Peach Blossoms
5:56 p.m. - 2015-03-16


This week three of my sewing machines went into the shop. My little Elna that I love so much lost its tension all of a sudden, and the first machine I ever bought for myself, a Kenmore, just fell out of alignment every which way and would stitch, but not well. And lastly, my old Singer with the gummed up works and broken face plate went in for a checkup and oil and lube. The Kenmore is home already, and the feed dogs are working again (they were stuck in the up position which made it conveniently possible to still use it) for the first time in about 15 years.

This week I was busy baking for an upcoming family tea, making a lot of gluten-free goodies for the relatives who can't eat wheat anymore. This was very interesting, and the items produced from recipes I found were amazingly tasty. My favorites were the cheese crackers and the cranberry scones. I used a biscuit recipe for the scones but added extra sugar and some plumped up dried cranberries.

We have a big family wedding coming up in a few months, so M and I are trying to lose weight and get in shape. I have been alternating days of weight training with days of Walk Away The Pounds routines. The WATPs routines had an unexpected benefit since after doing them for awhile, my painful injured knee got much much better. As far as diet goes, I have always been interested in vegetarian cooking, so my days are mostly vegetarian up until dinner, and this has had a really beneficial effect on my cholesterol levels. Another exercise I do is because of the drought - I carry buckets of water to the garden and water plants. This is the water from washing vegetables or waiting for the water to get hot at the faucet. There is a lot of dire drought talk in the press around here, but I look out at the back yard and see a forest of tall weeds, so things can't be too bad if the weeds are all green and thriving.

This week the lilacs are blooming, and I am starting to plant my seeds. I plant a flat of seeds every day using a soil cube maker. Today I started the basil, and tomorrow will probably start the winter squash and cucumbers. We did have a surprise rain storm last week, but other than that it has been very dry since the start of the year. This means that the fruit set should be really good this year.