This week's update...

 Wow, another week has gone by.  I don't have much to report but I do have an update on my Blackwork Stitch a Long.  This takes me up to week 30.  Can you believe it has been 30 weeks already?

If I work on the Stitch a long this week, I'll start to add the border.  I can do the border on the left side but will wait until I finish the last row on top before I do that border, etc.  That way by the time I'm done doing the individual blocks, I will only have a little bit of the border left to do.  Then I get to decide if I'll turn it into a wall hanging or make a pillow out of it.

I did manage to finish up my quilt block and sent it off to my partner.  Unfortunately I did it before I took a picture!  Oh well, when my partner receives it, she will post a picture and then I can snag it and put it up here for you to see.  I know what my next block will be but haven't picked out the colors yet.  When I do I'll show you.

How has everybody been doing?  We're going through the heat wave again here.  I will be picking out fabric to start to work on my next block for the exchange.  I also need to look for some more fabric for a dragon.  In this heat, I like to work on things that I don't have to sit down at my sewing machine.  I get too hot for that so I look for different things for hand sewing.  When it gets cooler, I'll start to finish some of the things I've stitched down.  I'm still debating on whether or not I'm gong to do that blue table runner by hand or wait for cooler weather and do it by machine.

Oh I almost forgot.  I've had around 6-8 cats showing up for breakfast.  Then they disappear until evening.  Sometimes it is the same cats/kittens and sometimes it is different ones from across the street.  Can't say  I blame them for hiding out during the day.  Smudge has gotten very chummy with me now and I can pick her up and pet her.  The only problem is that once I start to pet her or pick her up, she squirms but doesn't want to be put down.  LOL.  One thing at a time I guess.  That's about all I have for this report.

Everybody have a wonderful day!

What's Cooking!

 Before I get into what I am going to be cooking this week, let me take a moment to talk about this last week.

First of all I made:

Shephard's pie made with canned beef

Balsamic Crock Pot Chicken

Sausage Cream Cheese Casserole

   and

Chicken Tamale Casserole.

How did they all turn out?  Overall I liked all of the dishes but, obviously, some better than other.  The Shephard's pie was good.  Dan took some of the leftovers and he liked it too.  He said I could put it on the "repeat recipe" list.

I think that my favorite dish was the Balsamic Crock Pot Chicken recipe.  It had a nice flavor to it and didn't have a ton of ingredients.  I froze some, gave a serving to Dan, and had enough to try it myself.  That is one advantage of being single, I can have leftovers and still share it with friends.  It goes well over rice as well as mashed potatoes.  I'm not sure which one I liked better. 

The sausage cream cheese casserole was good but not my favorite.  It is a breakfast casserole type which I normally like.  I will change things up a bit the next time I make it.  

Last, but not least, is the Chicken Tamale Casserole.  This was "ok" but nothing great.  I think IF I make it again, I will deconstruct it a bit.  On top of the casserole is cornbread.  I think that I will make the filling separately on top of the stove and cook the cornbread separately.  The ingredients weren't bad together but nothing to brag too much about.  It was somewhat lacking so I need to think on it more before making it again.

That was last's week menu.  What's online for this week?  Obviously leftovers.  They are always on the menu.  Other things on the menu will be:

Croc Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup - scheduled for Tuesday

Sesame Garlic Ramen Noodles - scheduled for Thursday

Chicken Parmesan Pasta - scheduled for Friday since Dan picked out that this recipe sounded the best to him.  That isn't a surprise since it has Chicken and Parmesan and Pasta.  Win win for him.  LOL.

Creamy Slow Cooker Garlic and Onion Beef Roast - Scheduled for Sunday.  This brings back memories because mom would make a pot roast for Sundays when I was growing up.  This recipe is a bit different since it doesn't have the potatoes and carrots but it does have onions which I like a lot.   In addition this doesn't have  a lot of ingredients and goes in a slow cooker.  That's a win in my books.  

How does this sound to you?  Of course I will report on whether these recipes are good or not.  What is your meal plans for this week?  Curious minds want to know.  :)

What a wonderful present...

 I just couldn't wait to show everybody my nice birthday present from a friend.  It was so much fun to open up a the mail and not have a bill but instead have wonderful things in there.  

There were two needle minders in the shape of older styled sewing machines.  They are just SO cute!  Also in the package was a large piece of Aida cloth in a cream color.  Inside the package of Aida cloth was two cute little cross stitch patterns.  Another thing that I was really excited to see was the needle threader.  I saw these on an ad on facebook and I can't wait to try them out.  I will probably use them on regular needles first since I am doing cross stitch right now but I can't wait to try them out on my sewing machine needle.  

Thank you my friend for sending me these goodies!  I will probably use the cream fabric for another Blackwork project.  That isn't going to happen right away but no doubt you'll see updated pictures when I start the project.  

Have a great day.  I'll post on Thursday again because I do have something to report then too.  :)

Time to report what I've been up to

 I'm in the middle of storms again so I thought I'd better update with some pictures now, instead of waiting until Thursday, while I can.  Here we go.

First of all....drum roll please...I have a finish!!!  Well sort of.  :)  I finished the stitching on the Christmas stocking cross stitch.  That counts, right?  

Sorry I'm showing it without ironing it first but oh well.  I was too excited.  Now what to do with it?  I was thinking of making a mini wall hanging out of it.  I won't quilt much but I through to trim it down and then maybe just put on a border.  I would quilt the border area.  I found this fabric that I thought might work for the border.  What do you think?

Not only did I finish the stocking but I caught up, again, with my blackwork.  The next block comes out tomorrow (Wednesday) so I can't wait.

Two more weeks and then I will start the last border.  I liked how I did the inner border.  As soon as I finish one side, I started to add the border to that side.  So by the time I get down to the last square (bottom left corner) I should have three sides of the border all finished.  

Another triumph today was finding the fabric for my August block for my block exchange.  It is tulips in a vase.  Basically it would be a darker green for the stems.  Then the red for the tulip bottoms, the yellow and red flowers for the middle of the tulip.  Another green for the two petals and finally the vase.  The pictures makes the fabric more gray but it is a muted green.

The bit of news I have is that my July partner in the block exchange sent me this pretty block.

It reminds me so much of my mother since pink was her FAVORITE color.  It will be interesting to see how all the blocks I'm receiving will work together.  

That's it for this time.  I hope you enjoyed looking at my work and that you have  a great day/night.

Menu plan for July 17 - July 26, 2023

 I have my meal plan for July 17 - July 26th so I thought I would post it here before I forgot. LOL.  Are you ready to see what I am thinking of making?

Monday - Chicken Shephard's Pie - using chicken from food pantry (have over 12 packets so need to use up some of them)

Tuesday - Leftovers

Wednesday - Balsamic Crock Pot Chicken - I will use chicken leg quarters

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Sausage Cream Cheese Casserole

Saturday - Leftovers

Sunday - Chicken Tamale Casserole - using chicken from food pantry

Monday - Leftovers

Tuesday - Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup - using chicken from food pantry

Wednesday - Leftovers

You all know me though.  Things and life can cause any of this to change at the last minute.  As I search for new recipes and contemplate what old recipes I might want to make...anything could happen.  Of course this also depends on what I have on hand and this week I found I had a lot of packets of Chicken so that was what was dominating my decisions this week.  Who knows what else I will think up of.

On a side note, the flatbread that I made is popular and my friend Dan left with my latest batch.  Another recipe that I've made over and over is the Ranch Salad Dressing recipe.   :)   

I hope everybody has a great week and let me know what YOUR favorite recipe is.

Best Laid Plans

 Well this post isn't going according to plan.  I woke up this morning thinking I would just go and add my pictures for the post and get right on it.  Oops.  Wasn't going to happen.  Sometime overnight or this morning, my computer decided not to recognize my hard drive,  That means no hard drive, no pictures, etc. to be had.  I'm typing this on my older notebook which I'm surprised is still working.  Anyway, I will report what I can and then will show pictures when I can.  

I got caught up on my blackwork.  I have the new block downloaded and took a couple of stitches on it but put it aside since yesterday was my birthday and Dan took me to the movies.  We saw the latest  Mission Impossible movie.  It was good but the only bad part is it is a part 1.  We'll have to wait for part 2 to come out.  We also saw some trailers that looked pretty good but don't ask me which ones.  I can't remember their names now.  None was coming out soon so I'm sure I'll hear about them later on.

Yesterday was also the quarterly Commodity day and boy, did I come away with a ton of fresh veggies.  I have enough to take some of the fresh veggies to our SCA meeting on Sunday  I cut up a ton of tomatoes yesterday as well as a couple of cabbages and green bell peppers.  Those I'm keeping but there is a ton of hot peppers and small cucumbers and two more cabbages that I'm going to give away on Sunday.  

That's about it for this report since I can't post pictures.  My back is bothering me today from all the activities yesterday.  I'll post again when I can.

Everybody stay safe and have a great day!

Birthday Plans

 Happy Birthday to me!  Yes I managed to survive another year and am still loving it and myself.

This post, however, is about food.  I am going to brag a bit here since I made two new recipes this week and they turned out pretty good.  One was Flatbread and the other was Butter Chicken.  I will definitely make both again.  What else did I make this past week?

I had breakfast burritos salad

Shrimp Scampi leftovers (still good)

Plenty of salads

Chicken noodle soup

Butter Chicken and flatbread

and leftovers.

That means it is time to look at what to make for the upcoming week.  So far I have the following recipes in the running.

Balsamic Crock Pot Chicken

Chicken Pot Pie Bubble Up Casserole

Tuna and Rice Bake

and a Chicken and Rice casserole. 

I've made the Chicken and Rice casserole (not bubble up) before so I know that will work out.  Another possibility might be a chicken tamale casserole.  I have to check to see if I have a cornbread mix.  

I don't know what I'll have today because Dan is taking me to the movies for my birthday and I know I'll have something there.  We'll have to see but if we don't go out to eat then I'll just have a salad.  I'll have to let you know.

Everybody have a great day because I know that I will.  :)

Craft plans

 Even in this heat I want to keep up with crafting in one form or another.  I started out this week with changing up my wall hangings.  So now I have more patriotic wall hangings up.

Now I can start to look at what I want to do for the next month's block exchange.  This is what I sent to my partner for the July block.

I'll let you know what I decide for August.  

Now on to my update on my blackwork.  This is what I have done.

On another note, I am close to starting on a new project.  I don't want to show it to you yet.  I have to wait for the right fabric to speak to me for it.  I'll see.  I might have told my friend Susan but I can't remember.  Time will tell. 

So this week I will be starting on the next blook for the Blackwork.  I'm still debating on whether I will wait until I turn the corner at the top before I start on the outer border.  It worked well for me on the inner border to work on one side at a time instead of doing it all at once.  I might try that again for the final border.

I have another project that is close to being started.  It will be a table runner.  There are so many projects that need to be finished or worked on that I doubt I will EVER run out of things to work on.  Wish me luck.  LOL.

I will let you all know next update.  :)

Take care.

Planning? What's that? Oh yeah...

 I think that I will count this as weeks plan.  :)

I weighed in today and I didn't lose any weight.  On the other hand, I didn't gain any either.  I will take that as a win.  Part of my problem was...I just didn't care.  I will admit it.  Dieting, if I can use that ugly word, just isn't fun.  At my age I deserve to have some fun.  I like to eat.  I just have to get back on track and even if I don't gain or lose weight, I just need to be held accountable.  So what did I last week?  I can't remember that much because I wasn't keeping track.  I'm bad!

This week I will try to be better.  That is my goal.  It won't matter to me if I gain weight or lose it or even stay the same.  As long as I get back into the habit of not going overboard.  I will try to eat more salads which won't be a problem as long as I get to the store to keep stocked up on lettuce.  My problem is basically what I put into the salad or on top.  That's ok.  Things will even out

So what do I have planned for this week's food?  I actually thought about it a bit and have come up with the following to eat this week.

Breakfast burritos leftovers - this is a new recipe that I made today and liked.  However I think I might just like to eat the fillings without rolling it into a tortilla.  It would be good to make a taco salad with I think. It has Italian Sausage, onions (yellow onion and green onions), hash browns, eggs, and cheese.

July 4th - shrimp scampi and lobster tails, corn, garlic bread. Yeah, this is probably what will make me gain weight.  :)

Omelets

Shephard's Pie - made on stove top

Tuna salad - possibly

Whatcha think?  I figure a couple of those days will give me enough for leftovers.  Of course on July 4th leftovers might go back with Dan but we'll see.

Do you have any plans for meals this week?  What about on the 4th?

No matter what, have a safe and delicious week.