The children grew up. After looking at these pictures, I feel as if I’ve been on earth for over a hundred years. Maybe two hundred. I don’t dare go back and look at the baby pictures.
Son #1 in Nebraska
Sweet Daughter in New Orleans
Son #2 in England
1952, my mother and I.
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Son #3 in Idaho
There was once a turkey named Cyrus
Who decided to peck in my iris.
His friends chose to squabble
And Cy gobble-gobbled
‘Til I wished they all had laryngitis.
I have nothing to say. I have lots of stuff to say. I have a bunch of photos to share. I have no time to crop photos and upload them. I’m sure you are tired of looking at tulips anyway. I have pictures of a great day with the Little Fabric Princess at Sew Expo. I have pictures of an apricot tart, my new favorite recipe.
but…
I have a book due June 3, line-edits and minor revisions due on a previous book next week, plus art fact sheets (pages and pages of them) for the book cover and foreign sales due today.
I am up at 4 am. In bed by 8 pm. Banjo Man has been installing trim in the basement. I wear ear plugs and noise-cancelling headphones all day. I put black out shades on my office windows. I am jogging and gaining weight and I’m pretty sure I have to give up popcorn.
So now I am going to stop whining and will find a photo to brighten up this post, because I miss blogging every day.
Bye for now.
my running track
Spider web quilt
I’m a writer, therefore I can think of all sorts of things to do other than writing.
When I should be writing.
Other writers laugh at this. We all know how we are. Stephen Pressfield calls it “Resistance”. Eric Maisel calls it “creative anxiety”.
I call it “resting my eyes from the computer monitor”.
This is a quilt top being made from nothing but scraps. Last year I pieced together lots and lots of scraps and cut lots and lots of 1.5″ strips out of odds and ends of fabric. When quilting fabric costs $11.00 a yard, you don’t want to waste it.
Years ago I made a design wall out of a folding screen bought at a yard sale. Banjo Man helped me with the stapling and it has been a big help when planning quilt designs. I also use it to block off messes, because cleaning up messes is also a great thing to do when I should be writing.
You can see I make wild, colorful quilts. My friends and relatives and Banjo Man are not quite sure about these quilts, so when I make quilts for gifts I turn the volume down, way down. I become absolutely demure.
Sam Taber’s baby quilt (front)
Sam Taber’s baby quilt (back)
Dancing Mandolin Player is having knee replacement surgery today.
My Sweet Daughter-in-law is having thyroid surgery today.
I’ve been up since 4 AM thinking about both of them.
Surgery is not fun, but they will both feel better when this is over. And then they will be ready to party.
Meanwhile I am thinking about them and wishing I was in Texas and Idaho to make chicken casseroles and meatballs and mashed potatoes.
So, in honor of comfort food, I am going to share Grandpa’s Meatballs. My father, though not Italian, loved Italian food. He longed to be able to cook like many of his Italian friends and neighbors, so he talked a friend named Anne Marie into teaching him how to make meatballs.
And then he taught me.
I make them for my friends who need a little lift. It’s my ultimate comfort food.
FOR THE MEATBALLS:
2 pounds of hamburger
2 eggs
1 cup parmesan cheese
2 handfuls of dried parsley
1 handful of oregano
3 shakes around the bowl of garlic powder
5 shakes around the bowl of onion powder
2 slices of bread soaked briefly in warm water,then squeezed
This goes in a mixing bowl with dough hooks or can be mixed by hand until completely blended.
This is the recipe doubled.
Then roll the balls the size of big walnuts (we like small meatballs) and put on a cookie sheet. I bake these at 350 for about half an hour, until they are cooked. Try not to burn the bottoms.
FOR THE SAUCE:
1 garlic clove, minced
1 chopped onion
1 2-lb can of Rosella tomatoes (I like diced tomatoes of any brand)
2 6 oz cans of tomato paste
a palm*** of salt
a palm of pepper
a palm of parsley
a palm of oregano
Saute the garlic and onion in a large pan with a little olive oil. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Add the can of tomatoes and mash. Cook on med-high vigorously for about 5 minutes, to cook off some of the liquid in the tomatoes.
Add the two cans of tomato paste, plus 4 cans of water for each can of tomato paste.
Add seasonings and bring to a slow boil, then simmer.
Add the meatballs and simmer for a few hours. You can also put this in the crock pot. The sauce should bubble every once in a while.
TO ADD SAUSAGE:
Cut up a pound of hot or sweet Italian sausage, put it into an oven-proof frying pan and bake it for 30 minutes, or until cooked through. Add this, including any fat, to the sauce.
*my best guess: a handful is 1/2 cup
**a “shake” is a circle around the mixing bowl
***my best guess: a “palm” is 1/2 TBS
I want to make a quilt with these colors.
Is this what they call “petal pink”?
I dreamt of the 28-foot shark last night. By 6 AM I was awake and ready to head to the beach, but I’d had a dream that Banjo Man told me we couldn’t go until it stopped raining. It took me a little while to wake up and realize the sun was shining.
I talked Banjo Man into going for a drive at 7 AM. I grabbed a coffee mug and we pretended we were on a road trip and complimented each other on getting such an early start.
We’re silly.
Anyway, the shark had been removed by DEM (damn it!!!), but we enjoyed the drive to the beach. And I took some pictures to show you what it looks like around here.
On the way home we saw cows.
And that’s about as exciting as it gets.
photo by Mystic Aquarium
This 28-foot basking shark washed up on a nearby beach yesterday. I’m hoping to talk Banjo Man into going down there and taking photos with me tomorrow. Wow!!!!
To read more about it, click HERE.
I have a new camera, having dropped my old one in Texas. It wasn’t the first time I dropped it, but it was the last.
I was so sad.
I went to Best Buy and tried out different cameras recommended by those of you who read this blog, but the smaller cameras were hard for my gnarled fingers to manage. I settled on a Canon Power Shot SX500 IS. It had a great grip and wasn’t enormous. The reviews were good.
Now I’m trying to learn how to use it. And trying to decide whether or not to send it back. The auto-focus is tricky. I am reading the manual over and over again. But I have a book to finish and reading camera manuals is way down on my List of Things To Do.
Opinions?
When I finish writing this book, I’m going to clean this rock.
When I finish writing this book, I’m going to rake up this leaf.
When I finish writing this book, I’m going to take this post-it note off my monitor.
Fourth of July
Glen the Banjo Man
LIVE at the Dump
is there any more pie? 