BAD CHILI and NO STRESS

 Good morning says Kitters ... every morning from the little table she gets fed on.  My oh my ... just look at those claws!!  Her eyes are what intrigue me.  The one is a dark brown (on the left in the picture) and the other is green.  Add to that half her nose is pink and the other half black, so she looks crooked.  Very sweet personality though!  For a feral kitty, she definitely likes rubs and scratches.

It was once again O-Dark-Thirty when I got up.  I figured since there wasn't anything much edible in the fridge, that I would throw together some chili and use up those frozen meatballs I've been staring at for a month.  Just so you know, this was a terrible idea.

I cut them up, soon to be covered with one can of fire roasted tomatoes, one can of green chilies (only after four hours did I realize that read "tomatoes with green chilies), one can of kidney beans,  one can tomato sauce, half a chopped onion and lots of garlic and chili powder.  Immediately, there was a problem.  There was definitely not enough liquid.  In went another can of tomatoes and yet another can of beans.

By this point, the pot was complete overloaded since it's a mini crock pot.   Hmmm maybe I should have chopped those meatballs up smaller.  Anyway .. I plugged it in and forgot about it.

This part of the day was a big mistake ... BIG.  You cannot order a cake at the town's only bakery unless you go in person.  Oh that was SUCH a bad idea.  The cake is for a dessert raffle at the Elks Shrimp feed, coming up in three weeks.  

So many choices of flavors ...... I settled on caramel.  By the time the cake was ordered, it came to a whopping $75.00.  Are you kidding me?  FOR A CAKE?  It better be spectacular and get the highest bid!!

That's when I heard the magic words ... CUPCAKES ARE ON SALE.  Oh this is bad .... SOOOOO bad.  They get you with AND IF YOU BUY 5, YOU GET ONE FREE.  

I came straight home, wrapped them in saran and stuffed them in the freezer.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Not really in this case.  I thought about them for hours before having dessert for lunch.

At long last I got up the nerve to work on the longarm.  I cleaned everything very well, replaced the bobbin case, adjusted everything and this time ..... held my breath.  To make it even more entertaining, this is a brand new pattern ... and a VERY large quilt.  

I had SEVEN rows of stress to get through, as I hit the START button.  Away she went.  Whew ... at least it's stitching, and I don't hear too much rattling.  Row one finished up and I went on to row two.  So far so good.

My trusty sidekick, shadow friend kept me company the entire time.  I really took my time and concentrated on every row so as not to make another mistake like last time.  On the last row, it did a little clanking, so I stopped it, tapped on the bobbin case a bit and let it go again.  

WHEW!!!  I can breathe again.  It stitched out all seven rows perfectly with no stops and starts, no thread breaking and no really loud clanging.  I did notice as it stitches, the bobbin case gets pretty hot.  I think maybe the bobbin banging in the case is what's causing all the racket.  At any rate, Nancy is a happy camper that this one quilted perfectly.  Hopefully the next two will do the same with NO STRESS!!  What a relief ... and no longarm doctor required.

Let's celebrate with a bowl of chili ... on my matching dinnerware no less.  Okay, I admit, it was terrible.  The big chunks of tomatoes didn't cook down, it didn't taste like chili at all (I'm guessing due to the Italian meatballs), nor did it have any heat to it at all.  I'm not saying this is a terrible recipe, but this is a terrible recipe.  I think I better go back to dumping chili powder into raw hamburger and cooking that up before adding anything else.  But HEY ... the bread was delicious!!!

The quilting success brought on a frenzy of fabric cutting for yet another one.  I did the math.  In order to make the quilting machine pay for itself and worth the expense, I have to finish 90 quilts.  I'm a little over half way, so let's start another one.

It's Sunday ... and I have a breakfast date with friends.  I think I'll just go with coffee because I can hear those cupcakes SCREAMING my name!!!