More critter pics

 Here she is playing in the water as it pours off her head into the sink.  She loves water!  If she sees me go into the bathroom, she runs to watch the toilet flush!  She tries to drink from the water in the sink as it splashes from her head and below----she sleeps with the dogs.  They just figured she was another one of the furkids when I brought her home.

The weather has been  unusually warm.  Spinach is up, hollyhocks, poppies and numerous other green things which in March should still be sleeping, are growing and in need of a drink.  In addition to 70 degree weather, it is dry.  This is CRAZY!  I spent a day with my dear friend Pat, this week and we drove to Windsor and spent time in some shops and had a wonderful lunch in a Hawaiian restaurant. The weather was great and I came home with a couple of small treasures and fabric for quilts. 

The Mr. and I, (but mostly the Mr.) are getting another room on the way to being finished.  The drywall is going up now and I think that when the floor and ceilings are done that we will be done.  As we age, and that dirty word "age" just bugs me, we are discovering that we cannot do what we used to do, so I am ready to be done!  We have lived in a construction zone for much of our lives as we set about finishing and remodeling the many abodes we have called home.  So with the warm weather, the construction, the quilting and whatever else takes my time I hope to be back here soon.

Beets?

 The weather has been so pretty that I haven't been here in a few days.  Sorry, but I love being outside.  However, I am finding that my poor ol' body just doesn't move like it used to and I long for a bit smaller yard sometimes.  Last week I was watching a cooking show and the subject was a healthier method of making red velvet cupcakes with beets!  Having a freezer full of beets from last years' harvest, I was intrigued.  I did not get the recipe, but searched later and found a fairly simple recipe on the net and tweaked it a bit.  As you can see, the beets which were cooked really didn't look too appetizing, but after using the little hand held blender, they pureed quite nicely and using the beets rather than a bottle of red food coloring, appealed to me.   They were delicious!  I will probably be using this recipe exclusively from now on!  After they were frosted, I had exactly 12 cupcakes and it would have produced one 8 inch layer cake. 

3/4 c pureed cooked beets
1/2 c oil
1/3 c milk
1/2 tsp vinegar (into milk to sour)
2 eggs
2/3 c sugar
3/4 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Mix as any cake batter and bake at 350 for 25 min.
At our quilt guild, we have been having mini-classes and this is the pattern I chose for the cathedral window application which is nothing like the traditional pattern.  For me, it has been very time consuming and when this piece is finished, and I am in the quilting stage right now, I probably won't make another one.

More kitty pictures to follow, as she is quite a little clown.