Oh, Happy Day!

When my furry alarm clock went off this morning, I jumped out of bed, lighter on my feet than I've been in about four years. Man, it's good to be alive, isn't it? The future looks bright! 

We had a bit of a snafu here at the Three Cats Ranch yesterday morning, totally unrelated to cats. (Surprising, I know.)

Since retiring, Mike has been going with me to the grocery store. Truth be told, I think he's trying to keep me out of jail for murdering someone. After all, who would cook if I ended up in the slammer? We like to use our own bags, and our grocery store requires you bag your own if you're using your own bags. (A COVID precaution to protect their employees.) So, that's all fine and dandy. Heck, Mike is practically a professional bagger. Bagging groceries was one of his first jobs. 

As the meat came through, the cashier put it on plastic for us, but apparently, the plastic bag never made it into the reusable bag. (It's the only explanation we have.) When I went to start a roast in the slow cooker yesterday, I couldn't find it anywhere. Holy sh*t! After searching wildly, we could only draw the one conclusion that we'd left it at the grocery store. Duh. There was a package of bacon, a bag of frozen shrimp, and a $20 bottom round roast missing from our grocery collection. 

Okay, so Mike took our receipt to the grocery store to explain the situation. Apparently, this happens with enough frequency they even have a cooler in the back where they put the stuff left behind by shoppers. They couldn't find our package, and so they told him to find replacements, and he walked out of the store with our missing groceries...no extra cost to us, although the roast he found was actually $3 more than the original.

While he was gone, I headed outside with the kitties to fill the bird feeders. Smitty paused to smell the poppies.

Actually, I think he was hearing the Call of Doody, and so I shooed him out of my flower pot.

Back inside, I worked on the hand quilting for a while. Now I've officially turned the final corner on this quilt. The quilt blocks are mostly all quilted now, and I'm seeing the end of the road for this long-time WIP. 

I won't finish it today, but I might just get it to binding stage this week. We're taking a short camping trip to the beach next week, and it would be a good project to take along for the finish.

Also, I started on my next art quilt for The Endeavourers yesterday. The theme is "Memories," and I have a good idea. Mine will require embroidering some words. Of course, you're only getting peeks right now, but the embroidery is ready to go. I'll take this with me when I have my Mohs procedure next week. It'll give me something to stitch between "cuttings," and it'll help calm my frayed nerves while I wait.

Aside from sewing it all together, this project will also require around seventy 2-1/2-inch squares of blue fabrics. I was trying to pick all different colors. I'm limited to only solids and barely mottled fabrics. No tone-on-tones...nothing fancy. So I picked through my scraps and chose as many different ones as I could find. Some will have to be duplicates.

When I had around 30 cut, my most able kitty consultant showed up.

Purrhaps I could be of some assistance here.

Oh my gosh...I had sooooo much help.

Really...too much help.

Eventually, I found her a different job, absorbing heat from the fireplace, and I continued on until I had around 70 cut. Also, I selected the rest of the fabrics I'll need for this project. Intriguing, no?

And then I went upstairs to the quilting room to get set up for quilting the Friendship's Garden quilt. First, I adjusted the tension. I do this using some scrap quilt sandwiches. When I think I have it right, I like to flip the back to the front and test it with the fabric I'm actually using. And this looks pretty good.

In my usual fashion, I'll quilt all the embroidered blocks before switching thread colors and quilting the sashings and border. The embroidery designs all include some sort of bug flying around, and so I started there, just meandering around the embroidery, imitating the flight of the bug.

This particular block is fairly densely embroidered, and so there wasn't much room for any quilting.

Also, I'll put a little outline around the edges of the flower cornerstones.

It was close to dinner time before I got started on this, and so one block and one cornerstone were as far as I got. I left it needle down, and I'll get started on it again today. It isn't a large quilt, and so I don't expect it will take long to finish. Maybe, just maybe, I'll have two quilts for binding when we take our camping trip next week.

So are you curious what I was trying to get started in the slow cooker yesterday morning? It sure made the house smell good. We had these French Dip Sandwiches with Onions. I always like to tell you when I try something easy and delicious. Actually, I think I'd made this before because I found the recipe in my database. I'll be keeping this at the forefront of my mind for both home and RV cooking from now on.

It's super simple to do. The onions are sliced and then sauteed in some butter. Then they are added to the slow cooker along with the roast. Then it's a simple soup mix with just a few ingredients. Set it and forget it...only you won't forget it because it smells so good while it cooks. It makes its own soup broth for dipping. We sliced the meat thin and put it on the sandwich rolls, added some of the onions and some grated Swiss cheese. Then I laid it open faced on a baking sheet and toasted it in my toaster oven. Mmm, mmm, mmm. And let me just tell you, the leftovers will be a welcome respite from any cooking after my Mohs procedure on Tuesday. (Can you tell the Mohs procedure has taken the place of election results as my new thing to worry about?)

Well, it was a celebratory day here at the Three Cats Ranch. Smitty might have imbibed in a little too much catnip. He was exhausted by day's end.

For today, I had in mind to finish sandwiching the 7 quilt tops on the to-be-sandwiched pile. Then I saw the temperature outside. 

We're in for about a week of very cold weather. I do my sandwiching in the garage, but now I'm thinking better of it. It'll be cold, and the spray baste doesn't spray well when the can is cold. And I don't like being cold either. The only reason for doing this sandwiching now is so that I can finish what I started last week. Maybe I'll just put it all in the closet, out of sight, out of mind, and forget about it until next spring. I have plenty of quilt sandwiches to keep me busy for several months. Instead, I'll get back to my free motion quilting. It's important to be flexible, don't you know.

Okay, so that's all the news I have for you today. There is laundry and quilting in my future, and there's no time like the present. Getting up...starting now.