I need a muse

I have all this material, all the necessary tools to make something wonderful, beautiful, inspiring. However, I lack that desire to adhere two pieces of material together and have a creation that others would oooh and ahhh over.

I need a muse.

Someone or something that makes my senses come to life and want to pour out my creativity into,

intertwining threads and fabric with the fine art of a needle,

but no muse. Being a bit down and not too happy about things hinders my muse. I need a light unto my path of creativity, but it has been extinguished for now. Hopefully soon, in the very near future that light will shine again

Planter boxes now...

Have been overtaken by the marigolds, well one has, I actually pulled the marigolds out of the other planter box to put in brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower. The heavy rains we had really made the marigolds bud up. There are so many flowers on there. I don't know what variety of marigold these are, I saw them at a park, and picked the flowers to plant. They are quite tall, and really sprawl out a lot. Just a few plants filled up this 3'X5' planter box, and then some hanging over.

I still have the peppers growing, as they are still producing, some lemon balm, self heal, onions are buried by the marigolds, as well as chives, and I have another herb that I cannot remember what it is in there. A stray tomato plant has come up, and I'm debating on letting it grow or not... we will see.

Freddy

My cat Freddy.

He's an interesting sort of fellow. Doesn't like to cuddle, but likes to always be near whatever we are doing. Everytime I'm in the back yard he's right there, watching, or underfoot.

He was born the day after Christmas in a paper bag, we came home from Disney and there was Freddy with three other kittens. He was the pick of the litter, the smart one, the healthy one. And now at almost 7 years old, he's still a great cat. I love my Freddy Cat!

Herbs

This is the basil I planted drying out in the sun. It bolted so I also have a lot of seeds!!!I haven't "processed" it yet... so funny, processing is pulling the dried leaves off the plant, and putting the leaves in a jar, simplicity...
I clipped the Stevia a few weeks ago and dried it and it came out surprisingly well. It was quite intense with sweetness when fresh, but so much more when dry! I am very happy about that! I decided to chop it dry and use it as a tea additive infusion with a few other herbs I grew... peppermint, a bit of lemon balm, and some red raspberry leaves that I pinched from the woods behind our house. It's a great way to squelch my sweet tooth, and also brew it with some chamomile flowers and it's a perfect late night tea! Peppermint, chamomile and stevia... yum
this is the jar of my herbal tea mixture... there is quite a bit in there, probably about 4 cups, and only a half of a teaspoon is really enough for a cup of tea.

weird stuff I keep

I have a variety of odd collections. I have the normal stamps and coins that I collect, and Mike has comic books and action figures to go along with those comic books. And then I have some stashes... I will not even go into those, I'm seriously weeding my fabric stash, as it's too much stuff to maintain. But here are some of my more "off the wall" collections:

Sharks teeth, mostly collected on the shores of the Gulf Of Mexico in Florida, either in Venice Florida, or Englewood Florida. The two large ones on the bottom right are only partial teeth, sure wish I had found a whole tooth! They also come from different kinds of sharks, and that is usually determined by the shape and color of the tooth. Some are new, some are old (fossils) but all are COOL

Shells, but only ones I find, and only these spiral type shells, any other are not interesting....
Rocks or shells with holes in them. there is a parasitic bug that will drill a hole into a shell of a mollusk and eat the mollusk. Sometimes the creature thinks a rock is a shell, since they both are hard, and the bugs aren't really smart enough to distinguish between rock hard and shell hard, so they drill away into the rocks, hoping for something to eat, and many times drill right through. There are two I like more than the others, one is a small rock with a partial hole, and looks a little like a bowl, the other looks like PAC man.
Other rocks that are smooth in shape, textured, or pretty color.
My box of other rocks... these are long and textured, bumpy, and actually make a nice sound when knocked against each other, and I would think make a nice wind chime...

So that's it... other than the many different cigar boxes, and a few skulls I have found... I only have three and don't really consider that a collection. Maybe if I find a few more skulls then I'll show a pic of my skull collection. So far I only have a dog, armadillo and mouse skull. So there it is.. you now know I have boxes of rocks, and bowls of sharks teeth, and skulls hanging around in my home.

clean slate

I pulled up the watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and beans from the front yard, and weeded like mad. I pulled out the basil and the eggplant and marigold from one of the planters and put in starters for Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Brussel sprouts, which I will move when they are sprouted and big enough. The Pumpkin in the back yard is SAD SAD SAD... I just don't think I do well with squash, I couldn't get any of it to grow or produce. But I'm

happy have done all the work that was needed, and now have a new clean slate to start again. If anyone sees the cat in the first picture you will get a prize....

I like to catch things

Here is a pic of a legless lizard that I found in the front yard. I had to catch it and show it to the boys. It's clearly NOT a snake, but a lizard. I fear it died soon afterwards, it had been tangled by a cat and had some puncture wounds. But it was neat to finally see one and catch one.

Rain Rain Rain

It rained quite a bit last week... rain was good for the lawn in the back yard good for the plants in the front yard, and good for the watermelon growing like crazy

but not so good for my laundry, doesn't it look sad sagging on the line? It was dry by the next evening, believe it or not! Yep I left it out till then!

Home Oven Chili Roasting

Home roasting of green chili will fill your home with a wonderful aroma, that is intoxicating. I do not suggest this an activity to do with children, so I had my little guys pick out a movie, and they got "planted" in front of the TV, mainly because roasting is HOT HOT HOT, and even handling the chili will transfer the Capsaicin to them. So washing of hands before handling anything else is necessary! So to start the day my kiddos decided on Cars to be the movie of choice. Wash the chili, not completely necessary, but sometimes a rotten one can be found in the bunch, and there is still dirt and such on the chili, and just want to make it pure, after the washing place them evenly and flatly as possible on a pan, do not crowd them onto the pan. I used two sheet pans for roasting the peppers on.
Get another pan ready for "sweating" the peppers after roasting, this is an important step, deep enough to hold all the peppers you are roasting, and a cover, I'm using a lasagna pan and foil.
Broil the peppers, as close to the broiler as possible, and turn on the light, you will need to watch very closely, as they will blister up rather quickly, when one side is blackening after approximately 2 to 3 minutes, you will need to pull them out and turn them over to roast and blister the other side. I have the second pan to broil in the oven the whole time, allowing the peppers to bake a bit and soften up, you will not need to flip these, just let them stay in the oven.

When the first pan is then all blistered, blackened, and done, switch the pans around, and start the blackening process with the other pan, remembering to turn the peppers after they have blackened on one side, and allow them to get blackened and blistered on both sides, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side.
This is how they will look when blackened and blistered properly. They are not burnt, they are perfection. You might get wisps of smoke coming from the oven, and some of the peppers will bloat and pop from the steam building up on the inside. If you hear popping, that is a GOOD sound!
After they are done, transfer the roasted peppers to your sweating pan, and cover, tightly isn't necessary, just enough to hold the heat and steam in. Let them steam or "sweat" for about 30 minutes.
all covered, now you can do some fun stuff with the kids till you are ready to peel the chili
When ready to peel the chili, I have found that using an ice bath is the best way. It cools off the peppers enough to handle, and keeps your hands a little cool and you unaware of the Capsaicin that is digging into your skin. If you are really sensitive, gloves can be used, and are recommended! I have to stop for a minute and say thanks to The Frontier Restaurant( http://www.frontierrestaurant.com/ ) without having worked there for almost three years, I would have never known the special step of peeling green chili. Unbeknowst to many people, most New Mexican's do not roast their own chili.... why? Well it is roasted in such an abundance, they can already purchase it roasted, peeled, and chopped. Sure we can get it that way here in Florida, but it's only in little cans. Canning does something BAD to green chili, it's NOT the same. I used to buy huge Bueno chili http://www.buenofoods.com/ frozen tubs of green chili. They did all the hard work. The Frontier Restaurant roasted their own chili, and in idle hours of the work day, employees would peel the roasted chili. There always was a chili peeling station in the back, my first day of work, I peeled chili for 8 hours!

peeled chili... oh yes, you do need to peel it, it can be peeled prior freezing, or after, but you cannot eat the peel, well you can, but it's tough, and tasteless. The seeds are really hot, and not really good to eat, a few will not do any harm, but I don't care to eat the seeds.
The peels and the seeds. it seems like a lot, and really out of 10 pounds of green chili, the amount of flesh you get to actually eat is probably close to 6 or 7 pounds.
I chopped the chili and placed into bags for freezing. Chili should be frozen. Even though it is quite potent it will go bad, mold and rot, after a few weeks in the fridge. But what kind of moron lets the chili sit in the fridge for that long?
I roasted about 10 pounds of chili, and got about 7 to 8 cups of chopped green chili, I got 5 bags total, each with about 1 to 2 cups of chili
This same process can be used for any chili pepper, red peppers, green peppers, jalapenos, anything. If you want your own roasted red peppers follow the same steps, and you will get the same results with red peppers. I highly suggest this if you find a bunch of red peppers for really cheap... but that's not likely to happen. LOL, but doing it yourself is cheaper than buying roasted red peppers.

I would also like to thank my parents for sending out such a surprisingly abundant amount of chili. What a wonderful gift from New Mexico. I say, you can take the gal out of the Southwest, but you can't take the Southwest out of the gal!

Treasure from New Mexico

Green Chili, need I say any thing more... definite treasure, not just one box, but two. At least 30 pounds of green chili. My parents sent some out last year, but just two plastic grocery bags full, and we still have some of that, but I was using it very sparingly... now I can go HOG wild. I'll probably give some away to some friends I have who have resided in New Mexico. As a visitor to the land of Enchantment you cannot get the whole spectrum of the importance of Green Chili to New Mexico, you must have to live there for a minimum of six months to understand why it is on every menu in every restaurant in New Mexico. It is an essential ingredient to AUTHENTIC Southwestern cuisine.... one I miss dearly, but am fortunate enough to know how to duplicate!
Now I just have to roast it, which will fill the home with the aromatic senses of being back to where my roots lie. Oven roasting of chili is pretty easy, wash and dry the chili, place on a pan, just set the oven to 450 or even broil, and watch the chili, once the skin is blistering and blackening, you need to turn it over, till it does the same on the other side. Take out and let cool, or you can put it in an ice bath and peel the skin immediately. I usually like to freeze it with the skin on, I just feel it protects the flesh of the chili from freezer burn, but it is also easier to peel after it has been frozen, just thaw and peel under some cold running water and presto.. chili, and then do as you wish!

my Watermelon shop of horrors

I'm no Semour, and it's no Venus Fly trap flesh eating plant, but boy does this watermelon grow like crazy. I had no idea it would take over my whole front yard, and just scramble about reach where ever it is allowed, and just grow grow grow. My youngest of my brood waded into the depths of the vines and he was up to his waist in growth! There are hidden watermelons that I've almost stepped on, not knowing they are there... Good thing I guess, I don't want the neighbors stealing my melons! There is one cantaloupe vine in there as well with a few melons on it. Hopefully I will get to eat them, the raccoons took the melons off the vines in the back yard, and the little burrowing caterpillars took the last one I had!

I have to keep moving it off the sidewalk and bunch the vines back onto the main plant, the red speck you see in the middle is the planter with the peppermint growing in it... not that you can tell.
I guess a sago palm is good for crawling watermelons, and there are two baby melons hanging on those vines already.
decent sized melon. But it's shaped like a gourd, I plan on picking it tomorrow, it's got that nice tok tok sound when thumping it. The last one I picked was a little under ripe, but it was getting end rot, so I picked it early. It was still good eatin, and juicy!
can you see it? under the leaves is a large watermelon, at least 7 pounds! The plant hides it's fruit very well, and since the vines take over the yard, any chance of weeding is GONE... but I figure the weeds also allow for some retaining of moisture for the plant, especially since it's been so dry dry dry!

Sewing Diapers

Diapers Diapers Diapers.... I'm in need of more and more diapers, the one's I'm using for Acelin are just about thread bare, so I'm trying to get organized and motivated to make some more diapers for him.

I've started out and FINISHED three PUL and suede cloth pocket diapers, that are side snapping (see the snap press) These really are awesome fitting pocket diapers, and the same pattern I used for some that I made him in size SM-MD that fit him till he was about 23 pounds. He has some others that he wears, but more is always better!

This is a fitted cotton diaper with a cute outer woven material and BLACK flannel inner. It has a quick dry soaker that folds out, but is sewn in and attached to the front. I HATE snap in soakers, after using them for the past year, they are just a PITA and I will NEVER make or buy another snap in soaker diaper AGAIN. I also made this a turned and top stitched diaper... I am sick and tired of serged edge diapers falling apart, the thread gets caught and forget it you have thread everywhere pulling out. They are cheaply made and easy to make, but just not durable in my opinion. I've been sewing for 15 years, so I think I have a good opinion on that.. LOL
Check that inner, soft and cushy flannel. And yep he tried it on and it fits like a charm and soaks like a dry sponge!
These are on the "ready" list, they are cut, and ready for elastic and assembly. Cute prints, boyish, and fun, the pirates-skull, racing flag, pool table balls, are all awesome prints. I also have a few that are just solid blue cotton velour, but they are too boring to share. All so far will have the black flannel, with the exception of two having the blue cotton velour.