NO Prison Food Today

 I thought I was in Hawaii.  It was a beautiful WARM sunny day when I stepped outside.  I could smell the scent of breakfast.  Talk about being treated like a Queen ... just look at this food.  We dined outside on the patio, no less.  

Banana pancakes ... the fluffiest I've ever had covered with macadamia nuts, whipped cream and syrup.  Add in a couple pieces of sausage and it was like being served on the island at a first class restaurant.  There was NO prison food today!!

In no time, we were back at it.  Let's face it ... I'm an edge to edge girl.  Set up the entire quilt at one time and hit the GO button.  All you have to do is stop to move the quilt up.  This .... THIS is a long process where you spend an hour trying to find the perfect pattern for EACH square.

Once you find a pattern and pull it up, it may look terrible ... or it may not fit.  Around and around we went with Ray working his magic with the computer until I said "let's make them all the same except for the middle".  Ray still had to outline every square, pull up the image and make it fit exactly.  This is NOT your grandmothers quilt!

A little over three hours later, we took a break.  No lunch today .... I was still full from breakfast.  So Mr. Cooper and I spent an hour on the floor, playing the ball game.  

In no time we were back at it.  I would say "what about this", and Ray would make it appear on the quilt.  In the meantime, I got a chance to quickly look through a couple of the 53 boxes of patterns Cindy has.  Okay, I didn't count the boxes, but there are a LOT!!!  I picked this one out for my next quilt adventure.

Another four hours went by, during which I actually took over the machine and made piano keys (which was outlining).  We broke for dinner after completing about 1/3 of the quilt over two full days.  

Did I mention Cindy has a HUGE garden?  It's amazing, all the vegetables she grows, along with pears, apples, apricots and walnuts.  This came into play when dinner rolled around.

One of the things Ray and Cindy do is freeze dry food.  It's amazing some of the things they come up with, like cream cheese with cherries.  It's crazy ... just add cold water and voila!!  You have a tasty spread for your bagel.  Much of what comes from the garden, is freeze dried and stored in mason jars.

Dinner ... I was still full from breakfast ... was tasty vegetables right out of the garden, ham slices and you're not going to believe this ... croissants ... from THAT store.  I doubt these were prison croissants, because they actually came frozen (and raw) from a bakery that made too many.  You thaw, rise and bake.  OMG the best thing on the planet!! 

How good was it?  Missy Penny here never left this position until we got up from the table.  

We will be back at it today.  I'll try to get some pictures of the quilt blocks.  In the meantime, I'm cleaning out my freezer in preparation for going to THAT store.  Maybe I'll find something fabulous that the prisoners didn't get this time.  

Oh ... and yes, I'm just SO SAD that I'm going to miss Bingo tonight ..... NOT!!!  Especially since it's the night they find out there will be NO MORE RED TICKETS!!  Can you just imagine the melee??