Run Lori Run!

The Good and The Not-So-Good

Marinated tomato salad (minus the mozzarella) with Lemon Boy tomatoes and my very own basil: good.

Watching the epic crashes in the Tour de France : good. (And gnarly)

Tempeh bacon, cucumber, hummus and a four dollar tomato sandwich: good.

Turning our bedroom into a kitty nursing home: not so good.

Canning season: awesomely good.

Crappy, rainy weather = puny veggies: not so good.

More pickled carrots: good.

And other random good things we've eaten recently:  

• These Spicy Peanut Pinto Burgers  were really good. I have had terrible luck finding a good veggie burger recipe that isn't dry and tasteless. These were awesome.
• Orzo Super Salad- are there any mediocre recipes from 101 Cookbooks? I didn't think so.
• Roasted Apricots with Mascarpone and Honey-  Make this tonight. Seriously.

So what's cooking in your neck of the woods?

Up To My Eyeballs

Okay, I'm back.  

And pleased to have something more pleasant to talk about than my cat's loss of a limb.  She is still rather pissed off but learning to hop around like a rabbit which is quite comical. I'll post more photos later when she grows some fur back and doesn't look so much like Franken-kitty.

Anyway...I'm up to my eyeballs in strawberries over here.

Of course there are worse things you could be up to your eyeballs in...

Baywatch Nights reruns...

Jon Secada music...

Spam...

I digress.

So being up to my eyeballs in strawberries, I made some strawberry-related items.

Like jam. No brainer.  I used the recipe on the Pomona Pectin box and it turned out lovely.  Less sugar = very strawberry-y jam.

Behold strawberry fruit leather.  I tweaked the recipe and used honey and just a couple tablespoons of sugar and it turned out great. Very yummy stuff but it doesn't yield a lot of leather for a half flat of berries.  But it is a good way to use up berries that are starting to go bad anyway.

So what are you guys up to your eyeballs in?

Ollie

Oh, what a week. 

It should be common practice to make sure your cat is not asleep behind your tire when you back out of the driveway.

Or she will come home from the hospital with one fewer legs than she had before.

But she is a trooper, that girl.  Lot's of treats, lots of pain meds that hake her loopy. Lots of love. Lots of guilt. But it could have been a lot worse.

We are just happy she is back home again.

Sunshine and Mischief

Behold!  The sun showed up for a split second before retreating back into the grayness and fog. And it'll be about three more months before it comes back.

Let's see. Today I dug up these vintage Valentine's Day cards. I keep saying one day I'll make them into a collage or something but I can't bear to cut them up.  So I just dig them up every Valentine's Day, look at them, and put them away again. (You remember my hoarding problem, right?)

I keep hearing my Women's Studies professor in my head...

And I haven't sewn anything in awhile so I had the grand plan to make some catnip-filled mice for my kitties.

So I prepped. Filled one with catnip. Sewed it up. Went down to make dinner, with the intention of coming back and attaching a proper tail and ears to the fellow. But...

Alas, it has gone missing.

Guilty?

Gratuitous Cat Photo

As you can see I have nothing really to write about today...

So this is Caper.  Caper sleeps with her tongue out and we think it is quite adorable.   

Libby Lion

Libby Lion isn't phased.  She doesn't make waves. She goes with the flow. Totally.

Have you noticed her half smile?  No, this isn't the Mona Lisa, it's just that I suck at embroidery.  I have to send her to Arizona to have my mother embroider her mouth for me!!!  Mental note: practice embroidery.

She is made from all recycled materials: a wool jacket, felted wool sweaters and some craft felt.  

This is my first limbed doll made from all felted sweater material AND the first time I tried sewing feet like these.  The feet were pretty easy but I need to tweak the pattern because attaching the limbs was pretty cumbersome.  Hmmmm.....

The main is just a bunch of scrap edges from the sweaters sewn right into the seam. 

So I have some questions for you:

1.) Does Libby need "hair" on the back of her head, she only has it around her face?

2.) Do you think a doll pattern like this would sell?

3.) How much would you pay for an epattern/downloadable PDF pattern?

Thanks guys!

Feline Homework Assistance

Our kitty Olive is part marsupial. Since we don't have pouches for her to ride around in, she is always perched on one our shoulders. Always.

Good girl, Ollie.