighbour's, where she refuses to take a treat; turning her head away in that "I can't see you" move.  In the past two weeks we've stopped at their place twice for little outside visits.  Coco seems to think that's enough of that, and now turns around just before we get to their driveway.  Ha ha ha...Yah, uh, NO dog.

The Binbrook guild will be meeting in person again at the end of the month, so I've started working on a small quilt as a sample of a 3-patch block.  Flying Geese blocks make an excellent chevron design.

Feb 20 - 23

Continuing with the sh*t-shovelling before Winterruption, I'm purging old paperwork.  The idea of names, address, account numbers, etc going in the garbage freaks me out a bit.  Well, ok - maybe more than a bit.  I don't want a Nest thermostat, or security camera, or Alexa...all of which can SPY ON ME.  1-800-LUKE just shakes his head and smiles.  For paperwork disposal, I tear off the personal information and burn it then put the rest of the stuff in the recycle bin.  

Guest speakers for the Binbrook guild for April and May have been confirmed... yay!! 

 Neighbour Sophie gave me some focaccia bread, so I've been having runny eggs on bread.  Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Feb. 22 get a real haircut!  The biggest housecleaning chore before Winterruption is cleaning the office, where one of the girls will be sleeping on a blow-up bed.  All the storage totes, file boxes, travel bags, piles of photos, etc, etc, have been moved down to the basement.  I vacuumed within an inch of my life and then got out the Murphy's Oil Soap.  I washed the baseboards and both desks.  Really, I should probably do that more often (she says rolling her eyes).

Feb. 24 - 27 the girls are here.  Thursday afternoon and evening was catch-up time.  This past year we implemented Video Cocktail Hour on Friday afternoons, and it's been great but it sure doesn't take the place of a real hug. We spent Friday at the Van Gogh exhibit, then headed out to Waterford for lunch & Quilt Junction & the antique mall (where I picked up a cute little gift for Margaret's birthday).  Saturday was spent in my workroom talking shop and doing quilty-things.  Sunday morning breakfast of Eggs Benedict (my birthday!), then they packed and headed off for home.  Coco was pretty good with them but mostly tried to follow me around while staying out of their way.

Feb 27 - Mar 5

Much of my birthday was spent cleaning up after the girls left, then the rest of the day I finished the prep for the 3-patch block presentation I'll do on the 28th.  

Coco has had a breakthrough and is coming downstairs in the morning all by herself, without prompting.  She's still really freaky and prancing around the house, but at least she's willingly coming for walkies.  

A birthday lunch out with a friend included a couple stops at quilt shops and more word fabric in my shopping cart.  I also got some anti-anxiety dog treats that were recommended by the dog trainer, hopefully they will help.   I booked an appointment with a dog groomer who comes to the house for nail trims.  I'm pretty ticked at her...she got lost on her way here, and now will not return my messages to rebook an appointment.  WTH.  It's not MY fault she got lost.  sigh.

Mar 6 - Mar 12

I'm in charge of the Red Hat outing in March, so I made the arrangements for that.  We're going to the movies for the first time in two years.  For an afternoon matinee the cinema should be empty (and post-outing I can report that it WAS empty).  I felt like such an ass though, one of our gals was not on my email list so I neglected to invite her.  I definitely owe her a little something by way of apology.

I had my blood pressure checked at the doctor's office and it's good.  Normal.  Within a tolerable range.  Thank God.  After my appointment I took a drive in to town, with the back of the car filled with two years worth of booze empties.  A couple people have organized a bottle drive with proceeds being donated to the Red Cross in support of Ukraine.  I was crying in a restaurant this week over the atrocities taking place in Europe right now.  Giving away my empties won't make much of a difference, but every little bit helps.  Here is a link to the Red Cross if you want to make a financial contribution.

Back in January I was up late scrolling through the Costco website, and in a weak moment ordered new bedroom furniture.  I was 15 years old when Mom bought my current bedroom set.  I just turned 66.  I will not be living with the new stuff as long as I did the old stuff.  Anyhow, the new stuff was delivered on Saturday.  I was really worried about how different things can look in real life, as compared to online photos, but I'm very happy with the real stuff.  Yay!  Please, let this motivate me to finish the bedroom drapes that have been lounging on my pressing table for (omg, embarassing...) a few years now.

Stack & Whack, putting the garden to bed, and a Galette w/recipe

Here are two same-but-different quilts.  The blocks are the same, but the quilts have different settings.

This one has no sashing, and plain alternate blocks.  A dark and a print border.

This has sashing with cornerstones and an outer print border.

OMG that is a beautiful print.

I chose an Asian-style pantograph to pair with the Japanese fabric.

 GARDEN REPORT

DH dug all the remaining potatoes.  We had a bumper crop this year, in spite of the dry summer.  Watering every week produced some great tomatoes and the wonderful pile of 'taters.  

IF YOU LIKE CABBAGE:  I put in six cabbage plants back in May (?).  As I harvested them I left the plants in the ground and let them continue growing.  I kept harvesting from those six plants until last week when DH ripped them out so he could rototill.  Through the summer these were small enough to manage - perfect for soup or a quick coleslaw.  

PUTTING THE GARDEN TO BED

Every couple of years we add something to the garden to keep a nice soil tilth and lots of nutrients.  DH went to the local mushroom farm and got a trailer load of mushroom compost.  He also had a HUGE quantity of leaves.  I was downstairs in my sweatshop quilt studio, minding my own business, when he came in and asked "if I wanted to help with the leaves?".  Um, no?  Ha ha, that didn't fly!

After the leaves were down it was time to top them up with compost.  I am a very smart woman who has managed to never learn how to drive the tractor. 😁

This will have all winter to break down so we can feed ourselves again next year.

My to-do list today has pie-making hi-lited.

On one of the pandemic-stock-up shopping trips, a few bags of walnuts came home from Costco.  Walnuts only keep so long before they start to go rancid, so I put two bags in the freezer, but I'm still trying to use them a bit more often.  I found the walnuts.org web site and marked a few recipes.

KALE, BUTTERNUT SQUASH & WALNUT GALETTE

As I showed you last week I have that volunteer kale plant I've been working with, and I had some butternut squash already roasted, sitting in the fridge.  I also had two single crust pastry doughs in the freezer, left over from when I made the peach pies this summer.  I managed to whip this up for supper in practically no time!  Since I didn't have gruyere cheese I substituted with cream cheese and it was delicious.  I ate the last leftover piece this morning for breakfast with a runny egg on top.  Yum!

On a side note, cooking shows are often screening on our tv.  I mean, what else is there to do these days?  Anyhow... we were watching America's Test Kitchen (?) and they were making a galette. 

Hah!  I pointed out to DH how lucky he is that he gets fed this kind of stuff all the time.

COVID NUMBERS

Worldwide:  total 54 million, deaths 1.4 million, new 628,136

USA:  total 10,977,635.  Deaths 245,460, new cases 159,021

Canada:  total 293,183.  Deaths 10,977, new cases 4,613

Ontario: total 95,964.  Deaths 3,387, new cases 1,248

Catching Up, again

 I seem to have put my blog posting on the same schedule as my house cleaning...pretty darned infrequently! My new system for cleaning is to keep an eye on a couple of the pictures hanging on the wall - if I notice gooey, stringy cobwebs hanging off them I make myself vacuum some time in the following week.  

I'm just going to give you some pics of a few quilts that I've completed for customers over the last couple of months, ok?  OK.

This quilt came with a special request to add a couple of hearts in the quilting.

This was so stinkin' cute.

This is a special quilt for some Florida people.

I love these Quick Curve Ruler quilts!

Another quilt made from embroidered blocks.  This is #3 for this gal.

Scrappy - my all-time favorite quilts.

Like many people these days, I've had it up to the wazoo with politicians.  I was SO ticked off with one local provincial representative that I actually wrote a letter to the editor.  They edited out some of it, but I think they should have kept the comment that Oosterhoff is part of the governing provincial party that has mandated the regulations currently in place.  WTF???

I have a new t-shirt to get me through the rest of the year.  This arrived in time for me to cry in my wine over the cancellation of the annual Tobermory retreat with the Beach Girls.  This cancellation might explain some of my fit over Oosterhoff.  He gets to play with his friends, but I don't???  WTF???

Then I soothed the savage beast with copy-cat Starbucks Pumpkin Scones.

This was my most interesting volunteer in the garden this summer.  It's a kale plant in the same spot where I had one two years ago.  It's been feeding us for weeks (a fact that DH is not particularly impressed with, seeing as it is a green leafy vegetable).  These days if he makes any kind of negative remark over supper all he gets from me is an eye roll and "suck it up, buttercup".  Yeah.  Not winning any BEST WIFE, EVER awards.  Oh, covid... how many marriages are facing some less-than-stellar-days thanks to you?

On a personal quilting note, I stitched up and quilted a whack of Christmas panels.  Since this pic was taken I have cut them all apart and trimmed to size. These will be donated whenever I get all that binding finished.

The current GOOD news is that Biden/Harris won the US election.  I cannot wait to see Trump get his arse booted out of the White House.

COVID NUMBERS

Worldwide: 49.9 million cases and 1.2 million deaths.  Daily increase in cases 540,000.

USA:  9.9 million cases and 238,000 deaths.  The US hit a new daily high of over 130,000 cases yesterday.  Sad.

Canada:  261,400 cases and 10,493 deaths.  New cases yesterday 4,246.

Ontario:  84,153 cases and 3,233 deaths.  We hit a new daily high of 1,328 new cases yesterday.  Sad.