Scraptastophy & BBQ Ribs

pondering the title.......Hey! I'll have to use that for a quilt name someday!!!!

I walk past these boxes everytime I head to my quilting room. I can't even tell you what all is in here, other than LOTS of garage sale purchases and donations from my mom's church a few years ago. Every now and then, I get ambitious enough to dig through the layers to see what might be useful on a current project, but most of the time, I just walk right by it without too much thought.

Today, I dug through to see what lights might be lurking in there to be cut up into more strings for Jamestown Landing. A few vintage pieces were found, pulled, trimmed and sewed.

Bonnie's post today talked about listening to books as background noise. BOY! Wish I would have done that today. Most of the time, I just put a movie in the player from my collection on my desk shelf. They are movies that I could easily be a replacement for for the lead roles because I have all the lines, lyrics, motions memorized. So......COMPLETE non-distracting background noise. Today, however, I was craving something new as my background noise, so I grabbed some new DVDs from the upstairs collection; Fallen, starring Denzel Washington, and Conspiracy Theory, starring Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson.

Oh BOY! They were distractions. There were moments of no string-block productivity because I was wrapped up with the scenes that I hadn't seen in awhile. Then, once I took lunch break, I was delayed in returning downstairs. Seeing that it's Paul's 40th birthday today, I wanted to make up some BBQ pork ribs. This realization at NOON put me into full action for the next hour, thawing out the ribs, prepping sauce mixture, prepping ribs.......lalala.

THEN, I noticed my finger nails......oh! They weren't pretty! So, I took off the badly scratched nail polish, filed them to neat edges, and then repainted them. All the while, listening to a book on CD that is due back to the library on Tuesday.

Ohhhhhh......and then......I was feeling sleepy. Oh boy. Naturally, I needed to just lay and rest for a moment on the couch. And I'm NEVER one to lay down without some sort of light quilt draped over me, so I grabbed Orange Crush and just relaxed.

For TWO HOURS!

My goodness! It's a good thing I put those ribs in the oven when I did.....the house had a lovely aroma of spiced meat.

And now.....three hours later, Paul and I have licked the bones and our fingers clean....(**chuckle**...alright ladies! DON'T go there tonight.....no TMI here......) ;0)

VERY yummy sauce!

I shared one other time how I cook my ribs; I do a combination of dry and wet (sorta.) For the first 2-3 hours, I cook the ribs in an uncovered roaster with a Bicentennial rub (from Penzy's Spices) @ 225 degrees. Then covered for an hour, still at 225 degrees. I have a lil'of-this-&-lil'of-that sauce mixture that I whip up and place on the ribs for a final 45 minutes of cooking at 300 degrees.
Sauce (rough measurements):
2 T. Chile powder
1 T. Paprika
other seasonings that give me the "must be included" feeling at the time
2 T. Vinegar
1/2 cup Sugar
2/3 cup Ketchup
2 T. Worcheshire sauce

I used to add more sugar, but Paul didn't like the too-sweet flavor it created.

Speaking of the birthday boy....he's taking HIS nap right now....also snuggled under my Orange Crush quilt. I'm very thankful I used the Thinsulate batting on that quilt! It is so light. Absolutely perfect for wrapping around yourself....perfect because of the lightness....it's one of those quilts that are cooling, yet warm. Do you have any of those types?

So, he wants to be wakened at 6:30 so we can spend some time in the garden tonight. We have delayed our departure to my parents until tomorrow AM so we can feed the animals before we head out. (My GOODNESS! Two short sentences, and the word "so" showed up 3 times! Two months off of school is starting to affect me)

While strolling the other night in search of the baby robins, I spotted some deer action in our lower garden. The deer have not really posed much of a nuisance though.

Cabbage butterflies have though! UGH! I'm not sure what we'll be able to harvest from our cabbage patch. Paul made some sour kraut two years ago, and it is DELICIOUS!!! Kinda has an "ewwww" factor once you realize how sour kraut is made, but I'm a fan of it. We are/were hoping to can another few jars this year since we are down to one jar in the pantry.

OH! AND! I have hopes and AMBITION to pull a two-a-day today {{........alright, is your mind going all naughty again??....

Definition: "Two-a-day" - term used by runners to describe two separate training runs; one usually in the morning hours and one in the afternoon/evening.

I hope to clock another 3 miles on my running shoes once the sun lowers a bit more in the sky.

Alright....time to close up shop and wake the poor dear! The garden is a-callin!