Monday, Monday

Here's a picture of the hoscah after it came out
of the oven. It is really tasty. I cut the smaller
loaf in half and took half to my great uncle here
in town and mailed the other half to my uncle in
California. My great uncle's mother, my great
grandmother, is who taught me to make hoscah.
It is an egg bread with raisins in it that is braided.

I love this bread. It was a staple at home when I was growing up in my great grandparent's home. Mammy, my great grandmother, made it every week. Grandpa always said "who needs cake when we have hoscah?". I believe that his mother may have made this for decades also. I do feel a real sense of accomplishment in being able to make this bread. It's something from Mammy, and that's important to me.

She is the woman we named our daughter, Johanna, after. I really wish my husband could have met her. She died before I met him. He did meet Grandpa (my great grandfather, but I just called him Grandpa). They were hard working, good, solid people. My husband is a very thin man and I always told him Mammy would have made it a point to try and fatten him up!

While I'm on a roll here about why I named her Johanna, I might as well explain why we named our son Nicholas. When I was young I always wanted to have a baby boy born near Christmas and name him after St. Nicholas. Well, our son was born within a few days of the holiday, so I got my wish!

Yesterday I sewed, yay! I made two red bags out of the homespun I picked up at Wal Mart for 61 cents a yard, I might add. I do not intend to use that material for anything other than bags, because the weave is pretty loose. It would not be good for quilts.

I also started to quilt the baby quilt for charity. I was going to do some free motion quilting on it, but kept putting off starting, out of fear that I would mess it up, I guess. So I chickened out and am just doing a grid. I'm such a wimp...

Made tacos for dinner tonight. They are a great meal for me when I'm on a diet because I can do a veggie one for myself and really load it up. So far I have lost 14 pounds! This is a big big big deal to me and I'm feeling great about it.