Texted (Tekst) verses Text-ted

Okay, this has been sort of on my mind ever since sending text messages have become the norm.  When I first heard someone use the word text-(ted) with the ed a syllable of it's own, I was a little perplexed.  Thinking it should be texted, sounds like: tekst.  Not really knowing for certain if I was correct of if the people using the word text-ted were correct.  This word text-ted just does not ring true to my ears.

So, we were at the movies recently, to see Hunger Games, with our friends, Jan and Gary.  Before the movie began, I leaned over and asked Gary if it should be text (tekst) or text-ted.  He confirmed what I believe to be true and said tekst and went on to explain why.

1.  The word 'text' is a noun not a verb.   A noun describes person, place or thing.  A verb is an action word.

Since text refers to written material, think about this...

When not too long ago, people sat down and wrote letters to others.  Yes, they actually wrote words on paper, licked a stamp and put it in the mail.  ha ha  ;D

Did they say, "I lettered Bob today."  ?  No, they would say, "I sent Bob a letter today."  Or, "I mailed Bob a letter."  Or, how about this:  "I writed a letter to Bob."  Or, "Bob writed a letter to me."

Think of these words:  reflexed, hexed, annexed, perplexed, indexed, flexed, sexed, oversexed, undersexed.  We do not add ed and make it a separate syllable as in 'ed.'  The ed has the sound of 't' in these examples.

Anyway, I found this link:  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/texted

Look at the word texted in bold.  Listen to how it's pronounced by clicking on the little sound tab.
Look at the word text in bold.  Listen to how it's pronounced by clicking on the sound tab.

They are the same sound.  As if you are saying: tekst.  Text Texted, same sound for both.

Although, as far as language goes, I think it would sound better if people just said, I sent Bob a text message.  Or simply, I sent Bob a text.  Or, Bob sent me a text message.  Instead of, I text-ted Bob or Bob text-ted me.  Or simply pronounce it correctly: texted = tekst.

What are your thoughts?  Just something to ponder.

Delightful and Delicious

Homemade buttermilk cupcakes ready and waiting for their pretties.

Vanilla Amaretto Frosting

I was in the mood for making some buttermilk cupcakes to take along to a potluck party we're attending this Saturday.  Such tastiness!

So smooth and creamy and yummy.

Delicate pastels.

And because I was busy making the cupcakes and frosting and decorating them, for dinner I popped some Trader Joe's Onion Soup into the oven.

The golden oozing cheesy goodness.

Here is the recipe for the Buttermilk Cupcakes:

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt

1.  Sift above ingredients together into a large bowl.

2.  Add 1 1/3 cups buttermilk or sour milk, 1/2 cup softened butter, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp. almond extract:  Mix on low speed for 1 minute, then mix on high for 1 more minute, scrape bowl and mix again.

3.  Add 4 egg whites and mix on low to incorporate and then on high for another 2 minutes scraping bowl as needed.

4.  Use paper cups or grease your muffin pan.  Bake 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. 

Vanilla Amaretto Butter Frosting:

1 cube unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1/4 cup milk at room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 box powdered confectioner's sugar

Mix all ingredients in mixer scraping bowl as needed until smooth and creamy.  Frost and decorate cupcakes as desired.

Camphor Tree Down

The city took down this dead tree in our front yard today.

Died from disease.

The guys were so nice and cut us a few slices.

Once it dries, we'll make some small tables for our shop.  Cool, huh?

Quilting Again!

Years ago, I used to quilt on a regular basis.  Machine piece and hand quilting is what I do.  Some people hand piece and hand quilt, at least that's what they used to do before the invention of the sewing machine, and some people machine piece and machine quilt.  I've never machine quilted because I enjoy the needlework of doing it by hand.  It's relaxing to me and I love the look of the handiwork.

I began this piece approx. 18 years ago and have held onto it ever since even though it was never finished.  It's the perfect size to make into my sewing machine cozy.  All I have to do is finish quilting it, make the binding and bind it. 

Traced my heart and into the quilting hoop we go.

You can see my earlier stitches from long ago and how close they are.  I was averaging approx. 10 to 12 stitches per inch at that time.  I was doing it almost every day and had lots of practice to get to this point.

First you thread the tiny needle and then pull the thread through the beeswax.

You can see I'm a little rusty at this.  The needle is supposed to be going into the fabric straight down, which I think I'm doing but now that I look at this picture I can see that I went in at an angle. 

Supposed to be straight down through the fabric.  :(

Then it's a rocking motion sharp up and straight down, sharp up and straight down.

Thimbles are a must!

Some people have a thimble on the underside as well but I've never learned to do that as I need to feel the needle to make sure it's gone all the way through the three layers.  Yes, I do get some blood once in a while but for the most part, no blood.  So far no pokes for this practice.

Pulling the needle through.

I'm averaging about 5 to 6 stitches per inch right now.  For my first practice after all these years, I'm okay with that.  Besides, I couldn't thread my usual size needle so I had to go with a slightly larger quilting needle.  Believe it or not, the smaller the needle the closer your stitches are.

That's how you can tell a good quality and well made quilt, by the stitching.  The closer the stitches are, the better.  The quilts you find in the stores are not a good quality, they are made by cheap labor and the stitches are far apart and not evenly spaced.  I don't have anything against these quilts because some of them are very pretty with the fabrics and colors chosen, but just so you know the difference.  You have to remember that to get a quilt with good stitching you'll have to either do it yourself or pay a premium price because quilting a quilt takes lots and lots of hours.  And then you have the binding which needs to be sewn on by both machine on one side and by hand on the other with hidden stitching. 

Oh, and People, please, please, please, never sit on a quilt.  It breaks the stitches.  If you have it folded and hanging on a quilt rack, take it off once per month and refold it a different way.  Wash it with very little soap and double rinse to get all the soap out of the fabric and do not use fabric softener on quilts.  Lots of little rules but very important to keep your heirloom in good shape.

You can see that my stitches aren't as close as they should be.  More practice needed.

Shelf with Mirrors

This was a custom order for a client and we'll be adding it to our shop just as soon as we can figure out what shipping would cost would be to say, New York, which is one of our top areas we ship to.  We ship all over the U.S. but the east coast, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Florida are the top selling areas for our hand crafted furniture items. 

I love this mirror, it's so beautiful and Michael did an outstanding job! 

New Art/Craft/Sewing Room

I'm so very excited to show you my new room and cannot wait to begin playing in it and to have Angelina and Aiden and their Mommy over for some fun times creating!       

I designed some shelves that I needed for lots of storage for my new art/craft/sewing room and Michael built them all for me.  Isn't he wonderful?  I'm so happy with how everything turned out and simply cannot believe this is my very own play room!

Left side: Large cubbyhole storage cabinet.

This large cabinet even holds my cd player and speakers so I can listen to some music to jazz me as I create.

I love my pegboard organizer in Robin's Egg Blue!  Here.

Ribbon and paint organizers.  Here and Here.

Basically, I gave Michael the dimensions needed for storing things and he made them all for me.  Every piece of furniture you see, he made, from my sewing machine table under the pegboard to my cutting and storage table you see above and all the shelves for storage.

The only thing I need are better and perhaps cuter lamps.  Not too sure about the ones I've got right now.  Good lighting is crucial and these tend to have some glare.   

Very large and sturdy wall unit attached to the wall for security.

Large cutting table with plenty of fabric storage on both sides.

Same side, different angle.

The other side of cutting table.

Lastly, a shelf above the pegboard to store jars of buttons, etc..

To begin with, I need to make these:  A sewing machine cozy, a valance to hang above the window above the window seat nook overlooking the garden and some pillows for the window seat nook.

More Tree Work

The tree that was taken out on Tuesday: the stump was ground down today.

Liquid Amber tree coming down today.

Up, up and away.

Going into the chute.

Glad it's him and not me way up there.

This tree was very pretty and I liked it except it was planted too close to the house and the roots from these trees can be very damaging to foundations.  Plus, it was a very messy tree with these little seed pods (I call them dingleberries) that were always underfoot and a tripping hazard on our front porch and walkway.  As soon as we cleaned them up (hundreds) there were more to take the place, again, hundreds.

Seed pods (dingleberries)

Stump grinder is in place to begin grinding the Deodara Cedar tree stump.

Shed will go in April 9th.  Can't wait!

And then the Liquid Amber stump got ground up.

Next week, the same guys are coming back to heavily prune two more trees in our backyard that are in desperate need of some attention.  Oh, and the city is coming to take out a tree in the front yard.  It's completely diseased and dead and full of mistletoe.  Once the shed is in and we're all organized, then we begin landscaping the backyard.

Then the front yard will get some very needed attention.  Our lawn is full of weeds and we have an old ugly holly tree that will need to come out.  The plan is to redesign and landscape the entire front of the house.  Unlike the backyard which is very shady, the front is sunny throughout most of the day being south/west facing.  

I tell ya, it feels so good to be able to hire a company to come in and do this work and get it done in one day.  Yes!!!

Deodara Cedar Tree

The tree is down.

PG&E tree guy.

The last of the chipping.

Tree rings.

Mike planted this tree approx. 30 years ago.  It had grown up into the high voltage lines and was leaning toward the fence and was about to become a hazard for fear of falling over.  Mid April is the date scheduled for our new shed to get installed.  So looking forward to organizing our packaging materials and things.

Once the shed is up and things organized, next up will be a utility sink installed in the laundry room.  Then we can wash all the paint brushes in that instead of making a mess in the kitchen sink.  That will be a much, much better solution.

Tree Before.

What We Did

Michael worked on the shelf/mirror order and my sewing room cabinets today while I spent the day in the kitchen making chili beans and cake pops.  I went to Angelina and Aiden's school book sale recently and purchased a how to make cake pops book, something I've been wanting to try since eating a Starbucks cake pop.  The book has many more fun and fancy cake pops to try but I wanted to do something basic and simple for my first try, to get a feel for it.  Perhaps I'll get a little more ambitious after I do it one or two more times.  Next time I might try a different cake recipe (nothing tastes better to me than homemade cake) and see if it crumbles better.  Maybe a buttermilk cake, sounds good to me!

I made homemade cake and crumbled it but not into fine enough crumbs, I'm afraid.  I also made homemade frosting to mix into the crumbled cake in order to form into balls. 

Still worked fine for me though.

For my first attempt, they turned out pretty good.  Tasty!

Put on styrofoam block after coating and into frig to firm up.

Transferring from block to plate and back into frig.

Chocolate cake with vanilla candy coating.

Sewing Room

I ordered some curtains online, only to realize afterward they are dry clean only.  Scratch that order.  I'm going to go through my fabric stash to see if I have some fabric that would work for me to make my own valance.  That would be very easy on the wallet as well.

Michael is going to make some furniture for my new art/craft/sewing room.  A large cubbyhole wall unit, a sewing machine table and a large table for cutting fabric, doing crafts, holding supplies, etc..

So looking forward to this being completed and everything organized where it's easy to get at and find things for projects.  I'll definitely post some pictures once it's finished.

Beach Cottage Mirrored Shelf

We just received a custom order to make this beautiful shelf with mirrors.  Isn't it lovely?  Michael is excited to begin working on this.

A Collection of Lovely Things

Lovely Dress Here

Art Nouveau Mucha Pendant Here

Shabby Chic Pillow Here

Bird Gift Tags Here

Rabbit Painting Here

Vintage Fishing Float Here