Stash-Only September

The following is proof that I do things other than can food, raise children, garden, rant, and cook.

Taaaa Daaaa!!

I'm back in the studio again! Yee haw!

This here, pardners (now I'm all on a cowboy tangent--sorry--I will self-correct), is a quilt I made up with the 12 Days of Christmas panel by Nancy Halvosen for Bernatex. I have a confession: I love these damn panels. I don't buy them (usually) because I never know what to do with them, but I always like them. Actually, I lie. I don't like things like this, and I have no desire to own this, but there are a few panels I have looked at and thought hmmm.....

Usually I don't buy them because they are hard to work with. You either have a panel that's hard to cut apart without ruining it (right? that one you'd destroy if you took scissors to it--I mean, where do you cut?), or it's a panel that's like a whole quilt, and that's just cheating (hence the name cheater panel). But sometimes I've been tempted, and this one tempted me. I succumbed to it without actually knowing what to do with it. In order to NOT have it hang around the studio for months (or years), I tried to figure out what to do with it. The above is what I came up with. Basically I used the panel as the centers of a log cabin block, put in some sashing, and made the border with extra strips from the blocks. Nicest thing was, I used my stash to do it. Yeay! So anyway, making this quilt from my stash leads me to Stash-Only September, when I will spend this month making things only from what I have. And I'm not even going to cheat by not sewing--I will, in fact, sew a lot, and hopefully get a lot done.

So there you have it. A challenge for myself. I have a lot of fabric stashed away, so I should be pretty busy. In fact, I have this fabric to get to next, since I was going to make it for my kids for the winter time. I'm still thinking on that one. And no, I did not get the panel. I wasn't loving it. But I did get a bunch of other fabrics from that line, and I'm stymied. Oh well. It'll come to me.

I will keep you posted! Expect to see more!

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Oh, and as an aside, my daughter did finally open up about school. Yesterday at dinner, she sat and told us about her whole day. I mean, her. whole. day. For 45 minutes, and that was mostly because she kept telling the story and then saying "wait, wait, I forgot something", and then would go back over everything she just said, adding tiny details here or there. I just sat there with a huge doofy grin on my face because I was thrilled to hear it. I didn't even know what part of the day she was talking about sometimes, but it didn't matter. I was thrilled to hear every "wait, wait, I forgot something". It was good. So, Cathey, turns out you were right. She had too much to process that first day. The second must have done enough for her that she felt ready to tell.

Either that, or she just kept talking so that her brother wouldn't get a chance to talk about HIS day.....

Welcome to the 21st Century

Or the 20th, depending on when you want to think they were invented (1973, people, just so you know, but most think they are a more recent invention).

I got a cell phone. I have been resisting it until now. But with two children in school, and being the only parent local in case of emergencies, I needed one in case I wasn't home (gasp) if something happened. You know, in case I grow a life or something. Could happen.

I hate cell phones, but not because I'm a technophobe, which is what people usually think when I say that. I'm actually quite technologically literate, and in fact used to teach people how to use computers in my other life (ie: before children). So, I know my way around. But I hate cell phones, because I believe they contribute to the "rudening" (that's a new word, hope you like it) of society. For instance, why do you need to talk on the cell phone when you are:

1. In the supermarket, shopping in the aisles. Do you need help figuring out what to buy?

2. On line at a store. Pick a store, any store. There's someone on the phone on line. Or pick a food place. Trying to get coffee at Dunkin' Donuts? There'll be someone on the phone on line.

3. Driving. Do you NOT need to pay attention? We should all be looking out for you, is that what it is?

4. At the gym. No, you're not here to work out. You're here to talk to your friends, but not anyone who is actually at the gym.

5. On the train or plane. Yeah, we all want to hear what you're talking about.

6. In a restaurant. Again, we all want to hear about whatever it is you're talking about. Please don't let us enjoy our meal.

7. In a movie or concert or some other entertainment venue. You paid money to go to this thing and then talk to someone about something else?

8. A a child's Open School House or some other school function. This is my favorite. Your kid is that boring? Are you that non-involved? Does it only count if you say you've been there, but not that you participated?

Ok, I'm sure there are a million more you all can fill in for me. We see people everywhere doing this, and the message they clearly send is "whatever is going on on this phone is more important/interesting than whatever I'm doing right now". Really, people? You can't just live in the moment? Participate in your life? It's that dull? Sad, really, sad.

You know what else gets me about cell phones? Kids who have them. Why? I can sort of understand a teenager having one (calling you to let you know they are going out with so and so after school, using them to talk to friends so they don't tie up your home phone), but a second grader? What the hell could they possibly need one for? The kid's 7 years old. I don't get it.

I also don't understand texting. Why? You have a phone, but you don't want to call? So you text? It's bizarre, really. And don't even start me on the camera thing. I don't understand that at all.

All this aside, I do understand having a cell phone for emergencies. They really can be a good technology, if we use it right, which most of us do not. In fact, I'm sure we all have a cell phone story we can relate, or a pet peeve about them. Do you? I'd love to know it. I don't think I'm alone in this feeling. Feel free to vent, folks. I'd love to hear what you have to say, whether you agree with me or not.

I'd Like To

tell you about my daughter's first day of school, however, when I asked her what she did today, she told me there was "too much to tell" and left it at that. I have gotten no information from her.

I can tell you that when she came home she looked pretty tired. Probably because this was her first full day of school, 8:50 to 3:15, and she was in the structured setting of first grade. But that is all I know. I also think she had music at some point, but I can't commit...

Instead, I guess I will have to tell you about my first day of my daughter's school. I am proud to say I cried much less. In fact, I didn't cry at all until I thought about taking the kids to the farmer's market Friday morning, and realized one of my children would not be there. Then I cried. But other than that, I was brave.

What's hardest for me is always how much I DON'T know about her days. And before you label me a control freak, let me explain. I stay at home. I raise my children. Pretty much that means that I know what they're up to during the day, even when I can't see them. When Little Girl was in Kindergarten, it was a half day, and I wasn't missing much, even when she had "too much to tell". Now she's got a full day, and at the end of it, I'm left to piece together what happened either by what little information she gives me, or what was sent home in her folder. Who was she talking to? What friends did she make? What did she learn? Those things I can't answer. I don't even know what the teacher looks like or who she is. This is what I find so hard--I can't choose who it is who is influencing my daughter. What is she teaching? How does she act? Is she supportive or not?

I know this is part of letting go. I know this is a part of growing up. I can accept that, ....but it doesn't make it easier.

My daughter, a study in contrasts: pretty dress, shiny new shoes....and a Wall-E backpack.

Making Yucky

Brought about by either having withdrawal from my kitchen (with no canning projects to speak of), or by the ridiculous sale on potatoes at the local market (5 lbs for .99--how can you beat that?), I decided today to make gnocchi.

I have never done this before. I know I like it, I have seen it done, but I've never done it. When I looked for a recipe, it seemed like a piece of cake. A nice, pretty quick way to make a bunch of gnocchi all at once, and I could freeze it and we could have it whenever we would like. Because it seemed so easy to do, I figured why not do it big? So I boiled up 9 pounds of potatoes. The recipe needed 3 at a clip, and I figured I'd pretty much make triple that and have a WHOLE LOT. Good deal.

The cooking of the potatoes was a piece of cake. Boil them, no big deal. Peel them, no big deal. Smush them, no big deal. I smushed them as best I could, then I threw them in the mixer to smush them further. Then I added the egg, the salt, and the flour. Then I mixed them but good and went to knead it.

This is where I had trouble. This stuff is STICKY!! No sooner would the outside get dry, then the inside would be a sticky, mushy mess. I was struggling with this, adding flour and kneading and kneading, when Little Boy came over.

"What're you doing, mommy-o?" he said. (We are beatnik parents, I have to warn you now. Mommy-o and Daddy-o. Funny enough, it was Little Boy who started to call us that when he turned 2--I don't know why-and it just stuck. So that's us. The beatniks.)

"I am making gnocchi", I said as I added MORE flour.

"Making Yucky?"

"No, making GNOCCHI."

"Why are you making Yucky?"

"Nee-yo-kee", I said, sounding it out as best I could for him. "I am making it because it's good."

"Why is Yoke-y good?"

"Because it is" (aren't I full of helpful information?)

"Why? Is it bread?"

"It's not bread, it's like macaroni. You can have some if you want."

"Ummmmm...no thanks. It's not macaroni!"

"Why isn't it macaroni?"

"Cause that's dough, and macaroni's not dough! It's hard and it grows on trees!"

Ok, that's my husband's fault. We were in the car one day and he kept asking and asking where things came from Most of what he asked about grew on trees or bushes. He asked where oranges came from, where lemons came from, where pears came from, etc. Just on and on and on. He finally asked where macaroni came from, and my husband, who is as demented as I am, says "a macaroni bush". Well, to a 4 year old a bush=a tree, so macaroni grows on trees. I am partly to blame for this. When my husband said it, my son got so excited about macaroni growing on trees (and therefore maybe he could plant one), that I just couldn't stop laughing enough to correct the situation.

So this was my chance for redemption.

"No, macaroni is made from dough. Then it's dried. That's why it's hard. It doesn't grow on trees" I said.

He looked pretty disappointed, but didn't push the issue.

"So that's yucky macaroni?"

"Yes", I said, because now it was kind of a yucky thing. I could NOT get it to dry up and be workable. I think that at this point I had added 3cups of flour, and I know the recipe only called for 2. Most recipes called for less than that, so man, I was off. I decided to just cut my losses and roll it out the way I was supposed to, boil it up, and hope for the best.

At this point, Little Boy had moved on, convinced that the yucky macaroni was just another project of mine, and he needn't worry because I wasn't feeding it to him tonight, and all was right with the world.

I did get the dough to sort of behave, and got it rolled out and cut up, but the gnocchi are not pretty. The second batch I made behaved slightly better, but still was really sticky, and not pretty at all. I did taste them after they came out of the water, and they taste fine, but they're not as coherent as I would have liked. They're also not so smooth, despite the fact that I beat the potatoes to a pulp.

And I shall call them "Rustic"

So I don't know what I'm missing here. They are passable, but ugly. I think they could be better. I did make two batches, but I froze the last three pounds of cooked potatoes instead of using them because I was a bit discouraged, and didn't want to make 3 batches of ugly gnocchi. Are there any gnocchi makers out there? Got any tips to help me change my "yucky macaroni" into pretty delicious macaroni? I'd be glad for the help!