Happy Boxing Day! We got lots of cheesy jokes out of the crackers yesterday – Why did the doughnut seller retire? Because he was fed up with the hole business. Boom boom! Another – My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. He was pulled in by a strong currant. Ha ha ha. In my cracker was a mini badminton set which we played over the gravy and sprouts! I hope you are having a good Boxing Day, it is pouring with rain here and I think we might float away if it continues!
We went to the local winter farmer’s market at Schlafly Brewery this morning and had a lovely wander around veggies and bread and various farmed and homemade goods. We bought this massive bunch of beetroot and I can’t wait to boil it and cool it and slice it into a salad. Do you like beetroot? Raw or cooked? I have never had it raw, I bet that would be nice in a slaw or salad. By the time we left the market, it was snowing, but the rain had left the ground wet, so the snow was just flurrying about, rather than settling. I hope you are having a lovely weekend, happy Saturday!
I got this idea from Pinterest (of course) and I think it worked rather well! These are for the kids on our street and I am going to make them for the school Halloween party next week. I want to add some plastic spiders or bugs to the school ones – extra creepy! Are you a big Halloween fan? There is no getting away from it over here, so you might as well embrace it! Happy weekend!
A lovely day for the annual Maddenfest Parade today. We walked over to the route, waved and smiled and got pelted with candy! Later we are heading to the Great Forest Park Balloon Race for funnel cake and hot air balloons. A good day in St Louis! I hope you are having a lovely weekend.
Do you like a ‘challenge’? I don’t mean a throw yourself out of an aeroplane type challenge, I am talking more the daily prompt driven variety. I am turning into a challenge addict I think. I love those prompt driven drawing or photography projects which are all over Instagram. They work well for me too, I usually follow along and complete them with a sense of fulfilled relief. Then I stop. But, I want to carry on, I want to do more of the regular creativity, and I think I need to move away from the challenge based creativity and just get myself doing something on a daily basis, on a regular daily basis. A drawing, a painting, hand lettering a word or a phrase, making a doodle or writing some words even. I was twiddling about on Instagram today and I saw a post by the photographer David Loftus which was a photo of his sketchbook. In the description he explained that he has been making a sketch a day since January and he …
My Mum sent me the new Be-Ro book this week which was rather exciting mail! I didn’t even realize they still published the recipe book. This is the 41st edition and they have been published since 1923. I have my Grandma’s Be-Ro book from the 1960’s which is the 31st edition and I love to use the recipes in there because they are the good old fashioned staples of baking. This copy has the added bonus of clippings of recipes that Grandma cut out of magazines or newspapers and paper clipped into the Be-Ro book. The old book falls open at two pages, one with Cornish pasties and Cheese and onion tart and the other well used page is the one with Brownies, Ginger cake and Easy fruit cake which has added notes next to it ‘ Add little coconut and almond essence’. My Grandma was the master of the fruit cake so I would take her coconut advice if I made this cake! I was pleased to see that some of the recipes are …
Today was a hot day for a walk, but walk we did! Five miles around the Shaw Nature Reserve made for a very pretty walk in very hot temps! We took water and made lots of stops for water fill ups, took some snaps and saw some wildlife. We spotted lizards, birds, bugs and butterflies as well as lots and lots of flowers and grasses. A great place to visit. So this was my ‘Six Word Saturday’. Share yours on Instagram with #sixwordsaturday!
We went to the Missouri History Museum to see the ‘Lost Buildings of St Louis’ photography exhibit and the ‘Walk in 1875 St Louis’ exhibit. They were both super interesting and of course told lots of history about St Louis. The 1875 exhibit is fairly new, so it was busy, but that just made us want to visit again in the week when it may be a little quieter. If you have a Six Word Saturday, pop in in the comments or share on Instagram and share your Insta name in the comments, so I can find you!
I try to make sure I print and album photos fairly regularly so that I don’t end up with a box of photos with no idea of when or where they were taken. However I did manage to get behind with 2013, I made it up to 2012 and I started 2014, but for some reason I neglected 2013. Then I did the worst thing and printed the photos, ran out of sleeves for my album and they ended up in the dreaded box….. This year I made sure I had enough sleeves and got to work using the diary to keep everything in order as I popped the photos into the album. It was lovely to look back at photos as it always is and now all of the photos are in their place. I find it very difficult to find albums now, so I started to use the Becky Higgins Project Life range which is great because they make sleeves to go in folders which hold regular prints and Instagram squares as well …
I made some ‘no knead’ bread this morning after it had been rising all night, had a slice with Marmite and did a bit of jigsaw puzzle. Our library lends jigsaw puzzles now which is a good thing, except I think we might have done them all by the end of the week! Don’t you love a puzzle? They remind me of my Grandma who always had one on the go and usually with a bazillion pieces.
Clare Davis Etheridge 