Meanderings

I’ve been out-of-pocket for quite a while! And what have I been doing??

Well … I’ve been volunteering as a secretary at church. I’ve had to brush up on a program I used about 17 years ago (Gee, I wonder if there’ve been any changes?? HA!) and learning a totally new “presenter” program. I think I’m getting the hang of it. I’ve certainly been having fun with the graphics for the bulletins. I’m especially proud of this one I made for Christ the King Sunday. I prepared it in Photoshop and used some tools I’d never used before. I took two different photos, modified them and then combined them. Not easy when you’ve never done it before and you’re using the Help index to figure it out. BUT! I mastered a new skill and that’s a really good thing, cause now I OWN that skill. Woohoo!

Another thing I've been busy with is organizing my "studio". I've been turning the office into a studio and organizing the fabric. I'm beginning to feel like I'm walking into JoAnne's fabric when I walk into the room, but at least I can locate all my fabric now. I've even made room on one shelf for my felted wool stash. I used foam core from the Dollar Tree. I cut them into four strips and then wound the fabric around the strip, securing it with a straight pin.

And I cut the strips into smaller sizes for my fat quarters and large-ish remnants.

Then, of course we celebrated Thanksgiving with 4 of our kids. It’s been years since they’ve all been here, so I was especially THANKFUL.

This was our morning-after breakfast… poached eggs over turkey on English muffins with reheated hollandaise, a little cranberry sauce, and (of course) cranberry juice. Tasty!

On Saturday after Thanksgiving, DH and I went to Home Depot to get a gallon of paint and some nails and we walked out the proud owners of … TA-DAH!

A new LG double oven (convection).

It's cobalt blue inside!! GORGEOUS!!

And a new LG refrigerator.

Some things I love about this frig are (1) the freezer is more efficient (and has more room in it) than the side by side we currently have (2) the filter for the water line is easily accessible (3) an adjustable shelf allows you to store short stuff OR (switch-o-chang-o) tall stuff (4) a long flat drawer that's perfect for trays (5) the space behind the ice/water access is not useless space ... it has some shallow shelves and (6) last, but not least, this particular stainless steel doesn't show fingerprints.

Then we did some serious measuring for our new appliances after we got home and found we’ll have to remove the microwave in order to make room for the new double oven! Sooooo, we ordered (from Home Depot online) an over-the-stove LG microwave/ventihood which will be delivered and installed the same day as the other appliances.

A couple of things I like about this model (1) it has a warming feature which is great if you need to keep a plate warm for your sweet husband when he's late and (2) it has a rising feature for us bread-bakers. (I must make an admission here. I use a recipe for pizza dough that allows a quick 15 minutes of rise time. What I currently do is wrap the dough in a piece of plastic wrap and put it on top of my ventihood with the stove light turned on. That makes it warm enough to have the dough rising at just the right rate. True story ... a couple of times I've been busy with other stuff in the kitchen and the dough has burst the wrap open and jumped right off the ventihood. HA!)

LATER THAT SAME SATURDAY, DH ordered an LG dishwasher.

Pretty, isn't it? And it has a steam feature.

Something I love about this model is the silverware tray. Look at that! Instead of standing the flatware up with them all leaning on each other, this has a slot for each fork, spoon, etc. WAY DOGGIES COOL!

And the controls are on the skinny topside of the door. HA!

As a result of all this (pre-Christmas) spending, we’ll have to do some work this next weekend to remove existing stuff and prepare for the new things. We’ll even have to reconfigure a couple of cabinets, but surely that will be an easy thing to do … surely it won't take long!.?!

Anyway, when it’s all done, we’ll have a new kitchen for Christmas.

Yippee!! Yahoo!!! Whoop, whoop, whoop!!!