WHY?!

I know it has been an incredibly long time since I have blogged, so you may be wondering what on earth could possibly motivate her to such crazy lengths as blogging? Well, let me tell you...

Around 5:00am I was roused from a semi deep sleep by noxious fumes permeating the house...now when you have had a house burn down, you ignore no odor, no matter how tired you may be. So of course I woke Ryan for him to investigate...He turned the heater off thinking it must be that, it's the only thing running at 5am. However the smell was getting worse! Then we noticed the back door had been blown open by the wind, and the dog was gone...we both came to the same realization at the same moment...SKUNK!

I called out for Olive and she came prancing back in, but hadn't been sprayed fortunately. We looked all over the house, but nothing. The only thing we could think was Olive ran out, the skunk ran in then left, leaving us a horrific smell to contend with...so we googled, then ran to Walmart to get the proper skunk de-scenting materials (hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and vinegar, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation)!

This unfortunately is not the end of our story...we pull up to the house, glance over and through the front window, see Mr. Skunk flitting back and forth across our couch! Ryan, brave and brilliant, runs to the front door, props it open, then runs to the back door grabs Olives dog food and lures it out with one piece at a time.

I know it's not a great photo, but at the very bottom to the left hand corner, 
you can see the skunk escaping to it's next dasterdly deed.

Thanks to the flu we had these handy masks, a few
drops of theives and you can hardly smell anything
(that is a bit of an exageration)
That look in my eyes is the daze of 5am awakening
 creeping up on me.

Needless to say, we have spend the last four hours cleaning, diffusing and gaging...so I ask WHY? The only answer I have is that these are the types of things that happen to the Austins.

Vegan Pancakes

I decided to make pancakes this morning and share the recipe that I have developed. I like pancakes that have lots of stuff in them and that I can eat one and be full for a long time. So here is my recipe:


2 Cups Whole Wheat Four 
1 Cup Rolled Oats               
1/2 Cup Flax Seed Meal    
5 teaspoons Baking Powder  
dash of Salt                           
2 Tablespoons Egg Replacer 
1 teaspoon Cinnamon           
1/2 teaspoons Nutmeg          
1/2 Cup Oil ( I like to use light olive oil) 
3-4 Cups Non Dairy Milk ( I use almond milk) use more milk if you desire thinner pancakes 
Fresh or Frozen Fruit   
Nuts   
Here are some ideas for mixtures: Blueberries, lemon extract, slivered almonds, or Bananas, vanilla extract and pecans, or Stawberries, almond extract and slivered almonds.                               
                

I hope you enjoy!

Finally!

This is a two fold finally...First, "I am FINALLY sitting down to blog!" and "I FINALLY finished my quilt!!"

But before I show it to you...there are these little tags you can purchase to attach to your homemade item which express what you have put into this project for the fortunate recipient. Like this one:

this one you can purchase at www.zazzle.com



My tag for this quilt would have to say a bit more than that...like: made for you through a huge range of emotions, blood, tears, a little food was probably spilled on this, and I am not sure how much love actually went into it, however there was I am sure much frustration. I am not sure how happy that would make you if you received a gift with a tag like that, but I think it is a bit more accurate than just made with love!

There it is, this quilt took me about 2 years to complete, which those of you who know me well, realize that is a LONG time...I usually become myopic when I start a project and cannot do anything until it is complete, my family looses weight and goes through every piece of clothing they own until I am done.  However, this project was different...

It was more of an emotional journey so to speak, bear with me and I will try not to get too irritating. This was the first project that I started after the house fire. I started it mostly because I didn't know what else to do, and felt like it would be comforting to do something familiar...needless to say, it became more of a drudgery...but I kept going a little here and a little there because I knew that eventually I would enjoy it, or at least I would have a quilt...it worked! about a month ago, after two years of hating this quilt, I actually started to like quilting again! I really didn't think it would take that long, and so this quilt will be staying here with me, no tag explaining what went into it, because that is something no one else really wants to inherit!

I am starting to like the quilt now, I like to put little unique aspects into my quilts like this stripe on the back. And I think I am at the point where I can start to snuggle under it. I have even started a new project...I found some quilt tops at an antique shop for less that 8 dollars, so am quilting those.

I hope I haven't depressed you too much, I feel much better getting that out. And I am happy to say I have been neglecting too much in order to speed through the next quilt.