For a quick break in cleaning/Christmas preparations/shopping, etc. that I had going on this weekend, I tried a quick little project. It was definitely quick, and turned out cute and useful - a gift card/cash holder. Super simple, but pretty enough to make a gift a bit special. And no, I did not get everything done for Christmas, but I got my packages mailed to my work teams. That was my highest priority. I still need to mail calendars out, but I need bigger envelopes, which means a trip to the store tonight.
The Redding offices had a pot-luck Christmas breakfast on Tuesday - a nod to the MBOC legacy Christmas breakfast, where Management prepared and served staff breakfast. A couple of us "old-timers" organized the pot luck, decorated the kitchen area in the old TASC building (I have no idea what UB calls it now...) complete with table decorations to be raffled off, and set up an ornament exchange. I was not the main volunteer, but I helped!
I also volunteered to bring a quiche, even though I couldn't make the breakfast (scheduling issues with Alli). Which all sounds good, until I remembered at 6:00 on that morning that I was supposed to be sending said quiche in with AJ....at 6:40. Since quiche takes an hour to bake, there was no way that was going to happen....so I decided to improvise and they would get egg bites. Which sounded great, until I could only find one muffin pan. They got a dozen sausage and green chili egg bites and 2 dozen "mini" egg bites, because all I could find in my rush were my mini-muffin pans....and some were still in the oven when AJ left. Luckily he said they had plenty of food.
Once again, I had helpers when I tried to get my quilt sandwiched. First, I had Jessie on top of the fabric....and notice that James is on the back corner taking the tape off for me - such a helper!
Then, Jessie was under the fabric. Since the whole reason i spread out the different layers is to get everything smooth, no wrinkles, etc., this is NOT helping....they were both banished to the bedroom until I had everything put together.
The quilt top is finished - I'm still not completely happy with the color choices, but decided to go ahead and "gett'r done". It was either that or continue to look for more fabric, and this was the 4th one I tried.
Here's the backing fabric, which has the same shade of pale green as the sashings. I'm hoping it will all "look good" together.
The weather was warm and sunny when we left Redding, which continued most of the way over the mountains to Susanville. There was quite a bit of ice on the road, so driving made me a bit nervous, not looking forward to driving home after dinner in the dark. That all changed when we got close to Susanville. Where the Dixie Fire went through, close to the 36/44 intersection, you have a clear view of the valley. Saturday you could see the inversion layer over Susanville. It was 35 degrees and sunny, then it dropped to 28 and overcast. The pogonip was so cool - you could see the line on the trees where the temps changed.
I wandered around Jeff's place while I was there.
We went to Jeff's for the Thomas family Thanksgiving - Kolby and Jake came up with their families - Andrea and Franco with Kolby, and Jackie and two cats with Jake. Franco is 15 months old and is a little doll! He's just learning to talk and they are raising him bilingual, which is just so cool. He is already getting in to everything he can, and Grammie and Grandpa's house is wide open to him. Jeff told Andrea that he'd let her know "if" Franco ever did anything wrong, but he didn't think that would ever happen....
He and Alli spent some time studying each other. She's really good about not stepping/walking on the little kids when she's spinning, and they got along just fine until Franco found the TV remote and started changing channels. She doesn't seem to care what's on TV so she was fine for a while, and then he turned it off....AJ came to the rescue and got it going for her again, whew!
Note to self.....pay more attention to the smoker when smoking a large turkey.....
For Thanksgiving, I cooked two turkeys (or to be more accurate, I attempted to cook two turkeys...) One was in my reliable Big Easy (propane) and it was ready earlier than I expected. I smoked the other one on my Weber Smoker. I've smoked turkeys in the past, but this one was bigger than usual and I did not keep up on adding briquettes to it, so....it didn't cook. Once I realized the problem (about the time the guests were arriving) I put more briquettes in but didn't continue to monitor it (I was busy....) Instead of having a smoked turkey ready at 2:00, I had one ready at 8:00. I didn't even test to see how dry the meat was, I just let it cool for a bit and tossed it in the frig. I'll see how badly I destroyed it tonight.
On the up-side, the other turkey was great, the sides were great, and everyone had a good time and a good laugh at my poor turkey still smoking during dinner. AJ helped me with desserts this year. He helps me cook dinner quite often, but doesn't usually help me with baking. I gave him instructions for making graham cracker crumbs for the crust of the pumpkin cheesecake, and he made fun of his lack of experience baking by using the wrong part of the rolling pin....
More fall leaves - taken while I was raking the leave from the driveway. I didn't bother trying to rake the yard....I was working in between rain storms and just wanted the driveway clear. I'm hoping the storms that come through blow my leaves out of the yard. They probably won't blow my leaves out, but will manage to blow the neighbor's leaves into my yard too....
Ripley was helping though - she was keeping an eye out for intruders and any rabid squirrels....
