Generalismo

A friend took some of us to a bluegrass jam the other night, we got home at 4 in the morning! It was great fun, and we sang lots, played lots, and a few of us did some contra dancing

On the way

Different angle of on the way

The “attic” where they danced

One of the jam rooms - there were many!

Waiting around for the dance to start

Retrieving my boots at the end of the last dance I did.
I got blisters!

Posted by Bonnie under dance, music, pictures

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Have you ever gotten in one of those moods where you are inclined to extended periods of staring? I have them sometimes when I’m playing guitar for fun and a particular phrase comes out that engages my mind, and right now my mind must be engaged with thought. I keep staring. Hah. Even while I’m writing this I’m inclined to staring. It’s possible it’s because my sleep pattern is getting messed up (it always gets changed when we’re on the road!).

The funny thing is that I can’t always identify which thoughts are making me prone to stare. Ahh…well. On to more interesting things.

I went in a minute ago to get the card out of the camera so I could post some pictures from this weekend but there were only about a dozen on there. Someone must have already dealt with them and uploaded them to a computer. No big deal, but it means no pictures in this post Unless I post from the archive. I think I’ll just click on a random page in my album and post something from it.
Ok, here’s The Little Trumpet That Was, from page 45 (current page is one, the oldest page is the highest numbered).

You may notice that I used the past tense of “to be,” and indeed this trumpet is no longer. The robbers took it out of its case and stepped on it I guess they just don’t have time to pay attention to what has fallen on the floor and where they are stepping. I had made it for a contest, including moving valves with springs made out of a high E guitar string wrapped around a pin. It lost, of course

Heh, this is the oldest picture in the book, so to speak

He can still do that, but he never does it with his Huber!! (No kidding!).

Ah! Page 41, another similar picture.

Last one for today, from page 37, because I’m looking forward to summer thunderstorms:

Posted by Bonnie under outdoors, pictures

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So the truffles have been made! It does make for a little mess but they are pretty good

First of all, brought one cup heavy cream and 3 tablespoons corn syrup to a boil. I poured that over 3/4 lb of dark chocolate (from Walmart @ $3.28 a pound) that had been finely chopped. Then I added 4 tablespoons softened butter and whisked till smooth. Looking back, I would have put in less cream and maybe a little less butter. The filling is very hard to work with because it melts at such a low temperature and even frozen, doesn’t harden very much.

Then I left that in the fridge for a few hours and then scooped out teaspoons of it. Those went on trays in the freezer, where I left them overnight. I rolled them briefly in my hands once they had gotten cool and replaced them on the tray for the rest of the night. It also helped to sprinkle a little cocoa powder on the tray to keep them from sticking. The result:

You have to work quickly once they come out of the freezer because they start to melt in literally seconds. Less than a minute sitting on the counter and they’re pretty soft. So I took 4 or 5 out at a time on a plate and brought them to the counter where I dipped them in a bowl of chocolate that I had melted (not included in the 3/4 lb above) and mixed with a few tablespoons of coconut oil, to make it more liquid when melted.

I kind of just dropped them in the bowl, on at a time, and gently spooned the melted chocolate over them.

I had previously toasted coconut.

And mixed cocoa powder, sugar, cinnamon, and clove together.

After I dipped them in chocolate I took them out as quickly as possible, letting the extra chocolate run back in the bowl, and rolled them in the coconut, or whatever I was rolling them in. This is very messy!

Here they are resting (cooling ) before they go on the finished tray.

These are the finished truffles! There are ones with coconut, spice/cocoa/sugar, ground coffee, and the ones with the nuts on the outside have a piece of walnut inside.

And a broken open truffle. The texture inside is very soft and creamy and melts almost immediately upon eating. That’s part of the reason I would like to use less cream and butter next time, to have a thicker middle. And that’s what I’m going to get eating these!

Posted by Bonnie under food, pictures, recipe

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Is a blog without pictures really a blog at all?

Well to satisfy the picture cravings that might drive you to someone else’s blog in search of more interesting content (because mine almost never has pictures these days), here are some pictures.

First off the lovely chocolate bar with whole coffee beans. Delightful!

Here’s me looking rather green-y in my glasses and oops-I-have-dirty-hair-today emergency hat.

Yes folks, it’s all smoke and mirrors here. Bonnie actually doesn’t live at this blog.

My picks.

That is a book I’m supposed to review. Should be soon.

Can you tell I’m excited about my new, cool, lightweight, comfortable, CAMPING/HIKING backpack!

Now not picture related is a video I put up of almost 9 chinups.

Strongspo - Chinups on youtube

I am really hoping to get back into the swing of things and start doing these again. This is vintage (ha) footage that I had saved, but now I’m not able to do more than 4!

Well that’s it for today. That’s worth, like, um, how many pictures do I have? 6,000! Words, not pictures, that is. I mean, that’s how much this is worth today. Plus the video. That’s probably 60,000 words since it’s audio and visual.

Posted by Bonnie under books, exercise, pictures

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