Mexican Chicken

That is the name that my friend gave to this easy peezy way to make chicken a little fancy with very little work - which is just how I like it! 

So, brown some chicken breasts, then when they are cooked through, put them on a cookie sheet or on a broil pan. Apply a nice spoonful of salsa, then a lovely piece of cheese. mmmm cheese! This time I used a fabulous Gouda with tomatoes and olives. I normally use good ol' cheddar or mozza.

Then put those little Chickie's into the oven! I have a gas stove, so about 400 on the bottom works great. I think I did the same in a convectional oven.

Tonight to be even simpler, I did side kicks and carrots. Supper served and eaten before 7:30pm for once! Phew!! (more time to blog and sew!!)

Oh ho! And the Gouda cheese was amazing - I do not know if I can ever go back to plain cheese again. hee hee hee, yeah I could, I will eat pretty much any cheese in front of me. 

Cheers,

Carolyn

Cotton Cocktails is doing another give away!

This time there are fat quarters and some precut shapes done on her AccuQuilt Go Cutter! To check it out and enter comment for a chance to win, check out her blog here.
Good Luck!!  OH, I almost forgot, she has a cool tutorial video on there. If you can, check it out.
 Oh and if you have not been checking out the blog hop - well it is on right now. A few quilters whom own an AccuQuilt are all doing a post with tips on how to use the cutter and having give aways! Yesterday was SewCalGal.

Update on sewing and health

I was making another vet donation quilt -another strip one because they are fast and easy. I decided I had better give them something different so I took my long stripes with were 42" long and I had sewed them together to make a width of 23 inches or so. I cut them into two perfect (hee hee, well not perfect - this is me we are talking about!) squares that ended up measuring 21" approx.

I then put them face down, stripes on the bottom going vertical, and the square on the top being horizontal. I sewed them together all the way the outside.

As you can see above, after sewing them shut, I cut an X through the pieces.

Open them up and tadah!! Something that looks finicky that is really just stripes! Thanks to Jan Fowler at the quiting retreat - I was able to learn this little trick. Neat huh?

So now I can sew these four squares together and have a much more interesting quilt to donate. I hope to complete it tonight. I will post a pic when it is done.

Ah and this angle you may recognize? It is still a quilting corner - but without my fabrics displayed, or anything on the table except for my machine and computer. You may even note that there are two chairs there. In fact, if I did a close up - you may see crumbs like it was being used like a dinner table.

I was very saddened to discover that my husband hates looking at my fabrics, and all my supplies. At first (as poor Talin can contest - sorry for unloading on you) I was extremely upset. I think it was more of a shock to my ego, "What do you mean you do not like my fabrics or seeing what I am working on"? He said to me that everyone knows that I sew, but we do not need it in our faces. So I sulked all weekend about that and the fact that I broke myself. (Funny as I was running down the stairs to get screws to put up a shelf in my sewing corner to keep my thread handy - that is not happening now).

So above is what the sewing corner looks like now. Its okay except I have smashed my head a few times on the black shelf and I have been instructed that everything must be in boxes under the table where no-one can see it.

I was hoping to get a room out of one of the spares that are being built in the basement for my sewing room and have been informed that yes and no. I can have a room that I use, but everything must be packed up at the end of every session regardless of the jobs status. Its not completely unreasonable, I mean I do want him to pick up his tools. I was dreaming of a room that I could just close the door on and come back to when ever I was ready and every thread and pair of scissors would be in there place - ready for me to use them. The same in their place idea is happening - but they will be in a wardrobe that when I now not get to close the door, but leave open and perhaps if someone came over and looked in, it is not a sewing room. It is a nothing room with a wardrobe.

Do you like the old clunker on the top shelf?? That baby is about 30-35 years old according to the folks at Johnson's Sewing Centre. It was my baby for a few years. By baby, I mean one of those colicky babies. It was okay at first - but because such a nightmare to use. I am very happy to retire it!

Oh - jeesh this post is getting wordy. OK, quick health update. My foot still hurts - but I can walk on it! Nothing appears to be broken. Yippee!! I am so sore from the crutches, I hardly feel my foot at all anymore. Ha ha ha

Cheers,

Carolyn

Crutches are hard

I had no idea the amount of energy and physical fitness required to get to work on crutches.

Saturday morning like an idiot, I ran down the stairs all excited to make and hang some shelves in my sewing corner to help clear off the table of supplies and make them easily accessible for when I did need them. In my excitement, I stepped on the 2x4 hubby has screwed down on the floor to represent were a wall will go. This 2x4 has been there for months - I know darn well its there and I stepped on it anyways. Half of my right foot landed with all my weight on this board. My ankle rolled and I fell down like a heavy bag of hammers onto myself. Instantly I had tears streaming down my face, before I could even think to call for help, hubby came in from the garage to find me crying and rocking back and forth holding my foot, checking to things moving that should not and trying to convince myself it did not really hurt.
Thankfully, I had shoes on. I did not feel anything out of place.
I limped around the house for the rest of the morning until mid afternoon when hubby decided he needed to go to Home Depot and that I had to come with him. By the time we were done there, I was in so much pain. I could not put any weight on it at all for the rest of the day. I parked myself on the couch and iced my foot like I should have after it happened.
Sunday - I attempted to dust and was told to get my ass back on the couch - Yes Sir! I again iced my foot (and my back, ohh my back is killing me!) all day. Every time I got a new ice pack and resettled myself, the darn dog needed to go out and pee. Only he would stand on the front step and just bark at the neighbors. I would ask him to hurry and go pee, and he would simply come back into the house. He just wanted to bark a mo, that was it. lol.
I normally walk ten minutes to the LRT (Light Rail Transit), then another 10 min through the mall and pedways to my office tower. This journey on crutches took me an hour. I had to keep stopping I was so exhausted. I am so out of shape! I was 15 min late for work when I am usually 20-15 min early! I am is even more pain now, I do not know if I can do this again tomorrow!

Have any of you have a crutch story or tips to reduce the fatigue? My upper body is so sore, I do not really feel my foot at all!

Little Funny for you!

I am stealing this right out of an email because I am having a bad day and it made me laugh. Especially the saying at the end. 
Hope you get a chuckle like I did!

Breakfast  

1  grapefruit  
1 slice  whole wheat toast  
1 cup  skim milk 


Lunch  

1  small portion lean, steamed  chicken  
1 cup  spinach  
1 cup  herbal tea  
1  Hershey's kiss 


Afternoon  Tea  

1  The rest of the Hershey Kisses in the  bag  
1 tub of  Hagen-Daaz ice cream with chocolate  chips
  

Dinner  

4  glasses of wine (red or white)  
2 loaves  garlic bread  
1 family  size supreme pizza  
3  Snickers Bars 


Late  Night Snack

1 whole Sarah Lee  cheesecake (eaten directly from the  freezer) 


Remember: Stressed  spelled backward is desserts.   
 
Handle  every stressful situation like a dog.
Pee on it  and walk  away

Look what I got!

I finally got a package today - this was an EBay purchase I just had to have. 

I love butterflies and I thought the kitty pattern was adorable - the price was right so hey, why not!?

Not everything that this person has is a great deal, but she does have some good prices if you look through her EBay store. Its Pollys Fabrics if you want to take a look, from BC, Canada.

Now I am off to see what this fabric PURE looks like - thank you Cindy!

Cheers,

Carolyn

The quilting corner

Its not much, but it is all mine. I get to stare at my best friends painting everyday and I can still watch TV if I want to. Which is good and bad. I was watching Glee on Tuesday and making another stripe quilt for the Delton Vet Clinic - yeah, I mixed up my strips and ended up unsewing it all last night. Ha ha, Oops!

The fabric on the black shelving unit is my entire stash. I thought it was sooooo much fabric and was overwhelmed remember? Well, I was reading another blog a week or two ago and this extremely lucky lady was excited that she finally got her sewing room in order. She had 6 utility shelves filled, I mean filled with fabric of every color you can imagine. I was and still am in complete fabric envy. That is not a stash, but a store! I do not even have a stash - I am not even in the game yet. It will be fun getting in though! Bliss and Fandango are what I am lusting over at the moment.

What fabrics are you lusting for?

Cheers,

Carolyn

I had promised some video tips and here they are!

Here are the video's I promised for yesterday. Sorry about my tardiness - where does the time go? I need to get a working computer at home - its too hard to keep up! First the videos:

Sorry this video is so shaky! There was about 20 of us all trying to see and photograph.

This next one is much better and shows how Jan machine stitches her bindings on which I think is brilliant as that is what I do and now I now how to do it better!

Hmm my videos are not working.. ... I will try again tomorrow. Do you ever find that sometimes blogger just does not work properly?

How about a mini rant? I follow this blog written by a girl down in Calgary, she dyes her own fabric and I think she makes some pretty neat things. She had mentioned in one of her posts that she did not have enough Marigold blooms to last the winter. I thought, "well darn, I have a flower bed full and they are just going to go to waste". So I commented on her blog that I am coming to Calgary for a wedding, first week of October - if she wanted she could have them. Just tell me how to store them till I could meet her at a gas station of coffee shop on my way in or out of Calgary. I as well told her that I was coming in from Edmonton.

Well! Not only did she not respond to this offer, but her recent blogs go on about how she things Edmonton is Hell! I mean come on? I do not disagree, I have never pretended to be a fan of this city- but hell? Calgary is the same as Edmonton, not better or worse for goodness sakes. So I am offended - I have not stopped following her blog though. I suppose I should out of principle, its just such a shame as it is one I have enjoyed in the past. I would give you links, but I do not want to start a blogging war, that would be silly - I just think it is disappointing - wasn't the hole point of writing a blog - to reach out and meet people?

Tonight I am meeting an Avon rep as I am going to be one. That's a long story for maybe tomorrow..... ha ha

Happy Stitching! I hope to finish some quilting tonight before and after my meeting. I will post more quilting pics soon. Promise!

Cheers,

Carolyn

Retreat Fantasticness!

I'm am now back from my first quilting weekend retreat and am totally addicted. It was a blast and I learned tons of cool tips and pattern ideas.

I did not get everything I wanted to get done, done - but it was such a good time, it didn't upset me a bit. I did make my first ever pinwheel sampler. I will call it a sampler as it is small! It took me forever. Here it is:

Not bad huh? I think I will punish myself further and try and make it into a lap quilt.

I packed what I thought to be so much stuff! But when I got there I saw I had the same as everyone else. It sure was great to be with so many like minded people. Funny too, we all drove silver vehicles! What color are your vehicles?

Here are some more pics from the retreat:

The view.

A little show and tell. There was some amazingly talented ladies there. I was in awe of all the skill!

This is Norma, my sewing neighbor trying not to laugh. We told a lot of funnies to each other.

The sunrise over the lake.

My "Bird on a Wire" quilt - the only thing I had really wanted to complete out there and I didn't take enough thread. ha ha ha

We ate a lot.

I'm next to Lavern in this pic - she is on the blue shirt in the center. This woman was super talented - she had a trunk full of quilts that were fantastic and she was so funny!

Here, Jan Fowler who ran the retreat (on the end) is showing how to make a handbag. She was fantastic and very funny herself! Her outfit is called Bear Necessities and she also teaches class at a local sewing shop called Central Sewing here in Edmonton. She has a sewing TV show as well.

And then there was the mess when I got home! Hubby told me all proud of himself that he had cleaned up after himself... .... we have a very different opinion on clean apparently!

The pinky red color on the stove is blood from the red meat he cooked his buddies - on Friday!!! So disgusting - I do not even eat red meat and I am stuck cleaning it up.

There was more mess down there, he had left from Friday - a pan full of baked potatoes and left over samosas. In the morning when I woke up for work today - he had realized the mess I suppose and dumped a bunch of food scraps into the garbage.

( I have a composter just for this - don't get me started, ha ha)

Tika - the fat white cat - bless him - ripped the garbage bag to shreds to get into it and get out the scraps. I then had to pick up and scrub the floor clean from hubbies "clean up" and Tika's snack.

A wife's work is never done it seems. I guess it is just the price I pay for having a weekend away.

It was totally worth it!!

Cheers,

Carolyn

Oh - Tomorrow as I have to go back to work now - I will post some video I took at the retreat with some how toos I learned!

I have been nominated!

I was nominated for a Sunshine blogger award! I get the pleasure of passing this on to 12 more bloggers. I apologize, but you will have to wait for my 12 picks! As my computer has died on me, I only have access at work and it is pretty limited!
In fact, I simply cannot keep up, I follow 123 blogs. That is a lot! I only have time to read maybe 10 posts a day so I am constantly behind and missing out on posts from people whom are lower in the alphabet simply because my list is alphabetical! I am afraid - I not only have to choose 12 loves, but I have to let some go.

How do you guys keep on top of your blog reading? How many do you follow? I really do not wish to delete any, I love them all!

In mourning

At 8:24pm last night, it brings me great sadness to say, my computer DIED!! Only last week, my husbands computer totally bit the big one. His computer ran our TV, our home entertainment, it was the mother of all the networking. When it crashed, we thought the world was over, but at least we would use my laptop. No longer! We are shut out - well, there is my IPhone, but I hate reading emails and surfing on that thing. I know, I know it is meant for those things more then as a phone. But the screen is so small and to make the text bigger you have to scroll all over the place to get all the text. I'm not some 20 year old computer geek that can navigate all this stuff - hell these kids now adays grow up on this type of technology. I am from a small town in Saskatchewan, a little farming town where people still have Commodore 64's! Heck, the Atartii is still considered new technology where I am from!

To make matters worse, I have asked a guy from our IT department if he would help save the files on my husbands computer - which he did, but for some reason, he put them all onto a Mac computer. A work Mac computer! WORK, not to mention the word MAC, we are PC people, I do not know how to use a Mac, but I am being forced to learn some stuff now! Like the fact that external hard drives will only work on one or the other. If you empty one, lets say on a Mac, then put on our files to take home to put onto a PC, it will not work. The PC simply will not allow you to do anything with the external hard drive. It knows its there, but it also can tell that it was used for a Mac so the only way you can use it, is to format it. Now to format it, it deletes everything that is on it. Same goes for the situation where you take a external hard drive, delete everything on it on a PC, take in and get the files off the work Mac computer and then try to put those files onto the home PC. No Go! Technically, these files being on a work computer are now property of work. I do not like this at all. What I do not understand as well is, why did the IT guy put the info from a PC onto a Mac? How did he do it? He is refusing to help me on this subject. I understand the whole doing me a favor, but really what favor has he done me at this point? He told me the computer was wiped and reinstalled of all programs, aka, ready to work again, so why not put the files back onto it? Did he not do this as the Mac would not let him? And he did not want to admit he lost all our info anyways after saying he had saved it?
Meh! I have tried two different external hard drives and now will try DVDs. Problem is there is 100GB of photos and music so it will take me a lot of discs!!

As for my computer - I just do not know what to do. Both our computers started to have problems after I got my IPhone. It seems every time I plug it in to charge or update it, the computers get funny. Then we started to get messages pop up on the computer, and it thought the IPhone was plugged in when it was not. Sometimes my Ipod will do the same thing.

Does anyone else have this problem? That is, using Mac technology like the IPhone and Ipod on a PC computer?? Any suggestions at this point would be extremely welcome!

Stop licking the floor!

As my husband told our little jack russel terrorist (yes thats right, he is a terrorist), "Lucky! The floor is not one giant plate"!!

To which Lu looked up at him with an expression that said, "What do you mean its not"??

Cheers,

Carolyn

Cutting it up!

I finally got to cutting some fabric for my quilting retreat on the weekend. Although my stash of fabric is still overwhelming, I found it not so bad when I piled it into one pile.

I was able to get the stencil done for the top section of my Bird On A Wire Quilt.

Here is how the quilt looks now. Jada is inspecting the stitches.

And I made some cookies ... ... well, I made some burnt and some edible cookies! I set the timer on our microwave as the stove is from 1948 and it does not even have a timer. The timer did not go off!! So I got cutting away and my first set of cookies were overdone. So sad, but I think dunked into builders tea will make them delicious again! (Builders Tea is something my hubby really enjoys, its a plain tea like Earl Grey with lots of cream and sugar - I love England!)

Cheers,

Carolyn

Give Away Tuesday!

Thers is a give away at The Diary of A Quilt Maven's blog. Her blog is funny and full of cool stuff if you want to check it out and enter into her give away, click here.

So much fabric - I am overwhelmed.

I have been slowly going through the kitchen and washing the dust off of everything and I came across something else I had painted with the Gallery Glass Paint - 6 spice jars! It was one of the first things I had painted with this stuff. I have some Christmas ornaments as well, but they are packed up so I will spare you. These spice jars are probably the nicest ones on the hideous spice rack.

I got a package today! Not a give away, but my eBay purchase!! I had gone to Rogers to purchase a IPhone case and they wanted $50.00 for one!!! I could not believe it when the salesman told me that. It did not help that it was my turn to take the office recycling so I was holding a bag of what one could think was garbage. So holding my huge bag of tin cans and shopping bags, I asked how much for that case, then I gave him the cocked eyebrow, "are you serious"? The guy looked at me like I was a nut job!

My goodness - its only recycling and yes - the price on this case is outrageous!!!

So I told him no thank you, I will check eBay. He shook his head at me and wished me luck.

And luck I had!! Check these babies out:

That's right, that's me with a magenta (almost hot pink!) cell phone cover. I paid....Da Da Da Daaaaaaa.....

Are you ready??? $18.50 including the shipping for not 1, but 4 IPhone covers! I rule, take that snobby Rogers employee!

Then on Saturday, I took my forth baby, my sewing machine! In to the shop to have a look at it. I was struggling with free motion stitching when wanting to machine quilt my pet quilt. It turns out that it required to be re-calibrated! Thank goodness, it was not just me!

It was also recommended that I get a new plate with a very small needle hole as my current plate had the widest slot possible. The theory being that my fabric was being pushed into the hole. So I got that, and I got a new free motion foot that allows for better vision on what you are sewing - and I finally got quilting grippy gloves! Very excited to try all this stuff out. Here is my baby, all fixed up with the new plate and foot:

I have so much fabric, I am slightly overwhelmed. But I think its more then that, I think the problem is that I am so in love with fabric and its patterns and texture that it pains me to cut it. Does that make sense? Do any of you have a fabric in which you love the pattern so much you do not wish to cut it up? Well, I now have about 60 fabrics I love the pattern of so much I cannot cut into them, and I need to!

My quilting retreat is this weekend and I do not have any fabric prepared!

Here is some pics into my beautiful stash:

Cheers,

Carolyn

Not all of my ideas are very good....ha ha

I decided with family coming in November - I should perhaps make the house a little nicer. It all started with staring at the horrid texture in the kitchen (and its not only in there - joy!) and thinking - this will not due any longer. So out came the scraper and I proceeded to take off the texture. This stuff was so dirty and old - I could taste it in the air. It was absolutely disgusting, plus getting hit in the face with plaster chunks hurts! Not to mention the agony of getting it in your eyes. By the time I was done, I had customized my safety goggles by taping them to my head to keep that plaster out. The front curtains were open and I did not even care if people saw me - it was not awful. My arms are killing me - I considering amputation at them very moment. lol

So, lets start the pictures shall we?

In the beginning there was this:

So this is what it looked like, then there came the scraping:

With scraping - there is a mess!

And there is aggression:

Now - you may be asking, Carolyn, what is this bad idea you had - I mean yeah it looks like a messy very non-fun job, but how can fixing your house up be bad?? Glad you asked - here is the bad idea! Its called, I just want a cheap can of paint so I will get this mistint and it will be fine... .... no, not fine. ha ha

It is in my opinion - worse!

In the morning, I tried to convince myself that I loved it - but I just couldn't do it. So - while my living room looks like this:

yikes!

I got to painting the basement bathroom color in the kitchen - it looks much better!

Well, maybe it looks the same like it did when I just took off the texture?? I still prefer it!

Now to clean up the mess, the whole house is covered in plaster dust and it is killing my throat.

Here is Lu with his bad ear - he thought the paint brush was food which is why he is so excited:

And here are the kids all having a chillax while I paint the last coat.

While this fun project was going on, the hubby was finding a new issue with the garage - but that is another story for another post some other day!

Thank you for stopping by!

Cheers,

Carolyn