hard drive

After finishing painting a room a couple of weeks ago, I took a good hard look at all the junk I took out of there.  A lot of the stuff needs to be released into the world.

One of the things, is this older computer that my husband used to use. The monitor, one of those giant heavy ones, had already been donated to a local school that collects old electronics to recycle as a fund raiser.

But I was told not to get rid of this part that holds the hard drive...because someone could get information off of it. Maybe like account numbers and passwords.  So there it sat.

Until I opened it to remove and destroy the hard drive.

This was a big deal for me. I have never attempted anything like this.  I watched some videos online first...so I would know which part was the hard drive.  This is it and I got it out!

please excuse the model's paint spattered hand

So, now what do you do with it? You can take it apart further if you have a tiny screwdriver with a star shaped tip. Or you can smash it with a hammer. Or you can drill holes in it, which is what I chose to do.

The idea is to break or permanently damage the "plates" inside. 

Wear eye protection - there will be a lot of metal shavings.

I guess now I will just toss it back into the casing and take it down to the school for recycling.

fruit loaf

During the Christmas holidays there can sometimes be an overload of sweets and goodies. 

That is why, back in December, when my parents gave us this fruit loaf, I wrapped it up tightly and stored it away in the coldest part of my fridge.  

Now, it's time to get it out and enjoy a little bit of Christmas in February!

My parents have made this at Christmas time, off and on for years. It is different from the usual fruit cake. 

It is dense and chewy but not cake-like

It is so good sliced thin with some hot coffee!  

I am sorry to say I do not have the recipe. I will be getting a copy of that!

friend's quilt

Susan is in my quilting group that meets in the extension office. She recently brought in this king size Log Cabin quilt top she put together. She needed to push together several tables to spread it out for layering and pin basting.

I am in awe of her talent and skill,  When you look at her work, everything is matched perfectly and laying nicely flat.  Isn't this gorgeous?  She will be hand quilting it.

Susan told us she has always loved sewing.  As a young girl, she would use money she earned by babysitting, to buy fabric.  

Now, even with working full time, she makes prize winning quilts and also embroidered and embellished pillows.

Here is a close up of the quilt. It's interesting to see that the light background is really made up of many different light colored fabrics.

Susan plans to finish the hand quilting in time to enter this quilt in the state fair this year. It looks like a winner to me!

spring mix salad

This is one of those recipes that I had scribbled down on a scrap of paper and now that I got around to trying it out... I can't remember where it came from.

Spring Mix Salad
1 cup Miracle Whip
1/4 cup parmesan
2 Tbsp. sugar
10 oz. baby spring mix greens
1/2 cup grated  fresh parmesan  (I used Asiago)
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup small cauliflower florets ( I substituted broccoli this time)
1/2 cup bacon bits

Begin several hours ahead to make the dressing by combining the Miracle Whip, 1/4 cup parmesan and sugar. Refrigerate until just before serving.

 Toss together the fresh parmesan, grated carrots, cauliflower. and bacon bits in a bowl with spring mix.

Add the dressing and toss until well distributed.  

My older son was helping me that day.  After he mixed the dressing in, I asked him to "put the salad in a different bowl and take a picture"..  So here is what he did... took a picture of the empty bowl!  I didn't even know it until I loaded the pictures off the camera. That smarty pants !  

Here is the picture I wanted (he knew it).

This is a good salad but the dressing was too thick to easily coat the spring mix.I added a drizzle of cream to thin it a bit.

It will only hold up a couple of hours in the fridge. The greens get soggy quickly!

I might try this again with romaine lettuce instead.

what's blooming in February?

Our Witch Hazel tree blooms in late winter.

We chose this tree to plant in memory of my husband's oldest son...because it blooms at the time of year that he passed away.   He was such a character! So we have to smile when we look at this tree and remember some of his antics and pranks!

The blooms are fairly small...just a fringe really. But they make up for it with their vivid color!

Wouldn't it be a pretty sight to see these blooms against a snowy background? 

Don't get me wrong - I am not asking for snow!

I have another small tree that is at is best in the winter months...a Contorted Filbert.

 It's covered with clusters of catkins and you can see it's twisty branches that are hidden by leaves in the summer.

What will be blooming next? Forsythia? Daffodils?

I am looking forward to spring!

another tab added

I have added another tab there under the heading "darlaville".

Now, you will see "2012 quilts".  If you click that tab it will show what I was working on in 2012.
It won't take long...not a lot finished that year!

Clicking back to the "home" tab will always show the newest regular post.



I also found this picture from 2012.  We got to visit  Silvestri Crater...on Mt. Etna...in Sicily!

It's like you are at the top of the world up there!  Windy and exhilarating!

And, I also added photos of another quilt on the 2013 tab. I had overlooked it before.

Adding the photos here are really helping me to get organized.

what I am reading

Although Nicholas Sparks is a popular and successful author, I've never been a fan of his books...or the movies that have been made from them. 

But I wanted to try this book out because it is a memoir and I usually like those. Plus it is a travel memoir, and I've always liked reading about other peoples travel adventures...until this ....

"Three Weeks with My Brother", by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks.

In this book, the author alternates between telling the story of his life and describing a trip he took with his brother.  

He does a good job of this, starting out by talking about his wife and kids,then revealing the story of his childhood and family dynamics a little at a time, sometimes through conversations with his brother. 

I enjoyed those sections of the book...the descriptions and stories about his family members and his non-traditional and often unsupervised upbringing.

What really bugged me was the travel part.  The two brothers took a 3 week trip with a tour company, around the world by private jet.  This included stops in South America, Pacific islands, Australia, Asia, India, and more, culminating with a stop in Norway...north of the Artic Circle.

Now, did you catch the part about visiting all these countries in 3 weeks?  

It was just as you might expect, here they were, seeing some of the most notable travel attractions around the globe ...Machu Picchu, Easter Island, the Taj Mahal, Ayers Rock, and so forth...without enough time in any one place to really " soak up the atmosphere" or feel a sense of place.  That really comes through in the book.

The travel schedule is so hectic and tiring that it seems like they spend a small amount of time seeing things and the majority of the time resting up at hotel bars and pools, often foregoing opportunities for side trips and cultural activities. 

That doesn't make for good travel writing.

It just seems like such a mistreatment of a traveling experience...sort of greedy really...to go just to say you've been there...then off to the next destination.  Shallow.

So, this book has turned me into even less of a Nicholas Sparks fan. It must just be me, though, this book was on the New York Times Best Seller List.

crochet project

Back when my sister got married, I decided to crochet an afghan as a gift for her and her new husband.

This was in 1991 ( I think), way before I started sewing quilts. But even then I liked quilts and I suppose that's why I picked up this crochet pattern booklet..."Quilt Afghans".

I began working on the one pictured on the right side in the middle..."Pinwheels and Stars".

these are all crochet

Looking back, I believe I chose the most hideous yarn color combination imaginable...bright peach and seafoam green!  At the time I thought it was really pretty.

Fortunately for my sister - I never even finished it.

The squares that I finished have been hanging around for all those years. Sometimes I would come across them while organizing, but put them out of sight-out of mind....until recently, when my quilt group started making quilts for Project Linus.

I read that the organization can use any kind of blankets.  I pulled out those finished crochet squares and had enough to put together a little green and white afghan.(not using the original layout). I haven't crocheted in quite awhile so it was slow going at first.

Next, I will lay out those peach squares you see piled up on the side and see what kind of arrangement I can make with them. I have plenty of yarn left so I can add some borders to it too.

I am so glad to find a use for these, and the world will be a better place without that peach yarn and green yarn together in the same afghan!

pumpkin bread

Those cans of pumpkin that I found on sale a few weeks ago were waiting for me to start turning them into something good to eat!   My older brother had sent me a recipe for dog biscuits using pumpkin. They looked good, but I don't even have a dog!

This recipe for pumpkin bread from allrecipes.com, has over six thousand glowing reviews, so I thought it would be good to try. We will probably like it better than the dog biscuits, anyway !

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
15 oz. can pumpkin
4 eggs
1 cup oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. gound cloves (I didn't add cloves-hate 'em)


Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.

 Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.

 Pour into the prepared pans.
Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven.

I made one large loaf and a few mini loaves. I like the mini loaves because they cook more evenly...the middle gets done quick enough that the edges don't get all dried out.
And they are cute!

If I make this again, I will double up on the spices, as suggested in some of the reviews on the site.
I wonder if  I could use the entire 29 oz. can of pumpkin to give it more pumpkiny flavor and make it more moist?

This would be a good breakfast or snack bread. It's really not a dessert type item...it's more bread-like than cake-like.

There were also recipes for pumpkin gingerbread on the same site...nearly the same as this recipe, only using 2 teaspoons of ginger.  That sounds pretty good...with some cream cheese frosting!
I still have a lot of pumpkin left.

honeybells

A late Christmas gift arrived by mail. It's from my husband's brother, Charlie.

It's Honeybell Oranges!  They are available only once a year in late January. Post cards are mailed out at Christmas time to let you know when to expect your shipment.

Actually, they are classified as tangerines...big juicy ones!   The company used to tuck an adult size disposable bib in the box to protect your clothes when you eat them.

Also inside were some chocolate mint candies and a small bag of tangerine flavored hard candy.

They are named Honeybells because someone thought the knobby end made them look like bells.

Of course we had to try one right away. It was so good we had to try another! Sweet!

Thank you Charlie, for this healthy and delicious gift!

I like it

I was going to wait until I had all the furniture back in place before I took more pictures...but it might be a couple more days before I can get the trim painted.

I am completely happy with the new paint color!

It made the room darker, but gives it a warm cozy feeling. Yellow is my favorite color for most things.

The Valspar paint was good...not drippy...doesn't dry too fast. Everything went smoothly except for a couple of kamikaze lady bugs diving into the paint!

Now on to trim painting, which will be gloss white.  The window frames in here need some extra attention because I had taken down some shutters that were nailed on and had been painted around. Some scraping and sanding will smooth them out.

ready to paint

This room has been needing a new paint job for quite awhile. I've been putting it off because my computer stuff is in here and I didn't  want to disconnect everything to move it...worried that I will forget what plugs into where.
My husband used to have a computer in here too, but now he just uses an iPad, so at least I don't have to worry about moving his system around too.

I believe if I am careful I can shift things around just enough to squeeze in behind them to paint without unplugging very much.

This used to be my younger son's room. He had teal colored carpet and he wanted the walls painted teal too. We tried it and It looked pretty good.

After he moved out, I wanted to lighten things up in there so I painted it this light gray. That might have been about 14 years ago!.   I told you I've been putting it off!

See the paint color card I am holding on the left. The darker yellow is what I will be using.
It's called "Honey Butter'.  Who could resist that?

That green splotch on the wall next to the bookcase is another color I was looking at- too dark!

Here is the new color ready to go on!  The photo color is a little off (caused by the overhead lighting) It was later in the day when I got all the junk cleared out of the room and spackled a few nail holes and could start painting.

I got one coat on, but it will need another. I will show how it looks when it's all finished.

mexican corn

It can be difficult to find a side dish to go with tacos or burritos, aside from the usual rice and beans.
I saw a recipe for "Mexican Blackened Corn" on allrecipes.com ( click here to see it ), that looked good so I wanted to give it a try.

I made several substitutions...and my version was just okay.


I started by sauteing onions and peppers.

The original recipe instructions say to cook fresh corn in a hot skillet until it blackens a bit. 

I used frozen corn and it didn't really blacken...more like browned and turned sort of starchy and dry.

 I  added  the minced garlic, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, cilantro and cooked bacon.

But I had to make substitutions for the beer and cotija cheese... I splashed in some balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese instead.

I might try a variation of this again...using green peppers for color and just leaving out the cheese.

We had other cheesey dishes anyway...and the whole meal was brownish...not a green vegetable in sight!

Beef and cheese burritos, refried beans, mexican corn and baked sweet potatoes. Sunday dinner.

bald eagle

I saw a bald eagle from my kitchen window!

The story starts early one morning last week. Just before daylight, I heard a big "thwump!" sound coming from out on the road.  I figured there had been a wreck and I looked out the window.
I saw brake lights and a little bit of a back up in traffic, but in about a minute, the cars started moving again.

After it got light outside, I glanced out and noticed cars backed up again. This time, there was a police car with lights flashing, pulled off the road. An officer got out, pulled his weapon and fired two shots...low toward the ground. He got back in his car and drove away

That's when I realized a deer had been hit by a car...but not killed, and the policeman was there to end it's suffering.

So, there was the deer carcass laying there, not too far off in the field next door. Gradually, as animals began eating it over the next few days, it was dragged further from the road, to a position where I could see it easily from my kitchen window.  Buzzards came.

NOT the eagle here - these are buzzards

They are interesting, so throughout the day I would go to the window and watch them for a few minutes.

Now finally, here is the part with the eagle...

At one point, this enormous bird flew sort of  low over the group of buzzards, and then flew into the woods out of sight.

It was like all the buzzards looked at each other and said, "let's get out of here!" 

They all flew away.

  The next time I looked out, there he was!

At first, I didn't know it was an eagle. I looked at it with binoculars and I could see the beak was hooked like an eagle and he had huge yellow feet.  But his head wasn't pure white, like you see in photos of eagles. 

So I looked online to see if it could be some other type of bird, but I found that eagles have speckled heads until they are 4 or 5 years old. It was an eagle!

I know these pictures aren't the best - that's as close as I can zoom in. In the photo below, the eagle has his wings up and back as he is tugging off a strip of  flesh.

Look at the size of it compared with the deer!

He was there eating quite awhile...and then back again on Sunday morning.

I never would have imagined I would see an eagle around here - I was so surprised!

I did read that they are increasing in number again and they are becoming more common in this part of the country when it isn't their breeding season.

snowing and sewing

This quilt top was ready for layering and pin basting. It is one of the charity quilts my group is working on.
The blocks were made by someone else and I've sewn them together

I do the pin basting on the kitchen peninsula.

Snow started falling as I was working.

Then, just after dark it really started coming down!

What a nice night to be inside quilting!  

This quilt is getting some close together stitching.  I had noticed some of the seam allowances were a little skimpy. The close quilting will help to keep them from pulling apart.

Snow was still coming down when I decided to quit sewing for the evening. 

skillet shopping

Do you call it a skillet or a frying pan?  Or maybe just a pan?

I was shopping for one online and I wasn't sure what word to put in the "search box" to get the best results.
I eventually tried them all, and I looked at dozens and dozens of pans.

I needed to replace this enormously disappointing piece of cookware junk.

I bought it about 2 years ago...thinking I was getting a better quality item than the lightweight teflon coated pans I had gone through over the years.   

This one has a ceramic coating...supposedly a better non stick surface. And, it was at first.

Gradually the pan humped up in the middle, dry docking and burning any food in that area.  Those black stains will not come off with a scrubby pad or a baking soda paste - and anything harsher would probably damage the surface even further.  

Just so you know - I do not recommend Zwilling pans or any ceramic coated cookware.

I didn't buy online. Instead I decided to see what I could find locally and...what luck!...there at Big Lots, I found this teflon pan made in the USA! (it is stamped on the back).

I tried it out and it seems fine.  It's so rare to find an American made product, I'm thinking about going back and buying another for when this one wears out.

a small change to my blog

I have added something new here on my blog.

Just under the heading "darlaville"...you will see a gold color stripe with the words "home" and "2013 quilts"

Think of these words as tabs on folders in a filing cabinet. If you click the tab labeled "home" you will always see the newest post I've posted.

The other tab, "2013 quilts" is different. When you click on that you will see a page with pictures of quilts I made in 2013.  This page will always stay the same.

Over the next few weeks I will be adding a tab for each year, with quilts I made in those years (except the ones I am too embarrassed of to show!).  I am adding these as sort of a back up...in case I ever lose photos from my computer.

I am hoping this works out and doesn't slow everything down or something.



Unrelated..but these are geese on the lake at Bernheim Forest.

creepy and repulsive photo from 2009

I was looking through some older photos on my computer and I came across these from 2009.

It is one of the weirdest and grossest things I have ever seen.

It was summer and I was organizing stuff that had been piling up in our shed. Underneath some tarps piled in one corner was a small "live trap" that my sons had built with their dad years ago.

 The trap had a door that opened inward only..so once an animal went in, they could not push the door open and get out.

This trap had been sitting there for ages...not set to catch anything...not baited, just being stored.

When I lifted the tarps I noticed a bad smell. It isn't real bright in the shed so I leaned in for a closer look.

Eeeek !  Snakes in the trap!

After I stopped shaking I grabbed a rake and drug the trap closer to the door, where I could see that the snakes looked dead and even if they were alive - they wouldn't be able to get me.

I put the trap on a wagon and brought it up to the driveway.  Ugh...take a look...

At least two snakes - dead, some cast off skin, and eggs...and poop.

The first snake must have squeezed in and been trapped. But why did the second one go in? To mate?

And then there is the shed skin. Does that mean they were in there awhile before they died?

I felt sorry for them getting trapped unintentionally and I probably would have freed them if they had been alive.   But that sure was a nasty, smelly, hideous thing to find.

Then what was I supposed to do with it? 

I just put the whole thing in our garbage can for pick up.