Basketball Season is almost over (for our girls)

Our Granddaughter (age 14) plays basketball for her school team. Her Dad is the Coach (our son-in-law). Both do a great job! We were at their (away) game last Friday evening...In our estimation, they played well and won! Rachel made 4 baskets! Trying to keep up my watercolor journaling.
Wow! We were given 10" of snow Starting Sunday afternoon into evening. (S.E. Michigan) I think we got more than they did up North in Michigan. Just lucky, I guess :-]

Grandma's Darning Basket

I've had this "darning basket" for a long time. My Old Russian Grandma (who died when I was sixteen) used to darn all the socks by putting this wooden "egg" inside the toe of the sock and darning back and forth until the 'hole' was covered. My Mother kept the basket for years and when my Mother passed, I kept this wonderful basket. It seems like it is made of Raffia wound around and around--and now there are little pieces sticking out of it. But I couldn't do justice to painting all the little strings sticking out of it. Also, tried to capture the doily that was my Mom's. We used to have a doily on the back of upholstered chairs, and on the arm rests for protection.
Doilies were very "in" among the Europeans in those days.

That BLOOMING Amaryllis

We finally got 3 full blooms on the Amaryllis. Woo-H00!!! It took about 2 and a half months :-) I thought it was only going to be a beanstalk without a bloom--but stuck with it and here we go. You can see on earlier posts I took some photos to show how tall it was--it actually grew the flowers up in between the hanging lights over our Kitchen Table. This is my last mention of these, I promise :-)
This is the first page in my new (second, hand-bound) sketchbook journal.
I used some kosher salt when the paint was wet to give it some interest (?)

My version of Tomato Basil Gorgonzola Soup

I made my Tomato Basil Gorgonzola soup yesterday so I was able to "paint" it to put on my blog! It was soooo-oo good. We had it for lunch today, too. Good Stuff for all the Snowy Cold Weather we have been having.

My Amaryllis

My Long-Awaited Blooms finally appeared....Only a month and a half after Christmas. It got very (very) tall and as I said in a previous post...we called her our Beanstalk. Well, here's the progression...and I finally painted it (I am not very good at "foreshortening" but I gave it a try!
I made my Tomato-Basil-Gorgonzola Soup today, and will be watercoloring it tomorrow--then I'll post it. It was delicious!

This is for people who read Catherine's blog and want the recipe she mentioned. I don't know how to post it on her blog--so I did it here......
I am posting this recipe for Tomato (Gorgonzola Cheese) Soup. I first tasted this soup at Jullienne Tomatoes Restaurant in Petoskey, Michigan. This recipe tastes just like it. The recipe calls for Edensoy, Unsweetened--I use One ( 1) Cup half n' half instead. I do cook the little alphabet macaroni's and drop them in the soup later.
Also after tasting The Jullienne Tomato Gorgonzola version, I now crumble lots of Gorgonzola cheese into it after it is blended and stir until melted. It's very good.
I also don't use a blender as such--I have one of those hand-blenders that you put down in the soup and it "blends it." (A great tool that everyone needs!--just ask Amazon.com).
My Granddaughter Julie (mostly organic) told me about this recipe, and we love it!
I took a picture of the box that has the recipe on it--just in case anyone wanted the little alphabets (for sure!)
ENJOY!

My Amaryllis Beanstalk

My Amaryllis has finally grown a bloom stem all the way to the tip of the light fixture over the kitchen table. Go figure! We are even seeing a touch of red popping thru the bud. I just thought I would "update" it. We now call her our Beanstalk :-)
It is now almost 9:00 p.m. and our predicted snowstorm hasn't started yet; however, the wind is blowing and swirling the snow that we already have on our roofs down on our walkways. We are so prepared for a couple of days to be "snowed in."
One of our daughters and her family (and us) went to dinner tonight at PF Chang's because we knew we wouldn't be getting out for a few days. Too fun!
I would watercolor this Amaryllis, but it is not very appealing because it's so tall and stringy-looking.