Good Friday

I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The truly bad thing about feeling bad is losing my muse over the past week or two. I just didn't have the energy to take anything on. Yesterday, I finally started feeling better and today was even better. At this rate, going back to work on Monday should be a breeze. Or, at least, one can only hope. I found out my daughter, bless her, called my office last week to tell them they weren't to call me unless someone died. I did get lots of rest, that's for sure.

In the meantime, I got to play with wool pennies. They were a gift in more ways than one. They were like little bits of a rainbow to be arranged and rearranged. I started cutting a pretty green wool from my stash for the back pennies and I even got one done! Thank you for stopping by and God bless.

Sunday Moments

“Fruits each in its season, are the cheapest, most elegant and wholesome dessert you can offer your family or friends, at luncheon or tea. Pastry and plum-pudding should be prohibited by law, from the beginning of June until the end of September.”‘Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea’Marion Harland [Mary Virginia Terhune] (1875)

In our family, my Grandmother Lillian, always made the plum puddings and it is still considered bad luck to cut into one before Christmas. She passed the torch to me years ago. Instead of steaming the puddings in bowls with waxed paper and foil on top, tied with string, I purchased molds...at Williams Sonoma and garage sales. You can't get the molds from them anymore, that I know of, but they sell the puddings. I still pick up the molds, even though I have more than I will ever need. In the course of a traumatic divorce after almost 30 years of marriage, I had no clue where the recipe was in storage. I found the molds this year and have yet to find the recipe.
I remembered most of it and found a similar recipe on the Internet. These are loaded with raisins, sultanas (golden raisins), currants, spices, and lots of beef suet. No bread crumbs here. Each pudding comes with a silver dime buried somewhere in it's depths. The lucky recipient of the dime is supposed to have good luck for the next year.

These little beauties steam for 9 hours, so this is an all day event. They have been on since very early this morning and will need to cool once they are done so I can get them wrapped in wax paper and then in foil to get them ready to be mailed all around the US, including Hawaii.

This post is filled with memories of a woman I loved dearly and still do. The wool penny ornaments for our tree are made with large buttons my family saved for me from her stash. I think about her every time I hang them on the tree. Today, my house smells like hers did. I love you, Grandma.