Apples!

Last weekend, we went with some friends of ours from Singapore, the Bridgemans, to go apple picking. This was an outing I looked forward to every fall when I still lived in California, and missed terribly while I lived in Singapore. And, being the kinda tech-saavy girl that I am, I brought my camera with no batteries. So, I don't have pictures of the tiny little orchard we went to, or of how beautiful the blue, cloudless sky was, or of how wonderful the weather was. I can't take pictures of the temperature, anyway. But it was a lovely day and I was so happy.

We were warned that the orchard had suffered a hail storm (on May 15th!) so the apples were pocked, but still tasted good. We found that to be very true.

So with a huge quantity of apples (and a gigantic pumpkin, to boot), I started hunting for recipes. Apple butter is a bit too complicated, I think. So my first apple endeavor was applesauce.



I pulled all the winesap apples from the basket for this recipe; they are tart and perfect for cooking.

The flesh is almost hard, and very white. And the peels can be so dark, I almost thought they were plums when I went to pick them.


The recipe called for 3 or 4 pounds, and by hitting a conversion site online, I found that that was about 2 quarts, peeled and cored and quartered.




Here they are with the rest of the ingredients: a 3" piece of cinnamon stick, 4 peels of lemon rind, the juice of a lemon, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, and a cup of water. The recipe allowed that not all of the white sugar need be added, but I had tasted these apples and knew they were tart and so I added the full amount. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, and voila!


Apple mush! Now remove the cinnamon stick and the lemon peels which are hard to find but also hard where everything else is mushy.
Last year, when I went to clean out my mother's house, I inherited a food mill. I use it to make mashed potatoes now and then, and it is great! Now I used it to make applesauce, and it worked like a charm.




Have you ever had hot applesauce? I never had, but I have found a new love.


Home made applesauce is very similar to store bought, except perhaps it's a bit denser. I think Motts says they use gravenstein apples, but the winesaps make such a great flavor contrast: tart/sweet.
This was such an easy recipe, I hope you will try to make your own applesauce. I have so much, I may try to make an applesauce spice cake with some of it. We'll see. It was delicious with cottage cheese and walnuts for breakfast this morning, too.

Greetings from Chattanooga

Why doncha sit a spell?

We finally unpacked the cord that will allow me to download some pictures, so why don't I show you around?

Here's our new home.

Of course, I'm kidding. These are pictures taken nearby, of Audubon Acres. It's a wildlife park we visited, and it's close enough to go all the time, if one wanted to do that.

Here's a more accurate picture of what we've been living with.




But, who wants to look at boxes? We sure don't, so we've been finding lots of excuses to get out of the house when we can. Lacking furniture and storage solutions, we've found lots of excuses to go out. Today will be more unpacking, and tomorrow will be more going out.

My daughter seems to be finding her way in high school. She attends Ooltewah High School (pronounced Oo-de--wah) as a freshman, and aside from having to get up at 5 am (ouch!), she seems pretty happy.

My husband and I have put out lots of applications and resumes, and will keep doing that, but so far we haven't found jobs. At this particular moment in time, I'm not very worried. At other moments, I find myself quite anxious. But really, after all we've been through in the past four years, living in Singapore and all that attended that life, I don't feel like I have any right to worry. I have been taken care of and will continue to be taken care of, and that's all I need to know.

But your prayers are appreciated.

The past couple of days have been rainy and cool. I'm sure you know how happy that makes me feel. I'm currently sitting in my living room with the sliding glass door open, quite comfortable. It's stop raining for the moment, but the sky is grey, so we may get more rain.

Here are some pictures I took on our recent hike at Audubon Acres.



Not sure what kind of flower this is, but it was hiding in the grass.




Isn't this inviting? One of the things I really missed when I was living in Singapore was going for a walk in the woods. Of course you can walk in the woods in Singapore, if you like sweating. It's so humid there. It was humid in these woods, too, but not nearly as bad.




I forget what creek this bridge spans; I think it's the Chickamauga. I can't get my mouth to say that word correctly.



Everybody needs friends, right?



And speaking of friends, these two trees struck me with their closeness yet obvious difference in their bark. I'm aiming at some profound statement about unity in diversity here, but I'm not quite making it.






Tomorrow my sister is coming down and we are having A Day. Hopefully we will both remember to take lots of pictures so we both have something to blog about.

Life Moving Too Fast

All I did was add one little activity to my schedule, and things went haywire.

Do you know what I mean? Actually, I've added three activities, but two of them I do at home, so what's my excuse.

Ok, the new activities are:

a Bible study.
a language course (German) - these are the ones I'm doing at home, by myself, at my leisure. Neither one takes more than a half hour, and I don't do the German study everyday.

Where does the time go?


Ok, I'll admit it. The third activity is by far my favorite activity.
I became a member of the American Women's Association in Singapore and joined their choir! We have practice on Wednesdays from 10 to 12 and then my section (altos) meets Mondays from 12 to 1. Just three measly hours a week, plus travel time (I don't have a car) and suddenly everything is in an uproar. But it's making me so happy. I haven't been in a choir since high school, but it's all coming back to me. And it's a lovely group of women - Americans are in the minority, funnily enough.
We will have several performances this spring, including a formal affair at the American Club in May. Why didn't I do this sooner?


But do you remember this?
I do. It's been sitting in my studio, taunting me since before Christmas. It needs to be quilted. But I have jumpstarted that task and hope to get it done before this week is over.

With more scheduled items in one's life, one must be deliberate about how to spend the remaining time. So I am going to be deliberate - that's my watchword for January 2009. I wont say resolution because that has too many negative connotations.

The First Photo

My darling friend, Akiko, sent me this picture of her very Christmassy and very cute potholders that she made from my tutorial.
Aren't they wonderful? She really went to town with the piecing on the first one! Way to go, Akiko, and thank for the pic!

Another Trip Around the Sun

November 20th is my birthday.  Two years ago, I threw myself a party, which I blogged about, and I invited about 12 ladies.

You see, I wanted to have a tea party, and in Singapore, you can't go out and do that without encountering seafood in some form or another.  I'm not interested in seafood in any form, so I had the party at my condo.  I made finger sandwiches and pastries and a good time was had by all.

Last year, my dahlink friend Janis couldn't let the event go by unnoticed, so she hosted a party at her house (also blogged about).  We had chicken kebabs and hummus and salad nicoise (I avoided the tuna) and everything was delicious and wonderful.  And I wondered, "How did I trick my friends into thinking they had to celebrate my birthday every year?"  

Well, it happened again.  Here I was going along, minding my own business, and a call came on Tuesday saying Thursday we were going to have lunch in honor of my birthday.  "It's become a tradition, " I was told.  How did this happen?  What did I do to deserve these repeated kindnesses?  I'm not sure, especially as I have been mostly absent from our gatherings this year.  But sometimes one has to just accept the kindnesses done to them, and be grateful.

Here we are, from left to right:
Mavis McAllister, Janis Douglas (the instigator, I mean our host), me, Marianne Bos (a fellow quilter, a fellow fuser), and Amy Low.
I was treated to a Mexican feast the like of which will live in my memory for at least a month, maybe two. I had a virgin lime margarita, the best mole poblano I've had in years, and a decaf cappuccino. Everything was absolutely delicious and I felt so blessed and honored.



Everything was so delicious, I forgot to photograph it until I was almost done eating!

I have such wonderful friends.

Afterward, I scrambled to meet the DH and we went downtown so we could pick out a new camera for me, as my old one occasionally thinks it's on another planet.
Here's what we got:




The Canon Powershot A1000 IS, in a lovely shade of metallic lavender. I really thought I was going to buy an IXUS, but they cost so much more, and for mostly the same options. This one is much smaller than the old camera, and only uses 2 AA batteries, so it's much lighter.

Every year, I think I don't want to make a fuss about my birthday. Just let the day slide by with maybe a nice dinner or something. But secretly, I'm afraid that if that were to actually happen, I would be very sad. Luckily, no one seems interested in letting me go there. May I be worthy of their love and generosity.

Sold!

I'm so thrilled to announce that my dear friend, Carol, has purchased Release - after I made her wait months for it. She first expressed interested in buying this quilt in August, I think it was, and I made her wait because I was getting ready to travel to the states for a month. Not too smart of me, but there it is. However, I couldn't dissuade her desire to purchase this quilt, and yesterday it became hers!
The best part about this sale, other than the quilt going to a friend, is the fact that she had a good understanding of what the quilt design meant. I don't usually mean much by my designs, but this one had some significance, and she got it. That is so cool.

Enjoy your new quilt, Carol. And thanks a bunch!

In The Right Place At The Right Time

So today was Carnival Day at my daughter's school. We weren't really committed to going, but then she decided she wanted to, so off we all went. On the spur of the moment, I decided to bring Release, the latest quilt, because a friend (Carol!) said she was interested in buying it, but she's never even seen it in person and I expected to see her there.

As soon as I walked onto campus, I was accosted by the woman who was organizing a quilt show for the carnival. I had no idea they were even having a quilt show. She hoped I had a quilt in that bag I was carrying, she said, and I did. But I wasn't planning on showing it, I assured her. I just brought it to show to Carol! Being taken off-guard, I argued a bit and then acquiesced and agreed to put it in the show.

I went and looked and my friend Marianne had entered two of her quilts, and that was all there was. So OK, I displayed my quilt and didn't think another thought about it.

Later, someone congratulated me on winning first place.



Isn't that a hoot?

And here's a picture I forgot I had in my camera of my daughter on her school's picture day. She's so gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

She had PE that day, or she never would have worn those shoes. And yes, my studio is a mess. That's why I cropped most of it out of the picture.

Birds of a Feather

My friend, Akiko, is moving away from Singapore in just a few days. She has been like a sister to me, we connected on so many levels, and it's sad to see her go. But since we got so close, it feels like we will have to see each other again. So, I'm trying to be cheerful.

To celebrate our friendship, I made these for her.



I found the pattern for them online, but I adjusted it by adding the legs.




Farewell, Akiko, my sister-friend. I'll see you soon, Lord willing.

And now you know why I haven't posted about the hand quilt. I'll do that soon.

A Gift For a Friend

On Saturday, I will be celebrating the birthday of a dear friend of mine. Her name is Penny and she is from New Zealand. So, I saw this as an opportunity to try out that free-motion embroidery idea I blogged about days ago.

I got a picture of the New Zealand penny on line and I traced it onto Solvy - a water soluble stabilizer. I used an oil-based permanent marker for this so it wouldn't bleed or smear.


The penny I traced was dated 1957, but I changed it to 1960 - her birth year.




Then I stitched the design. This was not as easy as that sentence would imply. After I stitched the outside circle, I decided it would be prudent to put a layer of tear-away stabilizer on the back. And my sewing machine was most uncooperative. I think I must really replace it soon. I had to rethread and re-bobbin it every couple of minutes. But somehow, I managed to make it look all right.
This is sewn onto a zippered jacket, btw, in turquoise - our favorite color.



The penny had these dots interspersed along the outside edge, and they didn't stitch too well, so I decided to put a copper sequin in their place: three of them to be exact.

So, if you are reading this blog and you know Penny, please don't tip her off!

Faux Sushi

For April Fool's Day I met with some friends for a time of game playing - card games and board games.  This was my contribution to the snack table.  Not very sushi-like sushi.  They are cut-in-thirds Twiggies - a Singaporean version of Twinkies (not nearly as good, unfortunately) with a Japanese candy called Chocobabies stuffed into the frosting (these aren't like any American candy I know of, but they are good!) and wrapped with Fruit Roll-ups, in strawberry!  I wanted the green roll-ups, but I was lucky to get any, so I took the red ones.

I had to explain to many people that this wasn't REAL sushi (I am not the only one who doesn't eat raw fish), and that was pretty funny because I didn't think my sushi looked like the real thing at all.  Once I mentioned the ingredients, tho, people were happy to have one.  What a riot!

I also made a new friend yesterday, a new mom at my daughter's school, and she's a quilter - and not only a quilter, but a FUSER for heaven's sake!  I feel very blessed that God has allowed me to make her acquaintance at this point in my life, when I desperately needed to meet someone who speaks my language.