The Weekend

It's Sunday night already.  Where did the weekend go?

Friday night we had friends over for dinner and made buttermilk fried chicken.  I had never fried chicken at home before and it was a real adventure!  I used this recipe from Thomas Keller's cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home.  First you made a brine using several lemons and lots of bay leaves, soaking the chicken for up to eleven hours.  Then you dredged the chicken in a seasoned flour mixture, then in buttermilk, and then in the flour again.  Then you fried it in several inches of oil.  It took a quart of canola oil!   

Since I had never fried anything before, it was a bit nerve racking, but the result was crisp fried chicken with great flavor.  Hmm....so good!

This is a photo of a bobcat that was spotted in the yard of a house several blocks away from ours on Friday.  He didn't stay around for long, but does prove that these creatures are out there.    

Knowing that bobcats and mountain lions are out there makes me more willing to be "pinned down" by our own cat, Fetcher, who has taken to cuddling up on not just our laps, but our chests.  Can you tell that I can't move?  

Yesterday we went for a hike up in Chautaugua with our friend Paula, and that Handsome Dog, Gus.

Gus loves to find big long sticks to chew on and carry on his hike.

It was a warm, beautiful afternoon.  Much of our snow has melted, but there is still quite a bit on the hiking trails along with the dreaded ice.  We get a lot of ice because the sun comes out during the day and melts the snow but then the temperatures fall at night a good twenty degrees and everything freezes.  We expect another dusting of snow during the next two days.  

I love this photo I took of Ben & Paula walking down the hill with Boulder in the distance.

I made a big push to get the charity quilt top done that I started before Christmas, and was happy to finish it up today.  I think I'm going to piece a back and then return it to the quilt guild for someone else to quilt.  I've enjoyed working with the "Girl's Rule" fabric. Very inspirational!

On Friday I went to another quilt store in the area and picked out some fabric for a Valentine's table runner using a pattern I had borrowed from my new quilter friend, Missy.  I loved my fabric selections and couldn't wait to see how they would go together in the pattern so today I cut got busy and cut out the pieces and pieced them together.  I hadn't been sure about the black & white fabric and almost switched to a green leaf pattern, but l love how it turned out.   The center rose squares have words and phrases printed in gold, like "I Love You" and "Friendship."   Very sweet, but the black & white fabric gives it quite a bit of movement.    

This afternoon Ben & I went to the CU Women's basketball game against UCLA.  My team has lost their last few games and I was expecting we'd get trounced.  The opening minutes sure pointed to a killing and at one early point in the game UCLA was ahead by 21 points.  But the Buffs didn't lose heart.  They clawed their way back and by halftime they were only nine points behind.  They kept fighting, and with seven minutes left in the game they were tied.  They ended up losing, but they put up a good fight.  

Here's how the local paper captured the game:   The Buffs turned a laugher into a thriller into a heartbreaker and fell 90-84 to the Bruins at the Coors Events Center.    It made for an exiting afternoon!  Go Buffs!