Aprons for the seniors

Here's the family modeling the Christmas aprons I made for 'the home'. Not everyone looks happy about the photo shoot.

Here are all 24 before I delivered them. The administrator was very happy to receive the package. Hopefully all are being used today.

We had our Christmas dinner with my nephew & his wife last night.  Pretty traditional:  turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables.  My brother & his wife are in Asia visiting my Singapore niece for the holidays.  When I checked their Facebook pages this morning - OMG.  They have been eating tarantulas.  Crikey!!!  I'm glad I stayed home.

Sampler Quilt and Christmas odds & ends

I love sampler quilts, and this is a beautiful example. 

Fabulous border print for the outer border.

Not your everyday straight slab-o-sashing.

Beautiful reproduction Civil War prints.

DH & the neighbour, armed with their flyers from Home Hardware and Canadian Tire, heading out to Christmas shop for 'the wives'.  I'm going to start stuffing the mailboxes with sale flyers from Birks Jewellers and see if they get the hint.  Shiny baubles in a tiny box are much nicer to open on Christmas morning.  However, I have to give them credit for being EARLY and not shopping on the 24th.

Last week was our Red Hat Christmas dinner at the Purple Pear in Hamilton.  It's in a skanky area of town, but has excellent food and the company was great.

I'm in the middle of making 24 Christmas bibs aprons for the residents at Mom's retirement home.  These are for the special residents who need assistance with their meals.  Why I get myself involved in these projects when I have no time is beyond my comprehension.  But I do it every year.  Maybe it's genetic?

Hot Chocolate, anyone??

 This quilt reminds me of hot chocolate with marshmallows. 

Speaking of marshmallows, I had home made marshmallows on Sunday.  They taste better than the packaged ones, which should be no surprise.  If you check out Luke & Mel's food blog (see the sidebar for a link), they make them occasionally.  Her latest ones are a candy cane version with a red swirl running through them.

I have a friend who told me about her family Christmas last year.  The siblings decided to forgo their gifts to each other and 'adopt' a needy family instead.  I thought that was such a GREAT idea I proposed that to my brother & s.i.l.  So here I am, with all these kids toys & gift vouchers for the mom & dad to go on a date night.  S.I.L. and I went shopping last week, oddly (for us) not at a shoe store.  Today I will hit the dollar store for tissue paper and stuff to get this all wrapped.  It was so much fun wandering the toy aisles, and to not struggle over gift choices for adults who really don't need anything.

Christmas rush & Fitness

Recently finished Christmas quilt.  Too cute!!

I love this time of year when I can put the Christmas quilt on the bed in the guest room.

Bad bread maker, bad!!  This is failed loaf #2 - sweet potato bread.  It tasted good but the texture was very dense, because it should have been twice this size and nice & airy.  Black & Decker gets one more try then it's back to the store.

This weeks quilt - beautiful neutrals - creams through browns & greys.

How to get ready for a long day of slaving over a hot, whizzing needle.

• 5 sets of Sun Salutations
• stretch the hamstrings
• stoke the fireplace & pour another coffee
• step away from the computer...

I'm close to finishing this quilt - down to the last set of borders. My customer (lucky woman) will be leaving for the southern climes this coming week, for the whole winter. She wants to take this with her so I need to keep my butt moving.

Recipe for Disaster #1:

• take one brand new breadmaker
• take one recipe from a different breadmaker
• take one cook who usually experiences quasi-failures with the breadmaker makes, ahem, interesting loaves of bread

Speaking of keeping my butt moving, how's this for Recipe for Disaster #2:
We're going skating this afternoon. It's a free skate sponsored by the Caledonia Kinsmen. Admission is a donation to the food bank. So far it's cost us $120.00. I needed new skates and DH needed his sharpened. We both needed new blade protectors. It will be interesting to see how much this REALLY costs, when I add in the food and the lost wages after I break my hip.

Cats Playing Patty-cake, what they were saying...

Scary Food News? Or, Good Food News?

 In the weekend Spectator Nick Bontis says one of the top five careers by 2020 will be:

 • Pharmers: These bioscience professionals are responsible for developing new foods that are both safe and therapeutic. Think of them as glorified gardeners with a PhD in biology and a passion for orthomolecular nutrition. Imagine a world with healthy foods that actually protect you from diseases. You will get all your vitamins and minerals from your daily intake of milk because Bessie the cow was eating specially formulated hay.

First, I had to stop and very slowly say o r t h o m o l e c u l a r .  Then I thought about my plain, old, ordinary leeks that went in the freezer this morning.  And the plain, old, ordinary tomatoes, and zucchini.  The plain old raspberries.  Blueberries.  Sweet potatoes.  And all the other plain, old, ordinary stuff I eat every day.  Is that all becoming just so much chopped liver?  I really don't want growth hormones in my milk, (growth hormones in milk are banned in Canada.  Yaay.).  Corn and soybeans are genetically modified (not all, but trust me - PLENTY).  I wonder if evil, black hat wearing Monsanto Chemical is behind the 'pharmer' career path?  Here is one little wiki link about growth hormones & beef. 

If you don't want to click the link, here is one tiny excerpt. (rBSG is a growth hormone permitted in the USA.)

On September 30, 2010, a U.S. court of appeal found based on studies presented that there is a "compositional difference" between milk from rBSG-treated cows and untreated milk. The court found that studies have shown that rBST milk has: increased levels of the hormone IGF-1; lower nutritional quality when produced at certain points in the cow's lactation cycle; and more pus in the milk (increased somatic cell counts), which "make the milk turn sour more quickly and is another indicator of poor milk quality."

OK, I'm going down to the basement now where I can bury my head in the sand.