Orange Catherine Holm Fondue!

As you know from my previous posts that I am a collector of Catherine Holm fondue pots. I have about 10 of them! I just love the round space age shape. Of course you don't just have to use it for making fondue. It's really useful for serving or just holding knick knacks in. Anyways there is an orange set up for grabs on eBay right now with only 21 hours left. Here's the item #190265066528. It's a full set. Which is hard to find. The price is at $19.99 right now which is pretty reasonable. Good luck to whoever wants it!

Brussel Sprouts

Butternut Squash

Fresh Garlic

Corn

Sweet potato

The last of our farm share.

The last of our farm share 1.

The Lovely Pumpkin Pond

New Jewelry!

So it's been awhile since my last blog. Finnegan is doing much better now. He's pretty much back to normal except he doesn't run as fast as he use to. I guess he has to let his skin around his left hind leg to stretch out a bit more. I am so glad he is better!
Anyways, here's Quigley wearing what is the beginning of my new jewelry collection. It is inspired by a hornets nest that we found on our old kitchen window. You can see a picture of the actual nest on an old blog. So what Quigley is wearing is wearing is not actually the new jewelry but part of the components. The white square is just a piece of styrofoam that I am using to create clusters to see how they look. The clusters are made from sterling silver cones that are hand crimped to make hexagon shapes and then clustered to make the hornets nest. I think these will be turned into rings and pendants and brooches. Let me know what you think of them.

Finnegan Update

So it's been about 2 weeks since Finnegan had his stitches taken out.
He is pretty much back to normal. The good news is that the vet felt
like she got a good enough margin around the tumor that he won't need
radiation. We just have to keep an eye on him and feel for anything
that might come back. Anyways that's it for now.

Wing Ring

Here is a ring that I made for my friend Jenny. She saw a ring she really liked in a store, but it was really expensive. It was a plain silver ring in the shape of a wing that wrapped around the finger. She also saw other rings that had gemstones in it and wanted to see if I can add gemstones to the ring. So this is my version of the wing ring with multi color gemstones. It is hand carved from a piece of Precious Metal Clay(PMC) and the gemstones are lab created. Not very good pictures but it'll do. I think I can probably improve on a couple of things on the ring too. You know how it is. Whne you make something for the first time. You always end up thinking "oh, I should've did this instead of this." Anyways we'll see how Jenny likes it.

Anatomy

Here are a couple of anatomy models that I picked up from ebay. Was thinking of using it as inspiration for some jewelry. Don't know. Their cool to look at though. They are about 6" tall. Not too big and scary.

Finnegan

Here's a picture that I took with Finnegan the night before he went in for his surgery.

Bridesmaids Dress

Here' a bridesmaids dress that I made for a friend of a friend. I just finished it today. Made from black Sillk Dupioni and lined with emerald color polyester lining. It's super simple. Let me know what you think.

Sicky Finnie Update

Finnegan had his Surgery last Wednesday 28th of May. I never thought how big the incision would be for removing the tumor. The vet kept saying that she will have to take a big margin around the tumor to make sure that she gets everything, but since the tumor felt like the size of a big peanut. I thought maybe the incision would be just 4 inches or so. Imagine my horror when the nurse brought Finnegan out and showed me his scar. My jaw dropped and I just wanted to burst out in tears and start crying. I felt so bad for him. So the reason for the incision being so big was that the tumor apparently was bigger than they thought and she basically had to remove a 6 inch by about 3 or 4 inch section of his skin and tissue. She also said that she was worried that she couldn't go too far underneath the tumor to get a good margin because the tumor was right on hi rib cage. Now Finnegan might need radiation. We're still waiting to hear back. In the meantime we are just sitting on the couch with Finnegan in his little travel bag that he loves. He's basically not allowed to run, jump, play or do anything that would cause the incision to open up. Oh yeah, that was the other thing. Because they took so much skin off, they had to stretch the skin to have it sewn together again and it was the only chance for the skin to heal properly. If it opened up then we would be in trouble. Anyways he's healing perfectly. The stitches will probably come off next week Wednesday. That's it for now. Will keep you posted if he needs radiation or not. We're just giving him lot's of hug and kisses . I think he's getting spoiled. Oh well, he deserves it.

Sicky Finnie!

So we got some bad news today from our vet :,( We had found this lump on Finnegan a couple of weeks ago and took him in to get it checked out. Today we got the results and they think it might be an aggressive type of cancerous tumor that can spread very quickly. We have to take him in on Friday to get an ultrasound to see if it had spread or not (fingers and toes very crossed) and if it hadn't then they will remove the lump and give him treatment. I just hope that everything is okay and they only have to remove the lump and that's it. Anyways I'll keep you guys posted on his progress.

Rocking Chair

So this is a rocking chair that we found on the street that one of our neighbors threw out. The back was still good, but the seat as you can see in the picture is blown out. The frame is great shape though. I am going to re-cane it with a bit more of an unconventional material than the regular caning for chairs. I will post pictures once I finished.

Juliette SUCKS!

Okay, most of you that know me knows that I like food. I like going out to eat and I like cooking at home. I'm no professional chef or food critic or anything but I know what I like. When I go out to eat I don't expect the food to be 5 star restaurant quality or anything. As long as it's tasty I am fine. Also the service counts too. If the foods good but you get shitty service. It ruins the whole experience. You know what I mean?
So it was my friend's birthday and we wanted to have a nice Champagne brunch for her. We picked Juliette on N 5th St and Bedford cause they had Champagne and it was a place we have never been to. This place is suppose to be a French bistro type of place. I've seen this place and it looks nice from the outside so maybe the food is good. I was wrong. I mean the food wasn't bad or anything. I've had better. I had ordered the Minute Steak. Which I guess means a small steak with fries. The steak was tiny. I ordered it medium rare but got medium well and it was a bit chewy and kind of grainy. The fries were very hard. It was kind or like it was fried and then re-fried again. Anyways all that I can overlook but the kicker was. I had made my Grand Marnier Tofu cheese cake for her and brought it to have as dessert. We asked our waiter if we can get some plates for serving at which poiut he told us that there would be a plating fee which would be $2.50 per person. There were 11 of us so it would have been $27 for them to give us some plates and forks. We were like okay, just because it my friends birthday and we wanted to celebrate it with a cake. Anyways our waiter left and then came back to let us know that instead of the $2.50 plating fee it would be a $5.00 service fee per person. We were like are you kidding me? FORGET IT! It wasn't even like the place was that busy. I've been to restaurants where they were okay if you brought a birthday cake and was happy to serve it for you without a fee. At this point I was really over it. Then my friend tells me that he had called them earlier to make reservation and had asked if he can bring a bottle of champagne that his wife(my friends birthday)liked, but they wanted a $25 corkage fee.
All in all this has been one of my worst restaurant experiences. I would never go back to this place and wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends. I guess want was I expecting around Bedford. I mean there are only a handful of restaurants around Bedford that have really good food and service without the attitude. The rest are just crappy restaurants that goes after the trendies that goes there to hangout and to be seen. Now you know I'm pissed if I'm ranting about something on this blog. I usually don't complain about much but I am so over these restaurants that pretend to be something that they're not. They all have these gimicky decor and menues and all they're trying to do is hide they're shitty food. Okay okay. I've had my say. No more ranting. Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

Birthday Desserts! ( part 2 1/2 )

I kind of over did it on this recipe. Hehe... This recipe was meant for a rectangular glass baking dish and serves 8, so I decided to make then into individual mini cheesecakes for easier distribution. Don't have to bring the dish and have to worry about cutting and stuff. So I tripled the recipe, 8 servings per recipe so 3x8 is 24. I should get about 24 mini cheesecakes and did I get 24 mini cheesecakes? Of course and 2 large rectangular glass baking dish size as well! I guess we'll have to figure out how to finish them. Here are pictures.

Birthday Desserts! ( part 2 )

So here is the second dessert I made. Grand Marnier Tofu Cheesecake with lemon and orange zest. As you can see in the first photo. There is one missing from the corner. First rule of thumb for a cook is to always taste everything before you serve it. Needed to make sure that it's okay. Maybe I should taste all the other ones just to be totally sure. Just kidding.

Birthday Desserts!

The weather yesterday was amazing. It was so nice to just have a day where you didn't have to bundle up to leave the house. Anyways we sat on our stoop for awhile and enjoyed the weather. So our friend birthday is today and I wanted to make him some birthday desserts. Couldn't make up my mind on which dessert to make. The Grand Marnier Tofu Cheesecake or the Spiced Chocolate Pudding. So I decided to make both! Of course. Here are some pictures of the chocolate pudding. Don't know if there's enough for everyone? Oh well. First come first serve. I guess.

3 Sausages!

Over the weekend we had our friend Lalana's dog Thomas with us for 4 days. Finnegan and Quigley had loads of fun with him. Of course after Thomas left, Paul and I decided that two dogs is enough. Even though they are not very big dogs they are a hand full. With two you can carry one in each arm to go up and down the stairs, but with three you kind of have to take two down and then go back to get the third. Lets just say that it kind of screws up the whole balance. Anyways you can't really tell who's who in the picture but there is three dogs running around on the couch. The last picture is Thomas giving Quigley a bit of a lick...:)

Spring is on Sharon Street!

Paul taking pictures of all the plants and flowers blooming on 20 Sharon Street. As you can see the Magnolia tree is starting to bloom in our neighbors yard and in the second picture there are crocuses and tulips blooming in our garden. So ready for the warm weather!

New Jewelry!

Here's a look at some new jewelry I'm working on. Much more delicate with gemstones. 3 piece set with earrings and pendant. These are made of .999 pure silver that has been filed down to a cone shape and then hollowed out at one end and then attached with a small blue sapphire at the end. It also has a brushed finish, instead of a mirror finish. Let me know what you think.

Blue/ Green Runners.

My blue and green runnners.