Missed you!

I didn't get around to posting over the holiday weeks.  It was such a busy time.  We had a lot of fun and Rob and I got a whole lot done and I had to get back to work to get some rest.  I don't think we took any pictures Christmas Day except the appetizers, not even one of the four of us together.  We opened presents and ate and shared memories of Christmas past and laughed a lot!  I even managed to keep up with the dishes so there wasn't a mountain to do after lunch.  

On New Years Eve, I made a big meal that was hardly fit to eat.  Not sure why, but I must have used up all my cooking mojo on Christmas.  The roast had no flavor, the asparagus had the wrong flavor and the rolls were dry.  It was what it was and I have made it up to Rob with several good meals since.  

One of the tings I wanted for Christmas was new pots and pans.  I researched them and picked what I wanted and had it in my shopping cart, but I kept going back to the fact that my pots and pans are really good ones and they hardly burn anything, heat evenly, and cool quickly, so instead of hitting that buy button, I started researching how I could clean them up and make them look almost like new.  I scrubbed the bottoms with barkeepers friend and it worked a wonder!  Here's a before and after. (If you use bartenders friend to clean a lot, be sure to wear gloves.  It has an acid in it and all the skin peeled from my left hand.)

And, I bought them all new knobs and handles.  Now they're bright and shiny and just like new.  And, it cost about a third of what the new pans were going to cost.  

We worked in the yard most of this last weekend, moving things around.  And, I forgot to take any pictures.  Several years ago, I decided to divide my plants and put a little of this here and there and across the yard so that when it bloomed, there would be some of it all over.  And, I accomplished that and it looked nice, and filled the garden with things I knew would thrive.  But, now, I have some new plants that I want to use and I have several Iris that didn't bloom, presumably because they're planted too deep.  Some of them turned out to be planted in some really hard and nasty clay and I think that's as responsible for no bloom as being planted too deep.  So, I dug up most of my iris, cut the tops and planted them in "store bought" soil and am hoping they do better this year.  They all had really healthy root systems, so I'm hopeful.  I wanted to do this before our first hard freeze, which we're expecting next weekend.  Almost everything will die to the ground and I wanted to be able to see the plants I was moving before that happened so I could make sure I wasn't planting something on top of something else.  

Sydney asked me to make her an Asian themed quilt, so I pulled out all my Asian fabrics and found a pattern I like.  I'm not following the pattern exactly and drafted my own layout that takes advantage of some of the larger prints and larger blocks.  I've gotten a half dozen blocks made, some prettier than others.  It's going to be 25 blocks and I have a small bin packed full of fabric, so it's going to have a lot of variety

Okay, that's it for me today.  I hope you're having a wonderful new year and finding things you enjoy.  Tell someone you love them and really, really mean it.  

Lane