More Vegan Cooking

Tom and I are having so much fun with these new vegan recipes. He helps me in the kitchen with them. I am loving it cuz we both enjoy eating and I use to do all the cooking, now, it's team work.
Since I started the CHIP program, almost two weeks ago, neither one of us have had any sugar or sweets.
I have always been hesitant about the vegan diet because I really enjoy chocolate, not a fan of carob, and I thought I would have to give chocolate up. Thank God for my dear good friend Dore', she turned me on to vegan...yes vegan Ghiraelli chocolate chips..the ones in the gold package sold in most grocery stores.
I decided I was going to make us some kind of snack, so I made some yummy oatmeal cookies...they really are tasty. Just what the Dr. ordered..Dr. Murphy that is.

Cheese is another favorite food of mine. How could I give that up. Well, I was given this recipe at one of the CHIP meetings. Bought everything I needed, gave the recipe to my husband... (Tom is home during the day so he makes our dinners and has them ready to eat when I come home for lunch)and wholla...let me just say that the cheese sauce is even better on our fresh broccoli that is growing in our garden.
The more we learn from a medical scientific, with plenty of facts,approach, the more we are leaning to a vegan lifestyle.
In the 10 days I have been on this program, I feel a big difference with energy, clarity of mind and mobility.
This has to be a good thing!

Kids Say the Darndest Things....still.

My precious grand daughter, who is now 3 years old, really has her thinking cap on all of the time. She was being naughty while her mother was busy on the computer doing some work for their business. Her mommy politely asked her to stop but she wouldn't so she was sentenced to her room for a short time out.
Now, we have all said this at one time or another to our children when they do something wrong, after the wrong doing has been done we say " now are you sorry you did that"? Of course we expect their reply to be "yes".
When my daughter went into the bedroom to relieve Lawren of her sentenced, Lawren replies to her mommy...."mommy are you sorry you put me in time out"?
What can a mother do?

Tropical Cheesecake (Vegan)

Alright, so, my good friend,Cecelia, who lives clear across the US, has asked me to blog again. So here I go.
I have decided to take charge of my health again, so I have joined a program called CHIP (Coronary Health Improvement Program). Total plant based diet for 30 days. Now after 30 days I don't plan on giving up.
An important part of my thinking with all the change is "what about dessert?" So I have been experimenting with some of the recipes I have found. This is one of them, Tropical Cheesecake, and oh it is yummy!

If any of you are interested in the recipe just let me know, via my blog, and I will email it to you or just post it here.
These 30 days are really going to be quite an adventure.
I have to say that my husband and I have been on this new lifestyle for one week now and I already notice a difference. I'm waking up around 5:30 in the morning, on a weekend, for crying out loud.

Gingerbread Fun

Here is the first gingerbread house finished out of three. I had bought one for each of my grand kid's and one for my son's girlfriends daughter. After Thanksgiving dinner, I got the kits out and the children started on them, with the help of mom and dad.
My grand daughter is the first to finish and get a picture to me.
I'm waiting for two more pics, one from my grandson and the other from Lillyanna.

Happy Birthday to Me!

When I got to work this morning, Melissa, my sidekick here at work, had this double fudge chocolate cake sitting on the counter in the kitchen. We did have a piece for breakfast. I know, not the best thing to eat early in the morning, but hey, it's my birthday. Don't you get to do whatever you want on that day????

Meet Coach Murphy, hard at work.

Holiday Feast

We had a wonderful time yesterday at church. Susie and I put on a feast, we had a great turnout.
Here is some pics of the tables that we decorated.
We served Dore's vegetarian turkey, we also had mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, yams (Susie's special recipe), it actually tasted like sweet potatoe pie, delicious, green bean casserole. For dessert I made my delicious pumpkin rolls along with chocolate rolls.
It was a lot of fun.


Can't forget to include our waitresses, Erika, Jessica, Melanie, Alex and Glorianna.
They did a fantastic job.
I am so ready for the holiday's!

Happy Aniversary

Yes, it's been a while since I blogged. Just thought I would share this cute pic of my youngest son and daughter-in-law. They celebrated their 2nd anniversary yesterday. They vacationed in Monterey, which isn't that far from me, so Tom and I drove down there and spent the day.
Weather was gorgeous and the area is beautiful.
Happy Anniversary you love birds!

Time is Money....on FT

Just to let some of you know, I am still around but seem to be spending more time on Face Book than blogging. There is a fun game on FB, Farmtown, virtual farming. I have always wanted to live in the country and live on a "little" farm but fate did not allow. So, I enjoy creating and working on a virtual one. Less work and more money, virtual money that is.
I still check on my blogging friends from time to time, so don't think I have abandoned my blog.
Will be back eventuall, that is if I ever get anything good to post.
Love you all!

Tippee Canoe

This particular quilt pattern is referred to as "Tippee Canoe". It is paper pieced, you pin fabric to paper,sew a seam and cut each piece. It was a class project I was in back in 2003. Half of the women didn't finish theirs, it is very time consuming. Half way through sewing this, I was not liking the design or the quilt, until one of the ladies finished hers, quilted it and brought it to class. It was absolutely gorgeous. I was determined to finish mine. Well, I finished the top but never invested the money in having it quilted. Since I returned to class, I was informed of a lady, that my teacher knows, who does it for a living. She comes to class,picks up the quilt, machine quilts it and delivers. I decided to give her a try and brought this to her.
I hope you are able to see the intricate design, so precise and very elegant.
Tippee Canoe is not my favorite, but I will definitely bring it out to wrap up in during the winter months.

What an accomplishment and such a good feeling to know I did it!!!!

Fun and Easy Pillowcase

Cecelia, Francie, Natalie...this is for you.
Thought I would share this cute idea with a few of you. I promised Cecelia that I would send her the pattern, I am going to don't worry, but thought since I was making one today, I have to take it with me tomorrow, we are going to visit our grandson and I wanted him to have one. He loves the outdoors and I found this cute material a while back. Anyway, I thought I would just take some pics and post how it is done. If your anything like me, I have to see it, not read it or hear it.
Cecelia, this would be a cute project for your women's group, you could make some adorable ones for a children's home or the shelter. I might add that there is some cute fleece material, would be warm and cozy.
Make them for yourself, or for different holiday's. Kid's love them!
So, lets get started.....
This is what you will need to start:
3/4 yard material for the Main pillowcase 26" X 40"
1/8 yard material for the Contrasting Trim 2" X 40" ( if the store will sell 1/16 yrd. that is better)
1/3 yard material for the Cuff 10" X 40"

Trim off raw edge so all the material is the same width.

Place Cuff fabric right side up an a flat surface.
Place Contrasting trim fabric...be sure to fold the trim in half first and iron.
Place Main Pillowcase fabric right side down on top of Contrasting Trim fabric, matching up the raw cut edges. Pins edges together.

Roll Main Pillow Case fabric up into a tube until all of it fits within the length of the Cuff farbric.

Fold up the bottom edge of the Cuff fabric, over the Contrasting Trim and Main Pillow Case fabric.
Line up all the raw edges and re-pin.
Stitch a 1/2 inch seam along the raw edge.

Turn the Pillowcase right side out by pulling the Main Pillow case out from the inside of the Cuff fabric.

Press the Cuff fabric flat.

Fold pillowcase in half with right sides up, sew a 1/2 inch seam along the side and bottom edge of pillow case.


Okay, now turn the pillowcase inside out and sew another seam along the edge and bottom. The seam will hide the outside seam, this is called a French Seam.

Okay, here you have it, how cute is this!!!!

Also, I managed to make four jars of blackberry jam. Thanks Cecelia, the recipe was easy and delicious.

Geez Louise, it took me longer to post this than make the pillowcase.
I gotta go, I still have to make a cake.

Very Busy Tooth Fairy

My grandson was so excited yesterday, he called everyone to let us know of his news. Yes, he lost his first tooth. He is just growing up too fast.
When I was there, a few weeks ago, he made sure I felt his lose teeth. Oh yea, he has more, his top front tooth will soon be missing.
I can remember when each of my kids lost their teeth. In fact, I saved them...now that I think of it....seems a little gross.

Life Couldn't Be Better.

Last week I discovered I have been making a mistake on our quarterly reports to the IRS NOT GOOD and I made a mistake on two of our W2 forms NOT GOOD. After a week of phone calls, I finally was able to get the info I needed to make corrections only to go to work today to find out my computer was on the fritz SERIOUSLY NOT GOOD. It took me 40 minutes to get it going only to discover my monitor went out.
Called our computer guy and he came and rescued me. Nancy bought me a 22" monitor..wowee...it is so big I can't believe it...but, I still need to wear my glasses. Not sure if they make monitors that large???
Anyway, after a hectic week and day of work, I came home and decided to check things out on my blog. I love getting online and checking my special friends blog to see whats new...there hasn't been much activity on any of them, including mine so I thought I would at least share a few favorite pics of my grand kids.
A few weeks ago I got to spend the day with my grandson while his parents attended a memorial for one of the families in the Montana accident.
We went to visit Daffodil Hill. He really didn't want to go because he told me he goes there all the time, and by the look of this pic, well, he looks unhappy but he did have a good time showing me the peacocks, rabbits and different birds.
The flowers were absolutely gorgeous.

Here is a recent "favorite-pic-out-of-the-ones-I-received" from my daughter. My granddaughter helping out as they remodel the laundry room.



Thought I would throw this pic in, its the latest quilt I have been working on. It only took me a few weeks to sew this one together as opposed to five years that it took me to finish the other one, which, I quilted it on the long arm in class and will be putting the binding on for the final touch.

Buzz LightYear

Yes, I am still the champion of BuzzLightYear, well at least in my family. Corey, Ryan, Shelly and I rode this fun little ride. You have a laser in hand, as you move along you aim and shoot at different targets. I had the highest score. Not sure if that is something to brag about???
I was Space Ranger 2, you can see my score on the upper right corner. They take your picture at some point on the ride and when you finish, as you walk out, you can view them and have it emailed to you free.
We had a wonderful time, even tho everyone and their brother was there. Guess it's not a good idea to go when schools are having their Spring Break. I thought we were in a recession?
Oh well...no matter.


For some reason it didn't post Shelly's score, but she got second place.

Spring has Sprung

I'm sure most of you can relate to my lack of blogging. It seems that there isn't enough time in the day to sit in front of my computer and post my pictures. I have several things I would like to blog about but time does not permit.
As soon as I got off work yesterday, I went out in the back yard to admire our gorgeous tulips and daffodils that are in process of developing. Such beauty. I just pray the gophers don't find them. Eventually they manage to eat the bulbs, so we end up planting new ones every year. This year, Tom and I are planning on taking the bulbs, after they have bloomed, out of the ground, for next year. We have to read up on that tho.
I didn't think this post would take that much time, so I chose to share some of God's beauty.