home | A Thankfully Imperfect Woman

Oct 24

A Grease Monkey, Family Heirlooms, and Barb Kellogg Photography

The Grease Monkey is me…yes I shop at the St Louis County Mall (aka the dump) and yes, I grab greasy treasures! I have a little too much fun cleaning up these treasures…thank you Dawn dish soap, or as my husband puts it “If it’s good enough to clean ducks, it’s good enough for this”. (Obviously referring to the oil spills, the affected waterfowl, and the Dawn dish soap commercials.) I had GREAT fun cleaning up the pulley!

And yes, my husband thinks I’m nuts. Oh ye of little faith…but then he sees the finished product and says “Well, that’s cool!” 🙂

In the featured LOVE picture, the first two items were dump (oops Mall) finds. The V is a folding tape measure that was Tim’s Grandpa’s. And the two clamps I picked up at my friend’s garage sale…I needed an E…what can I say?

And here’s a collage of the rest of the wall! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! Read more

Oct 23

Antlers, Leaves, and Wreaths = FALL

I LOVE FALL!

For anyone who’s seen my house this is no big surprise. Deep green with red and pumpkin colored trim? Yes, please. Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year. Bring on the sweaters…the pants…oooohhhhh – the scarves! And then there’s the decorating! I had so much fun doing my fall decorating this year…ok, it was done 3 weeks ago, but I’ve been kind of busy!

There’s outside decorating:

Comfort Food…Sweet Sauerkraut and Pork Ribs

With the onset of Fall here in Northern Minnesota, I decided to share one of my family’s favorite recipes. It’s perfect for these cool days!

You can certainly replace the pork ribs with pork chops, but I won’t substitute The Zup’s Food Market sauerkraut with any other!

This serves approx. 8-10 people. This is a large recipe which you can cut in half…however, you’ll love the leftovers too!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sweet Sauerkraut and Pork Ribs

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3# of Pork Ribs 1 Qt of Zup’s Homemade Sauerkraut

1/2 to 3/4 bag of Brown Sugar Caraway Seeds

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Brown the pork ribs in your fry pan with a splash of olive oil.

Layer them in your baking pan (I use a 12×15 pan).

Cover with strained sauerkraut.

Cover sauerkraut with brown sugar (yes, a lot!)

Sprinkle Caraway Seeds over. I put them on fairly thick.

Cover and bake in 350 degree oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hr.

Serve with homemade mashed potatoes and enjoy!

Patty O

Sep 27

4 Comments

Just Hanging Off the Grape Arbor

Yeah…don’t mind me…

It was just another day in my so-called sane life. Actually it was last week. Read more

Sep 23

2 Comments

Monday’s Here…Bring on the Coffee!

Gasp…Gasp…crawling out of the weekend into another week…

Lots accomplished this weekend. Garden harvested and cleaned out, fall decorations up, spray painted new/old goodies and furniture, birthday dinner and cake for Miss Alex, sewed in some clothes (for Gabi), cleaned up the house…etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

And, Alex, Tom and Louis came up Thursday night for a visit! Mr. Louis had surgery (snip, snip…and hernia) on Friday with our favorite vet, Jen. He was quite a trooper and back to normal by Saturday afternoon. More stories to follow, of course as he and Motzy had loads of fun.

And…while they were here, Tom and Alex helped Tim put in our new fire pit and dig out an old sidewalk. Tim and I jokingly called it the sidewalk to nowhere…it didn’t go all the way to the shop, and it didn’t match up with the garage door. Gone, gone, gone!

There was a bonfire, toasted marshmallows, a game of Horse in the dark (with a light up basketball). There were naps (ok, not by me…), visiting with the babies, and more craziness sprinkled throughout the weekend.

Pictures of the harvest, fall decorations, recipes, maybe a little story of the sewing swear session (I hate sewing machines), and more to come.

Sorry for the absence, this blogging thing takes a lot of time and I’ve had ENERGY. More energy than I’ve had in a year…guessing it’s a thyroid thing…whooo heeeee!

Talk more soon!

Patty O

Thank you to Women Get it Free for sharing the photo!