Friday, May 8, 2015

Mother's Day, a Flood, FMQ, and a New Banana Muffin Recipe

Happy Mother's Day!!

As Mother'd Day approaches, I've been missing my mom more and more. Spring was her favorite time of year and I think of her with every flower that I plant, and several of my spring mug rug patterns were a designed as tributes to her memory.

As the years go by, I'm learning to comprehend her better. When we are young, we tend to take our mothers for granted, but with age I'm learning more about the depth of her love and the meaningfulness of her life.

I miss you, Mom. Thank you for showing me how to be a better wife and mother.

Three generations - my mother and me with my newborn granddaughter. An amazing moment.
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Flood
"Rain, rain go away,
Come again some other day."

April showers were just a warmup for May, it seems. Every day this past week we've had rain in some form or another. Our house was scheduled for painting two weeks ago, but there's no painting possible in this weather. We're hoping for a break next week.

The night before last we received 6 inches of rain overnight. The park behind our house is a flood plain, and when morning dawned we were living on lakefront property. It happens once every few years, and we've named the short lived lake Phantom Lake. We were lucky. Our house stayed dry, but several areas in town had to be evacuated.

Yesterday and today: before and after photos. The bridge across the drainage ditch was partially submerged when I got out of bed. The deposits of leaves on the tennis court fence show how high the water reached during the night.

FMQ

There hasn't been enough sewing time to finish the new version of the slice and dice quilt, but the FMQ is almost complete with only the border remaining. Free motion quilting can quickly become tedious, but I've found that listening a good audio book helps the hours pass much more quickly.


I've used three different designs for each block. I think I'll do the border in a feather stitch. I wish I had a photograph that shows the pale colors in this quilt better, but I may need to wait for sunshine. Cloudy days aren't helping.

Another Banana Muffin Recipe

If you like banana bread that really tastes like bananas, this recipe from Food.com is a good one. It's called "Best Banana Bread" for a good reason. The recipe makes one loaf of banana bread, but divided into a dozen muffins, it can be baked in 20 minutes instead of 60.

Yum!!!

I altered the recipe to make it a bit more diabetic friendly for my hubby. I added 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts and replaced the one cup of sugar with 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup Splenda.

This is the link to take you quickly to the original recipe.
http://www.food.com/recipe/best-banana-bread-2886

Wishing you a week filled with sunshine and happiness!