Sisterhood - a double 60th celebration

My sister-in-law Janie and I decided we'd celebrate our 60th birthdays with a road trip, to Versailles, Missouri to visit the Shady Gables Tea room. 

These were one of the many gifts we received. Thank you Marla for the adorable wine glasses. (Sorry mine was backwards)

On the  bus ride there, I believe two bottles of wine were consumed. But I will plead the 5th here.

We were greeted with a Happy Birthday board.

It paid to be at the smaller table, as we were served our tea first.

These girls are still waiting for their liquid refreshments. They had over 100 varieties of teas to order.


Here is the menu we all chose. 



"The Queen's Choice" Full Afternoon (Luncheon) Tea Meal(Served from 10:00am-3:00pm)
Choice of Tea*
Rosemary Chicken Salad Croissant
Individual Quiche Lorraine
Various Homemade Buttermilk Scones
Imported Lemon Curd
Assorted Savory Finger Sandwiches
Delectable Sweets
Fresh Fruit
Frozen Fruit Sorbet

Look at this food. As my cousin-in-law, Rita, would say, it's all in the presentation!

Raspberry sorbet, delicious but way too small of a portion. I could have eaten a pint at least. 

Janie and I were each presented with a tea pot shaped sugar cookie after our meal. 

Thank you to my son Jeremy, his wife Lori, my daughter Sarah, and her husband Rusty for the birthday gift of the bus ride!  It was a fun trip!  After dinner Terry, the owner, gave Jeremy his sympathy for driving the bus!

We all posed outside of Shady Gable for one last group photo. 


The bus ride home I believe involved 4 or 5 bottles more of wine. Just sayin'.


Thank you to all my sister-in-laws, my mother-in-law, my BFF, my daughter-in-law, and nieces for a great time and great gifts!

The least I could do was give them all a goodie bag. It included candy, emery boards, a bottle of my homemade hand lotion and a bar of the blacksmith's hand made soap. 


Here's to another great 60 years!!

It's almost P-A-R-T-Y time!!!

Saturday morning can't come soon enough. There will  be a sisterhood tea party involving 12 women and alcohol may or may not be involved..

Just like all the kids parties, I made goodie bags for all my guests.

I even jazzed up my hat!

Tomorrow we will travel in style.


Stay tuned!!!

Goodbye old neighbors!

I still remember the fall day when I got a call from my friend, Rosie.  She asked if I knew of any houses in our area for sale.  Her son Eric and his fiance' were looking.  I explained to her, available houses were hard to find in this area, but I'd keep my eyes and ears open. 

We have been friends with Rosie and her husband for almost 40 years.  Our kids knew their kids.  The guys have fished and hunted together forever. 

Skip forward to the next day. On my drive home from work I saw a sign that had just gone up on a house a block from our private drive.  I immediately called Rosie.  She in turn called Eric.  Long story short, they were the first on the list of many, to look at the house the following Saturday. 

Eric and Kathy bought the house, worked on making it suit their taste, got married, and moved in. 

Their theme was the outdoors.  Eric loves to hunt, fish, and trap, plus he's a taxidermist. I made this wall hanging as a house warming present. 

Living on the river we spent many weekends boating with them. We'd pack a picnic and hit the water. 

This is daughter "Mac" (Mackenzie), about the year they moved in. 

In 2007, they found out they were expecting.  I made this quilt, for the new soon to be born baby.  Colten was born in August. 

 He went on the river with us from little on. 

Many Saturday nights we'd attend church and then go eat Mexican at either my choice of LaBamba, or Eric's choice of Santa Cruz. Kathy and I had many good times enjoying our frozen Margaritas!

Colten grew . . .

 . . .and "Mac" turned into "Kenzie", a young lady.  She will be driving in 2 short months. 

They are a beautiful family. 

And now they have a beautiful new home.

Of course, I had to make them a new house warming present.  This is a wall hanging that I have made before, but it's always a challenge. The blacksmith forged the rod and hooks.

I even pieced the date in camouflage, marking the year of the new house.

Note all the pieces, all 717 of them, all sewn with many memories of the fun we have had with this family.  I will always remember the sewing I did for Kathy and Mac, mending school clothing, taking in formal dresses, lending formal dresses, borrowing Eric for an extra hand a time or two, and phone calls regarding neighborhood events or even tornadoes in the area.  

They will be missed. But I know Kathy is always just an email away. Even if we travel to their new home, it's a short country drive, one county over. 

Love you guys!

Now come back soon and I will tell you about the NEW neighbors!

FastNachtsKuchens

Sunday morning sounded like a pretty good day to make some FastNachtsKuchens.   Dr. Schroeder can tell you all about this custom at Munichburg Memories.  Being married to a full blooded German, this is something I learned to make many years ago.  They have always been a hit with the family. 

These days I like King Arthur flour. 

I always separate them after I make the first cuts.  You'll have a sticky mess if you cut them and let them rise, only to find them stuck back together again, an hour later.

They don't rise a whole lot, but you can tell when it's time to fry.

I love my deep Wagner skillet to fry them in. 

Here's the finished product. 


Of course I will provide you with the recipe! 

Fast Night Cakes (Fastnachtskuchen)

1 1/2 c warm water (100 to 110 F.)

2 t. yeast (1 package)

1/3 c. sugar

1/4 c. butter softened

1 t. salt

4 - 4 1/2 c. flour (I like bread flour)

1 egg

Canola oil for frying

Place yeast in large bowl, add 1/4 c. water, stir til dissolved.  Let set 3 -5 minutes.  Add 1 1/2 c. water, sugar, butter, salt and 2 cups of  flour.  Blend well.  Stir in beaten egg and enough flour to make a soft dough.


Knead lightly on floured surface. 


Roll dough to a 16 x 18 inch rectangle.  With a sharp knife, (I use a pizza cutter) cut into squares.  Separate, so when they raise they do not stick together.  With kitchen shears cut an X in top of each square.  Cover with a thin muslin towel.  Let rise about an hour. 


Fry in oil heated to 370 F.  Drain on paper towels.  Dust with powdered sugar.


I called Jeremy and Lori to come over after church to help us eat them.  It worked, only one was left!  Thanks kids for saving me from all the calories.

More storage!

I have been working on making full use of a glass fronted cabinet I have in the kitchen. Some time back hubby bought  some vintage green glass fruit jars up from the basement for me to clean up. We decided to store  dried beans and pasta in them.  

Last week I bought 4 half gallon fruit jars in green. We have a few vintage jars too, such as an Old Judge Coffee jar. 

It looks like I might have to combine some bowls before long as the space is filling up quickly.

These were an auction purchase from a couple of years ago. Notice they were 65 cents for a box. All 3 boxes are full of nice shiny, new to me, lids. We thought we bought red rubber rings this week at the Mennonite store, but some how they didn't make it home with us.

We did however find Anasazi beans. You can't find these in most stores. These beans are estimated to be 1500 years old. In addition to being a good source of fiber, Anasazi beans are also an excellent source of potassium, folic acid and iron. While dry beans are known to contain certain carbohydrates that cause flatulence, the Anasazi bean has been found to contain less than 25 percent of these complex carbohydrates, making them much easier on the digestive system.  We can't wait to try them.

World War II love letter

Earlier this week I showed you a page one of a love letter I found in my auction purchase. Many of your have requested to know more. I have decided to show you the entire letter. I hope it warms your heart as it did mine. I can't believe the family didn't keep it. But then on the other hand there was so much at this auction, maybe it was over looked. 

Valentine's Day 2012

He loves me!

He did it again. This was on the cabinet when I got up this morning. I have a sweet heart box waiting for me every year!  Almost 42 boxes of sweetness. But this year it puzzles me. Since he's retired we spend almost every day together. I'm still not sure how he got this one home. 


Love you Mr Blacksmith!!


P.S I will ask him when he gets up.

Another auction, more goodies

We love going to an auction every chance we get. However this Saturday it was a 2 auction day!  The first one was about 8 miles from the house. It started at 10:30. I'll have to admit, there was absolutely nothing there I cared about bringing home. But the blacksmith got a huge box of hammers, screw drivers and miscellaneous for a mere $12.

We had a great time visiting with some old friends that we don't see nearly enough. 

It was back home before noon where together we made an omelet and sour dough English muffins for a little brunch. We then had time to do a few chores like checking emails and laundry. (You guess who did what)

At 2:45 we left for auction #2. It was in the next county about 25 miles away.

I saw this children's kitchen set. It looked like it had many hours of hard play. I don't know what it sold for, we left 5 1/2 hours later and it still hadn't come up for sale.

These 2 chest were the last things I bought. They were $15 each. And I tell you they were loaded!!!  More on that later.

The blacksmith bought this dish pan full of items. I figured it was for some tool in the bottom, so when he handed it to me, I said great, your Mom needs a bed lamp. He said no way, I bought that for me. 

He bought this box too. Included it it was an antique wrench. He found one on E Bay like it for $19.  He paid $12.50 for the whole box!

I found another wagner skillet. A number 5 with a smoke ring for $5.  A bargain!!




NOW onto the contents of the dressers.

After sorting through all the goodies, I sorted out this pile of cotton fabric for me. 

This pile will be for the Lutheran re-sell it shop. It includes patterns, plastic canvas projects, needle cross stitch kits, crochet thread, patterns and lots of fabric I weeded out.

The donation box grew, it included hoops, and a pair of electric pinking sheers. 

This night light was in there too. It has my sister's name all over it!

I picked out a few of the treasure finds to show you.  T.G.& Y. buttons!!! I worked there from 1968-1970.

Who doesn't remember Woolworth's??? A package of needles for 19 cents. Now that is going back a while!

There were lots of packages of old trims, including the polka dot on with Patt on it. They just forgot the i.

Sewing tape?  Who knew there was such a thing?

A pressing ham. That reminds me I need to add ham to my shopping list.

A nice size stack of felt. I've been wanting to do some penny rugs.

A pair of brand new garden gloves.  Why they were in this lady's sewing stuff I have no clue.

But the sweetest thing I found was a 6 page hand written love letter. A world war II love story. 

The $55 we spent was our Saturday entertainment, plus dinner out.  Such an easy way to pacify a blacksmith and a quilter!