Daddy Says...

"You'll never cut yourself with a sharp knife!"

I wish that was true! But my experience would indicate otherwise. Since I keep my knives *nice and sharp*, just like Daddy taught me, when my knife slips, oops! I end up in need of stitches or, better yet, derma-bond and steri-strips.

This latest casualty happened at girls camp while cutting jalapenos. I got a seed under my thumb nail and when I went to flick it out with one of my other nails I made a fist and sliced into the side of my thumb! Ah well, I've done seen worse!

But you know this latest casualty (which has healed nicely, thank you Shannon!) got me to thinking about cutting implements and my affinity for them.  Again, I can give credit to my Daddy. When I was in my mid-teens Daddy got me a wonderful gift (that keeps on giving!)

How can you NOT love an array of cutters like this?

Daddy taught me how to sharpen these babies...

The wooden handles have held up well since I don't frequently wash them in the dishwasher. But my poor cleaver... that's a different story!

Back in the day before microwaves I used to use this with a hammer to break apart frozen meat. If I could wind back the knife-clock I would do that one differently.

My very favorite pair of scissors that Daddy got me were my button hole scissors.

I don't use them often but I'm so grateful for them every time I do.

And my scalloped pinking shears? The are the best...

But how does one get these sharpened?

This, fortunately, isn't a cutter! It is my Mama's *spatulator*. I've been told that it started life longer than this but one day it got stuck in the beaters of the mixer and Daddy had to shorten it and make a new rounded edge. This old friend has spread enough frosting to cover the state of California!

These? These are of recent date. I got them at my favorite Bosch store in Orem. Yeah, see that green one there? That is the culprit. Now here's the funniest part... I grew up KNOWING these were called *Perry-knives*

And I can't even bring myself to post photos of my knife drawer or stash of scissors! It's a bit of an obsession for me. I can never have too many cutters!

Just yesterday while shopping at *Bed, Bath and Beyond Linens* (just for you Auntie P) I found these babies! Whee-haw... another cutter!

Black Petunia

Last spring I blogged about my attraction to purple. There is just something wonderful about purple.

So when I saw this *black* petunia clearanced at Home Depot on the last day of May I snapped it up!



Frankly I have to FORCE myself to buy other colors to come live in my garden. I could easily have an all purple garden.

This pretty pet resides in my flower bed the runs along the PAW-th at the back of the house. It is joined there by some lighter purple petunias, some lighter-purple-yet mums, the lilac bushes and a newly planted lavender...

SEE! I told you I have a purple addiction!

Why do we do such thing?

This seems to be the question... why do we do the things we do? I certainly don't have an answer for that question! But before I digress in to some the the things I DO, I need to talk about what WE have done...

It appears that the cookbook is nearing completion. But not without a few more bumps in the road. We never dreamed that so many recipes would be turned in. We had close to 1100 (Morris Press only shows pricing for up to 1050. And, no, we didn't win the prize, some other crack-head ladies did one with 1800 recipes!). Somewhere along the way we got the idea of combining recipes. I even called the folks at Morris Press to ask if this was ok, we didn't want to do all that work for nothing. I was assured that this was ok to do. So we started combining with a vengeance, and not without some interesting results (see the aforementioned link).

So here we are, right down to the wire, June 30th is the deadline for all the money-saving offers we want to take advantage of. We are firming up how the order needs to go in, how many we need, what style tabbed dividers we want, etc. So on Wed 6/25 (yeah, 5 days to deadline!) Debra called Morris Press again with all of our last minute questions. The more questions she asked the less the people on the other end of the phone knew. Finally they connected her with some who really did know!

When I got home from my day at the Temple on Wednesday evening Debra broke the bad news (I just knew it was going to be that they didn't want my cover!) Nope, perhaps worse... all the combining... welp, the system, computer, whatever; wouldn't recognize that many "variation/parts" and would throw out the offending recipe, thereby losing all of them!

Nobly we started uncombining again, and let me tell you, this is no easy feat! The Type'nSave program is a database of sorts with each portion of the recipe going into its own cell. So, for example, 1 / (10oz) / can / mandarin oranges, took 4 separate cells and thus for each ingredient. Fortunately, the directions could be cut and pasted. But can you say "Time-Consuming"? Yeah, me too.

While we were all working down at Diane and Debra's house we started taking about, "Never AGAIN!"- things we have done and wondering "how on earth did I ever get myself into this" situations.

I felt pretty certain that I had the winner- Camille's first year of cheer leading back in 1994 (she was only in 4th grade). We found out the the cheer uniforms were going to be so expensive, about $200 per girl. But how could that be, it was ridiculous! I could make them for so much less! So I did (said the Little Red Hen). THIRTY-SIX darling little uniforms; 36 cute little (and, not so little) gold leotards and 37 cute little purple skirts with gold pleats and a darling bib top! (One had to be remade because one of the cheerleaders gained 10 # in the 6-weeks it took from fitting to delivery!)




But then Diane told me about her adventure in bears... 500 BEARS! (500 bears for a Stake Relief Society day eons ago and she just unloaded the last 40 in a garage sale!!!) Yeah, she won, hands down.

What makes us do such things? Do we think we are Super-Woman, Shera-Warrior Princess? I have no idea!

If you have any thoughts on the matter, get back to me. Or better yet see if you can top Diane's 500 RS bears

Serious OCD/Addiction

This is the Saturday- Today- Start to Finish Challenge.

1. You'll take a photo of the assigned topic (this is the start part)
2. You'll edit your photo, and create a page with your photo using the prompts.
3. You'll save your layout and upload it to the gallery (this is the finish part).

The trick? From start-to-finish (well, I'll let you have your photo taken and open, and your papers chosen and open), you've only got 30 minutes. :D I want you to get out your timer, and you can have your paper open and your photo all ready to go, and even have your font installed and ready to use, but from the Start of your layout to the Finish, challenge yourself to 30 minutes or less. P.S. This layout must be from scratch - no templates...

I find that since I am in MT and JS is in ET I get my emails about 11-12 at night. I thought I would just glance at it last night so I could gear up for today.

Well... this is where the OCD comes in. I HAD to do the LO right then! It was fun, but I don't like having to work within a 30 min time limit.

" It is only an addiction if you are trying to quit!"

I saw this quote on someone else's post for this assignment.