Bountiful Baskets

Have you ever heard of Bountiful Baskets? If you have and you know all about it then you  have my permission to ignore me…well, wait, not entirely…but go check out the Crafting Tutorials or something.

But if, like me, you are new to the idea of a food co-op then you may just want to check this out.

Here’s how it goes. You go to the Bountiful Baskets website and scope it out, click around and read the rules.

Next you follow the directions for signing up for the baskets at your location.

Then, on Monday evening at about 8 o’clock–times may vary in your area–you log in to the site…

and order a basket and whatever else you want that they are offering that week–and pay right there online.

The basic basket is $15 and is 50% fruit and 50% vegetables—totally random stuff, differing from week to week.  This week’s also included celery, lettuce and broccoli–but they were already put away–so no picture.

The items you can order separately could be tortillas, 9 grain bread or chewy granola–to name a few.

Then the following Saturday you show up at the prearranged site—with your own empty box or basket and pick up your loot. It’s very cool and kind of exciting to see what will be in the basket each week.

I do, however, have a word or two of warning.

Do not, under any circumstances, push the “ORDER” button more than once–not even if it says the server is down and come back later. Don’t think that you’ll just push the “ORDER” button, oh, say FOUR times because it doesn’t seem to be moving fast enough, or because you want to make sure that it is really, truly working.

Just don’t do it, or you–my friend–could end up with a bigger busload of  fruit and vegetables than even Farmer MacGreggor would know what to do with. And then, you’ll have to figure out how to eat it all…fast.

Don’t bother asking me how I know this…

that would be humiliating.

But if anybody needs a fruit salad–
I’m your girl.

Baby Spooks

I don’t actually remember this particular Halloween, but that’s because I’m the little one in the shot. Laurie was a pink cat or something and Andy was a skeleton. Sweatshirts and masks.

My favorite things are the tiny pumpkins. I always felt sorry for them at the store, because I was afraid they’d be left behind.  To this day, that’s the size I buy.

Don’t you sometimes wish that it could all be this simple again?

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Sweet Acorns

All right now…tell me if you can…have you ever seen anything so cute in all your life?!! Sweet little baby acorns.

I first saw these in an issue of Disney’s Family Time magazine and could not resist. They were so easy that it’s quite likely you don’t really need the instructions–but humor me.

Start with glazed donut holes…

and chocolate frosting, peanut butter or nutella. To me, the choice was obvious–but you do what you want.

You’ll also need crushed toffee bits and/or

those little chocolate sprinkly things.

Now, then–to impress upon your mind exactly how easy these little do-dads were to whip up, this is exactly when we started the process.

I should have been cool and poured the Nutella in a bowl, but having been raised by wolves, as I was–I just dipped it right out of the container. Don’t tell my family.

Now dip those little suckers in whichever topping you prefer–toffee bits or the sprinkly things.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that you’ll also need a small bag of stick pretzels. Snap about a third off and eat it. Don’t bite it off because that’s just tacky. Stick the pretzel piece in the top of your acorn.

Start to finish, INCLUDING clean-up. No lie and no Photoshop. Now that’s fast.

Be on the lookout for squirrels…or large teen-age boys pretending to be squirrels.

Eww…that would be creepy.

The Last Leaves…

About this time of year…every year, it is our most ancient of traditions to march on up to the canyon for one last evening picnic to enjoy the changing leaves before they fall. They were a bit late this year–but it doesn’t matter.

We’ve been doing this since my kids were little so it only seems right that we do it now…

that their kids are little.

The good old leaves are always here–

just waiting for us…

to rub a few sticks together…

and get down to what really matters!

After all–we must keep our priorities straight!

heh, heh.

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PS—Guess who’s got…

a boyfriend!!!

Way to go Laurie!

Prairie Grass Quilts

Here’s some amazing news from my daughter, April that I’d love to share with you~

Family and Friends–
I am so SO excited to announce the Grand Opening of my pattern shop, and the release of my debut quilting patterns! I feel like I have been telling people “soon” for so long, that I can hardly believe soon is NOW! 🙂 But it’s true, the day is here, the website is up, and the patterns are all written and ready to go. Click HERE to go to the website. The pre-sale is going on now, patterns will begin to ship out on October 15th, and any purchase of 3 or more patterns receives a free gift.
I know some of you aren’t quilters, (and never want to be, ha ha) but if you will tell every person you know that might be interested in some new, beautiful (if I do say so myself) patterns–I’ll give you quilting lessons…or chocolate…whichever. 🙂 There are links on my website for my Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr pages, so if you’re into any of those sites and want to share with your contacts there, that would be fabulous.
Thank you so much for all your love, encouragement, and support. I couldn’t have done ANY of this without you. You guys are the best.

Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!

Mwa!

April