Challenges

My studio is the neatest its been in years.  Quilting Arts is looking for candidates fro their new Studios publication, so this is my offering!  We’ll see if anything comes of it.  Meanwhile, its much easier to work in!

I’m sitting here with fingers almost too chilled to type – inside temps is 58 – heat pumps are worthless in frigid weather.  Outside its 35 degrees, much better than yesterdays 5!! So life is improving. 

My car awaits warmer weather and the ministrations of the resident mechanic – starter problem?  We thought initially it was the battery, but that unit ably turned over the Tundra Big Truck.  Lesson: Once a vehicle approaches 150,000 miles, its good to have an extra around.  I’ll be driving the Little Truck for a few more days.

The mouse has not reappeared since the snafu yesterday.  While I was nursing my nipped finger, it slipped out of the trap and scuttered under the stove.  On further inspection with a yardstick, all that was extracted from under that appliance were the remains of a mouse nest.  Lesson: Where’s the daughter’s live trap when we need it?!  Not to mention the worthless feline!

Then I tried to bake a sour cream pound cake for my mom’s birthday celebration.  Next time we’ll leave it in the oven till it’s done.  For future reference – you do not turn a pound cake upside down to cool – that’s for angel food cakes.  If you turn a pound cake upside down that’s not completely baked, it falls out of the pan and smushes onto itself.  However, it is possible to reinsert into the pan, reinsert pan into the oven, and continue baking.  Lesson: Flavor of the confection is not affected; aesthetics may take a hit.