Permanent Posies

I was a cleaning machine today.  My kids are all coming and I like to clean for them.  This is an act of love, I guess.  When they invite me to their homes, their houses are always spotless.  I guess that is just what we do.  15 minutes after the grandkids get here, you won’t be able to tell that I cleaned but that is beside the point.  I don’t want them crawling around on dirty floors.

So, I was listening to HGTV while I worked.  This motivated me to get out the paint and do some touch up work on the window sills and baseboards.  That was not on my to do list.  Trust me!  But, I am a side-tracked home executive, right?

Then, I decided I needed to patch a hole in the wall so I dug up the stuff for that.  Not on the list!

Then, I decided that my dark wood built-ins needed some Liquid Gold…the kind with dark stain.  That was not on the list either.

So, while listening to the  various decorating and home improvement shows, I heard that if you place your books on the shelf with the same color books all together instead of randomly, it will look more organized.  What, my bookshelf can look more organized and I didn’t know it?  This was not on the list either but I took my books down and organized them into colors.  Previously, they were by author.  So, I have lots of books, what can I say?  Wow!  You wouldn’t believe the difference.  I should have taken a photo of the before so you could see how much better it looks.  Instead, all I have is what it looks like after the shuffle.  I am fully aware that you will not think this looks organized because I have so many photos and things but you will just have to take my word for it.  This is good, folks.  So, here it is:

 

I am joining some blog peeps with my post.  Check them out too.

Since indigo is our color for this Alphabet Thursday Rainbow School…..and indigo is a hard one teacher….I am going with jeans.  These are dyed with indigo dye. 

Also, my kids are coming in for the weekend….well all but one daughter and her family, who are going out of town.  So, I am thinking of them and will try to find a photo of everyone of them in denim. 

Here is Lion, only grandson…son of #2 daughter.

 

#3 daughter, Nurse M&M when she was a missionary in AFrica (the one in denim..of course) 

Ok…this is harder than I thought.  Too bad the color isn’t khaki.  I didn’t realize how much my kids and gkids wore khaki.

 

Well, that is me with my good friends.  That may be all the denim you get from me.

 

This is my oldest daughter etc….Etsy Queen (Head Over Heals….button on my sidebar), #1 son in law(Roadster), Bean on the left and Bear on the right…awesome granddaughters

 

#1 Daughter in law, Army Teacher, and my hubby, Golfer Pro (and me, of course….no jeans)

 

Son in laws #2 and #3, Number Cruncher and Chief Auditor

 

#2 daughter, Jewelry Vendor, and her daughter, #3 granddaughter….Cat.  Pretend they have on denim.

 

#1 son, Ranger Joe, Nurse M & M, Jewelry Vendor, Etsy Queen

So, I know I have more recent photos but I am trying to accomplish the color indigo before midnight..ha.  

So, my kids are coming over for a Fantasy Football Draft Party and I am sure the boys will be watching football if it is on but for the girls…..it will be Scrabble.  Too much testosterone!  We’ll be having a Mexican Pile-on and Dr. Pepper Cake…..Margaritas…..I can’t wait.  I guess I ought to get off the computer and clean my house.  Whatever!  Happy Indigo Day…..Check out Ms. Jenny and her class:

I have not been writing posts this week.  I needed a little break.  I didn’t read many blogs this week either so, I have no idea what my friends at Alphabet Thursday thought about the color blue.   I didn’t check out the awesome souls at Just for the Joy of It either.  I didn’t look at one free thing on GroceryShopForFree.com or any other coupon blogger.  I didn’t check out my favorite “work at home” blog.  I didn’t check out decorating tips or crafting tips.  I didn’t read anyone’s thoughts or prayers and I barely checked out Facebook or Twitter.

But, I did take two of my granddaughters on a grand adventure on the golf cart to see deer, an orange plane taking off, a jet ski on the lake and to buy the snack of their choice at the marina.  I also washed windows, cleaned off the back porch, finished a novel, went on a nature walk with my husband, took daughter #2 to the movies and out to eat for her birthday (a little late), signed up for a painting workshop, went to church and out to eat with my SS class peeps, talked a long time to my mom on the phone, planned a fantasy football party with my kids and held my dogs.  Oh, yea….cooked for hubby and cleaned house.

I think sometimes we need to get out of the virtual world and back into the real world…..well, sometimes I need to at least.  Really, sometimes I wish my virtual peeps would come over for coffee.

Enough of taking a break and back to writing out loud.

So, I thought I would share a very simple recipe today and one that is so easy to make.  I love buying a fresh loaf of bread at the grocery store bakery but, it is too big for two people.  Well, that and we don’t need fresh bread from the bakery.  But, while in the mountains, I bought a loaf and within the week, I ate half of it (before it molded) by using it for sandwiches and toast…..and for one of my favorite appetizers, Bruschetta.  So, here is the very easy recipe.

Simple Bruschetta

Adjust this recipe for the amount of people that you have.

Slices of bread….French bread, hamburger/hotdog buns, left over rolls…whatever

Slices of tomatoes

Olive Oil or butter

Garlic pod or powder

Feta cheese (optional)

Basil, fresh or dried….or Italian Seasoning

Parmesan Cheese or Romano Cheese….This is best to be a bigger grated cheese rather than the finely grated but as you can see, I used the smaller on these.  In fact, they were packets from Pizza Hut.

Brush the bread with olive oil or melted butter.  Sprinkle garlic liberally on top or spread about 1/2 garlic pod (chopped very small) over each piece of bread.  Place tomato slices to cover bread.  On top of this, sprinkle feta cheese, basil or Italian seasoning and top with Parmesan Cheese.  Now, just put it under the broiler to brown the top, if you like the bread to be soft.  Or, bake it at 350 degrees if you prefer it to be crunchier.  I don’t know how much time this takes so you will have to just watch it.

I think this is good enough for a meal, served with a salad.  Also, it is really good with Mozzarella cheese instead of Parmesan….or with both, for that matter.  Enjoy!

I thought I would join a blog party.  Here is the link:

Today at Thursday’s Alphabet Rainbow Summer School, we are writing about the color blue.  I almost didn’t participate because today, I felt blue.  Not kidding.  I don’t know about you but when I feel this way, after crying and moping and doing whatever I do when I am blue, I always eventually get back to prayer.  I turn to the Lord and lay it at the feel of my Savior.  He never fails me and the Holy Spirit always comforts me.

So, in honor of Blue Thursday, I thought I would share some of my steeple photos against beautiful blue skies.  I am on the quest for the perfect church photos to paint every since my husband brought me home a photo of a church while driving between Brenham (the home of Blue Bell Ice Cream) and La Grange…ah ha hah hah….Texas.  He asked me to paint it and I did.

Here is that photo and the painting (which I think I have already shared but….oh well)

The next two were in a little town in New Mexico but I forgot to take note of the name.  It was a long drive to the mountains and I went by myself.  That meant that I could stop and take photos at will.  That also meant that I turned an 11.5 hour drive into a 14 hour drive.  Ok….so that is why my husband won’t stop every time I see something photo worthy.  Hmmmmm….

Not the blue steeple.

The next is of little church between Mora and Angel Fire.  The blue sky is reflecting off the tin roof and white steeple and it also looks blue.

These photos are of a church in Cimarron, New Mexico.  This is quite a little historic town.  I have a post to write later about that but, for now, look at this blue church door.

Here are a couple of random churches along the way.

The next two are in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.  I had a little detour in this town to do some site seeing (AKA took a wrong turn).  I was so pleased  because I found this place called Blue Hole.  I don’t have a photo because it was hot and I had my dogs and didn’t want to leave them in the car that long.  But it is an 80 foot deep hole, 60 feet wide of blue water.  It is a very popular diving hole because of the clear blue waters and constant temperature year round.  \

So, I also found a couple of churches there….well, not in the blue hole…ha.

This one is in Thurber and I think it is part of a museum town.  Can’t explain that better.  And, the pink church from the last trip that I shared before.

Here is my church up on the hill.

The next is of a church at Ft. Hood.

Here are some from Kauai.

I love these snow pictures of churches in my home town.  They look blue too.

Even though I am in search of the perfect church photo, I do not think I need a building to worship God.  In fact, the Bible says that His creation declares His Glory.  So, I will leave you with the night skies from the last night of my vacation in Angel Fire.  Let’s just call it a church steeple under which I stood and worshiped the Living God.

As usual, I am joining other blue posts at Alphabet Thursday Rainbow Summer School.  I am also joining “Just For the Joy of It”.

Also, Friday–Finding Beauty…..couldn’t find a button so click on the word.  I found this one too:

I decided to take another class from the teacher….Jenny Matlock.  She hosts Alphabet Thursday and this summer it has been Rainbow Summer School.  This one is called Saturday Centus.  To be honest, I don’t know what Centus actually means.  It isn’t in my online dictionary and I consider myself pretty word savvy too…ha.

But anyway, I am jumping in the fray to challenge myself and practice writing.  Here are her instructions….but I chose to write about last summer.

 

WEEK 16 ASSIGNMENT
Do you remember how during the first week back at school the teacher would make you write an essay about what you did over yoursummer vacation? Well, school has been in session almost two weeks here so I thought we’d try this for something different.
Your story must be written in first person AND must be exactly 100 words long. It can be fact or fiction.
So…
Exactly 100 words, first person, fact or fiction…What I did over my Summer Vacation. AND What I did over my Summer Vacation is the title of your essay not to be included in the 100 words!

 

WHAT I DID OVER MY SUMMER VACATION

We met outside the airport sporting red, white and blue.  My anticipation was palpable and I was on the verge of tears or hysterical laughing. 

We made our way to the front of the line.  I think we numbered 25.   We held signs and flags and smiles and love and respect and awe and gratitude.  Mostly gratitude.  The kind that a mom feels when her child escapes a tragedy.  Gratitude when a hero is in the room. 

And the doors slowly opened.  Camoflauge poured through them.  Thank you for your service.

Then I saw him,  my son, home from Iraq.

So, if you want to see more 100 word stories or participate yourself, here is the link:

I don’t know if you have ever had this or not, but it is divine.  I needed something to cook in my crock pot today while I spent the day outdoors oil painting.  I had some cabbage, 1 gold potato, some sliced onion and I remembered this Russian Cabbage Soup recipe and decided to make it.  The recipe I normally use is one that was given me by a friend but I am not at home so, I don’t have it.  So, as usual, I decided to make it up myself.

Here is the recipe that I cooked for myself.  It made plenty for two people so you could, of course, increase the amount as needed.

Russian Cabbage Soup

1/3 head of cabbage (large head) diced (the picture shows how much was left…not how much I used)

1 can of stewed tomatoes

1 potato (I used Yukon Gold)

1/4 large onion sliced or diced

1 piece of pork loin (this was the size of a deck of cards and was raw) cut in small pieces

1 large garlic pod chopped

4 tablespoons brown sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup of Braswell’s (of Georgia) Sweet Pepper Vinaigrette

This vinaigrette is fat free and I think any sweet vinaigrette would work but this one is really good.  I am not sure how much the sweet pepper flavor made this soup taste this good.

I will say that the Yukon gold potato held it’s shape better than a regular baker would do.  So, even after cooking for a few hours in the crock pot, it had a nice texture to it.  I am not sure how long this cooked but I cooked it on high until I was ready for it.  So, probably about 4 hours.

As far as my painting is concerned, it is a mess! (top left)  I am not doing so well at painting En Plein Air (click on word to see definition).  But here are the three days worth of painting from the deck facing in different directions.  

It is a good beginning in my attempt at painting outdoors and I learned many things.  One of which is that I need to be looser and less precise.  I am leaving the top right as it is…..the finger painting.  I am definitely going to finish the vista view with the buildings.  I had to quit that one because the sun went down.  But the one I did today…I am not sure if is fixable.  I put my focal point tree over too far to the left.   I will decide later.

I am late posting it but I am going to join two blog parties.  Go check them both out for some great blogs.

This week at Alphabet Thursday Rainbow Summer School our color subject is green.  Green is a secondary color unlike last week’s color yellow.  Many times people will say that they painted their children’s room in primary colors and they include a grass green in the mix along with orange.  But, these are not primary colors.  They are secondary colors because they are made by mixing two primary colors….in this case blue and yellow.  I know you know all this but I am an artist and mixing colors is something that I am either actually doing or I am doing in my head every time I see something paintable. 

When I look at green trees for example, I try to determine which of those little yellow tubes of paint from last week that I would mix with one of my many tubes of blue.  I can’t help myself.  I squint to determine the pattern of the shadows and lights and want to pull out my paints all the time, when driving down the road.  I think about painting far more than I actually paint.

OK…..so, that is not what this post is about.  Obviously, I am going with green vegetables….particularly my favorite….asparagus.

I just returned from the grocery store and bought several green items.  I can’t share them all in this post because I need them for future blogs…haha.   So, I will share my favorite vegetable dish and one that I cook often…..Roasted asparagus with red bell peppers, onion and garlic.

First here is a tip about asparagus.  Bring it home and immediately put them in a wide mouth jar or glass and put a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the glass.  Store them in the refrigerator just like this.

Second, when you start to cook them, take each end into your two hands and try snapping off the end at the natural breaking point.  You want to keep as much as you can so as not too waste any but there is a natural point that it will snap.  Snap them all to prepare for cooking.

Slice a red bell pepper and onion and one garlic pod (a big one…or two small ones).

Here is a tip.  I have used all different methods of getting the skin off the garlic pod and frankly, the easiest is to just pop it with a knife on a cutting board.  It just slides right off. 

Here is another tip.  To get the smell off your hands, wash them and then rub them on your stainless steel sink.  I am not sure why rubbing your hands on stainless steel takes away the smell, but it does.

Here are my cut up veggies.  Toss them with about a tablespoon of olive oil and a bit of salt.  Notice how the red and green (opposite colors attract) are not only healthy but they look so appetizing.  This is precisely because they are opposite colors and those always appeal to our senses.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and cook these for about 10 minutes, depending on how done you like them.

 

Thought I would share my strawberries in a green bowl.  I think I might need to paint that.

I had my green asparagus with roasted chicken (store bought because I am on vacation in the mountains), fresh strawberries and a piece of bruschetta.  I will give you that recipe tomorrow.  Since it is a green day…I served myself on a green plate.  Nice lunch in the green mountains…..along with nice weather.

Here is the link for Alphabet Thursday. 

I am also linking up with other blog parties:

I left my family at home and came to the mountains in New Mexico in order to do some Plein Air painting.  En Plein Air is a French expression which means to paint “in the open air”  or outdoor painting (according to Wikipedia).  It became popular in the mid 19th century and was particularly popular with the Impressionists.   The purpose for it is to try to capture true light and shadows and to cover the canvas quickly before the light changes.  The Impressionists didn’t have the ability to snap a digital photo of the scene they were painting so it was quite a bit harder.  The first thing I did was take a few photos so that I could go back later and touch it up when I get home, if needed.  However, I am hoping that I can complete a different painting each day.   Since I have only tried to do this twice, I am completely inexperienced at it so, I tend to shy away from it.  Since I have traveled away from my family to do it, I have no choice but to force myself outdoors with all my gear and attempt painting en plein air.

So, it was pretty much a disaster.  First, I left my tripod at home which holds my portable easel.  If you are a painter, you know that what I left meant…..basically…..trekking off into the hills to paint is impossible.  Fortunately, our house in the mountains (well, my in-laws house) has an awesome deck with a beautiful view overlooking a valley on one side, hills with lots of trees on the other.  I found a card table and just set up outside on the deck.  It was not the best of conditions in that it was very windy.  Also, I had a case of the dropsies and 3times, I dropped a paint brush on to the deck….hmmmm. 

I painted for a few hours and was just overworking my little 6×8 landscape.  I had so many layers of paint on the canvas, trying to get it to look right that I finally decided that I just needed to quit and come back to it the next day when some of the paint wasn’t so squishy.  I was a bit disappointed in my piece but it was the first time I have ever done this alone.  In fact, both times I attempted this was with my instructor, Blair Currin, there to guide me. 

The first mistake I made was to try to include too many things into my painting…..inexperience showing.  Then, when I was packing everything up at the end of my session, I dropped the canvas face down on to my palette.  When I picked it up, I had globs of paint all over the canvas….none of which were colors that were in the right places.  I really almost cried and I almost tossed it but instead, I decided to take off the globs with my fingers and start again on it the next day.

Well, an amazing painterly thing happened as I was taking off all that paint.  I was smearing the paint…couldn’t help it….and all of a sudden, it became apparent to me that I needed to smear it.  For the next 30 minutes, I went to work with my fingers and began to finger paint like I did as a child.  What I ended up with was so much better than it was before the accident.

Now you might look at this little painting and think that it is not complete.  You would be right.  You might think it is too loosely painted and again, you would be right.  But for me, it was a very valuable lesson in painting outdoors.  Indeed, it was an invaluable lesson so I love my little painting for that reason.  I am thinking about not even touching it up so that I will have a souvenir of my painting trip to the mountains.

So, here it is. 

I am hooking up with the following blog parties.

I was looking for a photo and came across a couple of files with photos of the town where I reside.  Though I can’t tell you where that is…teehee….I can show you pics, right?   (Of course, if you want to email me, I will tell you where it is.)

This week at Alphabet Thursday/Rainbow Summer School, we are taking a look at the color yellow.  This is a primary color, as you well know.  However, the primary color of yellow is hard to determine.  I have several tubes of yellow in my  palette.   Some are warm and some are cool.  I took a photo of them but not with good lighting so they sort of look alike.  So, I painted a sample of each.

I use yellow in all my paintings…of course.  Click here to go back and see my paintings on yellow onions.  Here is another of my paintings with a yellow onion.  Can you determine which yellows were used from the palatte?  Also, yellow/green peppers……and though I used the copper pot last week for orange, I can use it again this week because it is just red mixed with yellow…..and maybe a little blue….white….but still….yellow is there.  The cloth they are sitting on has lots of yellow ochre in it and the background is green…..which of course, is blue mixed with yellow.  The more I think about it…..you can’t really get away from yellow.

How about a yellowed photo.  Here is one of me and my dad at my wedding.  Boy, he had the golfing tan going.  Tan has yellow in it too….mixed with other things, of course.

Here is a gold calendar with yellowed pages that was sitting on my grandfather’s desk when he was a professor at SMU.  I inherited his roll top desk and no one could get the drawers opened.  It was also too big to fit through our doors so, my husband took it apart.  The drawers came open and this (along with lots of other goodies) was inside.

Have you ever noticed how tarnished silver looks yellow?  Didn’t I just polish those?

Here are a few of my favorite yellow things.  First, paint brushes my husband brought me from China….well the box has a yellow lining.  You know how I love boxes?   Second, a chocolate set that belonged to my grandmother.  Third, a Snow White figurine that came with a watch when I was a child.  Since my daughter collected Disney figurines as a kid, I gave it to her….but it is visiting until she moves.

Last but not least….from Brenham, Texas……Bluebell Ice Cream….Homemade Vanilla.  OMG!  That is the best….unless I had Blue Bell’s Chocolate Covered Cherries.  That would be the actual best.

I was going to say that yellow is not my favorite color but I think I will change my mind about that color.  It is everywhere.

Check out more yellow posts at Alphabet Thursday.