Back To (Random) Business.

           As very cool as the past two days have been (and they have, thanks you guys for the questions and comments, I’ll be addressing the most recent ones as replies right now) we have some catching up to do.  I promised you an episode of kitchen antics, and we’ve got some other updates as well.  The one I need to mention first is Karen’s daughter’s birthday.  Happy Happy Helen Rose, hope your day was festive and plenty of fun.

            We had a Dark Moon come and go, and now we are back to waxing again.  Remember that as we head towards Full again we are bringing in the positives, pulling in all those good things we want in our lives.  Sorry for the tardiness of the Lunar Report, but it’s always in the little box over there <—– so we can all stay current.  I’ve kept up with those pretty well lately, be sure you check on them, they change (sometimes without notice here in the body of the posts).

              I got a notification that JP put my Wee Walnut on  his blog the other day.  While I was standing there chatting with Mom, and she was making our delicious sammiches, he was out in the parking lot taking pictures.  Be sure you jump over there to see what’s up and what you can get to eat if you are local.  Thanks so much Devour!

         Here’s the re-do on Em’s sampler.  I ended up having to take out four flowers (and the beads that went with them) as well as all the words.  

            Once again I am using my phone for perspective.  The problem with working on this type of linen is that it is sort of stretches the fabric when the stitches go in.  Then when/if I have to take anything out, it leaves a kind of shadow of what was there before.  I can spot it a mile away but other people usually can’t.  Be honest, can you see where the bigger words were?  (Click on the picture to make it easier to see.)

          I used the same alphabet, just did it with one strand over one intersection (which will make no sense to anyone but a person who has done cross stitch on linen), instead of with two strands over two.  She doesn’t hate it, so I’m good with that.  Once we get it framed, you’ll see it here again.  I started her other one but it will take longer, it’s a combination of about five different charts.

         Okay, so the baking adventure story… I printed off this recipe from Kris’s blog, and moved it around the kitchen for days.  Hoping that it would magically turn into a cake.  Hmm, didn’t happen, so I asked Daniel to make it instead.  Days and days went by, no cake.  I was puzzled as to why a cake had not appeared.  I inquire.  Eventually he tells me, “I wrote the things we didn’t have on your grocery list.”  I said, “WTF?!  We do too have everything!  I want cake.”

          Guess we didn’t.  So yesterday we shop.  We have all the ingredients now.  I head downstairs to get my post started.  He is pre-heating the oven and arranging things.  I go back up there to ask him a question (non-cake related).  He says, “there was an empty container of cinnamon on the shelf.  We don’t have any.”  I become frantic, we MUST have this cake!  I jump up onto the counter so I can see the shelves up close and personal.  Shit.  He’s right.  We STILL don’t have everything we need.  He shows me the three (three?!) jars of cinnamon sticks he found.  I repeat, “WTF?!”  He volunteers to drive BACK to a store and buy cinnamon.  My response is, “NO!”

           I ask him why we can’t just grate the cinnamon sticks we have into ground cinnamon.  He says this will never work.  I grab his tiny little nutmeg grater that Empress gave him last year (or possibly the year before) and I slam a cinnamon stick onto it.  It splinters (as he knew it would) then I become even more aggressive, pounding the poor little cinnamon stick to shreds.  BUT … I look in the wee bowl that I have thoughtfully placed below my desperate experiment, and see that there IS some dust of cinnamon.  “SEE!  This will totally work!”  He takes it away from me and says, “don’t you have something downstairs you need to be writing?”

            It did work.   And the cake is wonderful!  No, it doesn’t have frosting, but for some reason it is still absolutely fabulous.  I could eat it for days (okay, I HAVE been eating it for days).  Go make this for someone you love, but be sure that you have ALL of the ingredients though.  Check your cupboards, it’s a tricky cake, it can fool you.

            In our erranding the past few days we have been seeing only about one or two foreign plates on each outing.  The combined list is pretty good though:  Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Hawaii, and Wisconsin.  No repeats this time, definitely cars we had not seen before.

           Are we all caught up now?  Can we move on to our card altar?  We’ve come back around to The Celtic Shaman’s Pack and this one is in the category of The Shapers.

“The Lady of the Sacred Earth  (Rhiannon)  ~  Endurance.

Description:  In the foreground a proud white horse paws the earth from which fire erupts like a fountain.  It is surrounded by a constellation of horse images, while stars sparkle in the sky and the moon casts a cool clear light over all.

The Lady of the Sacred Earth expresses all the long-suffering energy of the land, now and for so long past exploited and laid waste.  Yet she endures, showing her smiling fair face again and again despite the repeated attempts of mankind to despoil and overcome her.  She is that from which we all come and to which we will one day return our physical selves.  She can wait and transform all things.

Journey:  Travel to the gate of the great palace.  There in the entrance is Rhiannon.  Go to her and when she offers to relate her story, sit down to listen if you do not know it already, offer to bear her burden for her.

She rises up from the ground and assumes her true form, tall and stately and beauteous.  Smiling upon you she invites you into the palace and there instructs you in the best way that you may serve the earth and help in its renewal.  This you promise to do and when you return from your journey, write down the instructions you have been given.  Put forth the practices she has recommended, and feel at peace in your efforts to help Mother Earth.”