Too busy for Tea

I've noticed that I've been somewhat unplugged from the blogosphere lately...even from my computer completely.  It's been kind of refreshing. With the end of summer wrap-up we have so many things on the calendar in such a small amount of time. 

I'll be around here and there over the next couple weeks very randomly. I'm not trying to ditch you, if i don't answer an email as promptly as I used to...I'm just not checking email very often.

Happy end of summer to everyone! I'll be back to my "normal" self after Labor Day.

Tea Time round robin theme

 

This was the last book for me to work in during our 6 player round robin. It has been so much fun! 

This last book is heading back home to  Canada, hopefully later today.

Every once in a while...

...I feel very domestic. 

As in old school... starting from scratch with all basic ingredients. 

Today was one of those days.

I was inspired by this blog post by Krista to try making butter. 

Into the mixer goes the heavy whipping cream...

Several minutes of high speed mixing brought me to here...

Notice the solids separated from the liquid....that liquid would be buttermilk. Cool huh!

 

 

 

After draining the buttermilk off and "washing" the butter...see Krista's recipe...

  I ended up with this nice ball of butter.

Remember the buttermilk I mentioned earlier... 

Oh yeah..pancakes for lunch baby!

During the midst of all that mixing I made a batch of salsa or maybe it would be pica de gallo depending on how you want to look at it.

Aren't veggies beautiful!?!

Tea Tuesday: Enjoying the garden

On yet another beautiful morning, I am having a little quiet time on the deck before diving into the day.

Days like today remind me why we put up with the extremes of Minnesota weather.  

We've been blessed with an abundant garden once I figured out how to keep the critters at bay. The fencing and the flags along with an occasional sprinkle of blood meal seem to have done the trick.

I've picked a couple ice cream buckets full of green beans...  

Enough snow peas for stir-fry and munching...

Several big, yummy cucumbers 

with more on the way...

Very soon I'll have more tomatoes than I know what to do with...

I can't wait!

And by the way...

our leaves are starting to turn... 

just a few here and there. 

What a short growing season!

Drop by my friend Kimmie's blog to see what's going on with my tea Tuesday pals.

What are you doing today?

Sweet package and more flowers

Quite a while ago, after posting my Travels handmade book, Margaret asked me if I had an postcards from Switzerland for my collection. 

Since I didn't, we decided to do a little trade of items from our areas. 

Just look at all the fun items she sent!

I'm really looking forward to using the pretty napkins.

And this postcard is an awesome addition to my collection! 

It's very Scandinavian looking...love that! 

Have I mentioned that I'm 100% Norwegian!?!

Thank you so much Margaret!

I also wanted to share a couple more bottle cap flowers I made the other day.

They are a fun addition to my garden.

Fairy door

I saw a fun challenge and decided to go for it since I haven't worked much with miniatures lately.  I found that I really miss it. 

I love making faux stone. It's my favorite technique.

Have a magical day!!

Altered Puzzle piece

Finished another one and popped it in the mailbox yesterday. 

One of the postmen said he gets a kick out of the mail art and postcards I send and receive. 

He asked me about the postcards one day when I was mailing a very boring package.

I had no idea they paid that much attention! 

Fun to know that mail art not only brightens the recipients day but the postal workers day as well.

Cool Tuesday

I am so happy to say that our weather has made a turn. The humidity and heat have gone. 

I awoke to 61°F with a cool NW breeze. 

Glorious! 

I want to wash all the sheets and blankets to dry them outside for a change.  

But first I must show you the flower I made. It was definitely inspired by our lovely Tea Tuesday hostess, Kimmie. 

I have a couple more sets laid out but the heat and humidity in the garage yesterday was too much and I got very frustrated with the heavy gauge wire. Have to try again today.

Found text ATC

Sometimes I grab a random page torn from a book to give me inspiration. 

That is when my quirky sense of humor takes over....

Rocks and friendship

A favorite pastime is searching for fun rocks to add to our collections. Well...it's mostly our girl and I that can do this for hours on end. 

It was great to walk out from our hotel straight to the shoreline.

The shoreline at this part of the lake is rocky...not sandy. It kills my feet to walk on for any length of time even though the rocks have been worn smooth.

We brought home some treasures...

I don't think we got any agates...have a book on reserve at the library to help me identify.

We just picked ones that spoke to us. Such as penguin rock,  pyramid rock, a couple with faces and some with a ring slicing through. Others just said take me home like the stick.

My ultimate excitement was when I found sea glass!!! There were all small pieces but genuine sea glass none the less. 

There were several shades of green and clear as well as a blue and a piece of pottery or maybe milk glass?  I want to go back just to sit and sift through to find more. Sad but true.

I spotted this rock while hiking and had to grab a picture.
Such a funny face...


        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


And now to the friendship part of my post....
My BFF is in town for a convention and we haven't seen each other in 17yrs!
I'm picking her up in a couple hours so we can spend the evening hanging out at our house until she leaves bright and early in the morning for home. 
I am so excited that I'm giddy!

It's good to be home

Just how good you'll know towards the end of my story that is jammed with lots of pictures...you've been warned.

Our first morning in Duluth we woke to this beautiful sunrise over Lake Superior.

Then panned to the right and saw a couple of "Lakers" ...big cargo ships that travel through the Great Lakes system.

After we went down for breakfast and returned to our room this was our view!

It had steamed in that far. 

This ship was one of the biggest in the fleet at 1004 ft long.

We quickly walked down to the canal to watch.

Was it going to fit?

Just cleared the lift bridge.

Here's a view from the lift bridge when it's down for traffic to flow.

Duluth is pretty at night as well with the lights reflecting on the water.

And then we got food poisoning...luckily just us and not the kids as well. At least it was our last night there...sure was a miserable one though. Oh yeah and about 4 AM that miserable night...the power went out in the hotel.  It was only out for about 5 minutes and most likely no one but us even noticed.

I'll share some more high points later but for now I must go rest again. 

Still not feeling 100%