Comfortable Domesticity

Even though I've made numerous statements about how boring and lonely it is here, there is something comfortable and familiar about being surrounded by cornfields. You can even find fields in the middle of cities throughout the Midwest. We never lived on a farm growing up but our small town was surrounded by them. I wholeheartedly respect farmers. I took this picture a few miles outside of town. In this part of Illinois, it's usually either corn or soybean being planted. My gram's church has a small bit of land on which they grow corn, and it's some of the best corn I have tasted. Speaking of things tasting good...

I made zucchini pancakes again, this time with buttermilk pancake mix instead of biscuit mix, and diced jalapeno peppers. They were the best batch I've made so far. Gram didn't think of them as highly as I did though. 

Dinner tonight was fantastic. Gram made me in charge of cooking dinner, which doesn't happen very often. She can't tolerate how little salt and butter I cook with. I've been thinking of different ways to make quinoa and tonight I made quinoa barbecue. I cooked the quinoa in the rice cooker as normal, and then added Sweet Baby Ray's sweet & spicy sauce. OH MY GOODNESS! It was amazing! The quinoa is a healthy substitute for meat and any sauce made by SBR makes anything taste great. Next time I will try to make sloppy quinoa instead of sloppy joe's. Quinoa might be my favorite food now.

After a couple of months off, I've begun crocheting again. My mom gave me some wool yarn for my birthday and I've been staring at it for months trying to think of something to make with it. And then it came to me: a messenger bag for Fall. The colors are gorgeous and it's really fun working with wool yarn. I'm already done with the sides, bottom, and the front of the inside, with all of it sewed together as well. Unless something drastic happens, I hope to have it finished by next week.  If there is enough yarn left over, I might make a matching coin purse or wallet.

A friend of mine recently commented on my crocheting so I offered to crochet him something. One of my favorite things to crochet are beanie hats. I found a pattern for one about two years ago and have been making them for other people ever since. The first couple of hats turned out really bad and I ended up redoing one of them. Now I think I have perfected  the pattern. It's really easy to make (once you understand what the pattern is telling you to do) and it only takes a few hours to make if you fight through the hand cramps. The picture doesn't do the hat justice, like the rest of my pictures, but it's easy to see the pattern. Since one of my mom's dogs chewed up my winter hat before I moved down here, I might have to make me another one before it gets too cold. 

A scary thing happened last night. I was outside talking on the phone when Gram sent me a text saying she had fallen on the floor and needed help getting up. Normally I'm able to pick her up if she can turn over onto her knees. But her knees were swollen and bruised. I even put the gait belt around her but couldn't do it. I was completely useless. She called my uncle and he and my cousin came over. Gran was very sore but I can't stress enough how incredibly lucky we were that she didn't break anything. It's not the first time she's fallen without an obvious reason why. She went to the cardiologist today and he put a heart monitor on her. If her heart is causing the falls, then the monitor should pick it up.

I'm about fed u with our garden. The tomatoes and beans were pretty much a bust, though we did get some tomatoes here and there. Something dug up two of our cabbage plants and one zucchini plant. I saved the cabbages and replanted the zucchini plant, but it didn't survive. We had a couple of nights with a frost advisory but the green peppers and jalapeno peppers are still growing. I think I will be making salsa at some point. If I can get some pears, Gram and I will make be making and canning pear jam.

That's all for now. Until next time,

~Staci~