Summertime

On our way!

Just Add Water

Summer fun for us almost always involves water and what better place to enjoy water than Lake Powell on a houseboat.  It's hot, but the water is cool and the mountains are beautiful.  Add family and friends, some jet skis, a fast boat (to cover the enormous lake), several decks of cards, SUNSCREEN, and you've got all the ingredients for some serious fun!

Sisters

Happy, happy Birthday to You!

Today is my sweet sister's birthday.  

We are separated by many miles, 

so on days like this I cannot help but reflect on all the wonderful 

and not so wonderful things we have been able to share 

with one another over the years.

To me my sister is:

Amazingly Stronger Than she Thinks

Truly Beautiful

KIND

Courageous

crazy Talented

&

My Best Friend!

I love you!

Letter Press

Today, while in search of ideas for a graduation party,
I came across the most lovely site. 

I had to share it.

My sister and I love paper and type setting.
I will play around with fonts for hours

(until I finally am to exhausted to continue the craziness). 

Trying to find the right invitation is, well, really important.  

After all, it is the first impression people get.

Everything else just follows suit!

Now I know a lot of you are thinking, 

"Oh my gosh - is this woman for real!"

YES - I am.

But then again, I am a crazy detail oriented person.  

And, I do love color, fonts, and pretty paper -
put them together to make a beautiful invitation... 

well let's just say I feel complete JOY.

Click on picture to link to the source & site.

Cheese, Lovely Cheese...

My newest interest is making homemade cheese.  Well actually I have been playing around with making cheese for about a year now, but I decided it was time I get serious and bump up my game.  

So today I am making Chevre cheese.  Not that this is a difficult cheese to make, on the contrary it is quite simple.  It takes about 12 - 18 hours for the curds to set up.  So no pictures at this point.  

However I do want to share a few resources I found helpful:

Available on Amazon

This book is , shall I say, amazing.  I am fairly new to this adventure and I have to say this book is so complete that it makes even myself feel very confident I can do this.  Now I am still in the easy cheese section of the book, but am moving onto the intermediate next week when I can acquire some local ingredients I want to use.

As for the Chevre cheese - the recipe in the book is straight forward and simple.  However, I do like to see the process and the pictures in the book, although lovely are sparse for my needs.  I found this series of videos on YouTube and found it very helpful. 

Be sure to watch part 2 and part 3 before starting.

Happy cheese making!