JSS Bee Days are definitely going to be the highlight of this blogging adventure.  I have the best quilting bee in the whole world!  But before you get any ideas about joining us……no.  You can’t.  Sorry.  We already are busting the seams (that’s quilting talk) and packed in like sardines or anchovies or some such fish-in-a-can at the hostess’ home each month.  So you’ll just have to enjoy the Bee days via this blog.  There were 22 ladies at Suz’ house!  You remember Suz….. you saw pictures of her back yard way back on May 9th when I went there for lunch with my friend, Sally.  You can read all about it here, if you missed it the first time around.

Meet Suzanne, the Absolute Hostess with the Mostest!  She wins the prize for Best Hosting of the Month.  Since our Bee only meets in homes once a month, someone else will win the prize next month.  But Suz gets to claim the prize all to herself for May.  We don’t actually have a prize, but if there were one, she’d win.  Hands down.  We wouldn’t even have to vote.  First of all she had the best breakfast imaginable.  A fabulous Pioneer Woman recipe!  She’s our hero – Suz’ and mine.  We love to cook her recipes.  They are always crowd pleasers and this one was no exception!  It was Cinnamon Baked French Toast and you can click on those words to go to PW’s site and print the recipe for yourself!  And see fabulous pics of the process and read all of PW’s funny comments.  She will make you laugh.  Out loud.  I promise.  She’s a hoot.  But wait!

I have pictures of Suz’ breakfast!  Well, at least I have one of the half empty dish and the fabulous fruit salad to go along side the French Toast.  To make it healthy and all.  So we could eat extra servings of the yummy stuff and feel good about ourselves because we had that healthy fruit salad.  And there was warm syrup to drizzle on top.  But there was that healthy fruit salad too.  Are you getting hungry yet?  OK, now you can go to The Pioneer Woman’s site and print out the recipe and make this for yourself.  So you can eat it while you read the rest of this blog today.  Just as a word of warning, you are probably going to need fortification to read the rest of this post.  So go get a cup of coffee and make this Cinnamon Baked French Toast – doesn’t the name just make you want some?  It’s OK – go do it….. I’ll wait……..

………Because I took 97 pictures at the Bee.  So this could be the longest blog in the history of blogging.  Well, actually I pared it down to about 57 pics after I took out the ones with eyes closed, duplicates, etc.  So you’re going to need coffee and sustenance to get you to the end.  Just sayin’….

Gasp!!!  Even Susan ate the French Toast and she has the syrupy empty plate to prove it!  All of you who were at our Retreat in April know that she only eats lettuce and cold, tasteless chicken.  But even she couldn’t resist the allure of the French Toast!  It was that good!  If you weren’t convinced before that you absolutely need this recipe, I’m sure you are now.  Better scroll back up to the link and go print the recipe……go ahead…… I’ll wait.

OK – we’re never going to get through this blog if I have to keep waiting.  You better have that recipe in the oven right now because I’m not going to remind you again.  We need to move on here people!

Here are some fun things I learned while strolling around Suz’ house and taking pictures……
 

1.  You can build a table with just a simple butcher block and two stools for legs.  Or an ironing board.  Or both.

2.  An empty kleenex box is a very cute thing to use for scraps of thread near your sewing machine.  And for the record, Suz had all the threads pushed way down in the box.  We had to pull them out so you could see them and understand what a great idea this was!  We are all now frantically pulling kleenex out of our boxes so we can have one of these too.

3.  It is virtually impossible for Susan to confuse her coffee cup with my coffee cup as I scream at her, “Wait!  That’s my coffee!” when she picked up her cup from where it was sitting next to mine on the table.  Mine is the one on the right, in case you were wondering.

4.  Suz has very neat, organized piles at her house as this picture shows.  I could use her help with my piles (see previous posts here and here.)

See?  Organized drawers too….. I need her help.  Help me, Suz…help, help me, Suz.

5.  Suz likes embellishing so much that she even gives earrings to her stuffed giraffe/donkey/llama/horse.  (There was some disagreement over exactly what kind of animal this was at our April Retreat when we all got one of these.  But Suz definitely wanted to give hers some pizzazz.)  And by the way – I love this picture….. the way the little animal is all crisp and focused, while the quilt in the background is blurry.  So cool!  Even if I do say so myself. 

6.  You can also make a workspace by resting a board on a shelf…….

…….. with some legs on the other end!  That Suz is one smart cookie when it comes to organizing and planning her sewing room!

7.  Suz also has some ingenious decorating ideas.  Like this lamp – a mason jar filled with fabric.  Cute!

8.  She also has some great works-in-progress in her sewing room.

9.  Arthas really, really, REALLY wanted to be inside with all the people instead of out in the back yard.  And speaking of the back yard….. I found some new treasures there today!  Let’s see if I can figure out how to give you some small pics all together here…..

10.  Bunnies abound in the yard, Suz collects rainwater to water her plants, an angel guards, the flowers in the cute container have grown, wonder who lives in the birdhouse? and Suz has been busy planting more flowers!  And you can click on any of those little pics if you’d like to see them bigger.

11.  This display of fabulous quilts could hardly be called a “pile.”

And then there was lunch……. when we’d barely digested breakfast!

Chicken spaghetti, crisp rolls and a wonderful cabbage salad.  Notice Suz’ motto in the kitchen…..

Here’s how it looked on the plate……. YUM.

And then there was DESSERT…..

Suz’ Mom came and brought with her this Caramel Apple Dump Cake…… double YUM. 

And there were brownies (recipe here) and homemade hot fudge sauce (recipe here)…… and we put it all in a bowl together with ice cream.

 And I only got a picture of the aftermath……. but believe me when I tell you it was all wonderful!  The End.

Next post?  Show ‘n Tell!

Until then,

 

Barb