The Perfect Pantry

Lydia at the Perfect Pantry features pictures of other people's pantries every Saturday and today it is MINE , or at least the one I used to have. Check it out and leave a comment. It's been so much fun seeing what other people keep on hand and how they organize it.

Tom's cataract surgery on Thursday went great and he is seeing blue and green for the first time in about 15 years. He has been pulling out various quilts to look at as if they were just made.

It was very cool being able to watch the surgery on a closed circuit TV in a nearby room. When I recall taking care of a cataract patient as a nursing student 39 years ago, the advances in medicine are just mind boggling. Back then the patient had to lie on her back with sandbags on either side of her head for hours.

If you aren't squeamish I found this video on You Tube. It isn't as clear as what I watched, but still pretty good and has the added bonus of titles at the various stages and shows things like how the new lens is loaded, etc. Modern medicine is amazing!

Tom will have his right eye done next month and I'll start the process in March to have both mine done.

Chicken & Noodles

Today was another busy day. I baked four pies this morning using some of the pie crust dough I put in the freezer last Sunday. I made two French coconut and 2 custard. One of the custards really browned more than usual and the other I managed to dump a lot of cinnamon in one spot. But they all tasted okay I guess. The pies were taken over to our church mid afternoon for our monthly chicken and noodle dinner. We hold these six times a year, Oct, Nov, Jan, Feb, Mar and Apr. I talked about them in this post.

Though we are supposed to start serving at 4:30, by that time I'd already taken the money for 65 adult dinners plus all the carry out dinners and orders. By the end of the evening we had served about 119 adults and 9 children. I haven't counted up the carry out orders yet. So it was another successful event.


I had already eaten quite a bit of my supper when I thought to take a picture. This is what we serve for $6 plus bread, beverage and your choice of pie. Not a bad deal, huh? I was eating at my desk so that's why it looks kind of cluttered.

Back to quilting. This is what I worked on yesterday...more of the One Block Wonder blocks.

Last night and tonight I completed three more Dutch Treat blocks

Butterfly

Canada Goose

(looks more like a duck to me)


Chiclets

Tomorrow we are off to Ft. Scott early in the morning for Tom's first cataract surgery. I'm sure all will go well and we should be home by noon.

Hope everyone had as beautiful of a day as we did.

Back In The Swing of Things

It sure feels good to feel good again. It was an extraordinarily long week with not much positive happening. But yesterday I was able to get out and do some light grocery shopping, make a big pot of Italian soup and bake some sourdough loaves and breadsticks to go with the soup last night.

I think it may taste even better tonight and tomorrow as our weather plummets from 66º today down to 15º tonight. I read that beginning about 3:00 p.m. the temperature will drop 20-30º in an hour. Well, it's 3:40 pm. as I write this and it's already down to 41º. They are predicting a "wintry mix" starting tonight, which in this area all too often includes some ice. The high tomorrow is only supposed to be in the 20's. I really hate cold weather. And tomorrow night is our quilt guild's meeting and Christmas party. I'm not taking any bets on whether or not we have to cancel.

On a cheerier note..I was able to finish two more Dutch Treat blocks yesterday. This brings my total to 70 of the 169 needed for this quilt. We won't even talk about the border for a long, long time.

This one is called Greeting Card

And this is called Gaia

Busy Week

This has been an extremely busy week for me. Six or seven years ago I might not have thought so, but given what has become my normal pace, this week was pushing my limits. I'm not complaining..not for a minute. It's been a wonderful week.

Sunday morning started with a trip to the ER. While making our bed I heard a "pop" and found I could barely stand up straight. When the pain didn't subside, Tom persuaded me to go have it checked and we forgot about church. The x-rays didn't show anything broken and I came home with pain meds and muscle relaxers. But no time to dwell on that.....too much to tend to this week. I told myself to buck up and get through it and worry about what hurt at week end.

November was my first month as Program Chair for my quilt guild..The Little Balkan's Quilt Guild. I spent the preceding 12 months lining up the best programs and workshops I could come up with while staying within our budget. Naturally I was nervous, wondering if my fellow guild members would like my choices.

The first workshop I planned was a Mariner's Compass wall hanging taught by my friend Cynthia Drajna from Iowa Star Quilts . She and her husband drove down from central Iowa and arrived Sunday night in time to join Tom and I at our favorite Mexican Restaurant, El Charro. Then I came home and formed two pans of cinnamon rolls from the dough that had been raising since 5:00 p.m.

Monday morning I got up in time to bake the cinnamon rolls which I'd promised to provide for every workshop this year. Here's a pic from last month when I took them to church for coffee fellowship. They were quickly eaten so I guess that means people liked them.

My friend, Betty, was here by 8:00 to do the schlepping of all the stuff I needed to cart to the workshop. I don't know what I'd ever do without good friends to help me. The workshop was a blast. We had 21 participants and Cynthia did an excellent job teaching what many consider to be a difficult block. It was so much fun seeing all the different choices of fabrics and what a great job everyone did. I wish I'd taken a picture of the group but I didn't. Perhaps I can get a copy from our historian who took pictures of the group at our guild meeting Monday night.

Here's mine, quilted, but without binding.

Following the workshop a group of us gathered at Chatters for supper and then Cynthia provided us with a WONDERFUL trunk show following our business meeting. Her quilts are just fabulous.

Tuesday I accompanied Cynthia and Greg (her husband) to Joplin where she gave a trunk show for the Town & Country Quilt Guild. This guild meets at noon and they have a potluck luncheon EVERY month...oh my....what good food! I'm thinking I wish I belonged to this guild!!!

That evening I introduced Cynthia and Greg to Chicken Annie's. I mean you can't come to Pittsburg, KS for the first time and not eat chicken..you just can't! By the time they dropped me off about 8:00 p.m. I was feeling the effects of two very long days.

Wednesday morning I got up early and baked four pies (2 custard and 2 French coconut) to take to our church's monthly chicken and noodle dinner. Another good friend, Cindy, comes by and picks them up so I don't have to make lots of trips back and forth to my car. Being on oxygen with severe COPD, means things like that are difficult for me. Our church has been hosting these dinners since at least the 1940's I'm told. They are the primary fundraiser of our UMW group. My job is to take the money as people come in to eat. The dinner consists of chicken and noodles, dressing, green beans with bacon, coleslaw, bread, drink and your choice of homemade pie. All for $6..can you believe it? Needless to say people start lining up early. We are supposed to start serving at 4:30, but people just come earlier and earlier and we had already served 68 people dining in by 4:30 plus I don't know how many carry out dinners, quarts and pints of noodles.

We were completely sold out shortly after 5:00 p.m. despite making an extra roaster full of chicken and noodles this time after selling out early in October. We had 111 adults and 4 children dine in. I don't have the figure for the number of carry out dinners and bulk purchases yet. It's usually about the same as the dine in figures. We won't have a dinner in December and will resume in January, with monthly dinners through April.

Thursday...well on Thursday I just CRASHED...took a nice long nap in the afternoon, which is something I rarely do. Then I quilted my Mariner's Compass and started on the binding after supper.

Today..well today I've mostly played with setting up this blog (with lots of help from Geta).

Whew.............I hope next week is far less hectic and filled with much more sewing.

And I definitely know future posts won't normally be this long!

And how was YOUR week?