Last Day of a Short Month

Hello again!

Wow! Two posts in one month; I'm on a roll! haha!

Anyhow, I am inspired by Julie Kirk and her Month in Numbers (MinN) challenge so here's mine for February 2014:

5 = the number of books read or started. I generally fit in a few more but one of the books read this month took longer because it is a heftier volume; that is 661 pages of literary goodness in Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. I'm wondering what took me so long to get to this wonderful book! Two of the books I impulse-bought while grocery shopping turned out to be less than satisfactory reads, and, in fact, I didn't finish one of them (Philomena). I think that the only reason I picked up that one was because Dame Judi Dench wrote the intro and stars in the "major motion picture" and I'm a fan of hers. One of the books (the five are pictured here), Writing a Non-Boring Family History, is more of a reference and will remain on my bedside table. I love that it is written by Hazel Edwards; can't be all bad! I will finish The Winter Queen tonight. This is one of the 4 books I picked up at the library a couple days ago.

4 = number of episodes of Season 4 "Downton Abbey"I watched (on my IPad the day after broadcast which would've been Mondays as it's broadcast Sunday evenings). The finale on the 23rd was so much more satisfactory than the finale of Season 3, don't you agree?!

15 = number of other shows I watched on PBS. These include Season 6 of Doc Martin, new season of Scott and Bailey, newer episodes of Midsomer Murders, Making of a Lady, Murder on the HomeFront, The Cafe', and a couple Frontline broadcasts, particularly Generation Like. Kind of looks like all I do is sit in front of the tube; BUT of course that is not the case! :) Besides, I multi-task while watching; that is, I glance through Pinterest on my IPad or I knit.

Speaking of knitting . . . 30 = number of rows completed on this baby blanket

Sadly, this is a project I started way back in May 2013 which proves that either I'm in no hurry (no new babies on the horizon) or I am a SLOW knitter!

12 = the number of quail that visited our backyard (and hopefully will continue to visit). This picture of I think eight of them was taken from the kitchen window on a blizzardy 4th. They are a delight to watch and never fail to put a smile on my face! As I write this post, they are in residence . . .

And 12 again = the number of French Breakfast Puffs I cooked up on Sunday morning, the 23rd. As mentioned in my post on the 24th, I've been cooking up recipes from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Her French Breakfast Puffs are a duplicate of the muffins of the same name that my mom used to cook up especially for special occasions like Christmas Day breakfast. My mom's recipe came from Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, First Edition 1950. I own this very cook book although it is not my mother's; I think my dad still has that one (I bought mine at an estate sale in Sun City, Arizona back in 1991 for $5). The Pioneer Woman doubled the ingredients from Betty's recipe to make the same number of muffins; no wonder mine blew over the top of the muffin tin and were really hard to get out in one piece! Fact is, the ones pictured here are seven that came out whole!

Seven pretty puffs on my grandma's china plate

Pioneer Woman's cookbook, Betty's cookbook, and the Puffs

And finally (although I'm sure there are many more numbers to record because like Julie says, once you start thinking about it, they just keep popping up - sorry Julie if that is really not what you said but the gist!)

100's = ideas for papery projects I want to do! I did do (OMG!) ONE scrapbook page (two in January!) and made THREE Valentine's Day cards this month but otherwise just thought about projects and shuffled through my papers and embellies, etc. The scrapbook layout was half of Lesson 4 of Shimelle's Return to the Collection class. The Valentine's Day cards were inspired by Julie Ebersole's card at Ellen Hutson. 

The scrapbook page

The Valentine's Day cards

So, there we have it! This was fun!

Ta for now!