flatbroke ranch has a cow!!!!!!

yes! flatbroke ranch is the proud new owner of a COW!!!!

my friend doris called me monday & asked if i could stop by her house on my way home from work - she wanted to show me something. when i got there, she handed me this:

I WAS SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she painted it just for me!!!!!!

i hung her in my craftroom. right now she's still nameless. can't really call her sam elliott, but i was thinking maybe "samantha"? she looks a little sad - like she got caught in the paint & is afraid i'm gonna yell at her!!!???!!!!

but i LOVE her & i LOVE doris!!!! she's the lady who painted my truck & tractor. now all i need's a barn!!!! i'm on the lookout for one for her to paint!!!!

8 months?????????????????

REALLY??? 8 months have gone by since my last blog post! i'm not dead - just took a little time off from writing and reading blogs. i have not looked at one single blog since last november! i have been busy with projects, changing jobs, projects & weddings & lots of other things and ONE DAY i will be at a place where i can blog about everything that has happened. but not today! as always, i've taken lots of pictures & written lots of posts in my head.....just need time to write them down! soon, very soon. be patient!!!!

houston quilt show

last week while i was on vacation my friend S & i went to the houston quilt show at the george r. brown convention center. this is an international show & takes up the ENTIRE convention center! it took us 2 days & we didn't even see everything!!!

so many beautiful quilts, but these were some of my favorites -- i tend to like the old fashioned looking ones!

that last one was made in the 1800's if i remember correctly. friends & family wrote special messages on the blocks.

this one is appliqued -- of course it's a favorite because it's sunflowers & bluebonnets!!!!!

there were hundreds of vendors - some were so nice that we made instant friendships - like sue & sandi from "pink eyed sissies" and laural from "simply put." we bought a lot from these ladies!!! sue & sandi are sisters who make the most beautiful jewelry from antique cards or ledgers & optician lenses. we spent not only a lot of $$, but a lot of time with them!!! they felt like old friends!!! laural is the designer & owner of simply put - a quilt design shop she runs out of her home in california. i LOVE her stuff!!!! and she was such a sweet lady - she offered susan & me jobs!!!!!!!!!!!! hopefully we'll be helping her run her booth next year during market & quilt festival!!!! that would be so much fun!!!!!

she had this cute little sign in her booth:

i told her i would definitely write about her on my blog!! i've already made one of her projects!!!!! since this post is pretty long & photo-heavy, i'll show you the project i did here, but i'll do another post later about laural & her booth.

the project i did last night was the "tin pan pin cushion" --- it's sooooooo cute!!!!! i stuffed mine with lavender scented ground walnut shells. it smells so good!!!! it's so my style & i apparently have a little tin collection going on!! i have some other tins in my living room that aren't with these so they didn't make it into the picture!

here's the pattern:

and here's mine:

i changed mine up a bit -- i didn't embroider the words on mine, i changed out one of the fabrics (didn't like the pinkish fabric so i swapped it out for the blue/tan stripe, i attached my quilt block to the darker background fabric rather than the lighter - the darker is more "me".

that's the beauty of crafts - you can personalize it to suit your taste. this was such a fun project & it took me about an hour to complete, start to finish, & that's with hand stitching the dresden plate quilt piece to the background fabric.

i want to make a bunch more of these!!!! this one's sitting in my living room. i want one for my craft/sewing room & one for my bedroom & i wonder where else i could put them??!! how many tin pan pincushions can one have???!!!

my house smells fantastic!

i've got a double batch of pumpkin muffins baking & a huge crockpot of apples cooking for applesauce and all of this cinnamony wonderfulness smells delicious!

looks like i need to clean the oven!!!!

after a long weekend at the quilt show, a trip to bellville to pick up a pig (i'll tell ya 'bout that later!), working in the garage cleaning, painting & building a workbench, and another day at the quilt show, i'm going to spend my last day of this vacation sewing. i've got some christmas presents to make & a couple shirts to make for my sister plus a BUNCH of mending.........

and speaking of christmas - i don't even have a clue what my christmas cards are going to be!!! so many ideas & i can't choose one!!!

this has been a great weekend -- i hope to get lots accomplished today then i have to go to work tomorrow..............why can't i just be on vacation forever....or retire.....where's my rich knight in shining armor?????????????????????????

(i DID meet a man who owns a castle this weekend.....but he wasn't a knight!!!!! at least i don't think so...............)

link: newman's castle

this was a two-man job!

but since i don't even have one man, i did it all by myself!!!!

i've been wanting to make a workbench for a long time and today i did!!

first i had to clean up the garage a little & i decided to paint the wall behind the workbench. i used the "taupe" that i did the guest bathroom with.

before:

after:

then i sorted out the 10 pallets i had & chose the best ones for the top & the back. the front legs were made with a 2x4. i screwed them together & braced them with L brackets & some scrap pallet boards. i attached a piece of pallet wood at the top/back to prevent things from rolling off the back. the top pallet is solid boards on the top & bottom so it makes a good storage place for things like the level & tape measure, etc.

it doesn't look level in these pictures, but it is!!!

it went together pretty quickly and i think it turned out great!!! total cost under $5 for the L brackets!! it even has a light above it -- that was free - got it from one of the cubicles at work when we demolished several to make the conference room!

after that i cleaned up the rest of the garage & painted the "tool wall".......... it really looks nice!

before:

after:

(that jewelry box was a garbage day roadside find - from the next door neighbor!!! -- i have plans for the drawers!

i even have a fancy little shelf (that used to be on the front porch a long time ago) to hold my drill & circular saw! adds a nice "girly touch"!!!

wonder what my 1st project on it will be??

i'm pooped! it was a productive day & now i'm going to take a shower & go to bed (& because it's time change night, it's only 8:15 now!!)

i'll show you, dr. kau!!!!!

three months ago when i went to the dr. he & i had a big fight. we actually yelled at each other! he kept wanting to give me all sorts of medicines that gave me or had horrible side effects. i kept refusing to take them. i got really - REALLY - sick one one of the medicines. when i left the office, i said, "i'll show you, dr. kau!!" (pronounced cow, so you'd think i'd like him!!! well, i actually do like him, i was just sick of his "cover it with a pill" attitude instead helping me fix the problem.)

from may to august i had lost 6 lbs. - after months of not losing anything. after years of eating nothing but salads. after walking with the dog a few times a week in the evenings.

after that day i began walking in the mornings with the dog & my friends s & f. EVERY day. and i began my paleo diet - paleo way of eating rather than a "diet". my body's getting the workout it needs & and it's not starving anymore. the scale frustrates me, so i don't weigh every day or every week. in fact, after weighing every day the 1st week, i've only weighed 2 or 3 times in 3 months. instead i'm gauging how i'm doing by how my clothes fit & how my body feels.

and now i've added "planking" every morning & evening to strengthen my "core" & abdominals.

i'm going to be adding weights & other exercises to my evening routine. and i'm really shooting for an earlier bedtime...........that one's gonna be the hardest!!!!

last week when i went to get my blood work done, the technician was impressed. today when i walked into the office, the nurses were like, "wow! look at you!" the head nurse said, "what have you been doing?" she was so excited & told me my numbers --- wow!!! i did good!!!!

i lost 11 lbs in 3 months and lowered my AC1 4 points!!!!!! so that's 17 lbs in 6 months and while the scale may not show it, i can really see it in the inches.

i'll have that "barbie body" yet!!!

dr. kau was a pooper & instead of being as excited as us girls were, he said "that's good, but you're not at the target # that i want you to be at & your blood pressure is higher than it was last time & your cholesterol is higher too. i want you to take these 3 pills." we "discussed" it back & forth for awhile. he took me off the insulin shots -- YAY!!! but because of my non-existent insulin production, i still need to take a pill for that. much better than several shots a day!! so i conceded on that point. rather than his other 2 pills, i'm going to look at lowering my blood pressure & cholesterol in a more natural way.

i walked out of there saying, "i'm going to show you AGAIN, dr. kau!!!!"

and yesterday i did something that a few months ago i NEVER would have DREAMED of doing ----

i posted pictures of myself in a swimming suit on facebook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

trying to show how much extra room there was in my shorts....

wow! that took guts!!! skinny guts!!!!

peanut butter cookies and pizza

that's what i made tonight.

(that's a LOT of cookies!!!)

well, i made the crust tonight. it will be pizza tomorrow night.

(it's shiny because it already has the plastic wrap on it!)

i promised my friend susan (aka "tax widow") that i would give her & foster a date night as soon as tax season was over. tax season 2014 officially ended yesterday, october 15!!!!! YAY!!!!! susan has a fun, romantic evening planned - she's cooking all of foster's favorite foods & then there will be ballroom dancing (in their living room!) and then they'll probably do what every married couple does.....



....they'll do some chores around the house, pay some bills, talk about things that need to be done for/with the kid, & then they'll fall asleep in front of the tv!!!!!!!! how romantic!!!!!!!

what were YOU thinking they'd do????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i, however, will be having a very unromantic evening with 3 men! (susan gets 1, i get 3!!!) the CPA & i will be "babysitting" sam (aka "geronimo's boy") and grandpa carter! we'll be having cauliflower pizza that everyone can put their own toppings on, gluten-free peanut butter cookies & movie popcorn that we'll pick up from the movie theater on our way home while we watch "the guardian" -- a really good guy movie that's really good for girls too. (cuz it's got lots of cute coast guard/navy seal type guys in it!!!!!!!!!!!) on the CPA's big screen tv with surround sound!

come to think of it, i might be having the better night after all!!!!!!

the CPA agreed to this weeks ago. but i guess since he's been so involved in tax season, he forgot. when i reminded him the other day, he wasn't too happy, but he'll get over it!!!! he doesn't have to DO anything. i'm doing all the cooking & i even told him we could use paper plates. what is it with guys and paper plates? they act like it's so hard to wash a dish! that's what dishwashers are for!!!!

i wanted some kind of dessert that guys would like. (i'd prefer a berry cobbler, but that sounds more girlish than guyish! (even though guys DO like berry cobblers.....) so i made gluten-free peanut butter cookies. all guys like peanut butter, right? but they do have sugar in them, so other than the 1 i tried tonight, i won't be eating any of them. they remind me of the cookies we had in elementary school. i have never, NEVER, seen these cookies anywhere except my elementary school. i don't even think the high school had them! they were huge (at least they were back then - but everything about elementary school was huge. when i went back as an adult, i couldn't believe how little everything looked!!!!! it was like they had shrunk everything!) and they had this CERTAIN texture -- gritty, like sand! but they were SOOOOO GOOD!!! and they usually always served them with this one certain meal: the best homemade mac & cheese (not the boxed kraft garbage with the fake orange cheese, this stuff was white & had huge noodles...!), peanut butter sandwiches on white bread - no jelly, and green beans!

anyways, i've been trying to find a recipe that matches these cookies for 35ohmygosh36years or more!!! and by golly, i think i found it!!!! and they're soooooo easy!!! and gritty!!!! ha ha!!! and they have only 4 ingredients: 1 cup of creamy peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon baking soda.

that's it!!! you mix it all up with a spoon & make 1 inch balls, place on an ungreased cookie sheet & flatten them with a fork by making that "trademark" peanut butter cookie crosshatch with the fork tines then bake at 325 for 10 minutes. let them cool completely before trying to remove from cookie sheet or they'll crumble. and then you will have to eat the crumbled one(s)!

well, i'd better get to bed - 4darkthirty comes awful early, i've had a busy, stressful week at work & i've gotta be rested so i can stay awake tomorrow night. i'm notorious for falling asleep during movies at home. i can stay awake in the movie theater, but i always fall asleep watching them at home!

tomorrow would NOT be the night to do THAT!!!!