Summer's Here!

Random photos from my in-laws wonderful back yard.
Although I am not a pink-loving person,
bouganvilla leaves do make striking photos.
As does the mimosa blossom.

Feliz Dia de Las Madres!

Here is my wonderful
Mother's Day gift. I got it
this morning along with
breakfast in bed.

Delightful!











This, however, is
the finest ever
Mother's Day gift
I've ever gotten.
I got it nearly
9 years ago, and I
still think it's my
favorite.



Thanks for
making me a
mum, Marion.
I love you.

And Mom, thanks for having me and for giving me lots of good examples of what a mom should be. I love you! And Fran, thanks for being a great mom and a great Mother-Out-Law. I love you!

Icebox cake and ironwood blossoms

The first half of this post is dedicated to Zoe, whose posts I miss of late! I hope she is settling into her new abode and can soon resume her blogging. Her creativity in baking and crafting is wonderful to see and I surely do appreciate her sharing with us. Thanks Zoe!

Icebox cake!



This is my favorite birthday cake. It's also a perfect Arizona summer dessert as you don't need to heat up anything but your mixer! The recipe is on the box of wafers, but here's my version:






Famous Chocolate Wafers (I buy two boxes--there's always some breakage)
whipping cream (2 small cartons-*see note below)
vanilla (preferably Penzey's Double Strength--ahh, bliss!)
granulated sugar

cake plate or platter
toothpicks
plastic wrap

You can, of course, make it even simpler by buying prepared whipped cream, but it's so easy and tastes SO much better to make your own...

Whip the cream, adding vanilla and sugar to taste. I've never measured, I just shoot for making it taste the way my mom always does, but I'm approximating 2 or more teaspoons vanilla and a tablespoon or so of sugar per small carton of cream (you know, *the size of the milk cartons we used to get in school).

Spread a dollop of cream onto a wafer. Put another wafer on top and spread it with cream. Repeat until tower threatens to topple, then set onto plate. Make several smaller towers (3-4), connect with more whipped cream. I usually make two long cylinders from a box. (It might be fun to try to circle them!) Cover the entire thing with whipped cream. Stick several toothpicks into cylinders, leaving most of the pick poking up. Cover with plastic wrap, letting the toothpicks support the wrap. Refrigerate for several hours or freeze for at least an hour.

When you're ready to serve (or in my case, devour), you'll want to have it chilled but not frozen, so let it sit for at least 15 minutes or so of you've frozen it. Cut at an angle and garnish if you like with some chocolate shavings.

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And for the second half of the post,
here's some magic from my front and back yards:

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Empty-nest syndrome

*sigh*

Yup, they're gone. Hope they have wonderful humming-birdy lives.

Meanwhile, back at the out-of-sorts ranch, my addled brain has cooked up:

The "What's IN Your Bag?" meme.......

I scrabbled through mine the other day and was astounded at the amazing things buried within. Ok, I'll show you mine, and you show me yours!

Here's the first layer, the outer crust, if you will:
















And if you dig down (and you must), you will reveal THIS amazing mass o' stuff...








Ok, here's the challenge.

Firstly: SHOW ME THE INNARDS OF YOUR KNITTING/CRAFT BAG! I want to see entrails...



Secondly: Name three things in there that you can't do without. Here are mine:

1. My lambie tape measure (thanks, Della!)

2. The Crystal Palace size 8 bamboo needles. These are turning out to be my failsafe "I have no current project and all this yarn and what am I going to do with...Oh, wait, I can...." needles.

3. My toolkit: a metal box that housed a small flashlight which now holds my pins, stitch markers, scissors, tapestry needle, etc. It has sharp edges so it's cocooned in an old sock until I get around to knitting it a proper felted case.

Thirdly: Name three things in there that either shouldn't be there or that you forgot were in there. Mine are:

1. A Starbucks gift card I got for my birthday last August.

2. A very sweet note from my dear mother-in-law.

3. Ticket stubs from a AAA baseball game we went to last summer in San Diego.

I would love to have any and all play along, but as I don't think that there are too many readers of this here blog, I'll tag a few. (If I don't call your name, please join in anyhow and leave me a comment so I can come see what 'cha got!)

I hereby tag: Della, Moose & Bella's mum, Kim, KT, and Barb. Come out and play!