Transportation History Around Tallahassee

The sunny weather returned yesterday, so Blaze and I went to check out a train that we had seen from a distance, as we turned from the park the day before.





Then, today, we visited the Tallahassee Automobile Museum for the fist time.





The tour starts with Abraham Lincoln's hearse,



then the automotive history begins.











I have decided that this is my dream car:







There is a collection of batmobiles:







The museum has some other collections, as well.

Motorcycles:



golfing memorabilia, Case knives, cash registers, boats,





outboard motors, native american artifacts, toys,







and a large collection of children's peddle cars.



This was the car I had as a child:

Lafayette Heritage Trail

Tallahassee has so many parks and green spaces, that even after living here for a year and a half, we still haven't seen them all. Today we explored The Lafayette Heritage Trail.

It was very cloudy all day, but was a comfortable temperature.



All playground equipment has now been Blaze tested and approved.







We enjoyed walking on the well maintained trail around the lake. Blaze told me all about the monster that lives in the lake.





And then we found this:



For Blaze, the highlight of the walk, was finding the spot at the end of the trail, where we could watch a freight train speeding past.





For me, the best part was the birds.

I have never had such perfect avian models. They didn't seem to mind that I was walking up close to them, taking picture after picture.













The park also has a couple of these adorable picnic shelters, so I'm seriously considering returning here sometime with a picnic.

Super Bowl Scones

Every year, my husband asks me what I will be making for my Super Bowl tea party. It's a joke, but I like to take it as a challenge. So, here is this year's addition to the very specialized recipe genre of Super Bowl Tea Party foods:

Super Bowl Scones
(smoked sausage scones)




Scones:


2 1/3 Cups of unbleached white flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 pound of smoked sausage, cut into thin rounds and then each round piece cut into fourths

1/2 Cup finely chopped onions

1/2 Cup finely chopped bell pepper

4 Tablespoons butter

3/4 Cup heavy cream

2 egg yolks

Honey-Mustard Glaze

1 Tablespoon yellow prepared mustard

1 Tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Fry sausage pieces and set aside. Fry onions and peppers in the sausage grease and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add sausage, onions, and peppers and stir to coat with flour. Cut in butter with a fork. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg yolks and 3/4 cup cream. Add the egg yolk mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until all of the flour has been dampened. Don't over mix. It's o.k. if the dough is a little sticky.

Place dough on a floured board and roll out to about a one-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Leave a half inch or more between each scone.

Brush each scone with the honey-mustard glaze and bake about 20-25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes.


Serve immediately

A Time Travel Weekend: Steampunk and Medieval Faire

We dressed up in our steampunk attire and headed off early Saturday morning on a four-hour trip South to Mount Dora for the Renniger's Steampunk Industrial Show. Renniger's Antique Center and Flee Market is a fun place to explore any day, but it was especially fun when there were costumed steampunk people from all over the state (and even some from Tennessee) selling things and shopping.

The evening ended with a concert by Clockwork Knotwork and The Cog is Dead, followed by the steampunk invasion of the local Chili's restaurant.

We overwhelmed the the Chili's staff, as about 25 hungry steampunks invaded their restaurant without warning. We broke up into groups of 6 to make seating easier, but many people still had to wait awhile for an available table. It is amazing how much a single person's thoughtfulness can do for moral in a situation like this. R.J. Foster, of  Step in Tyme Designs, took it upon himself to play host and made the time go by much more quickly. He passed chips and salsa around the waiting room and told jokes, until we were called to our tables.

We spent the night in Tavares and returned to Renniger's briefly in the morning, then began our Northward journey. This was, also, the first weekend of the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire in Gainesville, so we were able to break up our drive by stopping there after two hours on the road.

This was the first act we saw when we entered the faire:







This next trick was preceded by joke:
"Happiness is like wetting your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth."





Blaze's favorite part of the faire every year, is the living chessboard. What could be better than fish and chips while watching people beat each other up?



Two of my former students from Trilogy School were part of the living chessboard this year.










We also ran into some friends we hadn't seen in a long time.

The Travel Sewing Box

My son and I have been working on a travel-size sewing kit. We spray painted and decorated a large Altoids tin (one of the extra big ones that are only sold at Christmas time). We added new spools of thread, safety pins, a needle threader, a tiny pair of scissors, thimble, some buttons, and a seam ripper.

Today, Blaze made a felt needle book to go into the box. He hand-sewed the seam down the middle of the book and then machine-stitched a League of S.T.E.A.M. patch onto the front cover of the book.

Christmas Scrapbook Pages

I have fallen pretty far behind on my scrapbooking, but I have been working on pages to display this past Christmas' photos in my steampunk Christmas scrapbook. I'm not quite done, but I'm pretty close.
Here is what I have so far:



Since I just learned how to do the mottled metallic effect, using alcohol inks, right before Christmas, I decided that that was a good background for this year's pictures.













Now, I just need to catch up with the rest of last year.

Happy New Year!

We didn't go anywhere for New Year's Eve, but we had a good time at home. We covered the table with party foods (mostly made out of things left over from Christmas) and watched regeneration episodes of Dr. Who.





DH even got dressed up in the new vest I gave him for Christmas and made a pitcher of sangria.



When we were not eating, DH and I cleaned up and repainted this picture frame that we had purchased for $2 at a charity resale shop.



One of Blaze's gifts for Christmas was a chibi picture of two of the members of the League of Steam, which we received for supporting their resent Kickstarter campaign, but I wanted the picture to have a nice frame before it went up on his bedroom wall.

Because I didn't like the yellow matting that came with the picture frame, I went over it with alcohol inks in mixed metallics and browns, the same method I used for some of my Christmas gift tags.



DH removed the class from the frame and did an excellent job of cleaning it.

I spray painted the wooden frame with the "beaten copper" spray paint left over from the "Big Wheel".

First thing this morning, the picture went into the frame and was hung on Blaze's bedroom wall.





Our new year is off to a pretty good start.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2014!