Blog Catch Up!

It's been busy at my home! I haven't been blogging due to other projects that have been waiting. I decided to catch up with a post to show some of my fun projects.
Jimmy and I have both been trying to finish up our gardening. My friend gave me this little rose from her rose from Tasha Tudor's garden in Vermont. My first one died and she graciously gave me a second one to try again. It's doing well this year. Can you see the little rose blooming? So exciting.

After some gardening, I decided to finish up a doll and make her an outfit. There was a doll shoppe in Vermont called the Enchanted Dollhouse. They used to sell these little china head dolls. You would make the body and her dress. There were 5 doll kits made. They are dated and named on the back of their breast plate. They are cute, nothing real special, but fun. Several Tasha fans have a collection of these. So this is Nell and it was time to finish her. My friend Carla has Sally and she made her undies out of the same fabric as the dress fabric. I thought it would be fun, even if it isn't traditional.

I love the tiny lace on her pantaloons and slip!

Working on the puffy sleeves and bodice with some antique lace.

Her's Nell in her new dress. I think she is quite happy with it.

This is my Meg doll. I made this dress for her last November. I love the fabric. I am waiting for Emma to arrive from Etsy. I'm not sure if I will like the fabric of her outfit, so I may be working on another one SOON!

For Mother's Day, my daughter Gina gave me a gift card from Etsy. It was so fun looking and thinking about what I wanted to spend my money on! I was wanting a cradle for the little baby doll I posted a few weeks ago. I love the little scenes painted on the bed. Thank you Gina!

It also has little design and wooden knobs on the sides.

Baby Phyllis loves here new bed! She can sit up in it or take a nap. She just fits perfectly in it.

Isn't is just the cutest?!

 A lovely lady in Florida found my blog and sent me an email. She wanted to know if I would like this book. It's a classic and I was happy to get it! I wanted to pay for postage and she wouldn't let me. So sweet from a lady I have never met! Blogger friends are just so wonderful and do such unexpected things.

She also sent some goodies that she had made and a couple other dolly booklets.

She does such beautiful work. Thank you so much Maria.
So, that's what has been keeping me busy this week. I hope you are doing well and taking baby steps to return to a few things as we reopen. Stay safe. 

Cookie Recipes From Previous Blog Post

Several people asked for the recipes of the cookies I posted . I should have included them, but really didn't know people would be that interested in them.

Italian Cherry Cookies: Bake 350 for 10-12 minutes   Makes 24 cookies

3/4 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1t vanilla extract
1t almond extract
1T maraschino cherry juice
2 cups all purpose flour
16 drained and chopped cherries
A few drops of red food dye if you wish

Cream butter and add sugar, vanilla and almond extract. This is where I add a bit of food coloring.
Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Slowly drizzle in the cherry juice and mix well.
All the flour a bit at a time and slowly beat unto a soft dough.
Add chopped cherries until disbursed.
Press the dough into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Chill for at least 4 hours. The dough has to be chilled or the cookies will spread.
Roll into balls and place on a parchment lined baking pan. I use about 1 Tablespoon of dough for each ball.
Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. DO NOT OVER BAKE. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes.

These are not overly sweet cookies, but the cherries add so much. Enjoy.

Old Fashion Ginger Snaps:  Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes  Makes about 3 doz

1/4 cup of molasses
2/3 cup of shortening
1 cup of sugar ( you will need a bit extra in a bowl to roll the dough balls before baking)
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 T ground ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
2 t baking soda

Sift together dry ingredients
Cream together shortening and sugar. Then add the egg and molasses.
Blend in the dry ingredients and mix well.
Form into small balls and roll in sugar.
Place on a parchment lined baking pan. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. Cool on pan fro 2-4 minutes

I like this recipe because it is somewhat soft.

The last recipe is for Evelyn's Homestead cookies:  Bake 350 for 8-10 minutes  Makes about 3 doz

1/2 cup shortening
1 cups sugar plus a bit extra for flattening the cookies on the pan
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg
2 t baking powder
1/4t salt
2  cups flour
1 t vanilla

Cream sugar and shortening. Add eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Mis well.
Add dry ingredients.
Drop onto a greased cookie sheet and squish with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar to prevent sticking.
Bake at 350 for 8 minutes or until lightly brown on the bottom. Cool for 2 minutes before removing from the pan.

ENJOY!

                                                                                

Recipes From the Past for Tea TIme

This morning I just felt like baking. My Jimmy loves cookies. I told him I was going to bake and he said if I made cookies, he's bring take out Thai food home for dinner. Well, how could I refuse?
I started to look through some old recipes to make some cookies from our past. I had fun going back in time a bit.

This is my little tea this afternoon. It's Tuesday and our Tasha group share tea things with our members...we call it Tea Time Tuesday with Tasha.

When Jim and I were first married, we used to go to Grangeville, Idaho to visit our friends Ed and Evelyn. They were like Jim's second parents. My first recipe~ginger snaps~is an old recipe from a delightful lady named Donna. We used to go visit her on our trips and she often had special cookies. I asked her for this one. It's a great cookie for tea time.

Here's the finished project. It's soft and full of great spices, so it's full of flavor.

The next recipe is one of Evelyn's cookies. It's called Homestead cookies. Evelyn would make it when we would stay at their home. She would make a big batch for Jim. I only make half of the recipe as it makes a lot!

This one is actually a cookie that I found a few years ago and never made. It's called an Italian Cherry cookie. It's yummy with almond flavoring and maraschino cherries. It's very much like the cookies Jimmy's aunt sends at Christmas. I was in the middle of making this one, when my daughter Angie stopped by with Otto! What a nice surprise. He loves to play in our backyard and the rain actually stopped for awhile. They had cookies to enjoy and that made me happy! It's so good to see them. We social distance and no hugs yet. Soon, I hope. 

It's always special to use my pink lusterware cup and saucer for a wee bit of tea. It was a lovely day and I just didn't listen to the news much. I needed a break.

Have you been baking? It's been fun to bake and cook with more time to enjoy it all. 

Sunday

I woke up early Sunday and did online church. I visited my old church across town this week. I miss that church.

Jim and I decided to go for a little drive. The weather was too wet and gloomy to get my flowers again. I want to get them planted. It has been pouring today, so it's just as well that my new plants are not in yet. It goes that way sometime here. Anyway, we drove up as far as we could get on the Columbia River Gorge old highway. Due to the virus, it hasn't reopened yet. This is as far as we could get, so we had to turn around.

This is a great lookout view but there was no way we could drive in to see it.  This is our world now.

We turned around and started to drive back to our house. This community had American flags flying for miles. It was neat to see.

We crossed the Sandy Bridge that goes over the Sandy River. The sun came out and it was just so pretty as we drove over the bridge.

We decided to stop at our local Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. There was a line up for a treat. I think people needed to get out for a safe drive.

While we were waiting in line, we were happy to see that our local summer stand where we get berries and veggies was setting up again. There's a sign that says they are opening on May 23rd. Oh, that will be lovely. I'm wondering if the the berries will be ready as we haven't had much sunshine.

I asked Jim to drive though a couple open shopping centers. You can see that this one is still shut down.

The outlet mall near our home was all closed up too. Some retail shops were allowed to reopen on Friday, but not inside or outside malls. I feel bad for all the retail shops, but I'm still not ready to go shopping.

Now Oregon is in a very interesting position. A judge in Baker county, way out East with no large cities, ruled today that our Governor Brown's orders for reopening are"null and void" and her stay at home rule is over. One person is making the decision to reopen our state without any precautions. I am so shocked. The churches in Eastern Oregon sued the state for not letting them have their church services. I don't want to get into anything here, but this is all about big gatherings and infection. I'm a Christian and I understand the the desire to meet but as a Christian, I want to be respectful and do my part to keep others safe.

So, everyone is so confused and who knows what will happen. The governor is going to go to the Oregon Supreme Court to appeal.

I told my husband this morning before anything happened, well, I wonder what it will be this week? It's something new each and every week. We will just continue to do what we feel comfortable with and still plan to stay pretty much at home yet. I continue to pray for our country and for wisdom to continue day by day. 

A Spot of Tea

It was just time to look at something pretty and springy and happy! I decided to have a little spot of tea but wanted to use some of my pretty tea things.

I love pink roses and this little bowl has been begging to be used.

Years ago, two of my sweet tea friends and I went to tea. When we were finished, we were browsing the gift shoppe. We all fell in love with the tea for one sets. Each of us bought one to remember our day together. I had to pick the pink rose one!

Here's my little tea, just for me today. How I miss sitting and chatting with my tea ladies! I had some fresh fruit and just a black tea with milk. Perfect. I love using my little strawberry forks for fruit. I bought back this one from MA years ago.

It was fun to reread this tea book and made me think of all my tea friends....oh, yes....Let's Have Tea Together. Maybe someday. 

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day dear blogger friends. I hope that you all had a lovely day and found a way to celebrate or be celebrated! My dad called me to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. He never does that and I was so surprised and happy to hear his voice.

My Jimmy always brings me flowers and these are so pretty. Such an antique look. He also gave me money for flowers when we can go to a nursery. The weather just turned so hot and it was so windy for days...not the time for tender little new plants.

Home Sweet Home! That's where we spend most of our time these days! We decided to have the girls and Otto come to our house. We stayed our distance and were outside, so we are trusting that we all stayed safe. We got some premade veggie trays and fruit trays and had a big container of pink lemonade.

 My Gina, my youngest. We celebrate a birthday on the same day. Gina gifted me with an Etsy gift card, so that will be fun to choose a treat!

My oldest Angie who is just a wonderful mom herself.

Otto is trying out his skate board while Grandma Linda looks on. Rico is looking for some meat! Gina is a vegetarian, so he likes to visit. This is the first time we have seen Rico in months.

Otto's step sister Ava gave him  two scooters, so he talked Auntie GG into riding with him. It was so cute.

Rico just loves the sunshine! It was in the 80's again.

Jimmy outside and enjoying the kids and Otto.

A happy mama! I was just happy to enjoy my girls, the pup and of course, funny Otto.

This is one of my gifts from Otto and Angie.....it's a special keychain with a sweet saying about a grandson and a grandma.

My flowers are quite pretty right now. This is my rose that was a gift from a friend who collects old roses. It's so beautiful this year.

Chives are always a delight.

Some of my Forget Me Nots that just pop up all over the garden. I love them and they remind me of Tasha Tudor.

One of my azaleas out front. They always bloom around Mother's Day. 

Yummy chocolate cake to enjoy at the end of a special day together. It was quiet and simple but just wonderful to have my little family together. No hugs yet! Maybe soon. We are all longing to go to the Oregon beach one of these days. We had a trip planned in March during spring break, but that didn't happen. I just keep thinking how much it will mean when we finally get to go.