February 18, 2011
Had a bit of a hasty departure on my last post- Sorry.
This post although should be about beads is about whoppie.
Whoopie Pies!!!!!
I made my first whoopie the other day and I'm addicted.
I made a chocolate cake and a light coffee/kahlua whipped frosting.
YUM.
I baked up the cakes and then
Apply LOTS of frosting
and
I stayed up half the night thinking of the limit less possiblites of whoopie pies.
Chocolate cake with a layer of caramel and a whipped vanilla bean frosting with
caramelized banannas folded in. And on and on and on.......
I know- GO make beads stop baking.
And I'm even on an intense diet with Steve. I've lost almost
ten pounds and feel great. Just because I bake
doesn't mean I have to eat it.
February 16, 2011
Sorry I haven't updated lately. I've been trying to give my website a new
look- better hopefully. I'd love any comments or if you find any problems!!
What's new you ask? A lot and not much. A lot of the same ole stuff.
Stayin busy with the kids. Tyler started lacrosse a few weeks ago and is loving it. Megan was
going to do lacrosse and lasted 4 practices. She was the only girl trying out and I
guess a lot of the guys thought it would be funny to take her out during the drills. She was
playing men's lacrosse and it's a rough sport. She was ok with rough but not being singled out.
Her catching and throwing skills were a lot better than the guys because she practiced
with her brother. She's trying disk golf which is a popular sport around here. It's a
version of golf played with frisbee's on a cross country coarse. She really likes it.
January, 19, 2011
Happy New Year! A bit late.
The kids went back to school on Jan 14 and I thought, as usual, I'd be just swimming with extra time to make beads and update my website. As usual - I was WRONG.
The weather here has been really nice for the past week and that has thrown me into dealing with my beehives. So far all 5 hives are making it thru winter nicely. The warm weather has them going crazy bringing in pollen and getting the queen laying. I went to a meeting with my local bee club the other day and a lot of bee keepers have lost a lot of their hives. Since this is my first year of beekeeping I'm not sure if this is the norm for our area. I hope not. So I am knocking on wood that my hives keep doing well.
My sister and I went took a day trip to San Francisco with Meg and Courtney(daughters) the week before the kids went back to school.
Our mission was CUPCAKES!! Unfortuneatley it seemed to be
a week a lot of bakeries were closed for the week for vacation.
We did get to try a few.
One of them was Cako.
The cupcakes were good. I got 4 and shared them with the family.
We got lemon, mocha, chocolate and Meg got a choc raspberry.
I can't say they are better than Kara's Cupcakes.
We also made it down to the Ferry Building
It was a Thursday so the farmers market was going. It wasn't booming with vendors as it was the end of Dec., but still really fun.
I love the shops inside the Ferry Building. Super $$$$$$$$ but fun to look at.
Where do you find 20 types of mushrooms? Yum!
We had a great day and next time we'll hit a few more cupcake bakeries.
Tuesday, December 28
I hope you all are having a great holiday season.
Those few weeks heading up to Christmas got crazy busy
for me. I was working at the honey farm part time and making english toffee and selling it. My toffee did really well.
I kept thinking that I was done making it and I would get a phone
call and someone needed 10 or 15 bags.
December 23 and 24 I pretty much cooked
ALL DAY.
To give away for Christmas I made
Chocolate caramel toffee apples
and
Ginger Molasses Cookies
and Italian Wedding Cookies.
Then for Christmas dinner I made a Key Lime
cheesecake with a Key Lime mousse topping that turned
out really good. I ended up kinda making up the recipe because
I accidentally tore the top of the cheesecake with foil trying
to keep it from browning too much. I ended up making a lime mousse
cuz I don't like sour cream on top of my cheesecakes.
Then I made roasted garlic, rosemary twice baked potatos, and a
Cinnamon Streusel Cake. Meg made chocolate cupcakes
with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting.
I have to say, by
Christmas Day I was pretty tired.
To top if off the day after Christmas is my bday and I never want to sit still on my bday so we went down to Monterey and saw
Narnia in 3D
and had a nice lunch. The movie was really good. A bit
corney but in a good way!!
I'm so excited I got a new ping pong table for my birthday.
On the bead front, drum roll....... I have a few beads to
show you. Can you believe it?
My pics are not good, I appologize.
The oilslick beads turned out really pretty. The photo
makes it hard to see the colors. If any of you are
interested in any of these, drop me an email. I probably won't
list them for a few days until I get a few more
things to list and get a sunny day for better photos.
Wednesday, December 8
Time is flying!! It's the holiday season.
I've been so busy with STUFF. I'm working part
time for some friends that own
They have a great little gift shop and I've been
helping out making candles, packaging honey, stocking
shelves, you name it- I do it!!
And on top of that I've been making English Toffee and
selling that locally. I've been making it for about 25 years and
every year all the people I give it to say, " you should sell this."
So I am.
We went to Natural Bridges the other day to look at
the tide pools and monarch butterflies.
If you are ever in Santa Cruz make a point of seeing
Natural Bridges, it's beautiful.
On the bead front, not a lot is new. I still have a bunch
of beads to take photos of. We've had some cruddy weather
and I need a nice sunny day to take pics.
Wednesday, November 3
Wow, a whole month has gone by and I haven't
updated. Sorry!!
I have been making beads and playing with some PMC.
I made my sister a bracelet for her bday.
I have quite a few other beads by they've been sitting
waiting to be cleaned for a while.
Steve and I went down to Monterey for the day last
Sunday for a much needed us(no kids) day. Even though
they are teens they still seem just as needy.
We started with breaky at Pavels
I can't tell you how good Pavel's is. There cinnamon rolls just make me smile.
After acquiring our low cal breakfast we headed down here to eat
It was such a beautiful day!! The ocean was so calm.
Then we headed down the coast towards Big Sur
We stopped at this cove and just were in awe at the color of the water and
the rock formation.
We headed down to one of our favorite beaches.
There are parts of the beach where the sand is purple.
We couldn't figure out the source.
At the end of the walk are a few tide pools
I know I should be torchin not walking but we had a great time
and both felt rejuvenated.
Tuesday, October 5
I can't believe it's already October. I love fall time.
I'm usually so sick of watering my yard and doing
gardening I can't wait for the cold weather and a break
from yard work.
I have to say our weather has been crazy.
We had a major heat spell last week. It was 100 degrees 3 or
4 days in a row. The bees were dying.
This is called bearding and the bees do it when it gets hot. This is
actually mild, about an hour later there was a huge wad of them hanging down. This morning it was 46 degrees and I don't think it climbed over 60 all day.
I've actually been torching quite a bit. I still need to clean and photograph the beads.
We are having open studios in Santa Cruz Co. for the next few weekends. I think a lot of areas have open studios where artists open
there homes to visit them and buy their art. I went to a few of them last weekend with Tyler and Steve.
Tyler had to go to at least one open studio for his ceramics
class. He ended up enjoying it.
I'm trying to get some sets made and jewelry finished for the
holidays.
Monday, September 6
Hope you all are having a nice Labor Day.
Tyler had a big football game up near Auburn(CA) on
Friday night and we all are recovering from that. It was soooo
hot.- I can't tell you how spoiled I am living near the coast.
We start hittin the mid 80's and we think that's hot.
I can't imagine living up near Auburn and having these
poor kids practice football in the 100 degree heat.
I think the boys did great. They lost badly but
played their hearts out. Not impressed with how
disappointed their coach was with them. We ended up
with a lot of injuries for a game we probably
should never have played, we were so poorly matched
from the get go. The team they played was ranked 13 in the whole state
and I don't know if we are even ranked. I usually try and find the
good in every situation but there's not too much good in that one.
On the bead front. I had a blast at Toni's class. Learned a ton!!
I ordered some new glass and it came late last week. I'm hoping to
try it tomorrow. I try and remember to take pics of the beads I made in her class or better yet pics of new beads I make.
Had a sweet tooth today.
Chocolate Kalua Cake
Wednesday, August 18
The kids go back to school on MONDAY!- yikes.
It's always so bitter sweet when they go back in the fall.
Mostly bitter. I always have so much fun with my kids
when they are home.
The sweet is that I have time to make beads- YEA!!!
So my sister came over the other day and we had fun
cooking.
I'm not sure if you can call Watermelon Margaritas cooking
but OOO-WEEEE they were delicious
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cough Cheesecake Bars
I would have given you a picture of after we baked them but they didn't last long enough. These were so good!! SUPER rich but unbelievably yummy!!
I'm thinking this should be a bakin' blog not a beadin blog.
at Graceful Customs studio in Gilroy.
Thursday, August 5
Summer! I'm having a heck of a time updating my website.
Steve, Meg and I took a short 2 day trip to Sierra City. It's a tiny little town in Nor. Cal. right on hiway 49. You blink- you miss it. It is such a quaint layed back little town. Meg and I stayed there last year for a couple of days. This time we stayed at
The Yuba River Inn
We had a great time. Tyler didn't want to go. He had football and work so we did a short trip to see how he did taking care of the house.
He did great! Fed all the animals and watered the plants. He was too busy to get into trouble, not that he would- little angel!!
The town is so layed back I asked the guy who owns the little Yuba Market what time he closed that evening. He said, "I don't know but if it's locked up just come get me, I'll be at the bar next door or the bar across the street."
We ate at a cute little restaurant called Mountain Creek Restauant
The patio is beautiful.
You get to sit next to a little creek.
The onion rings were amazing!!
We found a great swimming hole called Love Falls. It's right on the Pacific Crest Trail.
The falls were just rippin. It was so loud we could barely hear
each other. Meg's sittin enjoying the chilly water.
Mollie came with us but didn't enjoy the falls very much.
Steve's biggest passion in life is fly fishing. He caught a ton of fish this trip. Not big fish but alot of little ones. We always
catch and release.
Here's a view of the area.
I can't wait to go back.
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