Mimi Mine

I have said it before, my husband loves strawberries. Strawberries and peaches are pretty much neck and neck in the race for for being his favorite fruits. I love both of these luscious fruits myself, but I think he is even crazier about them than me. It is not strawberry season in South Carolina yet, so when someone where my husband works asked if he would care to split a flat with them last week, he quickly agreed to do so. When he came home with them late last week, we gave our two daughters two pints each and kept the remaining two pints for ourselves. These strawberries had just arrived in Aiken from Plant City, Florida! Strawberries from Plant City, Florida These strawberries are very good. Not only are they very large, but they are quite sweet and flavorful. The first thing I thought of was to bake a pound cake to pair up with these luscious beauties. In short time, I set about to making a Sour Cream Pound Cake. I used my recipe I posted about here . I did make ...

My fear of cooking with pressure cookers goes way, way back to my childhood. My grand kids would say it was back in the Olden Days, because I am pretty old(en), after all. My mother cooked things in a big old stove top version of the pot known as a pressure cooker/canner. I actually own the last pressure my mother owned. It is harvest gold.  The story I am going to tell you involved the pressure cooker she owned before the harvest gold one. The catastrophe that took place in Mama's kitchen left me traumatized and fearful at the prospect of ever using one of them. I tried, really hard, to work up enough courage to try out the old harvest gold pot I inherited from my mother. When it came down to it, however, the vision of what happened that day was still just too disturbing.  I was twelve years old, at most when it happened. It left quite an impression on me, nonetheless!  My mother had apparently crammed that pressure cooker to the brim with those butter beans and wh...

Lately, it seems there are quite a few new babies being born around these parts. I recently attended a baby shower for one of the sweet expectant mothers. Sewing for babies is something I really enjoy doing. Therefore, I decided to sew something to take to this shower for a sweet baby boy.  Baby blankets and quilts are some of the things I enjoy sewing most and the softer and cozier, the better. As I was looking for some inspiration, I came across  this pretty rag quilt  made by a fellow blogger at Dogwood Lane Rambles. I have sewed baby rag quilts in the past, but they were mainly made with squares and had polyester batting in between the squares. I wanted to try this one because it used three layers of flannel, using one layer of flannel as the batting layer and no other batting or fiberfill. This is a picture of the finished baby rag quilt and matching burp cloths that I made. Baby Rag Quilt and Matching Burp Cloths Baby Rag Quilt I ...

The beautiful, talented and sweet blogging friend, Laura, is hosting the first ever    Thoughts of Home Thursday  blog link party this very day! If you are a blogger, I hope you will hurry on over there and link up your own ideas and inspirations.  If you are not a blogger -- no problem, just scoot on over there, just the same, and check out all the great ideas, discoveries and happenings! The hostess features are fabulous and to find even  more fabulous ideas, just scroll on down and click on some of those awesome thumbnail links. I kid you not, your creative genes will be doing a happy dance.! You might even find an idea or two to make your life a little easier around the house and in the garden. If all those inspirations are not enough to convince you to check things out, they are also giving away some awesome gifts at the party too. For instance, a beautiful handmade and hand dyed (by Laura) Flea Market Apron. It is a stunner, with pockets for everythin...

Do you dread the task of cleaning your bathtubs?  Do you put it off as long as you can, all the while knowing that those tubs are just going to get cruddier and more scummed up as the days go by, making the task even more of a chore? Have you purchased every bathroom/tub cleaning product and tool you could lay your hands on, hoping against hope, that something will make the task a tad more tolerable? Do your hands hurt from struggling to grip the hard handles of the various tools and/or slippery cloths you use for scrubbing? Does your back ache from bending over the tub when you are done cleaning? Do you find yourself using volumes of  expensive cleaning products just to get your tubs reasonably clean? Do many of the cleaning solutions you use cause you cough when you breath while you are cleaning, so that you find yourself holding your breath? Do the cleaning products you use warn against using without adequate ventilation? In addition to all the above, do you find tha...

It's no secret that items made of wood are some of the things I love. My large collections of rolling pins, wooden bowls and trays and wooden utensils are a testament to that fact. In one of my all-time favorite movies,  The Quiet Man, the character of Mary Kate Dannaher was portrayed by the beautiful Maureen O'Hara. Mary Kate, by her own admission, had "a fearful temper." She also had strong connection to the things that made her house a home--the things that made her happy.  In one of the scenes after she married Sean Thornton (John Wayne) and moved into his cottage with him, she insisted that she wanted "her things about her." The love found within my house is, of course, the thing that makes it feel like home. Still, like Mary Kate Dannaher, I feel a strong connection to and want to have some of "my things about me."  Wooden items are some of those "things." Over the decades, heat, humidity and cleaning can take a toll on wood ...

 My God the Master paints the most magnificent paintings! What a blessing it was to see this sunset from my front porch this evening! The Master Paints Have a beautiful week, friends!