Moving on to Spring

The promised acrylic version of the aspen stand. It is framed and hanging in my husband's home office. I love it and think for now I am done with aspen painting. Time to move on to more springtime topics, although aspens also look pretty in the springtime! I am working on an acrylic of some flowers I photographed in Cabo. Also intend to start a full sheet watercolor of the columbine. This is a photograph I took of the columbine growing in my garden last summer before they succumbed to some tiny black bugs.

Everywhere I've Been

About ten minutes after I took this photograph the clouds passed through and the sun was shining. Life seems to be moving as quickly these days. I have fifty good years behind me. Where do I go next after everywhere I've been? The education I pursued, the home I have created, the books I've read, the children I've raised, the paintings I've done, the places I have traveled, the photographs I've taken, the husband I've loved, the friends and family I've cherished; all these combine to form the very large canvas that is my life's work. I cannot see the next brushstroke but know that even as I write this the image on the canvas is shifting.

Respite

Respite (res'pit) n. A usually short interval of rest or relief. After being all gung ho with this blog initially, it has now been about five weeks since I have written anything. You have to live life to write about it. During those weeks, I painted the Aspen Stand again in acrylics. Like it much better. It is at the printer's being scanned so I can't show it to you right now. I read The Friday Night Knitting Club (just ok), Twilight (page turner but I'm not interested in continuing the series; I just wanted to see what all the fuss is about), and Confessions of a Shopaholic (actually quite good; made me laugh out loud, I think you have to be a shopper to appreciate it). Not my usual reading fare, can you tell I was at the beach? This picture is the sun rising over the Sea of Cortez, taken from my friend's house in San Jose Cabo. Eight glorius days with the girls. We played tennis everyday. Walked on the beach. Ate delicious food and drank don julio blanco margaritas. On Valentine's Day we celebrated my son Tom's 21st birthday with a wonderful family meal at the eating club followed by Tom's favorite white cake with white frosting and a layer of raspberry in the middle. These things and the stuff and work of everyday life have comprised my respite from blogging. It's good to be back.

Edgar Sawtelle, Not Ordinary

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a wonderfully written book but very perplexing until you find out that it is a retelling of Shakespeare's play Hamlet, a fact which escaped me entirely until I read a review of the book after I had already finished it. That explains the supernatural elements the author uses to advance the story and the ending that leaves you thinking, "what on earth?" There are not too many books that I continue to think about long after I have read them, but this is one of them. The characters are richly drawn and compelling, even the dogs. Edgar Sawtelle is a dog story and I am a sucker for dog stories. Old Yeller. Big Red. Call of the Wild. Just to name a few. The element that makes a dog story great is the relationship between the dog and the human. Because Edgar is mute and communicates with his dogs through sign makes the relationships even more poignant. This is not an ordinary book.

Snow Day and Monday

It is a beautiful snowy morning in the Rocky Mountains. I wanted to follow up on some previous posts. First, the refried bean failure turned out to be the best soup I have ever eaten. No kidding. I don't think I would be able to duplicate the process but even if it was close it would be worth it. If anyone wants to try the refried bean recipe, it can be found at www.cooking-mexican-recipes.com/pinto_bean_recipes.html. If those beans are as good as the soup it would be worth the trouble. I have to eat my words. Do not try the crockpot scenario like I did unless you are trying to make the accidental soup. I also used the roasted garlic chopped up in some homemade guacamole and it was great as well.

Next, I finished the aspen stand watercolor. I ended up using pastels to get the look I wanted which changes this to the mixed media aspen stand. I like this but don't love it. I think I will do it over in acrylics to try and get the concept I originally was after.

Knitting and Beans

I have been trying to keep my knitting projects small in light of the fact that I have two half done afghans that need to be completed. Above is a scarf that I hoped to have done for my daughter for Christmas. Now I'm shooting for before spring. I love the bright colors in this yarn. I wanted the scarf to be on the chunky side so I am knitting with two strands held together using the garter stitch. Previously I had only knit scarves using LionBrand homespun yarn which is so bulky it takes no time at all to knit up a great scarf, especially if you are using big needles. This is a less bulky yarn so the knitting process has been much longer. I'm going to add fringe and maybe look around for some sort of mother of pearlish looking sequins to sew on. Below is a scarf I am working on for myself. You can click on these images to get a better view. This yarn has pretty gray and cream tones in it and is super soft. I thought it would feel good wrapped around my head and neck, which is how I prefer to wear scarves much to my family's embarrassment, especially on days like today when the wind is scourging the mountains at gusts of up to 75 mph. There is nothing more aggravating to me than wearing something itchy around my neck.

The innocent looking legumes up there have been my nemesis for the last couple of days. Driven by the prospect of having the smell of good food bubbling on the stove all day I decided to try my hand at making my own refried beans. I roasted bulbs of garlic, soaked the pinto beans, bought a fresh bay leaf at the supermarket, and stood at the stove adding hot water as it boiled down. After a full day and the beans weren't done, I put them away for the night and then the next morning poured it all into the crockpot so I wouldn't be tied to the stove for another day. Every time I passed the pantry and saw cans of refried beans I would wonder why am I doing this? Long story short, apparently I had added too much water so I gave up on the idea of refried beans, and my husband threw in chunks of the leftover Christmas ham we had thawed out for sandwiches. This new and improved mixture we stored away again last night, and finally will be having ham and pinto bean soup for dinner tonight. As they say in Spain, "no vale la pena", which means making my own refried beans was not worth the trouble.

The World is My Oyster

Oysters are a revered food at our house. I am still basking in the culinary afterglow of our new year's day oyster pie. Years ago I worked at the restaurant Harpoon Louie's in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Their specialty was an oyster pie which I had never heard of before I worked there. Man, was that good. I googled a recipe and after sorting through a bunch found the one that seemed most like I remembered. It is the recipe of the Waterman House & Gardens in Rockland, Maine and can be found at About.com where I got it. The recipe calls for a single pie crust baked over the filling which is placed in a 2 quart dish. I felt like my 2 quart pyrex baking dish wasn't dignified enough for the pie so I searched and found the deep pie dish by Emile Henry pictured here at the local kitchen store. I altered the recipe in one way and that was by using a bottom crust as well as a top. I am a big fan of pie crust. I bake the bottom crust first, then add the cooked filling and bake with the top crust. This is a really delicious meal. We ate all but one piece, which was still delicious the next day when we divvied it up as an appetizer before dinner. It will be hard to wait another year to have this again.