Belated Happy Easter!

Our Easter consisted of a wonderful meal with our best friend, her two kids, her boyfriend, and his two kids.  It was total sugar-induced chaos, but it was sure fun to watch!  We didn't get home until late and by then the food coma had set it pretty hard.  In fact I'd forgotten all about the blog post not being done until a few minutes ago!  Better late than never!

Before I get going on the crafting stuff, I want to say that Pollux is doing really well.  He's to the point where you'd have to know him as well as we do to know anything happened to him.  I'm not sure he'll ever be 100% again, but frankly it's been a while since he was truly 100%.  His 14th birthday was this past Friday.  For 14, with his health issues, he's really doing well and we're tickled pink about it.

Last week I had the embroidery group from our Stitchers' Guild here for a meeting.  I made those dyed deviled eggs I tried out two weeks ago and had a veggie tray to supplement lunches.  The dessert and tea treats had a more interesting fate.

Dessert was a pink lemonade cake, the recipe can be found here, and it was divine.  Mine didn't get divided into the thin layers though.  There was an incident with the cookies I was trying out, namely I burned the heck out of a spot on my left palm.  By then I was tired, hurting, and just didn't care about making the cake gorgeous.  It could deal with just being delicious.

 I forgot about getting a picture of the cake before I cut it.  The top picture is all that's left to date.  The second one really shows the pretty pinks.

After burning myself, the cookies were abandoned and FH went out and bought goodies to have with tea at the start of the meeting.  I was tired anyway from all the cleaning and rearranging the furniture to accommodate the group. 

While the ladies were here, I finished a bit of some back stitching on a cross stitch. 

This piece is just a corner of a design that I made myself.  I'll show the finished piece off once we figure out how to get it copyrighted.  Everyone in the Stitchers' Guild thinks people would like to purchase copies of the pattern, so I think I'm going to look into it.  I've already made an electronic version of the pattern via some fun software FH bought for me.  That was my other project last week.

Thursday I took a field trip with a friend to a cross stitch shop, so nothing got done but shopping and girl time.  Oh darn! ;-)  FH had Friday off, so I spent it with him instead of crafting.  Darn again!

One of the things we did Friday was taking a trip to the local no-kill animal shelter.  My doctor wants me to have a dog.  Not just any dog, but a service dog trained to help me with my illness.  Apparently those exist now, and have been helping veterans cope with their symptoms.  The problem is there is a long waiting list for the local group who trains these dogs.  Minimum two years on the wait list.

FH and I were pondering rescuing an older dog from the shelter to keep me company during the day, and encourage being active outside, for the interim while I'm on the waiting list.  Then if/when I'm approved by the program, we can decide if I'm still in need of a service dog.  I may be better enough by then to not need one.  Plus we can get an older dog out of the shelter, making room for someone else to be rescued.

Right now we have two candidates in mind.  We've met one, who was a total sweetheart and liked us too.  The other we'll meet sometime this week, depending on the fosterer's schedule.  Then we'll make a decision.

That's all for now.  I'm headed back to the laundry after I finish this slice of cake.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I made two different attempts at a classic party dish this week.  I'd never made deviled eggs before and saw a fun way to dress them up on a really cool food blog.  I think they're going to be a hit at the next guild meeting I host here.  They were good, but the whites tasted more like a pickle than an egg white.

 I also did some in a darker green, just because, for the second attempt.  This time the outside weren't overly vinegary.  I gave the whites a quick rinse after pulling them out of the dye.  This time they were perfect.

The appliqued violets are finished, waiting for Tuesday's guild meeting to be turned into a tool case.

That's all for this week.  I was busy running around for several days, hence the lack of projects.  Friday I visited a historic home in Bloomington, IL that would be a gorgeous dollhouse.  The David Davis Mansion is a stunning home that was constructed between 1870 and 1872.  Pictures were not allowed in order to better preserve the antiques.  I will have to go back with a sketch pad and colored pencils sometime.  The ceilings in the public rooms are all hand painted with different floral motifs.  The hall stand in the front hall can hold six gentlemen's hats and is graced with a bronze stag's head on top.  The hat hooks are all carved animal heads as well.

I know I'm going back between Mother's Day and Father's Day.  That's when the gardens are in full bloom. Happily they allow cameras in the garden.  All the plants are either original to the garden (and thus very old) or have been replaced using information from letters written by Sarah Davis and the help of other historic gardens.  Many of the replacement plants have come from Monticello, as did several of the original plants.

That's all for this week.  Happy crafting!

How to Embarass A Teenager

Simple.  Sing "Happy Birthday" badly and pull out a camera.

You may wonder why on earth her cake is purple, aqua, and black... and you may also wonder what it tasted like.  So here's the story:

My best friend in this area had to move away.  [You may recall this she is one of the few people outside of my family to receive multiple stitched gifts over the last few years.  She is one of those people that loves handmade things and cherishes them... hence one reason we're friends.]  That's what I was doing all last week actually.  Her new home is 115 miles away.  Her kids haven't started school yet, or had the chance to make new friends.  Her daughter's birthday party was canceled. 

So then I find out what she wants for her birthday.... a new comforter set and the other bits and pieces that make a bedroom nice.  Great!  Then I saw it and thought twice... and remembered it looks like what I wanted in my room when I turned 13.  Ok then.  Another friend and I put our heads and wallets together to make it happen.  A third friend supplied the paint.  Here's the result:

So then I got the bright idea to match her birthday cake to the room.  And have a little fun with food coloring/visual perceptions connected with taste.  All I needed was my trusty checkerboard cake pan.  It worked great the first time, so why not again?

I used the Buttercake recipe from Wilton's.  Moist, flavorful, and simple.  Can't go wrong there.

Then I made a strawberry buttercream (1.5 sticks butter, 7 c. confectioner's sugar, 2 tsp. vanilla, 0.25 tsp salt, and just a little more than 0.33 c. crushed strawberries) and dyed it black.

 

Once the three layers were baked I assembled it all and had a chuckle.  This had to be the ugliest cake I've ever made to date. 

But when we cut into it...

And it was delicious!