VBS

Our VBS starts this Monday and it is called a Desert Adventure with naturally a desert theme. So I carved a caricature of a camel for the occasion.  Still haven't finished the VanGogh, but will get back to it after I finish a small owl to give away as a gift.
Today going to an 80th birthday for a cousin in Indiana. Karrie is coming out so we will go together.

Barn to be Wild

The Center had a fund raiser a few weeks ago that they called Barn to be Wild. Three of my friends slept with the pigs in the barn. A lot of it was streamed live on the computer. As a reward for making it through the night, I carved 3 little pigs with their name tags around their neck. The brave women were the two Lois' and April. The fund raiser was a huge success!
The last two days have been super hot, in the mid to high nineties. Temperature is cooling down and will be in the mid sixties this week.

Furniture

I made this chair for the Van Gogh carving to sit on. I am carving the man in a Van Gogh drawing called "At Eternities Gate" and he sits on a chair similar to this one. When I was putting it together I wished I had someone else to help me hold the pieces so I could clamp them. But the feeling of having someone else in my life passed.

I've been working in the yard a bit this week and still have to work on the side of the house, but that is not as bad as the back. I scattered some snapdragon seeds to add to the self seeded ones that are growing there. I also bought a timer and a soaker type hose so that the back will get some water. It's difficult to get the hose connected because the faucet is under the overhang and I'm not as agile as I used to be. I think I'll head out to Alsip nursery to pick up a couple of Hibiscus' , they have the best as far as I'm concerned. I also need some flowers for the flower boxes that hang off the deck rail. Alsip has a selection of  annuals that Home Depot and Menards don't have.

Happy Mother's Day

Had a great day. Karrie came in early and went to Church and Bible Study with me. We then messed around with my ipad and went out to a late lunch/early dinner to the Longhorn Steakhouse in Bolingbrook. We had mushrooms stuffed with cheddar cheese for an appetizer followed by fillets. Mine was crusted with blue cheese and Karrie had hers crusted with Parmesan. Steaks were really good.  I've got my stash of Fannie Mae dark chocolate butter creams. She also brought flowers, a new slim  trash can and a stylus for the ipad.
Hope you all had a great day too.

Its Raining!

I planned on working in my weed infested gardens today, but right now it is raining. Hopefully it lets up after a while. I don't have the stamina to get out there and clean it up all in one session, so I need a few nice days to clear out the weeds. Because of clouds, I didn't get to see the super moon last night.I did see a picture though.

Busy

Wow, between Easter, a funeral, doctor's and dentist's appointments, I haven't had much time to post. And actually nothing much is happening. I am in the process of doing two different carvings, a mindless piece that is a swirly Christmas tree and still working on the VanGogh drawing. I have a couple other projects in line for when the first two are done.
Sunday we are doing The Church has left the building where different groups go out and do different acts of kindness. One group will go out and do yard work for someone who can't do it on their own, the youth will be collecting food for the food pantry, our Cut & Sew will work on quilts that will eventually leave the building, and a group will go out to visit a nursing home.

Whew!

Easter is over, had a houseful for dinner which I served buffet style that turned out ok. I don't have enough seating space to serve a sit-down dinner for that many people. It seems that it was easier on me, we used plastic forks and styrofoam plates, so less to clean up. Although Karrie did most of the cleaning. I had ham, polish sausage, kraut, dill buttered carrots, asparagus, salad, jello, cheesy potatoes, and fried rice casserole, the last three brought by my sister-in-law Jan. My sister brought the lamb cake and a couple of appetizers and my  niece and daughter brought appetizers as well. I also made a new appetizer made with crescent rolls in mini muffin tins filled with chopped mushrooms mixed with onion and chive cream cheese and parmesan. They were quite good.
So today is the wake for my stepmother and tomorrow the funeral. Then I have a dentist appointment and a followup appointment with my oncologist during the rest of the week.

Death in Family

My step-mother, Jo Kulik passed away early this morning after suffering a massive stroke a week ago. She was in the South Suburban Hospital's Hospice care unit. She died peacefully early this morning. Her wake and funeral will not be until after Easter due to the Catholic practice of not having any services in the latter part of Holy Week. Please pray for her family, that they too remain peaceful.  

Bird House

The old bird house bit the dust and I do mean bit the dust. During our windy days this winter it blew from the tree onto the stones below and broke in two. It was to be replaced anyway because some critter made the hole so much bigger. So now there is a new bird house out there, I hope I'm not too late for the birds to use it this year.I had some gourds left from when I thought I wanted to be a gourder, so just make a hole, clean it out,  decorate and hang..

Too Nice

Its too nice of a day to spend it in the church basement making quilts. I wonder if they all will show up. I made a cole slaw with mandarin oranges and pineapple for the soup supper tonight. It's supposed to be 80 today, a little warm for soup.
I've been working on a new gourd bird house. The old one blew out of the tree and broke in two. Some critter already had made it useless by chewing around the opening to make it big enough for it to get in. I suspect a squirrel.

Lifeline Screening

Our Church was the sight of a Lifeline Screening event, so I went down for an hour and a half to welcome people, offer coffee, juice and cookies plus Portals of Prayer booklets and even a Bible if anyone wanted one. There were 80 people coming through for the screening today.
Next week we will have Spring, just hope old man winter doesn't return.

Chili Cook-off

Last night was the chili cook-off at Church We had 14 chefs submitting their chillies to be judged including me. At first they had few chefs so I signed on but couldn't use my normal recipe because my husband called it "its not chili chili" so I made up a recipe using chuck steaks and adding different ingredients that I though would be good. I didn't win but I thought my chili was pretty good. My friend that made the turkey chili won the for best chili and for the mildest. I guess we had a bunch of wimps voting for the best.

I also want to post this picture of my daughter. As a baby we used to call her the Michelin man because of all the creases on her chubby legs and arms. So here is my Michelin baby.

Chicken Supreme

 I tried a new recipe I made for a Lemont Clergy lunch my Pastor was hosting. It was pretty good, but I would make a few changes. I will post the original ingredients and also what I would do to make it better in red.


Chicken Supreme
1 cooked rotisserie chicken, cut up in bite size pieces [I baked 3 boneless chicken breasts and 4 thighs seasoned with McCormick Rotisserie chicken spice]
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
3 cans cream of mushroom soup [ I would use 2 cans of soup and a can or more of milk]  to make it juicier
1 pint sour cream
1/2 cup freshly cooked or canned mushrooms [ I think I would use more, but I like mushrooms]
20 1" cube velveeta [ I would cut it up smaller because you get a big chunk of semi melted velveeta every once  in a while, also 20 1" chunks is about 1/2 of the large velveeta]
1-1/2 pounds of your choice of spaghetti[ I would use picolini, or mini shells or bowties and maybe only a pound]
1-1/2 sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed
1 stick of melted butter

Saute onion till almost carmelized and add to chicken. Add the soup and sour cream to chicken and stir in. Cook the pasta, drain and add to bowl and mix. Add cut-up velveeta and stir in. Pour into buttered 9x13 pan. Add cracker crumbs to butter and mix  thoroughly. Place on top of casserole.
Cover with foil and cook in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. For a browner top uncover for the last 15 minutes.

Paczki Day

I wasn't feeling well Sunday night and yesterday, but today I am feeling better and had to go to Celina's for my fix of paczki., 2 raspberry and one rose. I never heard of rose jelly until I read an article in the Trib about a bakery making hundreds of paczki and they mentioned this rose jelly made from rose petals. I tried it and it sure is strange tasting, a sort of floral sweet. My "Busia" used to make them and as I recall she used raspberry and maybe prune. They were good.
I took my dose of Sudafed and hope my sinuses get tamed down and my headache goes away. Have a meeting to go to tonight and Cut and Sew tomorrow. We are now making quilts 2 times a month, so should have more to give away to those that need them.

Drawing 101

This is a drawing I did of VanGogh's  At Eternity's Gate. Mine is on the right. So then I decided this would be cool to carve, but I needed a side view to cut out my block. I drew the side view easily and did the  front view,  but  with a few  suggestions from my teacher, I managed to get the front view in sync with the side view. This should be a fun project.

Pot Luck

This week is Consecration Sunday and we are having two pot luck meals, one for the Saturday night  people and one for the Sunday morning group. I'm making cole slaw for both meals.
Drawing 101 is this morning and afterwards I'm going to attempt to get out to Kane County Fairgrounds for the Wonders in Wood show.

The Wayside Chapel

The Wayside Chapel carving is complete. Hope it draws big bucks in The Center's Auction.  I have to start thinking of my next project, something in the round, probably an animal of some sort.

Woohoo!

I won second place at the "back of the room" contest at the Lemont Artists Guild meeting with my eagle feather. Artists bring in pieces to be judged by the rest of the group. What did I win? Nothing. Only my name in the newsletter. The first place winner was a large acrylic painting of a little blond girl on a slide. Can't compete with children.
Finishing up on the carving of the Wayside Chapel and should have a picture to post soon.

Where did the week go?

Nothing real exciting this past week. Just meetings and an attempt to get a carving done  so it can be put into a fund raising auction.
Weather: It will be in the high forties today and 50's tomorrow. Is this really the end of January, I fear February is in the wings waiting to attack.

The Weather

Snowstorm on Friday with about 7" of snow, last night a thunder storm and in the 40's today. Most of the snow is gone except  where it was piled up. Should have waited before I had the plow guy plow the driveway.lol.  Karrie's birthday is today. We celebrated yesterday by going out to lunch. She's not a cake eater so I made her bread pudding and brownies in lieu of a birthday cake.

Waiting

Waiting for the snow to start. I'm hoping it isn't too bad this morning, I'm trying to get a haircut and have an 11:45 appointment.

Here is the latest carving. I plan on giving it to a friend's son who will earn his Eagle Scout rating soon. I'm also going to make another to give to my nephew, Brad. He became an Eagle Scout a few years back, but once an Eagle Scout always an Eagle Scout.

After Lunch

Here are the ladies that lunch plus two men.

Two of my friends, June and Bonnie, that I used to work with

Julie Hyzy signing my book.

I thought I would see a few of my artist friends at the lunch, but they were busy. The lunch was good. Salad, chicken breast, rice, carrots, rolls and baked apple for dessert. Julie Hyzy[pronounced high-zee] spoke about her writing career and how she came upon writing the books about the White House Chef. We all received a book and she signed them. So now I have the first book and last book in the series and I'll have to buy the three in between. She has recipes in  all of the books.
My friend Bonnie[above] remembered that I belong to a quilting group and emailed me that she had a bunch of material from a deceased aunt. I said when can we get together and she said she was going to The Center to hear this author and I was going there too. So I now have a bunch of material in the back of my car. I will need to have someone remove it as the containers are very heavy.

Lunch

I'm going to the Center for lunch to hear author Julie Hyzy. I read one of her books State of the Onion and liked it. It is about a chef in the White House. Her new book is Affairs of Steak. She has a few books in the White House Mysteries series. Should be fun.

More Drawing

Still practicing my drawing of faces. I did this one last night. I hope my carving doesn't suffer, but I think not, my first love is wood.

Drawing

I've been practicing my drawing and did a self portrait from a photo. What do you think, does it look like me?

Nick's

I won a $10 gift certificate to Nick's for being the closest to guessing the score of a Bear game. Nick's is the place in Lemont that serves 1/2# hamburgers. I took Ben, our intern and Stephanie, his wife because they have never been there and I wouldn't go in to Nick's on my own. She had a chili dog and said it was very good, he had a cheeseburger and finished it all. I had a hamburger and no, I didn't finish it.
Tomorrow I am meeting a few folks at the Front Street Cantina for a little birthday party for one of our Church members. Before that is our monthly Cut & Sew group that sews quilts that are given to homeless shelters in Joliet.

Phil's Friends

I went to the ribbon cutting of Phil's Friends new quarters. Phil started in his basement, then moved to a store front and now is in much larger quarters with an office for Phil and cubicles for the staff and tables for volunteers to pack care packages. In case you are not familiar with Phil's Friends, it is a Christ centered ministry started by a young  man who fought cancer twice and won. His group sends out care packages to cancer patients and then follows up with weekly cards. He is now ministering to over 900 people that are suffering from cancer. Their motto is We Bring Hope.

Now I'm off to buy pencils so I can practice drawing portraits.

After Art Class

I'm back home after a 2 hour art class and will show you what I learned. The picture on the left is what I drew before we started, the one on the right is after instructions.



 This is the last picture I drew using a newspaper model. Overall I think I did pretty good and look forward to the Drawing 101 class the Maggie Poplowski is doing in February. That will be a 3 session class.



Art Class

I'm taking an art  class today at the Lemont Center for the Arts. It is teaching portrait drawing, which I think will help me in my carving.

Tomorrow, I plan on going to Phil's Friends new opening of  much larger quarters. This way I can get rid of the fuzzy socks I bought before Christmas at a great price. They use these socks in their care packages.

The weather continues to be nice and sunny. Snow stay away, I haven't fretted about my driveway so far this winter.

A Good Day

I saw my Oncologist yesterday and he said everything looks good to keep up the good work. I don't know if he realizes, that I have nothing to do with my health, it's all in God's hands. So thank you God for keeping me healthy this past year.
Today is another nice sunshiny day, a little chilly but nice. I think we all or most of us can appreciate this weather.  Sorry snow bunnies.