A Celebratory Day

Good morning, my friends. It was kind of a lazy day yesterday. For one thing, we were both awake very early...during the 4:00 a.m. hour. I don't know about you, but if I wake up any time after 4:00 a.m., my brain is off and running, and I can't get back to sleep. While I was doing my slow-stitching yesterday morning, I could swear I fell asleep mid-stitch, and just kept on stitching. So, when Mike went back to bed for a morning nap, I just slid down on the couch where I was sitting and went back to sleep too. And don't think for even two seconds that a morning nap negates the need for an afternoon nap too. That's right...it was a two-nap day. We're old.

When I woke up from my morning nap, I went straight to work on the Espresso Iced Oatmeal Crunch Cookies. They aren't hard to make...no mixers required...but they do take some time. The dough is rolled into logs, and then refrigerated for at least an hour before they're sliced into cookie rounds and baked. After that, they need to cool completely before the icing can be added. When I was finished, they looked like this. 

Oh yes, and I must point out that Mike stole one of the cookies before I took this picture. He thought he was being sneaky. So...here's the thing: This is a test recipe from America's Test Kitchens, and so I'm not supposed to share the recipe. But I can't prevent the person at this email from sharing it. From here, I disavow any knowledge of what happens if you send a message to that person.

While I waited for the cookies to do one thing or another, I filled the bird feeders and took a look at the flowers. The potted snap dragons are making a comeback. These were planted several years ago, but they come back year after year.

The Garden Treasures peony is nearly open. I expect it will open all the way today. We're expecting rain today and tomorrow, so I hope it doesn't ruin the flowers. The sun is shining right at the moment, but rain is supposed to start within the hour.

Also, the Fairy Princess peony at the other end of the flower bed is close to opening. This one is covered in buds, and they will all open together. It's gorgeous when it's in full bloom. And...again...I'm hoping the rain doesn't do it in.

Back inside and still waiting on the cookies, I spent some time stitching the quilt binding. I've turned the first corner, and I'm about halfway across one of the long sides. 

Also, I'm modifying my quilt-all-the-quilts-if-it-kills-me rule. Since I want to keep things moving along in the sewing room too, I'm going to work on just one quilt...quilting and binding...at a time. I was trying to sew the binding on the Merry, Merry Snowmen, and also make progress quilting the Homestead quilt. It left me no time to accomplish anything in the sewing room. Now, I'm going to work on one quilting project at a time...quilt it and bind it...before I start on the next quilt in line for quilting. And there's no reason you need to know any of that, but it's important to keep the rule book up-to-date. Wouldn't you agree?

So...no quilting was accomplished, but I did finish the fifth block for the fifth row of the Stair Steps quilt. This one has a blue diagonal.

Today, I'll sew all five blocks together and then add row five to the rest of the quilt.

It's one of those days when I'll make dinner early in the day today. It kind of turns things around when I'm making dinner in the morning, but it means a longer sewing day.

From here on, I'm going to tell you about our dinner last night. If you're not into those food photos, please feel free to jump off here. No hard feelings. We had our celebratory dinner at the Portland City Grill, which is on the 30th floor of the building you see in the image below. That's the US Bank Tower, affectionately known in these parts as "Big Pink."

We always like to sit by the window here, and so we were offered a table in the lounge, or we could wait for a table to open up in the dining room. We figure we make good lounge lizards, and so the lounge it was. This was the view from our table. Portland is a beautiful city. Do not believe what The Orange One says about our fair city. It is not a war zone. The storefronts are not boarded up.

Looking through the window a little to the east of us, we could see Mt. Hood.

And there we are...just a couple of old codgers who never gave up on one another. Not yet, anyway.

When we go to this restaurant, I always order a Cosmopolitan. It seems appropriate somehow. Mike always orders what we refer to as "brown liquid."

We also brought a bottle of wine from home. They charge us $20 to open the bottle. If we bought this bottle in the restaurant, we would probably pay north of $100 for it. I can assure you that we did not pay that much.

And we're very good at math, Mike being an engineer and all. We wanted the lobster bisque. We could each order a 6 oz. cup for $12 apiece, or we could share a 12 oz. bowl for $14. We went for the latter because, being old, we are also cheapskates.

For dinner, we each chose the "Seafood Trio." (Yes, we each had our own plate for this.) On the left is a Dungeness crab cake, in the middle some shrimp, and on the right, some salmon with a butter beurre blanc. It came with Yukon Gold mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

We each ordered dessert, but this slice of red velvet cake was served gratis. (I just love having a fuss made over me, don't you?)

Mike ordered the New York style cheesecake.

I had the butterscotch bread pudding. So perfectly icky and yummy.

So that's it. Another one bites the dust. All we can say is that we hope we can keep our health and celebrate again next year.

Okay. That's all I have for you today. Time to get back to my slow-stitching, and my morning efforts at dinner-making. I'll work at making some more progress around the quilt binding, and I'll get the fifth row sewn onto the Stair Steps quilt. 

Next up in the sewing room will be to make another row for the "Jawbreakers" quilt. You might recall that I finished the Gumballs quilt top a while back...

and then went straight to work making the same quilt in a different colorway. I'll get started on the second row of these green-blue-aqua blocks today.

Just now, Smitty walked across my keyboard to let me know he requests my presence at the closed door. He would like it opened now, please. I guess I'd better go. Mustn't disappoint the boss.