Happy Hearts Day!

Here is my surprise! Her name is Cat. She's an 8 year old Quarter Horse with a sweet personality. We're going to send her to school with my trainer in a couple of months. She needs a bit of a tune up as she's not been out much the last few months. The lady that had her babied her quite a bit.

Chris let me use some of our tax return on her and I got her Valentine's Day weekend so I'm calling her my Valentine's Day gift. I'd take her over jewelry or flowers any day.

Aww, she's nuzzling Amanda. I think I'm in love. Pretty girls! My heart is overflowing!

little hello

Quick little hello. Lots going on and little time to blog about it. The kids are off next week for the district furlough to save the district money. We had bad news with our shower walls, taxes are done, solar still ISN'T done, and I have a surprise coming Sat that I'll definitely have more pictures of. Changes, movement, growing, aging, it's all just moving along! Happy Wednesday!

Garden Gate flannel quilt

A new record! I finished this in less than 2 weeks! It was an easy quilt to do and feels great to cuddle up with. I'm not done with a label yet, but I'm calling this one Garden Gate. I've mostly done frayed edge quilts, so this one is a traditional quilt. I did a machine quilt along the sashing. I'm in no way patient enough for hand quilting right now. I'm into quick and easy at this point in my life. The most important thing is IT'S DONE.

The back is done with a flannel that I've had for a while. It's kind of a southwestern/pottery/kitchen/floral window looking fabric. Luckily I had JUST enough to cover the back but had to add a border to it to make it fit. I learned some stuff along the way as well so it was a win win. Now to finish my other projects...there's always some sitting around.

Happy Birthday!

My hubby turned 41 last week. He prefers a quiet day without any celebration. He's been struggling with getting more "mature". It brings back memories from the movie City Slickers where Billy Crystal's character talking about aging and how each stage has it's own milestones. I think Chris is up to the "minor procedure" stage. Shh! Don't tell him that! The funny thing is I still think of him as being 30. I did buy him an electric blanket for his birthday! Ha, ha, ha. Are we old or what? It's because I'm an energy miser and turn the heat down to 61 at night and he doesn't like it cold and tosses all night. Yeah, that's it...



It's hard to believe we've celebrated 18 birthdays together! Wait a minute! That means I'm getting older too! Aw, man! Glad I can go through it with you!

Happy Birthday honey!

Hello, sunshine!

So, we're on day 10 of rain. Being a native Cali girl I've struggled with not having at least a couple of days of sun in between storms. Last night I caved and started microwaving smores and drinking Diet Coke, sulking about feeling like I was coming down with something. Today, however, I started out on the treadmill with some Daughtry and a better outlook. Mood is all about choice, and I'm not getting sick I tell ya! I'm choosing to treat my children like they are an important part of the house and will try my best to not raise my voice at them. I'm choosing to make dinner every night this week, instead of getting bored or frustrated with the complaining about why can't we have pizza or hamburgers instead. I'm remembering to pay attention to the little things around me(including the laundry pile that I'm ignoring cause "I don't wanna") I'm also choosing to distract myself from the sunless environment by starting some new projects. Heck! I can always use a few more projects in my stack!


Meet my new quilt project. I decided I wanted another flannel quilt for the couch. We fight over the other one so I'm making more! Here are my colors. The large salmon color is the sashing and border strips in between the bricks. We'll see how it goes!

Here is my other project that isn't quite as fun. I'm ripping off the wook paneling in the dining room. I'd rather have glued up, primed, textured walls over the wood paneling! I can't take the darkness! Who knows how long it will take me to get it finished, but I've got a lot of work to do to retexture where the glue is and get it painted. I've only got the one wall ripped down and 3 more to go. Chris gave me a look that told me I was on my own, as he was completely happy ignoring the wood paneling for a few years. I better start screwing something up so he'll come rescue me! Ha, ha.

get off!

You know how you can hear the bickering escalating from the other room? The voices start getting louder, there is a squeal as one hits the other, then the GET OFF yell is screamed from Amanda. Just about the time I start to decide that I'm going to set a rule that they can't be on the same couch together(Mostly because Evan can't leave his big sister alone...ever)I walk around the corner and see them all cuddled up and giggling while watching tv. Naw, I guess I'll let them bicker a little longer.

pumpkin pancakes

Good morning! It's a BLUSTERY Tuesday morning here. I'm shocked we haven't lost power. The wind is blowing so hard it's a bit unnerving! It's been raining for a couple of days now and we have a small river in our back yard. This weekend I made my favorite pumpkin pancakes. My dog is on a pumpkin diet, so I always have a can of pumpkin in the fridge. This comes in handy when I want to make muffins and such. MY pumpkin diet isn't as healthy as hers! I finally found a pumpkin pancake recipe that was worth writing down, so here it is!

Well, after I show you a picture of my new orchid. We'll see how long it takes for me to kill this one!
And here is a picture of Chris and Amanda eating said pancakes. This is our 1970's dining den. More about the wood paneling later. These are the only pancakes Chris has made positive comments on. He's not a pancake fan.

And of course not just regular maple syrup on these babies, although it still tastes great if that's what you use. Today I had some cream cheese frosting that I spread on while they were still warm so it melted all over them. Yummmmm...nausea.....worth ittttt....Do you like my new Fiesta Ware plates??? In tangerine! I'm going to get more colors as I go. I've wanted Fiesta Ware for YEARS!!! There was a buy one get one sale at Macy's after Christmas so I retired my wedding gift every day dishes and took the plunge. I'm addicted! I love all the colors!

Here it goes:

2 cups flour 1/2 tsp salt

4 tbsp brown sugar 1 1/2 cups milk

2 tbsp baking powder 1 cup pumpkin puree

1 tsp baking soda 2 eggs

1 tsp ground allspice 2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp ground cinnamon 2 tbsp vinegar

2 tsp ginger

In a separate bowl, mix together milk, pumpkin, egg, oil, and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium heat. Pour or scoop batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown both sides and serve. Duhhh, doesn't everyone know how to cook pancakes? This last paragraph is pretty obvious. Enjoy!

They would be really good with whipped cream or an orange ginger glaze or ??? Let me know if you come up with anything else!