Long Lost Recipe

It is weird how recipes are such a key with holiday traditions. I've been bummed because I couldn't find the pumpkin bread recipe my mother used to make. I looked around on the internet and could find nothing similar ... decided to do a little straightening up and Walla! There it was! Just so I can find it again ... I'll post here ...

Apple Butter - Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

⅔ C Shortening
2⅔ C Sugar
4 eggs
16-oz can Pumpkin
⅔ C Water
3 ⅓ C Flour
1 t Baking Soda
1 t Baking Powder
1 t Cinnamon
½ t Cloves
⅔ C Chopped Nuts
½ C Apple Butter

Directions

1. Mix shortening and sugar.
2. Stir in eggs, pumpkin, and water.
3. Blend in flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves.
4. Stir in nuts and apple butter.
5. Pour in 3 greased loaf pans.
6. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Snowbound

Well ... we got hit by one of the biggest blizzards in Denver's history. We'll be looking at these white piles for a long time to come. I got almost 30" at my house. The worst part ... my car was stuck in a snow drift down the street and I was panicking. Luckily, several nice neighbord pitched in with a tow and a snow blower to get me back up to the house ... and then a co-worker's kids showed up and shoveled my driveway, so I could get my car in. I had spent all day shoveling, but pretty much I was shoveling the street to get my car out LOL

Usually, my street is never plowed ... but wooo hooo! The city showed up with a bulldozer around midnight and actually made a pass down my street ... what a relief! I could probably get out now, but I am going to lay low for few days.

What a time for my digital to break ... I'd love to have a photo of the 36" overhang of snow on my roof.

ABC Discovery Journal

I guess I gave this journal the right name ... I made a few errors and discoveries while making it LOL I used PVA to glue the vinyl sewing tape to the sealed covers not realizing PVA works well with absorbent paper only. I did get a pretty decent hold on the front covers. The back wasn't too bad, but I added some buttons for exta hold in case the tape comes loose.

Then I ended up drilling through part of one of the signature covers when I was drilling my button holes.

Confessions of a Lazy Shopper

Blaaaahhhh! I hate shopping this time of year! I will do almost anything to avoid any shopping center during the holiday season. Small town life sounds so attractive about now LOL

I cheated and got what few gifts I really must get online ... but I have a few I must go into a real store and I've been procrastinating. I usually take care of errands during the week to avoid crowds. I don't even like grocery shopping in December. I ran myself out of food and went to the store out of sheer desperation ... or maybe that was starvation LOL

Bingo Holiday Greeting

This weekend I made a holiday greeting of sorts for a favorite co-worker of mine. He has been getting beat up by the public big-time since the opening of our new light rail system and I thought he could use a pick-me-up.

Stressing Over Fabric

Fabric Diamonds
Originally uploaded by transtartwin.

I don't know if I'll ever get the hang of working with fabric or not. Some things turn out better than I expected ... and some make me go ugggghh! I have to torture myself endlessly before I can get myself started ... and then I don't get that satisfaction that I made something cool. I am hoping a fabric painting class with Traci Bautista will help.

There are a ton of fabric techniques I'd like to try ... I just feel too stressed and overworked to give most of them a go right now. For better or worse ... here is my belated fabric postcard for November.

ABC Bingo

I have done hardly any art for over a week ... and it made me cranky ... cranky ... cranky. I've been tossing around an idea for a handmade journal for a one-on-one round robin with a Canadian friend. Since I've been a huge procrastiantor with all these work hours I decided I should get the cover embellishment done to get my hiney kicked into gear LOL

We decided to use alphabet letters and numbers as kind of a journaling prompt for our journals next year. I will call mine: ABC Discovery. Now that I have the main part of the cover done, I can't wait to get the book construction started!

Crazy Week

Uggghhh! I am so tired of these 10 and 11 hour work days! Just when I think perhaps things are starting to slow down a bit ... another snafu. Grrrrr ... I hate deceit and underhandedness!

At least we did a bit of reorganization and my regular workload has subsided. I can finally get caught up with some neglected things at work.