Darning, Adult Bibs and Clothespin Bags....

Mending my son's favorite work pants... Big Brother's darning stitch to the rescue!



When you get to be about my age, you and most of your friends have elderly parents they help take care of. One of my friends asked me to make some adult bibs for her mother-in-law. I'm a little hesitant to call them bibs, but if I call them adult aprons, most people wouldn't understand what their purpose really is. My friend furnished some towels and I added binding around the neck.

This one is based on a child's bib pattern that I found on line. You cut a lolly pop shape in one end of the towel and then sew bias tape around the neck hole and down the back, leaving the bias tape "strings" long enough to tie a bow in the back.



The person using the bib will be covered pretty well with these. The shoulders, chest and lap will be protected.





I didn't get a picture of the other bibs that I made, but another style that I made used a hand towel. I simply cut a half circle in one end and covered the opening with bias tape, leaving the ends of the tape long enough to tie.

I've been busy making clothespin bags for Spring and Summer. I came up with a new opening using some eyelet lace quilt binding that I had in my stash. Rick Rack is also a cute finish.






I've also been doing a little quilting. For quilting updates, go to my other blog, ANGEL SCRAPS QUILTING.

My Favorite No Lettuce Salad

In the past I have always put lettuce in my salads, just like most people. But, I never really liked it so much. I finally decided to just make my salads with healthy foods that I really like and skip the lettuce.

In an effort to lose a few pounds, I've been eating a salad just like this one for supper several nights a week lately.





Here's what my "no lettuce" salad might contain. Each one I make might have a different combination and also depends on what produce is on sale at my grocery store each week.

On one side of the bowl are fruits that might include:(its a pretty big bowl!):

About 1/3 of an apple cut into bite size pieces
About 1/3 of a can of "no sugar added" fruit such as pears, peaches or pineapple
About 1/3 of a sliced banana
Just a sprinkle of raisins
Just a sprinkle of grated cheese (cheddar or mozzarella)
A couple of dollops of low fat cottage cheese

On the other side of the bowl some veggies that might include:

Some grape tomatoes sliced in half
A little sliced cucumber
Some green bell pepper cut into small pieces
Broccoli
Baby Dill Pickles
Just a drizzle or 2 of Light Ranch Dressing.

In the middle or on the side:

Some kind of meat. The one in the picture had a couple spoonfuls of homemade chicken salad made with light mayo. Other times it has been browned boneless chicken breast, browned bite size pieces of boneless pork chop or steak or a small hamburger without a bun.

NO LETTUCE! And I don't like carrots either!

I think this is a very delicious, low calorie, healthy meal.

Finally, Some Yard Work

We had a lovely weekend, weather wise, so I finally was able to start working in the yard. My motto this year for the yard is "LOW MAINTENANCE"!

The shade garden has been mulched with newspaper and brown mulch. We only buy a Sunday paper, but I have been collecting the newspapers from work in a box for a while now. I bet I'm the only person on my road whose plants are mulched with the Wall Street Journal!

I started this project a while back and finally finished it Saturday. Its been wonderful not to constantly be pulling weeds in there. I'll plant a few more shade plants and put a few pots of annuals, such as impatiens, in some of the bare spots.



I planted my chair planters. Here's planter chair number 1. I used this old enamelware dishpan and just sat it on the chair. These plants are small right now, but when they fill in and grow I think they will look nice.



Here's planter chair number 2. We removed the seat of this one and found a wire basket that fits perfectly down into the hole. It contains Sweet Potato Vine (for a trailing plant), Variagated Lirope (for a tall plant), Red Salvia, red Wave Petunias, and Marigolds. I'm also going to add some Vinca vine, which I'll transplant from the places it has spread. I stuck to yellow and red flowers so they would go well with the red chair. I plan to grow some taller plants around it like Zinnias.



I have Brown Eyed Susans growing in odd places that evidently came from seeds being blown around. I am digging them up and moving them to the "birdhouse garden".



A new garden flag that was a Mother's Day gift.



These are some HUGE Day Lillies.



We have Petunias everywhere that came from seeds. This one is growing in a crack in the steps. I would move it to another spot, but I'm not sure if I can get it out without killing it.



These Gerbera Daisies survived out mild winter.



On my yard work to do list:

1. Finish moving Brown Eyed Susans
2. Transplant Vinca vines to pots
3. Plant Zinnia seeds in the Bird House Garden
4. Weed and mulch the Rock Garden.
5. Mulch the Bird House Garden.
6. Weed and mulch the foundation area.
7. Weed and re-mulch the Hydrangea bed.
8. Work on edible landscaping idea.
9. Cut back wild Petunias. These are taking over the yard!
10. Plant 3 hanging baskets

Happy Mother's Day

My daughter with her sweet baby son. He's now almost 5 years old and will start kindergarten in July. I just can't believe how fast he's grown!



My son as a baby....



and as a grown man.



Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom god's love entrusts me here.

Ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide.

Amen!

This is a picture of Mama's hands and her "birthday cake and candle" three years ago.



The following is written in the margin of one of my Women's Devotional Bibles.

"Hope uncovers new possibilities and shows us what can be done. It wrestles with angels, looks impossibilities in the eye and winks. Hope springs eternal. Hope supersedes all good intentions.

Positive thinking, on the other hand, can get you only so far. When that train of thought won't get you further, jump track and keep going by the power of God's grace. After all, you know Immanuel, God who is with us.

Dare to believe that he has planned greater things right around the corner for the ones you love. Hold your loved ones before the throne and count on God's answer in their lives. Don't let your ability or inability to think your way around circumstances hold you back. Pray and rest. Then pray some more.

---Barbara Johnson"

Have a great Sunday!

Glimpses of Home

My mother has been in the hospital for 2 weeks and is now back at the nursing home. She just isn't doing well. My heart is not really into blogging much.

But here are a few pictures of things around my home lately. Eggs... my coworker has chickens and has more eggs than she knows what to do with. Would we take her extras? Of course! I didn't even know she had chickens.

A couple of pound cakes baking that I made using the eggs. This was about 2 weeks ago.

Some perennial flowers are blooming in the yard. I haven't had time to plant my zinnias and other annuals yet. I still plan to, but we will see.

I hope you have a good Wednesday.

Its a Pirate's Life For Me.... AARGH!

Here are a few pictures from the Graduation we attended at East Carolina University, which is Pirate Country.

Some marching to Pomp and Circumstance:

A crowd in the football stadium:

Some fierce football has taken place here!



Couldn't resist some shots of interesting hats...

A sea of purple hats:

The graduate and proud father:

He loved the quilt! He remembers wearing some of the shirts while on dates with his girlfriend. :o)

 

Menu Planning in Reverse

This week was the week for CABBAGE! Cabbage is such a versatile vegetable and one cabbage can go a long way! On a recent trip to the grocery store, when I scanned my store card at the kiosk, I received a coupon for $1.00 off $5.00 worth of produce. I felt I should use the coupon since produce coupons are few and far between. With my coupon I purchased a cabbage, celery, carrots and bananas.

  Another highlight from my cooking this week was this peach cobbler made from canned peaches:



Here are some meals from this past week:

Meal One: BBQed chicken breasts, cabbage cooked with ham bits, field peas, noodles. The chicken was from the freezer bought when it was 99 cents a pound. The peas were in the freezer from last summer. The cabbage was bought with the coupon.

Meal Two: A family size frozen lasagna. This was bought on sale for $5.99, less a $2.00 coupon. It might not be as good as home made lasagna, but you can't beat the price. Making homemade lasagna is pricey since it contains so much cheese. For the two of us this lasagna was more than enough for a meal and there were leftovers for lunches. There were left over veggies that went well with it also.

Meal Three: Sloppy Joes and Slaw. I love Manwhich sloppy joes and the cans were on sale for a dollar each. Ground chuck was on sale for $1.99 a pound. I used some more of the cabbage to make the slaw. I also bought hamburger buns on sale and with a coupon. This made a hearty meal and again there were leftovers for lunches.

Meal Four: Cabbage Soup. This was absolutely delicious. I had some cabbage pieces left that wouldn't shred when I was making the slaw. Instead of throwing them out I put them back in the fridge just in case I came up with another use for them. Saturday I decided to throw them in the crockpot with a few other veggies bought with the coupon as well as tomatoes from the freezer. The ingredients included celery, onion, cabbage, tomatoes and about 1/2 pound of browned hamburger. We loved this and will be making it in the future. The thing that makes cabbage soup so delicious is using plenty of black pepper.

Crafty Things

My friend Terri at HEARTS IN SERVICE is hosting a linky today called Crafty Things. She would love for you to link to posts about any crafty things you have been up to.

I've been working on the free motion machine quilting of this quilt. It needs it to be finished by next Friday which is graduation day for the recipient! Not sure if that will happen, but I'll keep plodding along....

The back:

Some of the progress on the front:

I'm not too sure about the new blogger!  How about you?

Happy Friday!

Frugal Eating From the Pantry - Week 2

I guess you could call this Menu Planning in reverse! Here's what we ate this past week. We are continuing on with eating from the pantry and freezer.

Meal One: I often try to cook home made meals for my mother to eat in the nursing home. So, last Sunday while I lay in bed before day, I thought about what I could cook and decided to cook just what Mama would have cooked if she were able. For many years we ate almost every Sunday dinner at my mother's, along with other siblings and their children. She always, always, managed to go to church and put a huge meal on the table.

Fried chicken, potato salad, butter beans, bow tie pasta cooked in chicken broth, dressing. We ate this for two days, including some lunches for work.

Meals Two, Three and Four:

There was a large bag of boiled chicken in the freezer that I had planned to use in a chicken casserole or pot pie. Since we have been concentrating on using what is in the freezer, this was the only meat we had left. I placed it on a plate in the fridge to thaw and when I got home Tuesday night I heated the chicken in a frying pan by sauteing it in a little olive oil.

From this is I made: 1. Chicken Fried Rice; 2. Green salads with chicken; 3. chicken salad.

Meal Five: Ok, enough chicken!!! I splurged at the grocery store and picked up 2 small chuck eye steaks for about $5.00, which hubby browned in a frying pan. We had salad and baked potatoes with the steaks. This was WAY less expensive than going out to eat and was delicious.


EXTRA: I made pound cakes Friday night.

Frugal Strawberries

My hubby has access to free strawberries. The reason for this is that they aren't quite good enough for the market or are too ripe, etc.

If these are the culls..... we'll take em!

Strawberries are a great food to put in the freezer, especially when they are free.

FRUGAL EATING FROM THE PANTRY

This is the second week that we have been focusing on eating from the pantry, freezer and also from what is on sale at the store. I'm not too good at posting my menus in advance, but thought it would be good to show what we ate during the past week.

Meal One: Chicken pot pie and noodles.

Everything in the recipe was in my pantry and freezer. The results are a creamy white meat chicken with veggies covered by a lightly browned crust. I had split chicken breasts in the freezer bought when they were on sale. The egg noodles were cooked in the broth made when I boiled the chicken for the pot pie.

We ate from these dishes for 2 days, as well as taking my mother a plate when she was in the hospital.



Meal Two: Lasagna and salad

I thawed a small package of ground beef and put together the lasagna last Sunday afternoon, but waited to bake it after getting home from work on Monday.

We had some lettuce in the fridge and so I boiled a couple of eggs and gathered together things that would be good in salad, such as grated cheese, onion, canned peach slices, and dressing.

We also ate from this for 2 days and hubby took some for lunch 2 days.



Meal Three: Baked Potato Bar

I had plenty of potatoes, so I baked 4 medium ones in the microwave and assembled assorted toppings such as bacon bits, grated cheeses, sour cream and butter.

I had some broccoli in the freezer, so I cooked a small amount and melted cheese on top of it for broccoli and cheese baked potatoes.

It was nice to have such an easy meal and hubby took one of the potatoes with broccoli and cheese for lunch the following day.



Meal Four: Clam Chowder with crackers

We had a cold snap this week, so we took advantage of it by eating clam chowder for what will probably be the last time until fall.

I did need to pick up a small can of clams and another can of clam chowder, to which I added milk and diced boiled potatoes. We had crackers in the pantry.

Hubby was able to take a bowl for lunch the following day.

Meal Five: Pork Chops and salad

I went to the grocery store on Friday and found a small package of boneless pork chops for about $5.00. We pan fried half of these in olive oil and froze the rest for a future meal. I also bought a bag of salad that was on sale for $2.00, less a $1.00 coupon that I had. There is enough salad in the bag for several meals this coming week.

We've already started eating from the pantry, freezer and what's on sale this week and let me tell you today's food was wonderful! A little hint, it was just like Mama used to make. I plan to post what we ate this week next Monday.