New sewing room

My husband has been working very hard on my new sewing room. It is now complete and I absolutely love it. Now I have to get in there and sew, sew, sew. As you can see, he installed countertops to work on and hand made the two cabinets. In addition, he framed my design board, which is not shown here. I am such a lucky girl!!!!

Oh, and Max likes it too, as you can see. I even have the shelves organized now. Sorry they are such a mess in the picture.

Chai Tea Latte

Nothing, well -almost nothing, makes me happier than a good cup of Chai tea latte. I get one from the coffee house when I really want to spoil myself, or I just really need a lift (or it just sounds good). My fascination and love of Chai tea was not immediate. It took a little while to develop, but oh how I love it now!! Well, it just so happens that I happened upon a recipe for Chai tea concentrate when I was surfing the web, so I decided to make a batch and see how it tasted.

I gathered together the ingredients and started the process, which turned out to be extremely simple. Basically it is just sweetened condensed milk and spices. We buy many of our spices from Penzeys, which I will take a minute to plug. We started getting them by mail back in Indiana and when we got to Columbus ten years ago, lo and behold there is a Penzeys store here. It surely must be considered one of Leon's favorite places to go. He loves trying new spices and I love having them in the house for my use as well. So a couple of the spices I used are from Penzeys. Try them - they are fresher and cheaper per unit than grocery store spices.

So I put together the sweetened milk and the spices and here is the final result. It took a grand total of 5 miutes. The idea is to add a couple of tablespoons to your hot brewed tea. I use Earl Gray tea almost exclusively, but I think there are other black teas that can be used.
My final opinion is that it is pretty good, but you have to play a bit with the amounts in the recipe and in adding the concentrate to your tea. Here is the recipe....

Chai concentrate
1 - 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 t granulated sugar
1 t ground cardmom
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground nutmeg

Mix the ingredients and store in the refrigerator (up to 6 months). Makes enough for about 28 cups of chai.

To use: Brew a cup of strong black teas, such as Assam, then add two heaping teaspoons of concentrate or more to taste. Stir well until concentrate has fully melted.

A great gift idea - pour into small jars with lids and tie with an attractive bow. Attach a tag with instructions to keep the mix refrigerated and how to use it.

It was a great Valentines Day

As Leon and I continue to work on downplaying some of the holidays, it is fun to celebrate anyhow. It is really just the commercialization and having to "keep up" that we are trying to avoid, or at least I am. Anyhow, I did get a very commercial and such fun gift this year anyhow, as you can see. I have been fascinated with the Pandora beads and have bought a couple of knockoffs, just for fun. Well, Leon apparently noticed and got me a real Pandora bracelet and one bead. It is very cool and as you can see, the theme of the bead is "hearts". I had a hard time getting a really good close-up, but think you can get an idea of what it looks like.(plus it is really silver, I don't know why it looks gold) .......Oh what did I get him? a package of Lindt white chocolate truffles, his favorite!!! Didn't want to look like I was trying to keep up!?!?

I do have a responsibility, however, on Valentines Day to make sure that my little ones get a surprise from Grandma. Under normal circumstances, I would/should make them something, but life has been crazy lately. So I quickly dashed to the store and grabbed whatever I could find, stuffed it into an envelope and rushed to the post office to get it to them by Valentines Day. Seems I am always running late on that sort of thing, but made it just in the nick of time. However, I thought that Valentines Day was the 12th when it is really the 14th, so all the rushing, and hurrying was for naught. It is actually my nephews birthday on the 12th. But they got their surprises in plenty of time anyhow and I wished my nephew a very happy birthday actually ON his birthday. So happy Valentines Day, little ones, Grandma loves you!!

Snow Pictures

Yes, we have deep snow, multiple inches. But I wanted to get the view from a different perspective, so I am sharing a couple of other pictures I took. We have a sculpture nailed to a tree in our back yard, of a man with a bird on top of his head. As you can see, the snow has changed the sculpture, from a summer look, to a chilly winter feel. I think he needs a hat.

The other picture is a shot up into the sky through the branches on a very frosty morning. So cool!!!! I love my camera and taking pictures!

Our little one turned ONE

The Big Day is here

yea, presents!!!!

Cute "Hello Kitty" theme with yummy cupcakes

The cleanest first birthday face I have ever seen

Happy Birthday to Lily Noelle. My darling granddaughter has reached her first birthday. We went to celebrate with her and her family. What a darling - she had a great day and so did we. She was on top of her game and dazzled us all with her smile and her little surprises. Big sister Abby was a perfect little hostess. Here is a glimpse of some of our day.

Abby and Aunt Lissy in a serious conversation. Lily just chillin'.