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Archive for Renee Spindle

Is Your Household Battling this Cold Thingy?

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Ok New Year’s fans it’s only the second week of the New Year, and I’m tired of my family being sick. We all have had a cold and cough for the past week or so, every single one of us. Sneezing, coughing, kleenex, cough syrup, cough drops, Emergen C. I did not have a big enough stock pile for all of us to have colds at the same time. Yikes!!

Break out the Lysol, Clorox wipes, and hand sanitizer. This thing has got to go away, enough already. This is southern California for heaven’s sake. Land of sunshine, and warm weather. We should be at the beach or Disneyland, not sitting at home sniffling, and coughing. This cold has been seriously eating into my New Year’s resolutions to get fit, and healthy. What’s a girl to do.

What we’ve been doing is watching a ton of movies, and we got hooked on this PBS series called Doc Martin. My parents recommended it, and we are hooked. And of course we’ve been drinking lots of water, eating lots and lots of soup (most of it home-made too!), getting plenty of rest, and just taking care of one another.

Travel Man is scheduled out of the country next week, I’m only slightly worried because he got the cold thingy first and is a few days ahead of the rest of us, and finally feeling pretty good. I know he’ll be fine, he just has to remember to drink lots of water.

Let me know how the cold factor is fairing in your neck of the woods. Is your family flying through winter unscathed by the cold and flu? Or is your house a cold battle zone? I’m off to get some kleenex, the soft variety of course. Hope you all have a great weekend.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family

On becoming a Grandma, again.

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Madison with her Nana.
December 2012

For any of you who follow my blog regularly you know that last November we welcomed our granddaughter into the family. Such a sweet, little cutie pie. It’s amazing to me that when the family tree expands, your heart just becomes filled beyond overflowing with happiness and joy.

It’s a multi-part thing; you are ecstatic to have a new member in the family, you are ecstatic to see your children become wonderful parents. And nothing can compare to the joy on your own mother’s face when she becomes a great-grandma for the second time around, our resident, “Nana”. Plus, in my family we are especially blessed because my grandmother shares in this joy long distance. So, we have a great-great grandma in the family. We are able to Skype with her once in a while so she can say hi to all the grandkids, great grandkids, and the great-great’s too!!

5 Generations from July 2006
My Mom, Grandma & myself
Standing is daughter, Naomi with Evan.

My Grandma sent me a little note over the holidays, she still likes to send “snail mail”, which I love. She has seen many, many pictures of her new great-great granddaughter since her arrival, and this is what she wrote to me:

“What a unique child Madison is. Her face is so “knowing”. Her eyes are seeing and processing everything, if she can keep her busy little mind awake. She is truly beautiful. I’m so proud of her, and of Evan too. Such wonderful kids- my great-great grandchildren! I feel like I had a little part in that along the way.”

I think my Grandma’s words sum up the feeling that any of us who are grandparents have. That in some small way, you had a tiny little something to do with that new life that just came into the world, and expanded your family tree.

3 comments Posted in Family

Will you get hooked on Zpagetti? Crochet Zpagetti Yarn Bag- tried and tested

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Check out this great yarn over at thestichsharer. It looks like a lot of crocheting fun. Enjoy!

Will you get hooked on Zpagetti? Crochet Zpagetti Yarn Bag- tried and tested.

3 comments Posted in Crafts

Oh I had fun making Cinnamon Rolls

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Now I know everyone is busy this week setting goals for the new year, maybe trying to cut back on the sweet treats and what you are eating, but the next time you have a sweet tooth and need a great sweet treat, you need to try this recipe.

Over the holidays I created the cinnamon roll recipe from my Pioneer Woman cookbook. Oh and what fun I had. I’m pretty sure this was the last treat I put together for my 2012 Christmas baking season. First of all you need to understand the I am a bread-head. I love anything breadalicious. Bread, rolls, French bread, sweet breads. ,yum, yum.

I actually haven’t made anything along the lines of a bread recipe since October when we had a homemade pizza party. So I gathered the ingredients, made the dough as directed, and voila here’s what it looked like after is had risen for about an hour. Beautiful isn’t it?

Whenever I see a bowl full of poofy dough like this I just want to punch it down and smell the sweet bread flavors, and I did.

Next was rolling out the dough into a semi-rectangle, and adding the toppings. butter, cinnamon, sugar, butter, cinnamon, sugar. It was wonderful.

Then came “The Roll”!! Starting at one end and rolling as tightly as you can, but uniformly until you end up with your rectangle of dough looking like this…

This recipe makes two long rectangles for the cinnamon rolls. The first rectangle I rolled was a little bit loose, and I probably could have rolled slightly tighter. By the second rectangle I had my system in order and it turned out great.

Then you cut the rolls, place them into your baking pans, and let them rest and rise again. I used foil pans, since most of these were going to friends and family for a Christmas treat.

Once they rested, they go into the oven for 20 minutes, frost and you are ready for some seriously sweet noshing. But make sure you include a good cup of coffee with your treat. Then it becomes spectacular.

I had so much fun rolling the dough and putting the rolls together. The texture of this dough was fantastic, and made the assembly process all the easier.

My taste testers here at the house have proclaimed that this recipe must be a new Christmas tradition. I agree. I will add this to my annual Christmas baking arsenal for many years to come.

What’s your favorite baking recipe?

>> Photo credit for this post goes to my Travel Man…

15 comments Posted in Baking, Recipes

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Renee Spindle

I promise this will be my last post concerning Christmas trees from the 2012 holiday season. But I could not share this story with you until all of the gifts had been given.

Many, many moons ago I did some Christmas crafting, and made some ever so cute fabric Christmas trees. At that moment in time I was a young mom, and would craft my little heart out and sell them at a Christmas boutique every year. Fun memories.

Over the years I lost my fabric Christmas tree, and had not made any new trees for quite some time. Then when we were visiting my sister in October, she told me that she had to throw her little tree out because it got moldy. I was so sad for her I knew exactly what I would give her for Christmas.

I scoured my Babe Cave (aka the sewing room) looking for my old Christmas tree pattern and I could not find it anywhere. Oh Boo! So of course I went to JoAnn’s found the pattern (so elated McCall’s still had this pattern), got my supplies, and went home to make trees. By the way I already had the fabric. I had purchased it on clearance last Christmas season.

I decided to make one for my sister, one for my brother, and one for myself. We would all have the same tree from the same fabric. Kind of cheesy I know, but I’m cheesy and traditional like that.

So here’s how they go together:

The trees are made from a McCall’s Crafts pattern 3777.

For each tree you are making you cut out 6 pieces of the tree pattern. You can also use contrasting fabrics, so in that case you would cut 3 pieces from each fabric. I’m going to be making some trees with contrasting fabrics for next Christmas.

The next step is to baste either rick-rack or some type of lace around the edges. You baste 1/2″ from the edge. This step is completed only on 3 pieces of the trees. Leave the other 3 plain to form the tree sections.

Next, sew two pieces right sides together, and leave an opening on the bottom according to the pattern. Be sure you have one piece with your trim, and one without. Trim your seams, and clip the corners and curves. Turn the pieces right side out and press flat. You should now have three pieces to stitch together to form your tree.

Lay two of the sections on top of each other and baste through the center according to the pattern. The pattern piece has a line for you to trace to follow for this portion of the stitching. Lay the third piece on top of the two you have previously basted together. Line up your edges, etc. and pin in place. Stitch through all three layers. You should now have six openings in the bottom of the tree. This forms six sections that will be stuffed to form the tree.

Once you finishing stuffing and plumping your tree, you stitch the openings closed, add a star and voila a nice little tabletop tree for years to come. The beauty of this pattern is that you can choose very simple or very elegant fabrics. You could embellish with mini ornaments, or ribbon bows. The sky is the limit.

And a funny side note to this story- as I was assembling the trees I was making I started digging around in one of my little Christmas storage bins. In the bottom of this bin there were some pattern pieces all folded up nice and neat. I unfolded the pieces and there were some patterns for a few different ornaments. The last piece I unfolded was my old, old pattern for the fabric Christmas trees I had made so long ago. I laughed to myself for a few minutes, and got back to my sewing.

I’m thinking next year of making some plaid trees for the younger crowd in the family. Or maybe polka dot trees for the girls and plaid trees for the boys. Time will tell, we’ll have to wait and see. If you like to sew, and are a crafter at heart give this pattern a try. It’s a lot of fun.