School's out for Summer!

Tuesday was the last day of school here in Frederick...the first real indication that it is summer!  We have absolutely no summer plans...can't really afford a vacation right now, so we will probably be just bumming around the house, backyard, and pool.  I think we will be using my vacation time for work by taking some day trips and doing some touristy things in downtown DC, and some of the historic outlying areas.  We haven't done the Smithsonian or Art Galleries with Ben...and need to hit the National Zoo again and maybe the Aquarium in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

I picked up Ben from school on Tuesday and he came through the door with this hat, so excited to be leaving the 2nd grade and getting ready for a fun summer!

Coming this Summer...

Spring Fever!

I can not believe it is already the middle of March!  I was just saying "Happy New Year" the other day...in fact, just got around to putting way some errant Christmas decorations that I missed on the 1st  post-holiday cleanup! 

Where did that time go?  What about all my 2009 resolutions/aspirations?  My main resolution was to post at least one new piece of jewelry weekly.  Oops, haven't lived up to that one. Oh, well...not going to worry too much...Spring is almost here and I have the fever!

Spring is my all-time favorite season.  I love it when the 1st flowers start pushing their new green growth up out of the cold, sometimes still-frozen ground.  The 1st really warm days, all I want to do is go dig in the dirt.  Last weekend, we had spring-like temperatures in the 70's, but I didn't get a chance to garden though.  This weekend, of course, it is supposed to be cold and yucky, so all that new growth that peeked out could be in danger.

Here are a few things I found in my yard in the last few days...

 

Same dafs, a couple of days later

 

Some sedum, trying hard to emerge through last year's dead flower stalks and old leaves that need to be cleaned up.  This bed will be first on my list to cleanup, along with a couple of butterfly bushes that I didn't cut back last autumn.

 

The down side of gardening season is the shortage of the thing I need most...time! I will have to choose which to do...work in my beloved garden or make jewelry. 

If I could just quit my day job :)

A Belated Happy 2009 to My Fab Readers and my Bloggy Resolutions....

Two whole weeks into 2009, and I realized I neglected to say Happy New Year to my loyal readers!  Thank you for following along with my little corner of life and jewelry so far.  I am having fun! I never thought about how seeing the little email notification of a new comment  would make me feel so excited!  When I started this blog back in April, my goal was to bring more exposure to my jewelry designs and hopefully increase my sales.  That has happened a bit, but the biggest reward I have gotten from blogging is the interaction with so many talented and interesting people that I would never have gotten to have conversations with otherwise!

I have been thinking long and hard about what I want for my little business and this little blog for 2009 and really the main thing I keep coming back to is to hear from you guys more often!  That puts the ball in my court to write fun, interesting, insightful, artistic posts so that you all will keep coming back. 

I thought about joining Project 365 or something similar, where you take a photo a day and post it...This would help me tremendously with my photo skills but I've decided I just can't commit to it.  I have also decided not to participate in the Year of Jewelry project this year either.  I am always playing catch-up, plus I waited too late to apply, it seems :)   I am going out on a limb and making a pact with myself to do my own little Year of Jewelry here on my blog, and try to post 1 new piece every week.  Hopefully, there will be more than that, but I'll make that my minimum!

So, here's to 2009...May it be a stellar year for all of us!  It's off to a good start!

December 8 is National Brownie Day! What's your favorite?

Everybody loves brownies, right?  Our current favorites are the Ghirardelli Double Chocolate version...we keep a big box in our pantry for whenever there is no other dessert in the house.  Costco offers a box that contains about 6 batches!  The boy likes to help make them, and this version is so easy, he can!

• I pkg Ghirardelli Double Chocolate brownie mix (it has chocolate chips in it!)
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1/3 c oil
  
• 1/3 c water

        Mix, bake @ 325 degrees for about 40 minutes and eat!  We like ours just barely done, so that they are still a bit gooey, with a scoop of vanilla icecream. Yummmmmmmmy!!

   

Here is the finished product...

 

The best part?  Clean up is a snap...

Hazel's Pecan Pie...

The man went to an annual "Libra" birthday party that a friend of his hosts and asked me to make something for him to contribute.. He said  "they love your pecan pie...by the way, why don't you make 2 so we can keep one..."  So off to the grocery store I went to get a few ingredients. 

I always use the recipe on the Karo syrup bottle (in the south, most things go by the common brand name...ie, Karo syrup, not corn syrup and Coke, no matter what kind of soda it is, etc.  This is the recipe my mother, Hazel, always used as well, although she probably had it memorized and didn't have to read the bottle...in fact, she probably improvised most of the time !

• 1 cup Karo Syrup  (I always use the dark kind, just 'cuz Hazel did)
  
• 3 eggs
  
• 1 cup sugar (I actually cut this down to 3/4 c)
  
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  
• 1-1/2 cups pecans (luckily my sweet sis had sent me a big gallon ziplock bag from our old trees back home and I still had some in the freezer :)
  
• 1 (9-inch) unbaked deep-dish pie crust...I use frozen Pillsbury ones

1. 
   

   Preheat oven to 350°F.

   
   
2. Mix corn syrup, eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla using a spoon. Stir in pecans. Pour filling into pie crust.
   
3. Bake for about  60 minutes. You can stick a knife in to see if the custard is done...the knife will be relatively clean)
   
4. Try not to burn your mouth on the first bite because you can't wait for it to cool off!

I forgot to take a before photo...this was gone within about a half hour of this shot.

When I was growing up, I was an extremely picky eater and wouldn't eat the pecans, so I would pull them off the top and give them to Mama...I always asked her why she couldn't just make me a whole pecan pie without the pecans. 

Mama, I hope you and Aunt Daisy are eating pecan pie where you are! :)

Autumn in Frederick

Yikes, summer rolled by so fast this year!  Autumn is here...I think my favorite season of the year, although Spring will get mad at me for saying that!  There's something about the crispness in the air and the changing colors in the garden that always gets to me.

One of the harbingers of autumn in Frederick is the Great Frederick Co. Fair.  We went this past weekend and had a great time, albeit spending almost  $50 bucks for just a couple of hours!  Parking - $5, admission - $10 (the boy was free), fair food (2 corndogs, 1 sausage, 2 sodas, cotton candy, ice cream) - $12, rides for the boy - $18.50, pure joy on a 7yo's face - priceless!   The sights (and smells!) of walking through the livestock stalls and tractor exhibits, then the excitement of finally getting to the midway with the rides and games brought back great memories of fairs past my siblings and I piled into my Daddy's truck and we went to the West Alabama Fair...I always wanted to play all the games of chance, but my Daddy wouldn't let me...I did win a goldfish one year by tossing ping-pong balls, but unfortunately, it was dead the next day, poor fishie!

Another very cool thing about this particular Autumn is that I have gotten off my behind and signed up for several selling events in the area.  In an effort to create some local exposure, I committed to attend the remaining Frederick Arts Market events.  The Arts Market is held on the last Sunday of the month from May through October, culminating with a holiday-themed market on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  The cost was minimal, and it is limited to 25 juried artists, so I am hopeful that this will be a good venue for my work.   I am having to give up my Sunday singing gig on market days so I need to at least break even with that. Keep your fingers crossed!

Frederick Artist Market 
Date - 9/28/08
Location - Cultural Arts Center of Frederick County
Contact - 301-662-4190
The Frederick Artist Market is a monthly event that features the work of up to 25 local artists, including jewelry, pottery, art, photography, and other hand-crafted items.  The event, which is free to attend and open to the public, runs from 1:00-5:00 p.m.

Then, on October 4-5, I will be participating in the Medieval Festival in Mclean, VA.  It is sponsored by St. John the Beloved Catholic Church and School, where I sing weekly.  I will be positioned along side a religious art exhibit, so am hopeful that I will be successful with my higher end pieces and rosaries there.

Any of you in the area, please stop by at one of my venues and say hello!