Faline and the Sweater Holes

 Last year, I knit Faline a pink sweater for Christmas.  I forgot to get a picture of it before gifting it, and have missed a couple of chances to get a photo of her wearing it this winter.  By careful searching of photos taken during our big family Christmas gathering, I was able to find the sweater in a corner of one picture.  So I carefully cropped it and am using it here so you can see the sweater I'm talking about.

The pattern is Sunday Sweater; it has a lacy design on the front, making it a feminine sweater.  It is the same pattern I've used for Faline's sweaters for three years now.  I've never heard any complaints, so when it's time to make her a new, bigger sweater, I grab that pattern and make the next size (or two) up.

Apparently that was all well and good until I made both her younger brothers sweaters and used a different pattern (Little Shore).  For them I made plain front cardigans. You can see Buck wearing his in the photo below.

Well, recently Faline wore her new pink sweater to church.  I commented on how nice she looked, and how the pink of the sweater matched the pink accents in her (springy) green dress.  I then asked it if was a comfy sweater, and if she liked it.

Very solemnly, she replied that she did like it, except "Amma, you need to do something about the holes".  

Confused, thinking maybe I'd left too big of a gap in the underarm when picking up the sleeves from the body and casting on a few extra stitches so that the upper sleeve isn't too tight, I asked her where the holes were.

She pointed to her chest and all down the front of the sweater.  The lacy design.  Which, when compared to her brothers' sweaters apparently didn't look like a girly feature, but like holes.  Holes! 

I guess when it's time to make Faline a bigger sweater, I should go with a gender neutral plain cardigan and not another Sunday Sweater.  Wouldn't want holes in the next one.

Sixlet is Two!

 How can that be?  The little baby born 'the day after Leprechaun Day' (as Faline puts it) is all ready two years old.  While I suspect he will end up quite a bit taller than a Leprechaun, and most likely taller than Honorary Son, his father, he does have reddish hair and mischief in his eyes.

His birthday party was this past weekend.  It was originally was planned for the weekend before his birthday, but he came down with a fever the night before and the party had to be postponed until he was feeling better.  

For the last several months, Sixlet has been obsessed with shoes in all shapes and sizes.  In fact, at Buck's birthday party, Sixlet slyly swiped the brand new pair of Spiderman slippers about two minutes after Buck unwrapped them and he wore them for the rest of the party, until Buck actually noticed.  There was quite a ruckus when Buck asserted his rightful ownership and took them right off Sixlet's feet.

So, when DD1 send out invites to Sixlet's party, she included his clothing and shoe sizes and wrote "he loves shoes and hats".  She even made his birthday cake in the shape of a shoe.

It should come as no surprise that Sixlet received five new pair of footwear at his birthday party: some cowboy boots, some hiking/work type boots, a pair of mocassins, a pair of canvas sneakers, and a set of crocodile 'Crocs'! 

Toothy Crocs

Of course he insisted on wearing every single new shoe during the brief time between opening presents and when his party ended.

Time to try the next pair.

Kitchen Adventures: Two Yeas and a Nae

I've been trying some new recipes in the kitchen lately.  When the kids were growing up, I was pretty explorative, and somehow that went away in the last dozen years or so (really, I think I know why, as 2015-2023 were all very stressful years).  Lately I am finding that I miss that inquisitiveness and creativity and so I am trying to incorporate some of it back into my culinary life.

The first new recipe, which I tried for Pi Day, was a definite flop.  I'm sure part of it had to do with me freestyling and tweaking the recipe I was using as a guideline.  But even if I had made it to the letter as written, I don't think we would have liked it as much as it sounded like we would.

It was called Strawberry Cheesecake, but not a real cheesecake; it was actually a pie that mixed a block of softened cream cheese in with a box of vanilla pudding. In the recipe, it said to take a graham cracker crust (which I duly made from scratch), line it with fresh strawberries (which I did not have, but I did have several baggies of frozen strawberries), mix the cream cheese with the pudding mix and milk, pour into the crust, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours before serving (so the pudding would set).

I knew that my frozen strawberries, as they thawed, would get mushy underneath that pudding/cream cheese layer.  So I thought why not just blend them in?  Make it more like a strawberry pudding layer than fruit under pudding.  Sounded feasible.

Um, yeah.  Maybe you can tell from the photo below how well that worked.  The photo was taken after I cut and removed the first two pieces.  

Runny, runny, runny.  Texture was a total fail.  Blending the strawberries was a mistake.  I probably should have reduced the milk in relation to the strawberries.  Although even if I had done that I suspect the acid in the strawberries still would have messed with the setting ability of the pudding.  Oh well. After the first two pieces we ended up serving this dessert in bowls rather than on plates.

It tasted good, although the combo of the cream cheese and vanilla pudding was a little weird.  If I was in the habit of making no-bake cheesecake mixes maybe I would have liked the taste better, but typically when I make cheesecake it's an honest to God real cheesecake that requires a springform pan and the oven. And eggs. No pudding. Completely different texture and flavor.

The next kitchen experiment was Irish Soda Bread.  I was planning on actually doing an 'Irish' dinner on St. Patrick's Day, and since I don't like corned beef (or, as I refer to it, "Salty Meat"), I was going with a lamb stew.  Stew needs some form of bread to dip into it, in my book.  So Irish Soda Bread was on the docket.

This was a yea.  Definitely will make again.  It was super easy to make, went well with the stew, and the rest of the loaf makes a nice toothsome toast or hearty sandwich bread.

The Irish Stew itself was also a win.  Lacking a Dutch oven, I had the idea of using my electric skillet (which I've had for ages and very rarely use) instead.  Lamb shoulder (from the lamb we bought last Fall and put in the freezer) cut into chunks, carrots, potatoes, four onions (was supposed to use one onion and three leeks but my local grocery store was out of leeks the day before St. Patty's and was not getting more that week), garlic, beef broth, and stout.  

Yum, yum!  It was delicious.  The meat was nice and tender, the stew was rich and creamy (not a runny thin broth), and we will definitely be eating this at least annually henceforth.

A New eBay Addiction?

 I've owned Tupperware for a long, long time.  I'm pretty sure I made my first Tupperware party purchase back in 1990.  I received Tupperware for my wedding in 1993. I went to a few parties in the mid to late 90s, and hosted a Tupperware party of my own in 2000.  In the late 2000s I switched to buying glass containers for things I didn't all ready own that size of container for (like microwavable leftovers to go in lunch boxes), but I did not give up using the Tupperware that I own.  Yes, it's plastic, but it's Tupperware and you can't make me give it up.  LOL.

Through the decades, some of the lids have died.  Warped, melted, cracked. . . some through misuse (I confess to boiling a few lids in 1992 in the name of sterilization after a mouse invasion of our student rental while DH and I were gone home for Christmas break his 4th year of college. Plastic lid in boiling water, yeah, they didn't fit the bowls anymore after that.  Rookie mistake.) and the rest just due to repeated use through the years.  Used to be Tupperware had a lifetime guarantee (except if you boiled the lids or otherwise damaged them by your own stupidity) and you could call up your local Tupperware rep, give them the broken item and it would be replaced free of charge.  

In the late 2000s, it got harder and harder to find a Tupperware rep (my friend who was one moved to Wyoming, so that wasn't gonna work for replacements anymore), and I started to stockpile my increasing amount of cracked lids.  I hoped to find someone local who was a Tupperware rep that I could get together with and exchange my broken ones for new ones.  But, even looking online, I couldn't come up with anyone within an hour's drive.  At least, not one who got back to me about free replacements.

In late 2025, out of desperation (and wondering why I had about a dozen broken lids in a box, and corresponding containers in my cupboards that couldn't easily be used without a lid), I searched on the Tupperware site itself not for a local rep, but for info on how to turn in broken Tupperware for a free replacement.  And found zero about lids.  A little bit, here and there, about a few other items, but nothing about replacing lids.

I even tried looking up just coughing up cash for new lids that were the same sizes and shapes as the ones I needed to replace.  On the Tupperware site, I found pretty much nothing.  I could order all new sets of containers with lids, but I could not order just a lid.  

After several more months of soul searching "Do I give away all these lidless containers?  Do I keep trying to use them with plastic wrap or foil as a lid (which really didn't work for me)?" I hit upon an acceptable to me answer: Buy new (old, used, whatever I could get) lids on eBay.  So I made a list of the model (serial?) numbers that were on my broken ones, finally threw out the box of cracked lids, and started watching eBay for Tupperware lids.

When I find a few in the size that I'm looking for, I add them to my watchlist, then wait.  No impulse buying allowed.  I compare price plus shipping, figure up how much I want to spend on each individual item, and wait some more.  Often, within a few days of a listing being added to my watchlist, the seller will send me an offer.  If I feel that discounted price is within what I want to spend, I accept.  Otherwise, I keep waiting and search again for that particular size lid after a few weeks have gone by.

At first, it was nice to just have not cracked lids on things like my big square storage containers that I use as flour and sugar cannisters.  A replacement lid was appreciated.

But recently, I scored a new lid for my biggest Wonderlier bowl, the one whose lid I'd accidentally killed by boiling after the mouse incident of January 1992.  I was excited to finally have a lid for that again.  Not just any lid, but the exact shade of the one I'd warped beyond measure.  I put it on the bowl after using the bowl to mix up a batch of cookie dough that needed to be chilled, and seeing that bowl covered by it's proper lid (not plastic wrap! not aluminum foil!) again after 34 years brought me such a thrill!*

So much so that I immediately had to jump on eBay and see what else of my replacement lid list might currently be offered.  And, not only if it was offered, but if I could get it in the original color I'd had. Add to watchlist. Wait.

I might be addicted.

But no longer will I have perfectly usable Tupperware bowls and containers languishing in my cupboards for lack of a lid.

*You may be wondering why, if I ruined the lid in 1992, I didn't turn it in for a free replacement back in the 90s when there were still Tupperware parties going on frequently and I knew Tupperware reps.  Why did I wait until 2026 to replace the lid??  That's because in 1992 I didn't know about free replacement (and even if I had, technically it was my fault--and not the company's error-- that the lid needed replacing) and I threw the warped lid away.  Without a lid to turn in, I couldn't get a free replacement, and back in the 90s raising four kids there was rarely money to spare on a pricey (it seemed at the time) new lid when plastic wrap and aluminum foil could do the job (sorta, never to my satisfaction).

How The Wind Blows

 We've had several windy days at this little place here in the past week. An entire day and night of prolonged 30+ mph wind with frequent gusts around 60 mph.  A day or two of calm, then more wind of 20+ mph with 40+mph gusts.  Honestly, at this point, I'm rather tired of hearing the wind blow.

I do have to be grateful that we've had no loss of trees, or even limbs from trees, and none of the buildings have sustained damage.  The cones in my 'arena' behind the barn keep getting blown over like some odd giant bowling game, but the roofing and siding of the barn are undisturbed.

bowling overnight

bowling during the (scattered snow showery) day

The hay elevator, with three cinderblocks stored in it to weigh down the tongue end, was played with like a teeter-totter by the wind, and the (heavier) tongue end is now the end up in the air.  

Definitely not the end that's supposed to be up!

Even my mounting block, which has stood in place unaffected by wind for about two years now, was moved.  A gust must have went in the open front part and lifted it enough that it rotated about 45 degrees, as you can see from the lines in the grass.  The lines are where it's been standing for quite some time.

A close up to better see the lines from where it stood before.

The LBM wears a long mane, and during turnout it got whipped and tangled into several witches knots.  I spent close to 45 minutes untangling and combing it out, then made many braids in it to keep that from happening again in the next predicted round of strong winds (which happened a few days later).  

All this and March, which is typically a windy month, is only half over!

Pecan Drops

 In my quest to not make the same cookies twice in a row this year, I tried a new to me recipe.  It's from a cookbook I've actually owned for years but haven't explored too much (when you're enjoying being in a chocolate chip cookie rut, why branch out?)

Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Cookies is the name of the cookbook.  And the recipe I made is called Pecan Drops. 

The flavor is buttery, with a hint of pecan.  They were really yummy, and will definitely be added to my list of favorite cookie recipes.

Not only are they tasty, they are incredibly easy and quick to make.  So easy that I'm tempted to make them again right away.  But that would be breaking my 'no same recipe back to back' rule I'm trying to follow for this year's cookies, so I won't.  Maybe the batch after this next recipe though. 😉

A Happy Friday Post

 I'm still (mostly) relaxed from my great vacation I posted about here.  It really was a great time.  Even the flights went smoothly (okay, there was a little turbulence but it was minimal and all the rest of the flight/airport experience was unusually free of stress).

Other things making me happy lately:

^A new-to-me cookie recipe that was both easy to make and delicious.  I'll be posting about it soon.

^That while we got tons of rain from recent storms, we had no tornadoes or hail.

^The robins are arriving.  Which means, although we are headed into another cold spell, that we're not going to have much more snow before the weather stays warm.  Typically we get a good snowstorm shortly after the first robins are seen, and then maybe one or two more that melt within a day.  So, we are officially through the hard part of winter.

^On sunny days I've found a few half-hour sessions to work on getting the beading done on a Santa counted cross stitch that I'd worked on last year, intending for it to be done in time for Christmas gifting.  It wasn't.  But it will be this year!

^I finally finished the Yoga Camp series that I started in early 2025, unintentionally took the summer and fall off from and picked up again in January 2026.  So 30 days of yoga was spread out over nearly a year, but hey, I completed what I started. ✊

^After coming home from vacation and catching up on tasks at this little place here I started a new yoga series by the same person: Revolution, which is 31 days.  Let's see if I can get all the days done before the end of summer. (Doing yoga daily is not something I am able to fit into my schedule, so I aim for 2-3 days per week).

^Some ruminations about shedding the most recent phase of our lives (say the last 10 years or so) and stepping into the next, complete with purging of stuff that isn't needed any longer, doing some long put-off projects and switching thinking about DH's retirement from the long term to the short term as regard to plans and looking at it in months (36? Less?  Slightly more?) rather than years (5-10 depending on economy).

^Possibly a new horse coming to live at this little place here in April.

^I finished knitting the socks I'm planning to surprise my Mom with on Mother's Day.

^I started knitting a pair of socks intended as my Dad's Fathers Day present.  Really, when I was packing for vacation I decided that Mom's socks were so near completion it didn't make sense to take those, as I might be done with them before even boarding the flight taking us to Orlando.  So I grabbed yarn for a pair for Dad, chose a pattern, and took those to Florida instead.

What are some things making you smile these days?