The Gals of JSS

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Barb

I had plans.  High hopes even.  Good intentions.

My camera was loaded and ready.  Yeah, like we load cameras anymore.  Right.  And I had every intention to take lots of pictures of faces at our JSS Bee this week.  And show you the Gals of JSS.  Up close and personal.  I got a few pics.  But once again, the day was all about the quilts.  So you’ll just have to live with quilt pics too.  I know you’re very disappointed.

The Gals

 

This is a whole roomful of JSS faces.  Very focused on the quilt in the corner.  It’s just what we do.

See how focused?  Impossible to get good face pictures when all these gals can do is look at the quilts.  But Kay, Suz and Nancy would be really cute looking at the camera too.

Karen and Patti.  Checking out those JSS quilts.  Show ‘n Tell is an important part of our Bee days.

LaNelle was very excited to show us the new iPad she got from her Dear Hubby.  It was an action shot.

Look how cute Lynn is.  Lynn always has fun stories to tell at our JSS Bee Days.

I had to show you this pic of Karen.  Karen has flat iron elbow.  The doc told her it was tennis elbow, but Karen doesn’t play tennis.  She has, however, been experimenting with a flat iron.  Thus the wrap on her arm.  What do docs know anyway?

I’d have shown the T-shirt quilt she was holding if not for the bright light coming through the window behind.  Really messed up my picture.

And how about this face peeking over the orange bag?  Isn’t he/she a cutie?  Just another JSS face……

And because never in the history of a JSS Bee day have I given you only 7 pictures, we’ll move on to other things.

The Quilts

Show ‘n Tell is always a big event at our Bee Day.  This month was no exception!

This is Lani’s Alaska quilt.  You’ve seen it before, but I bet you forgot.  She was working on it at Retreat in April.  And now it’s all put together and quilted.  Good job, Lani!

Dede put together this cute baby quilt.

And the back is just as cute as the front.  Great job, Dede!

I should point out that I arrived a bit late and the showin’ and tellin’ was about half over when I started the picture taking.  Sometimes you just get what you pay for.  Repeat after me:  Free Blog.  Just sayin’.

How about this great quilt that Pam quilted at The Quilting Depot?  There’s a story involved with how she got the top that Judy was going to put on the free table at guild.  Pam completed the stitching and then quilted it.  Fabulous quilting, Pam!

LaNelle made this cool easy quilt for a fast wedding gift.  Nice.

Sally’s cute puppies look out from this fabulous quilt.  She made this one for Dear Hubby.  I’ll get a better pic of it at the Quilt Show in September!

LaNelle is full of surprises.  From an Easy Breezy to this fabulous far-from-easy one!

Jules is also known for fabulous not easy quilts.  Great quilt, Jules!

Jules also made these fabulous blocks and the JSS gals decided to do an exhibit of all of them at once.  They are spectacular!

There was even this cute little caterpillar, climbing over the letters.

This lovely quilt belongs to Sally.  But it was made by Dede.  Out of Sally’s Brown Bag fabric last year.  Very nice!

Patt made this pretty quilt.  Great job, Patt!

Kay made this wonderful T-shirt quilt.  Nice, Kay!

Suz made this cute little baby quilt.  For a neighbor who comes by when walking his dog all the time.  We were glad to hear that the quilt was not for the dog!

Suz made this one too.  And told us all about how easy it was to do the curves with the special foot she has.  Love the red!

Lynn put together this stunning one.  She had lots of advice about the borders at the last JSS Bee Day.  And it turned out wonderful.

Everyone ooed and ahhed when Peggy showed us all her Baltimore Album quilt.    Peggy is hiding behind the pillar on the left side of her quilt.  Her applique is exquisite!

You needed to see it up close and personal.  More pics of this one at the Quilt Show next month too.  I bet it will have ribbons on it then.

And Patti showed this very large T-shirt quilt.  She just sewed the shirts together!  Fabulous, Patti!

This mat was crocheted by Nancy.  And it’s made out of… you’ll never guess…… plastic grocery bags!  Nancy is trying to make a bunch of them for charity.  So she’s collecting plastic bags.  I’m sure she’d be happy if you recycled yours to her!

The Food

It’s just not a JSS Day without pics of food, right?  Patt was the hostess with the mostest and had a really nice lunch for us all.

Here’s the spread of food set out on Patt’s lovely kitchen island.  Patt is dishing up tasty tomato basil soup at the stove.

See?  Lovely, creamy, dreamy tomato basil.  With bread toasts on the side.  Yum.

Tasty chicken salad.  There was broccoli salad too and it was very yummy.  I ate it too fast for a picture.

Fruit salad.  Pretty, isn’t it?  Healthy too.  And a lovely bowl.  I filled my plate, but I wanted to just take the whole bowl.  Only I didn’t want a JSS riot to break out.

There were fabulous desserts too, but once again I failed in the picture department.  Just fire the blogger!  And picture the desserts very yummy.

It was another great JSS Day!  I’m sorry you couldn’t be there to see everything first hand.  Patt is probably not sorry.  Her house was already bursting at the seams.

And a few JSS Gals even got a little stitchin’ done.  Beautiful embroidery, Sally!

Happy Quilting!
Barb

Posted in food, just stuff, quilts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Fanatical Addictions

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Barb

I’m an addict.  There.  I said it.  I need an intervention.  Maybe I prefer the word fanatic?  When I get started on something, I don’t let it go.  It’s a very good thing that I never got started on alcohol.

I’m fanatical about lots of things.

1.  The Pioneer Woman.  And now she has a new section on her website and I’m fanatically addicted to reading it every day.  The section is “entertainment” and you must go check it out right now if you are at all interested in movies and TV.  It will send you straight to redbox to rent movies.

2.  Healthy Eating.  Don’t get me started talking about it unless you have all day.  Yesterday at my Bee I got in a big discussion with Sue about protein.  Then spent hours last night researching how much protein we really need.  Fanatical.  That’s me.  I’ve lost 37 pounds since January 19th when all this started.  And I feel great.  And I get to eat as much as I want of wonderful things.  Like these:

Pinto Bean Waffles.  They are the best.  I challenge you to try them.  And even children don’t have a clue what’s in them.

 

Black Bean Salad – Mmmmmmm good.

Roasted veggies.  All the veggies that I have in the fridge.  I love them.  They fill me up and satisfy my soul.  Yum.

And please don’t tell me that Number 1 and Number 2 are in direct conflict with each other.  I already know that I’m conflicted.

3.  Baseball.  I’m so fanatical about baseball.  I watch the games every night!  It didn’t help that I went to a game recently.  Now I can’t seem to get enough baseball.

Pretty soon I’ll know all the ERA and RBI stats and be able to spout them at will.  As soon as I figure out what ERA and RBI mean.  And LOB, OBP, SLG, BB and E-I-E-I-O.  Do baseball people have a strange fanaticism about the alphabet or something?

4.  Quilting.  Although you can’t tell it from this blog any more, can you?  One day I’ll get back to more quilting pics.  Really I will.  It’ll be a big surprise.  I promise.

5.  Blogging.  Although you sure couldn’t tell it lately.  See numbers 1, 2, 3 & especially number 6.

6.  My latest addiction.  I have a new toy.

It’s a ‘droid and isn’t it pretty?  Notice the quilt in the background.  See?  I used to make quilts.  Before I got addicted to this:

No, not Boo.  But isn’t he cute on my ‘droid? 

Here’s another pic of Boo on my ‘droid.  Because you need to see it.

Notice the time.  It’s my best time of day for my new addiction.

It’s Words with Friends!  Notice the two words at the top of the gameboard.  I’m showing you this gameboard because it’s very unusual for me to see those words.  It usually says “You Lost!”  Because the 19 friends that I’m playing this game with have been doing it a lot longer than I have.  They are way ahead of me in vocabulary it seems.  And yes, you read that correctly.  I have nineteen games of scrabble on my cell phone.  What’s this world coming to?

Isn’t the gameboard pretty?  I love all the colors and the cute little letter tiles.  And the fact that I won this game at nearly 1:00 a.m.  Yes, I’m addicted.  Fanatically addicted.   I don’t even bother anymore with – what is a “qi?”  Or a “xu” for that matter.  If the board takes it, I run with it. 

And if you’re a Words with Friends player, don’t even think of starting a game with me.  Many times I have already gotten the “you have exceeded the number of games allowed and can’t start a new one” message when I ask for a rematch.  Why did they set a limit, I wonder?

Working on a fanatical vocabulary,
Barb
P.S.  I’m still fanatical about cats too.  Get off the keyboard, Boo!  That Boo.  Practicing his typing again in my p.s. line……..

Posted in food, just stuff | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Barb

Dear Sis and family have been visiting.  From Illinois.  They are back home now.  Where it is much cooler than it is in Texas.  Not.  Apparently it is hot all over the whole US of A.  And it has been an especially hot summer in Texas.  But we didn’t let that keep us from doing some fun things while they were here.

We even did outside things.  Hot outside things.  Friday night we went to The Ballpark in Arlington to see the Texas Rangers play baseball!  And the Rangers were hot too.  Smokin’ hot!  They beat the Toronto Blue Jays 12-2.  What a fun time we had!

Here we are arriving at the Ballpark.  That’s Dear Sis and her two grandkids with my Dear Hubby carrying the cooler.  We didn’t bring anything to drink or eat in the cooler.  We just wanted to have ice cubes to pour over our heads.  Actually we did have some cool bottles of water in the cooler.  To protect us against dehydration.  Did I mention it’s hot in Texas?

That’s my Dear Niece with the camera.  Taking pics for the lovely family with the statue of Nolan Ryan.  We didn’t know these people.  Dear Niece was just being kind and taking their pic for them.  While the rest of the family looked on and sweltered in the heat.  See the misters in the background?  We wanted to stand under them the whole game.

And of course we had to get a picture with that other looming stadium in the background.  You know.  That other sports team.  You can tell my family wasn’t all that excited about this picture.  Or maybe it was just the over 100 degree temp.

Soon it was time for the National Anthem and the unfurling of the huge American flag.  Notice the great zoom on my camera.  We were not nearly as close as this looks.  Our tickets were in the nosebleed section.  But we had a fun time anyway.

This lucky little boy got to take the balls out to the pitcher’s mound.  He got a high 5 from the Rangers’ mascot on the way back.

Action shot!  I’m quite proud of this pic actually.  That’s Josh Hamilton (a real crowd favorite Ranger) at bat.  Notice the ball just getting ready to cross the plate.  Cool!

Nelson Cruz and Michael Young had really great games.  I was really glad for that since I’d bought my Great Niece and Nephew Ranger shirts to wear with their names on the back.  Cruz actually hit a 3 run homer in the bottom of the 4th and Dear Nephew was quite proud to be wearing his name on his back.  Aunt Barb scored some big points with those shirts!

And after the game there were fireworks!  I’ve never taken pics of fireworks before, but I thought this turned out really nice.

Cool, huh?  Everyone thought the fireworks were nearly as good as the game.

Fun fireworks.

I had fun taking pics of them.  And I took a million.  Thought you might need to see them all.  Not.  Maybe just a couple more?

Aren’t they pretty?  Maybe you had to be there to really appreciate them.  Oh, well.  Suffer through my pics, OK?

Maybe if you scroll really fast through the pics they will feel like live action.  It’s worth a shot.

And as we left the stadium, we walked down and down and down and down a huge ramp to get to ground level from our nosebleed seats.  And I was intrigued by how it looked when you looked over the edge.

Sorry for the blur.  It was an action shot.  I couldn’t stop moving or I’d have been mowed down!

This is Dear Niece and her son walking in front of me.  With big name Rangers, Cruz and Hamilton, on their backs.  Another action shot.  To keep from being mowed down from behind.

Many thanks to the Rangers for cooperating and winning for my guests.  And they won Saturday night too in a real nail biter come-from-behind win in the bottom of the 9th!  Remember last year when I told you about my new love for baseball?  My fanaticism with the game continues…….

And a good time was had by all.  Wish you could have been there.  Oh, but maybe you were?  After all, there were about 37,000 people there.  Maybe one of them was you!

Enjoying the rest of baseball season from the comfort and cool of my living room,
Barb

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A Yummy Salad

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Barb

It’s hot in Texas.  I mean really, really, really, really, really hot.  Some people are saying it’s the hottest summer in 100 years.  Not sure what that means, but it’s hot. 

So nice cool salads hit the spot these days!  This recipe was given to me by a friend (thanks, Sandi!) and we tried it a couple of days ago.  Even Dear Hubby declared it a hit.  And it’s not only yummy – and even yummier the second day after it’s had time to chill out in the fridge – but it’s also quick, easy and most of all, healthy!

I was in a hurry to get it made and in my mouth, so the pics are limited today.  But I’ll walk you through all the ingredients.

You start with a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans.  I drained them in a colander and rinsed them well.

Chop up a red onion and add it to the bowl.  It’s looking good already to me.

Then chop up a yellow bell pepper……

….. and a couple stalks of celery.  I like to add the leafy part of the celery too.  It packs a punch of extra flavor.

Chop up an apple too.  I used a Granny Smith, but you can use any kind of apple you’d like.

The dressing is made with these yummy ingredients and is probably what makes the salad so good.  3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (yum), 2 Tbsp olive oil (more yum), and 2 tsp agave nectar (yum, yum, yum) – I just dumped them on top of the other ingredients in the bowl and stirred everything together.

Oh!  And you also need to throw in about 1/2 tsp of salt and a little ground pepper.  And the recipe says to toss 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro on top as a garnish, but I chopped up a bunch and just stirred it in too.  We love cilantro at our house.  I put it in almost everything.  Well, maybe not oatmeal.

So this was dinner the other night.  Roasted asparagus with garlic (also very yummy) and Crunchy Bean Salad.  I had seconds on the salad.  OK, thirds.  And the next day we ate it again and Dear Hubby declared it even better after it sat in the fridge overnight.

My Dear Sis from Illinois is coming for a visit next week and this will definitely be on the menu.  She says she wants to eat only what I eat while she’s here and is hoping to lose 10 pounds. 

In order to accomplish this I’m also going to make her ride the stationary bike at least 5 hours a day….. shhhhhh – don’t tell her.

Hugs,
Barb
UPDATE:  Cindy’s comment reminded me that I thought a little fresh lime juice might also add a little extra flavor to this salad.  I squeeze fresh limes into my water all the time and love the flavor.  Today’s lunch was the rest of this salad so I added the lime juice.  Even more yummy than before…… just sayin’.

Posted in food, healthy, recipes | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

A Fox in the Cat House

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Barb

Dear Hubby called my attention to this one yesterday morning.  Come look at the new neighbor, he called from the kitchen, as I sat on the couch in the living room reading my early morning email.  It’s really worth getting up for.

And this is what was lurking right outside…

He (she?) was acting right at home in the shadow of the tree stump next door.

Nonchalantly gazing at the birds on the top of the fence.  Looking for breakfast maybe?  Do foxes eat birds?

She (he?) was not at all intimidated by us apparently.  He even napped while we were watching.  And Boo jumped up in the window to watch too.  And Miss Kitty wanted outside.  How do foxes feel about cats? 

Cats?  Did someone say cats?  Do foxes eat cats?  Or do they just bite them and give them rabies?  What do foxes eat anyway?  Is Miss Kitty safe outside with this new friend – or is it a foe – in the neighborhood?

Kitty?  Where’s the kitty?  Surely Miss Kitty can defend herself against this scrawny wild creature.  Right?

I mean, she’s mean and a wickedly fast runner who can climb small trees in a single bound.  Not.  In her dreams, maybe.  She used to be able to climb trees.  Dear Hubby thinks she might be able to get 2 feet off the ground up a tree now.  She’s been living the cushy, city cat life for too long.  And eating way toooooo well.

Who me?  You talkin’ ’bout me?  Yawn.  I’ll show that fox a thing or two.  As soon as I have another nap.  The fox should be very, very worried.  Not.

Aw, Mom.  I’m a big, bad kitty.  I will strike fear into the heart of that li’l fox.  Just as soon as you stop massaging my sweet li’l ol’ head.

I think Miss Kitty is destined to stay in the house for awhile.  Besides….. it’s hot out there.  And she has a lot of long, heat-absorbing fur.

Protecting my furry babies,
Barb
P.S.  I read up on gray foxes.  They eat just about anything, it seems.  Including rabbits and other small mammals.  Although Miss Kitty might not qualify as small (she’s been well fed!), I think we’ll keep her inside.  And these foxes even climb trees!  The outside world is not a safe place for a fat, happy cat.  Wonder how long I have to worry about the fox hanging around?

Posted in Miss Kitty | Tagged | 8 Comments