It's the Middle of the Night......

......and I'm writing a post!!! :-D

I'm still not 100% ME yet, but I'm almost there!  It's a good sign that I'm awake right now (it's 2:30am), because that's normal me for sure!! (instead of zonking out at midnight every night!)
I just thought I'd write a post because our weekend starts tomorrow with Brian home (YAY!!!), and I'm hoping we might try to tackle some of the wood floor - maybe ALL of it!  So I won't have time to post, and I wanted to show you girls some stuff.....FUN stuff, finally! :-D

First, the Grape Salad......

Can you say "YUMMY!"?!?
It was a huge success, and quick and easy to make!  I halved the recipe, because I only had 2lbs of grapes, and it made plenty!
I washed the grapes, and then I cut some in half - just for flavor and fun.....

Then I mixed together 4oz. of cream cheese (softened), 1/2 cup of sour cream, and 1/4 cup of sugar.....

It was a little lumpy, but that doesn't matter.
The recipe said to add vanilla, but I decided to add my very favorite flavoring.....

ALMOND!!!!  I stirred in a full teaspoon, and it smelled and tasted wonderful!!
Then I poured it all on top of the grapes.....

.....and stirred it all in!.....

It's not ready yet!  It needs the special topping!!
I took 1/2 cup of chopped pecans.....

......and since I never buy brown sugar, I poured a little molasses in there and stirred it all around, THEN I added about 1/4 cup or less of sugar.
It came out exactly like brown sugar......

Then I spread it on top of the grapes.....

Oooooh!!!

It comes HIGHLY recommended -- everyone LOVED it! :-D

 

And yesterday, I decided to try drying oranges again!  Only this time I added a few lemons, too.....

I baked them at 185 for about 5 hours, and then stopped to make dinner.
Here is how they looked after that.....

You can't tell in this picture, but they are still VERY soft and juicy - mushy even, especially the lemons.  I have one of them propped up against the oranges because when I checked on them at one point, that lemon was getting flat on one side, and it looked bad!  So that was my solution!
I love the colors they are here, and I wish they would STAY like that! 
But.....they DON'T......

Here they are today, after I baked them for another 6 hours or so.  They are much firmer now, and I won't bake them again -- they should be able to finish drying just fine on the counter, like my other ones have!
Here is a picture of them next to my other oranges I posted about in my "Success" post.....

The super-dry ones are on the left -- can you see a difference?  The first ones are smaller and the color is different!  They are also very hard now.  And there is NO mold!  They got like this by just being out on the counter after I baked them.  I'm figuring the same will happen with the just-baked oranges after a couple of weeks -- they will get harder and smaller.  I LOVE them!!!

The lemons.....are a different story......

They turned into tiny, brown, weird things!  None of the pretty yellow from yesterday.....*sigh!*  I will keep these on the counter, too, but I'm not really excited about them.  They had ALOT of juice in them for one thing -- I didn't think to take any pictures of this, but see the dried brown drops on the paper towel?  Yesterday, I went through about 3 paper towels while they were baking, because there would be huge juice spots after about an hour or so, and they would turn brown and stick to the baking sheet!
Plus, they were just so mushy -- you can see the one without the cloves in it is misshapen from laying on it's side while it baked.  Even though I kept turning it and then leaning it on the oranges, it still has a weird shape.  So I'm not sure the lemons are worth it!

I'm so happy I figured out the best way to make these, though!  I see LOTS of them in my future!! LOL

The last thing I want to show you is the penny rug that I want to make next! :-D
Cee found it online and posted it to her Pinterest page, and I couldn't stop thinking about it......

It came from here.... http://www.textilemuseum.ca/apps/index.cfm?page=collection.detail&catId=6880&row=4 .....and there's a way to zoom in to see the small details, too, which I LOVE!  So I dug through my now-enormous wool pile to find the perfect colors to make it myself, and here's what I came up with.....

I'm still deciding on a green, but I love what I already have here!  Let me tell you, the small circles are scaring me! LOL  I mean, after I've cut that many, I'm not even close to what I need, and then I have to STITCH them ALL on......YIKES! Haha!!  Well, I'm determined to do it, and cutting the circles is a good thing to do while I'm just sitting around every night.

Don't you just love the way it's all squares with circles IN them?!  It's such a unique design, I just love it!! :-D

Well, that's my fun for now!  I guess I should go try to fall asleep now, it's after 3am, for goodness sake!!  OH.....cross your fingers that I will be posting about doing the wood floor in a couple of days....!!!  Wouldn't that be SO AWESOME?!!!  It would be JUST the inspiration I need to whip myself back into work-mode around here, and get some more projects done!  I still have alot of painting to do!  But I look at the cans and just can't seem to muster the energy to tackle any of it right now.....but a nice wood floor would definitely do the trick! ^-^