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Close to Perfect

One dish I miss from the days when dining out was more affordable is Ruby Tuesday's broccoli and cheese soup. I would order that with the salad bar on an endless combo where you get as many soup and salad refills as you like. I have been known to eat three bowls of that delicious soup.

I made my own version of the soup at home, but it never tasted quite the same, so I went looking for a copycat recipe, and found one that is so close I'd have a hard time telling the difference.

Some tweaks: I cut down the amounts quite a bit to make two bowls rather than an entire pot. I did not use water, celery, tabasco, lemon juice, white pepper or dry mustard in mine, and I used a sprinkle of celery seed, one slice of processed cheese, 1/3 cup of shredded medium cheddar cheese, my own homemade chicken broth, a couple shakes of worchestershire sauce, and about half a cup of broccoli. I made the adjustments mainly because that's what I had on hand, and what I thought would taste good given the reduced volume.

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Other Stashes

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Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...