Apple Cake

Gwen's mother, Marianne, passed away.  For the funeral Gwen had a Hungarian style meal in her honor.  I have an Eastern European cook book and this apple cake looked perfect to make and take.  I am so proud of the results, because it tastes as good as it looks.  It was deffinately worth any effort invested to make it. 
I was the party frau.  I set up the food and got the drinks.  I had a great time!!!

The meal consisted of kielbasa, Horku sausage, cabbage rolls, keflie pasteries, poppy seed roll.  I have grown so fond of Eastern European food. 

Mom's Birthday Cake

My mom loves pineapple.  I ate this cake at Kathy's birthday party in early January.  I decided to make one for my mom.  It is a light refreshing cake.

Mix a small can of crushed pineapple into prepared white cake batter.  Bake.  Cool. Cut layer in half and fill with Cool Whip topping.  Coat cake with whipped topping and decorate with pineapple slices and maraschino cherries.

My First Rug

 At this stage some buckling occurred and I decided to redo the middle.  I ended up removing the center I was sad to see the dark center go, but the rug laid flat when I did so.  I think the problem was how I was adding thread and the tension of the lacing.

This is the finished rug.  I am okay with my first attempt and I do want to make many more rugs.  So I rolled it up to store it.  I will lay it in the kitchen after the floor is painted (hopefully this summer).  I hope to begin another rug soon.  I want to make one for the living room entrance.  I could add more to it if I wanted to. 
I used a pair of my mom's pants to get the dark teal edge.  It is 46 inches in diameter.
I really dig my rug.  It gave me a lot of joy to make it.

Braided Rug

 Last month my sister-in-law Nancy showed me her new project, rug braiding.  I about fell out of my seat because I had been thinking pretty hard for about two months to try this on my own.  Seeing Nancy's beautiful wool rug was just the inspiration to get me going. I searched the web and talked to Gwen (who gave me her granny's equipment to borrow), and this is what I have accomplished. 

I have never done this so I am learning a lot and I know I might try things different if I attempt to make another.  Bottom line:  Rug braiding is fun and the resulting product has a spiritual warmth about it.

 We went to our last Parent's Weekend at MLC.  We made a point of going to see the Claes Oldenburg Cherry and Spoon sculpture.  The artist's birthday is the same day as Randy's

 We went to a resale shop and I bought these beautiful crocheted potholders.  I am using them as coasters in the livingroom.

Yes, I was in an accident. Not the weekend we saw Kadie, but last weekend.  Icy conditions, I just slid down a ramp into a van.

January 2012

 Gwen and her nieces and nephews made this wonderful gingerbread cake house for the grandkids.  It was a wonderful thing considering how weird the holidays were.

 I got together with my gal pals over the break.. Briggie is holding Maripat's girl dog named Barney!  I love Barney.

 This is my green kitchen.

 Maripat, Rosie and her friend Katie, and I went to the UMMA.  I love this exhibit of Tabletop sculptures.  Many of the sculptures are kinetic and can spin in a pin head even though they are so heavy and not symmetrical.

 We had a great time.  This is graffiti alley.  We had lunch at Afternoon Delight.  Great hospitality, food and prices.  Yummmy!  I got a lot of compliments on my hat.  This was a bitter cold day.  I took my gloves off to show MP how to operate the camera.  Otherwise we were bundled and covering our faces.

 We finally got snow to go sledding.  We had a great time.

 Arianna's covering her eyes.

 I'm on the back

This is me being excited by how far we went.

Jacob and Dominic went the farthest.  Down the hill, across the field, over the road, across another field into the woods.  WOW!!!!

Another great day I had in January (forgot the camera) was spent in Perrysburg and Toledo.  Randy and I drove alongside the Maumee River.  The house are just lovely.
We ended up in Toledo and had a late lunch early dinner at The Blarney.  The restaurant has a great vibe.  Nice decor and menu.  We had latkes with corn beef, bangers and mash with a side of peas.  I wanted to tell the owner that the best peas are tossed with olive oil, S&P, and roasted under the broiler just until toasty. 

December 2011

 My springerle and lebkuchen were perfect this year. 

 This is Kadie's boyfriend, Dan.  We approve.  Points in his favor are the he isn't afraid to play word games with me.

 This is the pretty tree at the Children's hospital in Toledo.  Why were we there . . .

Our sweetie had a ruptured appendix.

Here's the thing . . . for a time I just stopped taking pictures.  I didn't take my camera to the wonderful tea party I went to at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Saline.  I had a wonderful time there.
I didn't take a picture of  when Dominic and I had breakfast by candle light, or of the cute "get well" sign we made for Mekayla. 
Although not necessary I made excellent cocktails for Christmas, Stillettos.  Yummers.

November 2011

 I took this picture of a morning glory vine that invaded the star sculpture.  The vine grew in daring and imaginative ways.

 My friend Shelly gave me this spectacular molasses oatmeal bread.  The recipe came from a Tasha Tudor cookbook.  Tasha won an award at the fair with this bread.

 Here is our dear Mekayla playing volley ball.  She did really well.  I was so proud of her confidence!

 My friend Mikkie gave me this beautiful vintage red coat many years ago.  I finally sewed the parts back on and made a new button for it.  The coat is in beautiful condition so I can't imagine why the buttons were off and one was missing.

 The neighbor boy saw a neighborhood hooligan playing with my missing bowling ball.  Little Noah just took the ball away from the delinquent when his dad recognized the ball and told Noah it was mine.  What a honey for returning him.  He's beat up, but it looks like he had a pretty good time.

After Thanksgiving we started on the kitchen.  I can't believe I don't have a picture of the old wallpaper.