so long, diablo

Posted on January 2, 2022 by is there any more pie?

Meet my childhood friend, Diablo, a Breyer horse from 1961.  He was a great friend to my Barbie doll, too.

Now that I have turned 70 I have decided I am too old to play with horses.  Well, maybe not the real live ones (I might have another trail ride or two in my future), but certainly the ones I collected when I was a horse-mad girl.

Diablo, according to Ebay, is the only horse in my collection with any monetary value.  The other fifteen or so are porcelain and made in Japan.  Some are beautiful, though.  And might also be Ebay-worthy.  My daughter and I spent several hours yesterday unpacking the plastic bin marked “HORSES” and then scrolling through Ebay listings to see if they were worth anything.

We also ate beef stew and pumpkin pie, took down the Christmas tree and changed the decorations on the mantel.  As far as a first day of 2022, it was a good one.

Rhode Island’s governor has issued yet another mask mandate, so once again I plan to spend the winter inside my house.  It is time for a new purge, starting with horses and hopefully ending with more cleared shelves in the storage room.

I have enough quilting fabric to last through a half dozen more “variants”, so no worries there.  And today I will inventory the freezers and pantries to see what meals we will eat between now and when we leave for Idaho in April.

So…what are you doing this winter?  And what would you do with a dozen “Made in Japan” porcelain horse figurines?

 

 

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merry christmas 2021

Posted on December 25, 2021 by is there any more pie?

Merry Christmas from our cabin to yours.

For many good reasons we are not spending the holidays in a remote mountain cabin, but I did think this would have made a good Christmas card.

The old hippies are still going strong.

May 2022 bring us all good health, peace and buckets of joy.

 

 

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finished and delivered

Posted on December 17, 2021 by is there any more pie?

The “Octopus Quilt” is finished.  And delivered to Angela (she of cancer-care fame), Jeff and kids on Wednesday.

I explained that it was for snuggling on the couch.  It can be thrown in the washer and dryer, no problem.

It is to be used.

Angela loved the documentary “My Octopus  Teacher”.  It inspired her love for these sea creatures and is truly an incredible movie.  It’s one of those movies where you sit in wonder as you realize that there is so much that you don’t know about this fascinating world we inhabit.  And what a miraculous world it is!

I used other fabrics–whales and anchors and seals–to make up the blocks.  It’s the simplest and least complicated quilt I have ever made, but I wanted the blocks to be huge enough so that the octopus pattern would show to an advantage.

I hope you have time during the holidays to grab some wine or a cup of tea and see this movie.  I guarantee you will be impressed.

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my father’s favorite gig

Posted on December 13, 2021 by is there any more pie?

My father loved playing Santa Claus. Here he is back in the 90’s, greeting the crowds assembled at the local mall the day after Thanksgiving.

He arrived by helicopter that year.

“Don’t tell your mother,” he begged. His usual transportation was a fire truck, but when the opportunity arose to arrive by copter he just couldn’t resist. My mother never knew.

Dad loved children, so being Santa at various venues was right up his alley. Can you tell?

Posted in family, rhode island | 2 Comments

the big 7-0

Posted on December 11, 2021 by is there any more pie?

Call me crazy, but I sure like turning 70.

No, I’m not joking.  The last few years of my sixties were a bit…stressful.  We’ve all survived 2020 and 2021 and lived to tell the tale.  I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for 2022.  I’m ready for a new number and “70” will do just fine.

Electricians arrived the morning of my birthday and proceeded to assemble the antique glass light.  But something was wrong with the wiring and it was, alas, dead.

Worry not, my pretty. I will have you repaired.

Fortunately I had a brand new light fixture standing by.  The day before I had one of those what if the grape light doesn’t work and the electricians don’t return until January moments of worry.  I decided to brave the icy rain and drive to Home Depot for a new fixture JUST IN CASE.

Banjo Man thought I was crazy and tried to talk me out of it.

Silly man.

The new little chandelier lit up nicely–I was able to crow, “I told you so!” for the rest of the day–and all was well…until later that evening when it and the light at the bottom of the stairs stopped working.

That was very disappointing.  But I think someone is coming this morning to fix the three-way switch (I hope that’s all it is).  The wires in the attic were pronounced safe last month and the rest of the outlets on the circuit work just fine.

We had a little bit of snow on my birthday, too.  Was I happy it melted  by noon?  You bet!

Did I go out to lunch?  Of course I did!

Have I eaten all of the chocolate mousse cake my daughter brought me?  Take a wild guess!

 

 

Posted in family, food, just for fun, rhode island | 4 Comments

let there be…grapes

Posted on December 8, 2021 by is there any more pie?

This was Saturday’s cleaning project.

The next-to-the-last piece of the putting-the-house-back-together project is this chandelier (the last piece is the replacement of the front door).  Yes, this is a cluster of grapes.  I spotted it in a Nebraska antique mall almost twenty years ago, but couldn’t figure out how to get it on the plane with me.  And I was very, very sad about that.

A few months later Banjo Man, returning from another trip to Nebraska, surprised me by shipping it home on the plane with him in a huge Rubbermaid container.  Each grape was wrapped in paper towels and the whole thing was encased in a sleeping bag.

Ah, love…

When the branch came through the ceiling it missed the chandelier by inches, but the light didn’t work.  We assumed the wires in the ceiling were damaged, but an electrician assured us this was not the case.  Was the lightbulb affected?  We hope that’s all it is, because we’ve bought another one of those 15+ year-life lightbulbs and the electrician is returning tomorrow to reinstall the lamp in the entry.

Last night I googled “grape cluster glass chandelier” and discovered that this light was most likely made in France.  The glass was probably hand-blown.  And had, in the past, sold for between $1600-$2250.

You can imagine how pleased my husband was with this information, as its price in Omaha had been $35.00.

It also has metal leaves that hang from individual chains.  I painted over the bits of rust with green paint, so it looks somewhat fresher.

Very soon we’ll be back to normal!

 

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the apple blanket

Posted on December 3, 2021 by is there any more pie?

Well, it’s not exactly a blanket.  A comforter, actually.  I made it for my son Will’s first “big boy” bed about forty years ago.  He loved ladybugs and, in our small town, available fabric was limited to what was stacked in the basement of Sprouse Reitz.

(I bought a lot of flannel fabric there.)

So…back to ladybugs…

There was no ladybug fabric for the new comforter, so I settled on something similar:  red apples on a denim-looking background (hey, it was as close to the damn bugs as I could get!!!).  This comforter was only 45″ wide because I couldn’t afford to buy double the fabric to make it wider.  I backed it with an old green sheet.

Fast forward to six weeks ago, in Texas, as Will and I attempted to clean out the condo’s walk-in closet in preparation for the new flooring.

He dragged out this comforter and I immediately said, “Throw it out.”

That was not what he wanted to hear.  “Couldn’t you fix it?”

I spread it out on the floor and saw way too many rips and holes.  The beloved “Apple Blanket” had lived a full life and it was time for it to end.  I said as much, but Will balked.  Obviously he couldn’t shove it into the waiting garbage bag that easily.

“Couldn’t you save some of it?”

“For what?”

“A pillow or something, I don’t know, just anything.”

He is so much like his father.

So I found a small chunk of fabric without holes in it and cut it out.  I took off the backing and the batting and the yarn ties that held it together and folded it into my suitcase.

I suppose I can make a small pillow out of it, meaning Will would own the ugliest pillow in Austin.  Or I could add fabric around it to make it look like I planned it that way.  I don’t know.

But I can’t really complain too much, because the comforter I made in 1972, from flannel from Sprouse Reitz, is still on my bed.  It has worn thin in many places, but has yet to rip.  Until it does, it stays.

Quilts and comforters are meant to be used.  If someone has gifted you a quilt (and it is not a priceless antique or family heirloom) and its creator says to you, “Use it!!”, then do so.  The more you wash it and dry it, the better it will get.  And if it disintegrates in forty years, that’s okay.  Because you had–hopefully–forty years of warmth from it.

Which is a lot of snuggling.

The Apple Blanket did its job, and I guess a piece of it will hang around a while longer.

 

 

 

 

Posted in family, quilting | 1 Comment

the turkey takes the cake

Posted on November 28, 2021 by is there any more pie?

My father found this leather turkey (actually a decanter made in Italy) many years ago at a yard sale in Connecticut. It was a big hit at Thanksgiving in 1994.

A few years later I rescued it from one of my mother’s purges and, when Thanksgiving celebrations were moved from her house to mine, I dug him out, cleaned him up (he’s susceptible to mold and mildew) and used him once again as a centerpiece.

He is a strange guy, but he makes me laugh. In 2019 we all autographed his tail. He seems to love presiding over the dessert table, don’t you think?

Ginny outdid herself this year with pear tart, chocolate mousse cake and tiramisu.

We are so spoiled by having a gourmet baker in our midst. It’s always hard to choose which one to sample so we usually end up trying all three right from the beginning.

The turkey is now packed away with the velvet pumpkins and the rest of the decorations to await next year’s party. It wouldn’t be the same without him.

Posted in family, food, friends, rhode island | 3 Comments

we made it!

Posted on November 27, 2021 by is there any more pie?

Wednesday afternoon:

Walls are being primed while turkey is being brined.

Thursday morning:

We are ready!

Thursday afternoon:

This was the first time we’d all been together since Mom died in April, 2020.  Covid had kept us apart–no funeral, no mourning together–so this day was especially important.  The first Thanksgiving in two years!

I didn’t care if we had to eat in the basement living area or upstairs, in the middle of a mess.  Thanksgiving would happen.

We did rearrange the gallons of paint left behind for the next step, hiding a five-gallon bucket behind a chair and storing the rest in the bathroom shower stall.  Nancy came early and set the tables and made many trips to the downstairs refrigerator.  Banjo Man cleaned.

There were a few blips.  I followed the “roasting turkey breasts” directions from an tv episode of “America’s Test Kitchen”.  Banjo Man cut the backbone out of the breasts, just the way it was done on tv.  I dry-brined them.  They were roasted at 325 for an hour and a half, until the inner temp reached 130.  Then the oven temp was raised to 500 degrees so the skin could get crispy and brown and the inner temp could reach 165.

There was no smoke, but the smoke alarm had a nervous breakdown and absolutely wouldn’t stop screaming.  The windows and doors were opened, which made no difference.  Finally Banjo Man went out to the shed for a fan, which he aimed at the alarm.  Success!

And the new carving method with the electric bread knife?  Worked perfectly.

Blip #2?  No juice for the gravy!!  I’d assumed there would be from the breasts, but…nope.  On the tv show the chef had roasted turkey legs with chopped vegetables, then drained the whole thing to get eight cups of broth…done two days ahead of Thanksgiving.

I’d unfortunately skipped that part (you saw the pictures of my house, right?).

So the turkey gravy tasted like chicken gravy and wasn’t exactly fabulous.

But everything else was yummy and we ate our fill, even scraping the bottom of the green bean casserole dish where there wasn’t a green bean left.  Ha!

to be continued…

 

 

Posted in family, food, friends, rhode island | 3 Comments

happy thanksgiving 2021

Posted on November 25, 2021 by is there any more pie?

And what a happy Thanksgiving it is!

My appetizer plates and napkins. What else but pumpkins???

Everyone I talk to is giddy with joy over their Thanksgiving plans this year.  So many people are surrounding ourselves with family and friends, making the food they missed last year, welcoming new grandchildren to the festivities, remembering–together–those who aren’t with us this year.

We are together again and that is everything.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!  

 

Posted in family, friends, rhode island | 2 Comments