Bitter cold in Maine today. At first blush, it was -1 degree as I was driving into Portland. On mornings like this the smoke from all the churning furnaces drifts straight up into the lightening sky. Objects appear sparkly as the sun rises higher illuminating the frost.

Up on Munjoy Hill, the distant water is a cold steel blue.

The sun is bright but there is no hint of warmth.

At least not yet.

POTHOLE did this. Ripped the tire as well. $800 plus.........aaarrrghhhh ! 

That is all I have to say about this. (and this is the INSIDE of the wheel !)

(did ya click on the word 'pothole'?)

GOLDEN AUTUMN CHOWDER

We made this stew last night to enjoy today. Mr. Downeast Doing Stuff helped me cut up all the veggies. Letting it sit overnight melds the flavors. I also made these Parker House rolls this afternoon after school using rapid rise yeast. 

* 1 lb. round steak cut into 1/2 " cubes. (I use stew beef.)(Partially freeze to cut up better.) (I also dredge the cubes in a little flour)

* 2 tbsp. Olive Oil

* 3 medium potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped (3 cups) 

* 1 small turnip, peeled and coarsely chopped (2 C)

* 2 Cups coarsley chopped cabbage

* 3 medium carrots, chopped (1 1/2 C)

* 2 medium onions, chopped (1 C)

* 2 tbsp. snipped parsley

*  1 tbsp. vinegar 

* 1  1/2 tsp. salt (I eliminated the salt and used Mrs. Dash)

* 1/4  tsp. pepper

*  1 tsp. sugar

* 1 bay leaf

*  6 cups water

In a large Dutch oven, brown 1/2 steak cubes at a time in hot oil. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer covered 1 - 1  1/2 hours, or til meat and turnip are tender. Remove bay leaf.  6 servings.

PARKER HOUSE ROLLS (using RAPID RISE YEAST)

*1 C warm water (about 110 degrees)

*2 Tbsp. sugar

* 1 package rapid rise yeast

* 2 cups plus more as you knead it, flour. (I used White Whole Wheat for the first time tonight)

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 egg (plus one for brushing tops of rolls, if you want to.)

* 1 egg yolk

* 2 Tbsp. melted butter

Combine dry ingredients in a KITCHEN MIXER. Add eggs to dry ingredients. Mix with mixer. Add warm water. Mix.

Use dough hook on mixer. Keep adding flour until dough forms a ball on the hook. Knead with the dough hook until smooth and elastic. Cover with dish towel and let rest 10 minutes.

Remove dough from bowl onto a lightly flowered surface. Cut in half. Cut in half again. Cut each quarter section of dough into 3 pieces. Form into nice round balls. 

Coat a 9 " glass pie dish with the melted butter. Toss the dough balls into the butter until coated. Spray tops of rolls with butter flavored spray and cover with plastic wrap. (the spray keeps it from sticking) Cover with kitchen towel and sit in a warm place until the dough doubles in size. (Start checking after 1/2 hour goes by.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brush the tops of the rolls with the egg and sprinkle with coarse salt if you want to.

(I don't do this)

Bake until golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. (If it starts to get too brown, cover with aluminum foil.)

Cool on rack.

Enjoy !

My Sunday Picture....

Early Sunday morning snow in rural Maine.

Last school year, I took a picture of something that inspired me every Sunday, and made a collection of them. I sent them to some family members every Sunday. 

I stopped when school ended in June. 

I've decided to start up again and post it here every Sunday.

This tree in our yard is ever a source of content and beauty.

Foiled again....

Well, over the last 2-3 days, my 7th graders were making aluminum foil people. We had already studied figure drawing and learned about proper proportion in the human figure. Now we were ready to make a 3-D figure. I'm posting these directions because it would be fun for kids at any age. I myself, even made 4 different figures while the kids were working. Below you will see some of what the kids made. The one with the skirt, I made.

Here are the directions:

Take a piece of aluminum foil (12" wide) and cut it to be 15 " in length. Mark the foil at the top with a sharpie as shown and also on the bottom.

Cut slits where marked. (2 at the top to make arm and head areas and 1 at the bottom for the 2 legs.

Grab the foil in the center and smoosh inward to make the 'waist' area.

Squeeeze together each leg and each arm to make more of a cylinder shape.

Take the foil in the head area and start rolling it forward and crunching it at the same time. This will allow the head to have a 'chin' area.

Continue smooshing the foil to thin out the arms and legs, etc. and shape the head.

Manipulate the foil by pressing on it to make areas thinner and to get a fairly proportional body shape.

Bend the guy into any position you want to.

Then, add some clothes with additional pieces of foil. You may have to glue gun some things in place. To make hats, the kids pressed a circle or oval of foil on a wooden bead that was about the size of the head to use as a form, and then pulled it off and glued it onto the 'real' (foil) head. For a skirt, I cut out a circle of foil, cut out another small circle in the center of it and cut a slit into it to slip it onto the waist of the foil person. Then I 'hemmed' it, just by folding the foil under to give it more strength, and then played with it to get the folds and shape that I wanted.

This student called this 'windy day in France'

hmmm, me when I get up in the morning??

Meditating.....

A young lady with a skirt !

This is a boxer.....

So, that was fun and the kids loved it ! I hope you do, too.

It snowed and sleeted all day and it's still snowing and sleeting. Had to drive my husbands 4 wheel drive vehicle to work so I wouldn't go flying off the road. Took it slow and made it just fine.

He had a snow day off.

He waved goodbye from the warm kitchen window as I backed out of the driveway. I waved back from a frigid SUV window, and off I went.

Coming home I snapped some photos while driving down my street.

Almost home....

And then, when I got home, I took off my shoes, put on my L.L. Bean rag socks and made myself a hot, steamy cup of tea. Little by little, took off my jewelry and began to relax....ahhh....the water kettle on the wood stove hissing in the background.

Then a nice glass of Merlot in my Merry Madness wine glass. If you live anywhere near Portland, you may have attended Merry Madness a few weeks before Christmas. The festivities start in a different Portland hotel each year where one can munch on a multitude of hors d'oeurves and purchase an official 'Merry Madness' wine glass full of wine. All the shops in the Old Port stay open late and have beverages and appetizers for everyone that visits. If you carry your Merry Madness wine glass around, you can refresh it's contents with a variety of drinks.

It's really beautiful walking around with all the twinkling white lights suspended in the trees lining Exchange Street and the green garland festooning the shops.

So here is my MERRY MADNESS  goblet....as you can see, it's empty now.

Enjoy the evening.

My warm, little babies....

Winter storm watch for tomorrow....better than a winter storm warning.....but worse than a winter weather advisory. 

But my two little kitties possess that warmth and comfort that we all yearn for and when the weather outside is frightful, well, I just cuddle with my babies.

It's almost down...sigh....

Still working on taking the tree down. It's kind of like ending a book, or a chapter in my life. I do it reluctantly. Mostly 'cause it's a pain in the butt, but most mostly because it's sooooo beautiful and I like beautiful things.I have some more ornaments I'd like to share. For those of you that like to sew, here are some ideas for you. For next year, of course.

This one is my pasta angel. My friend Carol showed me how to make these many years ago. You can see the Ziti with lines body (my body now has lines, too) , the bowtie pasta wings, the elbow macaroni that make up the angels elbows, etc. The head is a wooden ball and her hair is rice. She is holding a thumbtack for a candle. Then it's all spray painted gold and a ribbon tied to the back for hanging. Cute, I think. (OK, so the first one I show you is not a sewing project...)

This next one was made by my friend Jackie. The body under the dress is weighted down with something  inside: I don't know, rice or sand or beans, don't really know.  It's hard to see, but she has a little halo made from gold wires. She's about 6 or 7 inches tall. She sits behind the glass in my hutch cabinet next to the wine goblets, peering out at the goings on in my kitchen. I have many things that Jackie has made for me. 

This angel is very cute, I think !

I made this one. My sitting angel. She sits on top of the Hutch cabinet, feet dangling. Her dress is like a big bean bag and I put rice inside to give her some body and weight. For me, it takes cookies, cake and icecream to give me some body and weight. Which, by the way, I WILL be taking off this new year. I WILL, I WILL, I WILL.....

Oh well, the next one....

                      

                

This is an angel my friend Ann gave me one Christmas. I hang her on a closet door knob in my family room, where the tree is. She is about 6 inches tall and hand made by someone...

I have many, many things in my house from Ann, really nice things.

This is a heart ornament that I made for some of the folks I work with, oh, about 10 years ago. Maybe more than that. I made about 4 or 5 for my own tree.

I cut out a heart from some  vintage looking fabric a bit bigger than the finished piece I wanted to make. I drew a smaller heart in the center and stitched around it with my sewing machine. Then I cut the inner most heart away, keeping the stitching. I turned the piece inside out, and then stitched the outside perimeter with a zig zag stitch while at the same time stuffing some batting inside as I was stitching along. That was interesting to do :-p    I hand stitched a bell in the center and hot glued some greenery and a gold string to hang it by to the top.

Now, this one is difficult to see and to understand what it is. It's hard to photograph with a flash because, it's a mirror I cut into a square. I collected shells from the seashore and used them in this ornament. (In the summer, I'm not stupid.)

I bound the edges of the mirror and each shell with copper foil and soldered the entire business together. Sort of like doing stained glass without the stained glass. I soldered a jump ring to the top and tied a pretty maroon ribbon to the top for hanging. The tiny little balls you see in the middle are b b's soldered on.       

And finally, speaking of balls, these are my little nuts. My son made these with me when he was little. As you can see, they are walnuts, with acorn or hazelnut, I can't recall, heads. They are 

glued to little wooden stars I bought at a  craft store. I bought fuzzy little balls for their tiny arms and feet and even tinier fuzzy balls for their eyes and noses. Then, taking scraps of felt, he made their little hats. I don't know how he did it, especially the green jester hat that has 3 points on it! Scraps of leather made their caroling books, and off they went, caroling. Oh yeah, they are supposed to be mice.

I can't remember if they have pipe cleaner tails or not. I think they do, but they are now wrapped in tissue paper and in a box.

OK, NOW I can go and work on putting away the rest of the decorations....or maybe not. I don't mind having boxes and bins all over the house anyway.;-(

At least not for one more day.

Well, it's that time of year again. Time to take down the Christmas tree. It's always a sad, wistful time for me. It's so beautiful come dusk  when the lights get turned on. Need no other lights in the room. It's glow is so soothing and calming. It's been a wonderful tree. We got a Fraser fir this year and it has barely lost a needle in three plus weeks. We've never had such a healthy tree.

I actually dread putting it up every year. The task of putting the lights on falls to me. I dislike putting the lights on, but I do it, mumbling.

There are so many ornaments that have a story. Old ones, handmade ones and crazy ones.

This is an ornament from my childhood. I have about seven or eight old ones. Every once in a while, I

unwrap the ornaments and find one that is in pieces. I guess they get fragile as they get older, just like us. I love the old ornaments.

This one on the right my son made when he was very little. It's Santa! Well, let me explain. His suit has faded to pink and his skin, well, it's developed a tan. One arm is held out in front of him and he's holding a jingle bell. The other arm is flung around his back, holding a pack and there is a blue teddy bear hanging out of the pack. His feet are rather flat. It is one of my sweetest ornaments.

The two on the left are special, too. The snowflake is one of the many my mother made for me. I have about eight of those. And there are many others that were hand made by her for our tree. She is a very good cook/baker and very good at knitting, crocheting and crafts.  A very smart woman.

Now the french fry, ah yes, the french fry. My husband wants to heave it or have it experience an unfortunate accident, but it's one of my favorite. 

Several years ago three of my cousins from Slovakia came for a short visit. We all went out to DiMillos restaurant in Portland, Maine, and I ordered something that had french fries. One of my french fries was the longest fry ever created on this earth. I couldn't eat it, I knew it was making history, so I wrapped it up in a napkin and took it home.  Weeks later I found it on a shelf and it was hard as a rock. (and in this process, it shrank considerably.) Long story, short, I made a french fry Santa ornament and it's hung on our tree every since.

So that's it. Down it all comes until next year.  :-(

Happy New Year ! Welcome to January 1, 2009 on this beautiful, sunny, cold day in New England.

Relaxing and watching snippets of American Idol 2008.

(sigh) wish I could sing....