A Wish Comes True

Good morning, my friends. If you read yesterday's post, then you might remember when I said this: 

If I can wish for anything  today, it will be that the rain lets up at least a little bit.

Well, my friends, I'm here to tell you that wishes come true sometimes. I was out in the bright sunshine and nary a drop of rain. Even after being away from home for around four hours...no rain. Lucky me.

Before leaving home, I had plenty of time for slow-stitching. I was able to turn the first corner on the Beach Bums.

Also, I finished up the sixth of seven of these little stitcheries for the Girls' Getaway.

Just before leaving, I had time to hoop up the last one. Those pink flowers are stitched in a close buttonhole stitch, and so this one will probably take a couple of days.

From there I left for my eye exam, and then I had a couple of errands to run. When I got home, I was ready to spend some time in the sewing room. When I headed downstairs, I left these two looking as if they were settling in for naps. I wasn't expecting any kitty help.

The machine was still set up for "regular" sewing, and so I made the back for Ruth's Legacy. I really like this fabric. I used all of it on the back, but I expect to have some cut-off edges when it's all finished...if I live long enough to finish it.

About then, Miss Sadie showed up. She helped me keep the white scraps under control while I went back to work on the Mosaic piece.

It's more than halfway finished now. An alarm was set to remind me of the time because I needed to start dinner around 4:30 p.m. That gave me only about an hour to work, and I didn't quite finish the row I was working on. For today's effort, I'll finish that row and then do the next one. Here's your peek.

I've been giving this project some thought since I don't think the subject will pop out of the mosaic piecing. Some black thread outlining the design will probably make it work. Now that I've come up with a viable solution, I'm feeling better about this. I think it's going to be fine, even if it isn't exactly the way I envisioned it at the start.

So dinner was something new. I believe I'm on a sort of meatball kick right now. I think we've had meatballs at least three times in the recent past. These are Slow-Cooker Spicy Plum-Glazed Meatballs.

They were very tasty, and easy to do. The recipe suggested I'd end up with 24 one-inch meatballs. Mine are about the size of golf balls, and I ended up with 17. They're served over jasmine rice, and then I ladled some of the sauce over them. Gotta have the sauce, right? They were easy enough to make, and then loaded straight into the slow-cooker. The sauce was mixed up in a measuring cup and then poured over. Then, they cooked on high for an hour and a half. 

Mine were finished in about an hour and 15 minutes. Also, the recipe would have you strain the sauce and then return it to a skillet to be boiled and reduced to 1/3 cup. And when I poured mine into a skillet, I already had about 1/3 cup. It probably has to do with the shape and size of the slow-cooker. Mine is a large oval shape, and I think the sauce had already cooked down without needing to do anything more to it. We liked them, and this is easy enough to do in the RV. Any recipe that can be done in the RV gets bonus points in my kitchen.

Okay, and while I was waiting for the meatballs to cook, I started on the newest embroidery piece. 

It'll probably be finished no later than tomorrow, and then I'll need something new. So, on today's agenda, I'll trace out the design for my next short project...Snow Happens. Sadly, the ball of blue perle cotton I ordered for this project was supposedly delivered to our mailbox yesterday. Checking the mail...no floss. I really hate it when that happens.

I've put out a group email to our neighbors asking folks to check and see if it was delivered to them by mistake. So far, no one has fessed up. I can imagine blue embroidery floss is a valuable and popular item, and so someone might decide to hoard it and keep it for themselves. (Ya' think? 😕) One neighbor suggested it might turn up today or tomorrow. If it doesn't turn up in time for me to start my stitching, I'll drive into town for some and request a refund from the seller.

Okay, so I have one short housekeeping chore on today's agenda, and I'm going to bake some Gingerbread Biscotti. I gave Mike his choice of a new recipe for pumpkin and chocolate chip biscotti, and he chose the gingerbread. It's our favorite, so that's not surprising. And then, I'll just continue on with the rest of my hand and machine stitching. With leftovers for dinner, it should be a pretty easy-going day.