A Garden Collage

Tomorrow's Menu

Cranberry-Orange Salad
Green Enchiladas
Pinto Beans
Mexican Rice
Mandarin Mousse

Ok, so it's not your basic ham and potato salad. The cranberry-orange salad I make for every holiday. I haven't made green enchiladas in years, but I've really been hankering for thems. If you are going to have green enchiladas, you must have rice and beans, right? And the mandarin mousse I can make nearly fat- and sugar-free, so that's a bonus.

The chicken for the enchiladas is boiling now and next I'm going to make the tomatillo sauce so I have less to do tomorrow.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Happy Easter, All!

Chester 1995-2009

We're saying good-bye to Chester tomorrow. He's been our friend, family member, pet and pet peeve (sometimes) for 12 years. For a long time I'll come in the back door at the end of a long day and wonder why he isn't running to meet me. I'll drop a French fry and no one will be there to grab it.

At the risk of getting all Marley and Me, I'll never forget how he...

...once got a little too close to a neighborhood skunk. The vet tried bathing him in tomato juice, but needed extra because he drank so much of it.

...with lightening speed, after watching my daughter open it once, moved across a room and in one motion opened the parakeet cage with his nose, snatched Jazzy from her perch and tore down the stairs with her in his mouth. Maybe tomorrow he'll be racing around heaven looking for her to play with, or maybe to apologize to.

...chewed through a chain link fence. So not kidding.

...snuck on the bed day after day after day, thinking I wouldn't notice or hoping I wouldn't care.

...stole sack lunches from the construction workers building the house across the field. Tin foil and corn husks (from the tamales) soon littered the yard.

...knew how to hug. Sitting close to him, you could say, "Give me a hug, Chessie," and he'd flop his head onto your chest and leave it there, now again lifting his head and making the kind of eye contact that says, I understand every word you're saying.

Which he didn't, of course, he was just a dog. But he did understand:

"Walk," and "Walk?"

"Leash"

"Go"

"Car"

"Cat"

"Do you want some food in your bowl?"

bu most of all, he understood

"Good dog!"

A Superstar Evening

Last night we went to see the touring production of Jesus Christ, Superstar. My husband and I have a lot of memories of the show, being "children of the 70's" as we are. My dh once played Herod in a local production and I remember playing the Broadway cast albums over and over and over until I knew every word of every song from start to finish. When we saw it was coming to our town we decided to take our daughter, who has never seen it. Then when we saw that Ted Neeley was playing Jesus - Ted Neeley who played Jesus in 1972 - Ted Neeley who is now 65-years-old - I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but we did - and it was pretty good, better than I expected. His voice wasn't smooth, but it was powerful. Makes we want to hunt up my albums and play them.

On the stitching front I finished another of the embroidered blocks for Sandy Brawner's Cake Walk quilt that my LQS is doing as a BOM.

A little while ago I made this cute bird that I saw on Kama's cute blog this morning. You can find the pattern from these nice people.

Being Quiltbirdie I just had to make one! I made it for my DD, who loves home-crafted surprises.

Santa Number 9

This is Bird Brain Santa number 9 for me and now I'm all caught up - didn't make it to the pajama sale last week, so I'll have to run over to the quilt shop on my lunch hour one day next week to see if any more are ready.

I'm very lucky because I have a quilt shop within walking distance of my job and a quilt shop within walking distance (.3 mile!) of my house! How many quilters can say that?

And here's another

This one didn't take very long at all - I started it yesterday morning and finished today about 5 p.m. Considering the fact that we went shopping yesterday afternoon and today from 11 - 2, I think it was exceptionally fast. I wish the background fabric photographed better. It's a tone on tone which looks like baby blocks or stars depending on how you look at it.

This makes eight completed blocks - however, the label on this one's package said it was number nine, so somewhere in my sewing room is another one ready to trace. That leaves three still to be purchased as they become available at my LQS. DD and I are heading over there tomorrow morning for their pajama sale, so I'll see if they have month 10 ready to pick up.