Powered Sugar Frosting for Sugar Cookies - Day 349 of 365, Tutorial Tuesday

As an elementary teacher, classroom parties can be kind of a hassle sometimes.

Halloween is typically the first one that happens during the school year. Combine kids in costumes with gobs of candy and the anticipation of trick or treating later and you have quite a lively (and exhausting) party at the end of the school day.

Then comes Christmas. Craft projects and lots and lots of goodie bags and half eaten cupcakes make teachers thankful Christmas Break begins the moment the students walk out of the room.

Valentine's Day? For me as a teacher it was the easiest. It takes some up front preparation - getting the list of classmates to kids, finding extra time in the days ahead to make envelopes or boxes to hold the valentines. Being available in the classroom before school, after school, and during recess times so kids can deliver those valentines. But once the party started, it ran itself. Kids opening valentines, reading every single one. Going over to each student, personally thanking them for the valentine card. Lots of oohs and aahs and cools and awesomes floating around.

So to those teachers who are spending the day with kiddos this afternoon, and to the those parents of those kids, here are some Valentine cookies I made. Then if you are so inclined, here is a tutorial on how to make the sugar cookie icing that you ask about.

Click on the video below to learn how:

This recipe is featured in Valentine's Day: 14 Ways to Say I Love You with Desserts. Pick up your copy today!

Day 348 of 365

Granted it's only Monday, but I didn't get too far on the list I made yesterday.

No coupons clipped, no grocery store run. No quilts quilted.

What did I do? I went to work. I finished the cookies and delivered them to school and to the school district office. I also delivered a batch to the place I lived for a year and a half, a place I really don't miss too much. Physical therapy.

I made dentist appointments. I called the roofer to get on their schedule. (We've been holding out because of the cost, but it needs to be done. Since the lawn is still brown from winter hubby won't be so picky about people and things tracking on the lawn right now.)

 I added something new to my list, too. Curtains and/or blinds up in the den. Months and months of that sunshine coming in over the computer all afternoon and evening has left me tired of squinting and tired of wearing a baseball cap while I'm typing the blog. It's time to get it taken care of. With our tall, limber daughter coming home this week I've picked a good time to tackle that project.

I'm risking missing some pictures by covering up the window, though. Looking out that window over the computer screen I've snapped pictures of a goldfinch on Day 81, the kissing goldfinches on Day 83, a squirrel on Day 89, birds on the telephone pole on Day 268. Evening sunsets on Day 259 an Day 332, sunrise reflecting off the Owyhees on  Day 263, and the early morning moon on Day 344.

And a wayward pigeon(?) up in the tree.

Day 347 of 365

I've learned a lesson about not making plans. That I should live one day at a time. But sometimes I'm tempted to map the week out. Certain things are a given - I have to go to Boise two different days, have an appointment with the rheumatologist, work two days, and my daughter will be home two days.

If I believed looking ahead would get me somewhere - and I believed I was strong enough - this would also be the week that I would:

• Get cookies decorated for work. There is some kind of lunch thing on Monday so I made up a batch of heart cookies. Here it is 6:30 in the evening on a Sunday and I haven't even started on the frosting.
• Go to the grocery store. I haven't been to the store since I went with my daughter to Costco a couple weeks back. I ran out of blackberries, strawberries, and lunch meat early last week and I have just enough milk for tomorrow's cereal. My breakfast and lunch choices are slim until a grocery run.
• Clip coupons. Since I haven't been shopping, I haven't been using coupons. Which then means I haven't been cutting my coupons. I have several weeks worth just sitting in a pile, ready for my scissors.
• Stand up for myself at the rheumatologist appointment. I'd say the heck with all of it. Stop all treatments. All pills, all injections. No more chemotherapy, no more anti-malaria drugs, no more steroids. I'd say I'm going to start pursuing alternative treatments.
• Quilt two more quilts to give me a total of four in the mail this week. I need to quilt the heart quilt from Day 345 and one more. The quilt kit from Quilts for Kids is now a quilt top and needs quilting.

Day 346 of 365

Takin' it easy.

When I ask my husband what he's doing for the evening that's his answer. When I ask what he's doing on a Saturday or a Sunday or a holiday, that's always the answer.

Here's how the routine goes on school days. He comes home from school before four o'clock and goes right to the bed to "lay down for a while". He gets up at five for dinner. After dinner he gets into his pajamas and heads down to the basement to watch TV until he comes up at nine to go to bed. Nothing deviates from that routine Monday-Thursday. The only thing different about Friday is that he might stay up later watching TV in the basement.

Saturday. Sleep until whenever. Eat breakfast. Head to the basement and watch TV for the day. The entire day. Maybe take a nap in the bed downstairs, then back to more TV. I see him at dinner, then he's back to watch more TV. All in his pajamas.

Sunday. Up early to read the paper, eat breakfast, then back to bed. Then back to the basement to watch TV for the entire day. I'll see him at dinner and then he'll head right back down to watch TV. Day two of never changing out of his pajamas.

He'll take out the trash on Thursday evening in his pajamas. He'll get the mail on Saturday in his pajamas. He'll bring potatoes in from the garage in his pajamas. When we went to the casino in March and again in July, he gambled in the mornings without changing out of his pajama bottoms.

I've tried to get him to find a hobby. Not interested. I've tried to get him interested in something - anything - that doesn't involve watching TV. No luck. Other than winding bobbins for me, he refuses to do anything with me.

I guess I don't get the pajama thing. Even on my worst days, even on my post surgery days, I still got dressed. But I don't know if it's the pajamas that are bugging me so much or the excessive TV watching and unwillingness to do anything. It's been going on for years, but it seems to have gotten worse.

I need to get him a hobby. Something to keep him busy. Something for him to look forward to. Thank goodness I have my sewing. If I didn't, he would be driving me crazy.

I did get him to do one thing today. He washed blueberries so I could make a blueberry buckle.

Day 345 of 365

It's Day 345. 20 days to go to 365.

I'm anxious for it to get here. I feel like I'm in limbo. Knowing it's almost over I'm dragging my feet on starting any new changes in my life.

When I started a year ago, I had a clear goal. Take a picture every day to show that I had lived. I've accomplished that goal. Now it's getting time to come up with a new goal. While I'll continue with the picture-a-day, I need something else, too. But right now I don't know what that "else" is. I'm hoping something will present itself to me in the next 20 days. Something that will inspire me to reach another goal.

While I don't have a clear, life-changing goal, I do have some charity goals laid out. I'll do more sewing than I did this year - more quilts for kids, more stockings for soldiers, more turtle pillows for turtle camp. That means more than 35 quilts, more than 80 stockings, and more than 24 pillows. But other than that it's unknown. (Although it probably would be smart to start working on beating this past year's exercise streak of 120 consecutive days.)

So here I sit and wait. Wait and work on another quilt. I took a quilt top from my unfinished project basket and cut it up. I added some fabric left over from the baby quilt I made on Day 11, some crumb blocks from Day 111, and strips I organized on Day 334. A new quilt top is born.

Day 344 of 365

Yesterday I was quite discouraged about my charity quilting-for-kids work. Linda gave me some encouraging words that helped.

It also helped today that I received a large envelope in the mail addressed to me, the "YouTube Video Director". It was from the Stockings for Soldiers organization. (I sent them 80 stockings on Day 222.) On  Day 237 my tutorial for the day was on how to make the stockings for the program. I had sent them the link to the video on YouTube and they used it with their volunteers. In the envelope I received a nice thank you note signed by a couple dozen of the organization's folks and a couple of certificates of appreciation. One was for me and one was for the kids at Marsing High School who had gathered all the goodies for the stockings on Day 252.

The kids almost didn't get their certificate today, though.

The disagreement discussion negotiation started before 5 AM this morning. I was planning on sleeping in since I had the day off, but PJB (AKA Pajama Boy, AKA hubby) decided he wasn't going to school today. Again. So the agreement to get him (and me) through the day was that he would take the morning off and go to school after lunch. He followed through on his end of the bargain and the kids got their certificate.

And since I didn't get to sleep in, I got a picture of the foggy, hazy moon before six o'clock in the morning.

Day 343 of 365

This week I've been feeling like I'm on shaky quilting waters and have started questioning my work. Am I doing the right thing by sewing all these? Is it a good use of my time, is the quality up to par? When I send the quilts off, do they really go where they are supposed to?

I've been making quilts for Operation Kid Comfort. (That's the group where the kids have parents serving in the military.) I make those quilts with pictures sewn into them, but they haven't sent me any more pictures in a couple months. I've e-mailed several times since before Christmas hoping to receive more pictures, but I haven't even received an e-mail response. It makes me wonder if I'm being ignored because they got word from parents that the kids didn't like their quilts.

Quilts for Kids is another group I do work for. Typically I request a couple kits from their fabric and then I make a couple out of my fabric. Every time - and it has been many times now - they send me those kits. This week when I received my kits, I only received one. It made me wonder if they don't trust me with two.

My daughter called the other day when I was working on a quilt and she asked if I was selling it. (She doesn't read my blog so she doesn't know how much time I really spend on making them to give away.) I went through the whole explanation of how many I do and where I send them. She was concerned I was spending too much money on all of it - the fabric, thread, batting, and postage - to continue doing it without any income from them coming in. It made me wonder if I am spending too much money doing them.

And then the Disaster Auction quilt has been in the back of my mind. Since Pajama Boy didn't go, not knowing how much the quilt fetched has been bugging me. My husband has been doing some checking with the folks running the thing and I knew an answer would be coming soon. I fully expected that today I would be writing about how I would never do a quilt for the auction again. That $25 is all that the quilt raised and that it was a waste of my time.

With the lack of responses from Operation Kid Comfort, the reduction in quilt kits from Quilts for Kids, my daughter's concern about the pricey-ness of the work, and the $25 thought looming over my head, I wasn't looking forward to going into the sewing room.

My husband's phone call saved the day and saved my sanity.

$150. My wall quilt fetched $150 at the Marsing Disaster Auction. I can move forward now. 

I've quilted waves throughout the sea turtle quilt. It's all done and I'm ready for the next one.