still no sewing..........

so what have I been doing with myself?? Still messing with those recipes from the stacked up mags until about 30 minutes ago. BUT 3080 recipes later and files backed up, I think I am officially done. It got a little faster once I figured out taste of home's system for labeling the files in their url. I didn't have to search for it first but is/was still time consuming to download and transfer. Thank heavens for recipe fox in a Firefox browser for grabbing the whole shootin' match along with the picture!

I thought I was done on Friday morning but found another stack of about a dozen to transfer over to the cooking software. I still have some taste of home magazines on the shelf but those may be covered with the books they put out at years end that contain the whole year's mags. If that is the case, then those puppies are out of there too.

In between, I seemed to be having problems with the replacement keyboard. Not long ago the one I had used for a long time was acting up but in my efforts to clean it up I buggered up the space bar. I dug out an old one from under the bed and everything seemed to be going okay till the space key, delete and one of ctrl keys were sticking. I popped off all the keys off this one individually and cleaned it thoroughly. Not so many strings, crumbs and fuzz, etc in this one but it still needed attention. It worked well enough to get the job done on the recipe project but still is intermittently acting up. I told DJ if he was looking for birthday ideas for me next month, he a new one. We did look a few on a recent walmart run just to price them. My conclusion is: as usual, you can pay about anything you want for something as there is a big range. (I also pointed out the 4 in 1 grill I am panting over, LOL but I think he will probably give me the money and tell ME to go shop. )

All that button hole applique is still waiting. To be honest I didn't feel much like sewing this week anyway. So, I didn't. What's another day or two? Since I have a bit of the day ahead of me and I already fixed our supper meal(a cold chicken salad) this morning, I might just do a bit on my basket embroidery block. Pick up and put down work sounds like "just the ticket".

See what came in the mail yesterday?? A friend of my mom's had purchased all this lovely flannel to make a specific quilt. She then decided that she did not want to proceed with it and gave it to my mom, knowing that she does a lot of donation quilts. Mom did not feel too inclined to work with the flannel and asked me if I wanted it. She knows how chilly DJ gets in the living room on all those blood thinners come winter time. I obviously told her to send it on, LOL. A sales receipt in the box said the buyer spent about $110 bucks for all that fabric. I prefer cotton myself but I don't want this stuff to go to waste either.

This what the lady had in mind to make. I just scanned the page of the magazine which was in the January/February 2004 Fons and Porter's "Love of Quilting" . The quilt was designed by Judy Martin and pieced and quilted by Jean Nolte. The pattern was originally published in The Creative Pattern Book by Judy in 2000 and used by permission in the magazine. Judy called the pattern "Texas Chain" and this quilt featured in the book was called "Cabin Cozy Flannel". If you would like to see other quilts made from this same pattern, go to

http://www.judymartin.com/Viewer-Photos.cfm

Scroll down to Creative Pattern Book (or ctrl plus F and type it in) and click on any of the Texas Chain photos that have been submitted by readers. LOL, one uses 30 repros and you know how I love those! (Mom, see the one by Pam Mineart that is a QOV like one.)

Dang! Those same three keys are sticking and/or not typing again. I may be getting an early bday present yet! He did offer when I was griping about it the other day.

This week's household "disaster" for the week seemed to be that another blind broke at the header bar, near where the cord constantly pulls. LOL, DJ was gone so I left the whole thing on the table with a note that said "help me". He pointed out why it had fallen when he got home. He found the right sized, right colored one in the utility shed but come to find out, it had broken on the bottom! Sheesh! We could not find one at WM in the right width or color nor did he want to go look at the two other Walmarts in our area. Anyway, he ended up taking the bottom bar off the one that had fallen and putting it on the replacement one, saving us a whopping 5 bucks had we found one to purchase. Where there is a will there is a way, right?

The only other "disaster" was purely culinary in nature. Last night I was trying to make crepes with seafood. I have made them before, long time ago using a recipe I had clipped from the paper from Nathalie Dupree. A look at her website shows that it was printed in her "Everday Meals from a Well-Stocked Pantry". Exactly, I had everything on hand to make it. I even have an ancient electric crepe maker but unfortunately lost the directions/recipe book. In retrospect, I should have just made them a skillet as I had one royal mess with crepes sticking or starting to cook when I was dipping the hot utensil down in to the batter. What a mess! And after all that, DJ hated them. It might have helped if I had put some of the sauce over the top of them like you would do with enchiladas. Actually I sort of wished that I had made a half batch of the filling for Seafood Cancun Enchiladas instead. Now, that would have been GOOD as well as DJ approved. I told him I didn't know what we were going to do for lunch today when I tossed it all out. (He picked a coupon for money off a large pizza and paid for/picked it up. )

Guess that is it for now. I'm going to use my fingers for something other than typing.