Mountain Mama… Country Living
This is how the apron looked before changes. I took off the pocket and the fabric at the bottom.
This is how it looks now. I like this much better even if it did make the apron shorter. What do you all think?
We are getting some sunshine now, hopefully it will stay. Temperatures are warm-mid 40’s. Pretty nice. Enjoy your day. God bless.
Well, I finally finished this one. I’m not sure I like the contrasting material with it. What do you all think? I have a little girl pattern already cut out to match this one and a doll pattern. So like it or not, this set will have to be this way. Thanks again to Grace for being my model.
So now I want everyone’s opinion. Which apron pattern do you all like the best? Which one do you think most likely to sell?
Temperatures have warmed up quite a lot here. Low 40’s today. I think there is a chance for snow tomorrow and Tuesday. Church was very good today. I had the Jr. Worship class. My lesson was about fear and how to deal with it. It was a pretty good lesson. They are a good group of kids, very attentive and well behaved.
Enjoy your day and God bless.
Very few things say home more than fresh baked bread. Clothes hanging on the line run a close second in my book. I just pulled this bread from the oven and thought it looked soooooo good. It smells delicious too. I tried a different recipe today and am hoping it will be good. I needed a good sandwich bread recipe. Here is the recipe I used:
1-1/3 plus 1tbsp. water, 2 tbsp. butter, 4-1/4 cups flour, 3 tbsp. sugar, 2 tbsp. dry milk, 1-1/2 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. yeast. I put these ingredients into my bread machine on dough cycle and let it do its job. When the cycle was finished, I took the bread out of the machine, shaped it into a loaf and put it into my loaf pan. If you do not have an extra long loaf pan, you will need to make 2 loafs. Bake at 350 degrees until done. It takes about 30 min. in my oven.
I also have been working on apron patterns and I think I have decided which one to do the matching aprons in. I just have to adjust the pattern a little to compensate for what I don’t know how to do. I will show pictures soon. By the way, thanks Dave, for fixing my problem on the computer.
Warmer temperatures here today-35 degrees. Hardly any wind. A really nice day. I have to go raid my material stash. I will need a piece large enough to do all 3 aprons. I’m not sure I have anything. Hopefully, I will, as I would like to get started on them today.
Enjoy your day and God bless.
I finally have Grace’s quilt finished. I started it last year after I finished Julie’s. Gardening came upon us and I had to put the quilt away until winter. I now have made all 3 girls a wall hanging/quilt that I sewed by hand. I am not very skilled at sewing things by hand so these will probably be the only ones I do.
Temperatures are still cold here. Actual temperature this morning was 10 degrees with a -10 wind chill. When the cold wind blows here it is very difficult to keep the house warm. The wind seems to find its way inside in places we never thought possible. Anyway, our wood stove is working overtime. I am very grateful to have this stove. It certainly puts out a lot of heat.
I am working on a new apron and hopefully will be able to show you all a picture of it soon. School as usual today. The ladies are coming tomorrow for bible study and it is my turn to make dessert. I am thinking of making a buttermilk chocolate cake. I got the recipe from a blogger friend and it has become a favorite of ours. I like buttercream frosting with ours. It reminds me of a cake that was served at school when I was a kid. They called it wacky cake. I do not like chocolate very much but this cake is really good.
Enjoy your day and God bless.
I know this picture looks just like the picture of the peanut butter balls but it really is a different picture. These are the Martha Washington Balls. The recipe is:
2 boxes powdered sugar, 1 stick butter softened, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 tsp. vanilla. Using mixer, blend ingredients together. Mixture will be stiff. Add 4 cups chopped pecans. Put powdered sugar on hands and roll into small balls. Chill. Dip balls into melted chocolate. Use 4 cups chocolate chips and 1/2 block parafin wax. DELICIOUS!
Temperatures are super cold here. Wind chill is close to zero again with gusts of about 50 mph but we are toasty warm inside with a nice fire going. Hubby was able to get propane for the gas logs Saturday. This really helps keep the house warm. Our little woodstove is a work horse. However it was severely overworked last week trying to do the job all by itself with zero temps. Pray our water doesn’t freeze again.
We are going to get some tires put on the front of the car. Hubby didn’t work today, so he is going with us. I’m glad. Enjoy your day and God bless.
Praise the Lord! Water is once again flowing in the Dawson home. We got it unthawed this morning. We are so happy. It truly is amazing how much water we use during the day. Temperatures are still cold here. 8 degrees this morning with a wind chill below zero. Tomorrow though it is supposed to warm up a little and not be too bad until Sunday, then it is supposed to turn cold again. We will be having an all day play practice Saturday for the Youth Christmas play at church. We will be doing the play on Sunday-weather permitting.
We have decided no school today. We are going to our friends, the Horns, to make some more candy. I will be making peanut butter balls and Vicki is going to make oreo truffles. We are looking forward to a day of fun. Hope your day is as blessed as mine has already been. God bless.
Daniel’s little kitten, Gilbert, taking a much needed rest under the Christmas tree. He certainly is a cute kitten. Very fuzzy. Sam’s eyes light up every time he sees Gilbert. He would love to sink his chubby little hands into all that fur.
We had a fun day yesterday. We went over to our friends, the Horns. Vicki fixed us lunch, then while the kids played, we make some gingersnap cookies. They were very good. We also tried our hand at making some breakfast bars or as we call them energy bars. They did not turn out near as well as I had hoped. Not too bad just not as I envisoned them being. We all had a lot of fun though. God is so good to provide us with friends like the Horns. We feel very blessed that they are in our lives.
We had so much rain here the first of the week. I have no idea how much but I know it was a lot. Everything was soaking wet. Water was standing in so many places in our yard. After the rain, temperatures took a drop. It dropped about 20 degrees from yesterday morning till this morning. The sun is shining though so hopefully things will warm up some. I would like to hang my sheets on the line.
The girls and I have lots to get done today so we better get busy. God bless.
One of the things I am taking tomorrow for our thanksgiving meal at church will be these rolls. I froze them ahead of time and have been baking them all day today. The one difference I have noticed is that the frozen dough did not rise as much as it would if it had not been frozen. They taste the same though and I guess thats what counts. I am also making cinnamon rolls to take. Not sure what else yet. After our meal, the youth of our church will go shopping. Every year they get two “angels” from the angel tree. A boy and a girl. Each family in the church contributes $5.00. Then the youth go shopping. They boys buy for the boy and the girls buy for the girl. It is a very nice tradition. Our youth really look forward to going. One year, they were shopping and picked out something they wanted to buy and they were a little short on the money needed to buy it. One of the boys said he had some extra from a job he had done that week. He gave the extra so they could purchase the item. I love that. Children being raised to give generously and without expecting anything in return.
Yesterday I had a WONDERFUL surprise. Jessica and Sam came up for a visit. I did not know they were coming. They just walked in the door. I was so happy. Daniel and David were at home. She stayed until after lunch. The bible study ladies had not gotten to see Sam yet. It was a great surprise. Have I mentioned I love happy surprises?
Beautiful day here in Floyd. Very nice temperatures with lots of sunshine. A great day for being outside. Enjoy your day and God bless.
Yesterday I had a WONDERFUL surprise. Jessica and Sam came up for a visit. I did not know they were coming. They just walked in the door. I was so happy. Daniel and David were at home. She stayed until after lunch. The bible study ladies had not gotten to see Sam yet. It was a great surprise. Have I mentioned I love happy surprises?
For many years, I have thought about trying to make one of these. However I have always been intimidated by the idea of rolling it up. I’m not sure why as I make many other things that need to be rolled. Anyway, today was the day I put my fears behind me and tackled it. Guess what? It was not near as difficult as I thought it would be. With a little practice, I think it would even be easy.
Today is an absolutely beautiful day here in Floyd. Temperatures are in the mid 60’s. Lots of sunshine. Just beautiful! I can hardly wait to get my stuff finished and get out in this wonderful weather. Yesterday I cooked a large pork roast in the crockpot. We had pork roast, cheesy potatoes and pinto beans. Tonights menu will be pork bbq with homemade buns, home fries and slaw. I think there will be enough pork left over for burrittos tomorrow night. I like to do this. Cook a large amount of meat and then use it in several different ways for supper over the next few days. This speeds up cooking time in the evening.
I think I need to get busy. My “green swing” is lonely and needs me to come keep it company. God bless.
Here is another picture from our outing yesterday. Such beautiful colors. Today has been busy working on the new room. We have the vinyl flooring down. Now I should pause to say “where I come from” we call this linoleum. Here they call it vinyl flooring. Anyway, it is down on the floor. All the trim is cut, painted and on except for the window trim. It is really starting to look like a room. I will try to post a picture of it soon so you all can see our progress.
We did not have ladies bible study today. Two of the ladies were unable to come so we just decided to call it off. Probably for the best, my house is a little cluttered right now. Hopefully, soon it will all be finished and we can get everything back in order. Today has been a beautiful day here in Floyd. Nice temperatures, cool but not too much, lots of sunshine. We did have a fire all day which has felt really nice. I cooked my first kettle of pinto beans on the wood stove today so I guess fall is officially here. There is no better pinto beans than those cooked on a wood stove-in my opinion.
Well, still more to get done. Enjoy your evening and God bless.
Merry Heart Crafts 