Off the Beaten Path

Motorcyle riding weather is back!  In fact it was back last weekend for us.  Even though I had to wear my "cuddle duds" and  make sure my seat heater was working, we enjoyed a jaunt  into the country. Destination - some truly off the beaten path locations. 

I had read on Jacqui's blog about New Frankfort Mercantile Quilt Shop.  A cute shop in the middle of no where.  Lots of pretty antique quilt and sewing machine displays and a nice selection of fabrics in a unique old house.  I think this is a pretty new business so it will be interesting to see how things evolve and worth a stop again when the flowers are blooming. 

On down the road a ways is Lurton's Home Cooking Cafe in Commiskey, Indiana.  I'm not sure what this building was originally, but it's certainly got character going for it.  Evidently they have an Elvis impersonator that performs occasionally and  Elvis memorabilia is everywhere. Next trip we'll have to take our friend G along as she is a big fan of the "king"!   

You can tell they don't go out of their way for fancy furnishings!  The menu is a chalkboard on the wall and the kitchen is just a corner of the large room.  But what they lack on style, they make up for in food!  And don't be looking for any lo-calorie dishes here either.  They serve good old home-cooked, stick to your ribs type meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner).

This was hubby's meatloaf dinner ($4.75 I think, including cole slaw)!

My hot roast beef open face sandwich ($4.00)!  I told you this isn't diet food!

And look at these pies!  And yes, a piece of the coconut went home with us for an evening snack.  Yummy!

Okay.  Are you ready to take your own trip off the beaten path in Indiana!  Finding places like these are what's fun about taking the Harley out on a cool, spring day.  Oh, the places we can find!

Scenes from my "Spring Break"

Lunch at the famous Cattlemen's Steakhouse in Oklahoma City.    Sorry, no food photo this time.  And unfortunately I was a little un-impressed by my meal anyway.  The atmosphere is great though so maybe next time we'll try dinner instead.

A little shopping and window browsing on the Stockyards Main Street. Need a pair of cowboy boots ? or two or three?  Every style and size you could ever want at this store.  Overall, I think I controlled my shopping on this trip.  I guess that's what traveling by air will do for you.  My sister even took me to a cute quilt shop - and we came out with nothing!  Most of my purchases were of the the baby gift variety.  (And as of now, Friday, grandbaby #3 has not yet arrived!) 

Tickets to the first round of the NCAA basketball tourney were courtesy of a nice brother-in-law!  I got to watch a Kansas State University basketball game in person for the first time in about thirty-five years. J had tickets to for the KU game later that night. Unfortunately, his alma mater didn't fair as well and I'm not sure if he's recovered from that shock yet.    (Oops!  I guess I didn't make this clear.  KU did win the Thursday night game - it was the Saturday game that left dear BIL in shock!)

K and J in front of the blow-up Jayhawk at the pep rally.  He's still smiling - it's before the game :(  Sorry your team didn't advance - but thanks for the fun afternoon! 

My sister is a great cook and I always come home with a new recipe or two.  This time it was Rick Bayless' Enchiladas Especiales Tacuba Style.  Too bad hubby didn't come along - he would have loved these!  But I'll be trying them at home soon.  When I looked at the link for the enchiladas, it looks like there's several recipes worth trying there. 

K is a now a quilter too!  Two Christmas's ago, I gave her a jelly roll ( I think it was American Primer by Minnick and Simpson) and look how cute this turned out! 

And I thought it would be warmer in Oklahoma!  But one of those late winter/early spring snow storms messed up one of our days.  Luckily it was pretty well melted by Sunday and we were able to drive over to see my nieice J (and  Ella).  She works for the Tulsa Ballet and snagged some tickets for us to the Sunday matinee.  That was a treat too!  Basketball and Ballet all in one week! 

 

I also had a chance to see niece S (on the right) and her cute little house (along with pup Lucy) and of course E (in back), who was surprised (and I think pleased!) that I was able to join her in Oklahoma.  The third girl is a friend of S and E who stopped by.  She looks like she could belong to this family though!

 Thanks to all for a great time!  It was nice to get home though and find that Spring had never left here.  The grass is green, trees are budding and my daffodils are blooming.  In fact, we might even be able to get out on the bike tomorrow.... that is unless we get a call from Missouri!  Stay tuned - the grandbaby watch is on!

Go Kansas State !

Taking a little Spring Break here. 

Too bad Spring didn't know that! 

I'll be back next week to tell you all about my trip to see my sis in Oklahoma.  The first three days were a taste of spring-like weather, then yesterday old man winter blew back in.  Oh well - it's still nice to get together with family!  It was fun to surprise daughter E who had also flown in to spend a few days away.  She didn't know mom would be here too! 

I'll be home next week and hopefully I'll find that Spring is still there!

Peanut and Quilter's Day Out

Ms. Laptop seems to be back in business today.  After a long day of backups, upgrades and an update to Windows 7 instead of Vista, the talented man of the house has resurrected my computer and along with it, my addiction.  I've not been a very dedicated blogger lately, but partly by choice.  Sometimes there are other things I need to focus on which have been taking precedence.  I'm sure my blogging friends will understand and the rest of you really haven't missed much anyway!

Look who we had as our houseguest this past weekend!  The little Peanut is quite the entertainment to have around.  He's so happy and cute, even with "bed hair" after some Sunday morning snuggling in bed.

Getting chores done with a little one around the house is much harder when you're over fifty than when you're in your twenties and thirties.  At least those chores can usually wait until the grandbaby goes home!  I did have a little "help" with the laundry though! 

On Saturday, Grandpa took the little guy to the Woodworkers store (got to start them young!) while I was able to spend a few minutes at the Louisville Area Quilters Day Out.  I enjoyed looking at the displays by some of the local guilds and vendors.  There were some gorgeous quilts!  I especially liked this booth.  If you want a better look at one of the wonderful quilts in this photo, check out Julie's blog.

I spent a few minutes at Angela's booth visiting with her.  She's an APQS sales rep, has a long arm quilting business and such a nice lady.  Some day I might take her up on her offer to come by and play with one of her machines.  That might be the best way to find out if that's something I'd like to pursue in the future.  While waiting for the "boys" to come pick me up, I was able to catch part of the presentation by guest speaker, Kathleen Loomis.  Her talent for creating art from scraps is amazing as she showed in some of her quilts. This "Y" quilt was made entirely of little "y's".  She also showed quilts made from fabric selvedges.  Her patience certainly is better than most of us!

Grampa and the Peanut  had some male bonding with trips to the Woodworkers Store, the Harley Davidson dealership and Best Buy.  I guess that makes up for the shopping trips with me to Dillards, Kohls  and the grocery store last week and the quilt shop the week before! 

One of these days I'll have exciting news about Grandbaby #3!  My guess is that the Easter Bunny will be bringing more than Easter Eggs for J, J & little J! 

Happy Day Light Savings Time! (I'm really not sure how I feel about that though!) 

Please excuse me for a bit. Ms Laptop is under the weather and
blogging will have to be on hold for a few days.
See you later!
Sent from my iPhone

Just Teasing!

How about just a little tease of a newly completed project?  It's just back from the quilter and I've now completed sewing down the binding.  I'll try to  get a full photo when the weather and lighting are better.(A beautiful day here today, but tonight a few showers.  Spring might be here!)  Now when the newest little J makes his appearance, Grammie will have the monkey quilt ready for him!   

We certainly didn't need these, but I tried another new recipe last week.  These are from smitten kitchen and they are her Thick & Chewy Granola Bars.  I'll definitely be making these again but perhaps with a few changes.  The half that didn't get the chocolate chips were my favorites, believe it or not.  I bought almond butter today to try instead of the peanut butter which seemed a little over-powering.  Has anyone ever tried almond butter?  It was pretty expensive at Meijer so I hope it's worth it.  I'll also cut back a little more on the sugar like she recommends.  Some flax seeds were added for a little extra healthy punch and I wrapped some of the bars in plastic to keep them fresh.  Overall - I'd give them a "thumbs up"!  Can you tell I couldn't wait to try them!

With a two beautiful days this past weekend, we were able to get the Harley out for a couple short rides. I guess you could say it was a little tease for motorcycle riding too! We didn't go anywhere special but it was nice to know that it started right up and we can be ready to go when we've got the urge.  Plans need to be made for a trip this spring.  We've got some options but nothing is on the schedule yet.  Someday soon, we'll be "on the road again"! 

Have a good week all!

March Blooms

The daffodil buds I bought at Trader Joes about 10 days ago are in full bloom now.  I wish I could say that the ones in my garden look like this, but I think it's going to be a while until Spring.  At least we had a little taste of Spring on the kitchen table for a few days.

More flowers are blooming in the sewing room.  Believe it or not, I actually finished one of the many projects I've had in the works.  It is based on a free pattern by Heather Mulder Peterson and made using some fat quarters of Simple Abundance by Bonnie and Camille.  I plan on keeping this for myself and hanging it on the wall in the sewing room.  I haven't done much applique lately and this was a nice easy project. It was  a good practice piece for a little free motion quilting too. 

Not much else going on here right now.  We're fast approaching grandbaby # 3 launch so that will be exciting!  There might be a little travel coming up in the next few weeks which will be a welcome change.  Otherwise, just staying warm, getting some sewing and a little crafting done.  Like many of you I'm looking forward to warmer days to get outside and walk and work in the yard.  If I was a little more dedicated to those things I would be out whether it was cold or not, but I'm just a fair-weather out-doors girl. 

Happy March!