Thinking Day Pinterest Project #23

I was lucky enough to find a Girl Scout troop here in Arkansas that would allow Mouse to join even though we are only staying until June.

Girl Scouts has been a constant for Mouse and has been instrumental in bringing her out of her shell and helping her overcome her fears of me leaving her with others and being away from home. I cannot say enough good things.

Anyways, Saturday was Thinking Day and Mouse's new troop was hosting a booth on Japan at the event in Hot Springs.

The girls did an information board and had many examples of things from Japan. For their fun thing to share they decided to make "Candy Sushi".

I volunteered to help out with this as I had seen recipes on Pinterest and I do my own nori rolls at home...so how hard could it be?


This was the first Pinterest photo that caught my attention. It is from the Savy Mom Ca site. She used a little more variety than I had available to me up in the mountains. So I found two other blogs to help me out.

I love the Swedish Fish. This one is from Planet of the Apels. Unfortunately I did not have a muffin pan to work with...only a cookie sheet or pizza pan.

Finally I found some really good instructions at Makin'Messes.

Putting all those together I managed to make two batches of the roll sushi and form my own version of the fish sushi.

These were the easiest to do. Its actually the ends of the other rolls that were too short to do another full roll. I just sort of shaped them oblong and slapped a fish and piece of fruit roll up on them.

The rolls turned out pretty cool also - and they were surprisingly easy to make. I don't think we came away from the event with a single one left over....although many of our girls ate as many as three.

Mouse told me no less than three times what a fun time she had. If you know her well you know how out of character that is. She will normally not give you the satisfaction of letting you know something was fun.  (Thanks again Girl Scouts!)

So - if you are interested in the candy sushi, I'd so go for it. It is not hard to make at all. Warning! It is crazy sweet with all that junk!!

Pinterest Project #22

Another recipe for you. There are not alot of things from my pinterest boards that I can really get into while staying here. Mostly its recipes and quilts for now.

I had a spaghetti squash that I was going to use in place of pasta with my spaghetti sauce -- but the call of the pasta was just too strong. So then I needed a recipe.

A quick shout out to FB gave me some great suggestions. Mircle recommended that I just put the veggies from my recipe on the squash since I didn't want to make the sauce again. I thought that sounded pretty good. So I did a quick search using some of those veggies and the squash and this is what came up.

Mushroom Primavera with Spaghetti Squash from the Refined Chef site.  Here is the link to the original post. Its a nice site to browse.

Anyways...my take on this one: Not saucy enough. I did read a bunch of suggestions that mentioned using Laughing Cow wedges instead of the feta and that making it saucier. Might be worth trying because the recipe was really good...I just like sauce. If I could figure out what to use without adding too many calories I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Worth a try for sure.

Still on the hunt for more spaghetti squarsh recipes that stand in as a meal. Let me know if you  have any!

Top Of The Moor

First quilt of 2013 is finished. Again it is mostly scraps left over from the group of purple quilts I made. I did buy the border/backing/binding fabric. It is a batik with a filigree type modern heart pattern...which seemed perfect for a wedding quilt. 

I have actually worked on these half square triangles off and on for over a year. It was too boring to sit down and do them all at once, lol! So the quilt sort of made itself up as I went along.

I believe this is only the second time I have used one fabric for the backing. Usually I use up my scraps instead of spending that much on the back piece.

The center is a pillow panel that I built the half square triangles around. I got this idea from another site I follow. She set her panel on point. I could not figure out how to do it so I gave up and just used it squared instead.

As you can see, I just free motion quilted around the design on the panel. The back side looks pretty neat. I used a verigated purple thread to tie in all the different purples.

 I followed the half squares and using a walking foot went diagonally through the squares for that quilting. I was going to do more of an all over pattern but I ran out of time due to an unexpect trip that allowed me to take this and deliver it so I wouldn't have to mail it. 

 Around the border I just used the walking foot again and ran some straight lines around it about 2 inches apart. That seemed to work best with the diaganol lines through the squares. Plus I had run out of time by this point so it had to be very quick.


Because I love the original idea I got this from I am going to share:

This is from Red Pepper Quilts and here is the link to the page that tells all about it. If you are a quilter and want to be inspired be sure to go check out her site. She is amazing.

Maybe I will try this again some day and try to figure out the on point instructions. But next time I will use larger half square triangles. These little ones took FOREVER! I am very much over that!!! lol

Please Help Us Locate Joseph Or Pray Him Home!

I have a friend with an urgent need for prayer and help! Please read!

Please Share This With All You Know...My Son Is Missing

by noreply@blogger.com (Quiltingranny)

Joseph Rummerfield Missing 1/17/13 from Tulare, California

This is a picture of my son Joseph Rummerfield who is homeless. Joseph has lived between Tulare and Visalia, California since he was a child.  Everyone from local residents to police officers know Joseph.

Joseph is mentally ill, he is harmless and very gullible and sadly he allowed a man to talk him into going with him to see an attorney about getting  disability on 1/16/2013.

He was last seen with this man on 1/17/2013 in Bakersfield in a tan RV  possibly an older Winnebago as it had a large W on the side.  The man he was with was very angry with him, is older in his 60's and missing a leg and he has a dog of some sort.

Joseph has a black lab named Hunter and he doesn't leave Hunter but rarely and when he does he always checks on him.   He left Hunter with a friend on 1/16 and has not been back to get his beloved pet or called to check on him.

Something is wrong!  His aunts, uncles and cousins have all been looking for him and even his homeless friends are worried.  I have no idea why this wasn't reported earlier, but there is a missing persons report with Tulare, California PD.

Joseph is a creature of habit, he doesn't leave the area unless led to believe someone can help him.  This is my son, please help me.

If you live in Tulare, Visalia, Porterville, Farmersville, Oildale or anywhere near these communities please get the picture around. When you see a homeless person holding a sign look closely if it is Joseph tell him his aunt Sandy, Aunt Emma and mom are all worried and to call home.

If he is with the man with 1 leg, please call 911 and let them know you have located a missing person.

Please pass this out to everyone you know!

What I Brought Vs. What I Bought

Our stay in the little vacation rental is turning into six months instead of three. There are a couple of different reasons for this -- one of the most important being that Mouse is loving the school here.  See, she stopped working for me so I put her in school here to show her that there are consequences for not doing work for mom. And it turned out to be a great thing because she likes it. I cannot even convey what a relief it is not to fight her to get on the bus or go to school. I'm taking advantage of it for the remainder of the school year.

Anyways -- since we are now living in limbo for longer than expected (thanks to our household goods extension coming through), I have been asked by a couple of people how we are managing without or stuff.

I'd say I did a good job of preparing for this. (Of course it doesn't hurt that we are staying in a furnished rental.)

Now, we were probably a little better off than many people would be just by virtue of owning the trailer. It makes everything easier because we are traveling with a little mini home all our own. A home that stays stocked with certain cooking items and beds and linens, etc. That means there are many things I didn't even have to think about packing.


The most important things that we remembered would be:

*the popcorn popper (cheap and well loved snack)
*a billion blankets (comfort and familiar)

*all the dog stuff (clippers, shampoos, toys, etc.)
*black box of important papers
*canvas bag full of rag towels (sick dog anyone??)

*rice cooker
*all our spices (usually I would give most of that away)
*sewing machine and tools (including Go! cutter and dies)

*two boxes of books
*favorite coffee or tea cups (ours are very oversized)

*hot water kettle (electric)
*large tote of all bathroom and medicine cabinet stock (again, I would usually trash all this but you can't believe the amount of things we have pulled out of here this trip - saved us lots and lots of money)
*Apple TV Box for watching netflix streaming (worth its weight in gold)


There were a few things that I had to buy but it was a planned thing:

*crockpot - I threw the one from the trailer out to force myself to buy a new one
*bathroom scale - ours was missing a foot pad and I wasn't sure if it was accurate anymore so I tossed it while packing

Things I wish I had packed but didn't (and won't buy a replacement):

*my kitchen scale that I use to weigh mail among other things

*my large cutting mat for quilting - I meant to pack it and don't know how I forgot as I have all my other tools

And the things that I did go out and buy because I can't live without them:

*garlic press (now the trailer will have its own -- we use this daily almost)

*veggie steamer basket for pots - how in the world did I forget this???

*wireless network printer -- we did plan on staying somewhere that had a printer available to us but my gut said to pack it and I didn't listen. Thankfully I found one for $30.

*swimsuit for the teen (I told her)


Unexpected purchase that is a pain for travel but I am in love with:

A bisell carpet cleaner. The big dog got very very sick and destroyed this carpet. She was so sick it had to be a carpet cleaner. Since I had borrowed a similar one to clear housing in Ohio (thanks again Wendy) I decided to just buy one. Kind of a crazy thing but it got all the bad stuff up and saved us our $400 pet deposit and probably the $600 other deposit also. By the way - have you ever seen a dog projectile vomit?? It is a sight I hope you never experience.

And things I will have to purchase from breakage or overuse:

I walked the walking foot right off during the last 6 inches of quilting the last Christmas quilt I made, so that will have to be purchased as I am working on more quilts. Grumble. I have and extra foot and machine in my household goods. Should have packed it. But really - pack two sewing machines??


So all things considered, we have done very well just with what we packed.  I still can't believe I didn't remember the garlic press or steamer baskets -- but hey, now the trailer has its own.

The box of books and all our favorite blankets have been good for entertainment value along with the Apple TV box for watching movies.

The teen is glad she had her work clothes from Ohio with her as she didn't need to purchase anything when she got a job here.

All in all I think we are doing just great. Just goes to show how much of our "stuff" is really just not necessary.