Little Doggie

This is Dane. Dane is my brother's dog. He's a little peekapoo.

He's cute.

The Picture Explained

So yesterday's Wordless Wednesday featured this picture:


Of course, there is a lovely little story to go along with it!

My old General Manager (GM) was getting married. The wedding was nice, but who really wants to be on a boat for three hours for a wedding and reception of people you don't know? *hint* Not me!

So to celebrate/exact revenge, we decided to fill the office at work with shredded paper. TONS of shredded paper.


See those bags? We ended up with approximately 15 of those full of shredded paper. Then we started dumping them into the office....




Until it was about 5 feet high.

It took her forever to dig out the office! It's great fun - not that I'm advocating anything, of course!

Wordless Wednesday

January 5th - Tarot Tuesday

I am very much a tarot addict. I love the look of the cards, the feel of the cards, learning the meanings of the cards. I carry at least one deck with me at all times.

Sure, many decks are based on the same ideas, which makes them more or less similar in meaning. Rider-Waite after all is the standard. But each deck has a special design, which makes them unique from all other decks. And the artists' interpretations of each card are spectacular.

A deck that I have been working with a lot lately is the Archeon Tarot by Timothy Lantz. It's a bit of a darker deck, as you can see by looking at some of the card images. The images are a bit indistinct, but in my mind, this only prompts the reader to seek their own meanings from the cards.


Looking at the High Priestess, we can see that it differs a bit from the traditional RWS card:

Some of the elements are similiar, as we can see the moon and prominent female figures. Undoubtably, the High Priestess of the Archeon deck is more moody, compelling both the reader and the seeker to look more deeply into her for a meaning. What is it that she sees in the glowing moon? What mysteries are hidden in the shadows?

As the High Priestess is both a teacher and a guide, these are things that we much discover for ourselves. The inner knowledge of which both she and the moon implies is our journey to find.

Canning Adventures

One of the main gifts I gave this holiday season was homemade jams, jellies, and butters. They are super simple to make, and everyone absolutely loved them. They taste great too, which is a big plus.

Fresh fruits are amazing for this, but if you can't get fresh, frozen works quite well too. In fact, I almost prefer to use frozen peaches over fresh because then I don't have to peel, seed, and slice them.

And that's exactly what I did for my peach butter. This stuff is so amazingly yummy that I could eat it by the spoonful.

Not that I ever have. *whistles innocently*


This is 4 pounds of peaches. The handy thing about this recipe is that it scales up and down easily. 1 lb of fruit and 1 cup of sugar. And the frozen ones usually come in one pound bags.

Let them thaw before dumping them into the pan. Add about 1/2 cup of water, so they won't stick.


Close-up time. See all the juices that are beginning to be released from the peaches? Divine! They are spectacularly awesome smelling at this point. Like peach pie.


When they get to bubbling along and are soft enough that you can cut through them with a soft touch, then they are ready to be turned into the butter.


Personally I like my spreads to be nice and smooth, so I pop my hot peaches into the blender and pulse them until there are no chunks. This is totally optional. I've done it both ways, and this is simply the way I prefer them.


Nice and smooth, just the way I like it!


Next up comes the good stuff. 4 cups of granulated sugar, a tablespoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of nutmeg, and about 1/2 teaspoon of cloves. I like mine spiced, so I add them in. You can also leave them out for a milder tasting butter.


Dump everything in....


And give it a good stir.


All mixed and ready to go!

Now it's basically a waiting game. Keep cooking the butter over medium-ish heat, stirring fairly frequently. We don't want it to stick and burn after all our hard work!

You will know that it's done when it "rounds up on a spoon." What that means is that when you take a bit on a metal spoon, it all stays together. No runny liquids are oozing out of it. The first couple times you make butters, it's hard to know what to look for. But once you see it, you'll know it!

While you are waiting, go ahead and prepare the jars and lids for canning. I use a hot water bath for all my canning, as I don't can anything that requires a pressure canner. Jars are heated, lids are gently heated to soften the seal, and so on.


Go ahead and fill the jars with the hot peach butter, leaving about 1/4 inch headroom. As you can see, this particular recipe of 4 lbs of peaches made about 3.5 pints of finished peach butter. I actually had just a smidge left beyond that, so I popped it into a container and stuck it in the fridge. It didn't last long because it was fantastic.


Carefully put the lids and bands on. Careful to only fingertip tighten the bands.


Into the hot water to process. I usually process my butters for about 15 minutes, but depending on your elevation that may be different. Make sure that there is approximately 2 inches of water covering the jars as well.

Once the processing time is up, remove the jars from the water and set them in a place where they won't be disturbed for about 24 hours. Listen for the tale-tell 'pop' of the lids. That's how you know it has processed properly.

The possibilities are endless. This year alone I made apple butter, peach butter, pear butter, strawberry jam, blueberry jam, blackberry jam, raspberry jam, pomegranate jelly, and more. I had jars all over the place. But at holiday time, I was more than ready to give gifts and eat well.

Snow

It snows here perhaps once a year. And if we are very lucky, it snows enough to actually stick to the ground.

Usually though, we get ice. Ice kinda sucks - it's not pretty and it's really dangerous.

But if the weatherman says the magic four letter 's' word - SNOW - everyone runs out and buys the stores out of bread, milk, eggs, and batteries. Does everyone make French toast whenever it snows? I've never understood why there is a need to buy perishable things when there is a possibility of the power going out.

I'd rather have things that are easy to make and eat, if I have no power. But there I go, being all logical again!

All this leads up to the little mini "storm" we had a couple weeks ago. It was a strange combination of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. By the time it was all over, we had about an inch and a half of white stuff on the ground.


That's the view from my back patio. This was in the middle of the snow part of the storm - giant wet flakes of snow coming down.


So pretty. Well, at that point. You notice that I'm not actually out driving around in it. Nor is anyone else really. By 5 am the next morning though, I was out and about going to work.

The city here shuts down over 3 flakes. So there was nobody out. Ah, the joys of living in the South!

Christmas Thoughts

I will get better at this whole blogging thing....well ok, maybe. :P

So Christmas with my parents was a couple days late this year, for a couple different reasons. Instead, my son and I had Christmas with them on the 27th. This turned out pretty well, as this was the day my mother and her family were getting together for a big holiday feast. Ever since my grandfather passed away last year, it's been sort of disorganized as far as getting together goes. Seeing most of the family together again was amazing!

But first, some pictures from the present opening part of the ceremony...


My aunt made that scarf for me, but Little Man decided it was his. He loved that thing! So much so that my aunt is going to make him one of his own. He didn't take it off for two days.


And of course, ripping open the presents is very important!

He is so spoiled, but I'm really ok with that.

More Soap Contemplations

Usually, I make soap using the cold process method. You know, mix the lye and water, heat the oils, mix until trace, then set for weeks until you can actually use it.

This really isn't a problem for me, as I have plenty of room to store the soaps while they cure. And there is something about being able to see the curing process that is so nifty to me.

But with all that said, I'm also intensely curious about the hot process method. I've done quite a bit of research, but I haven't brought myself to try it yet.

But it would be so cool to have homemade soap the very next day....*dilemma*

Pound Cake

Part of being Southern is having a fabulous pound cake recipe.

I've never had one....until tonight. (This morning? It IS early.)

I found the most wonderful recipe for a Coconut Cream Pound Cake. Even the name sounds fantastic!

I seriously drooled when I was mixing this sucker up. If you are a coconut fan, you should totally make this cake.

Coconut Cream Pound Cake

1 cup softened butter
1 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease and flour a bundt pan....this is serious here folks, you MUST actually grease and flour the pan. Don't use the spray, it just doesn't work. The cake will crumble rather than come out of the pan. I've had this problem before, can you tell?

In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and cream cheese until they are well combined. Add the sugar and blend until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition. It's about at this point where you start drooling. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Add the flour and baking powder, stirring until just combined. Fold in the coconut.

Spoon the batter carefully into the prepared pan. It will be thick! Tap the pan on the counter to remove any hidden air bubbles.

Slide that baby into the oven for 1 hour, 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let the cake rest in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and cooling on a rack.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo good!

My First Attempt at Soap-making€

One fine day, many years ago, I thought that I would like to learn to make soap. I’m crafty, this is a craft, so why not?

Yes, all soap makers can groan right about here. It gets worse, believe me.

Being a smart girl, I do my research. Oil + water + lye = soap. Being a chemist, I know that lye is sodium hydroxide, NaOH, and just generally nasty stuff. Certainly not something you want to play with unless you take the proper precautions.

I figured I would start simple - castile soap. Olive oil, water, and lye. No additives of any sort…no scent, no colors, no herbs, nothing. Just pure soap.

I get everything all set up and ready to go. Measure the water, measure the lye, dump the lye into the water.

Here’s where it starts to get hilarious actually. When I measured the water, I used fluid ounces. If you’re not a soaper, this means nothing. If you are, you know that this is NOT what you want to do. Basically what I did was measure the volume, not the weight. These can be very different!

But, regardless, from what I remember, the lye water didn’t go too badly. No volcano, and the solution turned clear, with no lye granules on the bottom. Of course, my mind could be remembering incorrectly, because it was quite a while ago!

I started measuring my oil after mixing the lye and water. Again, I used fluid ounces. (Wrong! But I didn’t know any better then.)

Heated it all up, very carefully. Got the oil at about the same temperature as the lye water, then poured the lye solution into the oils. And stirred.

And stirred.

And stirred.

And stirred.

And stirred some more. I stirred that damn thing for hours.

After several hours (and one VERY sore arm!), I still hadn’t reached trace. Of course, I didn’t really know what trace was then either, so I wasn’t sure what it would look like once I got there. Somewhere I had seen that you could put the soap mixture in a low temp oven and get it to trace that way. So I stuck the pot into the oven, with the door propped open slightly.

Yeah, that didn’t work. Somehow, it went from where it was (at an uber-light trace, if I remember right) to this strange solid-ish mass with oils floating on the top. Crap! I pulled it out of the oven and stirred mightily once more.

For the record, that didn’t work either.

Not knowing any better, I mixed it all up, and dumped it into my prepared mold. Wrapped it in the blanket as suggested and cleaned up the kitchen, all the while thinking that maybe this soap thing was harder than it sounded.

The next day, I went to go unmold my soap so I could cut it into bars. What greeted me upon unwrapping the blanket was a strange crystalline growth out of a sea of oil. My best guess is that there wasn’t enough water, enough oil, and way too much lye, so that the lye simply fell out of solution and recrystallized.

Needless to say, I threw that batch away. Not like you can use straight up lye (or other unknown crystalline substances) as a soap without causing yourself some serious harm.

It took me several years to get up my courage to try this craft again….but that’s another story.