It must be jelly cause jam don't shake like this

A long time ago I remember seeing a canning page where the woman made a huge variety of jellies every year and I remember seeing a picture of violet jelly.  I thought that was interesting but none of my yards ever had violets until this yard.  1/4 of my back yard has violets growing among the grass.  As you know I was bored last night so I started picking.  After the violets were done I decided to see if maybe dandelions could also be made into jelly.  Turned out there are tons of recipes on the net for that too.  So I let those sit the night alongside the violets and today I went to the store to buy lemons and sugar.  After each jar was filled and processing in the jars I tasted each jelly.  The dandelions taste like honey and the violets taste like honey with a slight hint of lemon.  Both are very good.  

So far I've heard all the 16 jars pop so I know I did a good job considering I haven't canned in probably 25 years.  I'm kind of excited for everyone to taste it tomorrow after the jars have cooled down.  Steve turned his nose up at the idea as did a friend who owns a local restaurant.  I'm going to take a jar of each into her and demand she try some.  Aren't the jars pretty?

In case you'd like to try making your own jelly this is where I got each of the recipes:

http://www.simplycanning.com/dandelion-jelly.html

http://www.urbanpioneerstory.com/2012/03/foraged-violet-jelly/#comments

Omelet/frittata

Last night one of my Facebook friends shared a recipe that she saw posted by What's for dinner recipies https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whats-for-Dinner-Recipes/284470131684103 

I was hungry when i saw the recipe and I had all the ingredients on hand so I thought I'd make myself the omelet for breakfast complete with baked bacon for on the side.  As usual I changed the recipe.  I used red pepper, onions, mushrooms, and omitted the ham since I was making bacon on the side.  OMG!  I have never had such a light fluffy omelet in my life.  

Oven Denver Omelet

Ingredients

8 eggs

1/2 cup half-and-half cream

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup finely chopped fully cooked ham

1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk eggs and cream. Stir in the cheese, ham, green pepper and onion. Pour into a greased 9-in. square baking dish. 

Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Note: because I never remember to pre-heat and always throw it in cold, and I used the oven for cooking bacon alongside the omelet the cooking time went way up. Mine took about 45 min.

Roses are red, violets are blue...

I'm bored as heck, and looking for something to do.

With my violets of course and why not those ugly dandelions too?

Come back tomorrow and see what is new.

The roof is on

The north side of the roof was finished up last night.  The south (open) side will be glass and that isn't here yet.  I really want this project to be done because the specialty seeds I ordered arrived today.

Greenhouse updated photo

I forgot to mention here on my blog that my husband and I are building a greenhouse. I put photos on Facebook last weekend of the progress but haven't updated because we haven't had much time to work on it. Since the last Facebook update we've finished the rafters and the last sidewall where the door will go is now up. Tonight we are going to get some of the side walls up. The back, and back roof, will be completely covered since they are on the north side. The rest will get a wall that's only about two feet up from the bottom. The rest of the walls and roof will be glass. The glass panels are going to be ordered today. I can't wait for the greenhouse to be done already. In my head I've planted it 4,000 times already and have lovely plants growing in there. The building needs to hurry up and catch up with the vision in my head.

Two afghans

Here are two of the afghans that I've been working on for the past month or so. The blue scrap one I started in November but put it away because I was tired of seeing little balls of yarn all over the floor. I had the project out until the grandkids came. Didn't want balls all over the house. Scrap afghans are so messy to work on. The plaid green and off white one is for a wedding in August. I was going to put that one off and work on some other projects for a while but then remembered just how warm it gets in the summer. The temperatures will be too warm to sit under as I crochet. So I'm going to try and finish at least the plaid one here in the next couple of weeks.

Yup, I did that

With the grand kids here last week I didn't have much time to work on craft related projects. However, this week I got a needle and thread out and went to work. I almost never buy patterns but when I saw this one posted on Pinterest, I fell in love with the modern look of the doily, and I bought it. Here's the link to the pattern in case you're interested in purchasing it. It cost $4.01 in US dollars. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fractal-2

I used Aunt Lydia #10 off white thread with a #2 needle. The original pattern says the doily should fit a 22x22" table but I obviously don't have the same gauge. My doily measures 36x25.5". I'm quite happy with the size of my doily because it fits a 6 seat dinning room table perfectly.

The pattern was incredibly easy to do but I wouldn't recommend it for brand new crocheters unless you're looking to challenge yourself.