Christmas and Birthday rules

As promised - and I know you were waiting - here are the new rules..... This year Scott decided we would have new rules for gifts.  We give lists and so you kinda know what you are getting. Well, I never do because Scott always gets me lovely things on top of what I asked for (no, I am not spoiled - ok maybe a little)  Of course, it is exactly what you want so you really can't go wrong. Scott wants to shake things up! So I will share with you the new rules....

The Fabulous 2013 Burch Family Gift Giving Rules

1. There are four people involved - you know who you are.
2. You must  give a gift on birthday and Christmas.
3. You need only give one, but you can give up to two - no more. (per person at Christmas)
4. No spending limit, but it does not need to be purchased.
5. Work from your knowledge of the recipient. NO LISTS (except for a little list for stocking or you get undies)
6. No joke gifts, no hateful gifts.
7. No cash or gift cards

I am excited to see how it goes. I have a friend who has done - or maybe they always do - "make it, bake it, grow it, sew it" Ours isn't exclusively that - it can be purchased - or not. Should be fun!!

Finish

Bushel and a Peck by La-D-Da

This is a finish from 12/12 Scott made the frame - painted it and distressed it. Isn't it LOVELY!! He did such a great job!

A Give-Away!!

I am a little nervous about this because I am not sure very many people look at this blog and if they do I am not sure they are interested in cross stitching.... I will attempt a give away anyway!! You could be the lucky winner of....... Winter Silhouette by Diane Arthurs  I will include 14ct navy blue aida and a few skeins of white DMC! All you have to do is post a comment on this post only. Next Monday night at 10 pm mountain time (sorry I work nights) I will pick a winner from a hat and post it! Good luck!
On a completely unrelated note... I haven't posted a cat picture in awhile  - hate for you guys to have Mo withdrawal!

doesn't matter what I am doing, he has to be there! 

Good luck!!

Hello

Howdy folks,

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was just ok. I had a bump removed from my lip on my first day off. I slept all of three hours and then went to this appointment. I was a bit of a zombie - ugh. Here are some things you should know - you may already know these things but don't just think about it.... shots in your lip hurt, cauterizing is disgusting, having a bump removed hurts a ton more than having a big ol' mole removed off your back. The fun part was - there was a blood vessel under the bump and it sprayed the doctors face mask like a horror flick. I didn't see it happen because they had my face covered - weird, but I saw it after they took the thing off my face. The not fun part was I bled like a stuck pig and they ended up having to cauterize it - ewwwww!  Anyway I got three stitches and it was swollen for days! I get the stitches out on Thursday.

wanna shmooch?

Taylor came over for dinner Friday night. We had California grilled chicken with mango and avocado salad which is one of my favorites. The next day she brought me Mango Coconut Chia Pudding which she made with strawberries - fabulous!! 

Scott says my phone adds green to everything - this is tastier than it looks.

She also brought me Boba - to make boba tea sometimes called bubble tea I love this stuff. I first had it at the Chinese New Year celebration.  It doesn't add flavor to the tea - some of them are green tea or anise flavored when eaten alone. It's just fun and you have to use a huge straw to get the tapioca balls out of the bottom - love it! My mom gags if you try to give her this tea. Ryder and Scott will pass on it every time - boring! 

boba tea

boba

I finished another dishrag - can I make a straight square? Doesn't look like it! I will still use the crooked thing but COME ON!!! I followed the instructions - grrr! 

We really didn't do much - watched some tv, chores - nothing too exciting. I did make a new recipe - baked spaghetti squash and cheese from Skinny taste - and wow it is fabulous!! I love it!!

 We ate breakfast at Luciles - the omelet is smack your grandma fantastic with white cheddar, muenster and ricotta cheese - I get it with shaved ham - mmmm plus the biscuits are yell at the neighbors delicious!!  

Scott posted about 50 cross stitch patterns on ebay if you are interested stb90125 - there is the link. 

I think that is all - stay tuned though - this week there will be a give away, new rules for gift giving and a recipe that got deleted!! 

Have a wonderful week folks!! 

WIPS

Bear Tree Farm by Little House Needleworks

Jingle Bells Christmas Tree Farm by The Victoria Sampler

Hello

Howdy folks,
My weekend was good. Scott took part of Friday off and we went to see the Van Gogh Exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. Scott was thrilled to see this exhibit - he very much enjoyed every picture!! I also enjoyed the exhibit. I have to say that I was not very familiar with his work and after seeing some of his paintings I am not a fan. There were a few pictures I really liked but I think you have to like that style of painting and I guess I don't. We saw some of the other things at the museum - I love the  Brian Knep interactive exhibit. The totem poles in the American Indian Art exhibit are one of my favorites!!

Scott is in there but I had my phone on the wrong color - ack! 

We went to visit the new stitching store in Denver!! Stitching Shop is the name - kinda hard to find. She doesn't have a sign yet so you have to look for the address and the name on the building is "Hause Equipment"  - it's in there. She has tons of fun things. I bought a Mill Hill ornament (Snowflake Tree) the package doesn't do it justice but there was a finished one on the wall and I loved it. She has classes and fun things going on - so check it out!! I'm thrilled there is a new store in town!!
We ate at Biker Jim's. The chocolate milkshake is great and the fries are good. The hotdog was ok - the menu is more fun than the food tastes if that makes sense. I don't know that we will go back but I'm glad we went. Scott got a hotdog with carmelized onions and cream cheese. He got fries and fried macaroni (which could use some green chilies in it) this is what I got...

shake, homemade chips, the Bat Dog 

Saturday we planned out our vacation basics. We are going to Massachusetts this year for a weekend long letterbox meet at a campground - FUN!!! We are driving, so we decided to take two weeks (or a little more) and hit some fun spots! If anybody knows of any cross stitch stores on Salem MA - Boston MA or Portland Me or even Buffalo NY let me know. So here is a rough plan...
First night in Des Moines, hit a DDD in Goshen , We stay 2 days in Cleveland (we will go to the Market, eat at Lucky's, The Melt bar and Grilled and Geraci's, Scott is going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while I hit two local cross stitch stores Crafty Ewe and Just Stitching, We will visit family and go to Heggy's Nut Shop for chocolate covered pecans mmmmmm!!) Next night in Buffalo NY, see Niagara falls, eat at a diner, next night in Kingston - we will letterbox here. Next night in Portland ME (DDD and boxes), We stay 2 days in Salem  - also going to see Boston and the Freedom trail. Eat at Diners!! Letterbox!! Then we go to our letterbox event. Then it's off to Winchester VA, diners and boxing along the way. Then Nashville, then Memphis (Graceland) then Oklahoma city, then Albuquerque (the Frontier for burritos, tortillas and cinnamon rolls!!!)  then HOME!! We are coming back a different route than usual - we have come across I70 and I 80 every time we travel! This time we get new boxes and new diners to visit. Looks like we will have boxes in 22 states on that vacation and diners in 11 states!! We are both looking forward to this trip - even though it is packed full!! I have brothers who live in TN and TX. I hope to see them on this trip but mostly we are driving through those states so it might be hard!
We went and saw "Silver Linings Playbook" late Saturday - that was fun and the movie is good! Both the lead actors in this movie play crazy really well!! I enjoyed it! 
I did manage to cook a few things this weekend. I made a new recipe  - squash boats, Very good, I love spaghetti squash. I made buffalo cauliflower just to see what it tasted like for snacking - very good. I made blue cheese dressing for dipping - gooood stuff!!   Scott and I made Vietnamese shaking beef  together. This is one of my favorite Skinny Taste recipes. I wrote on my recipe to add cucumber as well as the tomato because it is fantastic with cucumber!  The marinade smells funny because it is fish sauce and oyster sauce but it has such a great flavor - not fishy at all!! I double the vinaigrette because I serve this on lettuce and you spoon some of it over the whole thing for dressing. I can't wait to try the newest recipe on the Skinny Taste  blog baked spaghetti squash and cheese- sounds delicious! 
Scott sent me a picture tonight of a frame he is working on  - isn't it lovely!! I can't wait to see it finished!

Bushel and a Peck

I hardly stitched this weekend. At home I am working on Jingle Bells Tree Farm by Victoria Sampler. At work I am working on Bear Tree Forest by Little House Needleworks. Lots of snow - bad planning! HA I need to knit some more crooked dish clothes because I used my new one and I liked it! Maybe the next one will be straight - maybe!

I still love my new Kia - we drove it all over this weekend! It got 22 mpg - Dodge only got 13.5 WOO HOO and to fill it was $40 instead of $70. 

Well, I know I was long winded but I have been doing more than one post at a time and I think that is distracting so one lone one it is!! Hope you all have a good week!!

PAGE VIEWS!!!

I have 2000 - wooo hoo!! Soon I will be doing a give away - pattern and fabric - stay tuned!!

Cooking

Hello,
I got up at 1:00 today - a little earlier than I wanted but whaddya gonna do?!? I went to the gym and did some house stuff. For dinner I made Chicken Shiitake and Wild Rice Soup from Skinnytaste of course. Good day for a hot soup. I love this recipe!

We had a salad with it. Very tasty indeed. It would be good with bread if you can spare the points - it's filling without though so if you can't spare the points you sure don't miss it! It is so cold outside today - brrrr! Hope you are warm and full of good food! 

nights

Hello,
Well, I made it through my first week of nights. I usually work 4 days and I only had to work 3. Exhausting!! Sunday I stayed up all night but could only sleep 5 hours, next day only slept 6 hours then I finally got 7 hours of sleep and it was time for my weekend!  My shift is 8pm to 6 am.

Mo likes napping

Mo is glad I am home!

I finished a dishcloth. Funny that the fish look so much better that the damn square - I tore this thing out ten times at least ugh!! 

Friday Scott and I went to the Hobbit - hated it! They shot it in 3d imax and some high resolution film. In my opinion ..... it looked like people dressed in costume running around. The LOTR looked real - the hobbits look real - dwarves - elves. Not in this movie. We were very disappointed. We love movie night and it sucks when the movie sucks! We need another movie night! 

Saturday I got a new car!!! We leased a 2013 Kia Sorento and I love it!! 22 mpg city! Plus they gave us basketball tickets - cool!

 I had my Dodge for 11 years - drove it to Alaska and back. Recently it had no heat, smelled of antifreeze - bad and was starting to leak transmission fluid. I hated to see my Dodge go but it only got 13.5 mpg which really sucks! I think I really like the Kia!! I think if I had the Dodge another month I would have had to have some major work done on it and with that mpg it just wasn't worth it!  

We have been watching Downton Abbey OMG I LOVE LOVE LOVE that show! I wish I could watch it all the time! Actually I'd love to go have tea but that is just silly! We ordered the uncut English version - guess they dumbed it down for us Americans - can't wait to see it!  

Friday we are going to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Museum  - very exciting! We may end up at a basketball game! We are also planning on eating at Biker Jim's - we've never eaten there but I've heard good things. That is if I make it through another weeks of nights.  

I think I am having hot flashes. I am always blazing hot but my feet will be cold. It's ridiclous! Scott had the heater at 45 at one point this weekend because I was going to die. I heard him say to Ryder - "Mom is leaving for work so we can turn on the heat" poor guys! I think Mo is most affected.

Scott is pulling his leg but the heater is on so he is ignoring Scott completly - poor frozen kitty! I hope it goes quick or in the summer I might just fall over of heat exhaustion! 

That is all - hope you all have a warm happy week! 

Cooking

Hello,
So I made the sweet potato recipe - fantastic. I will re-post it since it got deleted. I got it from my Aunt Debbie. She had written it down out of a magazine but had changed a thing or two. I tried to find the recipe with no luck - I decided it would be her recipe and called it...
 Aunt Debbie's Fantastic Scalloped Sweet Potatoes
7 c 1/4 sliced and peeled sweet potatoes
2 qt chicken stock
2 T oil or butter
3 T flour
1.5 c 2% milk
2 garlic cloves
3 oz Gruyere
1 oz Parmesan grated
 rosemary
chives
in a 4 qt pan cook potatoes in stock for 4 minutes. Reserving the stock and draining so that the potatoes stay intact. Spray a 2 qt casserole dish and place half potatoes in the bottom. In sauce pan heat oil or butter, sprinkle flour and stir constantly for a minute, add garlic and cook two minutes, combine milk with 1 c reserved broth and gradually add to flour mixture stirring constantly. Add rosemary and bring to boil cook 4 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat - you can strain it but I didn't. add salt, pepper and Gruyere Pour half on potatoes , put the rest of the potatoes and the rest of the sauce, sprinkle Parmesan on top and bake 350 for an hour, broil to brown and sprinkle with chives

Debbie's sweet potatoes without chives

with roasted chicken

and fabulous wine!! Sweet and bubbly! 

That is all. Have a lovely day.

Hellish crafts

Hello,

YAY for me- I finished aknitted project from a pattern!!! I got it from Ravelry and it's called  -  wishy washy fishy tawashi I actally made two but this is each side of the same one! 

They are double sided. I was only going to make one side but hiding the threads was daunting and looked like ick so I did both sides!  I used a varigated Lily Sugar n' Cream  - Country stripes and white. Fun! I tried another kind of dishcloth but I can't figure out the yarn over so it will have to wait. 

Tonight is my first night shift. It sucks. I stayed up all night Sunday night but was only able to sleep a few hours. That made me very grumpy. I tried to talk myself into going back to sleep - if you have done that you know it doesn't work. So I have to try to stay awake all night ugh! 8pm to 6am . Two of my co-workers who are switching from days to nights also had a hard time sleeping so we are all in the same ugly tired boat!  

a quilt and four chair backs sucked to the size of a notebook!

For Christmas my step-dad Brian gave me vacuum bags. Scott sucked (with the vacuum - geez) all my quilts - pretty cool huh! While he was doing that he found a spring quilt I had made years ago in Alaska. I had him hang the quilt and two of the chair backs in the laundry room (his idea) and I put the other two chair backs in my craft room - so cute! 

 That is all folks - hope you have a good long sleep! 

that darn cat

That cat loves my husband - even though I spoil him - whatever!!

I can't remember what they are talking about - but I bet Scott is asking him why he is sitting there!

Mo thinks Scott should share cherries but kitties shouldn't have bourbon cherries! 

hellish crafts

Good morning!

So, I spent one day trying to knit with nothing to show and I almost gave up! I spent one more day working on this hideous dishcloth - U G L Y it has no alibi!

U G L Y

yikes! 

in progress

this is me trying to figure out wth I am doing! 

Mo thinks this new thing I am doing is to entertain him ...

Attacked!! Rude!!

This is the one Taylor was working on - looks great!! 

Mine has an odd stripe in it - because I messed up and knitted - or purled two rows - unsure what I did!! I am trying another dishcloth - this one is a pattern and not just me trying to figure this out! Wish me luck!! Hope you have a knitty day!