Author: mjkisner

Using Lavender Buds in Projects

Our lavender plants this summer are doing very well! The flowers are just opening and the bees have discovered them! I’ve been trying to cut some while they are so beautiful but I can tell the bees sense that I’m competition. They even checked out the basket I was using to put the cut flowers in. I promise, I won’t take them all!

I’m really not cutting the flowers to use as a decoration in the house, although they look nice in a vase without water for a while. I’m hoping to let them dry naturally and collect the flower buds. I can use them in several fabric projects and even in my soap. In the past I have purchased them in bulk from STARWEST Botanicals, as shown in the picture below. The buds are often used with flax seeds in several of my projects. When sealed in a zip bag, they maintain their lovely scent for more than a year.

Last year I cut some lavender flowers and let them sit on a try for a month or so. Then I dropped them into an unsealed zip bag and set them aside to continue drying. Actually, I totally forgot about them until this year! They are quite dry now but still have a nice scent, so I will rub the buds off the stems, seal them in a zip bag and use them this year in projects. You can see the buds that have fallen off the stems already.

Earlier this month, I cut another batch of flowers to begin the process again. I’ve laid them on a tray in the dining room, right under our ceiling fan.

Today, I cut another batch…not too many…the bees were very interested in my activities! I will enjoy these as a decoration until they start to wilt. They dry better if laid flat or hung upside down. I don’t have a dry barn or attic to hang them in, so a tray will have to do.

Projects Using Lavender Buds

I have three fabric projects where I’ve used lavender buds.

The first is a small pillow (about 5″ x 9″) that can be warmed in the microwave or dropped in the freezer…good for headaches, toothaches or bumps and bruises. I use mostly flax seeds (purchased from the health food store in bulk) and add several tablespoons of lavender buds to the mix. If you plan to use it mostly frozen, I’d suggest using only flax seeds. Having the buds freeze and thaw several times might make them mushy. You can read about how to make this pillow here:

https://marykisner.com/making-a-hot-or-cold-eye-pillow-for-headaches-or-toothaches/

The second fabric project was a hot or cold neck wrap that was longer than the pillow that could wrap around the back of the neck and onto to the top of the shoulders. It is also stuffed with flax seeds and lavender buds and can be microwaved or stored in the freezer until needed. You can read about how to make this wrap here:

https://marykisner.com/hot-or-cold-neck-wrap/

A third project made small pouches (about 4″ square), again, filled with a flax seed/lavender bud mixture. These were called pocket hand warmers…meant to be warmed in the microwave and tucked into your coat pockets on a cold winter day. Good for kids and adult when you need to be outside. You can read about how to make them here:

https://marykisner.com/pocket-hand-warmers/

Those are some ideas for how I use lavender buds. After I’ve worked with the buds, the whole room smells like lavender and my hands smell good for hours! Give them a try…might make good Christmas gifts for the whole family! Enjoy!

Making Zucchini Blueberry Bread

Now that I’m searching for recipes using zucchini, I notice I’m hearing from friends that Zucchini Bread is something I should try. I found the following recipe on https://www.allrecipes.com. Of course, I had to reformat it into my favorite layout (which is based on the layout from Joy of Cooking). Instead of a list of ingredients at the beginning, the ingredients are listed as part of the instructions. With a glance down the recipe, I can see the list of ingredients in the order they are needed.

This recipe made 4 mini loaves of bread. The first time I made the recipe I tried muffins. That worked great, but I baked them about 5 minutes too long and they were pretty firm. Luckily, they still tasted great!

Here is the recipe:

First, I usually preheat the oven just as I begin assembling the ingredients. I did spray the mini loaf pans with oil (after baking I discovered the bottom of the pans really needed parchment paper to keep it from sticking). Muffin papers in the muffin pan really helped too.

Prepping Ingredients

When I look at a recipe like this and glance down the ingredient list, I see I’ll need to have 2 cups of shredded zucchini and 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts ready to go. I end up prepping them before I begin assembling the recipe.

Next, I assemble the dry ingredients in a separate bowl:

Mixing Up the Batter

I now continue with Step 2…assembling the wet ingredients…eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar. (This is when I preheat the oven.)

The zucchini is prepped and ready to fold in:

Dry ingredients are ready to mix in also (see bowl above).

Finally, I pull the frozen blueberries out of the freezer, measure 2 cups and mix them into the bread…still frozen. Fresh berries are fine also but when they are frozen, they are not as delicate and I can really mix them in.

(NOTE: Walnuts are added last (or not at all!) I love them, but not everyone can eat them. When I make bread where I know I’m going to gift it to a neighbor who can’t have nuts, I measure out their loaf or muffins first, then add the walnuts for the rest of us.)

Finally, I spoon the thick batter into the mini loaf pans or muffin cups and bake the bread about 50 minutes. Muffins will probably be done in 45 minutes.

FYI…this is what happened when I tried to get the bread out of the pan (thus the suggestion to also use parchment paper on the bottom):

Luckily when I turned them over, they didn’t look too bad from the top! And they tasted great!

I think I’ll stick with muffins! Of course, in my quest to find ways to use up zucchini, this recipe used only ONE zucchini, but made 4 loaves of bread or 24 cupcakes!! Enjoy!

Making Zucchini Fries

In anticipation of an abundance of zucchini in our garden, I’m experimenting with recipes to find ways to use them. In the past, when we did not grow them, zucchini just appeared on our patio table as the neighbors tried to find ways to distribute their garden overload! This year, I’ve heard friends and neighbors say they would NOT be growing zucchini this year! Maybe I can sneak a few onto their patio tables!

Obviously, it will be a few weeks until we have zucchini to cook and share, but I want to be ready with ideas so I don’t waste the produce. In the last week or so I’ve actually had to go to the grocery store to buy a few zucchini to experiment with!

For this experiment making zucchini fries in the air fryer, I picked up 2 medium zucchini. I ended up using only one. The recipe came from https://www.allrecipes.com. I retyped it into a format I prefer and went to work.

Anticipating this recipe, Bert had ordered a simple cheese grater for the Parmesan cheese (basically, simple enough for me to use and it will also slice and shred vegetables.) It’s lightweight and easy to clean compared to my food processor!

Prepping the Ingredients

First, I grated the cheese and set it aside.

Next, I measured out the bread crumbs and added the cheese and seasonings.

I used this general seasoning along with the dried basil.

Next, I got the eggs ready in another bowl. I used a fork to gently beat them.

Making the Fries

I cut the zucchini into “fries” as described in the instructions and dipped them into the egg mixture. Then I rolled them in the bread crumb mixture.

Then, I laid them out on my air fryer trays and sprayed them with oil.

These “fries” used up only one (1) zucchini!

The trays went into the air fryer. About 12 minutes later, I had a plate full of zucchini fries! They were pretty good. Not sure I’d bother if I had a pile of zucchini to use up!

I now have ONE recipe that I know tastes pretty good and isn’t too hard to make. I think if I had the grandkids here for a meal, I’d need to make several batches!

Garden Update June 14, 2024

The garden is starting to develop nicely this year. So far, the plants have not been bothered by fungus, bugs or critters! Well, except for the tiny rose bush we put in a big pot. I think it’s down low enough that a hungry bunny has been able to taste the new growth!

We’ve had enough rain that the plants aren’t stressed about that; the summer is young…so fungus and bugs aren’t a problem yet. We’ll see if the deer get adventurous and nibble on my small yellow pear tomatoes when they get here. All we have a flowers so far.

So, here’s a tour of the various beds:

On the patio, our raised planters are doing well. We’ve started cutting the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce for sandwiches. I started another batch of the Little Gem lettuce in the two empty sections.

The Little Gem lettuce is starting to make small heads…just right for one person for a salad. We’ll start picking and eating that soon.

The second planting of radishes is going strong.

You can sort of see the chomped off tops on the tiny rose bush.

The fenced gardens off the patio are helping the sugar snap peas grow up and we finally have the first flower! There’s hope for peas in our salads someday soon!

The yellow pear tomato plants look healthy and have their first blossoms.

The two hills of zucchini are going strong. I had planned to compare how each hill did with two different brands of seeds…but of course now I can’t remember which is which! I guess it doesn’t matter but I’m more worried that I won’t be able to keep up as they produce.

Hill #1

Hill #2

And the last section of the fenced garden by the patio has two rows of huge flowers…one is a giant Marigold and the other is a Zinnia with double flowers that may be up to 2 1/2 inches across! These are meant to be used as cut flowers. I hope the deer don’t like them!

We remembered we were going to plant flowers around our lamp post out front…and then we’ve watching some plants we grew last year come up again…we had no idea they were perennials!

The fenced garden on the hill is starting to look encouraging. The row of lavender we planted last year made it through the winter just fine. I should soon be able to start cutting some to dry.

The green and yellow beans continue to grow.

The carrots have finally popped but they are still pretty tiny…here’s a close up:

The tomatoes have blossoms! This year we’re growing 6 plants of a large variety called, “Bodacious.” The other 6 plants are our familiar Super Sauce tomatoes from Burpee.

Of course, the Echinacea plants have gone nuts! I just noticed the first flower has bloomed. It won’t be long until the whole bed is beautiful!

While we’re waiting for baskets of vegetables to appear, my first task of the summer is to make applesauce. I usually go out to Way’s Fruit Farm and get a bushel to work with. These would be apples that were picked last fall and stored over the winter. By now, they are much easier to peel! Happy Summer!

Gemstone Bracelets: Good Vibrations for the Whole Family

Three to four years ago, I found my interest in the uses of stones, crystals and gemstones in meditation was a way to focus my thoughts. I realized I was reading about the way gemstones were used in ancient times…in crowns, in prayers and in ceremonies…but I really didn’t know what some of them looked like. Unless the stone was someone’s birthstone, I really didn’t have a knowledge base to work with.

After one of our driving trips to California to visit Ted’s family, our stop in Sedona, Arizona was most inspiring! I discovered the Sedona Crystal Vortex shop. I came home with an assortment of polished stones in my suitcase! Each came with a card describing the stone. Thus began my fascination with gemstones and their meanings.

Over time, I managed to collect at least 24 different polished stones and organized them so the card with information was kept with the stone. Now. I can recognize most of the stones by color and have some basic knowledge about each one.

For several months I carried one or two stones in my pocket, depending on my mood and focus…whether it was confidence with my writing, reducing stress in my life or courage to face hard decisions. Not sure if they made a difference in my writing or my stress level, but they did help me focus my intentions to improve my writing or lower my stress level.

Then, I discovered Sedona Crystal Vortex offered various pendants and earrings featuring specific stones…what fun! Very quickly I could see this collection would be a bit more expensive! Not sure I could afford a necklace for each stone!

Here is a Malachite set:

And my favorite Tree of Life necklace:

Learning More about Stones, Crystals and Gemstones

I continued researching these stones, crystals and gemstones on the internet…so MUCH information was available. I ended up ordering this book, The Book of Stones, by Robert Simmons and Naisha Ahsian (2015. Heaven & Earth Publishing LLC). I learned so much more and could reread sections without turning on the computer!

In the introduction to the book, the authors helped me understand why some folks believe they can feel (sense) the vibrations from the stones. They provided a general theory how humans could actually feel and benefit from crystal energy.

Apparently, the crystal lattice structure found in minerals, such as Quartz, Beryl and Diamond, provides great stability of structure and regularity of flow of any electromagnetic energies that move through it. This is why silicon chips are used to provide memory in computers. It’s also the reason Quartz crystals can be incorporated into watches and clocks to provide highly accurate measurements of time. This crystalline structure is present in all stones and crystals at some level.

Humans have their own crystalline structure in their bodies, even at the smallest level. Our DNA basically has a crystalline structure that manages to pass on genetic information quite accurately. Not too hard to imagine that it may be possible for some people to be capable of detecting, or “feeling” these energies.

I will admit I don’t feel the vibrations from my stones. However, I do believe they help me focus my thoughts.

The Transition to Beaded Bracelets

Recently, as the public became obsessed with Friendship bracelets, folks of all ages were making and exchanging them. Why not check it out! I made a few bracelets with plastic letter beads and made a few to represent one of my favorite sayings:

I used up various glass beads to fill in around the letters. Interesting, but I hadn’t planned to wear them so I sent them to a niece.

I tried to make Penn State bracelets using the letters, P S U, but after 4-5 bracelets, I ran out of those three letters! The letter beads seem to come with the whole alphabet and I couldn’t order just those three letters! Phooey!

I ended up making PSU bracelets with Blue and White beads…no letters. The only “real” stone bead that had the right color to represent PSU blue was the Blue Tiger’s Eye. So I added white glass beads, Opals or Howlite to get the Blue/white feel. I don’t think I’ll focus on making too many of these, since I’d prefer to explore the many other gemstone beads I have.

The transition from stones in my pocket and pendants around my neck seemed to happen in the last year or so. If you’ve read my blog (https://marykisner.com/) you’ll know that I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting projects. I thought if I wanted a different way to carry the gemstones, why not a bracelet.

Look at the difference between a polished stone for my pocket and the corresponding bracelet. Perfect!

Production for the Summer Arts Festival

For the past month or two I’ve been cranking out several bracelets a day in three sizes. I now have over 100 bracelets ready to sell at the Summer Arts Festival which will be held July 11-13, 2024 on the grounds at Way’s Fruit Farm in Stormstown, PA. (These are the same three days as the Central PA Festival of the Arts in State College, PA).

To prepare for the festival, I took my bag of bracelets to a family reunion a few weeks ago and let interested folks choose one. It gave me a chance to talk about the gemstones. Bracelets were chosen by mostly women of all ages and a few young men found stones that spoke to them! Very rewarding to watch the process! Save the dates in July! Hope to see you there!

Garden Update June 4, 2024

The garden is finally starting to look like it might produce stuff eventually! We’ve had enough rain so even the grass doesn’t have brown spots, like last summer. The rain barrels are now empty…all water was moved up to the large tank by the garden yesterday. Just in time, it’s supposed to rain later this week!

Yesterday, the radishes looked ready, so I pulled them all! Nice crop. A little spicy but tasty. I’ll replant the spaces with the same radish seed, but alternate in each section.

The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce is filling out. The leaves will make a loose head and should be crisp.

The Little Gem leaves are starting to curl and should make small heads…just right for a single serving!

The yellow pear tomato plants look really healthy but I’m glad we planted only two…they can be quite prolific.

The zucchini plants look good!

The sugar snap peas are finally reaching out. Bert added a coated wire grid to help them get started in climbing.

Up in the big garden, the bed of lavender is going nuts! I can see I’ll have a lot of lavender buds to work with this year.

The green and yellow beans are coming along!

The tomato plants continue to fill out.

And, of course, the echinacea is reaching for the sky. You can see the flowers just about ready to bloom.

That’s the tour for today! Gardening is definitely a process, with lots of “waiting” time. However, I’m anticipating the harvest, as I make sure I have a plan for each of the vegetables. Zucchini, green beans and tomatoes can quickly get out of control. Such fun!

Rearranging Appliances for Summer Produce

It is time! Now that all the seeds have been planted, I’ve started a list of what we’ll do with all the produce (assuming it will all grow!!). What we don’t grow, I’ll tap the Farmer’s Markets around the area to buy produce in larger quantities to fill in.

My project list includes applesauce, pickle relish and pizza sauce. These will require my food processor. It has been stored in extra cupboards in the garage. It is not a light appliance, so I had to rearrange things to bring it into the kitchen storage. Since I’m not using my blender very often, I’ll swap it with the food processor.

Here’s the space I’m rearranging in the kitchen. Bert built this table with storage space below a few years ago and added a pull-out drawer so I can easily reach the appliances and lift them to the table. My stand mixer is stored here all the time…it’s too heavy to move any further and I use it frequently.

The salad spinner was stored to the right of the mixer, but I haven’t used it since last summer when I grew leaf lettuce. It really was not very useful and took up a lot of space. In fact, it was piled with extra flour and cereal boxes that needed to be stored someplace else!

The one main project I have in mind for the summer produce is what to do with zucchini! This is the first year we have grown it and I’m a little nervous about getting overrun with zucchini! I’ve bee collecting recipes with ideas but one appliance seems to be mentioned frequently…the air fryer!

I have one and have used it occasionally but it is so big I can’t let it sit on the counter. By moving the spinner and assorted stuff out of the table cupboard I should have room to store it right in the kitchen. Then all I have to do is open the doors, roll out the drawer and lift the air fryer to the table. Much better!

Speaking of what to do with zucchini, recipes often mention shredding or spirializing the vegetable. I can shred with my food processor, but I had forgotten I had two boxes of attachments for my mixer that would let me do the same. The boxes were unearthed when I started rearranging stuff in the garage cupboards. I can see I’ll have lots of choices as I make plans for the zucchini!

Box of Attachments #1

Box of Attachments #2

Now, my kitchen appliances are in the right places when the produce is ready. Of course, all three projects mentioned at the beginning will require canning when they are done. Bert will then have to bring the HUGE HEAVY Pressure canner up from basement storage and we’ll work around it for a few weeks. We do the canning in the garage so I don’t have to worry about making space to store the canner!

I think vegetable gardeners are the most optimistic people…we have visions of bounty from the garden…and often forget that weather, bugs and plant diseases will influence how the growing season goes! Enjoy!

Baking for the Memorial Day Bake Sale

Part of my involvement with Boalsburg’s Memorial Day activities is helping the Ladies Auxiliary to the Fire Company get ready for their bake sale at the Fire Hall. The Fire Hall is open to the public when the Carnival is going on…starting this evening, continuing Friday and Saturday evenings, a few hours on Sunday afternoon and 10 to 4 on Monday. The Fire Hall is airconditioned, restrooms are available and tables are set up for visitors to rest. They can eat the food they purchased at the festival or from the firemen who will be roasting chickens behind the Fire Hall. The money raised from this bake sale will be donated to the Fire Company.

This year I decided to spend three days baking stuff folks can buy to add to their dinners. I chose foods I could make from box mixes that could be wrapped into individual servings. This was fun, because the mixes cut down on my kitchen clean up and they were foods I would not normally make because I couldn’t eat them. I wasn’t tempted to snitch a bite here and there!

I started with Rice Krispies squares. I bought the biggest box of cereal I could find and picked up 4 bags of marshmallows. I haven’t made these squares for many years so I was glad the instruction were on the box!

I measured out 6 cups of Rice Krispies and 40 marshmallows.

I melted the 3 tablespoons of Butter in my largest pot and added the marshmallows. While I watched them melt, I wondered if I could just buy a jar of that marshmallow fluff and use that?

I dumped the Rice Krispies into the pot of melted marshmallows and tried to get them all coated with butter. It really helped to leave the pot on the warm burner to keep it soft enough to keep stirring. Then, before it set up in the pot, I spread the mixture into a 9 x 13″ pan. Using a spatula sprayed with oil, I pressed the mixture into the pan. That was it! Not too hard. I made 3 pans of Rice Krispies squares, cut them into 12 pieces each…I now have 36 squares in zip bags ready to sell!

The next project was Brownies. I picked up 4 mixes…2 dark chocolate and 2 milk chocolate with walnuts.

Now…you’ll notice the one on the left (Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownie Mix) says right on the box…13 x 9″ Family Size. OK. I assumed that. The box on the right, however, makes only an 8 x 8″ pan! Phooey!

I mixed up the first dark chocolate brownie mix.

It baked fine and looked good. I cut it into 12 pieces and bagged them for the sale.

I mixed up the second box of dark chocolate brownies, but apparently didn’t mix well enough because even after baking, the top had little lumps all over it! I gave that batch to Bert!

I ran to the grocery store and picked up another box of brownie mix (milk chocolate this time) and tried again. Worked fine. The two mixes of Brownies with California walnuts, that makes just an 8 x 8″ pan each…I’ll put them in the cupboard for a future pot luck dinner or something.

Next, I really wanted to make cupcakes since I haven’t made those in a long time. I was trying to figure out how to carry two dozen cupcakes to the fire hall on Monday. I had forgotten…several years ago I had bought a plastic carrier just for that purpose! Luckily, it was wrapped in a white plastic bag and high on a shelf just waiting to be needed.

Pretty nifty arrangement! Sunday, I’ll make two kinds of cupcakes for the sale on Monday!

The last item I may try tomorrow is snickerdoodles. Of course, there is a mix for that! I could easily make them from scratch, but then I will end up with too many cookies and my kitchen will be a mess! It is also too tempting to have all those cookies around because I do love them and can eat them. I’ll stick with the mixes.

I’m sure many of you have your favorite recipes to make things for bake sales. Our audience is mostly families with kids on their way to the carnival. Should be fun!

Garden Update and Grandkids

We had a beautiful day yesterday and enjoyed a visit with Kathy, Ben and Anna! It was also time to plant a few more things in the garden. We’re pretty confident that we won’t see a killing frost in the next week or two (smile…you never know!)

The radishes are doing well. I’m always grateful they are in the waist-high planters so I can keep an eye on them.

Bert planted the tiny Rose Bush we were given as a gift into a very large pot on the patio (thanks Barbara and Bill). We’ll see how much it can grow outside this summer before we consider a more permanent location.

The Sugar Snap Peas look pretty tiny, but if you look carefully, they are already sending out little runners (on the upper left).

In the fenced area by the patio, we decided to add two yellow-pear tomato plants to the potatoes that came up from last year. We’ll see how many potatoes actually grow! (Tomato plant on the right, potato on the left by the fence.) Guess that will be our experiment this year.

The rest of the tomatoes were planted up in the garden on the hill. Bert planted six SuperSauce tomatoes (like hefty Roma tomatoes) and six “Bodacious” plants (that are supposed to get pretty big) just for fun!

We still have some tomato plants left that have been promised to friends so we’ll deliver them soon.

Finally, the lavender and echinacea are quietly getting bigger. Soon flowers will bookend our garden on the hill!

We enjoyed Kathy, Ben (almost 17) and Anna (almost 12) for the day! I was able to unload some books from my shelves to the kids…part of my secret plan to start downsizing…sending them home with a bag of stuff each time they come to visit!

Of course, I can’t seem to remember to take pictures, but as they left, I managed to snag a few selfies. The kids are growing up so fast!

I hope you had a good day also!

Designing a New Business Card

Any time I’ve had a business card, it had my office address, office phone number, Penn State email address, etc. Once I retired from Penn State, I had a dilemma…I was still consulting with schools and teachers, but my homebase was now my office at home. While I had figured out how to print a few cards at a time using Avery business products, I still needed contact information in some form. I struggled with how much “home” information I wanted to share.

My first cards were pretty simple:

When I first set up my website, Mary’s Musings (https://marykisner.com), I wanted to include that information on the card. Since the creative work I was writing about was not necessarily related to my credentials in education, I made a choice to keep it simple with just my name…leaving off the PhD…and adding all my personal contact information. I went ahead and ordered 500 business cards from a local printer (for $75!). In four years, I’ve hardly put a dent in the pile!

A few weeks ago, my email address was hacked. Corrupted! What a pain in the neck! I could not believe how many people and businesses I had to contact to change to a new email address! Even weeks later I’m still discovering how many places my old email was embedded. Then I discovered how complicated it was to change my email address. Most often I had to call and talk with an actual person to explain. Other places I just had to let it go and create a whole new account with my new email address. It was easier to change my password than to change my email address. Guess the hackers know how to do this easily!

I now have at least 400 business cards that must be pitched. Choosing a new business card is imperative as I’m getting ready to sell my gemstone bracelets at a Festival in July. How much information is necessary to provide contact information without advertising my physical address? Do I really need to share our landline phone number?

I also don’t have a “company name,” nor do I make, or write about, just one craft to make up an appropriate name. I’m not in the business to sell most of the stuff I make…I’m a diehard teacher and lifelong learner! My website, Mary’s Musings, is the perfect description of who I am. So, to design a new card, I simplified my information and kept the floral motif at the top (reflecting my website).

Then I remembered I could print the business cards (10 at a time) with Avery’s template. If things change, I’m not stuck with hundreds of cards!

Compare the old and the new cards:

If my old email address is in your address book, please update it to maryjkisner@gmail.com. Otherwise, I will never see an email from you! The hackers have rerouted all my email. I receive NO email from the comcast.net address. (Considering all the junk email I was receiving, I hope the hackers are buried in daily JUNK.)