Easter Sunday

We had a quiet Easter this year. We stayed home and shared a delicious meal of ginger-marmalade ham (done in the crock pot), home-made gluten-free French bread, Hasselbeck potatoes, and chocolate truffle brownies. We were all grateful to be able to spend a peaceful day at home, especially after the busy week we'd just had. 

antique Easter image

As usual, it snowed on Easter Sunday, preventing us from playing outside or hiding eggs. Clementine has yet to see a snow-free Easter in her five years. This year, we planned ahead and are going to recreate Easter festivities with Dan's family this coming weekend. The weather is supposed to be overcast, but will hopefully cooperate and be snow-free so that we can hide eggs and celebrate with Spring-like temperatures. Either way, we're looking forward to spending time with Dan's parents, his sister, her husband, and Clementine's cousins.

 antique image

I decided a few months ago to make the toys for Clementine's Easter basket this year, but it took me till late last week to decide what to make, and I then spent most of last Saturday sewing. I managed to finish a pony and some bunnies. Nothing like waiting till the last moment, you know?

antique image

Dan did the cooking on Sunday, allowing me to finish the embroidery on the pony's saddle and bridle. I am so thankful to be married to a thoughtful, sweet husband who always encourages me to be creative. Dan is an excellent cook and did  a fantastic job with everything. The only thing I did this year was grocery shop, plan the menu, and enjoy a delicious dinner.

Clementine's Easter pony

Part of the reason it took me so long to start is that I decided to make the pattern for the pony from scratch. I've made simple toy patterns before, but this was most complicated by far. Made from wool felt, the pony is hand sewn, has several gussets, lined ears, and though you can't see them in the photos, cute little hooves. The saddle and bridle are brown wool felt, embroidered with daisies and French knot flowers in several colors of floss.

 Easter pony with carrots

The pale orange carrots are long triangles with green felt fringe at the top - I don't use a pattern for small items like these and so each carrot is slightly different. I left the threads from the floss about an inch long at the end of each carrot to represent the rootlets at the ends of real carrots.

 bunnies bunnies bunnies!

The bunnies are from a pattern I've had for several years, not my own - I'm not sure where it originated, but it became separated from the directions at some point, and I have a feeling that I placed one of the gussets incorrectly. I think now that it should have gone in the head, not along the back. If I make them again, I'll definitely try placing the gusset in the head and seeing if that makes any difference. The green bunny is the only one made with acrylic felt. I used acrylic to test the pattern since I didn't have any directions and didn't want to waste wool if I got it wrong. Which I probably did anyway.

Clementine loves them though, which is all that really matters.

the bunnies and their carrots

I found several yards of wool felt at the thrift store a while back, and as soon as I saw it, I knew that I'd be making toys with it. Clementine always responds well to toys made from wool - it holds the warmth from little hands and feels so nice and soft.

flowers on the saddle

Since she received the pony and bunnies, Clementine has played with them non-stop. There is something special about home-made that resonates with children and I've been asked to make several more ponies for her stable. I guess I'd better get busy.

the pony, the bunnies, and their carrots

the pony and her carrots

I hope you had a blessed, joyful Easter.

Namaste.

Our weekend and our week ends

We had a lovely, quiet weekend,  staying home nearly the entire time, working on projects around the house. Saturday morning, we planted our flowers for the summer, including a gorgeous Columbine, the state flower of Colorado.

 publicdomainpictures (^)

Every year we've had less and less to purchase and plant, since we try to plant perennials and re-seeding annuals as much as possible. Still, I was surprised that we were able to get by with so little this year - a 9-pack of pink petunias, a pink geranium, the columbine, and 2 portulaca. 

It's been unseasonably hot so far this June, and it may cause me to break down and get a tomato plant. Colorado has odd, unpredictable weather during the day, and tends to have cool nights, which is a bad combination for  tomatoes. Still, hope springs eternal, so I usually end up getting a plant or two, nursing it through the summer, and getting maybe one or two tomatoes total. Sigh. I'll probably never learn. 

Dan spent the weekend doing several things on his "Honey-Do" list. He installed a cat door in the door that leads from the master bath to the hallway. We close our door when we leave the house to keep the dog downstairs, but the kitty tends to manage to trap herself on the wrong side of the door about 50% of the time. This way, as long as the door between our bedroom and the bathroom is open, kitty can come and go as she pleases. 

Dan also fixed the microwave (the turntable had stopped turning); rehung the door on the tool shed with new screws to prevent it from being saggy; and positioned the fans for the summer season. Oh, and he taught the SuperCat to play Tee-ball in advance of her first practice this week. She has a remarkable sense of hand-eye coordination and picked up on batting the ball off the tee right way. Running the bases was a bit harder to explain, but she seemed to be getting it toward the end. 

As for me, I worked on several projects, including de-cluttering the kitchen and organizing some files. I did a bit of writing, and spent about 3 hours doing all of our summer scheduling this afternoon. Everything I can possibly think of is on our shared schedules with reminders, notes, directions, and so on. 

Because the weather has been so cooperative, we ended up grilling on the deck Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. I read about a technique for preparing chicken last week at the Amateur Gourmet called "spatchcocking" (^). I ended up trying it tonight and don't think I'll ever grill or bake a chicken any other way ever again. 

Basically, you excise the spine from the chicken with a super-sharp knife, then push the whole thing flat. That's it. If you're up for it, you can remove the breast bones and ribs from the inside, but you don't have to. The flat chicken is more or less the same thickness all over and will grill or bake quickly and evenly, resulting in all of the meat being very moist. 

 spine removed, laid flat. 

the scissors are to snip around the tail bone

 spine, breast & rib bones removed

Dan grilled ours with a bit of spicy-vinegary barbecue sauce. It cooked very fast and evenly, and was as moist as any chicken I've ever had. 

 leg quarter after cooking

S'mores made with GF Graham crackers

  Dennis looking forward to any 

spare chicken parts

We served the chicken with "Gaga beans", baked beans named after my mother-in-law, who puts relish in her beans. Dan makes "Daddy beans", which have mustard, cider vinegar and liquid smoke. "Mommy beans" (mine) are sweetened with brown sugar, and are spiced with chopped onions and diced garlic. They're all different, but are all yummy. 

We have more than half of the chicken left over from dinner, and it'll form the basis for dinner for the next night or two. 

After dinner, Dan hooked a lighted button to the SuperCat's blouse and she ran and careened in the dark on the lawn, flashing like a lightning bug, darting in and out of the shadows. Before we went in, we made S'mores on the still-warm grill, and talked and laughed. A perfect end to a perfect weekend. 

Namaste.
=^..^= 
d

P.S. We ended up staying home all day Sunday, and so we go into Monday morning and the beginning of Week 2 of the June Food Stamp Challenge (^) with the same figures as yesterday, having spent $110.61, which is 31.87% of the total lowest monthly food stamp allowance ($347.00) for a family the size of ours.