A Stye And Some Veggies

A stye, a stye, look at my stye! LOL I woke up Wednesday last week with a stye on my right eye. I can barely open it so needless to say, I didn't do much stitching and reading... which is a bummer! It was swelling like crazy, as you can see in the photo below... It just got back to normal on Tuesday. Thank goodness!

And here are some of the veggies we recently got from our garden and from MIL's. The carrots and potatoes are all from MIL's, the rest are from ours. We picked more tomatoes and eggplants this afternoon and I can see myself canning salsa this weekend. I might have to make my own version of sweet relish just so I won't throw away the yellow cucumbers. I haven't tried this before so it will be a new task. I wish you can see how big the potatoes are. Some of the ones I used on mashed potatoes were over 7" long.

Potatoes, Carrots, and Cucumbers

Various Eggplants and Okra

Various Peppers: Habanero, Jalapeno, Daredevil, etc.

The too much rain few weeks back officially killed at least 2 of our tomato plants. We do still get some but not as much as previous years. Therefore, I won't be able to make a lot of salsa and canned tomatoes this year. I read a great tomato preserving this morning, from relish publication, by simply baking the sliced tomatoes with seasoning on a baking sheet then cool and freeze on a ziplock. I haven't tried this technique, but will do this year. I have a lot of preserved eggplants and green beans already. But I might not have much okra though, as I planted different kind this year. Plus, the deers are frequent visitors of our garden. LOL

That's all for now folks! Write later....

Lots o' Veggies

Didn't do a lot of stitching since my last post as I spent few more days cleaning the attic, and organizing my stash. However, we did some stashing on Thursday morning. While me and MIL were busy stashing at Hobby Lobby, hubby went at the movie store... and as expected, we didn't go home empty handed... lol

One thing I love at this time of year is being able to buy yummy fresh (as in literally fresh and newly picked) veggies at the Farmer's Market. It's been 2 weeks in a row now that me and hubby go there... and as I've told hubby, I'm in heaven again this last couple of weeks... lol I've been buying squash blossoms, "maligoso" (a kapampangan term, hubby call these veggies grass... lol), zuchinni, green beans, etc. I'm not sure if you've tried squash blossoms, but back home, it's one of my fave veggies and kinda hard to find/buy.

Maligoso (first photo: removed from stems & ready to cook)

Maligoso is like a combination of spinach and bittermelon leaves! I was already in college the first time I ate "maligoso" in Manila. One time, my aunt (I used to live with) brought a bunch from the Pampanga and I was actually surprised that these weeds are edible. Needless to say, I love it as I'm a veggy person. If I'll get to choose between veggies & meat - I will choose veggies. My aunt usually cook it with sardines (with tomato sauce, not the mackerel kind) but here in US, I put ground pork or beef instead (though I use sardines once in a while as well)... sauteed with a clove of garlic, medium onion, tomatoes, a pinch of ground black pepper & salt for seasoning... yum yum. Btw, the vendor at the Farmer's Market who sold me these are Mexicans so I asked them how they prepare theirs... which is using ground pork.

As for zuchinnis, they taste like "opo". When I want a super easy meal, I just cut one into cubes then toss them for a few minutes in a hot pan with a lil bit of vegetable oil. I prefer to prepare my food on stove top instead of baking. Most of the time, I prepare different food for hubby as I eat rice almost everyday.

Zuchinni (big and small @ 25 cents each only)

Squash blossoms, japanese eggplants, and asparagus beans

In Tagalog: bulaklak ng kalabasa, talong, and sitaw

I've been harvesting asparagus beans in the last few weeks... and in the last couple weeks that I buy squash blossoms, I always cook my own version of "pinakbet" (sauted mixed veggies, i.e. beans, eggplant, squash, spineless okra and "ampalaya"). To-date, my spineless okra in the garden are still so tiny but should be ready next weekend.

As you can see we've been harvesting on our own garden as well. I think since I started picking out my eggplants, I already got more than 10 plus the 2 I picked earlier. We got a bunch of tomatoes today and yesterday, almost a bucketful so I told hubby I should be able to "can" salsa this week. Our habanero and daredevil peppers are doing very very very good... lol I put one pepper on whatever I main dish I cook lately, which makes me eat more rice... lol Hubby loves "extra hot" salsa, so I picked a lot earlier. I make salsa in 4 categories: XX Hot, Very Hot, Mild, and Regular.

I only started "canning" by myself since last year... in my first 2 years here, I did it with MIL. I canned a whole bunch of "dill" and "sweet pickles" last year that's why we decided not to plant a lot of cucumbers this year. What we got now is just enough for salads.:)

Veggies picked from our garden today: tomatoes, eggplants, & peppers

Red potatoes from MIL's garden

Pepper plants in the garden

Look at our peppers... a lot, as in a lot... sorry for the weeds though. The last thing we wanna do lately is weeding. lol I planted 3 each of habanero & daredevil, and photos above are for one each only so imagine the other 4 plants with lots of peppers in them as well. I might try to can and freeze some of them.:)

Chinese okra (patola), asparagus beans (sitaw), and eggplant (talong)

My patola (loofa) are just about 5" long and I hope I'll be able to eat them before the deers will... lol It seems like something's eating my asparagus beans as some disappeared. On the other hand, all my eggplants are doing good as well. I planted 6 (3 of each kind) and all of them got a bunch of medium size eggplant already. One of the japanese eggplant got more than 10 tiny eggplants.

Aside from cleaning-up, stitching and finishing models, I've been busy baking since last Monday. I baked tres leches (3 milk) cake for hubby and bibingka for me last Monday, then last Thursday I baked a dozen of cornbread muffins (I stuffed them with creamy corn and cheddar cheese)... When there's just about 4 muffins left, hubby reuqested for chocolate brownies, which I baked on Friday afternoon. Everything's gone since yesterday afternoon so I asked hubby if he wants me to bake anything today, I was thinking of yellow cake but thank goodness hubby wanna rest on something sweet so I didn't do any baking anymore... lol We've been eating like a blah blah lately... lol

Tres leches cake and cheezy rice flour cake (bibingka)

Well my dears, that's what kept me busy last week. Sorry again that I can't show my completed stitching works as they're models. I started stitching a quaker sewing purse yesterday and finally finished it this afternoon... will work on the matching sewing accessories tonight to complete the set. Also last week, I finished a neck purse with matching accessory. And in between stitching models, I'm squeezing in my exchanges... plus I also started the sewing set out dear aunt asked me to do for her friend (she'll give the set as 2008 christmas gift).:)

Have a great evening everybody! Don't forget to leave me a note when you drop by!

Just Blogging

I have a lot of things to report but I dunno where to start... lol

Hubby donated one of our old cars to Kars4Kids.org to free some space in our lawn, plus to be able to help a kid to drive (I hope). The car is quite old but still runs, it's a 1990 Cadillac Deville. We were advised that the org's towing company will be here Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, they didn't make it and came Saturday morning instead. We had to wait for them and missed our chance to see the "Rose Festival" parade in State Center. I'm so excited to see the parade coz hubby said the "Rose Queens" in the last 50 years will participate... festival's golden anniversary. The towing truck came here at about 9:30AM and by the time they got done, it was almost 11AM. There was no way we can still catch the parade so we decided to just do some weeding in the garden... lol

The weather has been soooo good lately.okra last Friday, then hubby replanted cucumbers yesterday. All our cucumbers didn't survive the floods... lol My daredevil peppers are doing good and I saw some green ones already on each plant. We've been picking-up some strawberries in the last few days as well, just 2 or 3 pieces only though. lol At least, some of our strawberries survived the frost. Hubby said we might not get more this year. And today, for the first time this year, we finally started to enjoy mulberries at the back of our house.

Last Thursday, I did a little bit of stashing in town. I run out of DMC 367 so I had to drop by at Ben Franklin, the only place in town where I can get cross-stitch supply... pricy but no choice. I also got some floss winders in there, the plastic ones. I was kinda hoping they have Charles Craft Carolina linen, but none. We went afterwards at Walmart to get some groceries but I had to browse the stuffs at the craft section first of course... lol I got a couple of blue prints cotton and itty-bitty pewter frames (3"x3", 2.5" x 3.5" & 3" dia). I just couldn't resist them all... lol The fabrics are perfect for my "smalls", in fact I already used one of them (the one with white background) as lining fabric on my recently finished projects for another cross stitch magazine.

Pewter Frames & Blue Prints Cotton Fabrics

Early last week, I finally had the guts to submit a proposal to teach hand-finishing (for free) at the 2008 State Fair on August. I don't see much dimensional finishings being displayed during the fair so I thought it would be a great idea to promote needlework smalls finishing. I was contacted by the superintendent of Fabrics & Threads Division 2 days after, and was told that all teaching schedules had been finalized by May1st. On the positive note, she wants to meet me in person so we can discuss my teaching proposal and give me a slot on 2009 State Fair. I of course shared my online gallery of smalls. I'm so excited to meet them during the fair so I can show my works in person. We agreed to meet on the first day of the fair, on August 7th.

I'm sorry that my report is not in order... lol I'm trying to write whatever pop in my head before I forget it again. lol

I finally recieved today "Professional Web Easy 6" software I purchased online. I don't have much time to re-study Macromedia Dreamweaver so I looked for a user-friendly software. I've been busy reading the book since after lunch and hope to get busy using the software by tomorrow.

I have yet a lot of stitching in line but I finally finished 2 sewing sets that I designed for another magazine... hmmnn, and also finished my submissions for TGOSM which I hope I can mail soon. It's a sewing set (for the Designer Profile on August), an itty-bitty ornie for November issue, and a small sampler for I dunno yet what month issue... lol Watch out for all the said pieces in the upcoming issues of TGOSM.:)

Also, I emailed Ms. Christy (assitant editor of Just Cross Stitch) this weekend for info with regards to requirement on how and when to submit a design for the Special Ornaments Issue. Too bad I can not make it this year coz they finalize the list by February...:( Anyways, at least I know now that the design (completed piece or photo) must be submitted or emailed to them by November or December. I will have to keep this in mind from now on... lol Hopefully, one of my ornie designs will make it at the JCS Ornaments Special Issue next year... fingers crossed... lol

I couldn't think of more to say so I better log out for now... :) Will update this post later if I can. Have a great night everybody!

Busy Weekend

Last Friday marked our first day this year in (veggies) gardening activities. Mil, DH and me went in Ames in the morning... though our main agenda was to go at Holubs (our fave garden outlet), of course we can't resist not to go at Hobby Lobby first. Me and MIL did some stashing while DH was busy at the movie store nearby. We also tried to check out a needlework shop along Main Street but was unlucky so we just headed at the Quilting Connection, MIL's fave fabric store.

After all the stashing and few stop-overs, we finally made it to our final destination, HOLUBS. DH was in-charge on the tomatoes (jetsetters and beefmaster) while I got some eggplants (ichiban and lavender) and peppers (super chili and habanero). I also wanna try cherry tomatoes this year, but we'll just get those in town.

Once we got home, I started to dig on the ground. lol Thank goodness DH already prepared the soil weeks back. While I was busy at the backyard, DH mowed the entire lawn. Aside from above, I also planted some okra, cucumbers, green beans (bush kind), bok choi, asparagus beans (we call this "string beans" back home), and chinese okra (luffa). This will be the first year since I came here that I didn't plant beets. On the other hard, this is the first year I planted bok choi, and asparagus beans. I got the seeds at an Oriental store mid-last year. Hope they'll grow well as I love bok choi so muchhhh... lol In the past few years, I planted spinach, collard greens and chards but wasn't really a fanatic of the last 2. Cukes and beans are just few this year as I'm not planning to do much canning and pickling this year.

On Saturday, we celebrated Aunt Ruthie's birthday at MIL's house. I was in-charge on the "strawberry cake" while SIL made banana cream pie, home-made corn bread and sweet salad. MIL prepared pot roast with baby carrots and potatoes... sooooo yummmyyyyy!

Strawberry Cake for Aunt Ruthie

Per previous agreement with SIL, I spent some time with Katie yesterday (Sunday), from 9:30 AM to 3PM while MIL continued the rest of the afternoon. I brought some stitching works but didn't able to do any though.

Well, since I'm in the mood to write, I thought I'll share some of DH's passion... lol Aside from sports cards, he loves to collect movies and music cd's. Our office (or computer) room is filled with drawers as you see in the photos below. We love using these drawers for organizing our collection as they're stackable. We get them from "Get Organized" and each drawer can hold: DVD=28, CD=60, & VHS=18 pieces. If I remember it right, we should have more than 1,500 movie collections, plus complete seasons of some TV shows, concerts (i.e. Star Trek, Beatles, Little House on the Prairie, etc.). I lost track on the volume/amount of music CD's though.

Part of DH's gift from me last month were 3 DVD drawers. With the movies we recieved last Christmas, not to mention we regularly buy 1 to 5 each month, it was the right time to buy some drawers again... and yet, we need more... lol

Drawers: DVD's, Music CD's, VHS

As for the stitching part, I didn't do much this weekend but finished some on the weekdays.:) Hope everybody will have a great Monday!