A Holiday Gift to my Readers:

My kids are 6 and 8 now.  They are very smart and creative and beautiful.  They are goofy and silly and funny.   They constantly remind me to be patient and kind and consistent.  I recorded this video when they were 3 and 5.  Danika had just begun talking like a big girl and I so enjoyed hearing her philosophical perspective on the world.  Riley was (and still is!) all boy.  He was (and still is!) a noisy little imp who loved to entertain a crowd with his goofy antics.  

I wanted to share this video with you because I believe it epitomizes life in our home.  We talk and listen.  We laugh and play.  We foster creativity and encourage fantastic storytelling.  We are often ridiculous and sometimes witty.  I can't give you all a physical Christmas gift this year, so I decided to give you something personal and share a slice of my life.

It's a long video, but I encourage you watch it all the way through because there are lots of funny and sweet moments throughout.  I dare you to watch it and not smile.  

I hope you enjoyed this!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy New Year!

Big Hugs from Montana,

Bountiful Baskets Food Co-Op

Before I get started with this post, I just wanted to state that I'm not getting compensated in any way for writing this little blurb about Bountiful Baskets.  I am just a huge fan and wanted to pass on some useful info to you, my lovely readers.  :-)

What is Bountiful Baskets?  The website describes it as this:

About Bountiful Baskets Co-op

Bountiful Baskets is not a business. It is a group of people who work together for mutual benefit.

Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op is constantly growing to reach new areas as people want to have a site close to their home. They train with an existing Volunteer Site Coordinator and then go open the new site. We run at least every two weeks at each site.  Some sites run weekly.  We are completely volunteer-run and make no profit.  Please see our locations page for a complete listing of current sites as well as which week they run.

This is a Co-op

This is a grass roots, all volunteer, no contracts, no catch co-operative. Without volunteers this co-op wouldn’t happen, so you will need to help as you are able. There are many opportunities to help!

So basically what happens is that I log into my Bountiful Baskets account at 10AM on Monday morning and put $15 towards a basket of fruit and veggies.  I look for things that I may add on to my basket as well.  This time around I opted for the "Harvest Pack add-on" for an additional $16.

The following Saturday morning at 7AM, I am standing in line with an empty laundry basket with around 50 other people.  One at a time we show our contribution numbers, initial a box, and are led to our produce by volunteers.  I load up my laundry basket and haul it back to my car.  That's it!

Sometimes on Saturday mornings, I show up at 5AM and volunteer to unload the truck and distribute the produce.  It's fun to meet new people, exchange recipes, and get a little exercise.  I'm pooped by the end of the day, but it's always worth it. 

 You never really know what you're going get in your basket.  And that's part of the fun for me.  I ended up with a ton of grapes and was fearful that they would go bad before we could eat them.  But having two grape-loving kids with grape-loving friends really helped, and there was no waste.  The fruit not eaten is usually dehydrated to use as snacks or added to oatmeal at breakfast.  Sometimes I make a batch of jelly.  The grapes would have made a nice jelly if the kids hadn't devoured them.  

The Seckel pears were new to me.  Those tiny little things were so sweet and juicy though--perfect for snacks and lunchboxes.  In previous baskets I've ended up with 9 onions, or 2 stalks of celery--way more than we could ever eat.  I simply freeze or dehydrate what I can't use right away and it all works out.  the only thing that doesn't work well with is lettuce.  I prefer spinach and romaine for my salads and the leaf lettuce I get from Bountiful Baskets is hard to use up.  But you can't get everything you want, right?

From this basket, I made a huge batch of potato soup that we enjoyed for a few days.  Then, I divided up the leftovers into meal-sized portions and froze them for future dinners.  I love to cook, but not every night.  Some nights, it's nice to simply thaw out dinner in the microwave and serve it with toast.

   I love the Harvest Pack add-on I received!  Though for once I didn't have a recipe already planned for it.  I made a nice little fall-themed display in my living room.  The larger pie pumpkins will be Thanksgiving pies, but that's not for another month.  In the meantime, they can look pretty on my table.

I know I have a number of readers from outside the US, so I'm sure you don't have a Bountiful Baskets near you.  Perhaps you have something else though?  Have any of you any experience with food co-op?

If you are in the US and want to find out if there is Bountiful Baskets pick-up near you go HERE.  If you don't have one near you, you could always start your own by looking at the info HERE.

Happy Harvest and bug hugs from Montana,

Back from the wilderness!

Mr. Ricochet and I honeymooned in Yellowstone National Park.  10 years and 2 kids later, we returned.  It was a whirlwind trip packed with tons of fun and bursting with excitement.  

The kidlets were such awesome traveling companions.  Their boundless energy was put to good use climbing mountains and walking nature trails.

Yellowstone is beyond bazaar.  With all the geo-thermal activity shaping and coloring the landscape, many places feel like alien planets.

Mr. Ricochet and I don't think we'll wait another 10 years to return.

I'm working on the voting page for the 2-in-1 Challenge today.  Stay tuned!

Happy hiking and enjoy your local wilderness,

Mullet Mats: my 2-in-1 Challenge entry

Believe it or not, mullets were really cool.  Seriously.  All the popular boys had mullets.  All of my favorite celebrities had mullets.  If there was boy I had a crush on during my teen years, I can guarantee you he had a mullet.  Only we didn't call them mullets back then.  It was just cool hair.  Look how sexy these guys were:

Later, when the world decided mullets were no longer cool, we began to poke fun at the ol' 'do:

What I love best about the mullet is what it stood for:  

Business up front and party in the back!!!!!

Who couldn't embrace that philosophy?  

For July's sewing challenge I asked the participants to sew something that had multiple looks or purposes.

I called it the 2-in-1 Challenge, and you can check out our homepage here:

My goal was to create reversible place mats.  One side would be pretty and on display most of the time.  The other side would be plainer and stain-resistant and used during meal times.  That is  kind of like business up front and party in the back, right?  Turns out that in the midst of my place mat making venture, we had some family (Mr. Ricochet's cousin and her husband) from out of state come visit us.  They live full time in a RV, touring the US.  We had a blast visiting and touring around town with them.  I decided to make 2 extra place mats as a parting gift.  

1. I started with some printed duck canvas...
2. ...which I cut into squares..
3. ...and trimmed in another print.  Then I framed it in cream and cut off the corners.
4. I finished the corners with some scraps of the duck canvas and added 4 right triangles to each of the sides.  The result:  a cock-eyed window pane set in a square.
5. I decided to use denim for the backing.  I traced Montana onto some freezer paper and ironed it onto the denim.  
6. I stitched a tight, wide zig-zag over the tracing.  The paper just tore away when I was done.
7. I added a little silver heart-shaped stud to mark where we live in Montana. I used a very thin batting and quilted through the mat.  I trimmed it up and finished the edges with bias tape.  Here's a look at the finished back.
8. Here's the finished front.

For full time RV-ers like our cousins, space is at a premium in their little house on wheels.   The place mats won't take up a lot of space and can also be used as hot pads or for packing fragile items while traveling.  They'd work good inserted between a tush and a cold, concrete picnic bench  common to roadside rest stops.  They'd be pretty under a lamp or a plant as well.

So you can see my Mullet Mats have more than one look AND multiple purposes as well.  What do you think?  Ever have a crush on a Mullet Man?  Ever watch Joe Dirt?  Ever sew a place mat?

Thanks for taking the time to peruse my little blog.  Double thanks to all my new follows.  You rock!

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,

Happy Spring!

My neighbor's crab apple blossoms.

Have you voted for your favorite typography challenge entry today?
Have you checked out the newest sewing challenge for May?

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana!

Photos from the road. . .

We drove to Texas over the holidays and I held the camera on my lap during much of the drive.  Here are some of the pics I took from the passenger seat:

On our way back home, we came across a fantastic sunset:

On the last leg of our journey home we ran into some icy roads.  These photos are from Wyoming:

Hope you enjoyed seeing some things from my perspective!

Please check out our January sewing challenge, The Naughty Notion Challenge.

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,

And we're back!

Our vacation in Texas was very nice.  We were fortunate to be able to avoid some serious snow storms and ran into no car troubles.  The kids weathered the long days of driving with surprising fortitude and enthusiasm.  The adults, while less enthusiastic, were pretty good travelers as well.
We had a great time with family and ate way too much.  There was absolutely no drama, not that we were expecting it, but we considered it a blessing, none the less.

Some highlights included lighting fireworks, stunning sunsets, seeing all our family healthy and happy, eating BBQed turkey, and enjoying the mild weather.  If you were to ask the kids what they liked best, they'd tell you it was the hotel swimming pools!

Thank you all for the warm holiday wishes! Stay tuned for some posts on sewing and crafting, starting next week.

Cheers and big hugs from Montana,

Montana made national news!

It's nice to see Montana in the news for something besides a natural disaster or extreme weather or the Uni-bomber.

Please enjoy this little news clip about a small Montanan town not too far from where I live.

(I'm sorry to say there will most likely be 15 seconds of advertising before the clip begins.  Please don't let that discourage you from watching the entire video.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Warm wishes,