Starting A New Quilt and Making Zucchini Bread

After cleaning out my closet and having a lot of blouses that were going to be tossed or given to the thrift store, it was decided to keep the blouses, and cut out the squares for a small quilt. I haven't gotten very far because of other duties to take care of but it will be fun putting it together. Cutting out the squares, ironing them, laying out to see how best they will look. It's done my way, I don't quilt the traditional way. It's all in fun and that's more important than having a perfectly laid out quilt that someone wouldn't use because it was just too "perfect." So most of them are cut out and laying on the table until a decision is made on how it will look and I get to use my new sewing machine.

Then I also made zucchini bread. Grated the zucchini and to make it easy, would you believe I got three carrot cake mixes, all they needed was the eggs and we have chickens that lay the most delicous eggs. Oil and water were added and the zuke was mixed in so it was VERY easy. The cakes already had the spices like cinnamon added to them so nothing else had to be added. Okay, so laziness sets in sometimes, but the cakes came out pretty good. Two of them were frozen and it's not very likely there will be any more breadbaking because we don't eat sweet that much. We have been gettin tons of zucchini and tomorrow about 30 or 40 are going to a senior center down the road so they can enjoy.

When they see me coming I hear them saying, here comes the tomato lady. Or of it's chili's, it's the chili lady, orange lady, lemon lady, corn lady, and tomorrow they will call me the zucchini lady. When I walk in and put whatever on the long table, they start to get up real slow at first, and then they race for the table like if they were ready to make a touchdown. I smile each time I turn around to leave because it makes me so happy that they appreciate what they are getting, and besides they are funny when they make their way to the table. They have their hands outstretched ready to grab. Hehehehe. I hope everyone has a great week and I'm beginning to wonder where yaya is and if all is okay. I'm going to have to give her a call as there has been no reponse from her at her blog or here. Got to make sure all my blogger amigas are okay.

This Blog Makes My Heart Smile Award

This Blog Make My Heart Smile Award

BEV of http://dreamsofpurelove.blogspot.com/ was so kind to give me this award and it is truly appreciated. Thanks a lot Bev, I am glad that I can make your heart smile. I look at it this way, one has to remember that we must keep smiling because,


A Smile Increases Your Face Value.



So I have to pass it on to 10 others and if per chance I can't pass it to 10 others then at least 1/2 will be passed on. I will get to that as soon as I can. I just wanted to take the time to say thanks to BEV. Thank you very much.

This post here is about Mr Jiggs or Professor Jiggs as the case may be.

You've met the Professor Jiggs in one of my previous posts. He belongs to Steve of http://samelifenewlocation.blogspot.com/ and Mr. Jiggs is now situated in Melaque with his daddy Steve. Unfortunately as you read before, Mr Jiggs is at that age where he is ailing. Right now he is at the vets and has actually been going for walks and has no fever. Xrays were done and Steve will know the results today. I'm using these pictures because I was told I could, or I wouldn't be using them if Steve hadn't said it was okay for me to have pictures of Mr. Jiggs.

I just wanted to share with you the before and after of Mr. Jiggs haircut and how he looks now. The first picture is of when he first got to Melaque in Mexico. You can see his hair is long and he seems to be hot and tired. The second was taken at the vets after his haircut, and look at the beauty of this family pet member. Oh he is beautiful either way but in the second photo he is smiling and seems happy and has this tender loving look on his face. I don't know Jiggs personally and then on the other hand, just by reading about him, I have come to know him. I wish nothing but the best for this older lovable family pet member and I hope that when he comes home, he can live as normal a life as possible. I truly feel the need to hug this creature of God. I send him my hugs via airwaves. Viva Mr. Jiggs. Steve if you read this, I hope you don't mind if I posted about Mr. Jiggs, how can I not.

Permission from the owner to have these photographs and so I just had to post about Mr. Jiggs.

Go get em Jiggs. Come home and live a happy and fun life with your daddy.

Who said I couldn't QUILT. I could, I did and I am.

Today I woke refreshed and ready to take on a new task. SEWING! Who you, you ask? I have sewn before. I am not a good seamstress, but I can sew a little by hand and the sewing machine. What's good about visiting great blogs like Renee's blog, http://rebartstudio.blogspot.com is that old avenues are revisited and all of a sudden you find yourself thinking, "Hey, I can do that." Well I know that in the late 90's I made some quilts, the size that you can throw on your shoulders or the type that you hang up. I dug out two that I had done and I was really surprised at the work on there. Both are different in that one is a mixture of paintings I did on the material and in fact Little lady of the garden is in one of the squares. Actually the other is also a variety of cutouts in different shapes and sizes and also there are some blocks painted. It's a case of MIXED MEDIA on quilts.


I went through all the squares and I said to myself. "I did this?" I love the way they look and later today if I can take pictures of them I will post them. Well it is later today and in fact late for me but I just don't feel like going to bed. I did take pictures of the quilts but had to do it in layers so to speak. I couldn't get the whole thing with the camera so this will have to do. I hope you like them.

Kind of bleary. Sorry.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS, HOPE YOU ENJOYED, SEE YOU TOMORROW AND

VIVA LA VIDA

Memorial Day, nostalgia

I'm hoping everyone had a memorable Memorial Day. It was nostalgic to say the least. We all have memories of someone and today was just that day to pay heed to our military and our souls that are no longer with us. It could have been a really bad day for me, but I knew I had to do the things that needed to be done. So we did. Met with friends, went to a nursery, picked up some David Austin roses, hubby planted those on the side of the trellis, plus a ton of other roses he had in pots. We picked our first real picking from our garden, I did the nopales, and even managed to paint this silly little painting. I definitely gave thanks for our freedom. Enjoy your week and Viva La Vida.

SWINE DANCING

This is my latest on canvas. I'm not really sure what it is but there are little stickers that I added such as no smoking stickers and the flu sticker reminded me of the swine flu that is going on and since these "people" look like moving skeletons, I thought I'd title it "SWINE DANCING."

(go figure)

Look at these beauty's just picked from the garden

Garlic, zucchini, red potatoes, red onions

They smell so good

Want some?

cutting nopalesa bunch left to do

done cutting

Rinsing

Cooking the nopalitos

Used my seal a meal for freezer storage

IN MY YARD THE WORLD IS MINE, AS ARE MY NOPALITOS

So do you remember last year when I posted about my nopalitos? Well it's that time of year again and I'm cutting down the first batch of the year, about 35 of them. The stickers will be scraped off, they will be diced, washed, semi-cooked, rinsed, cooled of and then I freeze them. They don't stay long in the freezer because eat them up fast. We eat them with salads, eggs, meat, chili, and much more.

We are going round in circles and this year I probably will be boring because I do the same things every year. If I bore you, please let me know and I think I might be able to think of other things to blog about. Maybe. If not, you'll have to take me like I am.

Today is an excellent day and I am uplifted because we've got plans after we go to visit our military men. We're having a few friends over who decided they didn't want to go out of town and we shall kick back and barbecue, talk, play music and act goofy. The following day we will go to their home and do the same. How crazy is that! Pretty crazy if you ask me. My mom is going out of town with her senior friends so she won't be home. For being an older lady, she sure gets around and I am happy for that. So I leave you with these pictures because now I have to go make potato salad for tomorrow. It was so refreshing when I was outside earlier, oooops I forgot I left the sprinkler on without the timer so I need to go turn it off. Have a great day and if I bombarded you with pictures, I hope you enjoyed them any way. Viva La Vida!
Here is the finished trellis/arch and we've got the fence up too.
My own garden doing great

Trellis/Arch looks pretty good

Nopalitos

These are the ones I will cut off

Zuchini flower which also can be stuffed and eaten

My husband's garden way out in back and a lot of zuchinni

Grapes are doing wonderful

More of my hubbys garden, tomatoes, chili's

His grows a lot, we give most of it away

My pomegrante tree has flowers which should turn to fruit. Yay! This is the first year we've had these beauties.

Beautiful flowers will emerge on this cactus

This cactus plant gives the most beautiful yellow flowers and then it fruits, real good.

I will be cutting these nopales today and probably eating those cherries

Nopales and cherrys

Memorial Day

Just a quick note to say I hope everyone has a great holiday.

if you have a 4 day holiday enjoy every moment.

My husband works tomorrow so

we pretty much can't go out of town.

We are going to the usual

Memorial Day celebration

at San Joaquin National Cemetary where my

son is at, and

for our military peoples.

After that we will come home

and enjoy the quietness of home

unless the people next door are partying

in which case we'll put up with a lot

of gaiety at first and

then it turns into drunken language and

then brother fighting

with brother and father and mother

and sisters.

lol

What else can I say.

VIVA LA VIDA AND VIVA OUR MILITARY MEN/WOMEN.

Much Ado About Nothing or is this post going to post?

I just want to take the time to say thank you to all my bloglandia friends who are always so kind. I am also testing to see if I can post and if this FireFox is working. I had to delete a few things from my blog because it kept saying I didn't have the plug ins or and I didn't want to d/l anything to further load up my puter.

Today it looks to me to be a slow day. I decided to cook beans, pinto beans and I am going to make tortillas. Roll em Roll em Roll em type of thing. As you can tell, I'm a little off today because I just can't stand it when things don't go right. If it isn't one thing, it's another. You know that old saying, when things are going too good, there is always the bad waiting to happen.

I will now get this out of my head and count my lucky stars because it is a beautiful day and I want to live it. I guess you all have your days too and if ever needed, I am here to listen or read as the case may be. Okay I am going to post this and see if it works. Ta Da! Here goes, but before I go, remember Viva La Vida!

Not sure what to do about this neighborhood problem

Okay, I'm not a busy body and I don't like it when people think I am getting involved in something I shouldn't be. I guess you could say if someone in my neighborhood isn't keeping up their yard or home, going to them and asking them what they plan on doing about all the weeds or broken windows etc. would be my course of action.

I've done it before and I would do it again. Now it is a different problem and it is just getting worse. I would say about 3 long blocks from where our home is at are homes that are in the city, although we only 3 blocks aways are county. The homes in that area are changing drastically, many foreclosures, broken windows, broken doors, broken this, broken that, burned homes and many other problems like teenagers just hanging around in vacant house and vandalizing to the extreme extent. No one wants to do anything about it.

On the way home today I stopped to ask a man who was outside of his home what was going on with that home with all the broken windows, doors, etc. He seemed terrified. He kept saying I don't know it belongs to the bank and he kept eyeing the teenagers that were "hanging out" on the grass of one of the homes. I asked him if he called the city but he said no. He didn't want to get involved because he has two sons and he doesn't want anything to happen to them. I wasn't sure what he meant and then I realized he was afraid of the teenagers.

I left but not before noticing that the boys kept looking at my car and the direction I was heading. So I'm supposed to be terrified too? I guess I could be if it was right next door and all that was happening, but it's about 20/25 homes away and they keep getting closer. It seems the type of people that live around here is changing dramatically and I'm not sure what to do. People are afraid to get involved because "bang" your dead. I told my husband about it and he tended to agree with the "staying out of it." He said to me, "what if someone does report it to the city and they (the teenagers) go to the man and he says, it wasn't me, it was probably that lady that was here the other day."

I kept quiet and listened and thought. I'm not a coward and don't shrink back, and if someone was beating up a little kid next door, you darn right I would report it right away. So now I'm at a loss as to what to do. I have to think on this. What would you do? Can you answer that question?It's either shut up and live or get involved and expect consequences. What kind of world is this? It sure isn't what it used to be.

Problems with IE I think

Hi peoples. I have been having problems viewing my blog. I can't just click to go straight to my blog. I need to sign in on the blogger page and it takes me to my dashboard but when I go to click to view actual blog, it give me an "abort" notice. Is anyone else having problems with this? I think it has to do with Internet Explorer. I can visit some blogs but still have some problems with the abort problem. If you are having problems too, can you let me know and thanks ahead of time.

Inspired by someone to post about this "remembrance."

I visited Renee's blog at http://circlingmyhead.blogspot.com/ and she had a post about how some things were in the "old" days when the wife would wait for the husband and not knowing what to expect and also the kids and the role they played in anticipation of "dad" coming home from work. It took me to my life and what it was like when we kids waited.

Let me tell you in a few short sentences about my experience when we waited for dad to come home. If I can....in a few short sentences.
_____________________________________

My two brothers and I would be outside playing ball or something or other, and one of us would run inside to see what time it was. When it got to be 4:30, we knew we had a little bit longer to play before dad arrived. Our plan was always the same, walk and then run down the one lane, 3 or 4 ranches street until we got to the crossing lane which was about maybe 15 blocks or so from our ranch. During those days there were no "blocks" where we lived, only one long street.

We'd wait at the end and when we saw his car coming we'd start jumping and hollering and as soon as he turned the corner, we'd hear dad day, "Hi mijita, mijitos, (daughter, sons) jump on!" We'd get on the sidebars of his bakery truck, and the windows would be open, and we'd hold on for dear life. There was no traffic in those day where we lived so we knew there would be nothing to keep us from going bat out of heck to get home.


My dad would say, "you ready?" and we'd start screaming and holding on tighter. Dad would hit the gas and away we'd go with all of us laughing and happy, yet a little scared of the fast ride but enjoying it to the fullest, because we knew by all the grocery bags in the car that dad had stopped at grandpa's grocery store and picked up some 50/50 ice cream bars. The orange and white delicious bars that melted in your mouth.


We'd get home all screaming and shouting and my step-mom would come out of the house with her apron on and her tortilla roller in one hand and pushing hair from her face with the other. "Que pasa?," she would say. Of course it was the usual thing that happened at least 3 times of the week. It was the good old days when nothing could be wrong. Of course the first thing we got were a kiss from dad and an ice cream bar in his hand for us. Yay!!! for dads and ice cream bars.

************************
Going down memory lane sure is invigorating and I sure do seem to be doing that a lot these days. So now it's time to get BUSY.
I get lazy when I sit and type and then I don't want to do what I have to do. My everyday chores that is. I tried finding a picture of a 50/50 bar, those delicious vanilla/orange bars and just could not find. I'm sure you get the picture though. Got to go, take care and embrace life with a vengeance.

Life, weather, food

Professor Jiggs, photo by his parent Steve

A very nice man called Steve at: http://steveinmexico.blogspot.com/ has finally completed his journey to Melaque with his family pet member Professor Jiggs who is 13 years old and ailing. My heart just stops when I hear of a family pet members journey coming to an end. Mr.

Jiggs has been suffering with arthritis and other disabilities and has taken a turn for the worse. I don't know Mr. Professor Jiggs but since I have been reading the blog, Jiggs has always been a part of it. How strange that I who love family pet members rarely blog about mine. I wonder why that is. I borrowed a picture of Jiggs from Steve and wanted to share his beautiful face with you and if you get a chance for just a little minute, can you stop by to offer comfort to Steve and Mr. Jiggs. That would be so kind. Steve said at the end of his post and I quote,

"The only moment I have is the one before me, and I will live it before tomorrow comes."

_____________________________________________________

and I gloria, know that I am a better person for having known about Jiggs. I hope he gets well and makes it for a while longer. Viva Jiggs!! God Bless You.

Current Conditions

91°FFair -->
Location Modesto, CA * Fair
Today 91° / 60°
Tomorrow 92° / 59°
Thursday 90° / 60°

So it is 4:30 or so and it is currently 91 degrees. I definitely am not outside and just now turned on the air conditioner so that the house is cool when the dear hubby gets home. I took care of business early this morning and got home by 10:30 so that I wouldn't have to go out of the house. This is actually not that hot, because we have been up to 109 and maybe even 110. I've got clothes to fold and put away, need to check the mail, and would you believe for dinner tonight it will be chili cheese dogs. Yesterday my husband bought pizza, actually two, but I plan on snacking on a piece when I watch American Idol. Of course my thoughts will never stray from thinking about those that are ailing right now.

Take care.

My CookBook- Zarela's Food From The Heart

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