Collecting Recipes

Ever since I returned to live in the US, at the ripe old age of 21, I have been collecting recipes--from aunties, pot-luck ladies, mom, grandma and lots of magazines. For years I just stashed them away in shoeboxes. The first time I decided I had to organize them, I was in my early 30s. I remember that as the summer my bedroom had a constant line of stacks of papers along one wall, each stack held down with a book so the papers would not float around at the slightest breeze, and each book with a titled paper sticking out from between the pages..."Soups", "Desserts", "Casseroles", "Breads, Quick", "Breads, Risen", etc, etc...

From there, I taped them onto black paper and then into plastic page protectors, then filled three binders; "Cooking", "Baking", and "Misc.".

Of course, I did not stop collecting recipes and sticking them into shoeboxes, so I ended up doing this entire process again in my 40s. The only difference was that I now had six binders of recipes and, because I was now into scrap-booking, I used clear-view binders and decorated the outside with pretty papers.

Fast-forward another 25 years and I again had a huge pile of loose recipes, mostly organized into big manila envelopes--but still, hundreds. Also, the six big binder I had made were getting too heavy for me to maneuver (my hands are inevitably getting weaker as I age, and face it, I'm not getting any younger!). So, this winter, I bought a bunch of 2" binders, a couple of boxes of black paper and a couple of boxes of page protectors and made a mess on the dining room table for a couple of weeks.

A few summers ago, my niece and nephew had a competition on who got what recipe books when I die (LOL), so I sorted out my favorite recipes and just mailed them the old recipe books, with plenty of blank pages for them to add their own recipes in due time. I sorted out the recipes I wanted to be certain my granddaughter gets. I sorted out recipes that fall under the "really, who am I kidding" category. And then I made all new, more detailed and lighter cookbooks. This is what my cookbooks look like now:

AND I HAVE PROMISED MYSELF I WILL NEVER, EVER AGAIN, PILE UP RECIPES!!

A Green Monster

My daughter teaches Kindergarten in a Spanish Second Language Immersive School. She asked that I make her a monster for the littles to play with when they read this book about a very emotional Monster.

I had run across some vintage chenille fabric fat quarters at an estate sale and thought they would be just the thing for this particular project.

I cut the pattern out just by using my imagination. This guy's body is about 6" wide x 7" long (plus ears/horns). I cut eyes from felt and hand sewed them on and then embroidered a loop-stitch mono-brow to emulate the picture she sent me.

The mouth was a little more difficult. I cut the front longer than the back, put the "teeth" where I wanted them and then folded some fabric over, sewing a seam all the way across. I made the legs and arms and filled them all with just enough rice that they would still bend easily, and sewed across so the rice would stay put.

Then I pinned the arms and legs to the front of his body and pinned the back (right sides facing each other) to the front and sewed everything together, leaving about a 3" between the legs where I could turn him out. It was a bit tricky and tight, but do-able. I finger pressed all along the seams of his body and then, through the hole between his legs, I used a funnel and slowly poured rice into his body. I wanted him to have enough form to be posed, but not so much that the kids did not find him "squishy".

I thought he came out pretty cute! Mishel loved him--and that's what counts!

The Passage of Time

Larry and I were married in 1997. We were well into our middle-aged years, and had been married before. Our perspectives and expectations were very different than those of younger people. And I truly believe that what made our relationship work (and work fairly well) was that we were instantly good friends--we really liked each other.

About 20 years ago, while camping at Georgetown Lake, and when we wanted to get away from the Present Company, Larry said, "I know a good place for a picnic!". We packed up some sandwiches and drinks and a couple of folding chairs and surreptitiously headed to a mountain lake that he knew about.

After a very bumpy ride on a dirt road, we camp upon a little diamond of a lake in amongst the pine trees. The only people there, we enjoyed the peace and quiet, as well as our great lunch. As many things as we have done in the past 26 years, this has always remained in my memory as one of my favorite.

This weekend, we were on a mini road trip and were passing by Georgetown Lake. I asked Larry if he remembered our lunch trip. At first he was fuzzy about the details, but, as we came around a bend in the road, and an old wooden forest service sign that said 'Echo Lake' came into view, he did, indeed remember. "You wanna go?", he asked. And of course, I was game! The road was even longer than we had remembered, but eventually we saw the sunlight glimmering on the water.

As we came around the final turn in the road, much to our chagrin, we saw that the entire site was now 'improved'! The well-designated parking area was graveled. There were very nice wide steps, improved with timbers and gravel. And the beach area was cleaned and improved as well. When we walked down to the water's edge, we were so saddened to see that there were at least 10 houses with private docks built all along the edge of the lake.

I know that everything changes with time. The population of Montana has (seemingly) exploded over the last 30 years. I guess that, rather than being sad about it, I should be so very, very glad that Larry took me to so many beautiful and fairly untouched wilderness areas of this Best Last Place we live in.