I’ve tried all the tips and tricks short of chemicals and it looks as though I’ll have to break down and buy them. I bought a secondhand serger and have been happily serging washcloths, some 30 of them, for use for family cloth. Oh the angst related to guests not having paper towels! If you have any tips or tricks related to setting bleeding dyes on fabric, let me know! I’ve tried salt, vinegar, and dawn so far.
Oh la la. I have made my first purchase of a handmade item, per my compacting plans. I am rather nervous to be honest about the quality and whether or not I will be truly in love with an item of clothing I haven’t seen and touched in person. I haven’t purchased my serger yet, although the sewing center tantalized me today with specials on turned in models for those who were moving up in machine. I’ll post pictures when it arrives as it was mailed today. It’s a reversible skirt in Amy Butler prints with a yoga style waistband. I have my eye on another as well, but I haven’t been brave enough to purchase as it’s in New Zealand.
Skirt from: The Hidden Element on Hyena Cart Picture soon!
I am also loving some dachshund potholders I saw on etsy. Mine are looking heinous and the children have a penchant for stealing them for use in their own little kitchen. This has resulted in multiple burns on my part with me using folded up dishtowels to remove things from the oven. My children love to steal kitchen items, hence the sad death of my crock pot, folding vegetable steamer (bought a new one yesterday), and the mysterious disappearance of sundry small gadgets. Unfortunately, my daughter prefers the ones with the crazy Valentine’s Day heart pattern… ETA: I caved and bought the crazy heart ones, at least they are very cheerful.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/persnicketypelican
I also bought some key fobs for our home and my purse. If you know me in person, you will know that I have heinous tendency towards losing my keys or having them stolen by short people. I was on a first name basis with the AAA man during my second pregnancy. I have also locked myself out of the house repeatedly. How embarrassing. Anyways, these should help resolve the problem. They’re cute, and they should be easy to spot. Perhaps one day I will stop misplacing things, one would think with a wonderfully decluttered home losing things wouldn’t be a problem.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/PuppyDogsNPolkaDots
So many of us would like to bury our heads in the sand and not face the reality that we are all mortal. It is a very difficult thing to do, but for your sake and that of others, please seriously consider doing the following. It makes their lives easier and can put your mind to rest. Most of these items can be done with fairly low cash expenditure.
Establish a will, durable health care power of attorney, and a financial power of attorney. These documents tell others how you want things handled in the event of your demise, ill health, or in the event you are unable to manage your finances. Perfect example, my mother was in a very bad car accident (WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS PEOPLE – she is now permanently disabled as she did not), and for the following year I had to manage insurance negotiations, make most of her financial decisions and work with health care providers. If you have children, establish a line of guardians to care for your children and a trust for all of the funds that come from your estate, life insurance payments, and social security death benefits.
If you have kids or someone dependent on you for income, buy life insurance, specifically term life insurance with a high payout, 10 times your annual income. Now, 10 times your income may sound ridiculous, but please consider that one year of daycare for 3 kids, even if one or two of them are in school could run you $20,000 (my local cost estimates based on my research). Then there’s the mortgage, housework, errands, it all adds up – quickly.
For your sake and that of your loved ones, please subject yourself to regular physicals by some form of medical practitioner. Many things are reversible or treatable if they are caught early. The information gained at a regular physical gives your practitioners base lines to be able to see deviations from your norm over time.
Again, if you have children, please consider making your own laminated tags and attaching them to the car seats/booster chairs or near their sitting position. These could include: name, date of birth, blood type, allergies, maintenance medications, next of kin, favorite foods, and favorite toys. In the event of a car accident, you may very well be transported to a different facility and this information can help caregivers to put your child at some degree of ease in a very stressful situation as well as provide much needed information.
While none of these items are particularly fun, they can provide a lot of information and help to others should the need arise. Check your local BAR association to find attorneys in your area.
I made a number of half aprons recently and here they are in the setting sun, which really washed them out. For now, here’s the best pic I could get. The two on the ends have gathered waists, and the two in the middle have ruffled hems. They were quite easy to make, although the prep work as with any sewing project seems to overtake me! So many details, but ironing things before sewing (especially on waistbands and seams) makes everything look so much nicer when it’s finished.
Promptly following is my marking out what could be loosely described as a pattern on the blue with trim. The fabric really is quite lovely. I also made some valances from this fabric. It was restyled from drapes I found at Goodwill, with a masking tape make and a hole in them. I think the two panels went fairly far!
I’ve been rather unhappy with the unfinished quality of our guest bedroom. It’s a hodgepodge of random furniture and collects all manner of odds and ends from the household.
I decided to re-purpose the bed skirt. It became a 3 layered valance, pictured. It’s nice and fluffy, but I’ll have to work on having it hang perfectly. We have a white eyelet ruffled bed skirt on the bed currently.
**Seeing the dangling window blind pulls reminded me to trim and shorten the strings. They’re a safety hazard!**
It’s cool here in the Deep South and we had some french toast for breakfast. It’s my easy and cheap french toast – thanks to a local bakery outlet. One loaf of cinnamon raisin sliced, dipped into 4 eggs and 4 cups milk whisked together then cooked in a skillet.
We’re having Chicken & Chana Tikka Masala over rice for dinner, so I had to come up with a way to use half a jar of tomato sauce, as well as a lot of veggies. This recipe is slightly sweet due to the parsnips, potatoes, and tomato sauce. Served with a grilled raw sharp cheddar cheese, which happened to be slightly salty due to the sweet cream butter it was cooked in, it’s a cozy meal for a cold day.
Lotsa Vegetables Soup
Olive oil to cover bottom of pot
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 large onion, choped
5 parnsips, peeled and sliced
1 large handful baby carrots, sliced in half on diagonal
7 stalks celery, chopped (including the leaves)
3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into large chunks (1X1)
1 beef bouillon cube OR 1 cup beef broth
2 cups chicken broth
13 oz tomato sauce
4 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dry thyme
3 fresh basil leaves
dash turmeric (lots of health benefits!)
1 cup chickpeas, cooked
1 cup kidney beans, cooked
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan for topping
Start chopping and peeling! It’s a lot, I know.
In a large pasta pot, drizzle oil and heat on medium. Add garlic, onion and celery – soften.
Add remainder of ingredients except beans. Boil, then simmer 1 hour.
Add beans and heat through. Taste, and adjust with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaves.
Ladle into bowls and top with cheese, if desired.
I’m trying to cut down on sugar intake around here and in the process am switching to honey. Here’s a recipe for some SnowBalls (date balls rolled in coconut) that I’ve recently revamped. If you don’t care for coconut, try using ground pecans or walnuts.
Snowballs
1 stick butter
4 cups whole pitted dates
3 cups cereal (I prefer Weetabix or Cascade Farms – flakes and sticks)
1 cup shelled pecans
1/3 cup honey
3 tsp vanilla
dash salt (omit if you like)
egg
dash milk (maybe 1 tablespoon)
unsweetened finely shredded coconut
With a chopping blade, grind up your dates in the food processor (you will need two hands on the processor!).
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt your butter. Add your dates and honey. Cook lightly till it glues together, it takes a minute for the honey and butter to get to know one another.
With your chopping blade (I don’t rinse the processor bowl between uses), grind up your pecans in your food processor. Add to date mixture.
Drop down to low heat and add your salt, vanilla, milk, and egg. Cook through until you feel comfortable that your egg is done, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat. With your chopping blade, crush your cereal in the food processor then add to above.
Allow to cool such that you can handle it, unless you have asbestos hands, which I do not, about 5 minutes.
With a small cookie scoop, drop into a bowl with the coconut. Roll around then place either on parchment paper or silpat.
These need to be stored covered in the refrigerator.
Best!
Dachsie
Really? On that? After listening to Clark Howard, a consumer advocate with a nationwide talk show, and his staff wax poetic about Mint for months on end, I finally took the plunge. I have tried excel spreadsheets, scrawled on paper budgets, the envelope system, and Quicken for home/small business. No dice. Mint wanted a lot of personal information. Enough information to make me a bit queasy as I’ve been the victim of identity theft and had my checking account cleaned out no less than three times. I do trust Clark Howard’s advice, and given that he and his staff have used it personally for a solid period of time I was willing to give it a go.
Each time I log in, I see my net worth as of that moment in time. I can easily compare my spending to that of others in my metro area as well as my own previous spending from months prior. It updates my spending against the current month’s budget and lets me know when I’ve sadly gone over, again. After the initial time intensive set up process, it’s pretty self sustaining, unless you want to juggle your budget dollars and categories around. I have a few friends who use it and are really enjoying the same benefits that I am: real time knowledge of their financial position and impetus to stick to the budget.
I get no kickbacks from the company and wanted to share this valuable resource (that’s FREE) with others who weren’t aware of it yet to help us all achieve our goals.
If you are currently a Mint user, what’s your toughest financial challenge at the moment? Ours is reducing overall spending and the black and white numbers on Mint have helped us to do so inch by inch.
Most of my acquaintances haven’t branched out and tried the pressure cooker, although many have dehydrators and various other kitchen gadgets. These gadgets are some of the most time saving devices for the cook that exist. Many have a fear of pressure cookers and I’m fairly certain it has to do with the potential for explosion. Respect for the cooker and care in use virtually eliminate this problem. I enjoy using a pressure cooker, because it allows me to cook faster and to pressure can. Not all pressure cookers are designed for pressure canning, so if you are interested in canning make certain that the one you intend to purchase will safely do so.
I became intrigued by the pressure cooker when I noted that my mother-in-law used hers quite frequently. It’s an old fashioned model with no release valve – now that makes me nervous! It has to be put under running water to kill the pressure. She and I use ours very differently though. Hers is mainly reserved for vegetables: potatoes, green beans, broccoli, carrots and onions.
I was gifted the Fagor Splendid model by my parents some years ago for Christmas and it has received a lot of use. So much so that I have had to purchase new gaskets. I tend to use mine to cook pork butt for BBQ, rehydrate beans, sauced beans and occasionally a whole chicken. I’ve tried rice without much success, but I came up with a new method for cooking rice which has received rave reviews from the family (involves soaking the brown rice first). I don’t like to cook delicate veggies like my mother-in-law does as I prefer mine to be somewhat crisp tender instead of completely cooked through. To each his own!
If you have made the leap to dried beans from canned, the pressure cooker can save you a lot of time. In under 10 minutes in most instances, your beans are done versus the traditional hours simmering on the stovetop. My children annihilated my crock pot and I have yet to replace it. I am really pleased with the wide variety of dishes that I can quickly make that would have taken hours in my crockpot. I’ll tweak some recipes and post them here for the adventurous!
This tasty delight will be sure to fulfill your craving for something from the Tacqueria.
DUMHFPAMR5RJ
Kidney Bean Pie w/Cornbread Topping
2 T canola/EVOO
4.5 cups cooked kidney beans
1.5 cups baby carrots, shredded
½ large white onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic chopped
2 cups grape tomatoes
2 tsp chili powder
1 heaping tsp cumin
Dash turmeric
S & P to taste
½ cup salsa
2 tsp dried cilantro
1.5 cups shredded cheddar
Topping:
1/3 cup fat
1 egg
1-cup milk
½ cup corn flour
½ cup fine corn meal
½ cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
salt
Preheat oven to 375°.
Shred the carrots first in your processor then switch to the chopping blade for the garlic and onion.
In an oven safe pan with a lid, sauté your veggies in the oil. Add the spices when the veggies begin to soften. Allow spices to intermingle for a few minutes. Add your kidney beans and heat through. Remove from heat, and top with salsa and cheese.
Whisk fat, egg, and milk in a bowl. Add remainder of ingredients and stir thoroughly. Place in center of filling and gently spread outwards, there will be a gap between the sides of the pan and the topping. Replace lid. Bake till topping is cooked through, approximately 20 minutes. Cornbread is done when toothpick comes out clean.
Serve with a chopped up avocado or some guacamole.
