Time to consolidate.....

Hi friends

Maybe you have noticed a lack of activity here recently -

 well I realise I am spreading myself too thin 

and one blog 

is more than enough for me at the moment.

So Rufus and I would love 

you follow us at The Fable of The Table 

from now on 

and hope we will see your happy faces there.

Today I have some great blogs for you to check out

so do pop over.

Wrapping a dog - japanese style

Ever wanted to gift wrap your dog?

Rufus wants to show you how....

Just check out my other blog

here

* Thank your lucky stars *

"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, be more active. Show up more often." ~ Brian Tracy

Who doesn't want to feel lucky today?


When I read this quote in my daily email from charity focus.org I got me thinking about luck.


I never seem to win at raffle draws but I do think I'm lucky. So ... does it depend on how you view luck, or is it just down to taking more chances?


Well, when I say I don't win at raffle draws that is not quite true - I circumvented my low track record of wins by cheating fate recently.
This year at the school spring fair I wrote 'Rufus' on all my raffle tickets (Rufus is my wheaten terrier). You had to be there to see the surprise on people's faces when his name was read out. In total, Rufus won 3 prizes for me - including a 2 night stay at Novotel in downtown Beijing, 288 KitKat chocolate bars and 1000 rmb ($160) of IKEA products.

I am 100% certain my name would not have been so lucky. 

I am also sure that next year Rufus would not be lucky.

I wanted to read more about luck and found this article has some fascinating ideas.


In a nutshell :
Lucky people often follow their intuition
Lucky people like to introduce variety in how they do things.
Lucky people can see the good in their misfortunes - things could have been much worse.


What is amazing is that the researcher, Richard Wiseman, found that when 'unlucky' people were encouraged to act as a lucky person would, they too became luckier (as well as happier and more contented).

So if you want to join Rufus and his KitKat's you could take a few minutes 

to read the article and generate some good fortune for yourself.

Let me know if you get lucky!

The Road

Monday morning

felt like

I was in another landscape

like a grim, post-apocalypse world

where only my dog and I

 were left to wander 

the desolate, ochre coloured surroundings.

~

Sand storms change everything 

from the light 

to my mood.

One thing 

would have brightened me up ...

Viggo Mortensen coming towards me

but that was the movie 

and this is real life.

~

Rufus 

you'll have to be my hero for the day.

Post script: Tuesday saw the winds blow away the silty air and we got blue sky for a while.

The first day of March

We woke up to 2 inches of soft snow 

No good for riding the bike......

so Rufus and I enjoyed, what I hope is, the last snow fall of the winter.

Snow time like the present

To remind ourselves of how much fun the snow is 

 because it's disappearing fast, 

here is a Rufus mosaic 

showing how good life can be

 if you are born with 

the equivalent of Ugg boots for skin covering.

I just discovered Mosaic Monday at Little Red House today 

and decided that 

even though I was 2 days late 

I would join the fun. 

If you want to have a try, 

Mary has instructions to tell you how to do it. 

If I can manage it .... 

then you know you can too.

Rufus says "Go on - have a roll in the snow, you know you'll love it!"

Muffins anyone?

Well I had this great idea to make Friday my food blogging day. However Ian's birthday took over and so though I plenty of eating on Friday, it has taken 2 days to get round to sharing!
Hmmm ... Friday started for me at 4.30am - I had not finished sewing the quilt I was giving to Ian that day, so it started early for me. I had it all done by 6.30am but then had to make some special muffins for breakfast because I had been so busy sewing all day Thursday I had forgotten to buy anything special for his birthday breakfast!! 
Are you like me - loads of muffin recipes but can never remember which is the really good one? I decided to try a new one - partly because I had the ingredients and partly because it gave me an excuse to get out my everso much loved red Kitchenaid mixer.
As you see from the photo - the muffins did good and Ian felt properly celebrated. 
So if you would like to try them here is the recipe:

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

Preheat oven : 375F or 190C

Makes 12 muffins

2 cups (500ml) all purpose flour

1Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup (175ml) sugar

finely grated zest of one lemon

1/2 cup (125ml) butter, softened

2 eggs - at room temp

1/2 cup (125ml) whole milk

1 cup (250ml) fresh or frozen blueberries

1Tbsp flour

Glaze: 

3/4 cup icing sugar- sifted

1.5 Tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed

To make:

1. In a medium bowl mix the 2 cups of flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
2. Place sugar, lemon zest and butter in the mixer bowl. Attach the flat beater (if using a Kitchen-aid). Set to speed 4 and beat till light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Stop the mixer and scrape down every so often. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again. Set to speed 2 and beat in flour mix alternately with milk. Remove the mixer and scrape the bowl.
3. In a small bowl lightly toss the blueberries with 1 Tbsp of flour. Use a large spatula to carefully fold the blueberries into the batter.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake in the lower middle of the oven for 20 -25 minutes - or until golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes before removing the muffins to a rack.
5. Meanwhile prepare the glaze by whisking together the sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Brush n the warm muffins.

Recipe from ‘The Mixer Bible’ by Meredith Deeds and Carla Snyder

Oh and in case you wanted to see the quilt - here it is. The reason I was so rushed was because I only started on it 4 days beforehand. From my amassed piles of shirting fabrics I included some squares from his favourite old, red twill, gingham Thomas Pink shirt. In fact it was news to Ian that the red twill shirt was no longer in his wardrobe! But it lives on now - 3 squares down from Rufus's nose ( who is searching for muffin crumbs I think).

Let me know if you try the muffins and how they taste.

Is snow really that cold?

I must be crazy. I have just been out in the garden at -10C with my slipper off to photograph my foot in the snow.

Why?

I'm doing a photo journaling course and needed feet photos. So trying to be different I went out barefoot.

First problem was that I could not balance on one leg and take a photo. Why on one leg ? Because the instant I had put my barefoot in the snow a sharp pain was experienced and I had the immediate urge to remove my foot from said snow. This led to a balance problem. which led to the foot falling back into the snow.... and so the process repeated several times.

Yet... having frozen my foot in the name of art I was not going to retreat indoors without a trophy photo.

The original idea was for Rufus and I to be barefoot in the snow together - he shot back inside the house and so the only way I could reunite our feet was in the warmth of the kitchen...