a beautiful day

Earlier this week, we had a great rain.  Afterward, it was so nice and fresh outside that I decided to take a walk around the yard.  February has traditionally been my least favorite month.  The fall/winter holiday excitement is over, the cold has lost its novelty and you're ready for spring, but it's at least a month away.  It's a bit different here in South Carolina, though.  It's cold, but there's still so much to look at.

I walked by my mystery vine and noticed that it had finally started to bloom...  

...and proved to be a trumpet vine.  Pretty yellow flowers that are much loved by hummingbirds and bees.

I still marvel at all the Helleborus around.  I never got it to grow successfully in Indianapolis, and I always thought it was so beautiful.  Here, it's everywhere.

Big clumps, all up and down the length of the front of the house...

Up by the mailbox, and all over the back yard.

We must have 20+ clumps of them, and I was gratified to read that they spread easily.

The camillas were blooming...

...and this bush, too.

The clumps of snowflake flowers were putting up long stalks...

...and they make lovely, long-lasting bouquets.

We've had a lot of rain, so we had all sorts of interesting lichen on the ground...

...and on fallen branches around the yard.

I uncovered a squirrel stash with my foot.

Some bushes are heavily laden with berries.  As much as I'd like to pick the bunches and bring them in the house, I want to make sure that the birds get their fair share, so I usually leave them alone.

This grass, which I believe is called monkey grass, has been close-cropped by hungry deer.

They come at night and remain unseen, but I see a lot of wildlife in general here.  On the day of my walk, I saw a female cardinal...

...a hungry squirrel nibbling on seed...

...and a mockingbird, posing.

Geese were swimming in the pond...

...and it was totally peaceful.  I couldn't believe it when later that week, we had some snow!  It wasn't quite freezing, so the snowflakes melted quickly.

Still, it was coming down quickly for about 45 minutes.  The sky cleared, though, and we had a beautiful sunset.

This past week, I baked a massive (for us) cake for Valentine's Day.  I will refer you to Sweetapolita's LINK for the original recipe and step-by-step instructions, but I'll give you a quick rundown.

The cake was a 3 layer red velvet cake with raspberries, chocolate buttercream, marshmallow cream cheese, and another fluffy frosting that I didn't add.  I meant to, but once I spilled an entire panful of hot cream and gelatin down the front of the stove and all over the hardwood floor and spent almost 30 minutes cleaning it up, I'd lost the desire for 4 fillings.  The three I had were enough, especially the marshmallow cream cheese - YUM!  Probably my favorite frosting ever, and I'm not even a marshmallow fan.  You have to have a special occasion for this cake, or a dedicated gym routine, because it involves several cups of sugar and SEVEN sticks of butter.

First I baked and cooled the 3 cakes...

...and spread on the marshmallow cream cheese.

Then the chocolate buttercream...

...then the raspberries.

Then stack...

Repeat...and stack.

Ice the whole cake, and ignore the probable lopsided-ness.

 

It was dark before we cut into it, so the lighting was pretty bad.  Still, hopefully you can see the layers.  You'll notice they aren't red...I can never bring myself to add all of that red dye to red velvet cake, even for effect.

 It was so good.

 Todd and I each had small slices, and then I wrapped it up for him to take into the office.  It was demolished in one afternoon!

Hope you'll give it a try if you've got a special occasion coming up.  Enjoy!

a trifling matter

It's been a little colder here this week, and I love how the little birds puff up to stay warm, like this titmouse...

...and this carolina wren...

...and these mourning doves.

Despite an infrequent drizzle, Todd and I cleared out the side garden.  Without the somewhat picturesque covering of leaves, it looks awfully...bare.

I'm waiting to see what will grow, but I envision filling this space with my cottage garden plants.  I can't wait to see what it will look like next year!

Inside the house, we're still pulling things into shape.  Todd had me lay out my rubber stamps to get an idea of how many I had.  Uh oh...it's a lot.

Two years ago he built me a wooden stand for my stamps...

 

...but now I've got double what I had then, so we'll have to figure something else out.  Once we get that set up, and the curtains up, and the slipcover on the chair, the craft room will be done.  It looks a little better than this:

...but there's a ways to go!

I've been trying to do something with all of these bare walls.  I'm not a huge fan of pictures, but I got a great deal at Goodwill recently.  I found this picture...

...for $10.  Normally I don't like gold frames, but it's very subtle.  I found the same picture + frame online for over $500, so I'm pretty excited about my score!

Here's another bare wall.

I was inspired by this magazine picture:

...and decided to try the same thing.  I already had some hats, so it only cost me $9 to flesh out the rest of it.  

Of course, you can't see it too well in this photo...and since then, we've added a rug and changed the fireplace mantle...but you get the idea.

I've also been feverishly knitting.  I wanted to knit a certain something for a friend, and I wanted to knit it in blue yarn.  For me, it's hard to tell by looking at the ball, if it's not a solid color, and see what it might look like.  Here's a ball from Knitpicks:

I was worried that, knitted up, I'd see too many pastels.  I made a little swatch:

...and liked it very much.  I also had a Cherry Tree Hill ball...

Would it be too much like denim?

No...I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would.  Anyway, all that knitting, and I ended up going with a solid green.  Here's a peek of the finished project!

Valentine's Day is coming up, and I'm a sucker for holidays.  I made valentines for friends and family...

...complete with valentine's themed envelopes.

Last year I made cookies and took them around, but this year I had to settle for making something for Todd's office.  My original plan was coconut cream-stuffed chocolate cupcakes covered in coconut buttercream and dusted with pink-tinted coconut, but I disregarded the recipe line, "Bake these in cupcake liners, to be removed later."  The cupcakes were VERY 'sticky' and didn't easily come free from the tins.  I had to settle for - you guessed it - trifle.  ARGH!

Later this week, I'm making a three layer chocolate cake with raspberry marshmallow cream filling for Todd and hopefully, if it's not botched, I will post it next week!

To cheer myself up after the trifle fiasco (and the kitchen scrub-down that took almost an hour), I picked more camillas and made bouquets for the entire house.  Yay!  It's the little things.

Have a great week!

Twitterpated

In the morning, after I eat my cereal, I go to my office/craft room.  I pay bills, plan menus and shopping lists, and answer work email.  I check to see if anyone needs a shipping quote and see what needs to be packed.  But sometimes, I confess, it's hard to keep my mind on my work.  Just outside my window, you see, are the birds.

Unless they had very distinct coloring, most birds had fallen into the category of "small, flitting, and greyish".  But Todd bought me a birding guide for Christmas, and I've been keeping it close.

Look!  Just outside my window is a bluebird.

He is half of a pair, and I suspect - but cannot prove - that they are nesting in the birdhouse he's sitting on.  Its entrance is suspiciously clawed.

Sometimes, too, I see cardinals there - a comforting reminder of home.

The side bird feeder belongs to the tufted titmouse.

He sometimes shares with the chickadees, though, and the dashing dark-eyed juncos. 

Racing up and down the tree trunks are my newest discovery, the white-breasted nuthatch.

Once I have learned him - his flashes of white under wing and tell, his odd, straight bill - perfect for digging out insects - I see him everywhere.

Most of my photos are of poor quality, but I don't mind.  I need to be able to see colors, patterns. 

Dotted wings?  A mainly tan body?  A blue band encircling the eyes?  That's a mourning dove. 

My bird book makes it easy to compare images.

Despite the cold, and despite my work, the birds draw me outside.  I notice the changes, like this greenery coming up in huge patches along the side driveway.

I thought they were daffodils, but once the flowers came up, I knew them to be Leucajum Vernum, or the snowflake flower - one of the very first flowers of spring.  The distinctive green dots on the petals give it away.

I have a deep plastic basket that I bring outside on trips like this.  I put snippets of ferns, flowers, and anything else that draws my attention.

Leucajum Vernum make fabulous, long-lasting bouquets, and so I pick several long stems, and into the basket they go.

Since they are so numerous, I pick many Helleborus flowers.

I pass by the vines at the side of the house and wonder, for the hundredth time, what they might be.  The buds are too yellow to be jasmine or honeysuckle.  Could it be trumpet vine?  I have to wait and see.

I pause by the front of the house and marvel at all the green...in February!

I collect anything that interests me.  A leaf that glows like fire when the light hits it...

...and other leaves that, lacking this bright color, are lovely in their own right.

I gather many, many ferns for pressing later.  I glance at the empty house next door, with its row of pink-laden bushes.

I suspect they would make great bouquets, and I am right.  I would never dream of picking their flowers, but we have a few of these bushes in our yard, too.  Into the basket they go.

Satisfied, I lay out my flowers and make my bouquets.

 I have many, many small vases for the little things I find.

Now comes another bit of fun - where to put them?  I like to surprise Todd by putting a vase by his sink in the bathroom or by his light on the nightstand.  But I like to surprise myself, too, and carefully arrange vases by my computer - flowers that I know will open and be beautiful for a long time.

All in all, it's a very satisfactory distraction from my work.

I haven't put a baking item up for a while, and while I won't put a complete one up today, here's an idea for you.  On THIS blog post, I have a recipe for braided lemon bread.  But you don't need to just do a lemon filling.  This week, I sauteed some apples in sugar, vanilla, and butter, and spread them out into the bread from that recipe.

Then you just fold up the sides in a simulated braid...

...and bake until golden.

The bread can be filled with anything - jam, fruit, etc. - or consider leaving out the sugar in the bread dough recipe and fill it with savory.  Caramelized onions and mushrooms and spinach?  Pasta sauce and cheese and sausage?  You can do anything you want, and it will taste delicious and look impressive.

Give it a try!

Have a great week!