Barbeque failures

On Saturday I spent the day with friends at Imelda's home. Her husband graciously offered to barbecue tri-tip for our lunch. He did all the work and then as we were sitting down to lunch, Kim noticed there was a fire in the backyard. The bag of charcoal had caught fire. David ran outside and put it out with the hose. I spent the entire lunch obsessively watching to see if the fire would flare up again. Twice I saw little flames try to start, but in the end, it went out on it's own.

Tonight I barbecued chicken. I had marinated the chicken in an onion dressing and it was smelling so good. As I sat and watched the barbecue, my dog Hunter, was nosing around the barbecue. I was thinking that wouldn't last as there were tiny bits of coals falling through the holes and I figured that one contact with that would send Hunter running. That didn't happen. What did happen is that Hunter bumped against the barbecue and knacked the whole thing over. The chicken went flying to the ground. Coals went rolling out onto the cement. After making sure that Hunter wasn't hurt or burned (he was perfectly fine!), my daughter and I lamented over the lost chicken as we looked in the freezer for a substitute. Silly me, I thought we cold eat the leftover sausage from the other night. Little did I know that the son and the husband had had a few midnight snacks and there was only half of a sausage left.

We ended up with pot-stickers. Not what I had looked forward to, but it worked out.

Issues

I logged on and found my followers were gone. That is sad. It wonderful to see people followed me. I thought it was something I did. I somehow found a virus and have not had use of my computer for close to a week. I managed to talk my daughter into letting me use her computer Sunday evening, but other than that, nothing. My son was amazing. He fixed the problem and installed something to make me more protected. I have no idea how I picked up the virus, but it wouldn't allow me to access the Internet or my email. So, you can imagine how I figured it must be me. Then I clicked on Kim's Big Quilting Adventure and she lost her followers too. Kim has lots! She said she found hers, but mine are still missing.......I miss you my lovely followers.

Off to work now. God, how I hate freeway traffic! Seven more days of this and I will go back to my regular school that is a 10 minute drive down the street. No freeway. Very little traffic.

:)

Lemon Cake

I am sure this has happened to all of us at one time or another.....

Yesterday, I was at a friend's home spending the day sewing, chatting and eating. We meet up once a month and have a great time. When we meet at our homes, the hostess provides the main entree and drinks while the others bring goodies to go with the entree. This time we were being treated to barbecued tri-tip. Yummm! There was a vegetable plate with dill dip and some very yummy appetisers with prosciutto, brie cheese and apples as well as a fruit plate. I brought dessert. I made a lemon cake with lemon frosting. It fell (as in the layers slid around on the plate) to one side and it was a disaster. I took the mess with me and tried to rescue the cake somewhat when I arrived, but it was never going to look fantastic ever again! It tasted great, but not so much in the looks department. Has this kind of thing happened to you?

The cake was a recipe from the latest issue of the Sandra Lee magazine. There was a lot of ingredients and in the end, I wasn't really satisfied with the cake itself. It just wasn't something to write home about. On the other hand, the frosting was special. Whipping cream, lemon curd, lemon juice and one package of dream whip. I don't know exactly what is in dream whip, but you can make yummy desserts with it. What really impressed me was that there was no added sugar. There was a tart lemon taste, but not too tart. I think I will work on the cake part some more and will file the frosting for future use.

Lemon Frosting:

1/2 package (2.6 ounce) box whipped topping mix (Dream Whip)
1/2 cup lemon curd
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Beat together at medium speed in electric mixer until blended.

1 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Add whipping cream to lemon mixture, beating at high speed until stiff peaks form. Frost cake and refrigerate.

Note: can reserve 1/4 cup of whipped frosting, adding 1 cup of lemon curd to make a filling for the cake layers.

In the end, we had a great time together and no one was afraid to eat the cake. Good thing for me cause that was a lot of cake!

St. Andrews

Today I went to a memorial for Tricia's mother. Charleene was 91 years old and died the first part of July. Her family took her back to Texas and buried her with her husband and had a full funeral service there. Today it was a memorial for her here at the church Charleene attended, St. Andrews. We had a small lunch and cake during the social hour after the regular service. It was very nice, well attended and not too long.

While I have participated in events at different Methodist churches (Christmas concerts and others) I had never been to a Methodist service before. This little church is full of friendly people--hugging friendly people who want to be your friend. I am not a touchy kind of gal, but I can hug if I have too. This is a church full of old people. I remember going to events (not the Sunday service) there when my children were little and it was very sweet. Today there was a full church and not all there for Charleene. Except for a disabled child and three other children (one of whom was only a couple months old) there were no children or young parents. It is my understanding that as good as the pastor is, as nice as she seems, she doesn't care for old people. I have a sense that the pastor is wrong for this church. The church sits in a neighborhood full of young families. They need to reach out to the community to get people in there. That part felt sad.

An interesting note: while Charleene was a Methodist, her grandchildren all married into Catholic families and had children, also Catholic.

The weekend is almost over!!!

Got up this morning and thought about how I only have today and tomorrow and then back to work!

Accomplishments:
*binding on table runner for friend
*binding on a quilt--again for a friend
*watermelon table runner (thank you Kim!)
*squares for "thank you " quilt for Lily, RJR Rep
*block of the month--squares for me and a friend
*block for Block Robin for Golden Valley Quilt Guild
*embroidery on vintage handkerchief for Block Robin

We are doing a Block Robin at my guild. It is a nine month program. This month the quilter had requested flowers. I used a Thimbleberries club members only pattern that I know only I will have. Since I know this person, and she had requested a bit of embroidery, I looked for something to do. While I didn't do an embroidered square, I did do a bit of embroidery. I had a vintage handkerchief and I found a sweet little poem

Roses are red
Violets are blue
If friends were flowers
I'd pick you.

I did the poem in red work with the words "blue" and "you" in blue. I was really happy with it.

Funny thing happened while I was doing the piece of embroidery. My friend is having a surgery--the gastric sleeve. Her surgeon wanted her to go to at least one support group meeting. To be a supportive friend, I volunteered to find a meeting. The meetings were difficult to find, but I did find one for July 1. The woman who runs the group, Sandy, seems a bit crazy. She ranted about her problems with the library system here when I called to get details about the meeting. Crazy Sandy told me the library was on Marconi Avenue. How could I need more information? There are TWO libraries on Marconi Avenue. My friend and I waited for 45 minutes before giving up and going home. You are probably wondering what this has to do with the vintage handkerchief. I brought my embroidery things and got a great deal of it done while we were waiting so patiently. Thank God we had stopped at Starbucks on the way there so we had sustenance.

Wild Animals

My husband is really clever, very creative and can be quite funny when he chooses. Tonight's offering is about his "Herd" in Montana. Check out the zebras:

Every year my husband goes up to Montana to spend time on the "Ranch"--28 acres 50 miles outside the East Gate of Yellowstone Park and 20 miles west of Livingston, Montana, in the Paradise Valley. Emigrant, Montana is a sweet place to land. There is a post office, a monument to Mary (as in Mary who is Jesus' mother), a resort, and a bar. The property lies along the Yellowstone River. You can look across the river as you are driving down the highway and gaze at the house.

Last year my husband and his friend, Paul, went up and made a giraffe out of wood that stands in the grass and as you drive down the highway, you see this giraffe grazing. One lonely giraffe. As all really intelligent people know, giraffes live in families of three--not one. Our giraffe is lonely. While I don't have a picture of the giraffe, I do have pictures of the friends who will be joining him this year. Look at the zebras joining the herd. Now they aren't giraffes, but they are two more wild animals. Do you think the giraffe will notice???? The zebras are only paper now, but in August will make their debut after being made of wood, just like their giraffe friend. The paper images are up on our garage wall--you can partially see the bear.

The bear is real, although it is now a rug mounted on our garage wall. That darn bear prevents us from going to one of those electronic garage doors that everyone else has. If we changed the garage door, where would we put the bear???? It is a genuine black bear, protected here in California. Our cousin, Debbie, was married to Steve, the sheriff. He went out hunting and shot the bear and had it mounted on brown felt. They got a divorce and Steve moved to California (from....Montana--how did you guess??) where he couldn't find a job and was running out of money. Steve decides to sell the bear. He put an advertisement in the newspaper and someone called. It was a guy from the Department of Fish and Game who shared the information that the bear, while being hunted everywhere else, not only couldn't be hunted, the poor bear couldn't be sold here either. My in-laws inherited the bear, Steve got a job as a prison guard at Pelican Bay Prison and we all lived happily ever after, until my in-laws sold their cabin and had no place for the bear. My husband was overjoyed to have the bear. I know from experience that bears are not soft--their hair is really coarse.

The only "problem" with all of this is that we will have to wait another year to see what else might pop up!

It is really HOT

I'm melting................