Post Sweet Post

The front porch project may not be finished, but if you ask me the most important part looks fabulous. Thanks to the Pres for an early Valentine present! It's going to make checking the mail all the sweeter.

Jelly Doughnuts!

 

The Pres is off today, persevering on our front porch project. 

It was the perfect day to get up and make jelly doughnuts.

I have no idea where I got this recipe 20 years ago. Now that I remember how delicious they are I'll make them more often. But it takes almost 3 hours and makes about 20 doughnuts at a time, so it's not something for every day unless you've got a bigger family than ours. You want to share these with some special people.

After their second rising, they get deep fried for about 2 minutes.

After draining them on paper towels they get rolled in sugar.

 It is tempting to eat them just like this. 

But don't skip the jelly step.

 Even if, like me, you make a botch of the jelly part. It would be nice to have a pastry bag or an injector to get the jelly in without making a mess, but who minds a little bit of jelly on the sides?

Even Fidget, the notorious jelly-hater, liked the one I gave her with raspberry preserves in it. But her favorite one had honey inside instead. 

 Jelly Doughnuts

with apologies to whoever developed this delicious recipe. If I knew your name I'd put it here.

makes 14-18 

1 pkg yeast

1 tsp sugar

1/4 cup warm water

1/3 cup room temperature butter

3 TB sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk, scalded

2 eggs, beaten

2 1/2 cups flour (it took me 3 1/2 cups so don't be alarmed if it takes you that much too)

jelly- I used Polaner All Fruit Raspberry seedless, Market Pantry Blackberry Seedless jam and Smucker's Orchard's Finest Northewest Triple Berry Preserves

sugar

frying oil

In a large bowl combine yeast, 1 tsp sugar and water. Let stand  until foamy, 5-10 minutes. In a small bowl combine butter, 3 TB sugar, salt and milk; cool to room temperature. Stir milk mix into yeast mix. Add eggs and 1 3/4 cup flour; beat vigorously. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Turn dough out and knead 8-10 minutes. Clean and grease bowl, place dough in bowl, and turn to grease all sides. Cover and let rise til double, about an hour. Place parchment paper on cookie sheets. Punch dough down, roll out to 1/2" thick. Cut dough with a floured 2 1/2" biscuit cutter. Place dough circles on the baking sheets. Cover and let rise til double, less than an hour this time. Fry risen circles of dough at 350 in a deep fryer approximately 2 minutes or until brown. Fry 5 at a time. Once drained onto paper towels, roll doughnuts in sugar. Then cut a deep slice in the doughnuts and fill with 2 tsp jelly. Enjoy!

For more inspiration visit the fabulous showcase of yeast breads and sweet goodies at Yeast Spotting's blog,  www.wildyeastblog.com

Summer Projects

I haven't been writing many letters lately and I miss it. 

The past few weeks, the Pres has been out of the country. That is prime time for writing letters. But I caught my sandal running up our brick front steps and fell, crushing my pinky, rendering my writing hand pretty useless. So my hand stayed wrapped most of the time and I sat around reading while Fidget was in a lovely camp called Latin Summer put on by these folks near Williamsburg.


In spite of the pile-up at my desk, we've had some encouraging progress around here. The Pres returned last week, was promoted on Fidget's 9th birthday, and then with Grandaddy's help he put up the porch ceiling boards. It was so lovely to have a week with the grand-folk. We got to do lots of celebrating. And then we put Grandaddy to work.
 

Those are the boards we've been sanding all summer and I was coating with 3 layers of polyurethane while the Pres was gone. Once we get a fresh coat of paint on everything else up front, I think the ceiling will really gleam. 

Because the porch has one stage complete we moved on to a sort of tree house for Fig. Yesterday we finished the platform and are going to think about what to do next.

Looks like Fig likes it already.

And...

Here are some shots from the Pres' trip. He even got to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef! Lucky duck.

What a blessing to have a week of family time before he has to go back to work. As usual, math work is waiting for Fig. 

I think it may always be waiting for her. But for now, surf's up!

Surf Days

I know I haven't made many posts lately but we're out in the yard and the shed, working on porch ceiling boards and swimming with Fidget. We've made such good progress that we've allowed ourselves some time off. What a blessing to live in a free country.  And God is so good to give us this time together as a family. These memories get us through the times apart. 

Surf's up!

Scramble of the Week

It's been awhile since I checked in. I appreciate anyone who looks at my page with any frequency and I am sorry I haven't put anything new on... So for you: All right, folks, here's the low down. 

We are about to move. 
We are trying to get our house ready to rent out,
trying to find a place to live in Rhode Island, and 
having the kitchen and bathroom redone because the water line to the ice maker broke recently and ruined those rooms as well and flooding the basement. 

On top of that I am getting to paint!

 Here's the adorable puppy I am working on this week for our neighbor. Hope to be finished by Wednesday, especially since I have 2 or 3 more house pictures to sketch and possibly draw. Can you see how much fun I am having at this? Can you believe people pay me for having this kind of fun?

 Here's the house I finished a couple of weeks ago.

And here is Brandy, a portrait of a dear friend's daughter. I did this in late winter/early spring. 

I started a Cookie of the Week segment but had to stop when our kitchen was off limits for the workers to rip out the floor. The oven was in the laundry room for over a week. Sometimes the best I can do for the Pres' lunch box treat is to tuck in some Nutter Butter cookies.

So instead of the cookie of the week I will show you what I am scrambling to do. From here on out I will be scrambling to find a house to live in, finish commissions, get packed up, and move where the Marine Corps sends us. I am already praying for a welcoming art community up in RI because getting to paint again has opened up a facet of me largely ignored since our little figlet came along almost 7 years ago. Now that I'm painting, I don't want to stop!

Turtle Gloves

I'm doing a lot of knitting even though it's spring and there's lots to do outside. I am a writer, but home schooling a busy 6-year old leaves me little time for the silence that requires. Knitting, like baking, is something I do to wrap myself in my own world. This is why I resist help in the kitchen, for now anyway. One day soon Fidget will need to start learning some skills in there. 

Knitting is something I can do even while I teach. So I am doing a lot of it. Here is a fingerless glove I've just finished. I used Cascade 220 Superwash (non-scratchy, easy-care wool) Paints in 2 shades: Celtic (all greens) and Juniper Berries (shades of green to aqua).

This pattern is a Ravelry download which is simpler than  other ones I'd made. I'd rather pay the $5.50 and get a well-designed pattern than a free one in a magazine that always results in getting holes where you add stitches for the thumb gusset, as had happened in the past. This great pattern is called Lazychick's Cabled Fingerless Mitts.

I made some for Fidget last week all in Celtic and was going to make myself a pair to match, but it turns out I would have run out of yarn. So I put leftovers from those 2 skeins together.  Midway through the current glove I realized the colors are just like those from a stuffed turtle my mom made me when I was little. What fun! Turtle gloves! 

We have a lot going on at home these days. We are moving soon and are faced with lots of decisions. Not only about moving. Naturally this is when the ice maker broke, flooding the kitchen and basement overnight. This is when the fix it guy comes over and tells us we can't keep fixing this old relic, that we've got to get a new AC now before it gets sweltering out. We may not be able to return here after a year away so we may want to sell the house- but then again, we might be back. Should we attempt to rent it out? Who would fix errant ice makers and rogue ACs?

Is it any wonder I'm doing a lot of knitting? I can't wait til it gets chilly again and I can use my turtle gloves. At least we're moving somewhere cold!

 

Pardon Me, the Back Side of Your House is Missing

This is what happens when the Pres is off work. He tore out the back wall and took the door off too yesterday. The laundry room is open to the world! The Pres began tearing the laundry room up and putting new walls in it a few months ago. But naturally as soon as he began this project, he was sent halfway around the world. Happily, now that he's home safe he is back to work doing his favorite thing: making things better around here one board, one cut, one screw at a time.

Yes, Yes, and Yes

I was reading Psalm 16 this morning, where the psalmist says, "The boundary lines for me have fallen in pleasant places." and in 2 Corinthians 1 it says that all things are Yes in Christ. Even when I don't get my way, or when no matter which way I turn there doesn't seem to be a good choice, it is a relief to know that God's choices, the boundary lines, fall where he wants them. And that in them there is a Yes. Even when it doesn't feel like it. Even when we don't see it. Christ is redeeming all of it.


Here is my little Rose Tree Cottage quilt. When we moved into that house, it was just a house. But somewhere along the lines, while we were doing a lot of physical work on it (the Pres more than me), God changed my heart about the house, and it became a thing of beauty. Looking back on it reminds me this is just a small picture of what God can do with anything. He can change any heart. From weeping to rejoicing, all in His time.

Welcome Home

Two words I hope will describe my blog are comforting and encouraging.  Though it wasn't always true, my hope now is in Christ and I hope to live out the verse from Job 16:5 that says, "But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief." You may feel fine. You don't need relief. All the same, I hope you will be uplifted whenever you visit this site.


In the meantime, let me tell you about the Jewel of Bayshore. Around sixteen years ago we bought our first place, a matchbox house of brick, only about 800 square feet (hence the term matchbox) and riddled with old termite damage. It didn't take me long to realize I needed an attitude adjustment about this place. Instead of looking at it as someone's fifty year-old rental property, I started to see it for what it could be if it was truly loved. So I named it Peace Garden, having seen a famous British Peace Garden in The English Garden magazine. I went all out imagining how great this little cottage could be. I researched flowers and planted one for each letter in the home's name: P for petunias, E for echinacea, etc. I established a tongue-in-cheek home improvement society (giving my husband and me its top titles Pres and VP) and a newsletter about the house (the short-lived Peace Garden Gazette). Meanwhile, my Devil Dog, AKA The Pres, wasted no time demolishing plaster walls and replacing them with sheet rock, and taking out rotten floor joists and replacing them. But, being military folks, we had to move after only 18 mos. More on that house's progress later.

By the time we moved back I felt the name was wrong and changed it to Rose Tree Cottage, after our dear neighbor Linda Wendt, who sadly died while we were away- she had given me a wild rose from her garden before we'd moved. While we were gone the white wild rose took over and as it scrambled up over the brick and the porch roof, it gave the house the charm I'd pictured it having long before. The new version of my newsletter was called The Rose Tree Rambler, a publication of the Rose Tree Cottage Improvement Society, and its motto was 'Come see the jewel of Bayshore'. We are now several houses later, but treat each one with a fitting name, an improvement society (now happily also peopled with our kid, Fidget), and a newsletter. But we will never forget our roots, at the Jewel of Bayshore.