New Mats

I needed to get new mats for the kitchen and hallway.  I find that as much as I love the more organic type Indian throw rugs, they are not always practical in the kitchen and hallway, where you don't want them to keep slipping around.  My old ones were now at the nasty state, dried out rubber backs shedding little bits of rubber everywhere, so now was the time to break down and replace them.

I could have gone for a different pattern in the hallway to the kitchen, but decided to stick to the same pattern.  As light as they are, surprisingly they do not show much dirt or bits on them.  Especially for the traffic of having to bring in wood all the time through the front door and a lot of traffic in a small kitchen.

These rugs are actually made in Egypt.  They may last longer than my old ones; which probably lasted five years, but you know me pretty thrifty, but the backer on these is more a woven rubber.  We will see.

I didn't used to have a rug under the kitchen wooden seat and that was causing a problem of scuffing up the floor, now with the rug underneath it has solved that problem.  So will have to remember to always have a rug under that step stool.


One day I will get my kitchen wooden floor sanded and done.  I have wanted it done ever since we moved into the house ten years ago.  It's on my long wish list.

Christy

Sugar Sifter Spoon

This is a sugar sifter spoon; which I saw at Nostalgia at the Stone House.  I never knew they existed, isn't it a great idea?  It seems they've been around for centuries.  So now I'm on a mission, a sugar sifter spoon.  At least it's a low tech gadget to add.

Christy

My Office

My office work space is also the reception area and unfortunately has no windows.  So when I saw this little pot of daffodils at Trader Joe's I thought they would brighten up my work area and remind me of sunlight and spring.

That was last Friday.  I left them at the office over the weekend and when I came in Monday morning they had grown considerably and were stretching their little selves towards the sunlight that comes through the doorway from the main office area, plus they needed watering, but during the course of the day, with the lights on they straightened up, amazing.

The UPS guy says my teacup is as big as a pool, one could jump in.  The cup and saucer are from IKEA, almost the entire office is from IKEA.

I bought one of those slide picture frames for my work desk and I must say I do like it.  Of course I need to get another USB drive with a different set of photos on for a change.

So that's a little view of my daily work area.

Christy

Helping Joni a Friday Evening Dinner

This was a dinner Janice decided to have for Joni.  It is a year since Al died and we thought it might be nice to spend a little time with friends right now.  Janice put together a lovely dinner.  It was good to be together.  The four old friends, spouses and another pioneer friend.

Janice makes these olives in olive oil and peppers in olive oil.  You buy them when they're cheap.  The peppers you lightly fry and then put in a jar with spices and olive oil.  The olives just add spices, with the olive oil.  I can't find the recipe right now but I think you also add water.

Christy

Sunday Cooking

Apple muffins, a kind of hybrid recipe I came up with using left overs.  I had left over pancake mix, with flour, butter some sugar, eggs and milk.  Plus of course pieces of apple.  Actually they taste pretty good.

Here you can see the apple pieces.

After I put the larger apple shaped ones in the oven, I decided I should have put some spices in them, so on the second batch I decided to sprinkle cinnamon over them, but unfortunately the shaker had too larger holes.

So I remembered I had brought back from England this sugar shaker, so I filled it with cinnamon sugar I think it will be just right for that.

Marinated lemon, pepper chicken in my Provence clay cooking pot.

Sunday dinner I love all the colour, mixed veg and mashed sweet potatoes.

Well I was dashing around in the morning, our meeting is at 12:00 Noon.  Cleaning out ash from the fire, cleaning the glass, lighting the fire, putting out the trash, putting out the compost.  Changing the bed, washing linens, cleaning up the kitchen.  When I got a phone call, meeting cancelled because of ice.  I must admit after all that rushing around I was happy to know that a lot was done and the rush was ended.

Rob went out and brought in two loads of wood and cleaned the poop box.  Then we sat down with a pot of tea and honey on toast and did our Watchtower together, so that was nice.  After he went to a friends and I got into some cooking.

Christy

A Little Snow

This is a very wet snow, so looks more than it is.  There is nothing on the roads, just wet, but it does look lovely on all the trees and shrubbery.  So this is my 3:15AM view.

Take care,

Christy

The Boy and His Toy

Today My Smiles

Blue skies in the neighbourhood

The packaging sold me, New Zealand a country I very much want to visit.  Who in the earth would come up with New Zealand Springs Scent?

A card from Jean, what a great view of the Edinburgh Castle and City, I love it

Spring primula, always love their colours

Christy

Red Velvet Cake

I must admit to not making this cake from scratch.  When I first came to the States people would ask did you make that cake from scratch and I used to think what are they talking about?  Well they're asking, is it from a box or did you measure everything out from scratch.

This red velvet was a special buy box cake, so I thought I would give it a go and it's pretty good.  Well Tinkerbell thinks so.  I had the two cakes sitting on cooling racks, they had turned out of the tins perfectly as I had lined the bottom with wax paper.  I saw they were no longer perfect an animal had been eating the middle out.  Only Tinkerbell would do that, she will eat anything.  At least she hadn't got to the sides and icing will cover anything.  I had left over cream cheese, with some butter, milk, icing sugar and vanilla essence, pretty good.

Christy

She Thought of Him Fondly as "Plan B"

Well it was on clearance.

Christy