Hearts in Service

I just finished a table runner for my kitchen island. It's made with summer fabric and now I have one for each season of the year. Close-up. I'm trying to use up fabric that I have before I purchase anymore, but it's getting a bit difficult to match different fabrics.

I tried out a new recipe today and these were terrific! They were crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside and delicious. Dutch Butter Cookies Beat in order until well blended: 1 cup of butter 4 Tbsp. Crisco 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 tsp. vanilla Combine and mix in until well blended: 2 1/2 cups flour 1/2 tsp. baking soda Roll into 1 and 1/2" balls and flatten with a fork. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes. Enjoy!

I couldn't post these before because I didn't want my friend, Stephanie to see them. I went to her baby shower today and this is what I've been working on the past few weeks. I made her a quilt. The jungle fabric was the same one that I used for my sister-in-law about a year ago. Here is a close-up. I love those little animals. Here is the back. Emily worked on some burp cloths for her. She ended up doing about half of them and I sewed the other half. I had a cute little basket that I got on sale a few years back and was saving it for an occasion like this. I used it to package the burp cloths. I so enjoyed making the quilt and burp cloths. My baby days are over so I only get to make cute things like this for my friends who are expecting.

It's Bloomin' Tuesday over at Jean's Blog . My flowers really did not last as long as they normally do this year. We have had so much rain and I think that really affected them. I planted sunflowers this year and only 3 of them came up. This one is looking a bit wilted, but it's the only one in bloom right now. I love these and I think the bees do to! My black-eyed Susan patch is doing well. Unfortunately, my bee balm and echinacea have all died at this point. Many of the other flowers that normally are up by now aren't in bloom at all. Hopefully, things will do better next year.

There is a local trailer park near here that is known to be full of drugs and alcohol. Our church has had a burden to reach the people here for Christ for a long time and we have done various outreach events there over the past few years, usually with little success. Last night, we had a musicians and evangelists, Howie & Debbie Campbell come and share in music and a message. Members of our worship team joined in with them to play and we offered free food. It ended up being very successful. As the team was setting up, it started to pour. The group got together to pray that the weather would clear, and within 15 minutes it stopped a beautiful rainbow came out! The weather stayed beautiful for the rest of the night. We ended up with about 100 people turning out for the event which was huge compared to what normally happens there. Free food helped. Here are our refreshment ladies and they are a lot of fun! I know Dan especially liked the free food! ;-) Everyone enjoyed the musi

Mandi asked me to post my recipe for relish, so here goes. Grind through a food processor: 12-14 cucumbers 1 bunch celery 2 onions 2 green peppers 2 sweet peppers Let stand overnight. I cover it and put it in the refrigerator, but you probably don't have to do this. Drain and add: 2 Tablespoons salt Mix well. Bring to boil in a large kettle: 3 cups sugar 3 cups vinegar (I use white) 1 tsp. celery seed 1/2 tsp. tumeric 1 tsp. mustard seed Add vegetables and cook 30 minutes. Fill into jars and seal. I did not water bath can these. They sealed on their own. Just listen for the popping sound! ;-)

I spent most of the morning and afternoon in a canning marathon. I had piles of tomatoes as well as about 10 lbs. of plums. A friend gave me a bunch of cucumbers too. So I made 4 quarts of relish. 10 cups of plum jam. and 5 quarts of tomato sauce. I love the popping sound the jars make as they seal. It lets me know that they are done and that we'll have lots of good things to eat this winter.

I still have tons of plums left and found a yummy recipe for plum cobbler. Mix together: 4 cups of plums 1 cup of sugar 2 Tbsp. corn starch 1/4 tsp. cinnamon Put in a 9"x13" pan. In another bowl, mix: 1 cup flour 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. salt Cut in 1/4 cup butter, until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs: Stir in: 1/4 cup milk 1 egg, lightly beaten Drop the batter on the fruit. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Enjoy!

Every Thursday a couple of moms and our daughters have been meeting next door while a woman from our church teaches us to sew. I already know how to sew, but I've learned all sorts of neat little finishing touches from her. She is a wonderful seamstress and taught 4H in our town for 30 years. The girls just finished making drawstring aprons. Here they are modeling with their teacher. They did a great job and were so proud. They were so cute yesterday, bouncing around outside with them on. :-)

A couple in our church gave me about 15 lbs. of plums so I set out this morning to make plum jam. I love looking at the finished product. I still have about 10 lbs. left so I'm going to look up some recipes using plums. Any suggestions?

Part of our new routine is trying to teach Nathan how to understand emotions. He has very little understanding of his own or others' emotions. His awareness of the feelings of others is not accurate and other than very basic emotions, such as happy and sad and scared, he doesn't have an awareness of feeling. One of the things we've been doing to help him, based on advice from a psychologist, is to use a chart like this one to help him identify facial expressions and the corresponding emotion. We have to do a lot of role playing to help him. For example, if he does something that frustrates Stephen, Stephen needs to tell him, "Nathan, look at my face." "That makes me feel angry." We also need to practice asking Nathan to identify how he is feeling. For example, "Nathan, you seem upset." "What are you feeling?" This is going to take a lot of work! It's just something we have to incorporate into our daily responses with him.

I've been busy sewing the past few weeks. Here are a few projects I've done. Table runner Close-up Emily made matching potholders. An apron. If I do this again, I'll use contrasting fabric for the pockets. I actually love having the sewing set up in the building next door. It's like having my own little oasis away from everyone!