Wednesday, April 11, 2018

I made the first of three bundt cakes last night – I can’t even remember how many of these I’ve made since last summer. Several for our Cranberry Day celebration and several more for various Cranberry Hall Presents events. I still have one package of cranberries left so I’ll make another one for the Member Appreciation event at the Hall and then, I think, I’ll never want to see that recipe again.

I was up early and had my next cake in the oven before eight. This time it was a Chocolate Fudge; I’ve never made it before but who wouldn’t want to try a chocolate cake that uses cocoa powder and brewed coffee. My worry with these cakes is that they won’t come out of the pan properly but so far, so good.

Next up was a Lemon Bundt cake, also a new recipe. I miscalculated when I was making my list; somehow I didn’t see the final two ingredients on the sheet and although I had enough eggs I didn’t have enough sour cream. I had some vanilla yogurt so I substituted some of that and, judging from the crumbs I had, it worked out fine. Again it came out of the pan without any problem.

Next up was a “regular” cake that will get iced and stay at the studio for Pat’s birthday. It uses a cake mix and instant pudding mixes so it was easy to put together. Before getting started though I had to run out to Safeway to purchase another dozen eggs due to my earlier mis-count. This cake will stay in the 9″x13″ pan so I didn’t have to worry about getting it out of the pan.

And finally I was on to muffins. I found a recipe for Apple Cinnamon Muffins but I don’t like fruit in my muffins so decided to substitute raisins for the apples. When I was ready to put them into muffin tins I realized my muffin tins (well Mum’s actually) didn’t look so hot so I put them into the recycle bin and decided to make loaves instead. These I’m not so sure turned out well; fortunately there are two of them so I’ll be able to have a taste before deciding whether they are “good enough” or whether I’ll pick some up from the store tomorrow.

And the bonus for all this baking is that as I waited on the timer again and again and again I made good progress on one of my cross-stitched quilt blocks!

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

I had a good day at the bee today but I didn’t accomplish too much. I finished off my card, except for the hand stitching, and that was my highest priority. I also had time to stitch around another snowflake, but my bobbin ran out just before I finished the second one so I decided to call it a day. I’m planning to go over to Texada on Thursday night and, since I’m driving, I might take a machine with me this time. My April challenge has more or less taken over my Tuesday project simply because it is easy to pack up and uses the same machine as the small projects I’m working on.

After cleaning up and leaving the bee I got a few groceries; not as many as I thought I would need though as I’m making five different items. The recipes are pretty basic and I always have lots of butter, sugar and flour in the house for my concession baking. The ladies from Texada are having a good laugh about the Kitchen Party – the latest someone said was that they were extending the hours from 3 PM to 5 PM. I hope they were just teasing!

I’m waiting for fabric to arrive in order to finish the 9-Patch I started in my last Guild class. There was a parcel waiting today and, although it wasn’t my fabric, it was a fun one. The envelope contained Pat’s birthday present and a hockey cards from Will and Alex. Kathryn also included the embroidery floss I needed and she even threw in three books (I think the books may originally have come from Regan).

I’ll get started on a bit of baking now – I should have time for at least one bundt cake before bed! While it bakes I’ll get to work on that hand stitching.

Monday, April 9, 2018

I had a bit of secret printing to do this morning so, as my excuse for going out, I gathered up all my cans and bottles for the bottle depot. We had quite a collection of items for the recycle depot so we loaded those into the car as well.

Pat and another member have resigned from the Cranberry Hall Board and we were making them lifetime members. I offered to make up some sort of certificate so I was headed to Staples to do that. I had some pages that needed to be done for my project book, as well as an archived article I had done from the Guild website so I knew it would take me awhile. I wasn’t able to do the two certificates on card stock myself so I had to leave the files with them and go back later to pick them up.

Fortunately I had another excuse for going out after lunch – I mailed our Income Tax info to the accountant and I made a Cranberry Hall deposit. The certificates were ready when I went back to Staples and, except for Pat mentioning it took longer than he thought it would, he was none the wiser.

I did a lot of work getting things ready for our Board meeting tonight and extra prep work for the AGM. I also wanted to do a bit of transition planning for the Board meeting, although we didn’t have a lot of time to discuss all the tasks that need to be done. We managed to persuade a couple of our current Board to stand as President, VP, and (maybe) Secretary and I’ll continue on as Treasurer. We want to be sure we have some clear tasks for our members to volunteer for and for our new (hopefully) Board members to see where they might fit in.

And between all that I’ve managed to get a card top almost done. I have it packed for tomorrow’s bee, as well as more of my April challenge project. Although I’d like to say I’m finished for the day I need to go through some recipes and make a list so I can shop tomorrow for Pat’s birthday party.

Did I mention that we are having a party on Texada for Pat’s birthday? I suggested he might want to ask half a dozen people over to see his studio; next thing I know it is an Event. I’m taking three Bundt cakes to Pat’s birthday party, I’m making muffins for people who drop in at the studio before the Kitchen Party, and another small cake for those who come to the studio after the Kitchen Party. I’ll need to take over cutlery, cups and plates and a few chairs because there isn’t anything extra at the studio.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

I spent the morning catching up on my Friday block for the 1880 Sampler. As I’ve been doing, I also made an extra one to use as a card top. I’m so glad Stacia put this idea in my head. I’ve already got a good start on my May cards. I would have liked to have carried on with more projects, but I had quite a few things I needed to get done in the next couple of days so I set it all aside and got down to work.

I think I am almost ready for the Cranberry Hall Board meeting. This will be the last meeting before our Member Appreciation event and our Annual General Meeting so I have a stack of notes, mostly notes to myself. Even when I thought I was done and had everything printed, I found myself adding little written items to many of the pages. I thought my reports were ready, but I just realized that I missed one of them. It’s a good thing I still have a day to run through it all again.

After I gave up on that task I got busy scanning all our income tax documentation. I’d like to have it ready for the mail tomorrow but that will depend on whether or not I think of a lot of things I need to do before the meeting tomorrow. Scanning was the biggest job though and that’s done; the rest of it just needs to be organized a bit, have a few notes added, and then all plopped into an XPress post envelope.

The meeting tomorrow night is at our place so I think a bit of vacuuming will be in order some time before then.