Lots of little things for you today, starting with happy MUSICA and a shot of
March 4, yesterday, was Pancake Day and we celebrated!
When we were kids they were “Cancakes” and mostly they came out of a Bisquick Box. Which is not the end of the world. Look how good we turned out.
But for these I used my recipe for Cottage Cheese Pancakes (P. 148 of Heart of the Home), which I hope you’ve tried because they are SO good. I added blueberries for extra health, realizing at the last moment there was way too much health here, diluted it by serving them in a puddle of hot maple syrup. Winter is almost over, have you had your pancake allotment yet this year? Next year Pancake Day will be on the calendar for reminder!
And now this: Home sweet home in the Heart of the Home just got a little sweeter: Joe and I have an ongoing discussion (almost lifelong, years of it) about whether it’s better to have your eye glasses on a string around your neck or not. I don’t like it because I get them caught in the car door or in the steering wheel and I’m afraid I will strangle myself. He disagrees and wears his glasses around his neck all the time and lectures me on how great it is when I mention that I have misplaced my glasses (again). I stick to my guns, he sticks to his, the twain does not meet.
So you can just imagine my face when he walked into my studio a couple of days ago like this! I almost fell out of my chair laughing! I’m still not over it. You can probably hear me from here. I will laugh at this for the rest of my life. I told him he was stealing my act! I’m the one that does this kind of thing, he’s the neat one. But it’s true, I prefer to do it in really nice restaurants.
That teabag was there for a long time before he saw it. Just swinging back and forth while he’s typing on his computer. La de dah, la de dah, all things are normal, life is good. I would have loved to see his expression when he looked down, the flickering of facial intelligence as the truth was revealed, the moment when the laughter began. We decided he must have lifted his cup to take a sip and the string and tab from the bag caught in the glasses hanging around his neck. When he put the cup back down, the bag popped out of the cup and he didn’t notice. There it hung, caught, dripping wet and swinging. At least that’s how we think it happened. We know he couldn’t have been wearing his glasses because if he was, the tea bag would have been hanging down his nose. We’re pretty sure he would have noticed it.
He said it was OK for me to show you. You can’t make these things up. We can never deny the opportunity to share hysterical laughter. From now on every time he advises me to put my glasses on a string, I can show him this. My case is made, thank you Joey Hall. ♥
I’ve been meaning to share a tip with you that I put into action this winter. It’s really made a difference for us and I think would help anyone who doesn’t have humidity piped in through their furnace ducts or a wood stove with a steaming kettle on top (like us, we don’t have either). It’s not important for all you warm-weather Girlfriends, but for us in the frozen tundra, it’s a huge help. Our heat is so drying we’re easily dehydrated, our 
hair is fly-away, we shock ourselves on our cat’s noses which terrorizes them and makes us feel bad and chase them all over the house trying to apologize. Sometimes our cuticles even crack from the dryness and that hurts! You have to wear vaseline on your fingers to bed. It’s terrible on your skin too. Makes you old before your time. Bubble baths are good because they steam up the house, but the water also adds to the problem, hot water is drying, and worst of all, so is tea drinking, which is ridiculous. Fires in the fireplace are another thing 
that dries everything out. Besides drinking more fresh water (which tastes so good at this time of year coming out of the faucet so cold), here is something I first started doing when riding across country on the train. Our train room-with-a-view is always dry, no matter what time of year. In the winter the heat is on all night and we wake up feeling like shriveled raisins. So I tried hanging wet towels in the room with us and guess what? It made all the difference! Normal breathing returned. Our eyes no longer burned. We always do it when we travel now. This year I thought I’d try it at home and I’m happy to report it worked here too.
That first photo was a towel hanging on a kitchen chair, and this beach towel draped over a chair is behind the door in our “wood room” where we watch TV. Under that pile of jackets there is a vent that positively pours hot air into the room . . . but now 
it has to go through the dampness of the towel to get to the rest of the room. I think with all the freezing temperatures we’ve had, without that towel draped there all winter, our jackets would have cracked and turned to dust by now (not to mention us. Last year was so bad, I was really inspired to try it this year). Our skin has been fine, no colds or allergy problems this year either. I use the sprayer at the kitchen sink to dampen them; just hold up the towel, point it and spray. We have another wet towel hanging over the handles of my exercise bike in the room where we sleep. It’s a bit of a pain in the neck, but not as much for me as humidifiers which require constant cleaning. I just pop the towels in the washer once a week, and then let them dry as usual, on the chairs. OK? That’s my hint for today. OH! I have one more winter tip. Along the same lines . . . have you tried this?
My mom gave it to me when I was in California last fall, Curél Ultra Healing skin lotion. She thought I would love it and she’s right, it’s like miracle cream. My skin feels so much better and smoother. You can get it at the drug store. So there you go, hope my tips help make life a bit more livable. Spring is coming!
Girl is now unafraid to put her little pink nose in the air for a fingertip sniff. She knows I won’t make sparks! Just this moment, as I was typing, she crawled up on my shoulder for huggie wuggies. time out . . . ♥
Love it when she does that.
Jack appreciates my towel tips too. He no longer gets electrocuted when I attack him for kisses.
Sleepy pie poo. Remember this quilt? I thought I’d show you what I did with it . . .
It’s a preview of the new Blotter I designed for 2015, coming in July. I used the quilt to make the border! Have never done that before, but I like it! Now you can all have a little piece of that quilt! Just so you blotter aficionados know, this one is quite a bit bigger than the ones I used to do . . . it’s 17″ x 22″, a traditional office size. I think it would make a very nice placemat! More Abba? Oui!
Next “Little thing” : The Academy Awards was great this year, the clothes, the make-up, the hair, the jewelry, the music, as usual, were the most fun and actually the entire reason I watch. Yesterday I received what I consider to be an even better award. It came via Twitter Girlfriend Lynn Dunk @Lynn_Dunk ~ she wanted to show me what was taped in her 21-year-old daughter’s planner. That’s it above; her name is Grace and she’s rating books she reads. A FINE ROMANCE is there along with Emma and Sherlock Holmes! Is this not an 
Academy Award, Girlfriends? I definitely think so. Endearing. That is why I love this book more every day because I get endearingness to go with it.
♥ ♥ ♥
If you have a moment pop over to our FOSB Facebook Page and look at the Lamb Cake Sheri and Mattie made with our lamb cake mold (more just came in btw, in case you missed them) ~ they did such a cute job! You can read how they did it. Everyone seems to be having good luck making their lamb cakes, heads are all staying on! We would love to see your lamb cake photos on FOSB. ♥
And, oh yes, I started the new book. I’ve been at it for two days, I have so far to go and no idea how long it will take to sweep this giant floor into one concise little pile, but in case you want to know, I chose this one:
I knew you’d want a hint 🙂 . . . And by the way, here are two great movies you’d love that feature Abba music in them . . . Mama Mia is one, I loved it ~ and the other is Muriel’s Wedding, which is really fun too although much less well known. One last thing to remember . . . for you and for me too . . .
Keep dreaming, Girlfriends. Have a wonderful day! XOXO
FREE. I try to get as much out of every abnormally long and never-ending day as humanly possible. It’s a healthy-eating, organizing (with Kellee and Sheri, thinking about what new things we can get for our web store this year, what new designs we can come up with, we were on the phone for two hours yesterday, plotting!); it’s a cleaning-the-studio and getting-ready kind of time, vacation and garden planning, being cozy reading a good book (I’m reading Goldfinch ~ 
And there is the little Missy, already downstairs, waiting for me. I love how her eyes need to adjust to the light . . . I grab the camera.
Blink-blink-blink, she squints at me. And then . . . clickity-click down the stairs comes the King of the Roost, the Lord of the Manor, he who is waited on hand and foot, Jack.
Have you had lunch with your girlfriends lately? If not, wouldn’t now be a good time to put a date on your calendar, something fun to look forward to? You need to catch up! Have yourself a wonderful weekend! Bunny-Bunny, Girlfriends. 
