Snippy

Good morning, my friends. It's the start of a brand new week. There's plenty on my to-do list today, after taking an NBS day yesterday. I still think there will be plenty of time for sewing. So let's see...what's going on?

Well, Smitty is taking to his new geriatric kitty pole. It has taken him a while to warm up to it. We thought it might be just too chilly next to the window. With snow on the ground, it's a better place to keep an eye on his domain than to be outside expurriencing it furrst hand.

You might recall that I'd left the Great Outdoors quilt on the floor when I quit the previous day. I wondered if the kitties would have suggestions about alternative arrangements for the blocks. When I went downstairs, they'd made just one minor adjustment. I think I can work with this.

Both kitties have been very concerned about the goings-on with this quilt. It's been their snuggle quilt since their first day as kitties at the Three Cats Ranch, and so they feel some pawsessiveness of it.

Smitty thought he'd lie down to offer it more purrtection. But what's this going on below his table purrch?

Sadie is trying to usurp his authority over this quilt. 

Begone, foul knave!!!

Well appurrently it wasn't that impurrtant to him. He retired to his HR office for a nap.

Sadie was able to take over guarding the quilt. Happily, there was no violence.

Okay, and I just stayed busy finishing off the rest of the blocks. It was mindless and tedious, and I was glad to have it all finished.

It ends up at 61 x 53 inches...still a good snuggle size. Here's how it looks from the back.

Now it's lying on the table in the dining room for snipping with my nifty Fiskars snippers.

No time like the present, right? So I snipped two rows, and then Mike snipped two rows. We'll snip all the horizontal rows, and then I'll rotate it 90° to finish the vertical rows. I'm hoping to have it snipped and washed before day's end.

I was kind of tired of sewing by then, and it was late in the day. Before turning off the lights, I traced out the final three blocks for The Story of My Day. These are fun to stitch. This one is "Try a new hairstyle."

Fish for tea. (Seems kind of weird.)

And finally, water the plants.

Okay, and so I tried a new recipe last night. I neglected to take a picture of mine, and so I'm swiping the image from the internet. This is Chicken Taco Dump Dinner. Looks tasty, no?

It's a little like a chicken taco salad. Think of it as a Mexican lasagna. It has two layers of corn tortillas in place of the lasagna noodles. The recipe makes enough for a small army. It's supposed to be made in a 9 x 13 baking dish. I split mine in half and made it in two 8 x 8 baking dishes. It starts with the tortillas, and then it's layered with a mixture of chicken, black beans, corn, mild green chilis and jarred tomato salsa. It was easy to make and it made a good weeknight dinner. We'll have leftovers for another night.

One of mine went into the oven (a toaster oven, in my case), and the other was prepared for freezing. We'll eat this during our trip to Alaska. (I probably have more food than I can fit in the small refrigerator in our camper, but I keep making more.) When I do something like this, I write the instructions on the foil covering.

Then I give it an identifying label and instructions for anything else I'll need before I can make it. In this case, it's baked covered for 35 minutes, then uncovered and sprinkled with Monterey Jack cheese. And since I've halved the recipe, this will need just one cup of cheese when I bake it down the road (literally).

While I was making dinner, Sadie discovered the heating pad Mike left on the floor. His back has been bothering him, and so he's been using it when he's sitting down. Sadie likes it as a nice warming bed.

Okay, so I finished up February's block for The Sewing Room yesterday morning. It still needs borders, and then I'll also need to make three more small pieced blocks. That's first on the list for today.

Before I start on the blocks for The Story of My Day, I'll stitch up the names and places for the next Shop Hop blocks.

Aside from snipping the rag quilt, I'll probably get started quilting the Vintage Linen quilt today. Since I took yesterday off from working out or doing anything else, I'll need to do a Bow-flex workout today, and I'll need to do a couple of housekeeping chores. None of that will keep me from my sewing for very long.

Right now though...Sunday morning pancakes. I can hear Mike downstairs. He's probably hungry. Time to go save a life.