Gym Soap

Because I am cheap I like to use the showers at my gym after I exercise. I like using someone else's hot water, and given the high price of oil and the small $10 monthly fee I pay for gym membership, I'm pretty sure those showers 3 days a week are more than paying for themselves.

The one problem I've been having is that those poofy scrubs we all use these days don't travel well. I'm so used to using one with a shower gel that going back to a washcloth from my childhood is just weird. I tried the kids' Johnson & Johnson Easy Grip Soap but my skin is too sensitive for it.

So here's my solution; I used the snack bag pattern, cut a washcloth in half, and that's it. I can put in a bar of Dove Sensitive, and fold the flap over to use.  Then later throw the little bag in the laundry with my gym clothes. Very happy with this solution!


{The picture on the left is with a bar in it, and I don't know why it looks crooked, I promise it's not. The one on the right is what it looks like right after you sew it, before you fold it right side out.}

Junior High

I'm in a sweaty but content mood this morning. So ready for fall and lower temps, as we head into yet another day of 90°. I'm doing my housewife thing, moving laundry and tidying up after the weekend. The kids start school tomorrow (*insert hallelujah chorus*) and they're pretty excited. My daughter is starting junior high which is unreal to me. First, that I'm old enough to have a child old enough for junior high. Second, that I'm sending her off to the wolves. I know, let's not dramatize it, but junior high pretty much sucked for me. It was awkward to say the least, and full of bullies and catty girls that made me feel pretty small. My daughter is way cuter than I was at this age, so she has that going for her. But she also has braces and just got glasses and prays nightly for a growth spurt. So the key word is awkward, which I'm sure every adult can agree is that theme for junior high.

My neighbor reassured me the other day, saying that they have really cracked down on bullying in recent years. I'd like to believe that it is somehow different now, but I'm too cynical to hop on board with that just yet. Some of my worst moments happened on the school bus, and since we live so close to the school, that won't be an issue. And as God told me when she started Kindergarten, I'm just going to have to trust Him. He has her back. Which I will be reminding Him of daily, probably until she is 50 years old and I feel like I can finally relax.

Those New Bowls

I so love these new bowls that I'm posting about them again.... just to say, LOOK how cute they are! Underneath is some greenery that the Boy picked for me. ♥

Vintage Kitchen

What is it about old kitchen things that I love so? I can't explain it, but they make me so happy. They must remind me of summers at my Gram's; a simple country life. I found these on our last camping trip.

The pitcher is in perfect condition, and even still has the original enamelware sticker on it. As much as that may increase its value, I'm still going to peel that baby off so I can use the it. I'm already imagining a big pitcher of lemonade with slices floating....

I had never seen green handled utensils until a few years ago, and now I buy them anytime I find them. The dipper is so precious! The tool in the middle is a jar lifter for canning. The bowls are grey agate enamelware, which I've never seen before. They're too chipped to use for food, but I think they'll be perfect for centerpieces or candle holders.

I found myself tearing up in the little shop I found these in. I just kept thinking about my childhood summers at the farm with Gram, cooking and sewing together. I miss her. I don't know how much longer she will know who I am, and being hundreds of miles away makes it incredibly difficult to go visit. I just want to get on a plane and go be with her, and that's really not an option for many reasons. I know that I need to pray about this and quit stewing about it, but blogging it helps me too.

Snack Bags

One of my favorite blogs is Angry Chicken. I won't attempt to describe her awesomeness, you can go check that out for yourself. I think I love her in a narcissistic fashion, however, because she uses made up words (as do I) and she does not like to pin things (nor do I). So really, she reminds me of myself. Only she has her crap together and I don't. But otherwise, very much alike. :P

Anyhow, she has a bunch of great tutorials on YouTube. She posted one recently on how to make these sweet little snack bags. I loved this idea, and made some myself. I used some scraps of fabric that came from my Gram's house, which made this project even better (for me anyway).

The boys especially like these, and have already had them filled several times with cereal to take in the car. I love that they are way less likely to make a crumby mess in my car, because you really have to turn them inside out & shake them to get stuff out; it doesn't just slip out. I just love how cute they are, and need to find more uses for them so I have an excuse to show them off.

The Mighty Quilt

Remember forever ago when I said I had been working on a denim quilt since the dawn of time? Well it's done! It really is quite lovely, and the Man has said that the sheer weight of it pins him to the bed, causing him to sleep more soundly than he has in years.

That's also new paint & curtains in our bedroom, feel free to admire.

Of Mice And Men

The Man took the big kids and went camping at an amusement park this weekend with his family. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to clean the shed, which is a place that I never usually enter. And by place I mean dungeon. And by dungeon I mean a shingled box in my yard into which random tools and equipment are thrown to be scampered upon by hordes of poo-dropping mice. It was clear upon close inspection that the Boy gets his cleaning & organizational skills from his father, because things were just piled wherever there was a spot for them, and in the case of the workbench and shelves, was then surrounded by poo. I spent the first hour just vacuuming the poo. I wish I were kidding.

After several hours & trash bags & taunting from the neighbor I got it all cleaned out and things put away & hung up. I'm very pleased with myself and hopefully the Man will be too. And if he is underwhelmed by my sweaty efforts, I can at least be satisfied that I have protected my husband from mouse E. Coli.

Your Mom calls the vacuum cleaner "Jaws"?

Just before Christmas our vacuum cleaner died.  This was not the best timing, so we waited a few weeks before getting a new one.  We set out for Target after Christmas, figuring we'd get a new one there.  It took a while to pick the one we wanted, which they then of course did not have in stock.  Four stores and four choices later, we went home vacuum-less and a bit peeved.  A week later the Man did finally find the one we wanted at another Target, and in a lovely shade of blue I might add.

So we get it all unpacked and bask in it's shiny newness.  It isn't very different from our old one when it comes to features, but really, as long as it can pick up dried PlayDoh while it terrorizes the cat, it's satisfactory.  It does have one new feature though, which is the red and green lights that tell you when an area is dirty or clean.  This is really neat at first, but soon you realize that you have become a slave to the green light, ever waiting for it to appear.  After 9 passes over the same section of rug you either stop believing that it actually can sense the dirt, or you start wondering how filthy your family really is.  Take the kids' bedrooms upstairs for instance:  The light almost never turned green.  I kept going, thinking that surely it would turn green at any moment.  As I continued to sweep the same section again and again, I began to wonder if the children had just been bringing pocketfuls of dirt in to dump on the carpets, or if perhaps the sheer age of the carpet had caused it to just disintegrate more and more with every pass of the sweeper.  I began singing 'Roxanne' in my head, waiting for the red light to go out.  I'm pretty sure it took 3 hours to vacuum the upstairs, during which time I sucked up various beads, Polly Pocket shoes and the cat.  Did I mention the suction power on this thing?  And that it's self-propelled?  So it really can get away from you quickly, and suck up all kinds of things that you didn't intend.  It reminded me of Mr. Mom, with Michael Keaton being terrorized by the sweeper. (If you haven't seen that movie, you should!  It's hilarious!)

Squee! It's Wednesday!

The title is meaningless.  It just made me feel happy to say it that way. 

So I'm trying out Google Chrome this week.  I mostly like it but it has some quirks I am not so fond of.  The first of which being that when I am in my Bookmarks it keeps no memory of the folder I am in, so if I decide to move anything around, it does so and then closes, forcing me to reclick my way through the maze of folders.  And I know, that hardly made sense, but I have a headache and really, do you care that much to make me re-explain?  I didn't think so.  Anyhoo, Chrome also has this annoying dilemma of not allowing me to do pretty much anything in my email account, so I have to go back to IE to use that.  Otherwise it's pretty sweet, and I like very much that it is a way faster and smoother ride than IE.  If the email thing annoys me too much, I may make the jump to Mozilla.

Did you know the population of Canada is only like 32 million?  Am I the only one who didn't know that they have like a tenth of the US population?

LOST comes back tonight!  It's been like 8 or 9 months on hiatus I think?  I don't know, it's just been ages and I'm sick of waiting!  Chrissy & I have a date to watch it, and there will be popcorn and screeching of some kind.

I'm reading A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.  I'll post about it later, but for now I'll just say that it's taking me longer to read it than a normal book, because I don't like to read it before bed.  There is some insanely screwed up stuff in that book and I don't want my brain full of that to give me crazy nightmares.

My nonbloggingfriend linked me to a blog that I am currently obsessed with, The Omnomicon.  It's a foody blog, with lots of cooking pictures taken in natural light.  I so love those natural light food pictures; I think they just are homey or something.  She's a bit sweary sometimes, but if we're being honest, so am I, so that doesn't bother me.  I have given up nearly all of my vices in life, and cursing is the only tough-chick thing I seem to have left.  Until I can afford more tattoos of course.  Anyhow, she has this recipe for Pirogie Lasagna that I need to try.  I don't know if I am going to make my Ukee grandparents turn in their graves by desecrating The Pirogie in this way, but all that oniony cheesey goodness is beckoning me.

Soylent Green is People!

Ok, that title has pretty much nothing to do with this blog post, but it's fun to say. And if it means nothing to you, then go see what Wiki has to say and try not to have nightmares. Bon appetit!

This is how I made my children insanely happy at the dinner table the other night. I turned their favorite tortellini green. For now, it's just food coloring. Little do they know that this is part of my diabolical plan to get them to eat the spinachy variety of pasta. I love it when a plan comes together! *mwahaha*

The Denim Quilt

For many years I have been working on my denim quilt. It originally began when I had some extra jeans, and then as I lost weight, had even more extra jeans. So I've just been adding to it here and there over the years, and it now finally looks like this:



It is gigantic to say the least. It is wide enough to cover my queen sized bed from floor to floor. A year or two ago I found the perfect backing fabric, a wooly blue plaid. It's already sewn together, and I have the batting that I got on sale a few years ago too. It is now ready to be layered together and pinned. However, the whole project is at a stand still for a few very good reasons.

One - small but very demanding people in my house
Two - no place to lay it out and still have room to get around it to pin it together and make the quilt sandwich
Three - see number One

So since I do not have enough floor space to do this at home, my plan now is to take it up to my church and lay it out in the big gathering room where I can do it with room to spare. Now I just have to get past reason number Four, which is of course procrastination.

Repent ye sinners! The end draws nigh!

Ok, so maybe that's too dramatic, but really, the descent into mini-van ownership has not been my finest hour. The pain is two-fold. First off, I so loved my truck. It was big and phat and I could squish nearly anyone else on the road. It was such a great truck. The oil leak only bothered the Man, and who knows what heads and cams are anyways? I can't be bothered with such trivial things. So it was a sad and mournful day when I handed over the keys to my beloved SUV. I let the Man handle it as if we were putting down a beloved family pet. He left alone and we spoke very little about what was going to be happening while he was gone. When he came home I stayed in the house, not wanting to see the replacement pet - err, vehicle, in the driveway where my trusty friend should have been.

So now here I am, the owner of a MINI VAN. Oh it hurts to even type it. A reliable and practical vehicle that gets excellent gas mileage. Sigh. It has those automated sliding doors which although convenient, I find insanely pretentious. (How lazy are we that we can't open our own doors?) The kids are so excited; to them it's like we won the lottery. I will admit that it will be nice to have easier access to that third row of seating, so I don't have to have all three of my monkeys sitting right next to each other. Much less hair-pulling and eye-poking in the future will be a plus, especially for the Princess who was at the receiving end of most of that.

So onward and upward as they say.

How to traumatize your child with food in 3 easy steps

Sooo.... menu planning! I have never done this before but finally am going to give it a try. I was flipping through an old issue of Woman's Day magazine and they always give you a menu plan for the whole month. So I started getting some ideas from that, and the internet and we'll see how it goes. I figure this will help me to stay on track with one of my resolutions for 2007, which is to start cooking from recipes on a regular basis. I'm not a bad cook I guess, I just am boring, really - making the same stuff all the time.

I made myself a blank calendar and printed it out and am now writing in some different meals. It's silly, but I have had a box of lasagna noodles in my pantry forever. I have never made lasagna in my life so I don't know what I was thinking when I bought the box. And I'm lactose intolerant, so I can't make it with all the cheese. I looked today though and found a recipe that uses tofu instead of ricotta. I've never cooked with tofu either, but hey, it's a new year and I've gotta start sometime!

The Man made something of a pinched face when I said the word 'tofu', so maybe it would've been smarter to not tell him of this ahead of time. I'm definitely not telling the kids. The Boy is still suffering with his green bean allergy. I have never seen a child work harder to convince me that a quarter inch piece of bean would literally choke him to death - the gagging, the eye-watering, the tears... it's quite a performance, you should come over for the 5pm showing on Tuesday. It's second only to the show that the Princess put on when I informed her that the punishment for fighting with me this morning was to clean both toilets in our house. I'm pretty sure she'll need therapy to recover from that trauma.