Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Got Me Some Peaches!

As I was leaving town yesterday, I noticed a fruit stand at the gas station.  I called Stan and told him.  He went right up and bought a case of Washington peaches.  When he got home with them, he promptly devoured two.  When I got home from work, I made peach cobbler, and today sometime I will probably do some freezer jam.  I used this recipe from my cooking blog.  I pretty much made it the same way, except I used less water since peaches have enough juice, and I used a mixture of sorghum, tapioca and potato starch for the flour.  After he gets the applesauce (from our own tree) going, Stan will process 7 quarts of peaches just for eating this winter.  The cobbler was so good, I had to have some for breakfast!

Just look at that ice cream melting into the sweet peaches!

Just looking at the pictures makes me want to go back for more!


Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I Can't Believe I Did That!!

Since I have a bit more time, what with the job change and all, I've been doing some sewing for myself.  Did a nice caftan out of some fabric I've had since 1987 when I worked at Ben Franklin.  About time, eh?

I've also been making tank tops and little light shirts to go over them.  The latest is this maroon set.

Instead of using facings, I cut cross-grain strips and bound all the edges, except for the hems.  Makes for a nice finish, I think.


I cut the strips at 2 1/4" and folded and pressed them.  I sewed them on with a 3/8" seam allowance then trimmed the seams down to 1/4" to reduce bulk.  Then I turned the strips to the inside and topstitched into place.  Trying to do facings on this stretchy stuff can make for some wonky results.  I made one button loop and put a shank button on it-just enough so it wouldn't shift.

This is one of my favorite closures-you're never going to button the whole thing up, so why not just have a little something at the neck?!  That's when I discovered this, to my horror!!

As I cut the blouse out, it crossed my mind to make sure the round things weren't (ahem) strategically placed and I thought I had.  I guess not......

I guess I can wear it unbuttoned...........


Thursday, September 8, 2011

Plane Troubles

I was sewing yesterday when the daughter-in-law called.  She had the foresight to plug her phone number and e-mail address into the Delta itinerary.  Well, they called her-my number was messed up somehow and I am sure glad she was on the ball!  It seems that Delta has cancelled its 6:20 Sunday morning flight out of Bozeman.  They just moved us to the 9:00 flight but that would make us miss our connection in Salt Lake City by 45 minutes-therefore the dominoes would fall and we would be getting into Mazatlan sometime on Monday.  Not acceptable for several reasons, the biggest being the three youngsters that couldn't take that much layover time, but also that would leave Dave and Laura all by themselves at the resort with the reservations in my name.

First I called Hotwire-why they didn't e-mail the change to me is a mystery-Expedia always e-mails me right away!  The guy on the phone was very nice but he said their "schedule change" people would look into it and get back to me within 24 hours.  It's a good thing I didn't wait and called Delta after checking the flights out of Helena, MT and Butte, MT.  Both towns are about 65 miles from us and it wouldn't be a terrible hardship to drive there.  They both had 6:20 flights with lots of room.  (Butte, MT on a Sunday morning?  Go figure!!!)  It took a lot of effort to get the Delta lady to understand what we needed.  I had to repeat several times that all we needed changed was our departure city-nothing else.  She kept saying that the other flights were booked up-I said "Of course, we are already booked on them!"  She was very nice and was not in India or someplace like that-she was definitely English-speaking.  After about 30 minutes with her consulting her supervisor to be sure it would be OK to switch airports we got it done!  I waited while she e-mailed me the itinerary.  Then I went on the Delta site and corrected my contact information.  Whew!!!

Now the plan is to rent a 12 passenger van Saturday afternoon and pick everybody up by 3:00 AM Sunday morning.  We'll drive to Butte, turn in our van and fly away.  Heck, we can sleep on the plane!!!!

The Delta lady insisted on getting us seats all together on the Butte flight.  I told her as long as we were on the same plane we would all be happy, but she insisted.  Millie says it's probably a good thing, only family would want to sit with Sam!  Of course Gramma would always want to sit with Sam!

Oh, and Hotwire never called back.  Guess it's Expedia from now on!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Going For It!

I had a visit with my knee specialist on Friday.  He had received a report from the physical therapist that was pretty grim-the therapy was pretty useless.  So-now I get a new knee!  They will be calling in a few days to set up a time.  My only request was that it be done after October 23, which is when we get back from Mazatlan.  The doc agreed-he thought it would be foolish to travel post-surgery, too.

I already have a walker and a toilet seat raiser-compliments of my sister-in-law in Billings.  She had her knee done in February so she knows the scoop.  We helped bring her home from rehab and I had to pull her off the toilet because she didn't have enough strength to get up on her own.  It was kind of funny, but her daughter went right out and bought the seat raiser.  Now I have it-LOL!

His only concern is my many allergies.  We might have fun controlling my pain without my violently reacting to the meds.  They are forewarned and are working on it.  I don't want a fiasco like I had with my last surgery-couldn't take the meds because they made me nauseous-something I had to avoid at all costs with that particular surgery.  So I spent a long night in excruciating pain.  Not this time-we're going to be ahead of it.  I hear this surgery HURTS!

I've started exercising in earnest, so my leg muscles are in tiptop shape, hopefully that will help me rehab quickly.  Now, between the upcoming trip and getting ready for surgery, I won't have a minute free!

An update-the surgery is scheduled for November 2.  First it was scheduled for Oct. 26, but 20 minutes later they called back and said the Dr. was out that week and would I mind waiting a week?  I would have rather gotten it over with, but that actually will give me more than a week after we get home from Mazatlan to get ready-clean house, cook and freeze my "safe" foods, etc.