Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

With the sun shining and a rose bush that looks like this, how can you not have a great day? We're headed to a Memorial Day picnic sans husband a little later (apparently kids still get sick on holidays, so he's stuck at the hospital).  The weather is perfect for a little barbecue with friends.  Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful day!

WIP Wednesday

My Wednesday Works in Progress:
I started my scrappy Wide & Narrow Log Cabin quilt this week- as a little, tummy-time quilt for a friend who's having a little girl.  I am very proud of myself that the entire front so far is from my scraps.

This week's stats: New projects -1

Completed projects - eh, 0

Currently in progress –4

Goals: To figure out a border for this quilt and get started on another friend's baby quilt. 

Chili Wheat Goodness

Over the years my dad has "upgraded" the classic chili wheat recipe my Grandma Hales used to make when my mom was a kid.  This was a staple meal in my home growing up, and for the first time ever I made my own batch of it today (My husband says it's about time, because he always asks for it, but we only ever have it when we're visiting my parents).   

You can change things up by doubling or even tripling the wheat and leave all beans and/or meat from the recipe.

Here is the Official Stuetz Family Chili Wheat Recipe:

Place 4 cups of whole-kernel hard winter wheat (red, white, etc.) in a very large pot.

Add 32 ounces of beef stock and 32 ounces of water and cover pot. (Chicken stock or additional water may be substituted for beef stock.) Boil hard for 1 full hour (not including pre-boiling period) making sure not to run out of liquid and burning it.  This is what it looks like after it's been boiled:

After one full hour of boiling most of the moisture will be absorbed by the wheat kernels. Turn off heat, cover and let sit on the stove for an hour or so. Do not drain excess liquid.

Add a combination of 4-28 ounce cans (quarts) total of tomato sauce and dices tomatoes. Add 1-40.5 ounce can of dark red kidney beans. Add 1-40.5 ounce can of light red kidney beans. Add about the same amount of canned black beans or other favorite canned bean.

(Note: If using dried beans, you must add additional water and boil them with wheat kernels. However, dried beans will likely take longer to get soft.)

Thicken with tomato paste (start with 2-12 ounce cans) to desired viscosity.

Add 4 McCormick “Chili Seasoning” packets (either hot, mild or combination).

Fry 3-4 lbs. of lightly seasoned (salt & pepper) ground beef, pork or turkey – a combination works well too (I did ground turkey and pork in this batch). Drain fat and add to pot once cooked through and slightly browned.

Stir well, cover and simmer on lowest possible heat for an hour or two. Stir somewhat regularly as this stuff will burn on the bottom. Simmer, simmer, simmer controlling viscosity by adding additional tomato sauce or water . . . stir, stir, stir.

This recipe yields 10-11 quarts. (I halved the recipe and it still made a ton.) It freezes really well and may be pressure canned in quart jars for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure with full 1 inch of head room in jars.

 

(My hubby also likes to add sour cream and cheese to the finished product)

It looks like we'll be enjoying Chili Wheat for dinner this evening.....yum!

Boston - Many Moons Ago

My sister just graduated from Grad School this past weekend, and she's been applying for jobs all over the country (from Anchorage to Raleigh to Chicago).  One place she's been applying to has been school districts in the Boston area.  It got me thinking- the last time I was in Boston was our family vacation the summer after seventh grade (It's sad but true- I can date it by the perm).

One thing funny about Stuetz family vacations is watching the opposite "tourist" styles of my parents.  My dad is the "get in, get the flavor and get out" type.  My mother is the exact opposite.  She reads every single sign and takes her time looking at every artifact.  My dad has been known to get through an entire museum with my mom still on the first section of the first floor.  Their differing techniques always made for some rather interesting family memories and Boston was no exception.

Here's a little Paul Revere action and the Minute Men Trail...

These were taken at the Plymouth Plantation....

 Another thing about our family vacations- something "bad" always happened.  On our way back from Boston our car died as we were slowing down to pay the toll on the NY Thruway.  My dad had to literally push the car up to the window to pay the toll.  At the time I was completely mortified, but now I think it's just plain funny.  We were still an hour away from home, so we had to wait for a friend of ours to drive out and get us.  My dad took care of the car later.  Awh- good times, good times.

Meltdowns and Tender Mercies

Do you ever just have one of those days? I've been having those on a more frequent basis lately- I think the lack of sleep and lack of husband combined with a moody, destructive toddler and a needy baby has been setting me off edge.  Yesterday started off well, but by dinnertime there was a royal meltdown at the Thompson residence.  It involved (I'm not proud to admit it) a good helping of crying and yelling between my son and I.  I think at one point I called several members of my family to tell them I was going to kill my children or just kill myself and have done with it.

Well, luckily I didn't take any extreme measures.  Nathan made it safely to bed and Emma fell asleep on me in the Bjorn (have I mentioned she won't sleep unless being held?  Ya- it's adding to my insanity). 

Anyway, I was sitting in tears on my couch when I decided to read my scriptures.  It's not exactly the first thing you normally want to do when you feel bad about yelling at your kids and you're feeling totally overwhelmed and depressed, but I knew it's what I needed.  I started reading a scripture chain on the topic of Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd, and the first scripture in the chain was Psalms 23 (ie. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want....). 

It's probably one of the most commonly used scriptures in the Christian world, and yet I think because it's recited so much we lose the actual meaning of the words.  For some reason as I was reading it last night, the words completely sunk in and it was as though I was reading it for the first time.  It's hard to describe, but I saw it in a whole new light and I truly likened its meaning to what I was going through.  I felt a wash of peace and comfort come over me.  I knew that Heavenly Father loved me and that He was with me even though I had a less than stellar moment with my children (I don't mean this in an overly dramatic way, but I had seriously felt like I was in my own personal valley of the shadow of death during the meltdown).  I knew He cared about my life and was there to make me feel better.  My situation felt more doable- if that makes any sense.

Sometimes you just need a little buoying up and a reminder that everything is going to be ok.  We all have our days- I just hope next time I'll do a better job of keeping it all in perspective, and if not, well, I'll head back to the scriptures... and probably have a pint of Ben and Jerry's while I'm at it.

Scraps and Pieces

Nathan went to a friend's house to play this morning, so I actually ventured out to run some errands.  Funny how taking a baby out on errands used to panic me (the first time I took Nathan grocery shopping with me was a nerve racking experience), and now I'm thrilled that I only have to take the baby.  I confess that I still have yet to take the two of them out together yet.  I'm avoiding it for as long as possible.

Anyway, see these two piles?  Well, a friend of mine just found out she's having a girl (after two boys), so I'm feeling a log cabin scrap quilt for her baby girl is in my near future.  I'm excited, because I've been waiting for someone to have a girl, so I could use these scraps. (My husband will also be excited that I am reducing the scrap pile and not buying more fabric).  :)

Memories

I had decided to not enter a quilt for the festival this time round because of the whole being in newborn phase around here with my baby girl, but I started looking at all of the beautiful quilts at The Blogger's Quilt Festival and just had to participate.  I thought I would show you all one of the quilts I made from the fabric I won from the last quilt festival thanks to one of the sponsors Above all Fabric.

 The story behind the quilt:
A cold night in February five years ago I went out to dinner with my friends Christie and Dan.  Earlier that day Joel (my now husband) had left a message on my phone.  For some reason I was really nervous about calling him back and wanted to put it off.  Christie and Dan were very excited that he had called me and they refused to go into the restaurant until I called him back.  Luckily, Joel was working so I just left a message on his phone and we went in to eat.  Later that night Joel called me back- Christie and Dan got out of the car and stood out in the cold, so that I could talk to him.  Joel asked me out on our first date and the rest is history.

I made this quilt for Christie.  We were also roommates when I was in grad school and are still good friends.  This fabric reminds me a lot of her and so this was my belated "thank you" gift to her.

Babies and Pinwheels

Last night was my first night on my own with the 2 little ones since Joel had another 30 hour shift, and Grandma Thompson had to return to real life.  The day went well, but the night was rather painful.  Emma decided she wanted to be fed at least every 2 hours.  Sigh.  Hopefully it'll go better with Joel home tonight.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking a lot about my ladybug quilt and I've decided the Ohio Star doesn't go well with the polka dots.  I was looking at the tummy-time quilt I made with some of the same ladybug fabric and thought I would stick with the same pinwheel motif. 

  It took one day to cut out some triangles.....

And another day to sew them together.....

I was right- it's slow going with a newborn, but it makes me feel a semblance of normalcy to have a project to work on, so I'm not complaining.