Week 4 of the Recipe Challenge

For this week I actually tried a new recipe, which was the Cake Pops for the graduation party and the Hat Pops were a new version of the peanut butter cups so that should count as well. You can see photos of both on the June 5th and 6th posts. At any rate it was a busy week with graduation and working to finish up my back yard so not much cooking was done at meal time.

Graduation Party

Here is the dessert table from the graduation party. The pops made a nice display among the photos and were yummy as well. A nice day and a fun way to celebrate her accomplishment. We all appreciated her uncle hosting and cooking his famous burgers.

Finished. Or maybe...

It was nice again this morning so I took advantage of the weather and squeezed in the time to finish the other patio chair. I like how they came out even though I see the imperfections. It is too hard on my back and hands to go back and fix them. Then I noticed that the rim of this table has the plastic weave that matched the chairs and it is cracking too. I am wondering if I should replace it as well. Maybe another time. I have food to prepare today. This has been a nice project though. Did you notice the new caps on the chair legs that my grandson put on for me yesterday? A great finishing touch!

Graduation Goodies

My granddaughter graduates high school today. Well, she will walk as she actually finished early and has spent the last semester at college. At any rate she made these cake pops for the party tomorrow. I still think they need faces and will try to get her to add some with the edible ink pens now that they have dried. She says they are really good but sweet.

I stayed up till the wee hours this morning making these peanut butter cup caps. They would be quicker using store bought candies but I really wanted red caps for her school colors. And since I have a good recipe for imitating the peanut butter cup centers I just had to try this. They are a surprise and I have a couple of lolliop holders to display both the cake pops and the cap pops on.

Recipe Challenge Newcomer

Darlene over at Curious George http://www.george-cat.blogspot.com/ has joined the Recipe Challenge with a great choice. Welcome! I look forward to your recipes. They are always great and you are so generous to share them. You always keep me motivated.

Anniversary

Thirty two years ago today...thirty two years sounds like such a long time ago. How can that be when it seems like just last week? I guess spending time with your memories is a lot like living in the present because they all seem so real, so close, so immune to the passage of time. Age and gravity don't live on memory lane. No wonder it is such a nice place to visit!

Graduation Cards

Here are the cards I put together late last night. Very simple, quick and easy. I like the matching envelope liner. I know the red is a bit dark but I was using their school colors. I should have done these earlier to get more elaborate but just couldn't get to it when certain persons weren't around.

Not looking good

So do caterpillars sleep on their backs?

Something New Update

The caterpillar was starting to wander outside so I put him in the butterfly tent and brought him in. That meant that every few hours I had to go get a fresh leaf from the Milk Weed for him to munch on which has kept me occupied every time I was home today. But I think he has about doubled in size. I am not sure if you can tell from this angle or not.


One of my hobbies is tatting. I learned to shuttle tat a number of years ago but then discovered needle tatting a few years back at the Houston International Quilt Festival and was sold. If you have ever wanted to learn to tat I recommend Needle Tatting. So for awhile now I have belonged to a needle tatting group. While not terribly active at posting some are quite prolific tatters that I am in awe of. At any rate today while posting back and forth we got on the topic of weaving and I learned something that I did not know but want to try out, namely soaking the sticks in vinegar to 'rubberize' them. Won't be in the near future but something to keep in mind as one of my 'projects' is to weave a basket using pine needles from my son's yard.

Something New

It has been suggested that I post all that I do or learn on this blog. I fear I would spend too much time on the keyboard if I did, but I will try to post a little more information. I like to learn about new things. And I find most things interesting. So I tend to learn new things most every day.

Yesterday I went to measure to make some curtains for the portable the coaches will be moving into at my daughter's school and realized the yardstick I had grabbed was 40 inches long. Now that has never been a yard. So I asked and was told that it is a meter stick since the other side shows centimeter markings. When I went to school we were told about the metric system and told that someday the United States would surely convert but we were not required to learn it. Good thing since I just now learned that there are 40 inches to a meter! Many many years later! And we still haven't converted. Lucky for me!

Today I finally learned what Universal Time (UTC) is. It is really just Greenwich Mean Time, renamed. What I don't know is why the name change. After all it ISN'T 12:43 p.m. throughout the universe right now, nor even round the world because yes, the world is round! We have all agreed on that. I would love to learn the reasoning behind that. Anyone?

On a more fun note I just read that black jaguars are the only cats that swim underwater. I have a friend whose lab sticks her entire nose under water when she drinks. So is the swimming underwater genetic or could it be learned?

This morning I started restringing the other patio chair and got the verticals done before the mosquitoes drove me inside.

So are you sorry yet that you got me started doing this?