Weekend fun

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Mr. Aitch and I went to visit some of our relatives this weekend.  We stayed with his brother and sister-in-law and partied with them Friday evening.

Left to right: Me, B-I-L, S-I-L, and Mr. Aitch.

Henry's

We started off with some fantastic potato skins that had cheese and bacon under Ranch dressing.  They were so good!  I didn’t get pictures of the stuffed portabella mushrooms and Nachos because, well, we were in the Cock-Eyed Bar (in B-I-L’s basement) and enjoying the adult beverages.  In other words, I forgot.

Potato-skins

Saturday I met up with two of my cousins, two aunts, and my sister.  We attended a luncheon honoring Grove City College Scholarship donors and recipients.

Clockwise from the bottom:  My” iPad cover” Aunt (seated), Holly from Denver, Joan from Houston, my sister, Aunt from Denver, and me.

GCC-Luncheon-all-2

The scholarship recipient was a wonderful young man who has a good head on his shoulders and seems very grounded.

Holly

The last time I saw my Houston cousin was when our daughter got married in 2007. I went on a business trip in 2008 and saw my Denver aunt and cousin.  Our families want to close that gap and visit more often!

How do you handle long-distance family reunions?

Carrot cupcakes

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The hardest part?

Carrot-cupcakes-001

Grating the carrots.

Carrot-cupcakes-002

But I used my food processor this time.  The grated carrots were a larger grate than I wanted but the cupcakes still turned out fine.

Actually the hardest part is not eating all of them at once!

Recipe:

2 c. flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups cooking oil
3 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Add eggs and oil to all dry ingredients.  Beat till smooth.  Add carrots and nuts, if using.  Place in a greased 9×13 pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.  Cool before icing.

For cupcakes: Fill cupcake pans with liners and fill 3/4 full.  Cake is dense and doesn’t rise as typical cupcakes.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Cream cheese icing:
1 pound powdered sugar (approx. 4 cups)
8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth.  Add powdered sugar and beat until fluffy.  Ice cake or cupcakes.

For icing carrots and stems: reserve 1/4 cup icing and add orange (5 drops yellow, 1 drop red) food coloring and place in a zip bag.  Cut small hole in a corner and make carrots.  For stems: take 1 tablespoon icing and add 1-2 drops green food coloring.  Place in zip bag and pipe two stems at the top of the carrots.

Spinners

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Guess what?

OK, I’ll tell you.

I’m retiring on June 30.

Screen shot of the countdown calendar that I took this morning while eating breakfast:

image

Yup, only 90 more days to go.

Mr. Aitch and I have discussed this change in our lives and have come up with a very lucrative business to give us more income in our Golden Years.

We are in the process of setting up a silk spinning company.  Using spiders to spin webs that we will harvest and turn into very strong and beautiful yarn.

During my Spring cleaning, I discovered several places that are full of these beautiful silken threads.  I didn’t want to stop the silk production so I left the spiders where they were and just took the webs.

Now to clean, card, and spin my findings into beautiful yarn.  Any spinners out there who want to help?