Saugatuck, Michigan … love this harbor town

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Just got back from a lovely visit to Michigan to visit family. It’s July and the temperatures hovered in the 70’s and the humidity was non-existent. It was such a nice respite from the Houston heat!

While the boys went fishing, the girls visited the Lake Michigan harbor town of Saugatuck, about an hour away from Kalamazoo. We only had time to squeeze out a few hours. It felt like skipping stones over the surface of a travel destination loaded with plenty of seaside charm, lots of boutique shopping, dining … fine and casual, homemade fudge, cookies and ice cream establishments and wine tasting. We chose the Coral Gables Restaurant, right on the lake, located at 220 Water Street for our lunch break. Nice salads and gourmet sandwiches! Highly recommend!

From the Saugatuck Visitor’s Guide there appears to be plenty of lodging, performing arts and recreation, like the Harbor Duck tour and boat cruises. I could totally see hangin’ out in the town for a relaxing week.

During our stroll through the town, we sampled interesting olive oils and balsamic vinegars at the Olive Mill. There were purchases in the Spice Merchants, a shop specializing in spices and teas. I picked up some exotic salts and a spice mill. Kilwin’s Chocolates was out in force on the street handing out handmade fudge samples. Yum!

My personal favorite shop was The T-Shirt Shoppe located at 107 Butler Street. Sorry there was no website that I could find, although they already have a few great reviews! The store concept is simple and the results were lovely! Purchase a high quality t-shirt, pick out one of their unique designs. They silkscreen your shirt which is ready to pick up in under an hour. Check out the little duck design Mimi is sporting!

My only regret is we weren’t able to stay longer!

Latest quilt top finished!

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Every year I make a quilt for The Village Learning Center’s gala which occurs in early November. Among other endeavors, they run an awesome day center for adults with special needs that my daughter, Mimi, attends. I try and make them something each year I’ve never done before … either with color, design or pattern.

When I saw this quilt top made up at last year’s International Quilt Festival, I thought it would be perfect … eye-catching and a little wacky! Certainly not for everyone but I really liked it. Surely someone would love it … and 10 hours of quilt lessons to the person that purchases the quilt!

The quilt show booth offered a kit and I was hooked. The pattern is called “Urban Cabin” and is by Atkinson Designs. The directions were great and it sewed up nicely and fast!

Visually, it is stunning the way Kaffe Fassett’s fabric (purchased in a collection of 2-1/2″ strips, we call them “jelly rolls,” with the kit) pops like a bag of microwave popcorn in the microwave. And it was the first time I’d worked with so much black, so there you go.

I’m also using a Kaffe Fassett fabric for the binding.

And now that a few yards of quilt backing fabric is purchased, I’ll have it professionalled quilted in a couple of weeks by my favorite longarm quilting lady, Kim Norton, of A Busy Bobbin!

The dog-chewed afghan has a new life

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Earlier this year Lulu ate part of my husband’s afghan. We caught her red-handed, or red-pawed, depending on how you look at it. Yep … I already blogged about it. I didn’t have the heart to throw the afghan away so it sat neatly folded across the couch all tattered and torn-looking. Recently over Sunday dinner, my son-in-law mentioned that I really ought to fix it.

“Why don’t you just unravel the yarn and then sew it across the bottom?” Chad asked.

I started with this little rant about why you don’t “sew” yarn. Chad didn’t know it yet, but he had planted a seed.

I had been thinking for several months the afghan was unfixable. The project was knitted years ago. I didn’t have the knitting pattern anymore with the cable design. I didn’t know the size of the needles I had used. I knew there was no way I could find the same color yarn. That is a lot of negative stuff.

But Chad got me thinking. What if I just didn’t worry about the pattern matching? What if I got a different color yarn for the five or six inches I needed to add to the bottom so my husband’s toes didn’t stick out when he snuggled? Make it look like it was meant to be a different color. Yeah … I could totally do that!

After a road trip to my favorite yarn shop Twisted Yarns right down the street from Old Town Spring, I was ready to tackle the project!

It took a couple of week of searching all the nooks and crannies around the house to find the knitting needles and just a little while to unravel the bad part of the afghan. Then I picked up the stitches and knitted a bunch of rows.

Thanks Chad for the inspiration! What do you think of the results?

Best potato salad ever!

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I learned how to make potato salad by watching, and chopping, for my mother-in-law eons ago. If you camped out in her kitchen you chopped, spindled or mutilated something that wound up in a pot or bowl. Wilna was a wonderful cook and really knew how to feed a bunch of people. Did I mention my husband is one of eleven kids? Nine sisters and a brother. Hand-me-downs were rough.

After all these years, I believe the only difference between Granny’s fabulous potato salad and mine is the pickles. She used sweet … I use dill. That reminds me of a pickle of a disagreement hubby and I had the other day. He would rather I use Kosher pickles. While I certainly didn’t like the sound of that, I tried it this time. It wasn’t half bad. But I still like my chunks of dills.

Granny’s Fabulous Potato Salad
Feeds lots of hungry people!

Ingredients:
5 pounds of Russet potatoes, peeled and boiled till just tender when stabbed with a fork
6 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
2 large handfuls of dill pickles, chop these guys up too!
large handful of black olives, chopped (optional but adds something special)
small jar of pimento, chopped
yellow mustard
Miracle Whip Salad Dressing
salt and black pepper to taste and don’t be stingy!

Basically, I really believe in NOT dicing up all the veggies so you can’t tell what you are eating! Leave everything a little chunky and you will love the results! So start by cubing up the cooked and cooled potatoes in a huge bowl. Add the chopped eggs and everything else on the list. I tend to go lighter on the mustard and heavier on the Miracle Whip but that is a personal choice. Refrigerate until dinner time! This dish goes great with brisket and beans!

New yarn bowl is uncommonly good

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Ceramic yarn bowlI received a beautiful ceramic yarn bowl for my birthday the other day. I know … “yarn” and “bowl” do not sound like words that belong in the same sentence. But trust me … it is a lovely gift for a knitter-type person. Right now I’m working on a colorful scarf. Yep … the bowl is coming in quite handy.

So the premise of the bowl is it also happens to be the perfect size for a hefty-sized ball of yarn. There is also a keyhole, or squiggly slot, in the side where a yarn strand can unfurl naturally. No more balls of yarn falling on the floor in a tangled mess. And it is a tad easier keeping our anything-knitted-eating dog away from my yarn.

My daughter purchased it on Uncommon Goods , a website that reminds me of Etsy, both great places to purchase unique gifts.

Did I mention my great experience on Etsy this last Christmas? I purchased for my son and son-in-law Breaking Bad cutting boards from Etsy. Heck, we are still having Breaking Bad separation anxiety since the series ended. At least the cutting boards make the boys smile until the next wonderfully written series emerges.

Flashlights and frozen peas

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Little Jake
I’ve learned lots of new concepts over the past few weeks about birth before our grandson, Jake, entered the world. The little fellow was in the breech position and, according to doctors, probably will not turn by the time he is born. The news was not what our daughter and son-in-law expected to hear.

When Chad heard the news from the doctor, he grabbed his iPad to perform some research. He told me there were some really wacky-sounding ways to nudge a baby to turn 180 degrees. They sounded like old wives’ tales to all of us. But was there a smidge of any truth to be found?

Did you know if a mother-to-be places a large bag of frozen peas where the baby’s head is located it is supposed to encourage a “swim” in the opposite direction? I was keeping an open mind.

“All we had was a bag of frozen corn. We tried it but nothing happened,” Chad smiled.

Katie’s dad thought the idea sounded intriguing but put his own spin on the idea. Rick suggested a bag of frozen chopped broccoli might just do the trick because … wait for it … of course every kid hates broccoli. You see what I have to live with?

There are also “baby spinning” suggestions (www.spinningbabies.com) on the Internet involving acupuncture, doing handstands while you are in the pool, getting on your hands and knees to scrub the floor, and playing music with headphones on your stomach. Of course the music one also has an ad for special headphones, called Belly Buds. They only cost $49.99, excluding sales tax and shipping. Who knew?

“We tried the music, without the special headphones, but apparently baby boy doesn’t like rock music. All he did was squirm,” laughed Katie.

Yoga was also mentioned. Apparently there are a bunch of exercises that are touted as helpful at spinning that baby around. It would be Katie’s luck that baby boy would wind up doing a 360 and be right back where he started. And how about just plain old visualization exercises? Basically, the premise is if you see it in your mind’s eye, he will turn. Sounds like taking wishful thinking to a new extreme.

My own personal favorite was the one using a flashlight.

“After the frozen corn, we tried the flashlight. It’s where you start at the top of your belly and move to the bottom and hope he ‘moves towards the light.’ It didn’t work either,” Katie chuckled.

Flashlights, frozen corn and rock music were all interesting but failed attempts to spin their baby boy around. Jake was born via C-Section last week. I do think the “baby spinning” concepts will make for some very interesting entries in the little tyke’s baby book. Welcome to the world baby Jake!

It was a “Tough Mudder” kind of day

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My Air Force son, Ricky, ran in his first Tough Mudder event (www.toughmudder.com) on April 12, in northern California. One of the dudes in his squadron, the 60th Aircraft Squadron, organized a group of seven for Tough Mudder. They represented another great nationwide cause, Run for the Fallen (www.runforthefallen.org), which runs one mile for every service member killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Since I have this “thing” about mud … I basically don’t like it … I was having a hard time understanding what was the big draw for the event. I mean … everyone is smiling in the photographs for Pete’s sake.

After a little Facetime with Ricky, I now totally get it. Ricky started off by proudly showing off his scraped and scratched-up knees. OK … so I showed off mine. The dog had pulled me down in the groomer’s parking lot the other day but I wasn’t exactly proud of my battered knees.

This is what I learned about Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder is a sponsor of Wounded Warrior Project. Mudders have raised over $6 million for the organization whose mission is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors. Since 2010, there have been over 100 Tough Mudder events all over the United States. 80% of the participants are teams and 78% of those that compete complete the race. So far, I’m pretty impressed.

The course on April 12, was located in Patterson, California, a small farming community. The course was 12 miles in length with 15 obstacles. Ricky and his group finished all the obstacles!

“I was worried about the monkey bars, the Chunky Monkey, because I have pencil arms, but I made it! I had two favorite obstacles. One was the Artic Enema. It reminded me of jumping into a wine chiller. The other was Walk the Plank, a twelve foot high dive into muddy water. I really like the water ones,” said Ricky.

There was also a buddy carry event, a log carry and a one called Killah Gorilla. Use your imagination on that last one. The whole event took their group 5-1/2 hours. It had water and food stations along the way and a beer tent at the end.

At the end, they give you a head band, t-shirt and beer. All in all I’d say Tough Mudder is Ricky’s new favorite thing to do … especially since he signed up for the next Tough Mudder event in Tahoe in August!

Most of the photographs were taken courtesy of Tough Mudder.

Jan’s house quilt

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I belong to an awesome quilt bee group called “Bloom Where You’re Planted.” We get together twice a month at someone’s house and generally do what ladies do … quilt, inspire each other, laugh a lot, chat and sometimes even go on field trips like to museums, movies, quilt shops … fun stuff like that. I can’t recall when I joined … well over five years ago I guess. I just know these talented ladies have also made me a better quilter.

So when someone moves away … I hate when that happens … we make the member leaving a house-themed quilt … in secret. The bee member that leaves may know we are up to something, but they don’t get to see our parting gift quilt until it is completely finished. Since I’ve been in the bee, we have made one for Karen and Toni … casualties of retiring husbands. I miss them both. Then Jan moved to Oregon. Another one of those retiring things. Miss her also! Only this time Jan’s house sold very fast and then … poof … she was gone. The moving van pulled out of her driveway way before we had time to get the quilt finished.

So fast forward a few months … Jan finally received her quilt in the mail this week. Now I can blog about it. I thought it would be fun to write about the evolution of our quilt to Jan! We’ve been taking pictures for a few months now. The first time Tina, Moni, Loretta, Carol, Gwenn and I all met to discuss the project, we tossed around quilt books with house patterns. We finally chose one from one of Loretta’s books. She has quite the awesome quilt library! The pattern we picked is a “Piece O’Cake” design called “Houses @ Maple Ridge.” We all agreed after we stitched the block it would probably be our new favorite.

After settling on the design, we kicked around the colors for the individual blocks. Everyone brought scraps from their stash and played with fabric choices. I chose a medium and navy blue house with a yellow and navy roof. Each block would have a white background. Once everyone had their blocks stitched up they were auditioned for a position in the quilt. Toni, who moved away before Jan, even made one of the blocks. Toni is not pictured in our final photograph, but certainly resides in our hearts as well as in one of the quilt blocks.

After the nine blocks were joined, sashing and borders were added to complete the top. Next, we pin-basted the top to the batting and backing. Tina worked her magic machine-quilting the quilt and making the awesome label for the back of the quilt. I sewed the binding to the quilt and Carol hand-stitched the binding to the back. It was definitely a team effort!

Tell me what you think!

Celebrating my 400th newspaper column with cookies!

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Celebrating with cookies!

To celebrate publishing my 400th “You Gotta Laugh” column this week in The Tribune Newspaper, I asked my awesome neighbor, Marie (www.missmariescookies.com), to conjure up some awesome cookies for the occasion to share with my newspaper office staff. Believe me … they taste as good as they look!

If you haven’t read the 400th column already, be sure to visit the “You Gotta Laugh” page on this blog website.