It was very neat to see all the different things they found and uncovered. We all appreciated the subterranean exhibits the most as it was very hot outside. Piggy got lots of pets and would frequently just lay down and pant in the basement exhibits.
The blackened posts you see here are the remains of the original powder magazine, which was built partially underground to compensate for not actually having a secure enough space to ensure the powder didn’t accidentally explode. When they burnt the fort in preparation to move to Mackinaw Island, the sod on the roof smothered the fire and preserved the remains of the magazine.
This last gun was bigger than me! Granted, that’s not saying a lot, but still! Can you imagine having to use this monster?
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of the fort! I have more to show you in other picture posts.
“Although I have a lot of close female friends in my life, my number one is still my mom. Without her, I wouldn’t have the values that I have and see the world the way that I do today. She taught me how to appreciate and respect women. She taught me chivalry and how to love a woman and respect their feelings and emotions.”- Shemar Moore
“One thing my mom used to tell me was to look to the other side, and know that my present is not going to be everything. So if I’m having a bad day, she goes, ‘Just imagine tomorrow. This is going to be over. This is going to be done with.’”Tyra Banks
“A mother’s prayers serves as a protection for her children.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita
“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.”-Bob Dylan
“The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people.”-Chadwick Boseman
“Phryne was getting out of the car. Dot closed her eyes. Miss Fisher was about to happen to someone again.”-Kerry Greenwood, Dead Man’s Chest
“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”― Emma Donoghue, Room
“Bravery hides in amazing places.”― Kiera Cass, The One
Hello! This weekend was a very productive one. I deep cleaned the stainless steel kitchen island. A certain Piggy has been very interested in the bottom shelves lately. It’s nice to have it all shiny and organized again! Here’s the pictures.
BeforeAfterAfter
The Husband and I tackled the pantry shelving, which was sloppily built into the walls and had a distinct tilt to the front. I was honestly waiting for it to fall over in the middle of the night. Eek! Also, apparently, that’s where all the spiders were coming from. Blech! I made the Husband deal with that part. Here’s some before and after.
BeforeAfter
To be fair, he did the pulling down of all the shelves and I helped organize and take things out to the recycling after breaking them down. We have these metal shelves for my craft stuff too and they are good shelves. There’s space for one more shelf next to the wall too, so there should be extra storage space. I worked on my sewing spot while he was pulling shelves off the wall.
Speaking of my sewing space, I made something fun for the week where the theme was to sew something other than fabric. It was inspired by someone in the button week who made a picture like it for her sewing room. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do with mine, but it’s super cute.
Isn’t it adorable? I used the leaf stitch on card stock and then backed it with translucent vellum and purple card stock. It was fun to to make. I made a water one too, but it wasn’t as successful. The buttons are hand sewn. I do have a button feature on my machine, but wasn’t in the mood to mess with it.
This wallet was made for the sewing challenge too. It’s not quite where I’d like it to be and I was reminded how much I hate making wallets while I was making it. They’re so fiddly and ridiculous. This pattern is the Demi Wallet from Linds Handmade. The pattern and instructions are fine, but my spatial reasoning and not wanting to take a couple extra minutes to interface did me in. It’s cute though and works well for the most part. I do think it’s a little chunkier than I’d like and the card slots got a little wonky, but that was due to user error/impatience, not the pattern.
This week, my entry was this cute tote bag in the same fabric for an extra Secret Garak swap present. Garak is a character in Star Trek: DS9 and is supposedly “just a simple tailor.” There’s a set of Star Trek groups on FB that are lovely and the craft group is called Garak’s Craftiers. They do a gift swap every year and I was able to join this year. This was the extra gift, as they needed an emergency gift. I’m going to make a little zip pouch to go with it too.
This was the amazing gift I received! It fits perfectly into my office decor.
This was the gift I sent. I was mostly pleased with it and my giftee said he liked it very much. There’s glow in the dark paint around the ship and for stars. I was excited to find black canvas to put it on. The ship is a vinyl sticker purchased from Etsy. I thought it was a cool angle. You don’t often see a front view.
I’m still lucky enough that my friend and her boys still happily wear the things I make. I made this tunic dress for her birthday. No pockets because they lay funny in this thinner dbp.
The boys got woodland shirts and these Baby Bear Joggers in a french terry. I have seen pictures that they are slightly too large for them and so look ridiculously cute.
I have a matching shirt. 😁
Here are two more shirts in my drawer. A neurotransmitter shirt for Valentine’s Day! Also, for work, because it’s the perfect therapy shirt. It’s got black bands and back and is the Sunkissed Tee.
This is another new pattern that I used for the challenge. It’s a Green Tee by Greenstyle Patterns. It’s free with a code from the FB group. I messed up the v neck, so it’s an around the house or under a sweater kind of tee, but it’s pretty comfy. The pattern comes with a scoop neck too.
Last, but not least, I made this super cute quilt for a friend from the office. She happens to like gnomes and rainbows and this quilt needed a good home!
I used the Accuquilt machine to cut the fabric for both blocks. The Patchwork block is a Snail’s Trail and the gnomes were fused and then machine sewn to the white blocks. Here are some close ups.
She really like it and has gotten many compliments on it. It makes me smile when I see it in the office. I’m definitely making one for myself at some point too. The Husband will complain for sure, but he can just deal with it. My love of gnomes isn’t going anywhere, after all.
Well, that’s all my exciting sewing and crafting for now. Piggy and I are both super tired and look like her picture below, so I should say good night. May your dreams be as cozy and comforting as a warm puppy!
Well, it was winter briefly! Now it’s spring again and I have no idea what next week will be like. My food tastes are all over the place too. I told the Husband yesterday that I was just so tired of cooking, even though I’m not doing too much more cooking than usual. I think I’m just burning out on all of our regular meals.
I made this really pretty shrimp and veggie stir fry to cheer us both up. It was good and we had jasmine rice with it, as I forgot to have us make rice in the rice cooker. It was quicker. Plus, we are still not done with that weird parboiled rice and I really didn’t want to eat it. 😬
I made these rainbow crepes for Valentine’s Day brunch. I discovered I should get some more food coloring. All I have are red and blue. I did make whipped cream and a berry compote to go with them.
We had our default pizza, although it was more fun because I used a fancy Italian blend flour from Janie’s Mill.
My older brother sent us a four pack of fancy flours for Christmas and I was inspired to try some more. I need to move them downstairs though, as you are supposed to keep them cold. They are a whole grain product and keep better that way. I have to play with them some more and post about it.
The pizza was good. We had our usual ham, mushroom, and onion toppings.
They didn’t stay tied, as you can see, but tasted good. We had spaghetti with them.
Another quick meal was cheeseburgers. I used the pepper palace spice blend, so it was spicy.
I tried this recipe for baked gnocchi and learned that for the most part, you can leave the gnocchi uncooked and it will cook in the sauce. Not the prettiest dish, but yummy! I omitted the meat and used homemade sauce. https://damndelicious.net/2020/05/16/weeknight-baked-gnocchi/
I’ll leave you with a classic comfort food- chicken potpie over noodles. It was warm and delicious and helped use up leftover chicken.
I hope you’re having good food! We’re trying to do some more interesting meals again and actually meal plan. Wish us luck!
I got overwhelmed with food while simultaneously not wanting to eat anything again the last couple weeks of the year. Writing about food has not been something that has been super interesting to me. I started to go over all my food posts for the year to get a count of everything, but it was a lot. So I’ll show you some fun foods from the end of the year and beyond. The featured picture is our charcuterie tray from the virtual wine tasting with the Husband’s work.
The traditional family meatballs were served on Christmas Eve along with noodles, buttered herbed carrots, and pickles of course! Cookies were served for after dinner treats, but they are in their own post.
We made Rulle for New Year, as we had planned to have our bubble friends over, but it didn’t quite work out. We ended up having a party foods dinner with the rulle, pigs in blankets, and crab dip. It was yummy! I was quite pleased with my rulle this year. I got enough allspice in them finally.
We had lobster mac and cheese later, since we had been planning to have it NYE. It was yummy, especially with the crunchy, buttery panko crumbs on top. I used the recipe from Grandbaby Cakes. https://grandbaby-cakes.com/lobster-mac-and-cheese/
I did reduce the recipe by half though, as we didn’t need 14 servings.
We tried a new chicken noodle soup recipe with a mix from a local charity, Motown Soups, that helps support local food pantries, clinics, and shelters. We actually liked it better than the one we normally use, so I think I’ll buy some more from them. I made pizza dough cheesy breadsticks to go with it. It was very warm and comforting.
I made this amazing Red Wine Chocolate cake with some of the wine from the Husband’s work. It’s probably the best chocolate cake I have ever made. I used a different recipe for frosting, as I didn’t think we would like the wine in the frosting listed. That recipe is from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Here’s the cake recipe: https://bakerbynature.com/red-wine-chocolate-cake/
Here’s the frosting recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/favorite-chocolate-buttercream/. My only criticism for myself was that I should have added more buttercream in the middle. I seriously could eat this frosting by the spoonful, it’s that good! It’s chocolately, creamy, and not super sweet.
We had a country scramble after eating glazed ham and potatoes for dinner one night. It was delicious. We cooked them separately, as the Husband didn’t want peppers and likes it squishy with cheese.
I made pancakes on one of our vacation days and topped them with yogurt and a dollop of fruit soup. Oh, it was so good! I think I made an almost perfect fruit soup this year!
We had regular mac and cheese too. I used ritz crackers for the top, as we were out of panko. It was also good. Those are dino shaped noodles, by the way. We’re almost out of silly shaped pasta, so I should add some to my next grocery order. 🙂
We had a few stir fry dishes. One chicken and one special fried rice with ham and shrimp. That’s literally what the recipe is called in the Wok and Stir fry cookbook I was using.
I would definitely make both again. They were pretty tasty!
I don’t have a picture of the chicken, I don’t think, but ended up using some of it in this filling chef salad. I made homemade naan with it too, as I had meant to make it with curry the night before.
Here’s the curry. The Husband had pork. I used dried chickpeas for this, which I soaked/cooked in the Instant pot. It only took about an hour instead of having to soak them all night and I was very pleased with that. This curry wasn’t as thick as some and I wasn’t sure if it needed more cook time, or if it was because I was using a carton of coconut milk instead of a can of it. I’ll have to do some more experimentation.
This potato soup was lovely, although I paid dearly for the bacon. Apparently my digestive system hates bacon as well as pork. I’m going to refuse to believe it though and just make sure I have stomach meds on hand. It’s so good!
I need to make more pasties, but make them a little bit bigger next time. These were more like snack pasties than dinner pasties. They were yummy though
I had a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich yesterday and used this recipe to make a knock off Popeye’s sandwich. It was good, although I had problems keeping my oil to temp. I made a quick spicy mayo by adding garlic powder and sweet chili sauce to mayo. We were out of fries, so had some roasted potatoes for dinner as well. https://gimmedelicious.com/popeyes-chicken-sandwich/
One thing I didn’t like at all this past week was this Asian Crockpot Shredded Beef. It was weird because it smelled really good while it was cooking- I was home all day getting tortured by the smell. And then when I opened the lid and started shredding it I was just absolutely done. I couldn’t even eat it! I think I took two bites and that was all I can manage. My stomach was upset for the rest of the evening too. I ended up eating chicken with pico and cilantro rice leftovers instead.
I’ll leave you with this ‘love-ly’ apple pie I made today because it looks so pretty even if it did have a slightly soggy bottom.
I love a terrible pun. This one was for Grandpa Ollie, who would have loved it. I had a lot of fun with the fall drink photo shoot. It ended up being pretty spread out, but that just gave me more time to plan, I guess. I hope you enjoy the recipes! As usual, I have both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. We’ll start with the alcohol. Lest you start to think I’m becoming a lush, I will tell you that these 4 alcoholic drinks probably took me two months to finally make and drink. One of them I ended up falling asleep on the couch before I could even finish it. 😁
It was good, but not my favorite. I felt it was a little simple and wanted to add spices to it to brighten it up. I probably won’t make it again.
Next up are two fig drinks. Before I get to the drink recipes, want to learn a fascinating and slightly horrifying fig fact? Well, you’re going to regardless, so buckle up! Figs are inside out flowers and some thoes of them are carnivorous. Yes, you read that right. Carnivorous figs. 😳
Apparently figs are fertilized and propagated by a specific type of wasp, not surprisingly known as the fig wasp. The wasps lay eggs on the fig leaves and the larve end up inside the fruit. The male wasps do not have wings and can escape, although most do not. The females have wings, which get pulled off when she crawls inside. Both wasps are digested by the fig. Nature is so weird! Here’s one of the articles that explains it in more detail. https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=15080
I found out this out after drinking my first fig drink, a Cardamom Fig Gin and Tonic. My brother says can’t call it a G&T since I used 7 up as the mixer instead of tonic water, but I didn’t have any tonic, and the (drink) show must go on!
This was probably my favorite drink and my best photo. Oddly enough, this was the only photo I took at night, from straight up on the dining room table. The background is the underside of our Thanksgiving table runner. The drink was super delicious and I would definitely make this again, but would add the cardamom to the fig simple syrup as well.
The second fig drink, a fig margarita, gave me a headache and I ended up not finishing it. It was too sweet, but could be tasty if the sugar was reduced if some more acid was added. I don’t think tequila agrees with me.
It was fun to make the honey and sparkling sugar rim! I enjoyed the taste, but not the headache, so may not make it again. Here are a couple more fig drink recipes I wanted to try, but didn’t quite have time.
K2 picked this one out for our tiny Thanksgiving celebration. It’s a Rum Harvest. We subbed pomegranate juice for cranberry juice as it was what I had in the fridge already. There was a 13.5 pound turkey in the fridge for most of the week, so space is limited. It was so yummy!
It calls for spiced rum and that was delicious. We used 7 up as a mixer instead of cola. I would make it again. It was a nice sipper while waiting for dinner.
For non-alcoholic drinks, I tried a grapefruit drink and a warm ginger drink. I couldn’t get a good picture of the grapefruit one for anything, so I used a phone editing filter.
It was pretty refreshing. I would probably drink this again, but might kick it up with some 7 up or something to cut the acid. It slowly turned this pretty orange color while it sat. I felt fancy drinking it for sure!
I used Earl Grey for the black tea, ground ginger, and steeped lightly crushed whole cardamom pods in coconut milk. It was so yummy!
I have a couple of non-alcoholic fig drink recipes, but they require things I don’t normally have on hand and couldn’t get easily through the grocery pick up. I’ll put them here though, as they sounded good!
This fig lemonade I could actually make and might try later, just forgot I had it. I would use the simple syrup in place of some of the sugar. http://www.jopreetskitchen.com/fig-lemonade/
Some other fall mocktails I thought sounded interesting are here:
I hope this gives you some fun ideas to try as we start to look forward to winter. Well, maybe not with excitement… Christmas is my favorite though and I have the perfect tablecloth for a photoshoot.
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”-Margaret Mead
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“You can’t trample infidels when you’re a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.”-Terry Pratchett
“There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.”-Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
“I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”– Rita Rudner
“I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options.” – Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones
