A Day Out for Girls

Yesterday, I went downtown with my daughter. We went to Fantastic Sams (too busy to get my haircut - wait until Monday),

Borders (she finished spending her gift card: Persuasion by Jane Austin), ate lunch,

and then we went to see Juno. Great movie!

We had to wait a while for the movie to start after we bought our tickets, so we went into another book store and I bought Mr. Darcy's Diary by Maya Slater. Based, of course, on the character in Pride and Predjudice.

We had wonderful conversations and lots of bonding time. It was great.

Something Valentiney For Me

Valentine and Arty Shirts

Well, with all the crafting I did for my family for Valentine's Day, I naturally had to make something for myself!  So two shirts got redesigned.  Actually, I did three shirts, but one of them didn't turn out.  No worries.  Two for three aint bad.

Valentine's Day Visitor

This immature mynah bird flew into our sliding glass door and stunned himself right after we had finished our dessert. At first, I thought he had killed himself, but he came to pretty quickly. He appeared unhurt after a few minutes, but he insisted on clutching my finger and sitting on my hand. Mynah birds have an unusual diet, or we might have seriously considered keeping him. They are very smart birds. Actually, he calmed down pretty quickly and sat quietly in my hand unlike our tame, pet birds.

But, eventually he felt like he could fly off, and that's just what he did. But not before my husband snapped many photos of him, including the one above.
To see the photos, or many other photos of birds and other things, click here.

Homemade Valentine's Day

Crocheted hat for my daughter, pattern is here

Crocheted wrist cuff for my daughter, no pattern

Boxer shorts for my husband, McCall's 8934

I also made a pair of earrings for my daughter, as I mentioned in a previous post, but one broke (my fault entirely) and then the picture I took was blurry, so I will post it later.

For dinner, we had chicken stir-fry with peanut/orange sauce, fluffy white rice  and chocolate fondue for dessert with long-stemmed humongous strawberries, chunks of banana bread, mandarin orange segments and marshmallows.  

Getting Better All the Time

My birdy friends get a parent

I sat down yesterday and, realizing I didn't really feel excited about the setting I had for these birds, I sketched a new option which included this parent bird.  Now I'm really happy about the direction this quilt is going.  

Multiples

Making additional birds is easy if one saves the pattern from the first and uses it over and over again. Even the tiny pieces are reserved for future use so that these birds can appear uniform. It was a happy accident by which I discovered the feeding position - and I didn't have to redraft the pattern to make the third one different.

A Return to Health

Home Made Pizza

recipe follows

Nothing demonstrates a return to health more than a good appetite.  Isn't great when you can taste food again?  And I had just enough energy to make pizza last night.  Yum.

Pizza Dough

pinch sugar 

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup flour

2 1/4 tsp yeast

Combine above ingredients let sit in mixing bowl for 20 minutes until frothy.

1 cup water

2 tbls olive oil

1 tbls sugar

2 cups flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup yellow corn meal

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

3 tbls dried basil

1 tsp salt

Combine liquids and add to yeast mixture.  Combine dry ingredients and slowly add to yeast mixture in mixer with dough hook kneading.  After dough has formed ball (extra flour may be needed), let mixer knead for 6 - 10 minutes.  Remove dough to oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise one hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (223 degrees C).  Divide dough in half, or more if you desire smaller pizzas.  Roll dough out into thin circle, spread with pizza sauce (I use Prego Traditional tomato sauce), sprinkle with your favorite toppings.  Bake 8 - 15 minutes, to taste (I like my cheese toasted), serve mostly hot.  

Salut!