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Holy Cow!  You guys are hysterical!!!  I knew I’d get some great ideas for how to use that cookie writer!  What a clever and ambitious bunch you are.  I’m really happy that so many of you managed to get one of them — I’m thinking I need to write the seller and ask for a commission LOL!

Other than all the cookie writer excitement, it’s been a quiet week here in Thimbleannaland.  A little boring actually, and it worries me that it might be the calm before the holiday storm.  (Notice I did NOT use the “C” word — I’m not ready!)

Anyway, I caught TheEmptyNestChild yawning and it reminded me of the big yawns I’d get out of the boys when we read bedtime stories.  We loved reading together and I thought I’d tell you about my two favorite memories of those times.

One night we were reading 2095 by Jon Scieszka.  (2095 is from a great series for early readers called The Time Warp Trio — a group of books about three boys who travel in time.  Most of the time they traveled to historical eras in the past, but in this book they were traveling to 100 years in the future.  Kids love these stories ’cause they’re so funny.)  Anyway, I read this passage:

“What’s the date today?” I asked.

Director Green slid her finger across another panel.  The blue numbers 9/28/95 appeared.

“September 28,” she said.

And then I stopped reading and we had a wow moment and a laugh — the actual date that we were reading was 9/28/95.  What were the odds of that???  Ok, maybe you had to be there, but we were really excited!!!

(Hey Look! I won a prize at Anna’s and it arrived in the mail this week. Thanks for the moda squares and chocolate Anna, I love it!)

Here’s one of my favorite passages from a children’s book, ever.  It’s from The Twits by Roald Dahl and it’s describing Mrs. Twit.  (Oh how we love Roald Dahl.)

But the funny thing is that Mrs. Twit wasn’t born ugly.  She’d had quite a nice face when she was young.  The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older.

Why would that happen?  I’ll tell you why.

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face.  And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.  You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

How cool is that?  Did I mention that we love Roald Dahl?  Well…speaking of bedtime…  I hope you all have a great weekend.  I get a sewing day with the quilty peeps tomorrow.  Yipee!!!

XOXO,
Anna

Well, apparently my WordPress and my Webhost don’t know how to play nice together and I can’t get any more comments on the last post. My Webhost says its WordPress’s fault. Any guesses on what WordPress will say? I’m hoping to scare the darn thing into submission by having another post just one day after the last one. We’ll see. If you can’t comment on this post either, we’ll know it didn’t work and I’ll just talk to myself!

A few very funny things that might be of interest:

Poor Molly was horrified that I would actually make a chocolate cake in the microwave, so she’s written a very funny post aimed at saving me from myself. She’s included a GREAT looking recipe for a chocolate cake that you might want to check out. I’m definitely going to try this one!

I think sweet Vallen also took pity on my desperate attempts for chocolate and she’s posted a YUMMY looking chocolate pudding with raspberry sauce. Holy Cow — I LOVE chocolate and raspberry! Can you feel your hips expanding???

And then there’s Brigette. My clown friend extraordinaire! When I wrote the post about my Aunt Annie’s Sweet Rolls, Brigette fell in love with my Patisserie Dome and has been, well, shall we say obsessed with it? Her efforts to obtain one have, so far, been in vain, so she has resorted to making one of her own until she can get a real one.

Now, the funniest part about that (only I’m crying while I’m laughing) is that almost at the same time she was posting about her new dome, I broke my dome while washing it. Oh, the anguish! So, Brigette’s temporary solution was perfect for me and I hurried and made my own temporary dome last night.

Of course, mine had to be made in Brigette’s honor. And mine really isn’t a dome and doesn’t have apple strudels in it — only my oatmeal cookies. But it will have to do for awhile. And, notice how all the words on mine are all frenchy sounding. That totally wouldn’t work if Brigette’s name had been oh, Mabel or something.

So, thank you for the laughs and recipes Ladies!  Blog friends are pretty cool!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, and last, but certainly not least! Happy Birthday MeMum! I hope you’ve had a wonderful day! I’d show everyone another of your beautiful quilts in your honor, but {ahem}*someone* hasn’t looked into recovering the pictures from the crashed hard drive yet!

Dear Ms. Pesto,

Are you sitting on the edge of your chair wondering how my pesto experiment went? You know I don’t like that green icky stuff, but I decided I’d try your recipe anyway — ’cause you never know, maybe the one and only time I tried it, the flavor was just too strong.

So, on Sunday afternoon, I went to MeMum’s and we had a little pesto adventure with TheManoftheHouse, BigDaddy and my nephew as willing taste testers. I know you’ll probably gasp in disbelief, but none of us had ever really had pesto. We gathered our supplies, as meticulously laid out in your very clear recipe.

We dutifully chopped, blended and poured. (Ad btw…do you think this is a Holiday Inn Express? We don’t have a Trader Joe’s anywhere in the vicinity, so I had to toast my own pine nuts. I just felt darn fortunate that I didn’t have to go out and harvest them from our pine trees. I think I may have scorched a few of them, but all that green stuff will cover the black marks, right?) I didn’t take a picture of the green goo, ’cause it looked just like yours.

Now to taste. Is there some sort of official pesto connoisseur tasting exercise we should have followed? You know, like wine tasters do things — swirl, sniff, yadda, yadda? We all peered over the edge of the food processor bowl, and with our little testing spoons, we each took a sample. We gingerly placed a bit on our tongues….hmmmm….

WAIT! You said to put it on pasta. But why limit ourselves? We should broaden our horizons and try it on a few other things no? How ’bout bananas? You know I love bananas…

Not bad! Not bad at all! Could be the delicious banana overshadowing that gunky stuff though … how ’bout a potato chip?

Umm…maybe not so much. But then I love bananas more than potato chips so that could be the problem. So, how ’bout a fig?

Aren’t you proud of us? We’re not only trying pesto, but figs too! I think we liked the pesto better than the figs — we didn’t dislike figs, but they were very bland. (We tried them with drizzled honey too, but that’s another discussion.) And you should have been here for a good laugh during the fig cutting. Are we supposed to eat that skin or not? We eat peach skin, so we ate fig skin. Was that proper?

Ok, now the real test…Pesto on a Ding Dong…

Yeah Baby, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! I know you think I didn’t really taste that, but I did. Not bad at all, but hey, it’s chocolate, so what’s not to love?

Ok…Ok…you’ve been pretty patient Ms. Pesto. As you noticed above, we did put your pesto on radiatore pasta as instructed…

SMILES all around!!! We LIKED it! Dare I say, a few of us even REALLY liked it? I think you’re right…if someone doesn’t like pesto, it’s ’cause they haven’t had your pesto. So, thanks for broadening our horizons here in the unique-food-challenged heartland. We had great fun and we’ve found something new and exciting to have for dinner.

You ROCK, Ms. Pesto!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, and two more little things…

Kim…oh Kim…are you there? Although I forgot to try it, I really think you should try pesto on mashed potatoes. This stuff is so good, it might cure your mashed potato phobia!

and…

Happy Birthday BigDaddy! You’re the best Dad ever and I LOVE you dearly!!! You make us all so happy with your wacky sense of humor and adventurous spirit. And thanks for trying the Pesto!!!

*Thanks Ms. Pesto for a great post title!

Back to the weekend (hey, you have to forgive me…I’m doing my monthly stint in NJ, so there’s no crafting going on here — I’m working hard to catch up with all of you though!)… after I left Clementine’s, I caught up with TheManoftheHouse and TheSecondChild at exit 90 on I-65.  (How on earth did we do that before cell phones???)  They were pulling a trailer of TheSecondChild’s junk and this was my view riding down the freeway.

Now, come on.  I’ve just been at Cami’s for 3 hours surrounded by fabric beauty and inspiration.  That U-Haul trailer is uhhh-gly.  The orange is ok, but, yuck.  So, what’s a girl to do but dream a little?  How ’bout some flowers?

Are you with me???  Better, no???  How ’bout these cute chocolate bunnies (can you see them?) in a brocade-like setting???

  Fabric lovers of the world unite!  It’s one way we can beautify our environment — a feast for weary traveler’s (that’s traveller’s for those of you in the UK LOL!) eyes.  Wait!  How ’bout some cupcakes???*

 And speaking of cupcakes, there’s a new cupcake on the blogger block!  The fabulous FABULOUS noblog Brigette has finally joined us and started up a blog.  (A few of you have already found her via her comments.)  Please join me in welcoming — Oh, gag me– we hear that line all the time when they’re making organizational announcements at work!

What I really mean to say is run over to Brigette’s and say HI!  You won’t be sorry — she’s one very cool and FUNNY chick.  I mean, really.  Her blog name is My Mother-in-Law is a Troll.  The title alone should send you scampering over there.  She’s a quilter, an awesome cook,  and she’s lucky enough to live in sunny California amid bounteous (is that a word? it’s too close to beauteous) farms and she’s currently practicing extreme canning.  I think she needs a little cheering up tonight, so go leave her a comment!

Oh, and one last thing — Penny is having a cute giveaway, so go check that out too!

XOXO,
Anna

*No fabrics (or cupcakes) were harmed in the over-haul of the U-Haul.  I did, however, purchase those fabrics at Clementine’s.

Whew! Did you all have a nice weekend?  Ours blitzed by — we got TheSecondChild all moved in to his hovel at school.  It’s so hard to imagine that this will be his senior year — it seems like we just went through all the college admission process!   I felt a bit sorry for the poor guy — he’s a neat freak and he’s moving in with some um… well, much less than neat freaks.  They’ll work it out though, I’m sure.

Amid all the work, the absolute highlight of my four days of moving was stopping in to Clementine’s Dry Goods.  Oh.  My. Gosh!!!  Those girls were hysterical!  Cami was there, of course.  And I was thrilled that Melly went to all the trouble to come from afar to meet me too.  And then sweet Rob (by now we’re old pals) and three new blog-less pals.

I left about 3 hours ahead of my guys so I had some time to shop and sit and knit with the ladies.  Cami has a perfect spot at the back of the shop with a couch and chairs where everyone can get comfy to sit and knit.  Oh, and, of course, EAT.  They spoiled me rotten and I felt SO special!  Just look at the spread they laid out for me:

We started with Melly’s absolutely amazing Banana Cream Pie.  All made from scratch.  Sooo delicious.  It doesn’t hurt that Banana Cream Pie is at the top of my all time favorites list — right up there and maybe even ahead of chocolate!  (I can hear the gasping now LOL.)  Fortunately I remembered to get my camera out before we ate it all.  Melly has promised that she’ll share her recipe on her blog so keep an eye out for it.

And then Cami.  Gosh.  She made a delicious Rhubarb Pie (a first for me) and Fantastic Chocolate Croissants.  I wish I could give you one — I’m not kidding — they belong in a bakery with Melly’s pie.  And that’s not Mrs. Smith’s (pick-a-name) puff pastry there — she makes all those layers From.  Scratch.  By. Hand.  (Oooh, and I just went to get her link for this post, and she’s letting us in on the secret behind those croissants!  Thanks Cami!)  I can’t even imagine how she has the time — there are 5 perfectly behaved children and a hubby and a quilt/yarn shop to run.

In between all that eating there was MUCH laughing and cracking up.  What a super fun group of girls — I so wish they all lived closer.  All too soon, the call came from my guys that they were passing by — my clue to catch up to them on the highway to continue our trip to Nashville.  Cami was so kind to send some croissants with me for the boys.   Not only were they to eat, they provided a little boredom relief as I lined them up on the dashboard of the car — they looked so pretty!

Speaking of the dashboard, there was some other lining-up.  Anyone know what this is?

Anyone?  Cami knows.  I gave the girls some M&Ms and little snickers bars and Cami squealed “Look, she’s given me some round row counters” and Melly said “And I have some square ones!”  while I sat there wondering whether they do recreational drugs at Clementines!  Cami says you can use M&Ms (or chocolate chip cookies or whatever floats your boat) as row counters.  Just lay out the number of rows you have to knit in M&Ms and each time you finish a row, eat one.  When they’re all gone, you’ll know you’ve done X number of rows.  Who knew???  I put this new technique into play with my Cracker Jacks and it worked!  I’ve never been able to properly count my rows…I always forget to increment that little plastic counter or put a hash mark on my piece of paper, but I certainly didn’t forget to eat my Cracker Jacks.  That Cami is a genius!

All the ladies were full of little tidbits like that and they cracked me up.  I learned all about how to fix a suction problem from Melly — oh!  and Cami had some cute new shoes on too — they were REALLY educational!  So ladies — thank you SO much for a fabulous morning.  I came away with new ideas swirling around in my head — you are all so full of inspiration.  And especially thanks for all the work and effort you put into making me feel so special — I Can’t Wait until we can do it again.

If YOU happen to be traveling on I-65 just south of Indianapolis, take a 5-minute detour into Franklin at exit 90 and visit Clementine’s.  Cami has lots of Westminster and Rowan fabrics and some beautiful yarns for you knitters.   And I hope you’ll have as much fun as I did!

XOXO,
Anna