Stuck in Funkytown

You know what it feels like to be in a funk for a while, before realizing that you've been in a funk for a while, and even after becoming cognizant of your funky disposition still find yourself unable to bust out of said funk? Well, that's where I am. Uhg.

For one thing, I have horrifically bad sinuses that have been whooping on me for the last two months, sucking the energy right out of me. Come November, I'll be having a surgery to square them away, which I am simultaneously dreading and looking very much forward to.

But that's not the whole story. I'm not sure if I've even sorted out the whole story. All I know for sure is that I'm in valley right now and I could really go for a peak. I have this gorgeous new land that would love my attention/mowing/pruning, but I seriously cannot work up the gumption to go out and do a darned thing. My mojo, she is M.I.A.

I've often wondered if I have a touch of the Seasonal Affective Disorder, but this seems rather early in the season for that to be hitting already. And I like Fall, I really do, so what the heck?

Help a sister out. What do you do to bust out of a funk?

Recipe: Out-of-this-World Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm not much of a baker. At least, historically, I haven't been. I'm a slayer of yeast and, up until we moved this summer, the owner of the world's crappiest oven. No more, my friends!

My new old house came with a new old oven. Oddly enough, the very same one that my Grandma G.G. used to have. It's a 30ish year-old Maytag and it works like a dream. Emboldened by my new-to-me, perfectly functional stove, I decided to make my girls some cookies.

Of course, my cookbooks are all still buried somewhere in a box in the basement, so instead I Googled a recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I found one that sounded good, then naturally, I monkeyed with it. Let me just say this - Holy cow, NUM. I love these cookies. I crave these cookies. I eat them in such quantity that I probably should not make these at all anymore. And so, I must share the joy/addiction. The original recipe can be found here. The following is my modified (and if I may say so, improved) version.

Chelle's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups unbromated, unbleached, All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup maple sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsps applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups old-fashioned oats, uncooked
1 package (12 oz) milk chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add egg, vanilla and applesauce and mix well. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet and mix thoroughly. When well combined, add the oats, followed by the chocolate chips and mix well. Drop by scoopfuls/spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 9-10 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Enjoy with a tall glass of milk or a hot cup of coffee. Yummmmm...... :)

And the Winner is....

...Kris @ Quilted Simple! Congrats, my friend!

As I only had four entries for this giveaway, I went old school and had Olivia draw a name from a hat. Here is your small but lovingly assembled prize package-



Kindly shoot me your address to pisceschick99 at gmail dot com and I'll get it in the mail today. :)

Last Call for Granola Giveaway #2!

If you haven't yet entered my drawing for a package of homemade goodies delivered straight to your door, do so now! :)

I've finally gotten around to doing a little much-delayed canning this weekend, including the very interesting corn cob jelly that I've been ogling over at Chickens in the Road. And so, now that I feel confident that I can send out a varied assortment of jams, jellies and all things knitted, I'm about ready to draw names.

So enter here or enter there and tomorrow evening I will draw a winner.

Thanks again for stopping by and for your comments - they make my day!

:) Michelle

Everything's coming up... celery?

My latest weird kitchen experiment - regenerating celery!

Growing celery, Day 7




The detailed instructions about how to do this can be found here. Basically, though, you just save the root end of your bunch of celery, set it in a shallow dish of water for a few days, then plant it in about an inch of potting soil and set it in a sunny location, like a kitchen window, and watch it grow.

Day 14



Eventually, I should be able to harvest my new celery, and re-replant the root, again. Did that last sentence make any kind of sense? Anyway, at just over 2-weeks into the experiment, I have about 2 or 3 inches of new growth on my first plant, and have since planted another as well, which has grown about 1/2 inch in 5 days time. Who knows if this will be worth it, but it's really not much trouble and if all else fails, I can compost the lot.

Thanks to Suzanne at Chickens in the Road for the idea!

Lost in my knitting...

...send in reinforcements in the form of quad-lattes and assorted colors of Debbie Bliss "cashmerino", please.

Seriously, I'm deep in the zone. I've been averaging one hat per day for the past week. I can't help it. Between the Fall weather, the warmth of the wood stove and endless Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns on Netflix, I've been a knitting fool, a FOOL I say!

If loving yarn is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Here are a few pics of the hats. There are no patterns being posted at this time, this is just me bragging about actually starting AND finishing a few projects in a timely manner.

Project 1, Annie's Hat



Project 2, The Cupcake Hat



This is from The Weekend Crafter's Knitting, by Catherine Ham. The pattern is actually called Where'd you get that hat?!, but a) That sounds dorky, and b) I modified it by throwing the cupcake theme in the mix, therefore necessitating the new name.

It will be finished-finished when I can sew on the "sprinkle" beads, which will happen just as soon as my sewing box can be located.

Project 3, Boys' Earflap Hat - In progress



This may be for one of my nephews, or it may be for one of my friends' kids. The who wasn't really part of my plan, it was really more of a primal must keep knitting thing. It'll be like Cinderella's glass slipper, whoever it fits shall be the lucky winner.

Burn, baby, Burn!

I successfully built a fire in the wood stove this morning! It may sound like nothing much, but this is kind of a big deal for me.

I grew up in 1980's suburbia, in a "development". Baseboard heaters and pink-panther insulation kept us warm enough. Fires in the fireplace were heat-inefficient, and therefore were built only when the power went out, and once in a blue moon on a snowy evening. So while I appreciated a good fire in the hearth, I never really thought of them as needful, much less something that might require skill to make happen. Learning how to build a proper fire was simply not on my radar.

Then I married Bill, who doesn't build cozy fires, but face-melting infernos that will send you outside in a blizzard to escape their "warmth". If I wanted to wake up each morning, a raisin on wringing-wet sheets, I'd have Bill build the fire. Surprisingly, I'm actually not a fan of that, so I undertook to learn the craft myself. With much coaching from the hubby, but perhaps slightly more restraint in the shoving-in-as-much-wood-as-will-fit-in-this-thing arena, I struggled to get things going. My goal was to come down somewhere in between the strictly decorative presto-log fire of my youth and Bill's dehydrating blaze. And I feel like I may finally have the hang of it.

This morning's fire has been going for 4 hours now and the furnace hasn't clicked on once. Woot-woot!

Let's hope that I can keep this mojo going, because the bill from having the oil tank filled last week (270 gallons!) nearly gave me a stroke. So it's either the wood stove and lumpy homemade knits keeping us warm this winter or mama's going to need to sell a kidney to pay the oil man.