πρ = Pi Rho

Today is the annual Pi Rho festival, and what better way to celebrate a day that’s all about the wonderful digit of Pi than making something round? No, I did not use π to determine the circumference of any of these items! haha

I whipped up 3 from-scratch cupcake recipes yesterday:

Salted Caramel Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream and Sugar Decorations

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream and Chocolate Squares

And these cute little guys… Mini Strawberry-Jalapeno Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and Sprinkles

The recipe called for strawberry jam, but when I opened the fridge to grab it, the Rio Raspberry Jalapeno Jelly from New Canaan Farms called out to me instead. So, I whipped in 2 tablespoons of that along with minced strawberries and red food color (the cream/good stuff). They have a lovely pink hue, and start sweet but give you a nice kick at the end. The sugary (store-bought) vanilla frosting is a good compliment to calm down the slight fire.

The recipes all come from this book that my mom gave me last week. Each recipe makes just 12 big cupcakes (or as I discovered, 24 small and 4 big), and the book has good pictures to inspire you.

I’m slowly learning how to frost cupcakes. For Christmas the past two years, I’ve received beginner kits, decorating tips & bags, special plastic frosting bottles, and a neat cupcake carrier. And, with seasonal sprinkles from Target’s $1 spot, and liners from my local Sur La Table and cute ones my mom finds, I’m amassing a good collection of decorations, too. I’m not able to do writing or flowers in frosting, but I still feel pretty creative and I’m happy with the results.

This week, Matt and I are working on our rockets for the annual Pi Rho fest. (see posts about past years) Pi Rho Fest is put on by our friend Sally’s family & friends. It is held on or near “Pi Day” (3.14) and features model rockets, good food, amazing fireworks, and a big bonfire. We got to a farm near Granger, Texas for the festivities (near the house where they supposedly filmed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, curiously enough).

Due to our trip last weekend, I scaled back the complexity of my rocket — not enough evenings to do the different colors of spray paint I planned. I still like what we’re doing, though! Matt’s rocket will be a big one, running on big engines — and will be decorated with “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and chile pepers in honor of one of our favorite menu items at Chuy’s. I was going to go with a Chuy’s theme, too, but rather than duplicate him, I settled on a mash-up of logos of things I like on my smaller (but more complex to build) rocket. Consider them to be like bumper stickers covering a car, or something like the sticker-covered-benches at Wahoo’s.

Logos include:

• TV & Movies: Mythbusters, Blinky & Wiggum from the Simpsons, Beaker from the Muppets, The Goonies
• Sports: SDSU Jackrabbits, Purdue Boilermakers, Round Rock Express
• Music: Switchfoot, Mute Math and an Over the Rhine inspired design
• Restaurants: Wahoo’s fish tacos, Torchy’s tacos, Taco Deli, Chuy’s fish, Chuy’s “Eat Here Now” words, Rudy’s, Portillo’s, Mighty Fine, Cupprimo
• Other Things: Hawaiian applique design from the Hotel Hana Maui, Love is the Movement, prefectionist (like my favorite t-shirt from thinkgeek.com), Cornerstone 20ten
• Custom designs: BECKY’S label done in the style of a Chuy’s sign, my avatar as a Simpsons character, and a bumper sticker: “My other rocket is made of salami” (Mythbusters reference)

Here’s a picture of one of the logo sheets. We print these on special water-slide decal paper, which I spray with multiple coats of clear spray paint before trimming & adhering to the rocket. A final coat of clear spray paint makes the decals stay permanently (or as long as the rocket isn’t too damaged or lost!)

From Spring in Austin

Our first Pi Rho designs (2007) were pretty boring. But, the past 2 years we’ve been more creative. Our past rocket designs have included:

• Family Force 5 (based on a “Force 5″ purchased rocket kit) – 2008

From pi rho

• U2 3D – 2008

From pi rho

• Battlestar Galactica & lolcats – both 2009

From pi rho

• The Redorkulator (with Professor Frink of the Simpsons) – 2009

From pi rho

• L33t speek (or however you spell that) – 2008. This rocket has seen it’s final flight, alas.

From pi rho

From Honoring the original WWW

We are in Michigan, celebrating the long life of my Grandpa, Woody White. My dad was looking for the right word for him: jokster wasn’t it, but definitely fun-loving. I think we’ve all shared our favorite Grandpa-jokes this week (and it’s no wonder that my Dad, and increasingly me, like bad jokes so much). My cousin Amy shared one of Grandpa’s old jokes that I remember well:

Hickory Dickory Dock

Three mice ran up a clock

The clock struck one

But the other two got away

As a child, I was utterly convinced that Grandpa’s favorite song was “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” with the lyrics slightly changed. I was so convinced that was Grandpa’s favorite song that once we were in church service and they announced we’d be singing my Grandpa’s favorite song (in honor of his birthday or something) and I fully expected the congregation to launch into Grandpa’s made-up line “Rudolph with your nose so red, won’t you pull my little sled.” How surprising when we sang some classic hymn!

So, I think it’s only appropriate that we talked and laughed a lot last night.

We shared pizza and pasta with a house full of family & friends. I hugged my Grandma, and got bear-hugs from my aunt, uncle and cousins. I met second cousins I had only heard about before, and caught up with other second cousins I haven’t seen in 15 to 20 years (and talked restaurants with my cousin Lisa’s husband Casey — they live outside Houston and come to Austin a lot). We shared stories and laughed a lot. We talked about food and cooking, travel and photography, Bora Bora and Nashville, church-work and patents, caramel corn and peanut brittle, home-made nylon scratchers and sewing, and everything in between.

From Honoring the original WWW

Soon, we’ll head out to the service, being conducted by my Grandma’s “baby brother” (Great Uncle George, who is 87, I think!). I’m not sure that there will be quite as many laughs this morning, but I do think his long and laughter-filled life is worthy of a great celebration.

I finished another table-runner-runner last night (just the top, it’s not quilted/ready to use yet). It is the same pattern as the last runner I made, “Sweet Escape” from Heather Mulder Peterson. The new one is out of Sandy Gervais’ Essence fabric for Moda.

It is shown here (on top) along with the first runner I made from the pattern, to show the dramatic difference you can have when you switch fabric colors, but keep the pattern the same.

From “Winter” 2010

Providing I do 25 minutes of workout today and stretch 3 times today & tomorrow, I will complete my February workout plan! This will mean two months in a row where I reached my fitness goals!

I spent some time looking at sites like Stumptuous (especially their “Dork to Diva” workout form tips, and “No Fat Chicks” basic workout) and devised my plan for next month, which will be one notch more difficult. It will include weights, cardio, core, and extra exercises to continue to rehab my feet.

Here’s what I’m thinking of for March (just showed this to my awesome husband, who thinks it’s a little much — but I point out that one of my exercises is merely standing up!)

Every workout:

• Leg stretch (bent & straight leg, on incline, to stretch injured places)
• Leg warmup (no-weight squats, light-weight leg presses, or medium-weight leg extensions — to get blood flowing, basically. Work up to doing these with weights next month.)
• Calf stretches (calf machine or self-guided)
• Balance exercises (one-leg standing, star-drill, yoga leg pose, standing on ball, throwing to Matt while standing on ball, etc.)

Total workouts:

• 6 weights
• 4 core
• 4 cardio
• 4 more of my choice of the above
• At least 20 of the easy add-ons listed below

Weights: 6 sessions during March, minimum

• lat pulldown (machine)
• bench press (barbells or bar)
• shoulder press (barbell)
• bicep curl (barbell)
• row (machine)
• leg curl (machine)

Cardio: 4 sessions during March, minimum

• 15 minutes (if painful) else 20 minutes on bike or elliptical

Core: 4 sessions during March, minimum

• 20 minutes of abs & core stretches
• Use Firm DVD or do these: 8 each upper crunch, lower crunch, full-body regular time crunch, full-body half-time crunch, twisting crunch. Plus back-rolling, leg stretch, leg circles, side-leg-lifts, pilates pushups

Easy Add-Ons: Exercises I can add on after Cardio or Weights when I feel like it, or which I can do in the morning/evening on rest days:

• Light abs (8 each upper/lower/twisting crunches)
• Standing (5 minutes in pilates form or 10-15 minutes in conversation) Yes, standing is an exercise for me. It’s hard to do. This could even count standing up during church, which I have not done in a long time.
• Walking (15 minutes walking around neighborhood or 20 minutes walking around office, stores, etc.) Again, yes, walking around the store is exercise for me. Anything that keeps me on my feet is good.
• Wedge stretches (5 minutes)
• Ankle bands (both ways, 3 sets of 15)

I was looking for an old photo today and ran into this one along the way. I thought it was just way too cute not to bring to your attention!

From Old Photos

Here is me, my dad, and my brother, at Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, SD, probably around 1985. I was very proud of my new shoes, and I was holding them up for the world to see! (or at least to show my mom, who took the photo!) I love how my dad is wearing long-sleeves with shorts and my brother has his socks up to his knees. Otherwise, I think we’re pretty timeless. I have a great family!

Leftover charm squares + a scrap of yellow fabric (about 12″ wide) and a 1/2 yard of floral fabric = a really quick gift! Ideally, I’d add one more border, but I’m out of matching fabric, so I’ll call this done! It is about 3 feet X 3 feet more or less (and that’s a guess, since I didn’t really measure)

I won’t say for who the gift is for, since I think this person may read my blog. But, I hope you’ll still be surprised when I give it to you.

From “Winter” 2010

Rough directions if you ever want to make something like this:

• Take leftover charm squares and other scraps of fabric.
• If you’re using charm squares, they’ll already be about 5″ square. Otherwise, cut into 5″ chunks.
• Cut these in random widths, anywhere from 1″ to 3″. Cut at least 4 strips at 3″ for the ends. Don’t cut too many that are 1″ — they’ll wind up just 1/2″ wide in the finished version.
• Sew your random-width units together in random order. Make two randomly-pieced units, about the same length. Your strips do not need to be the exact same length, due to the wide pieces on the ends. If you’re within an inch or so, you’re good! That’s because you can easily trim these ends to make the strips the same length. Trim the units so they are the same length.
• Trim one edge of your pieced unit so it is square. (the ends will be jagged – I guarantee it!)
• Cut the border & sashing strips (yellow, in my case). I cut my strips at 2″ wide. I needed 6 strips total, though how many you need will depend on how large your pieced units are.
• Sew one sashing strip to each pieced unit.
• Press the seam.
• Line up your ruler squarely on the seam you just pressed. Cut the other end at 4.5″ (or another measurement, if your pieced unit is not wide enough).
• Sew a sashing strip to the other side of each pieced unit and press it.
• Cut the wide strips (blue in my case). I cut mine at 5.5″.
• Sew blue strips to the pieced/sashed units.
• Add borders.
• Quilt & bind as desired. (I haven’t done that yet.)

It’s good I took the picture (below/previous post) when I did! The snow has already melted off the trees, though there are still traces of it on the garage roof, and flakes are falling again.

A picture off our upstairs porch, looking out to our driveway.

I don’t know what the rule is on snow accumulation – if it “sticks” to leaves but not the driveway, does that count? I don’t think this is measurable snow, but it is pretty.

(Yes, I can assure you that what’s in this photo is actually snow. We had sleet earlier which then turned to big, fluffy flakes of snow.)

This is what passes as winter around here!

From “Winter” 2010

From Thursday to Saturday, I visited 5 quilt shops. I picked out fabric for a new project or two at 4 of them (the other, alas, I just bought something for my stash). Here’s a preview of what’s to come:

• Flannel baby quilt out of Anna Maria Horner’s Folksy Flannels set. This isn’t yet earmarked for any specific baby, but with friends like mine, it’s good to have something ready to go! I found these at the Quilt Haus in New Braunfels, Texas.
  
• A gift TBD from the “OZ” line from Sanae for Moda. I found these at Quilt & Sew Studio in Katy, Texas. These aren’t my normal style prints, but they were so fun & cute! I’ll probably make a small runner from one of Heather Mulder Peterson’s books — since she has many good patterns for charm squares.
  
• At the Around the Block Quilt Store in Giddings, Texas, I picked up a charm-pack from Sandy Gervais’ “Essence” line (also from Moda). Combined with other yardage from Sandy Gervais’ previous lines, I hope to put together 3 items:
  • A square table-topper (the “everyday table topper”). This will be about the same pattern as I made last year – photo here – though the colors will be radically different and I’m adding a different border.
  • Another runner like the one I blogged about below
  • And yet another runner that I’m making up as I go along. (I like these smaller projects — I can actually finish them with everything else in my life!)
    
• And, two other projects not to be mentioned here, since they may be gifts for people who may read my blog.

These are the 5 shops I visited:

• Quilt Haus in New Braunfels
• Oak Leaf Quilts in New Braunfels
• Gerlene’s outside of Giddings
• All Around the Block in Giddings
• Quilt & Sew Studio in Katy

I can definitely see myself returning to Quilt Haus and All Around the Block. I wouldn’t go out of the way for the others — they were good enough shops, but I might try use my time and money to explore other options.

Image credits:

• Flannel – diamond.mine.dusk.FAH02 Originally uploaded by annamariahorner
• Flannel – diamond.mine.grass.FAH02 Originally uploaded by annamariahorner
• Flannel – little.honey.sea.FAH04 Originally uploaded by annamariahorner
• Crossroads Table Topper Originally uploaded by beckywhite78