Hubby Mike and I spent the day together. First we stopped in Waldorf to eat at our favorite Korean restaurant. Then we left to go to Alexandria, VA. (I'll tell you why in a few minutes.) Our destination was the Torpedo Factory Art Center, about an hour and a half drive for us. What a fun place!
I tried to take a picture that shows the snowy conditions.

There is no place left to shovel the snow to! And Monday they are supposed to get 2-4 inchs of snow.

We were on the outskirts of Olde Town Alexandria. I love the old buildings.

There weren't many parking spaces thanks to the snow...but we found a dugout just a road away.

Inside the building are many little stores (82 artists and 6 galleries) that include pottery, textiles, sculpting, painting, etc.

I don't normally appreciate this kind of artistry, but there is something beautiful in this creativity. Maybe it's because I like most anything made from real wood.

I was surprised and disappointed to find no one spinning a wheel or quilting a quilt. This quilt was in a display window. I tried to get a good pic to show Anna.

I nearly jumped when I saw this huge 9-ft loom! Unfortunately, the weaver wasn't there...and I had many questions. Can you imagine weaving an 8-ft beadspread on this?!!

Our trip was wonderful. I missed my children terribly knowing how much they would enjoy seeing all the arts and crafts. Since the building is riverfront, Mike and I decided we will bring our children up on a nice spring day.
So the reason for the trip? To buy this Singer Featherweight for Ruthie. What a deal!! Normally these machines sell for $400-500 on eBay. We paid $245. I've been watching craigslist.org for a long time and it was worth the wait! The machine is in immaculate condition...not a scratch on it...which is very rare. The case looks brand new and even has the key! Many accessories came with it. To make the transaction perfect, the woman who sold us the machine was just as nice as could be. She is an artist in the Torpedo Factory, which is why we went there to buy the machine.

Was Ruthie happy? You betcha!! She has always wanted a little "kid-size" machine, but the $30 plastic cheapies never last more than a week.
The foot pedal is different. I can't wait to sit down and fiddle with it. What a blessing of a machine! My Dad has been cooking up a storm...and we are the happy recipients! In the past week we've had ham/green beans/potatoes, veggie steak soup, ham and beans soup, and spaghetti. Yummy! Dad says he's bringing chili next. The good thing is that we all love Grandaddy's cooking!
For the past year, my Wahl electric haircutter has been giving me a hard time. Allen hates it...it likes to grab his hair and pull. I oil it regularly but it doesn't help. The blades are dull...but it is too expensive to get them sharpened. So when I was shopping in the Ross store recently, I saw the $29 model on sale for $9.99...so I grabbed it! Tonight I used it and it works like a charm. Now my 1989 Wahl will go to the recycle bin.

This morning, Mike and his brother Glen, went to pick up a free big-screen TV from a freecycle ad. Isn't it wonderful? We have been wanting one of these so we can have Video and Fellowship evenings with our friends. Now we can!

If you have ever wanted to take up weaving but can't afford the loom...now may be the time to buy. I enjoy looking at the loom ads on craigslist.org. There are many great deals. The above loom is selling for $375! All you need is a large room or basement.

Tomorrow will be the first Sunday that we go to church after two weeks of snow cancellations. It will be nice to talk to our friends after we worship our Lord.

Many blessings ~ Kathie

Have you ever wondered what non-sulphured apricots look like? They look rotten! Most organic food looks very different from the picture perfect foods in the grocery store. Our family loves dried fruit, especially apricots. There are many websites that give the dangers of eating sulphites.

Today we restocked the woodpile using the "drying out" method. The logs are still wet from snow, so we're hoping the sun dries them out before our upcoming snowstorm on Monday.

Lizzie finished her dress for baby Leah. Oh how I miss sewing little dresses!

This is the backside. The buttonholer gave Lizzie some trouble but it still looks nice.

Anna has been trying her hand at using my sewing machine with the longarm table. I wasn't able to get the quilting to show up, but if you look closely at the blue hexagons, you can see a hint of it. She did a fantastic job. Anna is trying to get enough practice so she can do a large quilt.

It's also hard to tell that Anna used this "Wavy Edge" on the above quilt. I love the way it turned out! I gave this template to Anna for her birthday last year.
I like the way we can hang all our templates and rulers on the side of our "remnant cart." As soon as we install lighting in our new sewing room, I'll share some pics with you.

My children went Kubota skiing today.

Yes, we are finally putting Mike's skis to use.

It's like snowskiing and water skiing at the same time.

So much fun!

Maggie and Sarah have finally given in to cabin fever, and tonight they headed to town. I doubt they will make it up the hill, so they will park out on the highway and walk the mile in. I don't envy them the hills. Mike has also gone out to pick Anna up from drivers' ed class. He barely made it up the hill earlier today, so we'll see what happens now that the ice has hardened. Added later: Everyone made it home safely...and in their cars!

My brother, Simba, was in an accident today and his heavy-duty, diesel pickup truck was totally destroyed. Some guy hit a patch of ice, spun out of control, then slammed into Simba...headon. So tonight my family is thankful that Simba is okay...but very sore. PTL

Enjoy your weekend. Many blessings ~ Kathie

Today I scraped the snow off the entire porch...except this last corner. I had no strength left to lift one more shovelful and dump it over the railing. Not a bad storm...6" under a covered porch!

Things are starting to melt. Yesterday my bottom window had a snowdrift blocking it. Today it is half the size. Henrietta the rooster came out of the playhouse for the first time in a week. The goats also came out and romped about their pasture.

Maryland's Eastern shore has miles and miles of poultry farms. Purdue chicken is big business there. So it was sad to read that 15 major chicken houses had collapsed under the snow. Our county suffered two more building collapses.

As for my food update from yesterday's post, the tandoori chicken was delicious. Sorry for the lousy picture. I used a Tandoori chicken mix from Arora Creations. It has many spices...cumin, coriander, garlic, ginger, chilies, onion, nutmeg, mace, pepper, turmeric, and lemon. Yummy! Today for lunch I shredded the leftover chicken and made chicken salad. Everyone loved it.

We made the potato dumplings, too. Good...but we like Ruthie's better. Nice experiment...but not good enough to buy again.

Maggie teaches four children piano: Alec, Faith, Grace, and Abby. When they come for piano lessons, Ruthie teaches Grace how to sew on her treadle machine. For the past month, Grace has been asking me to teach her how to sew using a pattern. So last week she chose an apron pattern and laid it out. We had spent so much time browsing through patterns that we didn't even get to cut out the apron!

I wasn't sure which machine to let Grace use. She doesn't like Ruthie's treadle machine...but I'm hesitant to let a beginner use my computerized machines. So when I walked into the thrift shop and saw the above beauty for $10...I grabbed it! As usual, it took a good amount of oil and a new needle...but now she purrs. Perfect for Grace.

When Grace comes to lesson next (whenever THAT is...too snowy to get in or out), she will bring her mom's vintage machine for me to get running. Hopefully I will be able to do my oil trick again.

Hubby gave me this wonderful oil thing with a super-duper nozzle which made oiling the machine so much easier. Thanks, Mike. You weren't expecting it back...were you?!

Anna has been dreaming about teaching sewing/quilting classes, so if I keep up my thrift shop finds, she'll have enough sewing machines to go around! Tonight I went to my first ever PTA meeting! And in my pajamas! Don't panic, I haven't given my children away to be taught. This year Sarah has taken over homeschooling my four youngest. Why? Because she has the gift and passion of teaching. And she's much better than her momma!

So tonight we sat down and assessed our progress. Excellent! Only a few things to address, but much better than anything I've ever done. PTL

My Dad has been chauffeuring my children: Maggie to her appts, Sarah to my brother's home for babysitting. We no longer have a four-wheel drive vehicle, so Dad uses his 4x4 to get everyone where they need to go. He admitted today that our road is indeed dangerous. Like he said, "If you were to ever meet someone coming the opposite way, it'd be all over!" So we're homebound, and loving it.

A friend from church sent me this picture of my daughters and some friends at church. They were all helpers at the Sportsmen's Banquet last month. Maggie, Anna, and Lizzie went. They had so much fun. Anna kept commenting that she'd forgotten there were other kindred spirits her age. She said they giggled all night long. Thanks for the picture, Carol.

Enjoy your weekend. Tomorrow we're going to get serious about restocking our woodpile again.

Many blessings ~ Kathie

Well, we're in the mist of Blizzard #2 this season, so of course I feel like cooking. Besides, I wanted to write a post before the electric goes out! I bought this Tandoori Chicken mix at the local amish bent and dent store. I find the oddest things at that store!

This morning I defrosted a bunch of skinned, boned chicken breasts, and marinated in the tandoori mixture: 1 packet spices, and 1/2 cup each of olive oil, vinegar, and yogurt. The spices smell heavenly! (Instead of yogurt, I used tofutti sour cream.) I can barely wait to bake these for dinner.

I bought another mix to try...anyone ever make potato dumplings? Since I like anything from Knorr, I thought I'd get Ruthie to make these. Ruthie is our very own resident Chicken n Dumplings expert. Delicious!

Right now the blizzard is raging outside. The wind is really howling...and supposed to get worse. I am keeping a close eye on the electric outages around the county. Up to 411 right now. I am upset that my hubby is out on the road with his chainsaw. A neighbor called to say a tree was down. My opinion is that blizzards are the time to stay indoors. AFTER the blizzard is the time to cut fallen trees. But hubby doesn't want to seem like a deadbeat neighbor. Isn't that better than a dead hubby?! Sometimes it is frustrating to have a lot of common sense!

Yesterday I left my home at 8:15 am and returned at 4:30 pm. Maggie had two appts, and Ruthie had one. (I had to take Ruthie in because she's been complaining about pain in her foot and knee...and the doc thinks she may have hurt them when she broke her shoulder in her motorcycle accident. We're waiting to hear back about the x-rays, and now Ruthie is signed up for physical therapy. More appts!)

Anyhow, there was some time between appts for shopping and browsing around. We saw the above bumper sticker and thought that was funny.

This was another funny bumper sticker.

We had to be careful where we walked. Water was dripping from everywhere...and occasionally there were big snowslides. We saw this slide waiting to happen at the Dollar Tree store.Ruthie and I had a two hour wait for Maggie's therapy appt, so we enjoyed petting a little cutie puppy named Zena. Zena belongs to one of the therapists. I always feel sorry for her being cooped up in the car M-F. So playful, too.

This past month I found these two vintage canning jars at the thrift shop. Both cost 25 cents. The jar on the left had been entirely painted...but I took care of that problem with paint remover. I wonder which brand was more popular, Atlas or Ball. My gut instinct says Ball.

My mil sent me an email this week with this picture in it. The large cat looks just like our cat, Ranger...but I cannot imagine him snuggling up to any other cat! And Ranger used to love sleeping in our sink.

My funny facebook quote today comes from my friend Krista, "Family is a lot like peanut brittle...it takes a lot of of sugar to hold all of the nuts together."

School is done. The wind is howling. The scenery outside my window is complete whiteout. I'm gonna go make sure hubby returned safely from his tree-cutting.

Sarah's friend, Rebekah, gave birth to her little blessing yesterday. We are so thankful for a safe birth and a beautiful boy. I love modern technology...instant pictures!

Many blessings ~ Kathie

I haven't had much to write about lately other than snow, snow, snow!

We started out this week with a few inches leftover from last week's storm. Then on Saturday we got a bunch more. We measured 21 inches about 5 hours before the storm ended.

I just love snow. Plenty of firewood, plenty of food, plenty of time just to enjoy the scenery. Much to be thankful for.

The neighborhood men kept their tractors going all day trying to plow the road.

Today I had no trouble getting out to get Maggie to her appt.

On Sunday morning I put two briskets in the oven, then set up a batch of sourdough dinner rolls. Around 4 pm, I started sauteing some brussel sprouts with olive oil and garlic salt...yummy! Several of us kept sneaking a few sprouts...they were so good. Well, I've decided that is the best way to eat brussel sprouts...straight from the pan...because by the time I got them to the table they were bitter. Someone happened to open the toaster oven and found the chestnuts Mike had roasted the evening before...and forgot about! They were a little dried out...but yummy!Today when I took Maggie to town, we saw the snowplow posts sticking only a foot above the snow. I don't know if every state uses these but our county uses them to guide the snowplows. It's always exciting to see the posts appear in late fall...and just as exciting to see them disappear! I enjoy the change of seasons here in Maryland where we have four distinct seasons.
It was nice to see someone had a sense of humor. There were many of these "guides" knocked out!
Our town experienced two major collapses this past storm. This building was part of a thriving moving business. The second collapse happened at a local catholic school, St. John's. The entire library was destroyed. My children played in many piano recitals that were held there, so we have good memories of that building. We lost power twice during the storm. The first time for a half-hour, the second time for an hour. It was nice eating a candlelight dinner! I kept an eye on our local electric website watching the map of local outages. As of tonight there are only 22 homes left in southern Maryland with no electric...much better than the high of 8500 during the worst of the storm.

Two Sundays ago (when we were last able to go to church before the two Saturday storms!) we visited with a church friend, Mrs. Jane. She showed us her hopechest full of handpieced quilts. So inspiring! Mrs. Jane's favorite quilt is the Lone Star and the Broken Star (a Lone Star variation). When we left, Mrs. Jane gave us a bunch of quilting books and magazines, and crochet patterns. Wow! Anna and I have spent a lot of time poring over them. Thanks so much, Mrs. Jane.

One of the reasons I enjoy having my children talk with Mrs. Jane is that she is always relating how the Lord is working in her life, or how He provided for her in some way, or something similiar. Our family is very blessed to have many godly, elderly folks in their lives. I also appreciate the way she talks so lovingly about her late husband, Mr. Joe.

We are preparing for yet another storm tomorrow. We are unsure how much snow to expect...the reports are all different...as usual. Nevertheless, we restocked our empty woodpile, and tomorrow I will refill the two 5-gallon drinking thermoses. And hope for the who 20" that Baltimore is expecting!

Hope you are enjoying your part of the country. Many blessings ~ Kathie