Awaken my lovelies, awaken...

Today I gardened until my hands hurt. Under the sunshine and scattered fluffy clouds I trimmed back the tattered and dried, raked up scattered leaves, collected bugs for my curious little entomologist, and discovered these little lovelies who are slowly starting to awaken on this last day of January.

Sweet Sarcococca
Bend down, stick your nose into these dear little white flowers
soak in a tropical fragrance

Helleborus buds unfurling leaves and curling upward towards the sunshine

Awaken dear daffies, we await your fragrant and bright colors.

Ring! Ring!

My cousin Arman is so creative and talented. I just had to share one of my favorite little treasures he made called Ring! Ring! Enjoy...

First game...

I luv this... instead of a first dance together, our friends chose to have a "first game" together. Together they rocked the house playing Guitar Hero. So sweet.

Flashy Trout's Back..

All my seed catalogs have arrived and I am savoring every page, marking some must haves, and dreaming of veggies with flavor!

Today I'm dreaming about lettuce. Oh how I crave a garden grown salad!

It is so fun to grow several different varieties of lettuce together for color and texture. The Romaines make lovely flower like shapes.

Here's a picture I took of Flashy Trout's Back Lettuce from Territorial Seed Company. It is one of my all time favorites to grow. I adore the freckled leaf lettuces!

You can't go wrong with custom lettuce mixes from Cooks Garden. Cooks has the best selection of mixed seed. Every year I grow their Cutting Mix, Spring Mix and Summer Mix.

Meconopsis grandis...

I want to grow this wonderful blue flower again. It is the most amazing blue sky color!

I took this picture years ago, and came across it while making my "I want this plant list" for spring. I used to have one of these lovely blue poppies growing in our front garden. The plant lasted a few years, but got tromped or lost when we remodeled and I had to move all the plants out of the front garden.

Plant friends, if you happen to see these lovely meconopsis blue poppy while out plant hunting, grab one for you and me!

Apron Adventures... Part 5

You have got to try this Banana Cake from the kitchen of Gena Jones. This is the best way to turn ugly brown bananas into something devine.

When my Mom was pregnant with my little sister Sara, she had a neighbor girl help her with the summer duties of being a farm wife. Gena made this delicious cake for mom and she remembers having a hard time not eating it in one sitting! Pregnant or not, this cake is absolutely delicious and well worth the steps to the divine finish. I recently made this for a party, and in honor of a friend’s birthday. It was devoured.


¾ cup shortening or butter
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup mashed banana
½ cup butter milk (or ¼ cup milk plus ¼ cup plain yogurt)
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup finely chopped pecans
½ tsp salt
Toasted coconut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Butter and flour two 9 inch baking pans. I also like to butter a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. Butter the pan first then cut and lay a circular piece of parchment in the bottom of the buttered pan then butter again.
Cream shortening, sugar to fluffy; add eggs for 2 minutes at medium speed; add bananas, beat 2 more minutes; add dry, buttermilk, vanilla and beat 2 minutes more; stir in nuts and split into two pans. Sprinkle with coconut.
Bake 20-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Cool.


Place coconut side down 1st layer, remove parchment.
Filing goes in the middle
Top with coconut side up 2nd layer
Frost sides only


Filling
½ cup sugar
½ cup cream or ½ and ½
2 TBLS flour
2 TBLS Butter

Cook to thickened, add ½ cup chopped pecans, 1 tsp vanilla, ¼ cup butter; cool

Frosting
Cream together 1 egg white, 1/2 cup butter, ½ teaspoon vanilla, ½ tsp coconut extract, blend, add 2 cups powdered sugar until well blended.

Cocktails demystified...

I was so happy when my friend and neighbor Robert Hess of Drinkboy.com and author of The Essential Bartender's Guide- How to Create Truly Great Cocktails said he would teach a class about cocktails at his home bar. It wasn't difficult to rally a group of students for this class.


Roberts approach to cocktails is all about participation, appreciation and moderation. He teaches from the perspective of cocktails as cuisine, and encourages the gourmet pairing of cocktails with food. Through out the evening we learned cocktail history, tools, techniques, various alcohols and how they are produced, and sampled four different drinks: Cosmopolitan, Margarita, Japanese, and a Pimm's Cup.

The first drink we learned the history and making of is the Cosmopolitan.
1 1/2 ounce citrus vodka
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1 ounce cranberry juice
3/4 ounce lime juice

Cosmopolitans all lines up and ready for sampling.

Learning the ingredients to the Japanese. We were amazed at all the various types of bitters.

• 2 ounces brandy
• 1/2 ounce orgeat (almond syrup)
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Learning all about the various cocktail glassware. We learned why those huge 12oz V-shaped martini glasses are not so good. We've all been brainwashed to think bigger is better, but they are far too large for a sensible drink. He recommends we hunt through antique stores to fine the old cocktail glasses or champagne coupes (the first and shortest glass in the picture).

Please check out Drinkboy for more details on these and other delicious recipes. He also has several video demonstrations on the Smallscreen network. Here's a sample video where Matt and I learn how to make a Champagne Cocktail.

Cheers!

Sunset over a blanket of fog...

Last night before taking off for the evening festivities, I snapped a few pictures of this amazing sunset over the foggy valley. It was beautiful to watch the fog lift during the day, then nestle back down to blanket the valley. What a glorious day!

Fog in the hollow, fine day to follow...

After this crazy week, this blue sky above the valley of fog put a smile on my face. Hopefully you too will see blue today and smile. Have a fine day!

Please get better Gramps!

Over this past week Gramps has been in the hospital on a roller coaster ride fighting one of the worst known viruses: encephalitis. The fight continues, and today, was sadly not a step forward. There are concerns about his kidneys now. Tomorrow is unknown. Yet the gestures, faith, prayers, generosity and strength of family and friends abound. I am also in awe of how strong my husband has been through this unexpected, trying time. Nothing really prepares one for this part of life, caring for your parents. I think we need to read this book: "How to Care for Aging Parents" by Virginia Morris. Has anyone read it? Or does anyone have other recommendations?

Gramps, my loving Father-in-law, my caring husband's Dad, is on my mind. For those of you who don't know him, I wanted to share a little bit about him. He is a strong, easy going and gentle hearted loving man. He was in the Navy, attended seminary, taught college classes, been a nurse and is currently working for Hospice. He is a great friend and inspiration to so many. And one of my personal favorites, he officiated our wedding up on a hill, in a crop circle at Eureka Farm.

I am reminded daily of all the little things Gramps has done around here to help us, and how we love doing projects with him. Not to long ago he and I repaired the orchard fence together. Together we learned that if you shove a big black plastic bag into the post hole pounder, it won't make that deafening noise while you are pounding in posts. Together we built the amazing fence and lovely gates around our vegetable and flower garden. An arbor at our old house, the hot tub patio, the tool shed, the cabinets and counters in the garden shed, and a working sink in the chicken coop are all are his handy work.

Here's what the kids have to say about Gramps: "We love learning about bees and honey from Gramps. We love learning about birds from Gramps. We had fun pressing apple cider with Gramps and Mimi this past summer."

Please get better Gramps so we can do more fun projects together!

Yellow, Yellow...

Today I find myself missing the sun. Help! I need a big dose of vitamin D pronto! Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun please come out so I can play.

Inspired by the S.hop talk blog I follow, and this desperate need for sunshine, today I celebrate Yellow. Any yellow I can touch, any yellow I can rest my eyes upon: Mimosa yellow now the pantone color of 2009, butter yellow, Big Bird Yellow, number 2 pencil yellow, school bus yellow...thankfully NOT yellow snow!

I’m dressing Avril in yellow. I am wearing this new yellow shirt. Which by the way is hugely on sale at Body Central, grab one, it is adorable!

I dream of sticking my nose into this yellow Eureka tree rose in my garden.

I dream of the amazing fragrance from this huge yellow rose bush at Eureka Farm.

And a nod to the happy yellow sunflower from my summer garden.

Tonight I’m going to read this ripped up old, trippy, out of print childhood book I have from the 70’s called “Yellow Yellow” to the kids. The wacky illustrations are a riot! The other book we love by this same illustrator is called "Who Needs Doughuts".

TAKITEZ

Oh how I love little surprises during the day, that remind you to "take it easy". This week, I really needed this reminder while I am driving to and from everywhere, and learning to juggle the daily mom duties and a new job.

Life as I know it is a changing...

Seven and a half years ago, I stepped off the Microsoft campus, and went from a full time job designing User Interface for the Windows Media Player into the amazing full time adventure of Motherhood. Today I stepped back onto campus, thanks to Filter, to help the Windows Live Mobile team design mobile applications. Now you may wonder why? Here's seven reasons why:

1. I have always had a passion for software design and technology. I owe this passion to my Dad. Ever since he brought home that first Apple computer to the farm, I have been hooked on weaving technology into my daily life. I couldn't get enough of that text adventure Zork, and the game Choplifter. Then learning how to program in LOGO and get a turtle to move across the screen was just thrilling to me. I threw a party for my entire high school class at our house, and we danced to 80's music with a black light and a Macintosh set up with some fancy new thing called a screen saver running. Now that was soooo totally awesome! I even tried to turn in my school papers printed out on a dot matrix printer, and the teachers wouldn't accept them, because I had used spell checker! Those were the days.
2. I love thinking about and solving problems in software and technology with people. I'm fascinated how it changes our lifestyle and the impact it has on our children.
3. I secretly want to stay "with it" so I can keep up with my kids and all their technology gadgets in their future. They may be programming Lego Mindstorms today and building worlds in the game Little Big Planet, but what will they be doing tomorrow? I want to know it and be a part of it.
4. I want to climb some other mountains besides "Mount Washmore" piled up beside our washing machine. Not that I won't have to climb Mount Washmore on a regular basis, but I just want some new peaks to conquer with out the detergent.
5. My loving husband supports my crazy and insane song like attitude: "Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything. Better than you. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can!"
6. I'm terribly addicted to my crackberry, maybe working on some other mobile technology will cure my addiction? Afraid NOT!
7. I want to come home at night and eat pizza with the kids. Tonight we made homemade dough... give me a few weeks and I may be writing about which we prefer Dominoes or Papa Murphy ;-)

Repairing an old friend...

Sometimes an old friend needs a little help, a little work done. As I stitched a patch on my old Raggedy Ann Doll's leg, I was reminded of her journey.

In the 70's she became my doll, in all her red yarn hair glory, with her chest tattoo reminder that she loved me. I remember when my Dad said we were going to meet my future step sister who had red hair, I asked him: "Does she have red hair like my Raggedy Ann doll?"

I'm certain I played with Ann for several years, but for the rest of my childhood years and into adulthood I simply forgot all about Ann.

Then one day, when our daughter was about 9 months old, a large box arrived. I opened the box, and to my surprise there she was! Along with a little note from my childhood friend Terra reminding me that I had given Ann to her years ago, and that I had probably forgotten doing this and all about the doll. Terra had been waiting for me to have a baby girl to send her back to me. I cried tears of joy seeing Raggedy Ann! Instantly I peeked at her tattoo to see if she still loved me. Then through the tears I couldn't help but smile seeing my daughter give her a huge squeeze.
Today, Ann needed some more work: a nice red and white spotted felt leg patch. We are so happy this vintage Knickerbocker Raggedy Ann doll still loves us and we love her.

Best homework project ever...

Despite schools being closed due to flooding this past week, Aidan had the best homework project ever: The Snow Ball Challenge.

He brainstormed a list of ways to melt a snow ball. (boiling water, microwave, fire, sun, heater, oven) Then he collected four snow balls early in the week. Which was a good thing, because the snow was completely melted naturally by the end of the week.

Then he picked the top four ways he thought would melt the snow ball the FASTEST. And every day of the week we tried out the method and tracked the melt time.

Monday: dropped the snow ball into boiling water: 58 seconds

Tuesday: microwave melt: 3 minutes, 50 seconds

Wednesday: in the fire: 5 minutes, 20 seconds

Thursday: in the oven: 8 minutes 43 seconds

Which melting method worked the best? "In boiling water."

Why do you think this method was the best? "It was the hottest"

What could you do to the snow ball to keep it from melting? "Put it in the freezer."

What did you think of this math homework? "It was great! I was surprised at how long it took to melt in the oven at 550 degrees!"