I Would Have Thought Elinor....

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Best Ever Lemonade

Here's my recipe for lemonade (or lemon-limeade, I should say.) It is delicious and easy.

Ingredients:
the juice of 8 lemons and 4 limes*
1 & 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar, depending on preference
water

Place the sugar in a 1-gallon pitcher.
Place the juice and a little water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.
Immediately pour hot juice mixture over the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Add cold water or cold water & ice to make 1 gallon.
Serve chilled and/or over ice.
Ahhhh...perfect.

*Easy squeezing tips:
Roll the fruit on your cutting board or counter to soften up the inside.
See here for the easiest way ever to juice lemons and limes by hand.

Inconsistent

I am so hopeless when it comes to blogging regularly. I don't know why I keep one up; just because I like to babble, I suppose. There's rarely anyone home to babble to so I babble to the vast emptiness of the internet.

Jun's quilt top is nearly finished. It would already be finished if I didn't hate using the iron so much. Yes, I have put off sewing the strips together just because I have to press the seams. I hate ironing that much.

In the meantime, while I've been busy not finishing the quilt top, I have begun a pale pink baby afghan that is gorgeous in some shimmery baby yarn. It is probably about one-quarter finished. I also read Eclipse, the third book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. I know these books were originally intended for the teen audience, but butter my butt and call me biscuit...how I love them. I don't know exactly what the pull for us adult readers is toward this story but I know for a fact I am not the only grown up woman who adores them.

Okie dokie, back to stitching now.

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

OK, so I've been reading MckMama's blog for a long time now, but this is my very first "Not Me Monday" post. I can no longer resist joining in on the fun!

I did not spend the early part of this week seriously PMS-ing and being totally mean and nasty to everyone around. This was not the laziest week I've spent in a while, either. I did not put off starting Jun's quilt in order to spend more time playing "Little Big Planet" on the PS3 than doing any other activity this week.

While going for the paper at the convenience store just up the road, I certainly did not jump out of the car in a tank dress and nothing else just because it was still really early in the morning. I also did not become hooked on Cherry Dr. Pepper available at said store.

My mailbox did not contain a CD that I did not win from Becky over at Sarah Smith's Spot and Smithellaneous. It did not contain one of my favorite hymns ever, either.

I did not get so incredibly bored this week because of no school or work that I took the kids to town for an ice cream cone. I certainly did not pay for the ice cream with $10 my former co-worker gave me for babysitting one day even though I didn't want paid because it was such a treat to keep her 3 month-old cutie.

Finally, I absolutely, unquestionably, and without doubt did not send my 17 year-old daughter to Wal-Mart to get groceries for me because I was definitely not too lazy to do it myself.

Now, head over to My Charming Kids to see what everyone else did not do this week!

Stitched with Tears

Well, I can mark one item off my list. I finished Momma's afghan just a couple of hours ago. It was actually supposed to have some fringe on the ends, but it was really stretching the shape. I didn't like it, so I left it off. I'm always glad to finish a project, but I also miss having a crochet project to work on!

I spent a good deal of time working on this afghan the day before Mother's Day. I had originally hoped to have it finished to give Momma then. I shed a lot of tears on it that Saturday. I was listening to a music program on PBS when the performers began a song called "Angels Calling at my Door." This is one of the songs that a good friend of ours sang in Mammaw's hospital room a couple of days before she passed away. One of the verses says "Let me go while I'm your hero." That verse tears me apart for some reason. Mammaw really was our hero in so many ways. The combination of the song and knowing it would be our first Mother's Day without her kept the tears flowing. How fitting, though, that the afghan that was to be hers should be stitched together with tears and passed on to her daughter.

In honor of Mother's Day (although late) I'm posting these pictures of me with Mammaw and with Momma from a long time ago.

Free Time

*sniff sniff* What's that I smell? Could it be... is it possibly...why yes! It is freedom! As of May 6, I had my last spring semester class for this year. No more homework until August. It just so happens that I am also on seasonal layoff from work until June 15. This all means that I have just a little over four more weeks of FREE TIME.

So how do I plan to use said free time? Let me count the ways...

• Put together Jun's quilt top
• Finish Momma's afghan (this should be done in the next day or two!)
• Rearrange my living room
• Deep clean my bedroom
• Put together the exercise bike that has been staring at me from the box for about 2 months now
• Ride said exercise bike--a lot
• Do a complete revamp of my front yard (right now it looks like Sanford & Son live here)
• Begin a brand new blog geared toward teachers and teachers-in-training (details to come)
• Teach myself blog layout design
• Spend more time cooking for my kids while I have the time

Wow. Just seeing that list makes me wonder why I'm sitting at my desk. And speaking of cooking, I am trying out two new recipes tonight. One of them, Swiss Stuffing Chicken, came from Kelly's Korner Recipes. Kelly has a new baby, Harper, and manages to keep up a gorgeous home and three blogs! I love to read her daily posts.

While we're on the subject of blogs, I have to mention Becky from Smithellaneous and Sarah's Spot. I am a LONG-time lurker of Sarah's blog, often weeping over Becky's entries about Sarah's battle against cancer. (If you've never read about this amazing young Princess Groovy Chick, may I suggest you do so??) Anyway, Becky had a contest the other day to see who would sign the guestbook closest to the 1.6 million visitor mark and I won! She's sending me a CD that she and her husband recorded and I can't wait to hear it. Thanks Becky!

Back to the recipes--the other recipe came from Kraft Food & Family magazine. It's called Skillet Potatoes with Bacon and Cheddar. I just checked the potatoes and I may have sliced them a little too thin because they got a little mushy. Ack. The recipe calls for Yukon Gold potatoes and I've never used them before. I think I would have preferred good-ole Russets.

Well, I'm off to make use of some of my newly-acquired free time! Dinner, Lost, and crochet!