No to Sour Cream on Pie!

 The other day, I started chopping up some rhubarb my husband brought home from the farm.  

My little girls were sitting near reading as we had just come home from the library.

After awhile they noticed what I was doing.

And, they asked, "What is that?"  "It's rhubarb."


"Is it grown?" "Yes, it's grown, Dad brought it home from the farm."

  "Is it a fruit or a vegetable?"  "Hmmm....not sure.  I'll have to google."  Thank goodness, it's not "back in the day" and I'd have to actually go back to the library to find out!

Whether fruit or vegetable, it is enjoyable to chop, it's so pretty.

I'm not including the recipe because I think it could use some tweaking.  The first stage included cooking the rhubarb, sugar, and cornstarch until thick.  I wasn't sure about this step and almost burned it. 

Then you bake it and add a layer of cream cheese, sugar, and eggs, and bake again.

Should have stopped here.

But, it called for a layer of sour cream to be spread over the cooled pie.  A whole cup, of which I did not use.  I probably put one half cup on and that was too much!  

Scrape off the sour cream, serve with ice cream, and you've got a good dessert.  

My better judgement thought, NO to the sour cream, but then I thought, maybe?!  

Well, now I know.

So, do you know?  Is rhubarb a fruit or a vegetable?

A vegetable, but was ruled by a NY court in 1947 to be classified as a fruit because it is used as a fruit and thus lowered the tariffs on it.  

Well, now I know that too. 

I'll have to check and see if the girls still care. :)

Riding Out the Storm

Okay, here the storm wasn't so much of a storm, thank the good Lord!  But, there were sirens and we did go to the basement.

You know, I have quite a few "rejection" stories of items that have proven to be helpful or good to keep.

Last night in the basement, I pulled from my stash of items to sell a game for us to play to occupy the minds of those who may be a bit worried about bad weather.  This game had not sold due to it's lack of neat game pieces.  

But, after all these years and an open box, all of the pieces were there.

And, it has a spinner that spins well!  The girls were all ready to camp in the basement all night with blankets and stuffed animals at the ready.  It didn't come to that, and although they were disappointed to not sleep down there, they were happy the danger passed!

"Caboose" It was easy to learn, easy to play, and a good distraction.  Once again, rejection isn't always a bad thing. :)

Texture Tuesday: Praying for Kim

I thought I'd link up to Texture Tuesday today.  But, when I checked Kim's blog to confirm what the challenge for this week was, I read her most recent post.

Kim's husband has recently been diagnosed with Leukemia.  You can read about it here.

I decided to post a Texture Tuesday picture in Kim's honor and ask for prayers for her and her husband.

Kim has been such a blessing to so many, inspiring us and encouraging us to create.

Maybe you would like to join me in praying for healing for her husband and for a place of peace and rest for Kim.

Our prayers matter.

Rejection: Not Always a Bad Thing

I have purchased a number of bushel baskets.
I kept a few of them and tried selling the rest.
Tried selling them quite reasonably priced I'll add.
In my booth, at a show, to pickers.

No one wanted any.
I don't understand.
I LOVE bushel baskets!

While we were painting and getting ready for graduation: a revelation:  "Hey, while the paint brush is full, let's quickly paint these baskets and I'll use them on the porch for flowers."

I had 4 terracotta  Azalea Pots that fit in them perfectly. They are shorter and wider than the typical terracotta pot.  These are my favorite size of pot because, well, they just look neat.  The size is not always readily available though.

This rejection turned out to be a really good thing.  I love my baskets of flowers on the porch!
You can see it was just starting to sprinkle when I took these pictures.  Last night, it rained all night, with lots of thunder!  One daughter slept through it and two of them were sleepless, a tad bit scared.

And, for today, Memorial Day:

I hope you are having a great weekend!!

Time Marches On

We have another graduate!!

Boy, it's been a full few weeks.  Our youngest girls were sick again and there was a lot to prep for the graduation party plus all of the year end concerts and award nights.  But, here we are on the other side of it, and so grateful for so many things:
the good health for the girls now, the accomplishments of our son, the great weather for the party, and all the help from my sister and the older kids!!!

We ended up with a bit of a "book theme" in our decorations.  Seemed pretty appropriate for a graduation!

My second daughter helped with a lot/most of the decorations.  The little sign is a book cover collaged with book pages then she simply used a sharpie to add the name and year.

The wreath is just a grapevine wreath with ribbon bow and the little sign hot glued in.  Now, I can easily remove the sign and bow and have the wreath for another occasion.

His guest book table used a house he built in one of his classes to hold cards.  Get it? A house of cards. :)

I made him what I call a  "Happy Day" bouquet sporting the colors and college items for the University that he is headed to.

There is a book page bunting hanging there too.

Another book page sign.  As often done, we used the book "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss for his guest book.

Yeah for chalk blocks!  They make an appearance often around here.  If you want to make yourself some, pick up some scrap 2x4s cut to various lengths and add the chalk paint.

There was "congratulations" in chalk blocks too, but I didn't take a picture of them.

When not in use for lettering, they double as building blocks for my youngest daughters.  

Fortunately, my son's name isn't Bartholomew so, we could use books to build his name!

Book mobile art!  Inspired via Pinterest and made by my daughter.

The dessert table with shredded old book pages in vases and pennants made with black paper and a white gel marker.

Another book page bunting made by my daughter and 2013 was cut with an exacto knife from a piece of foam core board and collaged with maps and book pages.

Well, the plan is to be back now to more frequent blog posts.  There is a lot of garden to be planted too.  Not a single seed has been sown, nor tomato plant planted, but it's been so cold now lately that it probably doesn't matter that we are behind.  So, it goes.

Wordless Wednesday: God Bless America

Dancer Silhouettes

In January, I posted about our dancing snowflake ballerinas. And, in February, showed you more of our dancing silhouettes.  Well, this past weekend, I got a chance to take a couple quick silhouette pictures of our very own dancing ballerinas right before the dance recital held at the school.

 We have two in dance and it was a full two days for them with dress rehearsal and two performances.

I will not even remember the missing gloves incidents.  Yes, plural. Certainly not a big deal, just mishaps to keep one humble and to keep life in perspective.  

The costumes were beautiful and bright and I have pictures of that too, but the simplicity of a silhouette always speaks more to me.

And, in this picture, the bonus of great shadows too. :)

I hope you all are allowing yourself some time to slow down in this very busy month of May. 

It's warm here again so I'm heading out to paint!