Going, Going, Gone ...

This January, is the last month before our American Home Pottery is discontinued. It is on sale at 40% off along with many of our other baskets, wrought iron and home decor. This dinnerware is so beautiful and one of my fav's .... along with the Blanket Basket which will sadly also be gone. But you may have other favorites .... see my shop to check out the savings.

Good Things #3 Baskets, Pottery & Ironstone

I like rustic and natural materials. While I do have Mottahedeh and Canton Blue & White China, for daily use I prefer my pottery & ironstone. The Longaberger Pottery is durable (microwave, oven, freezer & dishwasher safe) It is chip, crack and craze resistant. Our pottery and baskets are made to mix and match. Above (lower right) is an American Heritage Basket with Cutting Board Lid and the Soft Square Bowl. If this sounds like a commercial it is because I have been a Longaberger Rep for over 20 years. Our pottery is the number one selling pottery in America today. To meet public demand for lower cost we outsource our Woven Tradition line of pottery from China. To meet public demand for American made we have our own Made In America Matters line of pottery. I believe we employ about 40 American pottery factories and hundreds of American Artisan Basket Weavers in Dresden, Ohio.
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Being a Longaberger Rep. has provided a good income for my family as well. As a consultant I receive discounts with my company and others. Free product, literature, samples, .... even a Bose Radio/CD Player & PlayStation 3, to mention a few extra perks. Consultants receive personal websites supported by the company, lots of training in sales, marketing and leadership and it has paid my family's bills, helped to keep our home and allowed my husband and me to travel some including a trip to Paris, France.
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The top two pictures are most of my pottery and ironstone. My kitchen cupboards have glass front in the butler pantry style so that I can display my pretty collection.

Good Things #6 Candles

Candles are comforting. I always light my kitchen candles when I am cleaning up, or sitting in my bedroom chair, knitting and listening to rain drumming on the window pane .... another good thing. My favorite candles are the splint candles because they crackle while they burn. You can hear them if you are very quiet. Generally I burn pumpkin or cinnamon in the fall and pine in December. I like pear. And I prefer coach candles to tapers. They are shorter.
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For practical purposes vanilla absorbs household odors. Other scents just lay on top of the odor. I gave this bit of advice to Jesse before he was married and living with two other guys, a cat, a litter of kittens and fleas. He was a little slow on the take but once he tried it he was sold. I may not be able to credit vanilla candles for bringing him and Gabrielle together but they certainly didn't hurt. Longaberger candles are the best I've found and Jesse likes to be well stocked even though he now has a wife who smells very nice.

Good Things #8 Organization

I love organization and I am usually reaching for higher levels of excellence in this area. If you have ever seen an artists studio other than in a magazine you will know that it's not pretty ..... paint splotches, fabrics, books tossed willy nilly. Some can work in this atmosphere. I generally feel most creative when I have a clean slate. Everything is put away from one project and ready for the next and I know where everything is because it has been organized. I like my home office and closets this way as well. Mostly I sort and organize with baskets and over the years have bought storage furniture and shelving to help in the endeavor.
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In the above picture is a notebook which I have fitted with plastic sleeves to hold my favorite knitting patterns. They are alphabetized, categorized, preserved, protected and at the tip of my fingers. Some of the sleeves will even suit to hold circular needles.
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The knitting project you see is going to be a sweater made form alpaca wool. An alpaca can easily be mistaken for a llama. Alpacas are herd animals and not loners. Apparently if a farmer wants to deliver an alpaca he takes three. One to drop off and two to keep each other company on the ride home. Sounds like a Polish joke. But they have very soft wool.

Apples .99 A Bag

Last year I had a Stoppe & Shoppe for my Longaberger customers. The homemade invites went out with a picture of a patchwork turkey and visitors received a jar of homemade apple butter for their Thanksgiving table.
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Making apple butter the old fashioned way was an adventure except that I did use a pot on my stove instead of a kettle over a camp fire. Still it takes 3 hours of standing over the stove and stirring constantly and usually a ruined pot. Since my pots and pans come from the flea market this isn't a big deal but in the interest of time a crock pot recipe sounded like genius.
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Finding apples on sale (.99 per 3 lb. bag) afforded me the opportunity to try my new crock pot recipe and it is a keeper.
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Crock Pot Apple Butter

Fill crock pot with thinly sliced Golden Delicious Apples and cook on high about 7 hours. Add 1 lg. cinnamon stick, 1 t. ground ginger, 1/2 t. ground cardamom, 1/2 t. ground nutmeg, 1/4 t. ground mace, small pinch of ground cloves, 2 T. brown sugar, 2 T fresh lemon juice.
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Continue cooking another 5 hours or so. If the butter is too thick you can add some apple cider, applesauce or even some water. When finished, transfer apple butter to a pot on the stove top and heat thru. Spoon into jelly jars that have been sterilized on the stove top as well.
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If refrigerated it will keep for up to 1 month ... in the freezer for 6 months. Ours is never around for that long.

Road Trip Rt. 50

Got a call from Josh that Amanda's doctor was this close to hospitalizing her. This is her second week of swine flu and now pneumonia. And he was wondering if I could come help out for a couple of days. So I packed up the car and headed into some beautiful Fall scenery on my way down Rt, 50 to Annapolis, MD.









There may be laws against cell phones while driving but none against digital cameras.

Avalon

I've been a Longaberger sales woman for over 20 years and have a memory or two. I remember Kathy Geidzinski. She booked a show but when I got there I found out it was also a baby shower for me .... and I barely knew her (I was pregnant with Jonathan). Her kids were long grown I had babies but we kind of hit it off so the next time I went to Columbus for convention I invited Kathy. She was so excited. She was so excited she wanted to buy, sell, weave and move to Dresden, OH. She even inquired about property values. Yup a 3 BR cost $64,000 back then and the locals thought it was outrageous. Needless to say Kathy was back with me the following year as a friend and co-worker.

I remember it rained that year. We sloshed around Dresden till closing time then got into the car deciding we would spend the night about half way home. But it was not so easy. Nascar was racing in that area and every hotel front desk was referring us down the road until we came to the Avalon .... pulling off the highway the road immediately turned to gravel. Coming round the corner we came face to face with a large piece of whitewashed plywood and the black painted letters of Avalon trailing crookedly to the right. We pulled up to the motel where the doors face the parking lot. A naked light bulb hung above the door with a flickering neon sign that said "office". I turned to Kathy and said, "It's your turn to go in." .... she replied, "Keep the motor running." Less then a minute went by and she was hustling out the door. Sliding into the back seat she yelled "Hit it!" Much alarmed I peeled the car out of the driveway, wheels spitting gravel. Apparently the office was full of guys in hunting jackets watching a fight on TV and when Kathy asked for the price of the room they had to look it up.

At this point we were weary and started singing Kumbyah. Jesus must have heard us because the next hotel had a vacancy. The bride and groom had cancelled the honeymoon suite and we had the best room in the house!