An Everything Day

Good morning, my friends, and Happy Easter! When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt very much refreshed after taking it easy for a couple of days. Sewturday is the day I've given myself during the week in which I am guaranteed nothing but sewing. But it was a pretty day yesterday, and so I ended up doing a little of everything. 

Anne Lamott wrote a piece for the Washington Post recently about being born "for times like these." She and I are approximately the same age. She says in the piece that she's 71, and I am approaching my 71st birthday in just a few weeks. There's more to the piece than this, but I especially liked these few lines. She was talking about a nickel/dime game, which explains the reference to the nickel, when she said this:

 I love the nickel life just fine, quieter, slower, noticing beauty as a daily priority — those madcap ecstatic trees blossoming and reminding a cold, dark world that they will be making us fruit soon. Stone fruits make up for a lot.

That's how I feel this time of year. When weather permits in our northwest spring mornings, I like to get out and see what's new in the garden. This is what I saw yesterday. 

Smitty was already stationed at his favorite outdoor post. Here, he has a view of most of his terrortory, and he is in the shade. It's impurrtant to purrtect your furrs from the bright sunshine.

The peonies are lush and green. Also, I noticed the tiniest bud forming on the newest of the peonies. I'm really hoping this one will bloom before we go. We planted it two years ago, but we missed seeing it bloom last year.

A few of the others are showing us the colors of their petals. I expect they're about a week away from opening.

Sadie was a cat on a mission, scaring up some small furry mammal. ("Scaring" is the operative word in that sentence.)

To her left, the chives are budding out. I want to make some chive blossom vinegar this year, and so I should be able to get that started soon.

Also, the rhododendron is trying hard to open. We should see this today or tomorrow.

Back inside, I went to work sewing the Kitchen Herbs into a finished quilt top.

Sadie was my helper cat for this, meaning, she was no help at all.

First, I trimmed each block and gave it a green border. (I really wish I had more of this green, but I had only a narrow strip to work with.)

Also, I had a narrow strip of the background fabric to work with, and I used that to give them another border.

From there, I sashed the blocks with pink and gave them a pink border.

Finally, I found this border fabric in my stash. I'd intended to use a different fabric, but I liked the energy of this fabric better.

This was my original choice for a border fabric. I'll use this on the back. The fact that it's a directional print helped me decide instead to use the one above for the border.

And then I cut binding strips from this green. Here's where I really wished I had more of that first green, but this one will have to do.

Earlier in the day, I tried a new recipe for this Decadent Caramel Rhubarb Apple Pudding.

The original recipe is to be made in a 9 x 13 baking dish. I made just half the recipe and baked it in an 8 x 8 glass baking dish. It was kind of a strange recipe. First, you cut up the apples and rhubarb and add them to the baking dish. Then you pour over a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and heavy cream. (I'm assuming that's the "caramel" part.) Then you mix up a cake batter to spread over the fruit. Here is where I got nervous about the recipe because there was such a small amount of cake batter, I could barely make it cover the fruit. Then, I added the optional chopped walnuts (pecans, in my case, because that's what I had on hand). Then, it was baked. I worried it wouldn't bake up right because of the cake batter being so skimpy, but it worked out, and I ended up with what you see above.

We had to decide whether to have it with ice cream or whipped cream. We decided on ice cream. 

It was good, but not outstanding. Probably I wouldn't make it again simply because I have plenty of rhubarb recipes I like better. So, we'll have another portion for dessert tonight. It was worth a try, but not a winner in our book.

Okay, so the sky has clouded over and it's cooled off some. I'll probably spend most of my day today in the sewing room. I've reached the WIP's portion of my whiteboard, and so I'll start by making another block for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. I'm on Block 7 of of nine blocks. Today's assignment will be this one:

These usually take two days to make. If I'm quick, I might finish it in a single day. We'll see. Also, I'll finish the first block for LeJardin this morning, and so I'll want to make up my next slow-stitching project, this "Spring Flowers" piece.

Aside from those two assignments I've given myself, I'll just continue to rest up and relax. The week starts anew tomorrow. We've managed to get through a whole week without going grocery shopping. Plans are in the works for our next grocery shopping trip early next week. If we didn't have to eat, life would be so much easier. I've been slacking off on my workouts for the past several days. I'll try to get in a Bowflex workout today. No guarantees. 

Y'all might enjoy these favorite signs from yesterday's protests.