Write Now

There are so many ways to write these days. It's kinda nice! I wrote a little book when I was in first grade...about a family of bears. I'm sure it was inspired. I wrote poems, stories, and even essays later.

Now, as a mixed-media artist, I can't bring myself to keep a regular journal. I keep a creative journal that I doodle in, smash in, paint in, dream in, copy things down I see somewhere, and write. I love it. I have more than one, of course.

But, once upon a time, the writing avenues were limited, and we had typewriters. There are plenty of people who can't part with their typewriters--I do have a little typewriter that I keep just for fun. I love that little thing. I have an antique typewriter too. I just like to look at it.

If you want to write, do it! Do it now. I was a food-writing copywriter for many many years, and I've published play script collections. I just can't stop with the writing. So I encourage everyone to pick up a pen, get on your laptop, buy an old typewriter...write something. 

First, you need a cat to write. Minnie is around to be my muse. Don't you want to kiss those lips?

 

Sometimes you might feel like you need a magic wand. I actually have a magic wand. Some local artist made these magic wands, and I need another one! (I played the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella a few years ago...no really!)

So what to write? Here's a few thoughts...

• Write a blog. (duh)
• Write a poem. (there are no rules)
• Write a To Do List. (I'm doing an art project with mine)
• Write an original card.
• Write with thread. (my fave)
• Write in your creative journal--okay, start one!

I'm sure you will have no problem adding to this list. It will be therapeutic, mind opening, and inspiring. So write. Now.

My Smash Book

Write your own story. Come back tomorrow, and we'll Dream at our desks.

It's An Eat Write Dream Stitch Theme Week! Today We Eat Bread from the Garden!!

That's right, it's a hot summer's Monday, and a great reason to keep the kitchen cool and make something yummy in the ole bread machine! And I've created a yummy new garden bread recipe.

 This bread recipe all began when I was staring at my 15-year-old bread machine, wondering if I should throw it out. It's kind of large for a bread machine, because it doubles as a little oven and a toaster oven. It's an old Toastmaster Breadmaker's Hearth. It still works just fine, though, so I realized I just needed to use it! 

I got out the original recipe book that came with it, and found a recipe for "Rosemary Tomato Bread." But here's the funny thing. There is NO ROSEMARY listed in the recipe. I cracked up. It has cilantro and oregano. What the heck? So, I experimented and wrote my own recipe!

 The "tomato" in their recipe called for a can of vegetable juice. In my recipe, I use a jar of home-canned tomatoes, straining out the juice. You can also strain the juice from the fresh tomatoes in your garden too.

I chopped up fresh rosemary. That's right, I actually use "rosemary" in the rosemary bread! Ha ha!

The other ingredients include snipped sun-dried tomatoes (not the kind packed in oil), olive oil, and fresh-ground garlic sea salt. I love having the garlic sea salt around, I use it for a lot of things.

The recipe for Rosemary Garlic Tomato Bread - add one-fourth cup of sundried tomato

 Everyone's bread machine is different--mine makes a really tall, large loaf and uses 4 cups of flour each time, so you can adjust your ingredients according to your machine's size and specs.

Got my loaf pan all ready with the flour and yeast on top and the one-fourth cup of snipped sundried tomatoes ready to go. These were tomatoes from my garden last year, just like the canned tomatoes I used to strain the juice from. I dried them in my dehydrator last fall.

I used the light setting, and from mixing, kneading, and rising to baking, it took three hours.

A tall loaf! Very tall. My bread machine is hilarious.

Alright, I have to tell you how good this bread is. I really wasn't sure how this was going to turn out--but this bread has the best flavor. The sweetness of the tomatoes and the aromatic rosemary really bring out a wonderful flavor. Since fresh homemade bread needs to be used up quickly, I'm going to make my own croutons from this bread tomorrow. Fun!

Soooo good!

Experimenting with my bread machine and the ingredients I like was really fun and relaxing. My new blogger friend Victoria baked a fresh loaf of bread the other day, and ever since then I've had it on my mind to bake some bread! Thanks Victoria!

Eat happy. Come back tomorrow, and we'll Write!

Sunday Threads

"The Lord has given them special skills as jewelers, designers, weavers, and embroiderers in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn on fine linen cloth. They excel in all the crafts needed for the work."

Exodus 35:35

Muffins and Madness

I keep a lot of muffin mixes on hand--they are just so easy to whip up when the morning calls for muffins! And this morning definitely did, especially when my daughter has a friend over, usually every week. These teenage girls love their summer, stay up late talking, and love muffins and coffee the next morning. Late morning, that is. But muffins are the kind of breakfast that will wait around for you.

I made honey bran muffins and chocolate chip. I got my pan ready with cute little muffin cups with flowers on the bottom. This is the kind of mix where you only have to add milk!

These are my favorite measuring cups. I like being able to measure more than one thing at a time.

I am an early bird--so I grabbed my muffin and coffee and then I was off on a mission. Clean out the potting bench! I think I do this about once a year (confession time) when I should be doing it about 4 times a year! It can get really dusty and dirty and cobwebby (is that a word?) and it's just a happier place when I clean it. So, after a backbreaking hour, and breathing in too much dust, here is my nice, clean potting bench.

The right side lifts up where there are two storage bins for potting soil. Nice and handy!

Now that every single start is in the garden and we are well into our growing season, I was able to stack up all the little pots I use to start seeds.

Now all my seed starting, for the rest of the summer, will take place outside in bigger pots, and I can reuse my little plastic ones next year.

I use an old Coca-Cola bottle crate for a little storage shelf.

The potting bench's top shelf is a mixture of the practical and the whimsical. A happy place! These little bottles, decorated with beads, are cute, but I also use them to start roots on plant clippings.

I always have to have three little teacups, and three little pebbles. I don't know why. I'm weird. This major cleaning was hard work! (Not easy on the ole pinched nerve in the back) Plus, I'm multitasking laundry, and dishes. So, I will have a relaxing afternoon surrounded by a sparkling clean world!

My Greenhouse Piggie oversees everything!

Eat well, Write something today, Dream your life up, Stitch Happy

It's Friday - Let's Have Some Coffee and Stitch the Morning Away

I love my morning cup-o-happy...and I love sitting in the fresh morning air with my needles clicking away. Happy Friday!

It's time to roll my new Sugar-n-Cream yarn into yarn balls! They will go in a pretty bowl, like this. I don't know why, but they are as yummy to look at as a rainbow sorbet.

My little knit dresses are almost done, and ready for this little wall hanging to be embellished and stitched together.

This is Mia, one of my "cuddle creatures" I make. She wants some sisters, and very soon!

When I'm on the go, I always have either a knitting project in my bag, or a little cross-stitch project like these varigated hearts for fall.

And then, there's Owlisha. She's going to be a cute little hanging pillow. Happy Friday stitching!

Eat, Write, Dream, and Stitch Your Creativity.

Garden Secrets

"Oh! The things which happened in that garden! If you have never had a garden you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to pass there."

--Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

I myself am just a girl with a little kitchen garden...not a master gardener...and not an expert. I can tell you a few thoughts, my own little thoughts, on growing seeds and planting things. I once read that taking care of a garden is like taking care of yourself. In the end, I think that's all you need to know.

I got Martha Stewart's little book on growing seeds, a long time ago, and I love that little book. So my secret garden starts in little pots on my sunporch in February and March. I start tomatoes, flowers, squash and herbs. The healthiest plants will make it into my raised garden bed by May 3rd, the date when danger of frost has passed for my region of the country, the Ozarks.

Find a little pot, a seed, some soil, and stick it in there! Water it. Watch it grow. I have a potting bench where I do my garden work--it is mess and madness and I love it. I consider it part of my garden really. And I think every part of your garden should be a happy place.

 Never stop growing. Even after I've planted my starts in my raised bed kitchen garden, I keep planting seeds, such as herbs and flowers, all summer. I always have a little nursery growing with baby basils, dills, parsleys, and marigolds. It's fun!

Make life easy--plant perennials! I have a whole bed of nothing but Thyme. It has English Thyme and Lemon Thyme. This favorite herb of mine goes into roast chicken, homemade breads and my Lemon Lemon-Thyme Squares. I really don't have to do much to this herb bed, and it just comes back more beautiful every year.

 Grow what you love. And I LOVE rosemary. It's an energy herb...just the fragrance of it makes you feel good! Every morning when I go out to the garden, I rub a little rosemary in my fingers and the wafts of fragrance release. So nice! Who needs coffee? Well...okay...I do. I love coffee--the mug goes out to the garden with me actually, all part of my happy morning experience. But then, there's rosemary! And like thyme, it is wonderful in roast chicken and breads. It is considered a tender perennial, meaning it does come back, but it would not withstand our Ozark winters, so I keep it in big pots and move it outside for the summer only. I buy my rosemary plants at Christmas-time when they are selling them shaped like a Christmas tree and the price is way better! Just a tip! And my rosemary plants are happy on my Greenhouse sunporch all winter.

Grow what you eat! This was the very first roma tomato to ripen last week--it went right from the vine and immediately onto a juicy turkey cheese burger for dinner! Sooo yummy.

Make your garden last forever. Or, for at least a year! Honestly, canning or "fresh preserving" as we now call it, is not that difficult. Grab yourself the most recent Ball Jar Blue Book. It will have the latest instructions and recipes. I am not a fruit expert, but I do grow so many tomatoes, that I must can a lot of them. I make salsa and can it in these cute Ball Jar Elite Collection little fat jars where you can dip your chip right in. And I can whole tomatoes to cook with all winter for soups, stews and recipes. Visit my tomato canning blog here. If I am able to make enough, I also have plenty of cute salsa jars for hostess gifts and sharing with my family. There is nothing like your own amazing garden aromas when you open that jar--even in January! And by the way, I grow jalapenos and bell peppers in my garden just for my salsa making. So, grow what you eat, for sure.

If you really like it, grow a lot of it! Last year I tried wildflowers, grown from seed, in my mailbox garden. For a long time I loved how they looked. But, by September, they really got wild and overgrown. So, I re-thought that one, and this year I planted rose moss in the mailbox garden. The plants spread pretty quickly to take up the whole flowerbox area, and they constantly bloom, they don't get too tall, and they do look like little roses everywhere! So of course, I planted more of it in pots and hanging baskets all around the house. So, in other words, more is more!

Bee thankful. I love to go out to my garden, pick things, plant things, smell things, eat things, think about my garden, plan more gardens, design stitching ideas from my garden, write about my garden, and just be there. If I see a big fat bee, I'm really thankful. I actually worry about the dwindling bee population! I'm thankful for the butterflies too. Is there anything I don't like? |Well, I don't like weeding and sometimes when there's been absolutely no rain, yes, watering can get a little boring. But...that's about it! I try to multitask while I'm watering anyway, so it's all good and well worth it. A garden is a gift, and you should consider it a little glimpse of paradise...and if you have one, be thankful...be very thankful. If you have nothing more than a big pot on a patio somewhere in this world, and it has herbs, flowers and-or vegetables growing in it, then you have a garden. Be thankful.

Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Grow

Working Around the House This Week

Happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday everyone! I have been a busy bee all around my house. There are simply things that need to be done...no more ignoring it or I'll end up on Hoarders! Yesterday, I was a cleaning fool. But at least I ended the busy day at one of my favorite places: my sewing corner. It needed a cleanout too. After I tidied up, I started stitching a couple of mixed media projects.

If my sewing corner still looks messy to you, remember, it's all perspective. I did have a stack of fabric piled up, and everything needed dusting. When you sew a lot, a sewing table gets dusty. Plus, my machine was acting up. Turns out that a little tightening of the bobbin case was all it needed. But still, my machine is pretty basic. Since my birthday is in November, I'm asking Santa for a birthday-Christmas combo gift: a fancy new sewing machine that embroiders. How fun would that be!

In the meantime, I'll never give up hand embroidery. It's just so easy, fun, and fast. Believe me, I'm a cross-stitcher. No I'm a cross-stitch-aholic. But embroidery is so much faster.

So, here are a few closeups of what's on the sewing table.

Mixed media project w. pic of my /Aunt Sis, and an owl embroidery for my daughter.

My favorite pin cushion!

I keep a lot of storage on my tiny sewing table!

I love to stitch on pretty much everything. I don't think a day goes by that I don't pick up a needle. One of my mixed-media projects is going to be a fabric wall hanging with a very old photo of my Great Aunt Sis who looked a lot like Kate Hepburn in her day. Aunt Sis and I shared the very same November birthday. She was twenty years older than her sister, my grandma, and so she was in her eighties when I was born. But I remember her very well. She was a beautiful, wealthy woman at that, and dearly loved by her family. So I wanted to create a beautiful little wall hanging with her photo in fabric. It will be special.

Eat, Write, Dream, and Stitch your heart out.