Winter Storm Watch

My brother Peter and his wife gave me a North Carolina cookbook several years ago. It contained a recipe for oatmeal cake which was titled "Hurricane Watch Cake". I am thinking that I might need to bake it this evening for our storm watch. The recipe is probably a Betty Crocker original, since it is the same oatmeal cake that Mom made for us when we were young. Good, no matter the origin.

It has been quite the fall in a number of ways. I had put off doing shrub pruning in the Mary Garden at St. John Cantius. Not the first time that I have waited until mid or late November, but with the predicted snow storm, I knew that I had to get cracking last Friday. I was able to prune one potentilla and most of one spirea in just an hour, but I still had several to go. Yesterday I did the remaining three potentilla and a massive trimming of the old fashioned roses surrounding the statue. I knew the biggest challenge would be getting the cuttings home. I cut and bent everything to get it into bags. By putting one bag into the car instead of the trunk, and by bundling and bending the last set of branches, I managed to cram it all in. I finished clean-up just as it was getting to ark to work. The rest of the spirea can wait until spring.

In the midst of pruning, I found a plastic Easter egg. It just so happens that I was responsible for that egg's being there. About 15 years ago, we had a homeschool Easter party at St. John Cantius. I had stuffed the eggs, and asked the youth group to hide them for the younger kids. Finding the egg gave me a much needed laugh. I have to admit that anyone seeing me kneeling on the ground in the middle of the flower bed laughing to myself probably thought I was loony, but that laugh was a blessing at a time of great stress.

I finished two Laura Childs tea shop mysteries, and enjoyed them both. Clean, and easy to read. I copied quite a few recipes out of them. I have already tested two. They are both keepers. Prior to that I had read a Miss Seeton by Heron Carvic, which I did not like at all. The dialog style drove me nuts. It was much too busy.

I am making some inroads into my UFO's. I finished a sun dress for Maja, which she has insisted on wearing a few times already. I am over half way done with my wool turkey candle mat, which I had purchased at a quilt show three or four years ago. It was supposed to have been a gift, but I decided the the person for whom it was intended did not really need it, and may not appreciate it. The lycra knit in the beautiful fall pallet which I had had pegged for myself was not large enough for the desired dresses. One piece is now cut out for a dress for Maja. The other will also be used for her. I do a few rows on my shawl here and there, but still have more than half of the last skein of yarn left.

I have started playing my clarinet again. It will take some time to remember all of the notes that I have lost, but I want to be ready for when the grandchildren join band so that we can play together. Tom Strang, our former band instructor, has invited me to play with the current homeschool band. I think I will do that.   

Another Book Under My Belt

I have had a copy of The Spanish Match (Brennan Pursell, Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH, 2011) on my shelf since it came out five years ago. I jumped at the title since I had been reading other books of that same time period. I knew that Charles I of England had been dethroned and executed by the Puritans. One of my knitting books has a picture of the tunic he wore on the day of his execution. I also knew that St. Claude de la Colombiere fit in there somewhere with one of the monarch's, whose wife was Catholic. I had heard that James I was homosexual, and yet I also knew he had children. I also knew some of the Spanish royalty through my reading on Isabelle and Ferdinand, Catherine of Aragon and Philip II. At any rate, you get the idea of what made me snatch up the book when it was published.

I give The Spanish Match a low rating for two reasons. First, if a person is familiar with history, he already knows how the book ends, so there is no real suspense to the story. Second, unless a person is very well versed in the controversies surrounding this royal courtship, it is too difficult to determine what in the book is real, and what is an entire work of fiction, in spite of the author's disclaimer at the end of the book.. I had to go back to my reference book on the kings and queens of England to get a grip on the time period and the personalities, and to be able to distinguish at least in small part between truth and fiction. The up side of the book might be that he does not sugar coat the self serving behavior of the royals or the courtiers. Philip IV's French queen is portrayed as a cold, selfish wife, and the Duke of Buckingham as the lecher he apparently really was (I do not think he was bisexual in the sense of having a real attraction for men, but rather that he acted out of political expediency).  Philip is portrayed as having affection and consideration of the Infanta, his sister Maria. The one thing in the book which made me pause was the picture of Catholic Spain at a time when meat was not allowed during the entire season of lent. Talk about penance! For the peasantry who probably did not have much variety in food to begin with, this would have limited choices even further. For those who were better off who were accustomed to meat, this would have been a great sacrifice. Just another example of how weak we are today in comparison to our forefathers.

If this book had been better I would pass it along to one friend or another. As it is, I will either donate it to the Treasure Chest, or leave it at Catholic Charities for someone to pick up for free.

On another note, I purchased the new, numbers stamps and framelits from Stampin' Up. I have to make an anniversary card for a friend, so I will get to use that set this week. I am not sure why it took Stampin' Up so long to come out with a set like that. I am guessing that it will be a big seller. It will work for graduations, anniversaries, and birthdays. Adding numbers is a great way to personalize a card.

I got my three shelves put up in the basement for my stamping supplies. I can't say that it makes it much easier to get at my stuff than the old system of plastic bins and baskets which I had upstairs, I still have to open almost every bin whenever I go to make a card, and then I have to haul everything upstairs. At least it is not as difficult to dig through my stamp sets. I can get to my punches a little bit easier, too.

Got my three thrift store skirts altered and mended. I am looking forward to wearing the wool wrap, although it would be more exciting if it were -40 as it was in Minnesota winters gone by. It has to get ironed first, however. No telling how long that will take!

My wardrobe is almost exclusively in my autumn palette now. I discovered that I prefer the darker oranges, rusts and terra cottas to the lighter pumpkin color. I was thrilled to find an orange dress blouse at Saver's, but after spending all kinds of time altering it, the color  is not as rich as I first thought. Oh! Well!