Saying Something Besides Thank You

Some friends came to visit one evening last week and we ordered Chinese food which HWNSNBP volunteered to go pick up so we could have more time to talk.  They brought me a gorgeous plant and we had a lot of laughs together while catching up on what's been going on in our lives.  

I wanted to thank them for the plant but more importantly, for the visit and sharing the laughter and memories.  So I perused my stamps and came up with these two sentiments for the front of the cards.  I'll add a handwritten note inside letting them know how much they lifted my spirits.

The other plus was using some products I had not yet gotten to.  

Okay, for the particulars.  The top card uses SU's Perfect Pennants stamp set, Fresh Prints DSP Pack, Real Red, Coastal Cabana, Whisper White, and Baked Brown Sugar CS.  I used Real Red ink, my banner dies, triangle punch, little flower punch, and the centers of the flowers were from the bird builder punch, with a little red and white baker's twine bow.

On the second card I used SU's Honeycomb Hello stamp set and the Hexagon Hive thinlit in Hello Honey cs.  The dsp is from the Moonlight stack and the card base is Blackberry Bliss.  The hexagons were stamped with Blackberry Bliss ink and then I used the thinlit to trace around them and cut them out by hand.  I have a hexagon punch, but the punches were too big for this.  I popped a few of those hexagons up with dimensionals.

Today we (I say we because I can't lift anything over 5 lbs. yet so I needed HWNSNBP's muscle) attempted to make peach butter.  I found the recipe on Pinterest about a week or so ago and serendipitously came upon the jars while on a little shopping excursion last weekend and since it is still peach season, though it's coming to and end soon, it looked simple enough to give it a try.  I haven't canned anything in at least 25 years, but I (he) was able to find the canning pot and insert.  

The jars are cooling on the counter and so far I've only heard 5 of the 8 make that popping sound, but I could have been elsewhere when the others did.  I'm not supposed to press on the lids to check until tomorrow when they're totally cool.  The recipe said it makes 10 jars, but I guess I cooked my peaches a little longer or started out with less than the 5 lbs.  My kitchen scale is a little dicey and could use a replacement.  Oh Santa - did you hear that?  Or maybe I won't wait until Christmas and use the remaining peaches to make another batch.  Of course I licked the spoon when the jars were all filled and sealed and it was pretty tasty.

And tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to make a buttermilk pie.  Why?  Well, yesterday on Good Morning America they mentioned a news story about a woman who made a buttermilk pie in a baking contest and was being called under scrutiny for using a store-bought pie crust.  The GMA panel hadn't heard of buttermilk pie before and neither had I, but I just so happened to have half a carton of buttermilk in the refrigerator leftover from some banana muffins I made two weeks ago, and it's still good, so we'll get to see what a buttermilk pie tastes like.  I'll be using this recipe and let you know how it turns out.