August silliness

When you buy a new house... it takes a while to get settled in. Lots of changes have taken place already to make this our home.  We arrived here with my car and Ron's truck.  It took a couple of weeks or maybe close to a month, after our arrival, to get the garage cleared enough on one side to get my car in.  When we bought Ron's new Mustang, it became a new focus for projects to be done... clear the other side of the garage.  Yesterday we worked at clearing the other side of the garage till shortly before noon.  Next on the agenda was lunch, which I started, as we had a new living room set being delivered between 12 and 4.  I figured we would have plenty of time for lunch, but before I could get the onions sautéed I got the call from the delivery guys and they were going to be there in 20 minutes and we had not taken the old set out yet.  We got the old set out and the floor cleaned in record time.  I don't think it was much more than 10 minutes... not 20 like they said. Whoever heard of delivery guys arriving earlier than expected. We have the double reclining love seat and single recliner pretty much where it needs to go and Sugie has already claimed his spot on the middle seat.  Right now I have a couple quilts in place to keep the seats as cat hair free as possible.

I have had my new washing machine for a while already, but it still does not fit my idea of what a washing machine is supposed to be.  Trouble is when we were looking, none of them have the spinner in the middle anymore.  This machine vibrates instead of spinning... I guess there is a certain amount of spinning that still happens, but it is not like anything I ever imagined for  a washing machine.  Today when I opened the lid to take the clothes out, this small quilt looked like an oversized bowl of bread dough.

WIP Wednesday

WIP (work in progress) completed. I think that is supposed to be a quilting acronym, but it does kind of apply here... I did shorten them... so a sewing machine did come into play.
I bought curtains a while back with the hope that I could get them put up sometime in the near future.  There is a big significance to say up... as these needed to go WAY UP.  I had my sturdy ladder holder in place.  He kept my ladder securely in place and handed me the tools I needed to get the job done.  The ceiling is 18.5 feet up, so it was no small feat.  Definitely a team effort. You know you are up there when the ladder you are on kind of waves in the middle as you climb, and you are real happy that you have someone holding it in place. I was also very pleased with the decision to buy pressure rods that do not require any hardware to be screwed to the wall.  A side note here, I was able to get rid of some cobwebs while I was up there. I am sure one day I might have gotten around to finding a way to get rid of these cobwebs, but considering where they were, it was unlikely anyone would have noticed them... unless I brought their attention to them.

The curtains were not really necessary.  No one can see in up there.  There is hardly any change in the light coming in as these curtains are pretty sheer.  It does feel more homey now.  I have to be honest... it was not my idea to begin with.  Ron said a few times that we needed to do something with those windows that looked like plain old square openings up there... so after he brought my attention to them, I kind of agreed and bought some curtains, then the rods... then we had to wait for the right moment for both of us to feel like dealing with the ladder thing.

 Job done and we are both quite pleased with the new look.

 I'm not sure about this quilt project that was intended for the stairway half wall.  I thought it would be cool to make a quilt in the shape of a triangle.  A dear friend gave me the panel with the butterflies and I discovered X-blocks a few weeks ago.  I began to run into issues when I pinned it up on the wall to find my angle does not match the stairway.  At first I thought it was the blocks that were pulling the triangle out of square.  I tried to compensate with the added tan wedge shaped border, the tan is actually leftover pieces from the original panel.  I embroidered Romans 12:2 on this border... hard to see, but it is there. The wedge made minimal difference.  That is when Ron got out his square and pointed out that if the stairway was at a 45 degree angle, it would be very steep.  In other words, there is no way this quilt could ever match the stairway without lots of calculating.  So right now, I think I am going to finish it as is... then search for a solution for hanging it once it is done.  Never saw a quilt hung on an angle before. 
Oh well, we shall see if I complete this one.

Mac 'n Cheese

On Sundays I try to keep my kitchen time to a minimum.  Today I had a plan in mind to stay with that scenario.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home from church to pick up a few items, and the produce guy was just putting out some new corn.  I had taken a couple chicken breasts out to thaw with the air fryer in mind.  Corn seemed like a good choice to go with the air fried chicken.  With the chicken being cooked in the air fryer, I had to come up with another option besides my typical French fries that I love to make in the air fryer.  Now until recently I was not a fan of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese... you know that little blue box that makes a quick Mac 'n Cheese dinner for your hungry kids.  I was scrolling online through recipes a while back and came across an Upgraded Kraft Mac 'n Cheese recipe that looked interesting.  I made it once just to give it a try and was so amazed at how good it was that I am now totally into that little blue box.  I have to control the urge to fill my plate with this mac 'n cheese and forget whatever else I made to go with it.

What makes this recipe so special is the added "cheeses" and the buttered cracker crumbs that top it off, and how quick and easy it becomes a really awesome part of supper.  The recipe calls for addition of sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese... which works fine, but I sometimes don't have sour cream, so Greek plain yogurt is often what I use.  Also, I almost always have Mexican 4 cheese blend for my shredded cheese that I keep on hand.  I think the bake time is the part that completes the transition from a top of the stove box quickie dinner to what almost appears to be homemade.

So today's supper had three really great components... tender, fresh sweet sweet corn, air fried chicken, and awesome Mac 'n Cheese.  If you have never thought you wanted to ever consider using that little blue box of Mac 'n Cheese, you really have to give it a try... you'll be converted... I am quite sure.