Candace's 5th birthday is tomorrow, therefore she is the "Star of the Week" this week at school. Tomorrow, I have been invited to the classroom to celebrate the day with her, so I'm also whipping up a snack for the class.
Caramel corn was a hit for Caitlyn's snack day once last year, so I figured I'd give that a try. Afterall, it IS quite yummy (IMHO).
Amy's Favorite (and SIMPLE) Caramel Corn recipeIngredients:1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white corn syrup
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 to 4 quarts of POPPED corn
Directions:
Combine sugar, syrup, butter and salt in a 1½ to 2 quart microwave safe bowl.
Cook in microwave (HIGH) and bring to a boil, stopping every couple of minutes to stir.
Boil for 2 minutes, stirring well once removed.
Stirring constantly, add the soda.
Place the popped corn in a brown grocery bag and pour the syrup over the corn. Close the bag by rolling it down a couple times and SHAKE HARD.
Mircowave in the bag on HIGH for 1½ minutes. Remove and shake well. Repeat 2 more times.
Shake when you remove it from the microwave the last time and pour it on a large cookie sheet to cool.
Eat instantly OR store in an airtight container when cool :0)
Microwavable Popper was a gift to DH from my sis last Christmas. He usually adds quite a few tools to his kitchen every Christmas; this year, he received a Dehydrator and is excited to try it out!
Corn popped and waiting in bag...
I couldn't get any pictures of the actual cooking/mixing of the caramel syrup because it happens kinda quickly....but this is just as good? Mmmmm......
{{sarcastic lisp}} Gosh....too bad DH didn't use the spatula to scrape out the bowl when dumping the caramel into the bag. Now I have the job of
licking cleaning out this sticking bowl! ;0)
The final product is cooling and will be bagged up into 24 cute lil' baggies shortly.
And.....LOL.....DH just said {{amidst chomping on a handful of finished product}}..."Alright. Ya gotta make up another batch!"
;0)
I HAD intentions of dubbing tonight "Mother-in-Law Monday" because I have a stack of projects from her that need to be quilted. I feel so bad, because I've had them since about October! Yikes!!!
Okay...off I go to make another batch!
Happy Monday.
I spent a good hour (and then some) in the tub with a good book. I'm not feeling the greatest, so I've been sitting for the afternoon, reading and relaxing with the computer.
Because I have a hard time publishing posts without graphics, I found one of my favorite "upper-level" math cartoons that I share with my students :0) Maybe it's only funny for us geeky mathematicians and nerdy scientific minds???? ;0)
I started out with this pink/brown quilt; it seemed to be the "fun one" to start out with. AND, one of the most POOFY centers of 'em all, so.......I went back to my "old-school" quilting with my DSM. I used a walking foot and did a simple stitch-in-ditch along the sashing. That's it. I actually thought of tieing buttons to the dresses where the straps "attach" to the front. Thought it would be cute. So, I'll suggest that to MIL.
Microwavable Popper was a gift to DH from my sis last Christmas. He usually adds quite a few tools to his kitchen every Christmas; this year, he received a Dehydrator and is excited to try it out!
Corn popped and waiting in bag...
I couldn't get any pictures of the actual cooking/mixing of the caramel syrup because it happens kinda quickly....but this is just as good? Mmmmm......{{sarcastic lisp}} Gosh....too bad DH didn't use the spatula to scrape out the bowl when dumping the caramel into the bag. Now I have the job of 
The final product is cooling and will be bagged up into 24 cute lil' baggies shortly. 
Current Leader/Ender project: Blue Ridge Beauty
8:00 - 12:15 I was dutiful and worked diligently on my AP Statistics lessons; moving into the subject of Inference on means via t-Distributions........blah, blah, blah, right??? ;0)
My first goal: start sifting through THIS mess {{pointing up}} to find some blue fabs. This mess {{pointing up}} are boxes and boxes of donations from my mother; donations via garage sales and cleaning up the Church Volunteer quilt-group supplies (a group that never meets anymore) :0( Hm, too bad I wasn't closer to her; maybe I'd volunteer to get it running again.
I found a couple of nice blues. **chuckle** In fact, those bottom two fabrics were TOO nice, so rather than cut in to them, I pressed them and folded them neat and added them to my stash :0) **shaking head, giggling** So much for busting THOSE fabrics! BUT, the top darker blue plaid-style has been cut into 2.5" strips to be used for some more Star Struck Blue units AND to be used as binding for either that quilt and/or Blue Ridge Beauty. Through this process, I've decided to set a newly updated goal to help me tackle that mess of boxes: 
....this was still the state of my design wall. I had NO room! 
No biggy....I just started piecing those blocks together. I couldn't BEAR just taking them down only to have to reset them some other day. Psht....that's just stupid, right? So....about an hour in and half is pieced, but sadly, family duties have taken me away from my room for now. (until maybe after the girls go to bed).
I ordered Bonnie's new book. Excited to have yet another signed copy of a Bonnie book in my sewing room come February!
Oh dear....
...tell me Candace, how does that make you feel??
I started the day out by pressing my 192 bonus green/bkgrnd tris and my 96 pink/bckgrnd tris. As the picture shows, they were then trimmed down to 48 and 24 3.5" bonus pinwheels that made their way into the border; this took a couple of hours.
By early-afternoon, I decided to piece some backing....
...and then I figured.....PSHT! Since I'm this far, I might as well go ahead and load it into the frame and see how far I could get with quilting before I gave in for the day..... 
;0) The quiting pantograph is on my #1 favorite list for girly-romanticy quilts. Feather Me - 6" by Meredith England. I absolutely love it!
OH! I haven't forgotten about the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. As I was piecing this morning, a brilliant idea came to my mind. I think I'm going to kill two (or three?) birds with one stone. Blue is our color this month......well......I have TWO blue UFOs (Star Struck Blues and Blue Ridge Beauty (gosh, how can I NOT have a pic of that yet???))........
