Snowed In? YES! Wait... nope

I know the weather can change quickly anywhere but I've lived in three states and I've not seen the weather changes we have in Colorado anywhere else. Look at this chronology:

• On Thursday I was home from the office. I sat on the deck in a tank top and shorts and knitted until the winds picked up late in the morning. The winds were bringing cold weather from the north. That, in itself, is unusual for us. We usually get our weather from the WNW or WSW.

• Snow started after 1am overnight and Friday morning brought slippery roads and many accidents. We heard sirens from our office all day. The snow persisted into the evening and we had 10"-12" in my area. I think my sister reported 18"-20" at her house (higher altitude.)
• Roads were still treacherous early Saturday morning but then the sun came out and the roads were CLEAR when I drove to church around 5pm Saturday afternoon. I should have taken a photo Saturday morning. I had to shovel a path through a foot of snow on the deck to get to the bin where I store the bird food!
  
• Sunday was beautiful, most of the snow melted off the deck and it was tank top and shorts temps again in the sunshine :-)

So what did I do during this fickle time? I had fun! On Saturday morning I visited with my sister on the phone and tried to give her a pep talk to help her dive into doing their taxes. (I found out later I was a total failure in that respect but she had fun too.) Then I spent some time sewing on the quilt blocks for my Tuscan quilt. Here are a few of them and the colors came out kind of close in the photo.

I took a break from the sewing to do a bit of cooking. I was thinking about a way to use up some of the spiral ham while I was sewing. I was inspired with an idea for a new dish and had to put it together so I could have a taste before church. I made a creamy white sauce and seasoned it with chopped celery and onions. Then I layered it with sliced potatoes, ham, chopped carrots and cheddar cheese. I topped it off with a bit more sauce and cheese and baked it for 60 minutes. Voila - a tasty dish and the funnest part is that everything came off my pantry shelves in the form of dehydrated or freeze-dried foods except the ham.

On Sunday I sewed some more on the quilt blocks and then baked bread. This week's loaves are sans fruits. The additions this week are sunflowers and chopped walnuts. It makes a great toast - the flavor of the seeds and nuts really come out in the toasted bread.

I finished the last quilt block in the afternoon. Yeay!! Now they will all be joined by lattice work in a bright Tuscan coral red that will (hopefully) make more of the colors pop. Here's a photo of some of the squares with the lattice fabric next to them. Below the red lattice fabric is the yellow cream fabric that I'll be using for the backing. A few more weekends and I should be ready to start quilting it. I think I'll do a machine quilting rather than hand quilting so I can get it done. It will live above the mantle of the fireplace in my kitchen eventually. The kitchen is now painted in Tuscan colors that were picked to coordinate with the quilt. Since none of the paint or fabrics came with Garanimal tags, I'm not sure how it will all come together but I'm hopeful it will be fun and happy when it's all done.

These last photos are mainly for Valerie's benefit. She's trying to keep track of anything she needs to bring to the states from India when they move back later this year. I mentioned to her that she should be sure to buy a few of the little bowls that have become my favorite mise en place bowls. I picked them up in India last year for (I think) Rs 47 each (a little less than $1 US.) The bowls are 3.5" across, tapered on the bottom and are made of stainless steel.They're so handy and only about half to one-third the cost of similar mise en place bowls here. I got them at Big Bazaar but maybe you can find them at More!