Friday, January 23, 2015

Dog Safety

Today's post is a reminder to make sure your medicines are kept out of reach of your pets. Child proof bottles don't work on dogs. With their strong jaws they just eat the bottle and pills.
This week two goldendoodles, Hudson and Kirby, from different families, swollowed human drugs. Hudson, a bottle of muscle relaxers and Kirby, Rimadyl! They've both had to have dialysis. The costs for ICU and treatments are thousands of dollars. Vet's don't know yet how much permanent neurological damage Hudson will have. It looks like Kirby will be okay.
You might also want to look into health insurance for your pets. Even if you have the insurance, you'll have out of pocket expenses.
Our Goldendoodle Lacey is from Moss Creek Goldendoodles, as were the two sick dogs. The Moss Creek community has rallied behind these families with prayers and money as needed. I'm so proud to be a part of this community.
Please check all your meds, cleaners, chemicals, etc. and make sure they are locked up or out of your dogs reach.



Peace!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

More Organizing

The Kitchen Challenge this week is about recipes and meal planning. My recipes are already organized in a Longaberger recipe box. My cookbooks are kept neatly in a cupboard. I don't do menu planning. Made for an easy week so far.
We choose our dinner each day by what sounds appetizing. I always have the same meats, and seasonally, the same fruits and vegetables on hand. This works well for us.
Since I didn't have much to do with the kitchen organization, I did some sewing organization. I re-arranged all my sewing drawers and discarded a few items. After they were organized, they were labeled (I love my label maker). I ended up with three empty drawers.
Here are my labeled drawers.




Peace!

Monday, January 19, 2015

Birthday Pancakes

Over the weekend we spent some wonderful time with our youngest granddaughter. Friday evening we picked Faith up and drove to Kohl's. We were Birthday shopping. We had to go to a second Kohl's before we found the perfect dress. They were on sale so we bought two dresses. 
You can't tell from her face in the picture, but her favorite is the top one. It's because the skirt is higher in the front and lower in the back. She'd recently had to give away her previous high/low dress. She was not happy that she'd outgrown the dress. She is very excited about the new one. She wore it on her birthday.





After making our purchases, it was off to Olive Garden for her birthday dinner. Anytime you ask Faith where she wants to eat, it's Olive Garden! She and Gramps played Tic Tac Toe while we waited for our dinner. We had good service and a lovely dinner. Then, off to Grams house for the night. Faith fell asleep in the car. Brushing teeth and getting PJ's on wasn't too difficult. She wanted to sleep on a pallet on the floor next to our bed. Her routine for that is, to fall asleep in our bed and we move her to the pallet when we go to bed.
At 6:30 in the morning I woke up to a sweet little voice saying, "Can I get in and snuggle?" Of course I answered yes. We snuggled and then I asked if she was excited. She nodded her head up and down rapidly. This was her seventh birthday.
Next, pancake time with Gramps. Faith and Gramps mixed up the batter. For the first time she got to pour the pancakes onto the griddle and flip them. They were making memories. When I sent a picture to her mom, she responded that it's too soon as that's her baby. Gramps responded that seven year olds aren't babies anymore! While that's true, she'll always be the baby of this generation of grands.
For those that read the gourmet pancake blog post, these pancakes did NOT take three hours to make!



After a delicious pancake, bacon and strawberry breakfast it was time to take her home.



Peace!

Friday, January 16, 2015

Wall Hangings - Joined at the Hip

Another project from last year I participated in was monthly wall hangings. The patterns were from a company called Joined at the Hip. I purchased mine each month with a kit from Bernina Sewing Centre.
Most months I used what was in the kit. Occasionally, I substituted from my stash. I chose not to do the one for October as it was a jack-o'-lantern. We don't do Halloween because of it's pagan connections. I already had a pumpkin one for another month and just used that for October.
The pattern called for you to make a background with buttons that each months quilt could be buttoned to. I chose not to do that either, as it was a little too country for me. Been there done that! Anyway, I just put tabs on mine as seen on the photo below. It's hanging backward on the hanger for your benefit. You can also see the beautiful little hanger I also purchased from Bernina Sewing Center.



The wall hangings were all made and quilted on my Bernina 750. I love sewing on that wonderful machine! It has a stitch regulator, but most of my quilting is done without using that. I've been quilting for more years than that technology has been around, so I'm more comfortable on my own.
I quilt each quilt as I feel it's telling me to. 
Below are six of my favorites from the year. I hope you enjoy them.




Peace!

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Kitchen Organization Continued

The kitchen organization continues. Monday was the day to organize the spice cabinet. That was a quick job since I keep my spices alphabetized. I really just had to straighten up the larger spice containers, seasoning packets, cornstarch, sea salt, honey, etc. Tuesday the pantry got organized. That took awhile but I really like how it looks now. Wednesday our assignment was to inventory the pantry and freezer. We even got free inventory pages to print out, to make the job easier. This morning the challenge was to deep clean the microwave. My husband had just done that, so all I had to do was wipe it down. Being stainless steel, my microwave reflects like a mirror, so is hard to see in a photo.
Here are photos of the organized spice cabinet and pantry, and clean microwave.







Peace