Sunday Fun Day!!!

Good Evening Internet Friends!!

Did all my "mom" and "responsible" things yesterday so today could just be enjoyable.

After breakfast kiddo, doggie and I headed out to the lakes in and around our community. 

When we got home the bread dough I had put to rise before we left was ready to go.  I made a regular white loaf on the left and topped it with the Everything Bagel Seasoning that I picked up at Costco recently.  The other loaf I made in to a cinnamon loaf and topped it with caramel sprinkles from the pantry😁:

 

While the bread rose again I grated the last of the zucchini in the crisper with my Grate and Measure and made a Chocolate Zucchini Cake to bake at the same time as the bread.  Save on energy.😺

Did a bit of cross stitch and knitting as well this afternoon on the deck.  

Took my bike out for a long ride this evening.  Lunch ready for tomorrow and now to head out for last walk of the day with doggie.

Hope this inspires your own creativity and wishing you all the BEST Day EVER Monday tomorrow.  Stay safe out there.

Kathy

Friday!!!

Good Evening Internet Friends!!!

I baked bread today as the weather was cooler.  Used the Everything Bagel Seasoning I picked up at Costco this week:

 

Did a few errands this afternoon as today is the last week day before I head back to work on Monday.

Arrived home just before dinner and did not feel like a big meal so I made a mushroom, spinach, tomato, green onion, parmesan frittata for dinner to go along with the fresh bread.  SOOOOO Yum.

 

Knit a bit after dinner and then took doggie for a long walk.

No plans for tomorrow as planning to stay home and minimize my carbon foot print.

Hope this inspires your own creativity and wishing you all the BEST Day EVER Saturday tomorrow.  Stay safe out there 😷

Kathy

BEST Day EVER Sunday!

Good Evening Internet Friends!

Doggie woke me up at regular time to go for a walk....apparently he did not receive the memo that it was THE weekend.

After returning home I decided that I would make French Toast for breakfast and use the fresh raspberries I had in the fridge from earlier this week:

Delicious of course, but this innocent breakfast is responsible for almost everything that happened after.

I used the last pieces of bread to make the French Toast and that meant I needed to make bread:

Dough rising in the sun beam looked so awesome.

Additionally, while I had been getting the raspberries out of the fridge I also remembered the 5 lb bag of beets that I had purchased at the same time as the raspberries because the beets were TOO good a deal.  So.....out came the food processor portion of the Kitchenaid and 5 lbs of beets and 2 lbs of carrots became:

Added some freezer peas,onions, some of the dill I dried last summer and Borscht soup for lunch was a GO!

Bread was baked and turned out FABULOUS.  Doggie was sitting in front of the oven door as usual waiting for it to be done so he could get the heels.  He did of course and was super happy:

Nothing tastes better than fresh bread in my opinion.

The Resident Cookie Monster had also mentioned as I was getting underway with all my baking/cooking projects today that the cookie jar was nearing empty!!!   Horror.  Well.....crisis was averted as I made Sea Salt Caramel Chip Cookies from a package of chips I had in the pantry:

These are pretty tasty!!!  You can try to eat just one......But......

Back to the refrigerator where I took out a zucchini, a red, yellow, and green pepper along with some spinach that was all going to need to be used up this week.  I decided that lasagna for dinner would take care of all of these vegetables and so that is what I made:

This should get us through dinners at least part of the week as it is a five day work week for me and a five day school week for kiddo.  On top of that all extracurricular activities will be resumed this week.  

While all of this baking and cooking was going on I also did an amazing amount of house cleaning!  Everything is washed, vacuumed, polished, scrubbed, and cleaned in some form.  The house looks and smells like HOME which is great because it was three months ago today that we spent our first night in our new home.  🏡

So.........a GREAT day thanks to doggie not getting the weekend notice memo.  

Hope this inspires your own creativity and wishing you all the

BEST Day EVER Monday tomorrow.

Kathy

Where am I???

Good Very Late Evening Internet Friends!

First off I know that I am home and that I think I am over jet lag and holiday fun and exhaustion at the same time.  Back to work this week for four days and as of this evening I am back on vacation for another 12 days.  As of yet, I have no real plans for this vacation time.  Might go to Farmer's Market tomorrow 😊

Have done a bit of knitting this week in between important things like getting to and from work, kid to his events, and baking bread the other evening because my son does not like the taste of store bought bread:  🍞

This evening I sorted through some more of the scraps in my craft room and made:

Another Flock of Geese Block for the 52 Week Block Challenge.  Not sure what week I am supposed to be on, but this is MY current block and I feel accomplished that at least another one is made. 😲

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

What's the Buzz???

Good Evening Internet Friends!

We arrived back home very late Saturday or very early Sunday morning dependent on time zone that we still seem to be adjusting to and also due to a delay with departure of the plane from Ottawa.

Back to work now for two days and at home starting to get organized and some sense of normal restored. 😊.  

Found this really cool fabric recently and decided on a colour way that would coordinate with my next knitting project that I hope to start soon with a pattern that I picked up while in Quebec:

TAH DAH!!!!

Now off to check on the bread I decided to bake this evening as I was too tired to stop at the market on the way home this evening.  

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Baking Day!

Good Evening Internet Friends!

This morning I used up the last of the home made bread for french toast breakfast:

This afternoon before taking kid and dog out for a walk I made bread and left it to rise.  Returning home I baked it:

So delicious!!   I love fresh baked bread.

Will do a bit of knitting her before getting ready for bed now as tomorrow is back to work ☺

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Family Day

Good Evening Internet Friends!

I trust that everyone had a wonderful and relaxing family day.

At our house we sure did.  Slept late after watching movies until early this morning.  After breakfast I started on making bread:

While the bread was rising I worked on my Prairie Rose Block of the Month from Prairie Points Quilt Shop.  I was inspired to get back at this twice yesterday; first time was when Lynn posted about putting hers on the quilt frame, second was when a random lady posted hers as being complete!!!  Today I did the center portion of Block 7:

"Sew" far I have completed Blocks 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Really if I just did it I could get it finished.....

After baking the bread my son, the puppy and I headed out for a walk: 

I love the classic homes in our neighbourhood.  I really do love these old neighbourhoods.

Just before our walk my son asked if we could have pizza for dinner.  Sure!!!  Whole wheat pizza crust was set to rise while we were out on our walk:

My son did the toppings and as such there is a plethora of mushrooms and most of the block of fresh mozzarella is on there!  Yummy.......

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Saturday Fun Day!

Good Evening Internet Friends!

We have apparently come out of the deep freeze of winter today for a while.

After swimming lessons this morning my son and I and the dog headed out to the River Valley.  It was a lovely 15 kilometer (9.2 mile) walk.  Dog is currently asleep ☺

Before we departed for our walk I put beans, lentils, and ground bison in the slow cooker to make chili and made some bread dough and left it to rise.  

Arriving home from the cool of the walk the chili smelled wonderful and I put the bread into the oven to bake:

This evening kiddo and I are going to watch some movies and maybe even have a family room camp out for the night!

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Comfort Things....

Good Evening Internet Friends!

Today I am very proud of a project that I completed in the wee hours of this morning (yes I worked today).

I started on this shawl about a year ago.  I remember knitting on this at my Grammy's bedside after she had been airlifted from Foothills, home.  My son, his puppy and the Shih tzu loaded into the Focus and headed off to Saskatchewan to be with her.  My brother was eight hours behind us.

Today I finished this shawl and looking at it I am very proud of my accomplishment.  First, I have never ever knitted a shawl like this ever before!  Second, I followed a pattern.  This was the very first shipment of Yarn Crush and I chose to make what was in the shipment.  Thirdly, this project has been a great source of comfort for me this year as I have dealt with several adversities this year three of which occurred at the same time.

Throughout these adversities this shawl due to the complexity of the pattern served to be a focus for me....if I did not focus on the pattern I had to go back and fix the mistakes.  A year later the shawl is done, and I am for the most part feeling and coping better, health wise still is tough some days but I get through it.

This is my Oroya Shawl:

As of right now it is still not blocked;that is a tomorrow project.

A close up of the pattern.

On the thought of things that bring me comfort home baked bread is one of those things as well.  We rarely have store bought bread in our home because I love the comfort that home baked bread brings.  Both of the dogs also love home baked bread and as soon as I turn on the oven they will both come and stare at the oven door waiting for the first cut of the crust!

This weekend I pulled out the Kitchen Mill and ground up some of the last grain that I have from the farm to make:

Whole grain bread.  This is most definitely my go to comfort food!

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Whirlwind Sunday....

Good Evening Internet Friends!

Well, my three day weekend is over and now back to work for 4 days, off for one and then evenings this weekend.  I can always account for my days yet always seem to wonder where the time goes.

This morning kiddo and I were up bright and early because we had to help his Boy Scouts group organize and inventory all of their equipment for the upcoming season.  I started a load of laundry before we left.

We returned home after lunch to carry on with the laundry (we were cold though cause it started to rain on us) and get ready for school and work this week.

First off because the weather seemed rather nasty outside I cut down all of my chive plant and chopped it up and put it in the oven at 170 F for two hours to dry:

All chopped and ready for the oven on top of a piece of brown paper.

Two hours later I have almost a cup of chopped dried chives.  These are now living in the freezer for use in cooking in the upcoming winter (which right now seems like tomorrow).

I decided that I better start working on some of the veggies from the haul last weekend so decided a quick way to get rid of lots in a hurry would be to make borscht:

We had some for dinner and will for lunch as well tomorrow.  The remainder has been packed into containers and is bound for the freezer as I really did not feel like starting the canning process late in the evening (today anyways).  

Nothing tastes better in my mind than soup with fresh bread so I made Oatmeal, Multi-grain, Whole Wheat bread:

YUM.  My favorite with butter!

For dessert I used the last of the fresh rhubarb from the refrigerator and made Rhubarb Crumble Pie:

I LOVE this dessert!!!  So Yummy!!!

Now of course in typical me fashion while all of this was going on laundry was not enough to keep me occupied so between loads and batches I also worked on:

Socks!  I wore my wool socks today and they were amazing as always; I was cold but my feet were not.   ☺

Thrum Mittens because it is getting cold out (as I have mentioned a few times....right?).

Both of these yarns are from my Yarn Crush/Sock Crush subscription boxes.  As I sat knitting these today I realized that part of what I love about these boxes is that the boxes only contain yarn from Indie Yarn Dyers!  As you likely know I love supporting small and local businesses and these boxes allow for me to expand my yarn intake more than I probably would on my own as right now I have 4 favorite Indie Dyers and pretty much always use these.

I will post more details later in the week about each of these, but for tonight I think I shall go to sleep.  It's been a long but very good day. ☺

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

It's Raining...It's Pouring...

Good Evening Internet Friends!

Woke up to the rain that had been forecast this morning.  Kid and I decided it was a day to just stay in doors and home!  That is exactly what we did!

We had oatmeal with fresh blueberries for breakfast and watched Saturday morning cartoons while we ate it.

Then I decided to make Cottage Cheese Dill bread (used the last of the left over cottage cheese in the refrigerator) for lunch:

While the dough was rising I decided that I would clean the living room; dust and orange oil the blinds, wash the windows and sills, dust and wood oil the furniture, oil the leather furniture, vacuum everywhere and wood wash the floors!  My son thought I was nuts and so he decided to "escape.  I suggested he might want to clean his room before I decided to clean it....well, this is what occurred...

Budderball is still wearing his leis.

The bread turned out great:

After lunch I spent the time cleaning up the craft room and organizing things.

Right now I am working on the Star Block Challenge from A Needle Pulling Thread Quilt Shop.  I think it is week 23 currently so today I made Block 3 (a little behind I know).  The good news is that these blocks go together fairly quickly and I organized my scraps into one space for these blocks today:

I love these challenge quilts because they are easy enough to not get overwhelmed with when you work, have extracurricular activities for both you and kid, have a husband who works away from home 2 weeks at a time, and have all the mundane things like dinner, lunches and laundry to deal with.  The quilts are always really pretty and that makes me happy!

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

What's For Lunch?

Good Evening Internet Friends!

The age old question of what to make for lunch today????  By this time of year I am really getting bored of packing lunches and seem to have run out of ideas for fun lunches.  Today we had jam and homemade bread sandwiches!

On Sunday I baked four loaves of bread:

YUMMY!

This evening after school my son and I walked down to the closed Groat Road to see what we could see of the Groat Road Bridge situation.  We were not able to see much of anything except:

At least this one isn't bent! ☺

Today is Day Three of the Tree Bird Blog Hop hosted by Lana over at It Seams to be Sew

The participants for today are:

Tomorrow's Treasures Today

Childlike Facination

Pig Tales and Quilts

Quiltsmiles

Ella and Nesta's Little Room

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Gracie Oliver Arts

Check out their awesome creations!  I get to post mine tomorrow☺

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Monday.....

Good Evening Internet Friends!

It's Monday and almost over. Today was somehow a very loooooooong day.

Yesterday I decided to make bread.  After I made a batch and kneaded it I was not sure it was going to "live", so I decided to make a second batch.

Well, the first batch did "live" and so I made it into a cinnamon loaf which was the perfect way to make toast this cold morning:

Super yummy!

Today is the second day of the Tree Bird Blog Hop hosted by Lana of It Seams to be Sew at Sew We Quilt.

The list of participants for today are:

Sew Peace To Peace

Moose Stash Quilting

Buzzing and Bumbling

I Piece 2 Mary

Quilt Doodles

Just Let Me Quilt

Les Quilts

A Stitch In Time

Check out everyone's cool projects using the Beautiful Birds fabric collection!

Even I was able to get my hands on some of this fabric!

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Elegant Dinner?

Good Evening Internet Friends.

Worked today and of course battled especially bad traffic on the way home tonight.  Only kid and I home for dinner so we had our favorite meal on these nights; scrambled eggs, whole grain toast with marmalade and a glass of milk!  Quite "Elegant" as my son comments.

The marmalade is of course form my fall preserves and the whole grain bread from my baking on the weekend.  I LOVE making whole grain bread, it smells so yummy fresh out of the oven, and even the next couple of days smells so wonderful when I slice into it.

 Almost ready to shape into loaves.

Two of the four loaves I made.  Gave two away, froze one and left one out for toast and sandwiches this week.  

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Christmas Vacation Day 9!

Good Evening Internet Friends!

I am proud to say that my son is a very sweet and gentle child.  Everywhere he goes he attracts animals to him.  My mom will laugh about this as the number of stray pets that I dragged home as a child is quite lengthy. That being said, there is a little bunny that lives under the steps here at the resort that my son has befriended over the past few days.  I am assuming that he is one of the infamous Canmore Bunnies as he is not a wild bunny.  My grandmother used to feed my bunny bananas, so we decided to try giving Bun Bun as we have dubbed him a banana.  He LOVED it.

This  afternoon I also baked some bread as we were almost out:

We gave a warm slice to Bun Bun and he thought it was yummy too!

Hope  you all had a wonderful day, and 

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy

Oatmeal Bread

Greetings Internet Friends.

Tomorrow starts another work week, and the dilemma of what to pack for lunches.

Well, today I decided I would at least start to think about the lunch process and made Oatmeal Bread:

I used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 2 cups of 2 cups of Nutri Flour Blend Tastes like White.

It makes for a dense, but not dry loaf of bread that with butter and cheese is very tasty!

Hope this inspires your own creativity...

Kathy