Faking It

Warning! This post is full of OPINIONS....opinions that are probably a bit unpopular but, here goes--

The other weeks one of my enthusiastic basketball players came home from a game.

"Boy! you should have seen ______he sure faked it. The other guy barely touched him and down he went!"

Clueless mom: "Why?"

" Well we got two free foul shots"

"Wait! You mean you fall over on the floor and pretend someone hit you so you can get free shots?"

(OK OK, until a week ago I didn't know they use  A WHOLE BUNCH of new footballs PER GAME!)

I was assured that it is perfectly legal and is considered  good strategy. I even checked with my older kids and "yes, mom, that is true".

So what's the big deal?

So tell me? If I put my hand on my son's shoulder and he flinches and moves away or even says "OW!"
What would you think if you were watching?

We try to teach our children to always speak the truth and "even a 'half-truth' is a 'half-lie' "...well you know where I'm going with this.

So when is "faking it" OK?

On to other things. This is the 20-shades-of-gray-and-brown quilt that I made in the beginning of January. It was really called "Forest in a Foggy Snow"

This one was an order and I sent it off yesterday. 

"Wedding Rings"

Definitely not my choice of color but I love the design...

maybe I can do something with the idea another day.

Then my "boss" gave me this stack of silks, velvets and other shiny fabrics and asked

if I can make a Crazy Quilt. It has so many personal angles for the customer that I might

have to do something I never did before....refuse an order.

There are just too many ways that I could make the wrong thing PLUS I will probably

fall in love with it and want to keep it.

Potluck Review

Every so often our church has a fellowship meal after the church service. Often the food committee plans a menu so that each family has only to bring "four dozen rolls" or "4# of ham balls" (just an example). But occasionally we have "pot luck" which means "bring a hot and cold dish"  or depends on the translation "bring the best, fattening food you can possibly think up".  I ,unlike some of my family, love tasting different kinds of food.
  By the way, who brought that black crock pot full of baked beans? I need the recipe.

Since people were asking about my food I thought I'd post it...it's not the fanciest or the fattening-est but it is Chinese food for the crock pot.

My daughter-in-law told me about this site and I tried the Mongolian Beef the other night-used ground beef instead.

Here is the recipe with the tweaks I made:

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

1 pound ground beef, (you can fry it before you put it in the crock pot, I simply thawed it when I had 6 hours to cook it. Fried it for church pot luck)

1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
3/4 cup soy sauce (I think it made it a bit strong ...start with 1/2 cup)
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup brown sugar

Fry or thaw your ground meat, put in crock pot.  Mix the remaining ingredients, be sure to wisk in the corn starch. Pour in the crock pot. Cook on high 2-3 hours or low 4-5 hours.  The "gravy" was a bit thick so I added water as the day went along. (This morning I added 4 cups of water  to my tripled recipe at 10 AM)  In our experience you can never have too much gravy.

Serve with rice

I made rice for pot luck too...searched the internet for recipes and those recipes had 2 cups water to 1 cup rice.....that makes mush when you are making jasmine rice.

I simply measured my washed rice* into the crock pot with my normal measurement of
 1 cup rice to 1-1/4 cup water and added a bit of salt.

I made 5 cups of rice to 6-1/4 cup water.... should've made more

Should've sprayed the crock with cooking spray too

cooked on high until for 2-1/2 hrs and then back to low (10 AM)until lunch was ready. It was plenty soft, but better than trying to make rice between end of church and "time to eat".

* You don't wash your rice? I don't always wash mine, but good Chinese mamas do. Supposedly takes off some of the starch and any impurities that might be on the rice. I only buy  jasmine rice anymore...well except for that one time I almost killed my family by buying regular Carolina rice....but let's not talk about that. Wa*mart sells it (bottom shelf below the Chinese flavorings or up a few rows under the Mexican food supplies) It's a bit more expensive but it's worth it.S*ms Club and your local Chinese food store carry the 25# bags. Put the amount of rice that you are making in a bowl, add water to cover by an inch or so....slosh the rice back and forth with your hands until the water is milky, pour off the water and do it again.  That my friends is "washed rice".



QOTD: The other Saturday I bought chicken pies for supper when DH got to the bottom of his he said "Uh Oh I shouldn't have eaten this....it's for singles only.

Formerly a Shirt

                     When I dig through the bins at Goodwill and come across a nice shirt with good quality fabric, I don't care what size it is. If it fits one of the skinny people in my house....OK

But if it is size XXL then my mind goes to other sewing projects.    This fish shirt has been on my stash pile for quite some time and I got a sudden urge to see if I could make a jumper.

     The bodice comes from the sleeves, the skirt is the main part of the shirt...from the yoke down. 

Leave the shirt tail intact. I added some denim to the bottom of this one to lengthen it.

                                                                       

My photographer didn't quite follow my instructions. I wanted a good picture of the hem line...

            Then there was a shirt that Joe didn't wear very often....works great for Shekinah

Not sure what was up with the eyes.

My Rice Bags

Cleaning up my inventory aka: cleaning out corners.

  Came across my accumulation of rice bags. They are tough bags and I hate to just toss them..

but there is a limit! so I took two apart and made one BIG bag...wonder if I could get a week's supply of food in there?