Father's Day

Father's Day was several weeks ago. We were in Kentucky for Tim's sister's funeral. I had to quick make my cards before we left so I could get them in the mail to my Dad and brothers. It certainly wasn't a very happy Father's Day for Tim, but he got a card too.

Sorry the picture is terrible - it was a quick shot so I could get them in the mail. The base is a kraft cardstock that Tim brought home for me, as is the green and blue cardstocks. The Very Vanilla that I stamped the tree on and the Basic Black are both Stampin' Up cardstocks. The tree stamp is stamped in Basic Black ink, from SU's Lovely as a Tree set, and the greeting is from one of the retired All Year Cheer sets. I added a few black rads to give it some texture.

BB: Curried Couscous

Last night's dinner was perfect for summer. I had some salmon patties in the freezer that I pulled out and reheated. And we tried a new recipe - the Barefoot Contessa's Curried Couscous. It's one of this month's recipes for the Barefoot Bloggers and Ellyn of Recipe Collector and Tester picked it. I left out the raisins, substituted white onion for the red and forgot the parsley. Tim and I were both surprised by the mild flavor. We don't use a lot of curry, but I think this recipe has made us not afraid of it. I was very happy with the results and glad we tried it. We have started eating a lot of couscous, and it's perfect for summer because it doesn't heat up the house to make it and can be flavored so many ways.

Books Read in May

Yes, I know, it's the second week in June, but I wanted to share with you what I read last month. By the end of May I had read 45 books. Last year it was early September by the time I'd read 45 books. So I am on a roll this year. My guess is that I'm doing less scrapbooking and card making. You'll see I read a lot of romance and memoirs in May.

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci. Memoir. Rating 3.5

Desperately Seeking A Duke, The Duke Next Door, and Duke Most Wanted by Celeste Bradley. Romance.

Some Like it Wild by Teresa Medeiros. Romance. Rating 3. Fun story. Follows Some Like it Wicked.

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. Fiction. Rating 4. Great characters. The book was a little long. had a great discussion with my book club.

Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal by Lily Koppel. Memoir. Rating 4.

We Are All Fine Here by Mary Guterson. Fiction. Rating 3. It's a small book which reads quickly. And, of course, everything isn't fine.

To Beguile a Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt. Romance. Rating 3.5. Number three in the Legend of the Four Soldiers series after To Taste Temptation, and To Seduce a Sinner. Next will be To Desire a Devil.

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. Memoir. Rating 4.

Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer. Classic Romance. Rating 4. Fresh characters and plot. Still a classic.

Graduation 2009

This weekend we were off in Kentucky for Dylan's high school graduation from Apollo High school in Owensboro. Here is our handsome young graduate.

They did this cool candle light ceremony. Each graduate had a candle and then some blew theirs out to leave the 09.

My cousin Elly also graduated this weekend from Wilmar High School in Minnesota. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out how to get from Kentucky to Minnesota in one day.

These are the cards I made for Dylan and Elly. I used non SU craft cardstock for the base, Whisper White and Real Red for Elly's card and Brocade Blue for Dylan's card. I used the retired SU Graduation set and Best Friends numbers, stamped in Basic Black. There are silver brads and a silver edged tag for accents.

Mailbox Monday - June 1, 2009

I had several new books show up in my mailbox in the last few weeks. Actually, they usually don't fit in my mailbox so I discover the packages lying on the front porch right by the door. A package is always a welcome sight.

Random House sent me a trade paperback copy of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I've read this book, enjoyed it and recommended it. I'm so happy to have my own copy.

Lisa from Books on the Brain sent me a copy of Beach Trip by Cathy Holton so I can participate in her June book club. The book has a nice cover and I'm looking forward to reading and discussing it.

Picador sent me a copy of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides for their Twitter book club this Friday. I'll be in the car all day Friday, so I will try and participate via my phone. Can't wait to see how this works. I really enjoyed Eugenides' Middlesex so I'm really looking forward to reading his earlier novel.

I need to get reading!

BB: Backtrack

The second Barefoot Bloggers recipe for May was Outrageous Brownies, selected by Eva of I'm Boring. After the Lemon Cake I just couldn't eat another sweet, so I used the Backtrack option and made the Tomato and Goat Cheese Tarts that Anne from Anne Strawberry picked in March before I joined in. Tim and I loved these! We each had two for our dinner. We are anxiously awaiting fresh tomatoes from our garden to make these again. And Tim mentioned right away that there are so many ways we can change these up. I think puff pastry will become a staple in our freezer. The tarts also introduced us to goat cheese which is so creamy and delicious. Can anyone give me other ideas to use goat cheese? We had a few scraps of the puff pastry leftover that we couldn't let go to waste, so we made some little Parmesan pinwheels that made a delicious little snack. It was a great recipe - super easy to make and very tasty. I highly recommend it.

BB: Lemon Cakes

What a great Memorial Holiday Weekend. It was a cooking frenzy. And it was all yummy. On Saturday afternoon we made hamburger buns. We used my friend Diana's recipe. (Also check out her cooking blog.) They turned out so pretty - with an egg wash and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. On Sunday we went to some friends for a cookout. I made Smitten Kitchen's Slaw Tartare which I loved. Tim even liked it and he doesn't like cabbage very well. We used our homemade buns with blue cheese burgers. Last night we made salmon patties which we had with leftover slaw. The recipe made enough patties for us to freeze some for another meal. Good friends, good food - you can't ask for much more. I want to say a special thanks to Tim who helped with much of the cooking (bread making and patty frying) and most of the dishwashing.

Sunday, I spent most of the afternoon making the Barefoot Contessa's Lemon Cakes. McKenzie of Kenzie's Kitchen chose this month's bonus recipe for the Barefoot Bloggers. Thank you McKenzie! I love this cake. The recipe makes two cake loaves. I have one in the freezer for later, and I brought the other unfinished loaf into work. It's getting raves reviews. I did find it a little time consuming with all the zesting and juicing, and the syrup and then glaze steps. But it was so worth it.

A Very Good Day for a Bike Ride

I finished this layout a couple of weeks ago after carrying it in my bag for over a year. These are pictures of Tim doing a road bike ride a couple of years before we met. These pictures were taken in 1989 during James Madison Days in Madisonville, KY. He is with his friend Diane White and her brother Story.
For the background I used SU Soft Sky and matted the photos on Real Red. The circle is Very Vanilla and matted on Not Quite Navy, and the punched arrow are also NQN. The red and vanilla stripped paper is SU and the turquoise scalloped paper is Sandy Lion and the darker blue strip is unknown. I used the SU arrow punch and SU On Board Loads of Letters chipboard, which I painted red. The circle on the right has Making Memories rubons and a self adhesive accent from SU's Simply Scrappin kit Genuine License.
I was please at how these pages turned out after looking at them for over a year. And I think Tim was pleased with them too.

Mailbox Monday - May 18, 2009

Only one book in my mailbox last week. Book Club Girl sent me a copy of the memoir The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. I am really looking forward to reading this book, though I'm afraid it might be a little depressing since my Uncle just died of cancer and one of my sisters-in-law is also struggling with cancer. I plan to join the on air discussion with Book Club Girl and Kelly Corrigan on May 27th. Thanks to Marcia at The Printed Page for hosting Mailbox Monday's. You can go to her blog and see what new books other received in their mailboxes.

BB: Tuna Salad

Kate at Warm Olives and Cool Cocktails picked this weeks recipe for the Barefoot Bloggers.

She picked Tuna Salad. Now this isn't any old tuna salad - the canned tuna and mayonnaise kind of tuna salad. Oh, no. This is yummy, fresh tuna with a spicy dressing tuna salad. Tim grilled our tuna steaks on the grill. We cooked the tuna for longer than the recipe suggests, but it was still pink inside - just not raw. To the lime juice and soy sauce dressing I added a bit of sesame oil. And the wasabi powder and hot sauce added some great flavor. I might just become a fan of hot sauce. I served the salad over some orzo pasta. It was a great meal - quick and easy to prepare, very tasty, and fairly healthy.

Late, as always...

Yesterday morning I had lots of energy and was able to get a lot of things done before I had to go to work - Walked Away the Pounds, planted Impatients on the front porch, and made Mother's Day cards. Yes, I just made them. Going to mail them today. So, Mom, don't look if you don't want to see what your card looks like before it comes in the mail. I did make two versions of the card - one was Mother's Day and the other was just general thinking of you.

I used SU Whisper White, Basic Black and Delicate Dots designer series papers. The image is Jolies Fleurs from Lizzie Anne and stamped in SU Basic Black ink and colored in with SU Real Red, So Saffron, Regal Rose and Orchid Opulence markers. The greetingon this card is from Delight in Life by SU, for the Mother's day cards I used a Happy Mother's Day greeting from the All Year Cheer stamp set.

Mailbox Monday - May 11, 2009

Every Monday, Marcia, from the Printed Page hosts Mailbox Mondays. I got two great looking books in the mail this week to share. If you've read either of these, let me know what you thought about them.

From Drey's Library I received A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal. I have a thing for Holocaust and WWII literature, so I am anxious to read this one.

Gayle at Every Day I Write the Book blog has chosen The Local News by Miriam Gershow for her June online book club. There have been lots of good review about his book and I'm looking forward to reading and discussing it.

Books Read in April

I had a good and busy month of reading in April. I read thirteen books during the month. Last year I had only read a total of 18 books by the end of April.

1. Moon Women by Pamela Duncan. Traditional Southern novel. I heard Ms. Duncan speak recently and she is very entertaining, a great story teller. 3/5

2. The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig. Beautifully written, but the story and characters did not interest mer. I did not finish this one.

3. Hone Safe by Elizabeth Berg. I enjoyed the realistic mother/daughter relationship - irritating and loving at the same time. Very realistic. The book had a good solid ending. 4/5

4. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff. Classic. 5/5

5. Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy. As always, Binchy creates a cast of wonderful characters and we get to know them all. We also see characters from previous books. 4/5

6. The Big Beautiful by Pamela Duncan. Sequel to Moon Women. Humerous. 4/5

7. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Beautifully written but very depressing and sorrowful. 4/5

8. The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow. A fun novel. Molly Marx is dead and she's trying to figure out how she died. In the end it doesn't matter. 4/5

9. Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson. One of the best books I've read so far this year. Full of poetry, and beautifully written. Ms. Olsson has a new book coming out soon. 4.5/5

10. The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickenson. Ms Dickenson is the new Ann Landers. This is her memior of raising her daughter with the help of the women in her family and the small town of Freeville. 4/5

11. No Choice But Seduction by Johanna Lindsey. A romance novel, and not her best. Part of the extended Mallory series. 3/5

12. The Year that Follows by Scott Lasser. A a sister and faher's post 9/11 serch for family and what it means to be a family. 4/5

13. At Last Comes Love by Mary Balogh. Another romance novel. The last of a trilogy, and probably the best of the three books about sisters of a young man who suddenly inherits a title and thrust them into socity. 3/5

I've already read several good books this month.

Mailbox Monday - April 27, 2009

Thanks to Marcia at The Printed Page for hosting Mailbox Monday's. This week I had two new books show up on my front porch. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See came from Random House, and Swimming by Nicola Keegan from Marie also at Random House. I love Random House :) I wonder what this week will bring me?

A Fancy Birthday

In January, my youngest niece, Sydney, turned 6. She had a Fancy Nancy birthday party. I love little girls who have birthday parties themes from story book characters. Fancy Nancy is a hoot, and I encourage everyone young and old to read her books. For Sydney's party my sister-in-law, Kirsten, made each girl a crown pillow that they got to decorate, then they had fingernail painting , and then ate this wonderful crown cake that Kirsten also made.

This page has a Lovely Lilac cardstock base. I also used Whisper White, Basic Black and Pink Passion. The black and white pattern paper down the side is from Imaginisce. The title is stamped with the Best Friends alphabet in Lovely Lilac ink. I used the SU slit punch to make the scallop borders and used a hole punch to give it an eyelet look. The journaling card is a large scallop circle punch and it slips inside an envelope that I die cut with my Big Shot. I used my white gel pen along the scallop edge to accent it. In the right hand corner of the picture I added lots of fun embellishments - a vellum heart tag with a Rose Red SU felt flower and a black brad, there is a chipboard crown that I covered with a silver pen, and a black chipboard flower from Colorbok (from the Michael's dollar spot) with two pink brads. None of my three nieces are very prissy, girly so I don't use a pink and purple color scheme very often so it was a bit difficult for me to work with. But I had fun with all the embellishing.

BB: Croque Monsieur

It's a fancy French ham and cheese sandwich. Very yummy, very rich. You can find the Barefoot Contessa's recipe here. Kate at All Food Considered chose the recipe for the Barefoot Bloggers. Tim and I made this together and made a few changes: halved the cheese sauce, used Jarlsberg cheese instead of Gruyere, and used spicy brown mustard instead of Dijon. We also used a loaf of home made white bread. I would recommend not using a thick slice of bread, there just gets to be too much bread.

Participating in the Barefoot Bloggers has been a lot of fun. Tim and I have both loved trying new recipes and using some new ingredients. I can't wait to see what the recipes will be for next month.

Mailbox Monday - April 20, 2009

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, hosted by Marcia at the Printed Page. Be sure to stop by her blog and see what great things she got in the mail.

I only received one book last week, but I am so excited to read it. Library Thing sent me an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) of The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow. It won't be published until May 19.

I have book club tomorrow and we will discuss Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I'm having trouble finishing the book. Yes, I know it's very short book, but animals keep dying and I know it's not going to get any better. My reward for finishing Steinbeck will be Molly Marx. Can't wait to get started on it.

Spinach - it's Yummy

Saturday I spent the day scrapbooking. Tim spent the day replacing the fuel pump on his Buick. Before I left I made these Spinach Balls. I found the recipe on Friday on www.mochefsallowed.blogspot.com. They were super easy inexpensive and super easy - perfect to take to a pot luck lunch - and they got rave reviews.

Spinach Balls

1 frozen pkg chopped spinach, cooked and drained

2 cups herb & seasons stuffing mix

1 cup chopped onions

3 beaten eggs

6 tablespoons of melted butter

6 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese (I also used a little shredded Colby Jack mix)

3/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Mix all ingredients. Shape into 2 inch balls. Put on sprayed cookie sheet. bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Makes 4 dozen.

This week I'll share the scrapbook pages I got done.

Lunch with a Friend

On one of my Fridays off, my friend Judi came over for lunch and brought McDonalds. Fitzgerald was naughty, as always, and dug into Judi's bag and helped herself to the last of the french fries. And my good friend Judi thought it was cute.

I used more paper from the K & Company Wild Saffron stack that I have. Love that paper. On the right side are some chipboard swirls from Fancy Pants Design that I inked with SU Basic Brown. I also punched some little flowers out of Summer Sun card stock to match what was printed on the paper. Below the photos is some fun scrunched SU ribbon. The title is stamped with red ink and the Best Friends alphabet onto matching K & Company labels.

Mailbox Monday - April 13, 2009

Each week Marcia, at the Printed Page blog, asks us to share what new books came into our homes that week. I only received a couple of books - which is okay since I have a huge stack of library books to read plus lots of other free books, ARC's, and book sale books to read. You can visit the Printed Page, by clicking on the link on the right side of the screen, to see what new books other book bloggers received.

The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel came from Book Club Girl. Check out her blog (see the link on the right side of the screen) to see more information on her radio show. Lily Koppel will be her guest on April 29th at 7pm.

And as part of the Harlequin Ambassadors program I received a box with 5 copies of a Harlequin Super Romance Married by Mistake by Abby Gaines to give away. I've given most of them away here at the library, but I've saved one copy to give away here. If you are interested, let me know, and I'll randomly pick a winner on Wednesday. The New York Times recently reported that in this sluggish economy "sales of romance novels are outstripping most other categories of books".

Happy reading everyone!