Catching Up - Yes, I'm Still Alive!!

Knock, knock . . . is anyone out there? Does anyone still check my blog??

I didn't mean to stay away so long. The last several weeks have been unbelievably busy between work and family obligations and I've barely had time to sit down and write here.

I can also blame my absence on my I-Pad and my somewhat broken laptop. My laptop has become a desktop computer. The screen has stopped working so I have to keep it hooked up to a monitor so I can use it. That's where my I-Pad has taken over my Internet life. With Flipboard I can quickly scan blogs, but it's more difficult to write blog entries.

So, what has been happened here in Coffee Time Stitches land?

Well, earlier this month, Mr. E turned two. We had his birthday party here (actually it was more of a birthday weekend). Here he is with his birthday cupcake:

Mommy and I made fishy cupcakes instead of a cake for his birthday party.

For his family birthday dinner I made him a doggie, woof, woof, cake.

And just to show you little ones are capable of using an I-Pad, here is playing on mine. He loves the ABC and counting games I have downloaded for him.

I participated in the Easter Basket Swap hosted Paula and Alli. I crocheted an Easter Basket for my partner, Jen at Lipstick and Laundry.
This is what she sent me: Starburst jelly beans, a collection of butterfly and angel items, a cute bunny, Alaskan coffee and travel mug and a gorgeous wind chime. Thank you, Jen!
I'm hoping to get back on track with posting. This break was not planned and I missed blogging terribly. Stay tuned for more news from Coffee Time Stitches land.

Sweet P

Wednesday Works - Hooked on Hooks

I haven't been blogging because my crochet hooks have been keeping me busy. They have refused to let me put them down to write here! This morning I forced the hook out of my hand to show off my latest projects.

A few weeks ago Crochet World published The Joy of Crochet, a special issue of crochet thread projects. One of the patterns is for a beaded eyeglass case. I decided to make the case using Aunt Lydia's size 10 crochet thread in Ocean. I love how the case turned out.

I plan to line it with blue satin and add a clasp. Instead of an eyeglass case, I plan to use it as an evening clutch. It's just large enough for ID, bank card, lipstick and a few small essentials.

Last fall I purchased a hank of pink hand-dyed yarn from Sunflower Yarns. Around Valentine's Day I started a Claudia Scarf. The pattern is fast and easy.

A close-up of the stitches.

One of the first projects I started nearly two years ago was a Chakra Purse by Naturally Caron. I finally finished it last week. I had put it away and decided it was time to finish it. Like the beaded clutch, I plan to make a lining for it. It needs more body to be truly useful.

A couple of friends have challenged me to make the bag on the cover of this book. I plan on living up to the challenge. The bag uses about 11,000 beads, with about 10,500 of them being seed beads, and it is worked with perle cotton. This should be an interesting project.
What are you working on lately?

Sweet P

Wednesday Works on Friday

Mmmm . . . I had this post scheduled to publish on Wednesday, but it didn't work. So here it is today.

While this isn't quite a work for me, it was a work for my swap partner, Rebecca, in our Have A Cuppa Swap. She knows I like to bake cupcakes as well as coffee and this package is perfect for me. The coffee mug says "Cupcake Monster" and there are cupcake plates for Mr. E to share our cupcakes. There is a pound of Starbucks coffee and Starbursts, yumm! Two skeins of wine colored Frog Tree yarn and a cute little zipper pouch. It was a nice surprise to find in my mail box on Valentine's Day.
Just before we went to Disney World, I made IPad covers for me and the Hotel Man. Can you tell which one is mine and which one is his?
In the middle of all the snow in January, we reset the Crochet and Knitting books in the store. One of the new crochet books we got was Crochet Your Cares Away. It has lots of fun and quick patterns in it. I had to make Mr. E this Stoplight Pillow for his car and truck theme bedroom.
What have you been working on lately?

Sweet P

Toddler Tuesday and I'm Back!

Sorry to disappear for two weeks. The day after I got home from Disney I came down with a nasty flu bug that put me in bed for three days. Then the flu fatigue set in and all I've been able to do is work my shift and come home and go to bed. Today is the second day I've felt anywhere close to being fully human.

I'll tell you more about Disney later this week for now. For now, it's Toddler Tuesday and it's time to share a few of our adventures with Mr. E over the last few weeks.

By now you know Mr. E and I bake on Tuesday mornings. He knows when I head into the kitchen after Good Morning America, it's time to bake. A few weeks ago we made Chocolate Cupcakes. He loved them!

We had lots and lots snow in January.
After one storm he came over and helped me find my car.

Today we are making Whoopie Pies for him to bring to school. He had to share his Apple Jacks with some of the batter.
Thanks for those who sent e-mails looking for me. It's nice to know I was missed.

Sweet P

Weekend Wonders- Nifty Fifty #2

Hubby and I are spending the weekend at Disney World! Be back on Tuesday!

Friday Fifty - Nifty 50 #1

Throughout my journey to turning 50 I want to share observations on every day events that make me giggle or make me contemplate getting older.

Nifty #50 #1
Last night I was having dinner with Mr. E and his daddy, DS #1. DS #1 was telling me about a conversation he had with DS #2 where they discussing Mr. E being a teenager and not knowing what a video store, like Blockbuster, is because such a place won't exist in 15 years.

That got me thinking, "What was around when I was a young parent that is no longer around?" Mmmmmm . . . I'll have to spend the day thinking about it . . . I'll get back to you.

Any ideas?

Sweet P

Fourth Day Food - The Potato

It all started with this potato. Isn't it the cutest potato ever? I found it at the grocery store on Monday.

The potato joined beef, carrots, onions, celery, garlic and beef stock in the crock pot. They hung out all day Tuesday during a snow storm. By the time the snow turned to rain, the potato and it's friends became a steamy bowl of soup. Perfect for a winter day.

The potato and his buddies were joined at the stove by a pot of All Day Spaghetti Sauce.

Now I have plenty of food to get me through to next week. Yummy!

Sweet P

Wednesday Works - Pink and White

It's a pink and white and red all-over week here at Coffee Time. On Monday I started on a pair of booties for me. Isn't the yarn yummy? It's called Flamingo Pink and I bought it from Sunflower Yarns.


Last week I finished this self designed scarf. We had a few skeins of Red Heart's Holiday Shimmer yarn and a few skeins jumped into my hands. I only used a half skein of each color for the scarf. I have enough leftover for a hat or a pair of mittens.

Do you have any pink and white and red projects to share?

Sweet P

Weekend Wonders - Looking for Sleep

Have I mentioned that not only am I turning 50 this year, but I'm also going through the 'change'? You know what I'm talking about.

Here's me weekend wonder for this week: how do you get a good night's sleep with night sweats? Most nights I don't mind waking up a few times during the night only to throw off the covers and wait until I cool down to get back to sleep. However, I would love to have at least one full solid night' sleep at least once a week.

Do you have any tips or tricks to share?

A somewhat sleepy Sweet P

Wednesday Works - Snow Day

I had my first official snow day today. My OTL called mt at 5:15 am to tell me the store wasn't opening today and I could go back to sleep! Woohoo! So, what did I do on my snow day? After I made a pot of coffee and a batch of Apple Muffins I meandered into my studio and played.

Trying to think ahead I made a small Valentine's bag. I have three more cut out, but I'm disappointed in my ability to make the bottom even.

Then I moved onto finishing my snowflake embroidery. I added sequins and beads. I couldn't get a good photo of them, but trust me it's gorgeous. I think I'm going to leave it in a hoop and hang it that way for next Christmas.

About the time the wind shifted direction and the snow was really blowing, I felt a trip to Tahiti was in order so I worked my Tahiti needlepoint project.

Mommy, daddy and Mr. E came over about 3:30 so we went outside to play.
Yes, there is a car under that snow pile.

Mr. E helped me find the car.
He loves playing in the snow.

That's how the front of our house looked like then. We have cleaned off the car. The plows have come through the lot again and the pile is even larger!

Do you get the snow storm this week? What did you do on your snow day?

Sweet P

Toddler Tuesday

I moved Mr. E's desk next to mine so he could work while I worked.
First he had to take out his crayons.

Then he had to every crayon out of the box.

He even held a web ex meeting just like his Grampa Boo.

And here is his work for the day.

What did you today?

Sweet P

Monday Musings

Do you like butterflies?

I do and I found this one at Joann's and couldn't resist. It's hanging on my dining room wall now.

Sweet P

Weekend Wonders - Looking for a BOM

Update: Thanks Chookyblue and Allie. It is Dawn's and Vicki's Outof the Box BOM I was looking for. I lost Dawn's blog link when I had to move my subscriptions from Bloglines to Google. I have the link back and have downloaded the first blocks.

Prior to Bloglines moving to Merchant Circle I marked a BOM where you will use bits and bobs from around your sewing room. I think there was some embroidery, some piecing and maybe some crazy quilting. I also want to say it was being hosted by an Australian designer or blogger.

Now I can't find it and it's driving me crazy!! Can you help me find it?

Thanks so much!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. My "weekend" is Monday and Tuesday so I have one more day of work before I get my time off.

Sweet P

Friday Fifty - Thanks Robin!

Around the time of my 49th birthday I was blase about turning 50. No big deal, I thought. It's just a number. Then I watched Good Morning America's short series about Robin Roberts turning 50. Listening to her talk about turning 50 and listening to the other stories they did that week changed my mind about turning 50.

I said to myself, "Self, there is nothing wrong with reaching 50 years. You need to celebrate. You need to show people being 50 is fun."

There is at least one other goal I want to accomplish in the next year or so. I want to travel to a few of my favorite childhood places. One of those places is the Minnesota State Fair. When I was growing up my oldest took me to the fair. We would be dropped at around 7 am and start the day walking through all the farm exhibits, then it was on to the exhibition buildings, a picnic lunch by the milk stand (where for 25 cents you could drink all the milk you wanted), a few more buildings to walk through before I could go on any rides. At the end of the day we went to the grand stand show. I remember seeing the Osmonds perform twice. Oh Donny . . . I think I still have a crush on you.

Do you have any special childhood adventures you would like to repeat?

Sweet P

Fourth Day Food - Cookbooks and Recipes

I used to be a cookbook-aholic, especially the Betty Crocker and Pillsbury cookbooks that are in the grocery checkout lines. A few years ago I decided it was time to purge my cookbooks and keep only those I often use or have true sentimental value. Today my cookbook collection lives on a bookshelf on the back side of my kitchen island.
How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman is my first go-to book when I want to know how to cook something. Another book of Mark's, How to Cook Everything: The Basics is another stand-by book.
With my recent interest in making cupcakes, my MIL gave me The Cake Doctor Returns for Christmas. The recipes look and sound yummy, but I'd rather bake from scratch than start with a cake mix and doctor it up.

I also have a small group of cookbooks with recipes and meal plans for one or two. I haven't tried many of the recipes although I'm planning on trying more of them this year.
I have the 1997 version of The Joy of Cooking and it contains my all-time favorite recipe: Butternut Squash Stuffed with Sausage and Apples comes from this book.
I used to set up my weekly menus in Excel and create my grocery list by hand from the menu. Earlier this year I discovered The Recipe Manager program. For $30 this program does more than I need and I love it. I can enter in my recipes, create a menu and a create a shopping list customized for my grocery store. I can display the recipe on my monitor and make it large enough that I can see it across the room while cooking.
What kind of cookbooks do you have? What's your favorite cookbook? What about recipe software? Use Mr. Linky and tell me about your cookbooks and recipes.

Sweet P

Wednesday Works

2010 Review

In my former career I was a data geek.  In 2007 I started keeping an Excel workbook for tracking my time spent creating and the money spent on creating.  Here are my stats for 2010.

From January 1 - December 31 I spent 556.50 hours creating.  That translates into these data bytes:

• 46.38 hours per month
• 1.52 hours per day
• August was my most productive month with 58.5 hours, most of it making this shawl
• February was my least productive month with only 25 hours
• On average my busiest day of the month is the 21st where I spent a total of 33 hours creating, or an average of 2.75 hours per month
• My least busiest day of the month is the 3rd where I spent only 9.25 hours or an average 0.77 hours per month
• My most productive day of the year was March 22 where I created for 7.75 hours.

On the money side:

• I spent $1,444.64 on creating tools (fabric, yarn, etc.)
• That's an average of $120.39 a month
• Or an average of $3.96 a day
• Or an average of $2.60 an hour.  Much cheaper than therapy, huh?

Monday Musings

A belated Happy New Year to you!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and am looking forward to 2011.

I am going to enjoy 2011. Why?  In October of this year I will be 50 years old and I plan on celebrating being 50 from now until my birthday and then right through my 50th year.

The celebration starts with changes in my blog.  I will be having themed posts throughout the week around different parts of like around Coffee Time Stitches.  I won't be posting every day, but I do hope to get into a more consistent posting schedule than I have been.  The posts will be:

• Monday Musings - A collection of thoughts about life around Coffee Time
• Toddler Tuesdays - Highlights of Mr. E and the smiles he shares with us
• Wednesday Works - Highlights of projects in the Coffee Time studio
• Fourth Day Food - What's cooking in the Coffee Time kitchen  (I tried and tried to come up with a food-related word that begins with TH but had no luck.  Do you know one?)
• Friday Fifty - What I'm doing to celebrate turning 50
• Weekend Wonders - The place for any topic that doesn't fit into one of the above.

I have set two goals to accomplish this year:

1. I will finish at least 25 projects.  These can be current UFOs or new projects.  They can be sewn, crocheted, embroidered or a paper craft project.
2. I will try at least 25 new recipes.  A new cupcake recipe, a new main course or maybe a new dessert recipe.

I have a few other plans for celebrating being 50 and I'll share them throughout the year.

I hope you continue to read Coffee Time Stitches and comment from time to time.  I love to hear from my readers.

Sweet P

SSCS Presents

I am finally getting around to posting photos of my wonderful SSCS goodies from Dawn of As Sweet As Cinnamon.

She made this cool round table mat.

Here is an up close view of the stitching

A gorgeous table runner (do you notice the coffee theme she followed?)

And a few extra goodies.  I haven't tried all of them yet, but will be shortly.

Here the gifts I sent to Fiona at Peaceful Threads by Fiona.  I made her a project bag, a matching tool case and a crocheted mitten ornament.  I filled the tool case with a pattern, hand-dyed threads, pens and a notepad.

I love Chookyblue's SSCS swap.  It's my favorite swap of the year.

Sweet P

Toddler Tuesday

We had a wonderful holiday weekend. Mr. E was with us for quite a bit of it as we had a blizzard and a cousin came over for a visit. Today was declared a jammie day and a cleaning day. Even Mr. E got into the cleaning the act by "cleaning" out his pool.

Miscellaneous Monday Musings

Here it is Monday. The start of my weekend and the last week before Christmas. DH and I are done with Christmas shopping. All that's left is to wrap the gifts.

A few Monday thoughts . . .

1. I loved the old Bloglines. I do not like the new Bloglines run by Merchant Circle. The font is light and hard to read. I can't figure out how to organize my feeds. Plus I lost all the posts I had marked as unread to I could go back to them and leave comments or get the pattern or recipes I wanted to keep. I'm not happy at all.
2. I'm not a fan of Google Reader either. It's a little better than Bloglines. I don't like having to star items to mark them as an entry I want to go back to at some point.
3. What RSS readers do you use other than Bloglines or Google Reader?
4. I need snow for Christmas. I was ready for a snowy winter day today while sewing. But alas, the storm stayed south of us.
5. I finished Mr. Sparkles last night. He is a Secret Santa gift for a co-worker. I think he's adorable.
   

Have a great Christmas week. I have to work Wed., Thurs., and Fri. Then I am off for four days. Hooray!

Sweet P

Happy Holidays!

I've been MIA for a few weeks and I apologize. I have been in a black hole since Thanksgiving and there is now light at the end of the tunnel. First I woke up the day after Thanksgiving with a horrible, nasty cold. I was the last one in our family to get it and it knocked me down real good for about three weeks.

On November 30, my father passed away from double pneumonia. He had been in a nursing home for four years, but to the end he was my dad. The Sunday before he died he joked with my niece about how crappy the Minnesota Vikings were playing this and that their year was over!

Here are my mom and dad on their wedding day - January 11, 1947.

The entire family, with the exception of one great grandson, including my three brothers and all their children, me, my sons, DIL and Mr. E made it to the service in MN. Mr. E had his second airplane trip and loved looking out the window the entire time. He also got to spend time playing in the snow. Here he is being King of the Mountain.

And trying to make snowballs.

It was the first time in 25 years the entire family had been together so we took the opportunity to have family photos taken. Here is my wonderful family (left to right): Brandon, my youngest son, The Hotel Man, my DH, Mr. E, me, Tasha, my DIL and Geoffrey, my oldest son.
Mr. E surprised all of us with his newest behavior: saying "Cheese!". He started doing it while we were having family photos taken. He stood in front of everyone who had a camera, posed and said, "cheese". He had everyone laughing!

My whole family

This is my lovely mom. Isn't this a fantastic photo of her?

If you've made it this far I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you don't celebrate Christmas, then I wish you Happy Holidays!

Sweet P