Merry Christmas!

 It is so glorious to take a day away from the world and focus on the birth of our dear Savior who condescended to come to this earth, take on mortality, and show us the way to live so that one day, after we do all the good things we can, we can go back to live with Him and Our Parents in Heaven again.  Because of Him and His magnificent sacrifice for us all on the cross, this is available to all who follow Him.

You have seen the panel we have on our front door.  Dear One, who shuts off every light  in our home as he leaves a room, (and also highly recommends I do the same...!) leaves the porch light on all night.  I know why he does this.  It reminds me of the hymn Let The Lower Lights Be Burning:

1. Brighly beams our Father's mercy
From His lighthouse everymore;
But to us He give the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Refrain:

Let the lower lights be burning!
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

2. Dark the night of sin has settled,
Loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

Refrain

3. Trim your feeble lamp, my brother!
Some poor seaman, tempest-tosse3d,
Trying now to make the harbor
In the darkness may be lost.

Refrain

Sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford

There was such a poor fainting, struggling seaman in our past.  I am afraid we were not the light along the shore he needed --so now, perhaps someone who needs to see it and be comforted and brought peace may see this panel of the birth of our Savior and be blessed as he or she passes by during the night time hours.

May you all continue in peace and joy as you share the love of Jesus Christ this day and always.

Fraud Alert!

 Be sure to check your financial accounts very often.  In the last six weeks Dear One and I have both had our accounts hacked and persons tried to take large sums from Dear One's account and no money from my account though the fraud customer service person said that crooks enter $0.00 to see if it "goes through" and then puts in for a large sum. I was lucky. Except my card was canceled.

For my account, it took ten days to get a new card.

Dear One's fraud people had him a new card the next day. Which is nice since I use that card, too, much to his chagrin...!

So...this is just a warning to all.  AND the sad thing is that both of us had just made donations to what we thought were reputable companies.   Be vigilant!

This picture has nothing to do with fraud.  It is an Advent Christmas stocking I am knitting...a few rows are emailed every day.  This is the top of the stocking as of 18 December.  I am having fun doing it.  You can see I am not a great knitter but I sure am having fun.  It might look better after blocking but it happens that I won't be blocking it.  I am going to fill it will navel oranges and give it away as soon as I finish the last rows.  Maybe next year I will make one for us.  Maybe.  We do have enough stuff, so this is questionable.

Bags, Bags, Bags!

 In my opinion you cannot have too many bags! You need bags for everything.  Recently I saw a video on making itty bitty boxed bags.  I loved that tutorial.  Maybe some day I will make some of those tiny bags but today I made some bags that are about 8.5” by 11”.

https://youtu.be/N5Akv6LjVaw?si=sUMCHhBuiibyRYox

The red bag was the first one I made. I found the boxing harder than I liked most likely because the fusible fleece I used to stabilize the fabric was too thick.

It is a good thing I finished the project this morning as this afternoon the bug that is going around bit me. So nasty.  Multiple angel people offered to bring soup and other goodies. Such wonderful offers but it might be a while before I want to eat again…

Sewing Failure

 Today was a pretty good day.  Until I started a sewing project.  It was still a good day, but the sewing project failed.  That does not mean that I will throw it away.  Far from it!  I worked hard.  It is actually usable but just not right.

The plan was to make a new knitting tools bag with a zipper and a flat boxed bottom.

To prepare for this, I watched several of Christine's Home Affairs YouTube posts.  She has a very large play list of mostly sewing "affairs", many of which I have watched.  What is that scripture--"Pride goeth before a fall"?  Well, it is not that I am so proud but I did think I had caught on to what needed to be done.

So I went for it.

Actually I tried to combine several of Christine's tutorials into one project.  Not a great idea, if I do say so myself.

Here the straps are being installed while I am on the telephone. Not the best idea to multi-task, I guess...though I did get them on.  Just not nicely.

Here is the bag finished.  You can more or less see the zipper and the "quilting" that I did to hold the Pellon fleece to the fabric.

This is the bottom of the bag which the biggest fail.  It failed because:  1.  I made the bag too big.  Yes, it is possible to make too big of a bag and 2. After boxing it the first time, also WAY TOO BIG, I boxed it the other direction which is just ghastly. The first boxing was the correct direction but should have been perhaps 1.5 inches instead of 4.5 inches,  After changing the direction to see if it would be better, I decided I had had enough of the bag for today.  This one I will leave as is.  Tomorrow I hope to make a few more.  We shall see.  Maybe they will be better, but I am not counting on it.

So, even though the end of the day's work failed, I still feel fairly good about the day over all. 

One of the biggest wins of the day was that I was able to keep my consumption way under control and also, by a fluke, I saw something about how good celery is for our bodies and since I like celery, I am choosing to believe celery is the magic drug.  At least for now!  I am getting sick of the side effects from pharmaceuticals which promise the world and give no satisfaction.  Not even doing what they swear they will do.

Smittens Advent Calendar GarlandP: Completed After Nine Years!

 Here are my notes from Ravelry about this project:

"This project will be knit for each of our married children and their families…96 mittens in all, unless I decide to do one for the old homestead!

"I am using up yarn that I already have, much of it no-name due to ball bands missing.

What are the odds that I will get this project done before I need to start the ‘real’ Christmas knitting.

12-11-2023

You might call this a long-term project, or just a project that I did not get back to for years! It makes me happy to have completed it.

The final five mittens were started on US size 3 needles but then I realized I needed to use US size 5, which I did. In the interest of time, and finishing, I did not start with the I-cord but just cast on the 24 wrist ribbing stitches and started knitting. This mean that I made I-cord loops after the fact. That worked just fine,

12-11-2023

This is a wonderful project but should be started no later than July of the year you want to gift the garland. I did not do that, I started in October and knitted 115 mittens by late November. Then I did not do anything with my hands for three months. It took them that long to recover. One needs to be smart with one’s body…

These are the last five mittens I knitted over the last week-plus.  I planned to knit one per day until they were done, but that did not happen due to other projects, so the last day I knitted three of them.  In the middle of the night. Again.  Some night I will actually stay in bed sleeping all night. I hope

This is the full garland on the fireplace ready to pack into a box and send to its new home.  We have hung it up every year, incomplete, until now.  May I say it makes me happy to complete this and even happier that now each one of our children has this in their homes.  You can see there are little papers on some of the mittens.  Actually now all of the mittens have the papers.  These are notes of scriptures about Christmas for the families to read and ponder and think about the true meaning of Christmas.

Munchie Monday: Cool Whip Cookies!!

 Someone recently gave me a recipe for Cool Whip Cookies. I think it was my sister. Whoever it was, I am grateful.  I did not really believe in Cool Whip Cookies but then I tried them.  Dear One likes soft cookies.  Really, he only wants to eat soft cookies.  Most cookies are not soft.  These are.  They were even soft two days later!

Years ago we had some chocolate crackle cookies which were stunningly delicious. I have looked for a recipe ever since. To no avail.  I will not look any longer because these cookies tick almost all the boxes and that is good enough for me in my old age.  The most important ticked box for me is that Dear One is happy with them...

Cool Whip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

1 box any flavor cake mix-18 ounce size

1 egg at room temperature

1 8-ounce container Cool Whip, thawed

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together until completely combined.  You might think they would be light and fluffy when combined, but they are not.  They actually seem rather sludgey but that is what you want.

Drop a heaping teaspoonful of the batter into confectioner's sugar then onto a non-stick pan, though I will use parchment paper or silpat next time.  This made 27 cookies for us.

Cook 10-15 minutes...start checking at 10 minutes.  Our cookies took 12 minutes for the first 24 and the last 3 I cooked in the airfryer on Bake and they took 15 minutes.

LET COOL ALMOST COMPLETELY ON THE PAN BEFORE TRYING TO REMOVE THEM!!!!  Really do that.  Use a thin metal spatula to remove them from the pan when they are cooled.

Next time I will make lemon cookies!

Sewn Door Nativity Panel

 Several months ago I found a lovely Nativity door panel and some great star fabric for the backing. It has been sitting on the sewing machine table ever since. Yesterday Dear One suggested that if I waited much longer we would not need it this year…so I got rolling this morning.

Here is the panel installed- which necessitated a trip to Lowe’s for dowels, heavy metal nuts to use for weights, and some hooks to use to hang the wreath that used to hang on the door, as well as the sewing part.

This is the star fabric that is the backing of the panel. Notice the cool little triangular holders for the dowels! I was so thrilled to have learned how to make them on SewVeryEasy, a YouTube podcast. They really were so easy!

This is the view from the street now.  Dear One is pretty happy I actually did the sewing.  Me, too, I guess.  Well, I do like to finish projects.

Homemade Sourdough Ezekiel Bread!!

 When Dear One took the Christmas decorations out of the food closet the other day I remembered that I had wanted to make Ezekiel bread.  I had watched quite a few YouTube videos and was hepped up to do it.  (Ezekiel bread is supposed to be better for blood sugar.  So is sourdough bread.  By putting them together, it should make fabulous bread for blood sugar. ) We even went so far as to order some spelt berries and some kamut berries.  When I looked at the recipe for making the Ezekiel flour, I needed millet. I was certain I had laid in a supply but could not find it.  Then I remembered that it was in the closet where Dear One stored the Christmas decorations so conveniently last year.  Well, that might not have been great for me, but not having to worry about him climbing a ladder to put decorations up in the "attic" was really a big plus. So I looked, and there was the bucket of millet.

Yesterday I added the millet to the other grains in the Ezekiel-grains-for-flour container. Then ground up the flour in our blender and THEN I got out the sourdough starter and did the same as I mentioned in the sourdough post from last week. I used the same measurements as with the all-purpose flour and really did not expect much.

This starter directly out of the refrigerator looked pretty happy to me!  So I added the Ezekiel flour and other ingredients.

After a night on the counter I deemed this as doubled in bulk.

Here is our first loaf of Sourdough Ezekiel bread!!!  I am so happy with it. 

 

Sliced, you can see that there are not a lot of air spaces in the bread so it does not have the ideal sourdough texture but it does seem to have the Ezekiel bread flavor, and then some!  I would call it a success.

To make your own Ezekiel flour you need:

2 cups spelt berries

2 cups kamut berries

2 cups White wheat berries (not hard Red wheat)

1/2 cup millet

1/2 cup barley

2 Tablespoons lentils

1/3 cup dried beans--I used garbanzo beans since they were the closest to hand.  The person on YouTube who I have lost and cannot give direct credit to uses 2 Tablespoons each great northern beans, black beans, and garbanzo beans.

Mix these all together.  Grind up 3 cups of the mixture then weigh to see if it gives you the 1 pound 4 ounces needed for the sourdough Ezekiel bread.  If necessary, grind more.  I mistakenly ground up the whole batch so will be making Sourdough Ezekiel Bread again in the next couple of days.  After grinding the grains they need to be refrigerated or frozen until use since they can become rancid.  That is not something you want to use to make healthy bread...

Knitting Today: Mama Christa's Shell

 Almost a month ago I started on Mama Christa's Shell.  I posted about it when it turned into a disaster knit.  Today I can give a much better report:  we are making a lot of progress. (The reason is middle-of-the-night knitting yet again!)

As you can see, I did switch to flat knitting and I am knitting two at once. I like knitting two at once when at all possible.  This way both parts of the whole are the same length.  In this case it still would have been possible to see where I was quickly because the pattern is so regular.  Other times, like in socks, it can be harder to tell at a glance where you are and if you need to knit another row or three more rows.

In the middle of the past night I worked SEVERAL row repeats, even though my goal the past week has been to knit one row repeat each day.  (Also to knit one Smitten and one day's worth of the Arne and Carlos Advent Christmas Stocking Knit Along.  These have have both dropped off the knitting board until I finish the Shell.)

My plan had been to make this a bit of a cropped shell since I think that will work best for my needs BUT now that I am only five repeats from the pattern instructions, if I have enough yarn, I will probably just go for it.

Cori of Irocknits is having a knitalong and I am hoping to finish this week so I can enter.  She has been so helpful and kind in answering questions with which  I have needed help.

Now off to an appointment to see if we can remove the reason for some of the middle of the night knitting.  It would be so great to just sleep through every night and wake up full of vim and vigor.  I did  do that regularly, though it was some ages ago...!

Sour Dough Bread For Lazy People...

 When we were with my sister a few weeks ago the two of us talked about sourdough bread.  She was interested so I brought her some of our starter when we went to visit over Thanksgiving.  Since then I have watched several more videos and now have made a loaf.

The recipe I followed was from a man named Ben Starr.  It worked very well.  You should watch that video.  It will inspire you.  If you live near me and want some of our sourdough, just ask.  And probably come get it...!

To start the bread this week I took the beautiful tulip jar of sourdough starter out of the refrigerator.  Our daughter had sent me the jar in the mail.  I love mail.  I especially like packages.  If I am not expecting a package and one shows up I am particularly happy.  Such was the case with the tulip jar.  When our children were here to celebrate with us in June our daughter helped me with our sourdough starter and put a batch into the tulip jar.  This is what I used this time.  I had taken some out of the 2-quart canning jar to give to my sister who had been reading about sourdough discard and wondered what it was.  In our house we do not discard any sourdough started.  We just use it for something else...like pancakes, tortillas, biscuits.

Ben Starr has you put 4 ounces of sourdough starter in a large bowl straight out of the refrigerator and mix it with 12 ounces water (preferably filtered but tap water works).  After stirring the starter into the water you add 1 pound 4 ounces flour (all purpose or bread flour or up to 8 ounces whole wheat flour -though I am going to try all whole wheat flour some day to see what happens.  Maybe it just won't go so quick and easy.) then add 0.7 ounce kosher salt.  Do use kosher he says.

Stir with a spoon until too stiff to stir then get your clean hands into the bowl and  bring all the ingredients together into a nice uniform dough, which will take you about 15 seconds.

Oil your bowl or the inside of a gallon-sized ziplock back and put the dough ball inside.  If you are using the bowl, put plastic wrap over the top.

Set the dough at room temperature on your counter and wait until it doubles in bulk....overnight, 24 hours, or more depending on the temperature of you house.

This above dough has set out all night and  had well doubled and ready to shape.

This dough has been shaped and is now in the oiled 3.2 quart cast iron dutch oven (it is 9' across and 4" deep to accommodate the cooking bread) where it will sit for 90 minutes until doubled again.

The bread is now out of the oven.  The dutch oven is cold when you put the bread dough into it and the oven is also cold when you put the covered pot in the oven.  Turn on the oven to 425 degrees F, and let cook for 45 minutes.  After 45 minutes remove the cover and let cook an additional 15 minutes.  If it does not look dark enough for you at that point, let it cook longer.  I was happy with how it looked. (The watch was there so I could remember how long it took.  I had put the bread to rise for 90 minutes at 10:30 then went out on a visit and quick stop at the pharmacy all of which took more than the 90 minutes so the bread was more than doubled.  Won't do that next time, but still, I was happy with the bread.)

This is what the first two slices looked like. I thought it looked great and since Dear One had been busy with something away from the kitchen, the loaf of bread had the opportunity to cool completely before it was sliced.  That may have been the first time in fifty years that this was allowed to happen!  It sliced beautifully, in part because last year or the year before Dear One purchased a very good bread knife for our kitchen drawer.  That good knife, and a cool loaf of bread, meant a superior result.

The only possible problem is that Dear One thought the bread did not have any salt in it. It did have salt but because I did not zero the scales after every additional ingredient (which our daughter did when she made the same bread...!) it is possible my math was off.  Next loaf I will zero the scales each time.

The bread has now been completely sliced and put in the freezer to help people's resolve not to the whole loaf within one day.

It is said, but I am not sure of this, that sourdough bread can help lower blood sugar.  I can tell you for a fact that if you eat 6 slices while the bread is still warm and is slathered with butter, it will NOT lower your blood sugar or any other numbers you might be trying to lower...!