October - Must be fall.

Temperatures here have finally dropped...a little.  We are only in the 80's these days.  The mornings and evening feel really wonderful though and it is so nice to be able to just open the windows for a while.  Where we live, there is not really much change from season to season.  Most of the town stays green year round and only a few of the trees will start to loose their leaves, but not until we have our first really cool spell.  Up on the mountain however, it is apple season and if one drives up there (about 35 minutes or so) then the trees are turning all their glorious colors signaling fall is upon us and winter is soon to follow.

Miss Zebra and I finished our first course of cake decorating, the basics.

This one was mine.  I did yellow roses for Texas.  I had a different blue, more of a denim blue, icing that I had intended for the border, but time ran out to make Miss Zebra's purple for her border so she used mine in the class and the teacher made me use another student's left over to get us caught up from being late.    I had an awful time with crumbs on these two cakes.

This is my daughter's cake.  Miss Zebra was very proud of herself and has now approached her school club leader to have a bake sale for their fundraising, she has offered to make cupcakes...10 dozen...lots of cupcakes.  Pretty sure I will end up helping to finish them up.  At least cupcakes ice our quickly.

Hubby heard from insurance yesterday, we are coming out quite well on the settlement.  He is worked yesterday to get our old little Toyota truck running so he can drive it to work and back, that way Miss Zebra will be able to drive herself again.  She has our old suburban as her car...like 97 model.  In fact, it was my dad's, we bought it from my mom when dad passed away in 2003, and am pretty sure he bought it about the same time she was born.  Miss Zebra kind of digs on the fact that she has something that was her Papaw's.  She kind of got cheated out of getting to know him as well as the other kids did.  But hey...it still runs so why not.

Things are finally starting to progress, well getting started anyway, with the kitchen remodel.  I am going to a second design session with the Lowe's guy and am hoping that by the end of the week will have an official start on this thing.  He estimates 6-8 weeks for completion.  Much better than the 16 weeks from Home Depot.  A little cheaper as well, not by much, but their installation cost is cheaper, so much so that I am more than likely going to let them do it all.  Well, cabinets and counter tops anyway, we will do the lighting, hooking up appliances, floor repairs and backsplash.  Our neighbor is a contractor and he is supposed to be working on an estimate as well, but he hasn't got a lot of time as he is full of jobs and I don't know if he would even be able to do it any time soon.

Okay, so off I go.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.  Please come back soon and visit.

Monday Menu...and catch up.

My goodness, it has been a while since I last posted.  That's what happens when I go down ill for few days. I have been working on the house as well.  Have all my craft stuff back in place, except for the fabric.  Still have a ton of fabric to unpack, but can see the end in site.  Am to the point now where I can actually see a time when I can actually craft.  More about that later.

Menu planning...partly working and partly not.  I haven't posted to Organized Junkie Monday's Menu Plan   for a couple of weeks now.  I am actually thinking that it would be easier to post what we have  had the previous week as opposed to posting the plan for the week.  I have the best intentions, really I do, but it just seems that what ever I plan, doesn't happen.  I know what I have on hand, so that makes it a little easier.

This week:
Mon. - Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans
Tue. - Beef Stew and cornbread
Wed. - Chicken enchiladas, pinto beans
Thu. - Talapia, corn, broccoli
Fri. - Chili
Sat. - burgers
Sun. - eating out

My hubby's parents are coming, picking them up on Sat. at LA airport so hubby will grill burgers or steaks, not sure which, haven't gotten that far with planning yet.  Will have the grand baby that day, his dad (oldest son) is taking the state test for an electrician, his mom is running in a mud run...Volkslauf.  The, on Sunday we will all be driving over to Hurst Castle and taking a tour.  We will eat out some where along the way.  Then Monday, hubby is taking his parents up to see the big trees, I will go if we can get back by 4:30, other wise I have to stay behind to get youngest daughter, Miss Zebra, to band practice.  Tues we will just be hanging out at the house, Miss Zebra has ice skating lesson, wants her grandparents to come watch.  I will attending my Wilton Cake Decorating class.  I tried to take this class once before, but due to health issues of myself and family, was unable to complete.  I hope to make it through this time.  I already missed last week, and thought I would have the baby today, not sure if I would be able to attend next Monday due to visitors, so talked to instructor and changed to her evening class.

I bought a bunch of candy molds and decorations to make cupcakes to take to the church festival on Halloween, and alternative fun night for the kids.  They are having a cupcake walk, as opposed to a cake walk, so am donating a few dozen cupcakes for the event.  More kids get to win.  I am actually looking forward to making them, have grand ideas, will see what actually ends up getting done.  Will post photos of course.

Now...about crafting.  I need to get more of the house back in order (still have some boxes of mom's things I have to sort through) before I can actually start taking time to work on any projects.  As for menu planning, I have to rethink how I am going about that.  It seems, I am spending so much time on trying to make up a menu plan, stick to the menu plan, organize the menu plan, that I am just not getting anything else done.  I need to SIMPLIFY my details of life so very much, so that is what I am working on.  I am going to have one day that I plan, simple meals, making more use of the crock pot.  Once I get a little more meat cooked, making room in the freezer, I plan to do a large cooking session over a week end to stock the freezer with cooked meals. That will work better for me I do think.  Then, I am going to designate a couple of days a week for cleaning, a few hours a day for computer time, then spend some evenings actually working on craft projects once again.  Will work during the day some if Mr. M cooperates with napping.

I unpacked three boxes of fabric, finding some quilting UFO's in the process.  I am determined not to start any new projects until I finish up all the UFO (Un Finished Objects) or maybe I should stick to calling them WIP (Works In Progress) which letter wise makes a little more sense for my OCD (you know what that is) mind.  So far, there are quilts, crochet projects, garments and embroidery all in various stages of progress.  That will be my first order of business, to finish up those.  Then, I can get to working on some charity projects and some items to finally stock the Etsy store I have. Maybe make a little pocket change in the process.  I have two boxes so far of items for the store.

Funny thing, in an attempt to get more organized, I had created a blog for just cooking.  Was only going to list recipes on it so I could join in this thing called the Mystery Cooking Club.  Well, I had just gotten it set up, with just a few post.  Went to post a photo that went with one of the recipes only to find that some one, some where, had determined that the blog violated terms or was suspected of being spam, the blog had been deleted.  I wish I had know this would happen so I could have at least copied the story I posted about the recipe.  Oh well, such is life.

This is the Texas Sheath Cake I made. Was the recipe that was determined to be spam.  So...I won't post it.

Got to get moving and get a little something done around here.  Thank you for stopping by and come back often.  Feel free to leave a comment.