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Thursday, December 5, 2013

22 has arrived

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Now let me tell you about my cake.

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I used a recipe from our Better Homes and Gardens cookbook for the cake layers and recipes from another book for the frosting etcetera.

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This was my first time making caramel and candied walnuts!

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We had it with Vanilla Bean ice cream. There are plenty of leftovers yet.:)

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Pre-Birthday-Birthday

Yesterday, as an early “Happy Birthday!” to me, some of us went to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha and out to eat at Charleston’s(Thanks Dad!).

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The museum was built in the Art Deco style(very nice).

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A few of my favorites:

Giorgio Cornaro with a Falcon by Titian Tiziano Vecellio, 1537 (I could’ve used a pronunciation key for some of the names there.)

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In the Teton Range, 1899

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By Thomas Moran

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And this may very well be my favorite painting of the day.

Portrait of Sir Samuel Shepherd, 1796 (By Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.)

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I love it when their eyes are painted this way—with detail, softness, and luminescence.

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This is just fantastic…I have a whole list of reasons why I think so…Love it! Love it!

A parting shot of lights in the city.

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Hhmm, I may blog my cake next, but that’s not finished.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Chipping in With Desserts

For Thanksgiving

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I ended up improvising a lot on this pie.

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It’s elderberry-peach. :)

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Ok, at one point the top didn’t seem done enough—Fine, just put some foil around the edge and bake it some more. I completely forgot about it. And it wasn’t for any five minutes either. When I remembered and took it out of the oven, it was golden, but not burnt.

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Thank you Lord!

And I have a Pumpkin White Chocolate Souffle Cake.

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You can find the recipe for it in the October issue of Victoria Bliss magazine.

It’s so wonderful to have so much good food at my fingertips; and to be able to cook and bake. Thank you Lord for that!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Friday, November 8, 2013

Family History: Grandpa Charles

My great-great grandpa

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These are a couple of pages from my Grandma Marion’s family history. I tweaked them a bit.

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My grandma and her grandpa…

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Grandma wrote a little page for me about grandpa Charles.

I didn’t want to tear it out of the book; so your version gets to be a little blurry. :( Pardon me for that.

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The uncle mentioned is Tracy.

 

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Front(This picture was tiny.)

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Back

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Mae was Grandma’s little(and only)sister.

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Grandpa Charles would come over to there house for Sunday dinners. Great-grandma Lillian would always make mashed potatoes(and he loved her mashed potatoes.) :)

I may do a post about Clayton and/or Lillian next!

Monday, November 4, 2013

Philippians 1:6

Studying holiness and eternal security today

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Saturday, November 2, 2013

P.S. Grandma Dawkins

I found another photo of her! And did a fair amount of editing to tidy it up…

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It’s nice that she’s smiling in this one. :)

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Weatherproofing

Here and there, my dad has been working on weatherproofing the exterior of his woodshop(and has called on my help at times). Last Saturday we got the boards up on the south side.

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This rotating hammer drill penetrates through the boards and into the concrete blocks.

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After which the boards are secured using special…

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High density styrofoam insulation is put between the boards, then everything is covered in house wrap. (The shiny, silver stuff is window wrap.)

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He’s planning on covering all of this with steel siding.

It’s been a little adventure for me! :)

Thursday, October 24, 2013

An Early Canadian Thanksgiving

I decided to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving a day early this year(now Sunday-before-last). Mum and I did most of the preparation, with dad and Shaina helping out a bit.

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I’m getting into the habit of my Grandma’s Canadian pork pie for this holiday. She wrote the recipe for me by hand. :)

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Herbed Vegetables, Pumpkin pie,

PicMonkey CollageAnd last but not least—Cherry Cheesecake! I use one recipe for the cheesecake bit and another for the cherry topping.

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It’s based off of Nigella Lawson’s recipe, and seems a lot less fiddly than a baked cheesecake.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Family History:Grandma & Grandpa Dawkins

This is the only picture I’ve seen of my great-great Grandma Dawkins(that I can remember).

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The order of things:

Elizabeth D.

Lillian (Dawkins) Carleton

Marion (Carleton) North

Andrew North

Me

She and her husband, Edwin, moved from New Berton On Trent, England to Dryden, Ontario, when my great-Grandma Lillian was four. They had at least 3 other children: Annie, Florence, and Lucy. Grandma North lived far away and never got to meet Elizabeth. She met Edwin once, though, after she had married, and was moving away from her family home in Orkney, Saskatchewan to Simco, Ontario. The train she and grandpa were on stopped near where Edwin and his second wife lived(grandma couldn’t remember her name); so they had a brief visit. Her step-grandmother fixed tea; and grandma remembers that Edwin put milk and sugar in his wife’s tea for her. :)

That’s all for now! I will try to include more pictures(than just one)in the next post.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Canning Projects

This Year I’ve…

Pickled

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Relished

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Tomatoed

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And Appled

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The cupboards are pretty happy at this point. We’ll see if I do more.