Overcoming Inertia

Good morning, my friends. My day was a little mixed up yesterday. There was a pedicure scheduled around lunch time, and so the hours I could work with came both before and after. The garden got a good hoeing, and there was some time after that to work on my quilting. I quilted two more blocks on Ruth's Legacy, and then finished the third after I got home.

It’s going pretty well, and I’m happy with that filler motif I’m using. Here’s a little peek at the back.

Now, I’ve turned the quilt upside-down, and I’ll start quilting the top (and final) row of blocks today. With those finished, I’ll be ready to start on the borders and sashings tomorrow.

This being July 1st, it's time to choose a goal for July's 

It's tempting to go with Ruth's Legacy, but I'm going to challenge myself with the next quilt in line for quilting. That means my July goal will be to quilt and bind the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt.

The spa where I get my pedicures is a part of a larger hotel complex. It has beautiful grounds and gardens. As I walked in, I took a few pictures. My phone tells me these next three are all hydrangeas.

It also says this next one is a rose. The flower looks like a rose, but the foliage doesn’t. Also…no thorns.

However, it has rose hips the size of cherry tomatoes.

Okay, so back at home again, I went back to my quilting, and then I forced myself into the sewing room to work on the Stair Steps project. I might have had some kitty help, but Sadie purrfurred to spend her afternoon in her catio.

I needed to cut some more scrappy pieces for the first of five blocks. When they were cut and laid out, they looked like this. Some of you with sharp eyes might notice there’s an extra pair in the lower right corner.

With the cutting finished, I could sew it all together. That’s one down, four to go. 

When it was sewn together, it was time to stop. I’ll start on another one today. The next one will have a pink diagonal row. 

When I got home from my pedicure, I started a new recipe in my slow cooker for Bourbon Barbecue Chicken Tacos. It needed four hours to cook. It was super easy. I mixed up what amounts to a barbecue sauce in the slow cooker, and then added two boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It cooked for four hours, and then I used two forks to shred the chicken. Earlier, I’d made a salsa from corn, red onion, red bell pepper, and some other seasonings. This turned out great. We liked it a lot. The “salsa” has the zest and juice of two limes, and it was a very nice accompaniment with the chicken.

I made the recipe as written. It contains three tablespoons of bourbon. If you don’t want that alcohol, you can substitute apple juice or chicken broth. I doubt you’d taste the difference. We each started with two tacos, but then we each had one more. Now, there’s enough for another meal. It’s easy enough to do in the RV…always a bonus.

Okay, so today will be sort of a regular day. I’ll continue on with my quilting and my sewing. I’m also going to use up six more egg whites making a “Dandelion cake.” Basically, it’s an angelfood cake with an orange glaze. Mike’s mother and his grandmother made a cake called a “Sunshine cake.” It was a favorite of Mike’s. I tried a few times to replicate it earlier in our marriage. Then, after Mike’s mom passed away, I ended up with her recipe box. It contained his grandmother’s recipe for Sunshine cake. Only, the recipe was written so weirdly that I never actually tried to make it. One of the phrases that comes to mind was to cook some sugar in water “until it hairs.” Huh? I think I know what she meant, but it still discouraged me from ever attempting it. 

This recipe popped up when I Googled things to do with the egg whites I was hoarding. It occurred to me that it might be a good stand-in for the Sunshine cake. Mike will have to be the judge of that. And maybe enough time has passed that he won’t remember what the original Sunshine cake tasted like. In any case, it will be fun to give it a try, and I’ll be happy to use up the rest of the eggs whites.

All right then. Time to get going. Busy day ahead. Hopefully, I can end the day with another block for the Stair Steps quilt. Two blocks would be a bonus.