Don't Forget

...to register for these earrings to be given away!!  Simply go to Spinning Glass Studio link, and leave your comment!  Good luck!!

Correction on the Common Thread Drawing Date

Dear Readers,
I apologize for my error.  The Common Thread give away drawing dates are wrong.  It starts the first Monday of every month and so do please revisit Nancy's site this coming Monday to leave another comment  in order to register for her free give away!  I apologize for my error, but do want you all to be eligible to win a sample of her beautiful jewelry!!  Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience to you, though I can't think of a nicer site to visit and I am certain that she will love to hear from you again!  Thank you! jane

Nancy Bariluk-Smith, November's Featured Artist

This month’s featured artist is Nancy Bariluk-Smith and her www.SpinningGlassStudio.com.  I got to better know Nancy over a cup of tea at a small, informal gathering of women artists at the end of a show this last year. The event turned into a lovely communal sharing of the joys and frustrations we have as artists of different mediums. Nancy impressed me then and now.  Her humor combined with insightful comments made me want to learn from her extensive and varied experience as an artist and person.  I have learned even more about her through her website.

She is open, sensitive, introspective, philosophical and delightful.  It is clear that she is a seasoned artist of different mediums.  Despite her preference for doing lampwork glass beads and jewelry, art is an expression of her total person.  Her beadwork is unique, beautiful, one-of-a-kind, and imaginative sculptured art.  Whether worn as focal pendants or complimentary bracelets and earrings, they will catch the eye of the most discerning.  Each is an artistic masterpiece.

 

Her former talents as a textile artist have not been left behind in her jewelry.  Using hand dyed ribbons, waxed linens, threads and cords, she combines whatever compliments her exquisite beads. I am struck with her free-flowing color pallets, and limitless imagination.  They indeed reflect what Nancy is about, a beautiful artist that reflects the beauty surrounding her.

Don’t miss checking out her website.  She has some wonderfully fun and creative offers, like her Earring- of- the- Month-Club, and by simply leaving a comment on her website November 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd you are registering to win The Great Common Thread Give-Away for the month of November, a sample of her jewelry! Treat yourself to a visit to her website by simply clicking on the link to her Spinning Glass Studio and hope you win this month’s free give-away and better get to know Nancy and her work! 

Ready or Not It's Halloween!

Thoughts and Prayers

My thoughts and prayers goes out to all of those whose lives have been altered by Hurricane Sandy and the Monster Storm of 2012! Our preparation seemed to be unnecessary here, and yet I couldn't help but think that perhaps the weather predictions that struck fear in us were useful to get many to prepare for the worst and evacuate as needed or perhaps the fatalities would have been greater! I do not minimize the largeness of the disasters of this storm!

In the tough times in my life, I have found God's grace sufficient for all my needs, and pray that that will be the case for each and every person facing what seems to be insurmountable problems at this time.

Reflections of Myself

Unlike Jon Katz, my blog will be about getting caught up in the hype of the Frankenmonster Sandy Storm that is revving up to hit us in Vermont. I have a TV in almost every room, thanks to my electronic minded husband and so I plug in many times every day and succumb to news hype on a regular basis! Storms generate real fear ever since marrying my husband. I have already spoken of his Irish luck. Lightening has struck him three times and our house has gotten hit by a tornado! I now expect the worse, pray for the best, and am relieved and thank the Lord when anything passes us by!

I have already sent my husband off to get water and batteries, and I have pulled out the emergency basket left over from Irene. With dreaded anticipation I await the expected attack and I have already resurrected memories of seeing Irene's damage in Vermont. Roads, buildings, homes, covered bridges and even mountains washed away in flood waters while my husband was in China on business reassuring me from afar that such storms don't happen here in Vermont!

I am not lulled into complacency by his false reassurance that he is "home" for this storm and that with his trusty cell phone he is connected to the storm's path and will provide for my safety! He is already denying that it will be as catastrophic as they are predicting, and so I am the "sole martyr" in my family, frantically preparing for the worst. I am filling all plastic containers with water and putting them into my freezer to fill the empty spaces, and am throwing all flashlights in the emergency basket. I will bake bread, and cupcakes, after all food is comfort and needs to be available for feasting while disaster hits and I have learned my catechism well; even Christ had a last supper!!

I will do my laundry and vacuum, and attempt to use every electrical appliance if I am do do without electricity for almost two weeks! I lost my power years ago and have learned well how to do without it, BUT doing without electricity is another story! I do like running water, and heat and other such conveniences. No, I was not the one that added an electric hair dryer to the emergency basket found on the shelf in our dark basement, found by flashlight in the middle of a storm one night, but I would add my electric sewing machine, and my 18 baskets of wool if I had thought that we would have to evacuate!!

I have an old treadle machine but it is buried or I would have an emergency sewing center set up and ready for such times as instead of tranquilizers for storms, I do plan sewing projects to divert my attention from howling winds. I am going to clear paths to get to all my projects without killing myself in the dark, though I didn't see that on any disaster planning lists!

I am counting on my husband and daughter to do the fall clean up in the yard, an effort procrastinated, waiting for white snow to cover everything. No, serious storm winds would likely propel flower pots and garden tools through our windows and being the control freak that I am, I need to calm this storm as best as I can!! For Irene, I insisted on tying the lawn furniture and our BBQ to our deck, perhaps hoping that if we floated away, my ark would have everything we needed!

No, unlike Jon Katz, I will turn on the TVs all over the house, as I vacuum everywhere today, and will heed the warnings and prepare for The Second Coming and I will post my last fall blog in case this monster storm drives us right into winter, making it, too soon, unseasonable. Coincidentally, it was titled A Reflection of Myself and fits right in with an updated reflection of yet another side of myself...and so I will simply continue the theme of this right into the next. I think that is what Garrison Keillor does when he tells stories? I had planned on keeping part of myself a mystery to my readers, but not now. I will be transparent and show all of myself in one blog!? Well, almost all of myself! I am thick and have many sides actually!

So, onto yet another reflection of my self, as seen during our annual fall foliage ride that my husband and I took right before Columbus Day Weekend, which is the peak time for leaf peeping in Vermont. Usually we are late season fall leaf peepers, finding time only after most of the leaves are already on the ground. No matter where the leaves are, we still enjoy our annual foliage fall ride in Vermont! Stopping for hot cider donuts and fresh apple cider and bringing home some fallen leaves to wax and display, we don't miss this annual event to enjoy Vermont's scenery every fall!

This year we got out to sight see the day after a craft show. We were too tired to stop to photograph much and we were just grateful to be seeing the beautiful leaves while they were still on the trees! Suddenly we passed a strange looking field of giant sunflowers. We couldn't believe our eyes and turned the car around taking time and energy that only moment earlier we didn't have to get pictures of this macabre scene. Clearly the state of what were once beautiful giant sun flowers, gone by seemed to resonate with us! This was truly our sort of foliage.

Though I have issues with turning my ankles on un-level ground, I jumped out of the car and waded into the rutted field to catch close up pictures. I related with these poor flowers that were clearly past their prime. I half expected them to be like the flowers in Disney's rendition of Alice in Wonderland and to raise their heads and suddenly complain about their ailments and conditions. Clearly all stooped over, they were suffering, like mysel, from some sort of rheumatism. Some even had their faces planted on the ground. Yes, I thought of them as reflections of myself, as I felt just like they looked!!

As I post these personal photos, and write about them, I am reminded of a homily by one of my favorite priests. He was a bargain shopper like myself and brought "home" a note-worthy bargain: an old weather-worn statue of the Blessed Mother. It had been outside in another church's garden for a few decades and was now pock marked and worn. Our priest had an artist in the church paint her for our church garden, but before putting her there, he placed her in the front of the church and gave a whole homily on her, focusing on the real life of Mary. "For all that Jesus' mother had gone through," he said, "this statue likely bears a closer resemblance to the real Mary for no matter how pure and radiant her life, she likely did show a bit of wear and tear after all she had weathered", he proclaimed.

It truly made me appreciate my life and appearance with a new perspective. No longer slim, or beautiful on the outside, yet my faith, resolve and perseverance is stronger than ever! Aren't many of us like these once beautiful sun flowers, perhaps a bit worn and droopy faced, faded and anything but radiant and glowing, but still standing, however bent, giving our gifts and stretching ourselves to weather yet another storm? I believe like these flowers, we can take new pride in our stretch marks and extra fluff, wrinkles and white hairs. Age comes to us all and we are not supposed to look like we are twenty forever, especially after surviving catastrophes and disasters and other such storms in our lives!

We can relax from all of the peer pressures of our youth. Growing deeper roots and gaining character that helps us to weather whatever storms come our way, even monster ones, with faith, confidence, humor, love, patience, and forgiveness?.....Well, OK, I still have some things to work on!!

A New Easy Recipe

Of course most domestic-sorts-of-blogs recommend new recipes to their readers.  Don’t we all struggle with doing the same ‘ol boring recipes, especially those that are easy to fix?  Well, I am going to recommend one today that I’ll bet you never imagined.  I know I hadn’t until the day it was first discovered!

Before telling you about it, I just have to give credit to my daughter, Sarah Kate for she is the one that created this new treat!  She is now almost 25 years old, and rarely cooks and to all of those that don’t cook much, this might be the dish for you.  Again, it takes little preparation and truly, even the most clumsy will find it easy to prepare.

My daughter is much like myself.  She seems to have an inner clock that has gone awry and it is constantly set for about fifteen to thirty minutes behind standard time making her race around every morning and scrambling to get out the door to get to work almost on time. She is also a creature of habit and her breakfast meals rarely vary. She fixes herself a travel cup of Earl Grey tea with lots of honey and a bit of milk, a cinnamon-raisin English muffin with lots of butter that she wraps for her lunch and to eat on the way to work, she fixes herself peanut butter toast with honey, and to keep the honey from dripping, she carefully swirls the honey into the peanut butter with tiny circular motions.  These details are critical in preparation of this recipe that I am going to share with you.

Before I get to the recipe, I must tell you that in my youth, our extended family reunions with twenty-one cousins (though rarely all gathered at the same time) were always eating festivals. As we had to make our own fun, simple conversation and inexpensive games were the bill-of-fare, and made up games were the best, as they were most affordable.  We were a creative bunch when we would get together and contests became games that would serve all sorts of purposes.  The winners were rarely awarded a prize, except for laud and appreciation and record in our memories of being labeled a winner by a large and unseemly crowd.

I truly think my mother and her sisters created “Make the Most Creative Sandwich Contest Game” so as to not be bothered at lunch time with having to think up what to serve, much less please this crowd. Out would come bread, butter, pickles, lunch meats, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce and most importantly peanut butter.  Other condiments and relished treats were included as well, canned pork and beans, honey, maple syrup, grape jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, catsup, celery, radishes and of course chips of various sorts. Basically emptying out the refrigerator of left overs was also part of the game and the only hard fast rule was that after creating the most creative sandwich, you had to eat it.  This may seem like a digression, but really isn’t for my new recipe would have surely won for the most original sandwich of the day…so original, but likely coupled with a disclaimer NOT to try this at home!

Our favorite sandwich combinations  that actually became family favorites were peanut butter and pickles (all sorts of pickles will work for this from dill to bread and butter, though the latter added sweetness like jelly with a nice crunch as well). Open face peanut butter toast with maple syrup was another treat! Peanut butter and potato chip was still another favorite.  Peanut butter was also tried with mayonnaise, and also with mustard, though those pleased only a few.

My mother’s specialties always included a lot of butter, I think it made whatever she ate slide down a little easier.  So along came bread and butter with sliced radishes or cucumbers or peanut butter with butter, never one of my favorites, but judging by the heart attacks in the family were not just favorites of my mother's!

There were of course the plain catsup and bread or mayonnaise and bread sandwiches. Traditional open face pork and bean sandwiches had to be eaten with a fork and plenty of beans (my mother, of course, added a rich layer of butter first). To this day I like jelly with my ham or turkey lunch meat sandwiches, and of course from that grew the post Thanksgiving sandwich of turkey, mayonnaise and cranberry sauce sandwich, though my cousin, Mary Margaret had little spirit of adventure and would stick with a fail-safe peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and skip the Thanksgiving dinner altogether. Yes, although quite and creative in every other way, her cuisine choices were limited as a child, and she stuck with her PPJ sandwich as an alternative to most meals. I believe that since she has grown up she now eats a traditional turkey dinner with her family, though a fact check should be done to eliminate false rumors.

My oldest daughter liked a plain ham sandwich without the bread, but never in my day did anyone come up with the combination that my daughter, Sarah Kate came up with—ever!!  Though her’s likely breaks the cardinal rule that one must truly eat it, for after its creation, it was merely left for discovery by others.

Here it is, revealed at last, a first to be sure.  But not before I tell you the secret behind the creation….a nagging mother!  You see, if rushed to get out the door and stacking your napkin-wrapped, English muffin lunch on top of your travel mug with honey-d tea, and then on top of that you place a napkin with your peanut butter toast with nicely swirled honey on top, and juggling your purse on your opposite shoulder while one-handedly opening the door, a nagging mother's admonition of “don’t you dare drop that” could jinx even the most capable juggler and you too might be lucky to make it as far as the car before you do just that, and there in the driveway is the final ingredient, driveway rocks…. There you have it, nicely cured in the hot sunshine for a day before discovering what even the birds will not eat…Peanut Butter Toast with Swirled Honey and Driveway Rocks (PBTSHDR).

No wonder we have an ant problem!!

This will likely be a meal that will sit heavy and might be a bit binding too, unless your driveway is covered with a fine gravel, in which case the fiber content will likely have the opposite effect. This recipe is designed for those that have to dine so quickly that  they need to swallow their meal whole, washed down with some nice hot soothing sweetened tea.  Chewing is actually contraindicated unless you relish dental work! My mother would have definitely added a thick layer of butter to help it slide down more easily!!

Another favorite of Sarah Kate’s seems to be a variation on this same theme, but if dropped while going out the door it will simply be a Peanut Butter Toast and Swirled Honey with Dirt and Dog Hair (PBTSHDDH).  Having to stop to clean the rug is really a drag however and definitely adds clean up time after, and causes tardiness for sure unless you plan for this extra time factor!

I cannot write this silly blog without adding a bit of warning that my oldest daughter, Hannah  revealed just recently that hating any sandwich made with bread, but especially peanut butter and honey, she once stuck this sandwich on the side of her babysitter’s house. She had been sent outside in her back yard to eat her lunch and was resolved to leave it for the birds.  Some sandwiches can have that effect, though likely if she had tried that at my house corporal punishment would likely have ensued! Now I know why she wasn’t the babysitter’s favorite child and is still working hard to compete with her sister for this honor and after Sarah Kate’s PBTSHDDH on the rug by the door, Hannah might be sliding, quite literally, into first place…and I wonder who they got their competitive spirit from?

So there you have it…what do you serve, when you have run out of ideas and want someone to take over in the arena of preparing meals? Perhaps Peanut Butter and Honey-d Toast with Driveway Rocks might be just the thing!