I'm driving out this morning to pick up my mom. We're going to get up at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow to watch the royal wedding. My mom is the same age as Queen Elizabeth and has always been a fan of anything royal. Did I mention that she has a near obsession about anything Diana?
After we watch the wedding live we're going to meet up with at a wedding celebration hosted by two of my neighbors. Hats and gloves are required. I have the hat but gloves are going to be a problem. All of my vintage gloves are really, really small. Everyone seems to have had very tiny hands back then. Perhaps I'll just carry the gloves.
Also, we're going to have very Queenly handbags. No shoulder bags but proper hand bags with short handles that sit perfectly in the crook of you arm.
Did you ever wonder what Queen Elizabeth could possibly have in that handbag? Breath mints? Lipstick? Certainly no credit cards.
Are you going to be watching too? Do you have any plans to celebrate with others? Around here in rural Illinois we're always looking for something to celebrate. Sometimes we make stuff up.
Maybe I'll wear shades to throw off the paparazzi.
Should I bust out my jewels? These........
..... or these?
Which do you think?
I'd like to arrive in this.
Or do you think the Carthedral would be more apropos?
The most important part of the day will be to see the wedding gown. Neighbor Jacki graduated from fashion design school and has made wedding gowns. Her and I are always trying to figure out how the dresses are constructed. We scrutinize fabric, lace, pearls, jewels and underpinnings. Needless to say this will be a fun day for us.
Hope you'll be watching along. After the wedding we can talk about the event!
ALERT - If you are squeamish you might want to cruise along to the next blog. Nothing much affects me except for those thousands of tarantulas that I encountered crossing the road late one night in west Texas!
Mowing has become a big problem because with all the late snow and the biblical rainstorms that followed the grass grew crazily and rain upon rain didn't allow a moment for mowing. Now it's incredibly tall and clogging up the tractor.
I'm doing my best, carving off small portions and not trying to take a wide swath. As I reach the west side of our property I notice something out of the corner of my eye. Remember, I studied anthropology and archaeology so I can spot a bone from 50 yards.
Bones! Big bones. Where's Temperance Brennan when you need her? Those of you who don't understand the reference - Temperance is the lead character inn a number of books and a TV show. She's a forensic anthropogist but she wouldn't be called in on this case because these are large animal bones and not human. Phew!
It's a hind quarter or fore quarter of a deer. I'm not much wanting to find the rest of the carcass on my property because I don't want to dispose of something that large. This I can deal with..... uh, er... actually I can get the Farmer to deal with it.
I bang on the window and let him know his presence is required in the yard. He's not much wanting to be interrupted because he's working on some indoor projects and he's crabby.
We both gaze upon the remains and say a prayer for Bambi's mom.
This was a full grown deer but probably wounded or ill, allowing the coyotes to take it down.
The Farmer picks up the remains using a large pair of pruners, a multi-tasking tool.
At the recent blog get-together one of the women talked about the romanticization of country living. The romantic notion never takes into account the fact that your chickens will be killed by foxes or that coyotes will drag the remains of their evening meal into your yard. It's the natural order of things. Life and death. Food chain.
The only creatures with no excuse for living are tarantulas. Oh, and Boxelder bugs.
Good morning everyone. Sorry I couldn't visit with you yesterday but we were all in a food induced coma. You know, the Easter variety.
This morning I've got some delicious cupcakes to share.
And a Reese's peanut butter egg. We're going to call upong the loaves-and-fishes effect so there will be plenty for everyone.
How was your weekend? Did you eat lots of food and visit with family and friends?
We went to my sister's home for a wonderful meal. Everyone brought something which meant it was like the best potluck dinner ever! Speaking of which, did you know that certain local health departments (not naming names here) have made potlucks illegal? Church potlucks are now illegal, unless you do not advertise it in any way, including the church bulletin. Guess these things have got to be word of mouth now. All us church potluck people are going underground!!
Here's what we ate - ham, hash brown casserole, sweet potato casserole, Polish sausage and sauerkraut, vegetable casserole, corn casserole, deviled eggs, oatmeal pie (poor man's pecan pie), cheesecake, cupcakes, Snickerdoodles, carrot cake, homemade vanilla ice cream, homemade grape sherbet ........ did I mention ham??
You can easily see why I was a little under the weather yesterday.
I'd like to introduce you to Ryo Chijiiwa. I've been reading his blog "Laptop and a Rifle" for some time. Here's how he describes himself:
"I'm a biologically Japanese, culturally American, Germany-raised, socially liberal, politically independent, gun-totin', code writin' dude who likes to chill on his 60 acres of vacant land."
I found his blog via the Tiny House blog. Ryo quit his job as a programmer and used his savings to buy 60 acres of land in northern California. He launched on a Walden-type project, building a tiny cabin and living alone in nature.
After the Japanese earthquake and tsunami he volunteered his services to an organization called All Hands Volunteers. He's currently in Japan, using his carpentry and Japanese language skills to help the people recover from the disaster.
Today's post contains questions and answers about his service in Japan. It's very interesting to read about the efforts on the ground.
Thanks for visiting with me this morning. It's kind of a short meeting but I've got tons of things to do around this house today and I better get busy!
There are lots of nationwide chains in the northern Illinois area but I find them to be sterile and uninviting. There are several independent stores and them seem to have better prices but my favorites stores of all are what I'll call the ethnic markets.
One in particular is an Italian grocer who has built a store nearby. They also have a store about 20 miles from here that is my favorite. The vegetables are so fresh they still have some dirt on them! There is no such thing as a waxed apple.
They also carry multi-ethnic foods such as Indian, Chinese, Mexican and Polish.
Here are the Polish gherkins.
These are little bite sized treats for the Farmer.
This cucumber and onion salad is a nice side dish on evenings I can't think of anything else.
I would like to make some Indian food but without some instruction I'm lost.
How about you. Do you have any ethnic markets nearby?
I've got a couple confessions to make. Number one, I'm a very messy cook.
It's amazing to me when I see those TV chefs cooking and baking in a kitchen (and a white apron) that is spotless. How do they do that? The minute I turn on the Kitchen Aid there's a cloud of flour and cocoa floating around.
Confession number two - I've never had a whoopie pie. Seriously, how did that happen? I must lead a very sheltered midwestern life. I've eaten my share of Moon Pie in my day but never one single whoopie pie.
Several food blogs have featured them lately and the Sunday Chicago Tribune published a recipe, so I thought it was time to bake some up and taste test them.
The best part of baking is the clean up. You know, the part where you get to lick the bowl.
The first batch of whoopies out of the oven were fairly uniform in size, at least there were matching pairs.
But soon things started to go awry.
Towards the end the whoopies were getting quite large and misshapen. Shades of blue/green alien scones.
I wasn't too sure about the filling because I'm not a big fan of Marshmallow Fluff.
But it's combined with butter, vanilla and powdered sugar. The result? HEAVEN.
Here's one of the more decently shaped whoopie pies. The verdict? Delicious! The whoopie part is more cake than cookie and it's barely sweet, leaving that job to the creamy white filling.
I've heard that they are very big in Maine so perhaps I'll move there and live out my days eating lobster and whoopie pies.
Oh, I forgot. Maine gets the same winter weather as Illinois so maybe not!
How about you? Have you had a whoopie pie? Do you love them?
Sorry, I can't share the Tribune's recipe without permission but here's Martha's version:
Come along with me to a baby shower. It was given for my niece Heaether and it was wonderful. If you're planning a similar event in the future, I promise you that you'll get lots of ideas.
First of all, attention all lifestyle and creative magazines. You need to contact my sister and do a story on her. Seriously, she's got some terrific ideas. Wait until you see!
My sister is very much into vintage things. She lives in a 1950's ranch house and has filled it with wonderful, period things. Her and I both collect hammered aluminum pieces. For the baby shower she found vintage vases and plant containers from back in the day when moms stayed in the hospital for more than 24 hours. The Other Mother remembers being in the hospital for one entire week when the Farmer was born.
Here's a vintage container filled with fresh flowers, welcoming us to the party. Notice it's sitting on one of her hammered aluminum pieces.
Of course there's lots of wonderful food. Here's some nice cheese and tasty crackers.
Crackers and dip displayed in a vintage bowl.
Here's Heaether, waiting to open her gifts. My sister is explaining that in lieu of play games we are going to put a kit together. A kit, you ask? Yes, she compiled all the items needed to put together birthing kits to be sent to midwives in Haiti. Women in Haiti are giving birth without benefit of sterile conditions. The kit included a piece of plastic sheeting, alcohol wiwipes, cotton string, a few other items and a receiving blanket for the baby. It was a great feeling to know that we were doing something to help women who could not deliver their babies in hospitals.
This is a diaper cake that was assembled using biodegradable diapers. It's a cute decoration that can actually be used later.
My sister found vintage napkins and used teething rings as napkin holders.
I baked miniature cookie bites for the dessert table. These were addicting!! No way to eat just one.
Here's the cake. It was so adorable. Inside is red velvet cake. As cute and wonderful as this cake is, I'll have to admit that rolled fondant tastes like wet cardboard.
Have some veggie dip. Notice my sister's collector's baskets on the left.
She used a crib dust ruffle to run along the mantle and found all these wonderful vintage dresses to display.
It was such a cute idea.
All the dresses were adorable except one. Here's my sister-in-law and my niece Kim sitting in front of the scary clown dress.
Everybody that walked in had the same reaction......scary clown!!
This is the cutest idea of all. My sister slipped the salt and pepper shakers into vintage crocheted booties.
Remember when I baked those rubber ducky cookies? Here they are, individually wrapped and sitting in a basket for guests to take as a party favor.
Thanks so much for coming along. I hope you got some ideas. My niece kept exclaiming, "My mom created the cutest baby shower, ever!"
Good Morning everyone. Thanks so much for your patience.
I want to thank everyone for their comments and e-mails wondering about the status of the midwest. It's still VERY cold and as for myself, I'm getting very impatient for spring to arrive. The robins are confused and my crocuses are popsicles.
Here's a bad video of the snow we had last weekend.
To brighten up our morning I have something that was sent by my follower and pen pal in Germany - Silke!
It's a Heidel chocolate bar! I'll say one thing, the Europeans know how to do chocolate. I took a small bite and this chocolate is very smooth and creamy. There's enough to go around for all of us to share because I'm invoking the "loaves and fishes" effect.
The packaging is beautiful. It's printed with dots of gold ink. Very lovely. But look in the rabbit's knapsack! Just what I need this morning, pussy willows and tulips.
Yesterday my friend Vee had a photo of tulips on her blog. It inspired me to seek out some fresh flowers on my trip to the grocery store. Unfortunately, they were ridiculously priced. I had to take a pass and be satisfied with some cyber flowers.
Vee also asked me if things were looking up in the midwest. The answer is NO. Penny, I would love to have a more positive attitude but I think because my house is still in such an uproar it affects my mood. It was 34 degrees yesterday, with a wind chill of about 21 degrees. Today is not much better, it's only 35.
I met a wonderful and talented woman at the recent Midwest Bloggers Get Together. Her name is Elizabeth Berg. During our round table discussion session it became apparent that Elizabeth was wanting to start a blog. Everyone encouraged her and now she's the newest addition to the blogging community. Her blog is called Fabby Chic and she creates all kinds of wonderful things.
Here's another cool blog I found whilst poking around the internet during the snowstorm. It's a cooking/baking blog called Ezra Pound Cake. Isn't that the coolest blog name ever?
My blogging is broken. I am so remiss in showing you some wonderful things. I have pictures from the blog get together and lots of photos and ideas from my nieces baby shower.
The Farmer and I are going through all our books before we put our library back together. In the process I rediscovered a fun book that I found at Goodwill. It's entitled, The Official Rules and Explanations, a compilation of laws, conclusions, theorems and principles.
Here are a few, the first one relates to me big time.
Bernstein's Law of Declining Progress -
One begins to lost interest in any given task and slacks off just as one is beginning to get somewhere in accomplishing that task.
Emergency Rule
In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling concerning prayer in this biulding will be temporarily suspended. (Handwritten sign found posted in a federal office building in Washington, D.C.)
Gandhi's Observation
There is more to life than increasing it's speed.
Have a great day everyone. Let me know what you are up to and what the weather is in your corner of the world.
Guess what? I'm feeling better already. Getting together with you for this meeting has raised my energy levels and my mood. I'm off to put this house back together and spend time in my sewing room.
Remember my mantra, do something creative every day!
Sorry it's kind of dark but it was cloudy and dreary outside. We're still waiting for spring to show up because one 60 degree day does not a spring make.
I hope you have a wonderful Saturday.
UPDATE: The Farmer and I went out to run some errands. I can say without a doubt that midwesterners are now a very, very crabby bunch. It's 41 degrees and as you see in the video the winds are blowing hard, 20 mph with gusts. The wind chill chart tells me that the equivalent air temperature is about 21 degrees. April 16th.....21 degrees. Poke me with a fork, I'm crabby and done.
FURTHER UPDATE: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse....SNOW!!!! I'm not talking a few little flakes here and there, I'm talking a blowing snowstorm. Not that it will stick, but still......
While working on updating and maintaining this house it has become apparent to me that some of our hard work is visible and in plain sight. Anyone can see that the rooms have been freshly painted. We're at a point now that I must wait for the Farmer's help in order to put bookcases and furniture back in the office and so while I'm waiting for him to be free I decided to create some hidden work for myself.
The workman took the doors off the coat closet in order to sand and finish the floors. I removed all the coats and junk that had accumulated and it became glaringly apparent to me that the closet needed to be painted.
Let me mention at this point that the man who built this house hired a female architect. How do I know this? Well, for starters he told us as much. I probably could have figured it out anyway. Why? Because of the closets!!
This house has a closet in each of the four bedrooms and a linen closet for each bedroom. There's a linen closet in the two bathrooms and two linens closets in the upstairs hallway. Then there are two coat closets - one in the front hall and one in the laundry/mudroom. And there are two pantrys!
In theory this all sounds wonderful but the fact is that all these closets quickly become filled up with who-knows-what.
Anyway, I decided to paint that coat closet. It was originally painted stark builder's white but we chose a creamier shade.
Gotta love Martha Stewart's paint colors.
This fold out brochure is great. All kinds of beautiful colors arranged in a portable form. I've used her color Glass of Milk before but this time I decided on a color called Talc.
I could live with that lovely color of dark pink but cannot imagine the hot orange on a wall.
Martha's paint chip brochure is perfect for cutting apart and taping on a wall.
You can step back and get the effect. Translation: I'm about to make more work for myself.
Several years ago I painted stripes on the wall in the front hallway. Now I'm thinking of something taupe/grey, kinda Pottery Barn. What do you think?
Here's the freshly painted closet.
Nothing exciting but certainly something that needed to be done.
I've mentioned that my mom is coming here to spend the night on April 28th so that we can rise early and watch the royal wedding together. Mom is fond of all things royal.
My plan was to invite some of my neighbors but since the furniture hasn't arrived that plan has gone up in smoke. As it is, my mom and I will be sitting on those fold up camping chairs, watching the TV that's in the only piece of furniture in the room.
I've been planning the treats that we'll be munching on, including tea cakes, scones, clotted cream (a close version) and homemade lemon curd. Last week I pulled out Cory Amaro's scone recipe and whipped up a test batch.
I faced a dilemma in the grocery store. For the life of me I couldn't remember if I had used plain or flavored yogurt the last time I baked these scones. Hmmmmm, I decided that blueberry scones would be delicious. The scones are about to turn alien.
Mix the dry ingredients. To this add the cold butter and cut it in. I love to use my vintage pastry tool.
Add the egg. Room temperature is best.
Fold in one small container of yogurt. Plain or vanilla is nice, blueberry will produce aliens.
Mix just until blended.
Flour your work surface and turn the dough out. Here's the secret to a soft texture - knead very lightly and just pat into a circle. Cut with a juice glass.
They didn't look too bad at this point. They were a light bluish purple color when I put them into the oven.
But they came out a very odd blue/green color when they were baked. Martians!!
No matter, they were delicious with a dab of butter and they were soft and moist the next day.
I'm not quite sure what the real difference is between a biscuit and a scone. I love them both. Give the recipe a try and let me know what you think.
The Farmer's Wife lives 9 miles from anything. Join her on a journey to connect with the rest of the world and find some common ground. Visit anytime. The screen door will be open and the porch light will be on.
