::CHRISTMAS IN JULY GIVEAWAY #2::

It's not too early to start thinking about Christmas.  This year I am thinking about it early and hope to get shopping, sewing and quilting done way ahead of time.

Sometimes though you just want to give a little something to a neighbor or friend around Christmas time.  That's a great time to give a foodie gift.

The giveaway for today  is a cookbook for cookies.  Cookies that can be made not just at Christmas, but any time of year.  It's the Great Cookie Book put out by the creators of the original Bundt Pan...NordicWare.

As you can see from my last giveaway, I don't believe in making you jump through all kinds of hoops to win something.  All you have to do is leave me a comment with your favorite cookie that you like to bake and why it's your favorite.  That's it!

I will leave the giveaway open until Thursday midnight central time.  After that the giveaway is closed.  I will post on Friday who won.

In addition to posting the winner on Friday morning, I will be posting yet another book giveaway.  It won't be a cookbook.  I will leave you with a hint....quilting! 

Have a great day!

Pin It Now!

::GIVEAWAY WINNER!::

Thank you ladies for participating in my cookbook giveaway.  Since there was only three of you I put your names in a hat and picked the lucky winner.  The winner of The Pioneer Woman Cooks new cookbook is......

Suburban Prep

Congratulations!

I will be emailing you to get your info. 

Don't fret if you didn't win because tomorrow I will be giving away another cookbook.  So check back.

Have a great day1

Pin It Now!

::CHRISTMAS IN JULY GIVEAWAY!!!!:::

Hey everyone!

GIVEAWAY DAY is finally here!!

I am feeling mighty generous..as if it were Christmas.  : )

Do you like food?  Do you like to cook or bake?  Do you like to "put up?" (that's canning for folks that have never heard that) I love to do all the above too.  Have y'all ever heard of Pdub?  If you haven't you have been missing out.  She is a writer, blogger, wife and mom and this year she will be starting season three of her cooking show on the Food Network.

 She has her new cookbook out and it is fabulous!  If you love her blog and how she shares recipes there then you will love this cookbook.  She shows you step-by-step with beautiful pictures how to do each recipe.   And they are in color y'all.  Lotsa of them. Theres also pics of her lovely family in there and even their dog Charlie. 

All you have to do is leave a comment below and tell me one of her recipes you would like to make.  If you haven't seen her show or been to her blog than share a favorite recipe you like to make.  Now I don't mean type out the recipe.  Just tell me something your family likes to eat that you cook or bake.  That's it!

Now go tell all your bloggy friends because if you generate enough folks to come on over and enter the giveaway I can use that "number generator thingie."  That would be lotsa fun to do.

Sunday night at midnight central time will be the last time you will be able to enter.  Monday morning I will post the winner!

Have a great weekend everyone!Pin It Now!

::ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND BACK ...THE CONCLUSION::

Hey all!

My apologies for not posting about the book giveaway this week yet.  I got whisked away to the Emerald Coast.  The weather has been lovely here all week with the exception of one storm that passed through. 

I was loving the sand and sun so much that I totally forgot to post the final installment of our trip across the country.

One of the must haves to see when in Washington state is Cour D'Alene.  Not sure on that spelling.  It has a charming downtown with lots of shops.  The particular day we went there was a farmers market.  My daughter was so excited.  She bought a lavender plant.  She can't wait for it to flower so she can dry them out and decorate with them or make sachets.  Before we headed out to Cour D'Alene though we stopped off at the Buck Knife factory.  If you have following this blog for any length of time you know we used to homeschool and I am a sucker for  a "field trip."  The family indulged me on this one even though we don't homeschool anymore.  The tour is free.  It was interesting to see the process on how the knives are made.  They are quality knives.  Quality means expensive..and rightfully so.  Handcrafted won't come cheap.  Our tour guide suggested that a great way to purchase a Buck Knife is to buy the off cuts.  Basically, there is nothing wrong with the knife, but to Buck Knives if there is a discoloring or some of that nature it doesn't make it to the sales bin.  If you have ever seen there knives they are flawless and they don't sell anything less than that.

Here is a pic of the downtown.

They have a wonderful Brazilian steakhouse to eat at if you ever get the chance to visit there.    I think it's called Ipenema's.  If you have perused my pinterest board you will see a Brazilian lemonade recipe pinned.  I had to find the recipe of that drink we had there.  It is fabulous and non-alcoholic.  We loved them.  Hoping to make some of that beverage when we get back home.

We also took a drive around while visiting in Cour D'Alene.  Check out the scenery.  It's breathtakingly beautiful.  I don't think I did it justice with my photos.

Check out the rock face going around the moutain below.

Then the long awaited day came y'all! 

I was beyond excited I tell you.  I had my daughter there with me and it was a beautiful day.  The folks shopping at the Farm Chicks were the nicest people.  There were so many vendors and so many things to see and be bought.  My daughter and I found the textile table right off and spent way too much time there.  Had we not pulled away and looked at other things I do believe I would of spent all my money at that table.  They had vintage table cloths, chenille, vintage quilt tops and quilts.  Oh my, daughter and I love textiles, so it was hard to walk away from that table.  I did however purchase two things and will post those when we get back home.  I don't have pics of them in my camera yet.

Heather from http://postroadvintage.com/blog said she would have a booth there and invited folks to stop by and say "hello" if they would be at the Farm Chicks.  I did make a point to find her booth and say "hello", but their booth was bustling with folks and I didn't want to tie up her time chatting with her when she could be talking to potential buyers.    Hopefully I didn't freak her out.  I did ask if she was Heather  when we got there and she seemed quite surprised that I knew her name.   Sorry if I freaked you out Heather.  She was just as sweet as she could be though.  If you have a chance, stop by her blog and check it out.  Here are some pics of their booth

The highlight of the day at the Farm Chicks was being able to meet Heather Bullard and Serena.  Serena was gracious enough to autograph my Farm Chicks cookbook and Heather autographed a Country Living magazine for me.  Serena was so excited that her folks were there with her for the first time at one of her shows.  She even introduced us to them.  They were both so down to earth and were happy to take pictueres with anyone that asked.  Thank you both for being so sweet.

That's the end of our tour out west for now.  I have tons more pictures we took on our way back home traveling through South Dakota, but I don't want to bore y'all.

Friday morning I will posting the cookbook  giveaway.  It's a good one to y'all, so don't miss it.
Have a great day!
CherylPin It Now!

::ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND BACK, PART 2

I am back with the second installment of our trip across the country. Tomorrow I will be wrapping up our trip.  I have lots other posts lined up already that I am waiting to share with you.  Until then, grab a cuppa sweet tea and enjoy.

We went through parts of Wyoming and Colorado and the landscape was just beautiful.  The rock formations were everywhere.  So beautiful

We stopped at a rest stop and right near the rest top must of been the edge of someones ranch because I was able to get a pretty close picture of this horse.

Then we came upon this state.....

It was a beautiful state to drive through, but it was BIG!  I thought we would never get out of Montana.  We did eventutally.   We stayed the night in Billings and woke up to snow!  Can you believe that?  Yep, there it was May 26th and it was snowing.  So part of our trip was in snowy weather.  Loved it!  It was cold though.  I had only brought a zippered hoodie as any kind of jacket to wear.  The further west we got, the cooler it got.  Meanwhile, back home in LA we hear it's 95 degrees.

If it seems that some pics may be a little out of focus its because I took most of the pictures in the car while in the backseat while my hubby was going 75 mph.  So bare with me.

Believe it or not we finally made it out of Montana.  Beautiful country, but a BIG state!  I can't tell you how happy I was to see Idaho. We finally made it to Washington and met up with my sweet daughter  and her sweet friend.

Remember our one big reason for heading to Washington was to attend the Farm Chicks show, but first we decided to head to downtown  Spokane and check out the sites.

Right through the middle of downtown Spokane has falls that go through it.  What is really amazing is that during the fall and winter months there is no water rushing through, but once the spring thaw hits, this is what happens.....

Water rushing down and lots of it.  

Here is something I don't normally do; mainly because I am the one behind the camera.  Here is me and my husband on a bridge over the falls.  I wasn't too crazy about walking out on this bridge to take this picture.  It kinda freaked me out, but I did it.

And then I saw this sign and I said to everyone, "Okay, that is my cue to get outta here.  Let's look at something else."  I didn't want any slipsy oopsies.  So we moved on.

I think at some point the Worlds Fair was held here and so there is a lot of fun stuff for kids to ride and climb,etc.

We thought this sculpture was the funniest thing in the park.  So we decided to be a little silly and pose with it.

This radio flyer wagon was my most favorite thing to see.  It's huge as you can see.  What looks like the handle to the far right is also ...........

 a slide!

We had great fun in the park! 

Come back tomorrow for the third and final installment of our cross country adventure.

Be sure to stop back on Monday.  I will be doing book giveaways and sharing some projects with you.

Enjoy your day!

Pin It Now!

::ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND BACK::

May was a pretty big month for us. Our son graduated! The weeks leading up to graduation were jam packed with all sorts of things. Sports dinners, senior dinners, blah,blah. You know how it is if you have children in college. Anyhow, graduation night finally came and we were so proud of son. Here is a pic that Mr. Quiltingmemories took after the ceremony.

Two days after graduation we packed up the car and headed west.  Washington state to be exact.  We would meet up with our daughter there as well as head to the Farm Chicks show.

It took us four days to head out there.  We went through fourteens states all in all.  We started out going through Louisiana and then Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas.  I tried to take pictures of each  welcome to this state sign, but I wasn't always successful.  The first one I took was Kansas.  So, here you go.

We saw lots of these.  Not sure what they are.  If anyone knows what they are, we would sure love to know.  We didn't just see these in Texas and Kansas; we saw them all over. Even up in Montana.

We saw lots of cows as you can imagine there was lots of open land along the way.  There is a funny story behind the photo below.  Mr. Quiltingmemories actually pulled over so I could take this picture.  They cows were not cooperating with me for the photo and Mr. Quiltingmemories started to moo!  Yes, he actually mooed at the cows.  Surprisingly they finally turned in our direction and I got this shot.  It reminds me a little of the laughing  cows commercial.

This week I will do a three part series on the rest of our cross country adventure.  

Next week I hope to have a new face for the blog.  I will be updating it and trying to make it easier to navigate past posts as well as current ones. I  will also being putting up a new header as well.  Be on the look out for a new series in the side bar that I will be running.  I am calling it "Simple Summer Fare."  There will be  breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert editions. I will be adding links so you can follow on Pinterest as well.

Until then, have a great evening and a blessed week.

Pin It Now!