f . . e . . b. . r. . . u . . . . MARCH

February - such fond memories:

SNOW

BITTER COLD

SNOW

BITTER COLD

RAIN

FLOODING

SNOW

BITTER COLD

Hmmmm. . . fond? memories? Well, there will be memories of the coldest winter in about 20 years. I'm not so sure how fond the memories will be.

Newton was attempting to get the ice up off the driveway this afternoon - before more snow comes.

But the changes - they are a-comin' . . .

Due to Daylight Savings Time, we will lose an hour between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Lent begins Wednesday, March 5.

That means FAT Tuesday is March 4.

Easter is on the horizon along with Spring. 

Time is flying, as usual.

I spent my day in the kitchen today - dishes, and making dinner. I made Beef Enchiladas for dinner. I really didn't have a recipe to follow, so I improvised. My favorite Enchiladas recipe is for chicken and it has a verde sauce.  I love verde, but just didn't seem like it would work with the beef so I used salsa. These casseroles are fairly quick and easy to put together.

ground beef - browned and drained
add taco seasoning and water for the quantity of beef you are making.  I made almost 3 pounds of meat, so I                           used 3 packages of seasoning.
2 pouches of Success Rice
1/2 of large jar of salsa

I combined all the ingredients and filled flour tortillas. Placed in 9x13 baking dished sprayed with cooking spray. I topped with the rest of the salsa and cheese. Baked at 350 degrees (F) for about 30 minutes. Just long enough to warm through and melt the cheese.

My BFF said she uses a whole jar of salsa, adds a can of cream of mushroom soup, cheese AND sour cream. That sounded like just too much stuff. Also, Honey Do is lactose intolerant so I tend to lighten up the dairy products. Extra cheese, salsa and sour cream are at the table and anyone that wants it can add it to their plate. It's also one of those casseroles that you can make it to your liking. Add what you want, take out what you don't. But I made it the way my family will like it and there is plenty leftover for another meal. My sweet Honey Do brought me a salad for dinner so I'll have the enchiladas tomorrow for lunch. :) I know, he's a sweetie :)

I started a new project tonight for the weekend. I drew these mittens off a while back. I've already done two other blocks and have a fourth drawn off. I'm going to make a wall hanging out of them. I need something for winter - even though it's quickly (we hope) coming to an end. I'm stitching in a variegated blue floss. This one should finish up rather quickly. Something in-between Bethlehem. Block 4 to begin on Monday :)

I was playing around on Facebook this evening and found numerous free patterns to share.

door stop elephant - this one is just too cute!

Autumn tree - I can see making this in various color combinations for each season. Wouldn't that be fun?

Apron - I love aprons. This one is very feminine.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a creative weekend.

Baby, it's cold out . . .

Well, the Arctic freeze is upon us once again. And more snow, today, and at least another six inches expected over the weekend !!

I was able to meet with BFF this morning for breakfast. As a bonus, Sister got the afternoon off and took me to lunch :) She had an ulterior motive - her basement flooded a week ago when we had that slight warm up, so she's cleaning and purging. She had upholstery fabric and was gifting it to me. I need to repair my sofa from Miss Nina's "redecorating" attempts.

The temperature is steadily dropping today, winds are gusting and at times, I had zero visibility coming home. But I'm home now and happy and at least a little warmer.

Earlier in the week, I was catching up on reading my favorite blogs. Jenny of Elefantz moved to a new home in December and is getting around to making the house more like home with the addition of decorative linens - or "doilies" for those of us that know what they are. I grew up with dresser scarves and crocheted doilies all over the house: arm chairs, the backs of chairs on coffee and end tables, etc. She mentioned the she found quite a few of hers at local thrift stores. I have inherited some from a favorite aunt, my sister has made me some, Mom has been sharing hers lately.

I had a meeting yesterday and there was a thrift store I wanted to check out, having not shopped before. I was so excited. Look what I found:

Cross Stitch Napkins. This set of five cost me less than $5.00 !!

This dresser scarf was less than $2.00 !!

I also found some things that need a good washing, but will be Christmas gifts.

  

Both together were less than $10.00 !!

I feel like I hit the jack pot ! This particular store has 50% promotional coupons every February, March and August. I'd already used my coupon for February so I was excited that I found all this and some articles of clothing for less than $20.00!! 

I've mentioned Nina, numerous times. She's 4 1/2 months old. So we are very definitely full-on in the puppy-stage. And when I say full-on, I mean full-on !!

Look at this face. . . This is a face only a dog lover could love because she is admitting guilt !!

Yesterday - it was an embroidery hoop . . . in splinters . . .

Today . . .

It was a ball of yarn - matted, tangled, a mess. I spent the evening de-tangling it. All's good. She's still loved and will probably get into something else tomorrow.

How could you not love that face ? 

:)

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a creative week.

It's a good day for soup

The Arctic freeze is back on the horizon. Monday night was so cold. I'm so glad I made all those crocheted, scrap afghans. They are keeping me warm.

Today was BFF and my bi-weekly breakfast out. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. We got snow over-night and I wasn't willing to chance the 40 miles trip. So instead, and because it's so cold, I decided it was a good day for soup and crusty bread.

I found this Pasta e Fagioli on Pinterst.

Here's what you need:

 2 lb ground beef

1 chopped onion

3 chopped carrots

4 chopped celery

 2 (28 oz) undrained cans diced tomatoes

 1 (16 oz) drained can red kidney beans

1 (16 oz) drained can white kidney beans

 3 (10 oz) cans beef stock

 3 t oregano

 2 t pepper

 5 t parsley

 1 t Tabasco sauce (optional)

 1 (20 oz) jar spaghetti sauce

 8 oz pasta

 Brown beef. Add to crock pot w/everything except pasta. Cook LOW 7-8 hours or HIGH 4-5 hours. During last 30 min on high or 1 hour on low, add pasta.

This is a very forgiving recipe. My package of ground beef was about 2.25 pounds - so I used it all.

I used white northern and black beans - just to change it up a bit.

I used a quart box of stock, instead of 3 cans. So it was just a smidge more and my jar of spaghetti sauce was 24 ounces.

The extra liquid in the stock and sauce easily accommodated the extra can of beans. I adjusted the seasonings a bit too and I add a little salt.

Filling,satisfying and easy to make. There was enough left over for dinner tomorrow :)

Since I was home today, I kept myself very busy. And I'm super happy about all that I accomplished:

3 loads of laundry

clean sheets on the bed

dishes

made the soup

swept floors

and did some sewing on the machine - some Christmas sewing. I don't have my one gift done this month - yet. It's fun and cute and I can't wait to show you. But it's not finished yet. Maybe, tomorrow

I'm practicing my 30 minutes of sewing for the 30/30 Challenge. Are you ready? You can get all the details here.

I also had the time to read.

This is an amazing book. It's not very big, or very long (only 72 pages), but it gives you a different perspective on the birth and life of Christ. It's fiction, but Mr. Jenkins did a phenomenal job telling the story. I purchased it for BFF for Christmas next year.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a creative week.

Monday motivation . . .

Extremely slow start today. But to that end, it's amazing how good you feel after the cleaning and laundry are done :)

I did manage to get some stitching done on Block #3 of Bethlehem. There's quite a bit of metallic thread on this one, so it's a pretty slow go. I didn't get much else done since Saturday in the crafting department. 

Taz - "where's Nina?"

"it's mine" . . . "No, it's mine . . ."

Nina - "Missy, are you sure you don't want to play?"

"Guess I'll just play by myself then!"

We did manage some play time. My pups all enjoy that.

Thanks so much for stopping by

Wishing you a creative week.

Fresh start

Sunday,

My favorite day of the week.  I get to spend some time with my third and fourth graders, enjoying the Lord's Word and lessons and finding creative ways to share that joy. I work with a good team of two men and another lady, all, of course, who love the Lord. Today we played a "human" board game using questions from the first quarter's lessons (I and II Kings) and dice to move. It was a fun way to review what we've been learning for the last 12 weeks. It's hard to believe we've already gone through so much of the current school year. It was fun to learn the history of Elisha and even incorporate some of those lessons into today's every day life.

I'm seeing a lot of green the last couple of days.  We started the week like this:

       

This pile of snow was three times this size just a couple of days ago and the whole back yard was flooded from all the rain and melting snow.

I discovered these this morning - daffodils. Spring is not too far off :)

We had a good, productive weekend at my house.  Newton spent the weekend at Young Marines. We are joining a new unit, so he was a little nervous but from everything I've seen so far, I think it will be a good fit.

Sister came over and we finished her snowman quilt. All that was left was the binding. She did really good for her first attempt.

While Sister worked on her quilt, I finally got some of the mending done that I've been attempting to do all winter:

2 pairs of Honey Do's jeans

1 pair of Newton's jean shorts 

2 or 3 t-shirts

a knit sweater of mine

2 pairs of capris - mine

VERY productive. My sewing table is clean again.

I managed to get a little done on Bethlehem Block 3. Working with metallic thread is neither quick or easy work, so this is going to take longer than I thought it would.

Dinner Saturday evening was provided by a customer of Honey Do's. We were gifted with fresh lake perch and croppy, about 5 pounds worth. This is all that's left :)

It was very tasty. So appreciative of generous people who share their efforts. This gentleman went ice-fishing in January. So the fish was very fresh. It was a very nice change of pace.

Today's dinner is stuffed burgers. Honey Do, per my request, gave me some suggestions for meals this past week. We had chicken cordon blue the other day and today are the burgers.

They were stuffed with blue cheese and spinach. So tasty. I told you earlier in the week I was in a cooking rut. Sometimes the brain just can't come up with something different. I was glad for the suggestions.

One of my favorite series of books is from Gooseberry Patch. They are up to number 15 or 16 now. I have discovered the older issues are extremely inexpensive on Amazon so I've begun ordering them.

They are a great resource of recipes and craft ideas. I'm going to start "shopping" them for ideas for Christmas gifts for next year.

Thank you for stopping by,

Wishing you a creative week.

Friday Night Sew In

I hope you were all able to join us. It was a very product evening for me:

First up, Broken Wheel counted cross stitch . . . Done :)

If you are interested in this series, you can find it here, along with the first two blocks. They go together very quickly.  I started mine Thursday evening and it's done.

Next, Bethlehem Block 3

I got myself an easy dinner, curry chicken salad, chips and coffee.

and a few of movies.

    

If you haven't already checked out Pinterest (I spend way too much time here), you should. You will not be disappointed. A year and a half ago I didn't even know what it was and now it's one of my favorite resources for recipes, ideas and lots of free patterns. Here are some examples:

 Floral pillow

 Brulap wreath

 Notebook cover

I want to take this time and wish a couple of really sweet ladies Happy Birthday.

Jenny and Melody.

I hope they both had great days and wishing them many more. Both have their own blogs and I've linked you up so you can go and wish them the very best.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a creative Friday Night Sew-In.