I'm in the Mood for Apples

Days like today, when it is Fall, really make me in the mood for apples. I like to go out and pick just the rights ones. Then I make my list of what I'll do with them. Apple Butter, Apple Bread, Applesauce, and the favorite Apple Pie. Next step is to pull out all the recipes. I love the smell of the baking apples and all the spices, and there is nothing better than warm bake goods.

So here are some tried and true recipes from me:

Apple Crumb Pie

2/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp. all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

6 to 8 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced (6 cups)

1 9-inch, unbaked pie shell

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

Combine the first three ingredients, and stir into the apples. Put into the pie shell. Combine the remaining flour and sugar, cut in butter till crumbly. Sprinkle over the apples.

Bake at 400 for 45 to 50 minutes or till done.

Apple-Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup finely diced unpared apple

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 cup milk

2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats

In saucepan, combine fruits, nuts, sugar and 2 tbsp. water. Cook and stir till thick and the apples are tender, about 10 minutes. Cream butter and brown sugar till fluffy. Beat in eggs. Sift together dry ingredients add alternately with milk to creamed mixture. Stir in Oats.

Reserve 3/4 cup dough. Drop remainder from teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet: make a depression in center with filling and dab of reserved dough.

Bake at 375 for 10 to 20 minutes makes 36.

Until we meet again ~~smiles~~

What I'm Working on Now

Now that I have time on my hands after my gallbladder removal. I decided to finish up several projects that I had laying around. The first to finish is this sampler. I read the saying some time ago in a book about Colonial times. I thought that it would make a perfect cross stitch sampler. I want it to have a Colonial feel to it. The trees with have plum color flowers added and I have to finish the red hearts. I'm not sure why they weren't finish before, I must have ran out of floss. I want to do something with the bottom but I have an artist block. I want to keep it simple but not too simple. Any one have some ideas? I have began to put together items that I want to add to my e-bay store that my daughter and I have started. It is now on hold because my youngest grand daughter is in Duke. She has been losing weight and they are running all kinds of test trying to find out what is wrong with her. I'm unable to travel just yet due to my surgery, but I hope to go down Sat. I hope all will go well with her. It has been a crazy time for us with everyone be sick, this is usually our favorite time of the year. We are holding our heads high and going with it. Until we meet again. ~smiles~

Home from the Hospital

I'm home and very sore. The gallbladder surgery went fine but it took a lot out of me. It's like having a C-Section, and believe after now having both, I'm not to sure which one hurts the most.
Now on to more pleasant things. The house is starting to shape up nicely. We are trying to remodel around all the things that keep happening in our life. They say the Life is what happens while your busy making plans, this is the truest statement so far. We hope to get the front porch done before Halloween. My DH and DS are making it by using antique wood, it is old tongue and grove flooring from an almost 150 yrs. building. They are going to refinish it after they lay it down and than cover it with a clear sealant. I can't wait for it to be done. We are also replacing all the windows in the house starting with the ones in our son's room. They have taken the old window out and put a board up on it. My son wants to keep it that way and add some more boards across the opening to make the house look like a boarded up haunted house. I told him he had to get it past his father. I'll let you know how that works out. And I'll take pictures if we do it. Well until we meet again...~smiles~

Fall

Today has been just one of those days.
I know everyone has had them too.
But, you could say it has been
one of those weeks. As you know from my last post we were busy in our yard as well as cleaning our house. This is an on going things(cleaning the house) it seem to me. You would think with one less person (my daughter Andrea) living with us that the house would be cleaner, but NO. I think that the cat and the dog go around messing things up just so I would have to clean it. Well that is my story..and I'm sticking to it. :0)
We were also busy planning our Fall and Halloween decor and yard display and than the world (life) throws us a curve ball. Last Tues. the 18th after a very nice dinner, I was rushed to the hospital with the worst pain I have had seen labor. The doctor said that I had both kidney and gall stones. And to make matter even worst I had stone in both kidney and they needed to come out, NOW. So in the hospital I go to have the stones on the right removed. The next thing I was told was that I needed the gallbladder out, no and ifs or buts about. SO tomorrow I go to get the gallbladder out, the only good thing about it, is that it will on an one day surgery thing. I still have to go about the left kidney. They are sending me to Duke for that one. The stone is blocking the kidney so they are not sure what or how they are planning to get it yet. I need more test when I get to Duke. You would think after all this life would give me a break, but again its NO. My youngest grand daughter Keria is at Duke, she has been very sick and they are trying very hard to make her better. My oldest grand daughter Ginny is here with us while her parents are down at Duke with her sister. We hope for the best!!!
My son has decide he will get the house ready for Fall and Halloween while everyone is at the different hospitals. He has been so great taking care of Ginny and keeping her busy so that she doesn't miss her parents and sister too much. He has taken some pictures and I hope to post some when I get them developed.
When this crazy time is over I hope to get to all my crafts done and post some pictures of them as well. Keep us in your thoughts. Until we meet again..Bright Smiles to All.

The first day of August and what a beautiful day it promises to be. I have been busy cleaning the house and plan to get to the outside on my next set of days off. This time of the year has got to be my favorite. Going into and becoming Fall, the nights are cooler and the days just seem more light and airy. And when the leaves start to change the colors are wonderful. Fall to me starts in August. It is time to plan our family days and start to look forward to Halloween. We (the whole family) loves Halloween and can't wait until it is time to show off our decorations and treats. August is also time to plan winter gardens and getting plants ready for spring flower beds. I love to get big fall colored Mums to put all around my house and in the planters at the end of the sidewalk. This fall we are redoing the landscape. My DH has poured my stepping stones, so we will be adding them to our gardens and yard. He has so many different molds it made picking the one I liked best so hard, but the hummingbirds won out. I wonder why.hehehe. I will post pictures when everything is stared.Until later..Smiles

I finally have gotten around (well my son that is) has finally gotten around to uploading the picture of my daughter and her family. This is the first family picture that they have been able to get done. Nana (that's me) got the dresses for my darlings for Christmas 2006. My DD

thought that the dresses would be perfect for the family pictures.

Keria the youngest was just about 5 months at Christmas and now she is a big 1yr. old. Ginny (aka. big sis)had a new haircut for the family pic. As you can see she was not happy about sitting on Santa's lap. She was all for it until the child ahead of them started to cry, then she didn't want anything to do with the idea, DD had to talk her into it. They are both Mommas girls and both wanted Momma to hold them in the family pic. All the pictures were great and I plan to add more later. Now all have to do is get some pictures of the rest of the family. I haven't gotten a picture of my DS in about four years, he is not the picture taking type. I also have no pictures of myself and DH. My biggest plan is to get all of us together for this Christmas for pictures.

Well until next time...smiles

It has been awhile seen I'd have time to write on my blog. So lets get caught up. We had a great time at the festival. It was a real learning experience, the first being what kind of tent to bring.hehehe. There were high winds the first day and we thought we would fly off to Oz. the camp cover that we were using just couldn't stand up to the winds. My dear husband come to the rescue by going to Wal-Mart and buying a great tent that not only stood up to the wind but could be put up by one person if need be. love it, love it!!! After beating back the wind the rest of the festival when smooth as silk. The whole family joined in to make it a wonderful time. There was only two thing that was a problem,s one being that DH said we were spending all the profits at the other booths. hehehe, and the other was that all the pictures we took didn't come out. We will bring more than one camera with us to all other shows, that way we hopefully will get some if not all our pictures. I really feel that it was the film and not the camera but who knows




Now update on everyday life...I been busy in the garden as well as the house and craft room. Plus spending as much time with my grannbabies as I can. The youngest Miss Keira will be one on the 18th. time does fly as they say. She is already walking and has been seen she was 9month old. she follows big sissy Miss Ginny everywhere, up to and including down the front steps. This was not a good thing, both Mommy and Sis learned to watch her closer. But all is well and good. She went back to following big sissy and chasing the cat all with out slipping a beat.


My daughter and I have been going flea marketing and yard sales. We have gotten some great deals. I got a beautiful early 1900's dresser that was just the right size for the corner in my bedroom. This DH now uses, he now has his own dresser and he says that he knows now that my stuff will not take over his drawers. hehehe I only spent $15.00 and it was in wonderful shape, dove tail joints and everything. I asked the lady who was having the sale if that was the right price, and she said it was just an ugly old dresser, so with a smile on my face, it when home with me. My daughter is working on getting a 12 pc. set of stemware to go with her bridal china, (it has only been six years seen she got married,for her to decide on her stemware)she has decided on a floral design on depression glass. So we are now looking for either a vine pattern or something like that, so that it goes with the garden theme of her china.. Any ideas on pattern names?? let me know.

Well time to end this, until next, great lives....

Flowers

During this time of the year all I can think about is flowers.I need to do other things but all the flower books and catalogs just seem to find their way to my desk..They creep in with the mail and I think the other day the cat brought one in. So I finally just stop fighting the need to look at all the beautiful flowers and made an order...Herbs and flowers by the dozen. The back yard needs a whole new make over. With all this new additions to the yard and garden will be just the start of the over all changes to the yard. This year we are going to fence in the backyard along with adding raised flowers beds. We are doing this for many reasons, but the most important one being my wonderful grand babies.I wanted them to be able to have a safe place to play.. The older grand girl Miss Ginny (and little Miss Keira will follow right along) loves snakes and in this part of the country..southwestern Virgina..picking up snakes is not the best idea. Now they can have just the place where they can run, jump, and do all the things children will do. Hopefully we can keep out the crawly and creeping things out of our little piece of the garden.

crafting all week long

We are very busy with our craft items for the festival, so it has been awhile between post. Just four more weeks to go, and so much to do. My dh has gotten a new camera to play with so there will be more pretty pictures to share. My daughter Andrea is hard at work on the bath salts, and my son Robert is making several types of bird houses. The next project is making the stepping stones. I'm working on the tea cup candles and the stain glass candle holders as well as the colonial candle holders with hurricane shades. One of these days I'll get to work on my cross wall hanger that I have been working on or about a year and a half. Every time I think I have free time (hehehe) to work on it something always comes up... Well maybe I get to it by the end of May. Until next time..smiles...

These are a few of my favorite things

This is part of my craft room. My dear husband is very good at building just about anything, so I asked him to build these shelves in an unused area of my room. I love the fact that they are 20" deep. I can put all kinds of craft items up there and still have room for more. Tho you can't see it well I have a Victorian roll top desk right next to the shelves. I'm slowing get desk items of a Victorian type to add to what I all ready have.

Here is a small display of our baths salts. Only a hundred more to go. We have about five more weeks until the festival.
We are trying ten scents this time. Our newest scent is sweet pea. This is a nice mild scent that remains me of summertime. Also the pale pink color is just perfect for this scent. My daughter Andrea is my master mixer,she does both the scents and the colors for the salts. We have several scent that are seasonal, so we haven't try them yet. What do you think orange for pumpkin spice, and red for Holiday Home or maybe for cranberry chutney.

My great son Robert was kind enough to put my pictures on the computer for me. He does all my tech support on my end of the line. My blog and web pages are the great work of Sharon from sharon@soaps-n-stff.com, she has done a wonderful job on all these items...I love the colors best..well until later...smile

To start with

Well here I'm starting my first blog. My son tells me that this is a small feat of magic. The reason being is I'm not that great at using a computer. So putting this a side lets get started.
Right now my family and I have been very busy getting really for a big craft fair. We have been working on new scents for our bath soaps and salts. I have been working on tea cup candles; these were a big hit the last time we made them. I will have to go to more yard sales and flea markets to find orphan tea cups to have a bigger inventory for later.This will so broke my heart(hehehe). I will have to make some pictures to share. I'm off to the craft room to do some more work, until later...smiles

Welcome to our Family Blog!

We are so excited to have a family blog! We can chat about what is going on with our family, the kids, the house our business and share it with our friends and family that are spread to the four corners of the earth. This is a great way for all of us to keep in touch through the Internet!