Success in the Kitchen and the Living Room

Anyone who knows me knows that I can cook, but I am not a chef. Most of what I cook is good, but not usually a Wow!. I am always trying for a Wow though and don't give up easily. I am much more successful at baking than cooking. I met a special lady last week who needed some help with her squash plants. She is elderly and not able to drive so I took some things over to her after work. She met me with some delicious Ginger cookies she had baked. They were Wow good! She had a little cottage that was going to be available to rent so a few days later we went over to see if it might work for us. It was too small, our apartment was bigger, but she wouldn't let us get away without taking something home. She picked a few little baskets of kumquats while we were pondering and measuring the cottage. I did a search for kumquat recipes and found plenty at a few websites. I made 2 of them with great success! The first was a kumquat cake with a kumquat glaze over the top. The second was this Kumquat Meringue Pie which I have to say turned out beautifully and tasted just as wonderful. It was not as tart as lemon meringue, but still had a nice citrus flavor. My favorite part was that it looked perfect! I am so glad that I have a blog with which to document this success in my kitchen!

I have also had some success in the living room! I have pretty much finished the covers for my couch cushions. I still have to work on the closures on the back side of them, but right now I am so busy that I haven't had the time to finish. I do have it figured out though so it should be simple and I'll get it done asap. I am very happy with the way that they fit though and especially happy that I figured out how to do the piping. I had a mental block against this for the longest time and I don't know why, it really was fairly simple. So much success!!! I hope I can keep on this successful role I seem to be on. I was even successful at figuring out how to create this little picture with Photoshop Elements 5.0. Now I hear they are making a new version and I haven't even had a chance to learn all that this one does. I really need a few more hours in my days...maybe ones where I am not feeling too tired to move or think.