Inside a Glass Gazing Ball

What happens when you're sitting outside on your vacation on a particularly lazy day with your camera in your hand and a blue/green glass gazing ball beside your chair...

Ho-hum, back to work...

So it's back to work I go, my vacation has come and gone. But I really can't complain; I just spent the last 10 days doing only what I wanted, when I wanted!

I:
* spent time at the Lake
* made a baby quilt
* hung out with my sister and her family and friends at Lake Pemaquid Campground
* puttered in the garden
* rearranged my bedroom
* went to a farmer's market (found fingerling potatoes, squash, homemade donuts and splurged on some Maine maple syrup - won't eat anything but the real stuff now!)
* read
* walked
* relaxed
aaaaaaaand....I went strawberry picking, on the perfect day, where the berries were so big and bountiful that it only took Mum & I a half hour to pick over 20lbs!

These beauties went right into strawberry rhubarb tarts last night (with fresh cut rhubarb from my garden!) - I used this recipe that I shared last year just before strawberry pickin' time. If you click on the pictures, they should open up to a larger picture where you can actually read the recipe - oh, if you do use it, in the plain pastry recipe where it says to cut the butter and the lard together (I use butter flavored crisco and I add two pinches of sugar to make the dough less floury), melt the butter ever so slightly to soften it and you really won't need the ice water (AND the crust comes out super flaky)!

Okay, there's my baking tip for the week...er...year? Hmmm, I almost never add baking tips here, do I? I may just have to start! I'm thinking of making some of SouleMama's strawberry rhubarb jam soon and who knows what else!

Enjoy your day all, it's back to work I go, hi ho hi ho! :^)

A Long Overdue Post

Hello! I'm back from a lovely and wonderful 10 days off! 10 days of hanging around my house, relaxing and avoiding the computer at all cost. It has been wonderful! I must say that I have missed reading all of my fav blogs, but the past 10 days were just so beautiful, I couldn't bring myself to stay inside and sit at the computer!

This is going to be a very picture filled post. I promised a garden update and I have to show off my new kitchen cabinet doors! I spent many of those beautiful days outside painting these puppies and after a year of living with this (but imagine the lower cabinets painted all white):

I now get to look at this whenever I enter my kitchen:

I love them so much! They make the room so bright and cheery. The yellow is the same paint that is on the walls. Of course, the moment I had all the upper doors back on, I immediately got the urge to take off all the lower doors and paint them in the same manner and paint the drawers all yellow....then I kicked myself for not just enjoying the moment and taking in those splendid doors.
I've tried to keep the kitchen redo as inexpensive as possible, trying to reuse what I have or what my parents started with. I already have the tiles for the floor, but need to buy underlayment and staple that down (I just haven't done it yet) and though I really wanted to buy new door handles for the cabinets, I knew that wasn't going to happen - so I revamped the ones I already had! I used colored clay, baked them and sprayed them with clear sealer. Each handle is different and funky; they really add some life to the cabinets! Aren't they pretty?

***GARDEN UPDATE***

My cukes are tiny...but tasty!
And the major cucurbit section of the garden (my pumpkins, summer squash, zucchini and gourds) has exploded! Remember these picts from back in June?
Crazy explosion of twisty tangly cucurbit vines, I tell you!

Creeping pumpkin vine twining itself through the raspberry patch and is now doubling back
And my Jack-Be-Littles are everywhere! They're just so cute.
Summer squash
Zucchini

And a gourd! It's just been the last 2 weeks that these guys have popped.
You can just see the orange tops on my carrots. I pulled one out yesterday and though it was only as long as my thumb, it tasted sweet!
My Early Girl Tomatoes didn't really live up to their name...this is the first one and it's still green!
Oh, and my driveway now looks like a lumber mill puked in it! But I will be warm come winter...well me and my parents, as ¾’s of this will go to their house. Once the weather gets really cool and autumny (is that even a word? I think my brain is still on vacation), I will be a stackin'! Enjoy the day!

Just What I Needed

So after my unfocused day the other day, I came home to a little surprise in my mailbox!

A package all the way from Portugal. The ever lovely Paula, sent me a little package chocked full o’ goodies!

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I totally needed a Smarties fix - and the fruity ones…just like Skittles!The most wonderful ribbon – I want to do so much with it but I don’t have the heart to cut it. I just want to stare at it and pet it and show everyone and say, “isn’t it lovely?”
Kitty Fabric...sweet, colorful kitties. LOVE!

And BUTTONS! Oh but the buttons are so wonderful!
The colors, the shapes, the sizes.
My favorite...
This was really what I needed! It really perked me up.

Thank you, Paula – you are so very dear!
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I wish the colors were captured better, but we’ve had a few dreary days here. Oh and you know how I mentioned the cooler, autumn weather…yeah, GONE! Completely replaced by a humid, rain soaked morning and a hazy 80° F day, something that is supposed to last through next week…next week, which I specifically took off to do some sheet rocking and kitchen renovation finishing because it was supposed to be cool. Ah, how Mother Nature likes to mess with my head!

I need to do a garden update soon (it’s looking like a jungle!) and a Juli’s quilt w.i.p. update, since I finished the strips and will probably put them together this weekend. But I will leave that for next week.

Have a lovely weekend. I’ll post sporadically next week…in between house projects.

Back from Vacation!!

Just a quick note to say that I'm back from vacation. YIPPEE!!! I had a nice long week spent with my family on the water at the Lake and 3 1/2 hours at Maine Quilts 2007 quilt show! I have pictures - lots of pictures that I need to get up on Flickr as soon as I have a moment. Until then, a tease...

Color Dance by Bette Haddon of DeFuniak Springs, FL.

My favorite so far! And I need to do a garden update because my cukes are going NUTS and I have ZUCCHINI!! But that will all have to wait until tomorrow - oh so much to catch up on. I haven't read a blog in over a week - yikes, really have some catching up to do!

:^)

Mini-Vacation Wonderfulness

5 days of relaxation. 5 days of no computer, no phones ringing incessantly, no one needing anything desperately-right now-this minute! Just a moment to relax...

Adventures in Strawberry Picking

Ah, the annual tradition of strawberry picking. Melissa, her two daughters, her mother and I went to Seamen's Farm in Litchfield, Maine. The berries were a bit small, but it didn't take us long to pick 14 quarts (6 for me, 6 for Mel and 2 for her mum).As I washed and dried the berries, my thoughts swept to all the wonderful things I could make with them!
Pies and breads and jams
Sundaes.....mmmmmmm!
And fruit tarts!
It was so simple: I blended 1 pkg of cream cheese, 1/4 cup of sour cream and a 1/4 cup of sugar with about 1 cup of strawberry puree (add this a little at a time - you may choose not to use quite so much...I was trying to use up the rest of the puree that I had made for the sundae the night before). Using this recipe for pie crust, I dug out my little moon and star cake molds to create the base .
Then topped each with a whole strawberry!
These will be finding their way to a couple of my friends. 2 more that I made will find their way to my sister's house and the last one I made...well, I had to sample it...just to make sure that it was edible, you know, before I foisted then off on others! ;^)

I hope you all have a fabulous week! I'm off for the next 5 days (Happy 4th of July to everyone in the States!) to enjoy a little of this and a little of this! I may pop in from time to time, but for the most part - I'm outta here!