Cooking class at BD Kitchens

Ann and I had an interesting cooking class at BD tonight.  It was a mahi with mango salsa and a Mediterranean salad and a frangipani crème mousse dessert.
All but the fish was good!  But you know I don’t like fish.  I went for other reasons.  Reasons that will become apparent at some point.
here are the pictures from the class:
The chef instructor cut up the salad and made a really nice Mediterranean salad with a light dressing of salad vinegar, garlic and olive oil.  He put dried mint in the salad that is grown in the garden behind the restaurant. 
 
Get it yet?
Then he made the Mahi with Mango Salsa with red pepper and some green onion.  The mango was not ripe so it was not a sweet as it could have been.  But passable.

Get it yet?

Of course I don’t like fish so I am not really a good judge of whether it was good or not.  But I am leaning toward not so good because of the problem with the mango not being ripe.  The presentation on the plate was lacking because it was a large plate and a small piece of fish.  I would have plated TWO pieces of fish there.  But…….just saying.
The dessert, how could anyone mess up this dessert!  It was a good thing all around.  And easy to do.  Vanilla pudding, heavy whipping cream and frangipani liquor.  It was the prettiest thing all night.  No matter what angle you look at it, it still looks good!
 
So, you say, if I don’t like fish, why would I have taken this class?

This is the boyfriend from hell.  And when I walked in he knew I was there!  He told Wanda he knew me and he was pretty sure I didn’t like him.  I think he is right.  Although, I am glad he has found something he can be successful doing, I sincerely hope he has learned other lessons as well.
It was the best $50 I have spent in a long while! 
glen

In the news again.....

http://www.wbrz.com/news/woman-admits-to-dumping-animals-at-caaws/

Click on the link and then click on the video section on the left side.  You will see the story that aired today at 5 pm.

I did the interview for Inside Edition this afternoon at the CAAWS shelter as well.

Here are some stills of the afternoon.

glen

Segmented Solids Swap Is Complete!

Here is my picture:

Here are my fabrics:

Here is the middle:

Here is the finished piece!

Dutch update - The boy is home

I want to thank everyone for all your posts and well wishes for the Dutchman.  I don't have the time right now to personally contact you all, too many things are going on today.  It piles up and piles up and piles up and I struggle to handle it all.  Valerie is helping me this morning with Dutch while I take Frank for his colonoscopy.  Like we couldn't have rescheduled that? 

Dutch is home and after 3 hours is finally resting. When they shaved his leg you can see he is gray underneath but still see his patterns of color.

I was not prepared for him to not be walking on his leg at all. I thought he would only be limping. the incision is only about an inch and a half on the side of his back leg just below his knee. It is all swollen and I have been putting an ice bag on it when he lets me. He doesn't like the cold.

It looks like he has been shot or something. I'll bet he feels like a tractor ran over him. He has not gone to pee yet. I am sure that will be fun. we have to literally carry him at
his full 98.8 lbs! Yes, fun.

We should hear from the biopsy end of this week or beginning of next.

Like I said earlier, let it be the fungal osteo myelitis....please!!

UPDATE:  he moved around last night several times by himself, but his leg is still not working properly.  This morning he peed and feels a WHOLE lot better!  LOL. 

My sweet boy...glen

Design wall Monday 7-25 - 11

I am busy this morning taking Dutch in for a biopsy to see if he has either bone cancer or fungal osteomyelitis.  I am hoping for the osteomyelitis because it is treatable.  The bone cancer is just to horrible to think about.

We just have to wait for 5 days for the results.  Cross your fingers for my boy, send positive thoughts for me and him!

But I am working on this as a last item for the show.  This is all hand quilted with lime green crochet thread and follows no pattern.  I started a year ago at a retreat and am just now finishing up.  The quilting stitches are large, and I wanted that effect.  It looks wonderful and I am very glad it is nearly done and ready to hang.

We hang the quilts from the ceiling this Thursday and Friday at the Jones Creek Library.  So come see them in August.  They will hang the entire month.  Open house is August 6 from 10 to 2 pm with demos and people there to talk to about the quilts.

I will have pictures of that, and I am sure a few stories too!
glen

Waiting, the Louisiana Blue Dog, the Farmer's Market and Lorenzo

Waiting for the morning to bring Dutch in for his bone biopsy.  It is a mostly calm day, rainy but without the terror and fear of the original diagnosis of just plain bone cancer.  the hope is that the biopsy comes back with the fungal osteomyelitis diagnosis instead.  That is the best outcome for us here.  So we are waiting.

 This is Valerie's house by the way, the french drains were overwhelmed with the 3.75 inches that fell in about an hour.

And friend and fellow blogger from Geema's Wonderings spent Saturday night at the ER Vet Clinic at LSU with her Lorenzo.  The little guy stood his own against three bigger dogs.  He has some broken ribs and they are waiting to stabilize him for surgery on Monday.  He is a tough little guy and seems determined to go home.  He says he has some different plans for those dogs this next time!  Here's sending healing thoughts to him and steady hands to the surgeons tomorrow.  And I know Charlene and hubby want him home as soon as they can get him there!

I distracted myself with the Farmer's Market yesterday.  got some okra

And some corn  and some peaches

and some figs

and some honey

Then I went to the Louisiana Cajun Blue Dog Show at the Shaw Center yesterday.  George Rodrigues' Louisiana Blue Dog is his trademark work that has been shown all over the world.  The Blue Dog is a Loup Garou, which is a Cajun Werewolf.  The Loup Garou my grandmother scared us with was not nearly as cute as this guy!

Rodrigue did ad campaigns for Xerox.  And has painted many famous people's portraits, mostly related to Louisiana and the Cajuns.  But he did Ronald Reagan as well.  Very talented man. 

Here is a Journal Cover.  You can see his studio and more of his art at

http://www.georgerodrigue.com/rodrigue/bio.htm

Don't you just love his stuff.  And that Blue Dog is a killer! 

My little salt and pepper dogs are jealous!

Vet report on Dutch tonight

Vet called tonight. Report was interesting.

There was two possibilities offered up.

One of course, is that it is a tumor and thus osteosarcoma or bone cancer. Two vets at the vet office both had gut diagnoses that it was bone cancer.

The other possibility is fungal osteo myelitis. Most osteo myelitis is bacterial but there is some reason they think it is fungal instead. It is rare. rare indeed. Vet said osteo myelitis mimics cancer so that would make sense. But it is treatable. And that is a big big big deal.

Monday I will bring him in for a bone biopsy and we will have the final answer. I am crossing fingers and toes for the fungus to be the final diagnosis. That is what I want to happen.

They also said the found the the fibula has a hairline fracture. One of the ways you can get osteo myelitis is through a break in a bone. Another way  is through a cracked or open tooth and he does have a crack in his tooth.

But there is still the strong possibility that he has bone cancer.

It is exhausting dealing with this.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. For those who thinks he is "just a dog". You are  missing the joy of pure love filled companionship with no strings ever attached. He is so much more than just a dog.

glen

Bad morning

Well, I had a bad morning.  I took Dutch to the vet for his annual physical and had the vet re-xray his left rear leg from when DiNozzo ran into him 4 months ago. 

The x-rays are going to the LSU Radiologist because he suspects Dutch has osteosarcoma.

I felt like he knocked the air totally out of my lungs.  And I still find it hard to breathe. 

Of course he says we can't get upset about it until the radiologist has made his statement.

But I still can't breathe

glen

My Alzheimer mother and the silent auction

The Remember Me Quilt Guild Auction competes with the River City Guild Auction every year.  But this year REME decided to move their shindig up to July and get the jump on River City.  And let me tell you, they most certainly did!

Tonight was their Country Fair at REME.  It is a huge auction of tons of fabric, notions, gadgets, quilts, and food.  The Cake Walk was just like I remembered in Elementary School!  And I stayed away from it!

I did win $128 in stuff at the Silent Auction and bought about $13 in stuff at the table.  But never did I win anything in the  30 or so Door Prizes they gave out.  I just don't win those things! 

And I picked up a whole cloth quilt to learn hand quilting.  I have been wanting one of these and have nearly bought one for $79.99 several times in the last few years.  Here was one for $10!

My friend Jo Paula won the First Prize for her Bonnie Hunter Pineapple Blossom Quilt!  She was totally excited!

Valerie racked up some nice fabric batches to start her stash with.  Now that she is quilting she needs a stash.  When she was collecting her winning stuff, she came to me with a totally puzzled look on her face.  She was holding a bread basket that she won but had never bid on.  LOL.

It reminded me of when we brought my Alzheimer Mother to the Michael Young Fest.  I guess I can tell this now.   I bought $10 in raffle tickets and gave them to her.  I told her to find some things she liked and drop her tickets into the buckets next to the items.  She wandered around the room happily dropping tickets into buckets.  I stopped paying attention at some point. 

All of a sudden i realize that she is taking tickets OUT of buckets and putting them in OTHER buckets. 

I can tell you that there were a lot of really confused people who won stuff they never dropped tickets in for.  We still laugh about that one.

There are so many ways you can have fun at the Quilt Fairs and Auctions.  And if you want some good laughs, I will lend you my mother!

glen

Got this from Ami Simms at AAQI

I have three small quilts in the AAQI auction right now.  7145, 7145 and 7184.  They are individually dedicated to my mom, my Aunt Edith and Ann's Aunt Millie.  Three wonderfully old women who had Alzhimer's Disease.  My mom still is battling it, but losing ground each day. 

As you know, the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative auctions small quilts during the first 10 days of each month. Well, our August online quilt auction will be a "hum dinger." We're going to be auctioning off 20 quilts from the first traveling exhibit, "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece." The selection includes quilts by Diane Gaudynski, Sue Nickels, Mary Stori, Marsha McCloskey, Nancy Brenan Daniel, Melody Crust, Mary Stori, Elsie Campbell, Debbie Bowles and others. Please see our home page for details: http://www.alzquilts.org/


This will take you to the page for the Quilt Auction:

http://www.alzquilts.org/quiltauction.html

This site is to the auction hosts to bid on August 1st:

http://www.benefitbidding.com/listings/categories/index.cfm?category=965774286

If you can think of any other way to promote this very special auction have at it: web page, FaceBook, guild newsletter, other online groups you belong to....it's all good.

Again, thank you for helping us make a difference, one quilt at a time.....or in this particular case, one blog at a time.

Ami : )
Founder & Executive Director, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

More than $552,000 raised for Alzheimer's research since January 2006. Help us make a difference...one quilt at a time.

Home is the Sewer, Home From the Retreat…..Huh?

When I demonstrated curve piecing for the leaves, I started out talking about the sign I saw at a quilt shop on the last vacation to San Diego, CA.   I was startled to see the sign say Sewers for people who sew and not Quilters which would have not sounded like the underground sewer system.

It is a cute sign, but would have been more effective as Quilters Parking Only!

The retreat was a blast.  We laughed, ate everything in sight and sewed out fingers off.  Everyone had stuff to work on and turned out a lot of stuff.  Here is a sampling of what we had going on.  I know I took a picture of Heide but I don’t see it in the group.  I am charging the battery so hopefully it will still be in the camera when I get it back together. 

Just scroll down to the end to see all the work we did.  We really did a lot.

Houses for the Habitat For Humanity Raffle Quilt.  We need more so get working on a Wonky House from Tonya Ricucci's Wonky Houses.

We do have her permission to put this in the raffle in October to raise money for the Habitat Houses.  We are also making several quilts for the houses they complete as well.

 

 

 

Charlene and I sat next to each other, and she didn't steal any of my stuff.  In fact we communally forgot several of the same things, like a seam ripper (but who makes mistakes anyway?) and had to keep borrowing from Karol.  Although she kept the seam ripper going hot and heavy. 

 

 

 

Here is Karol’s $#%@^ Charity Quilt!   She worked so hard all weekend!  But it will be beautiful!

 

 

Becky worked on several things including her Round Robin from last year.  Jessie and I added rows to this beauty.  It is nearly complete.

Becky also worked on a huge King sized neutral quilt for her good friend.  It is breathtaking to see all those neutrals party like it is 1999! 

 

 

Caroline did the quilting on her Angle Play Stars from a class we both took a couple years ago.  And she just recently won birdhouses in a lotto at River City.  They look just like her style!

 

Can you see Charlene hiding behind her teal and chartreuse quilt?  She’s back there!  These are the sweeties she put together this weekend.  I love them all.  Some of the blocks for the lighter quilts were already done but she did have to piece about 1/2 of them.  They are both from the laser cutting done by John Flynn.  Very precise cuts made the many pieces of these blocks go together well. 

 

 

Linda worked on a couple of things but she put the binding on the top Jessie had quilted for her.  This will go to her brother.  It was bright and beautiful and totally fun.

Jessie’s wall kept changing.  She had a number of projects to work on like the BOM Stars from Hell.  Not the official title but you know exactly what she means there.  And that Blue Crumb top.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie had the Judy Laquidara Morning Splash that nearly bested her.  The braids are fro a string braid quilt.  And here are her crumb quilts going together. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of the Judy Laquidara morning Splash, Valerie B just had to show off her work on that one. The border is a bit complicated but she is working steadily on it.  The other quilt is a BQ quilt that everyone fell in love with.  It kept growing and growing and growing all weekend. (PS The link to the album won’t work so don’t try it!) 

View Full Album

(See, I told you it didn’t work.)  The next one won’t either.

 

View Full Album

These are my little babies.  The red/gray is a Bonnie Hunter Playing With Jacks from the workshop earlier this year.  Ann’s Letty Bag I promised her for her birthday last week.  The England Quilt and the Black and Red Charity Quilt needed binding.  And the Cross The Pond Quilt needed binding as well.

 

 

I completed the quilting on the Baby Quilt for Dennis’s new little grilie. It needs binding and then it will hang in the show for a while and THEN go to the baby.

 

I worked on the Leaves all day Saturday.  It is truly the ultimate community quilt./  I put the blocks on the design wall and all day long people would pass by, move a block, change a position, add a strip of material.  It kept moving toward complete with each step.  Finally, late afternoon I did the Happy Dance and decreed it finished.  Here are three of the versions along the way.

 

 

 

Looking good!

 

 

 

Just below is the final final final quilt top!

 

   

 

I think it is gorgeous!  The Virtual Bee People will be in awe of my amazing talents with what I did with all their blocks.

 

glen