Author Archives: maryjane

I’ve always gotten a kick out of diner lingo and hate to see it go the way of the dodo, ya know?

Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel via Wikimedia Commons

Hoping to do my part in preserving this cute ‘n’ cheesy (wink) café chatter,

I created a—you guessed it—QUIZ to test your food slang savvy.

Have fun figuring out these phrases (the answers are posted at the end), then call them out with gusto in your own kitchen. The kids will love it.
1. All hot
2. Battery acid
3. Birdseed
4. Bubble dancer
5. Cluck and grunt
6. Cow feed
7. Cow paste
8. Eve with a lid on
9. Fish eyes
10. Frog sticks
11. George Eddy
12. Houseboat
13. Italian perfume
14. Make it moo
15. Mike and Ike
16. Moo juice
17. Nervous pudding
18. Radio
19. Sea dust
20. Shingle with a shimmy and a shake
21. Vermont
22. Walk a cow through the garden and pin a rose on it
23. Whistle berries
24. Yum-yum

Answers:
1. Baked potato
2. Grapefruit juice
3. Breakfast cereal
4. Dishwasher
5. Eggs and bacon
6. Salad
7. Butter
8. Apple pie
9. Tapioca pudding
10. French fries
11. Customer who doesn’t leave tips
12. Banana split
13. Garlic
14. Add milk/cream to coffee
15. Salt and pepper shakers
16. Milk
17. Jell-o (or, better yet, Giggle Wiggles—one of my Chillover recipes!)
18. Tuna salad sandwich
19. Salt
20. Buttered toast with jam
21. Maple syrup
22. Hamburger with lettuce, tomato and onion
23. Baked beans
24. Sugar

With a brand-spankin’ New Year upon us, it’s the perfect time to explore new creative frontiers while honoring artistic traditions that have led us this far.

What do I have in mind, you wonder?

Well, you may remember how I told you about Zentangle, the addictive art of zany (yet so very Zen) doodling.

Image by Trinity Verlag in der Scorpio Verlag GmbH & Co.KG via Wikimedia Commons

(If this doesn’t ring a bell, hop over to this post.)

True to form, each time I swirl and squiggle lines on paper, I find myself fantasizing about fabric, which inspired me to poke around a bit into the idea of Zentangle quilting, and wouldn’t you know it?

It’s a real thing.

And it’s just as neat-o as I’d imagined.

Just look at Quilt Zentangle Style! on Pinterest (warning: you might start drooling).

Since I have a feeling you’re already itchin’ to start stitchin’, I gathered up this little list of goodies to get you going:

Book: Tangle Stitches: For Quilters and Fabric Artists by Jane Monk

You can buy it on Amazon, but you can’t “look inside” like you can on many other books. Here’s a video flip-through to preview the wonders within:

Share your results on the Farmgirl Connection to inspire the rest of us!