Something About Nothing

The sun came out again today! For those of you who aren't familiar with this thing called the sun, it is a bright light up in the sky that will one day soon make it's way through the clouds to your house. Believe me, the sun likes to play so he'll fight his way through soon! Today's playing was on some plain white fabric I found in my stash. Not sure if it is 100% cotton, but I think it is. It's hard to say with some of the older pieces in my stash. Step One: I spritzed the fabric with water to make it nice and damp. Step Two: After mixing a couple colors together to get this beautiful turquoise color I painted wide stripes on one piece and. . . Flicked spots on the other. Hey, why not?! I also sprayed a bit more water on these splashes so they would spread more. Step Three: I added yellow to what was left of the white, filling the stripes in completely and splashing on the other, and coloring in the edges. I put keys, metal and plastic, onto the splatter...

The sun came out today and invited me to play. So I obliged the sun by experimenting with some sun paints I bought about a year ago. I found a piece of fabric I had partially dyed during our Quilt guild's annual dye party and decided to paint over the white portions of the orange spotty fabric with some red and yellow. I forgot to take a picture of the fabric before I painted on the red and yellow. Oops. After I painted on the colors, I laid some silk leaves on top that I found in a half price bin at Target in October. I then took the board outside, plopped it down on this broken chair and let the sun get in on some of the fun. It sat outside for about two hours before it was dry. Before it dried however, the wind decided it wanted to play too and blew off some of the leaves and I put them back on. When I brought the fabric in, this is what I got. The color is fabulous! However the leaf prints are very faint. Not as dark as I would have liked. I outlined a couple of the leaf print...

The family was complaining that there was never enough bread when it came out of the oven and so I made two loaves this time. We demolished 1 1/4 loaves the first day and the rest on the second day. I took a few more photos of how the bread looks along the way, and I also tried a new sized corning ware pan; this one is oblong. Here is what the dough looks like right after it is mixed together. This is how it looks after about 12 hours of rising. I let it raise a few more hours before I took it out. Here is what it looked like before I put the lid on and stuck it in the oven. And here it is fresh out of the oven. Yummy - however, I think I should have baked it just a little longer. And here are the two loaves cooling on the rack. Round on left and oval on right. Both were tasty, and crusty with a great crumb. They tasted just as good on the second day, AND they were fabulous toasted. I love toast! One of the children wondered if I can make it without the flour on the crust...

The weather has been pretty rotten up here lately. We've had a nasty inversion where the news has told us to stay inside even if our lungs are healthy, and to limit driving as much as possible. And then finally we received a storm - it's been a small storm compared to what we need to rid ourselves of all gunk in the air (it was reported that we had the worst air quality in the nation one day last week). The storm started as rain and then yesterday turned to snow. First the snow was wet and slushy, and now it is the nice white powder we are famous for. . . This was my view as I walked back from taking the hoodlums to school this morning, and I just had to stop and record it. Sometimes I get just get so caught up in the wet and coldness of it all and forget to enjoy the beauty. So here's some beauty for you to enjoy as well!

The photo below is of the loaf of No Knead Bread I started last night. This photo shows it right out of the oven. Once I slice it I guarentee it won't last long! I had planned on dumping the dough out of the pan and letting it rise at my Mother-in-Laws. Tomorrow is Chinese New Year and so we were heading to her house for dinner right after church. However my husband thought we would only be gone about two hours. I knew better, but dumped the dough anyway and left it to rise while we were gone. Four hours later we arrived home and I heated the oven. I was worried it would not work out after being left so long. I also worried about the bread turning out when I dumped the dough into the pan and it stuck to the towel and seemed to be a big mess, but nothing seems to phase this bread! Look how pretty it came out: And here is a photo of the Corning Ware I used to bake my bread in. My friends at church were wondering what I baked it in as I didn't do a very good job explain...

A friend posted on her blog about making this bread and I have finally tried it and I must share. It is the easiest bread you will ever make and the bread and crust are divine! It does take a long time to make, but only because it needs to rise for about 12 hours. But basically you mix it with a spoon and forget it, then go back do a couple of easy things and bake it for fabulous deliciousness! The recipe is from a 2006 recipe in the NY Times. No-Knead Bread Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting ¼ teaspoon instant yeast 1¼ teaspoons salt Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed. (I used flour) 1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. 2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surfa...

Are you a "beautiful and proper bookmark" person, or a "grab whatever is handy when I'm done for the moment" kind of person? Generally, as illustrated by the photo above, I am the latter. The book on the top is using the book cover as a bookmark. These are very handy as they do not get lost while I am reading, and as long as someone else doesn't carelessly pick up the book, my place is saved quite nicely. My place in the second book down is being kept by the bookmark the library gave to me when I picked up the book. Generally it is referred to as a "reserve slip," but I like to call myself green (at least a pale green anyway), and so I recycle them as bookmarks. In the third book we are sporting the "torn off the nearest slip of paper" bookmark. Another way to recycle paper, and if they are lost there is always another one around to replace it. The bottom book is sporting one of my favorite kinds of bookmarks, the "I just finished a...

I'm not a mathmatician, but I have a certain obsession with numbers. I think it's cool when numbers line up and do things. An email I passed around recently had one of those math equations where no matter what number you chose, when you followed the directions your answer was always 9. I don't understand why it works but it does and it's cool in my book. I also love when numbers line up in dates, and so after having my first child by emergency c-section - dooming the rest of my child birth experiences to c-sections as well - I decided that I would do what I could to plan out cool birthdates for the rest of my kids. For example my twins were born on July 8, 1997 - which is 7-8-97. It makes it easy for me to remember that way, and then my oldest daughter's birth was also planned, but this one was to coinside with a my grandfathers birthday of January 19th - however what made it even more special was that she was born in 1990, and my grandfather (step grandfather ...

I did something I always tell my children not to do. I bought a new toy for myself right before Christmas. I am so naughty , it's amazing Santa didn't leave a pile of coal in my stocking! But I had to buy it, I had the money and the toy was so cool and I didn't put it on my "this is what I want for Christmas list" so I knew no one would buy it for me, so I HAD to buy it, and I was right, I didn't get a second one for Christmas, so it was good I bought it for myself! *sucks in deeply because of saying all that in one breath* So what was the cool toy? A cut-a-round ruler and the cool book "Drunkards Path: Stepping Beyond." See - she continues in whiny voice - I bet none of my family and friends would have even thought of getting that for me for Christmas, so it really was a good thing I bought it for myself! And look how cool it is! It makes circles - EASILY - and really cool patterns with those circles. I decided to use it to make a cuddle quilt f...

Can anyone tell me what day it is? I know it's 2009, but I don't remember what day it is. Every morning I try to figure it out so that I don't miss something important. The holidays just seem to mess me up that way. Fortunately I'm not the only one as my oldest daughter just told me that she forgot today was Saturday. At least it's not an old age thing. :) Happy New Year!