Kitchen Tricks and Tips From Our Expert Cooks | Real Simple

Once again, the folks over at Real Simple have given me something cool to geek out over:

Kitchen Tricks and Tips From Our Expert Cooks | Real Simple

Speed clean - From AllYou.com

AllYou.com has some excellent tips for speed cleaning.

I know what I'm going to be doing today!


Speed clean - AllYou.com

Farmer's Market, Here I Come!

I've spent a great deal of time since the move planning my next big project!

You all know how much I LOVE baking. 

Well, I've been sharing some samples of my kitchen goodies around, and the biggest question everyone asks me is why don't I sell my cookies and bread?

Well, um... I don't like professional baking because I hate the smell of icing sugar. 

It hit me- I don't HAVE to bake cakes with frosting.  I can stick to cookies.  I can stick with breads.  I can stick with non-frosted pound cakes.

I have HUNDREDS of recipes I've developed over the past decade.  Each recipe has weeks of testing in it to produce consistent results.

Why not?  But- I don't want to sell BIG.  I'm a busy lady.  Where can I sell small and still have fun being creative?

It hit me- there are farmer's markets EVERYWHERE in this area.

Why not rent a booth for the season?

(Note to the crowd: Yes, I ask myself a LOT of questions.  Unfortunately, I get angry when I don't answer non-rhetorical questions also.)

So, I'm sending in my application for booth space. 

Surprisingly, the Husbeastie is fully supporting of this endeavor.  (I'm fairly sure he's excited to be a taste tester more than anything else.)

So- if my application is approved, expect to see me at the Ohio Valley Farmer's Market in St. Clairsville this summer.  All goes well, and I might expand to a few other markets next season.  If it doesn't go well, I'll go back to the drawing board, plan some more, and get back out there next season.

Tom Neely & Dylan Williams Speak Out On Their Customs Seizure Experience

While I might not read the books personally or agree with things in the books (heck, I don't even watch Law and Order because I think it's disgusting and it makes me physically ill), I'll support their rights to free speech and expression. This just points out a bit more explicitly that other countries don't have the same freedoms.

Posted Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Last weekend artist Tom Neely and publisher Dylan Williams were stopped and searched by Canada Customs on their way to the Toronto Comics Art Festival. Customs officers seized copies of two items they were bringing to the festival, Black Eye, an anthology of comics Neely contributed to, and Young Lions, a graphic novel by Blaise Larmee. The CBLDF caught up with Neely & Williams over email when they returned to the United States to learn more details about their ordeal.

For more information, go here:
Tom Neely & Dylan Williams Speak Out On Their Customs Seizure Experience

Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says - Galactic Empire Times

This gave me a bit of a giggle.

Vader announcing Obi-Wan's death via news conference.

 

By DEN DHUR and HALLIS SAPER

Published: May 9, 2011

CORUSCANT — Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on Sunday.

For more of the article go here:
Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says - Galactic Empire Times

Like Crafty Deals?

I'm a huge fan of rock bottom deals in limited quantities.  So, when I heard about Pick Your Plum, I knew I had to share it with you.

Pick Your Plum offers 1 craft item each day at an incredibly low price.  I'm talking CRAZY low prices on some of the coolest things.  In the past few days I've seen chalkboard decals, patterns, vinyl craft sheets, and old-fashioned key-in-locks.  And when they're gone, that's it for the day.  Then it's wait for the next morning to see what new treasure awaits.

12 for 12- May is a Month of Change

I realize this is almost two weeks late, forgive me.  Moving has been very time consuming and then recovering from moving is likewise time consuming.

To recap the last few months- I've lost a bit more weight and it's showing nicely in my face and lower legs.  My scheduling is back on track after being side lined for the move and I'm getting things done.

Goals for this month:

1. Drink more water, less pop.  Even though I'm now on diet soda 100%, my water intake is hovering right around 64 ounces a day.  Despite that, I'm still drinking a lot of diet soda.  So, my goal is to get to no more than 36 ounces of pop per day this month and up my water to 132 ounces per day.  (And yes, I get that thirsty.)
2. Utilize my crock pot more.  This place is lacking central a/c so using the stove has been heating the house a great deal.  I plan on loading up the crock pot the night before with oatmeal and letting it simmer gently and starting my dinner plans around 9 am to allow time to bake gently in the crock pot.
3. Return to my childhood.  It occurred to me when I turned the Smurfs on for the kids the other day that it's been forever since I've watched cartoons.  Or played a board game.  Or sat on a swing.  So, I'm going to take some time to just enjoy how my kids are being kids and try to see things from their perspectives.
4. Invest in my family's comfort.  When we moved in here, we decided to set up the basement as a huge family room with zones for classroom, entertaining, and just general playroom.  I'm budgeting both time and money this month towards making the basement awesome.
5. Eat less pasta.  I think I've eaten pasta (in some form) every day for the past month.  I want to menu plan out no more than one pasta meal per week for the next month. I'm going to have to draw the line and include ramen noodles in this list because, well, we go through a lot of ramen.
6. Put out a bird feeder.  Living out in the country gives us many birds to examine.  In fact, there's a few out there right now that I have NO CLUE what they are.  I plan on setting out varied feeders and grabbing my camera and a bird identification book and having a day observing nature.
7. Write more.  I've put my novel on the back burner, yet again.  I'm going to start finding time to write a bit more.
8. Steamline my commitments.  I never realized how much MY schedule was disruptive to everyone else in the house.  Writing for multiple websites, magazines, as well as trying to have some me time has put a crimp in things that should be routine for the rest of the family.  So, I'm streamlining my agreements to only those things that fit on the calendar.  No more "oh, I'll get around to that" type stuff.
9. Wash the walls.  We've been here less than a month.  The walls were fresh painted before we moved in.  My kids have dirty hands.  Enough said.
10. Find a bathroom storage method.  Right now, everything in our bathroom exists in two large cardboard boxes.  There's plenty of room for other stuff, I just haven't figured out how to unpack it all in a way that makes sense.  So- before the end of the month, I'll have found a functioning bathroom system.
11. Find things.  I have a sheepish confession to make: When we moved in here, by the end of the second week, I began unloading stuff straight into the garage.  I figured that by that point, everything I immediately needed would be in the house and the rest of the stuff was just dross.  I'm starting to realize how incredibly wrong I was- especially when I go to look for something like laundry detergent and realize that, "Oh... um... yeah... it's somewhere in the garage."  The garage is PACKED full of stuff.  I need to go through it all and find a place for it.  A lot of it will go to the basement for the classroom.  A lot will stay in the garage for construction purposes.  Then there's all the in-between stuff.
12. Get the baby out of my bed.  I love my Doc-boy toddler.  Seriously I do.  But, he's been in my bed since February!  And he tosses, and turns, and rolls off the bed.    As much as I love the idea of family bed, my fibromyalgia makes it very painful to carry out.  Being elbowed by little bony body parts all night leaves me covered in bruises and too sore to walk in the morning.  So, I'm setting up the boys room again (as soon as I find stuff) and want to have him transitioned into his big boy bed.

Sci-Fi IKEA Hacks

    I've seen these floating around the internet- and I have to admit, I'm rather tempted to print them off, frame them, and hang them somewhere appropriately geeky.  (Hubby's new Man Cave, perhaps?)

Awesome, right?  Now if only I could figure out a child-safe way to harness the 1.21 gigawatts I'd need to power the thing--- I'd never be late for Cub Scouts again.

The funnier thing with this one is that there are NO Jar-Jar Binks included.  Too bad the movie couldn't say the same thing.

So, It's Been A While

Moving is continuing at a snail's pace- which means hopefully, someday, it will be over.

After that, will come unpacking.  Hopefully, that will also be a simple process.  (Who am I kidding, NOTHING is ever a simple process with me!)

However, that being said, now that internet access has been returned to me, I should be able to resume some sort of posting schedule next week- AFTER the move is over and the unpacking begins.

At the moment, I can barely walk between my stove and sink, and I vaguely am aware of my pantries being located somewhere in what will eventually be the dining nook.  I still haven't found pillow cases, but since I pretty much FALL into bed in an exhausted heap each night, I haven't really paid much attention to their absence yet.  

This place is a DIY-er's ultimate dream and worst nightmare all at once.  I've got my eye on several projects (some of which I've already begun the groundwork for in the odd moments that I've had to spare and just needed a break from the constant boxes!)

THE LIST O' IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS
Replace the window screens (this is actually pretty fun)
paint the basement floor
set up a proper laundry room
set up a proper classroom
establish a "man cave"
IKEA-hack some new furniture into being
Make a cross-over girly tweenager room/guest room
Paint the boys' beds
raised bed square foot garden
install a swing in a tree out back
trim some hedges and mow some lawns
install a water line to the ice maker
build a compost bin with a lid

And I'm doing ALL of these projects by myself.  So far I've installed child-locks, done the whole shelf-liner thing, and made myself a general nuisance to the folks at Lowe's.

It hasn't all been moving, though.  I'm a small-town girl at heart.  I grew up in a teeny town in East Texas and I'm really embracing living out here in cow-country.  I've found the local post office- it's effectively the size of half my garage.  I've also located the closet bowling alley and already made a trip to the library (both of which are located two towns over.)

This has been a definite adventure- and I'm rather like a Hobbit when I have an adventure: ready to sit by a warm fire with a cup of tea and a second cookie, grateful the damn thing is over.