What does the Early Bird Get?

I made 1 pair of leggings entirely and most of two other pairs yesterday over my lunch break.  All fabric from my stash so three pairs for free!  I cut them out during my morning break and sewed them up over lunch.  Two pairs still need the elastic sewn in and the hems.

I wore the navy blue polyester pair to the caucus last night.  They might be a little short, but Robb didn't think so.  And neither did the 100 others at the meeting last night.  Not that they'd say anything out loud... or to me...  

Nor did they say, "Aren't those made with polyester?  That is SO 70s!!"

(and judging from the angle of this pic) Nor did they say out loud, "Don't give up on Zumba!"

It was a nice crowd.  We have a great community.

So this morning, I was still on the DIY kick.  

There is a whole gallon of yogurt incubating underneath that tied fleece blanket.  

That works perfectly!

Maybe someday I'll make a cover for the IP out of fleece just for this purpose.

But not today.

I made a batch of yogurt from whole milk, thawed whey, some vanilla and homemade sweetened condensed milk.  

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk recipe

1 can of regular condensed milk

1.5 cups of sugar

Cook on medium to low heat on the stove until the sugar dissolves.

Used in place of two cans of Sweetened Condensed Milk in my yogurt.

After tallying up the calories, this way is about 200 calories lower than two cans of the SCM.

Also, two batches of pizza dough, which will be portioned out into 16 pieces each, rolled out into mini pizza crusts, fried, then frozen.  I did that a week ago last weekend and they worked out awesomely for little personal pan pizzas this past weekend.

Realized that one of my bread machines, that while it makes the sounds of mixing the dough, isn't actually.  Shoot.  One more has bit the dust.  So I dumped the ingredients into my big counter mixer thingy and plugged in the dough hook and after mixing as long as the remaining bread machine mixed, it's resting and raising.

I'll have to watch the garage sales this summer and pick up another one for $5...

Actually - this will be the summer to watch for Instant Pots too!  I remember when bread machines were all the rage and I spent $250 on one.  That one eventually walked off the counter and the lid broke.

Since then, I don't pay more than $10 for a used one because so many people gave up on homemade bread and you can find them at any garage sale or the Goodwill/Salvation Army.

I've also got 4 heads of lettuce thawing a bit on the counter, waiting for me to take a break and cut them up.  The reason they got a teensy bit frozen is because my cheap garage fridge can only cool... During the winter months, the milk can sometimes freeze and anything else we put out there.  It was a nice weekend but is starting to chill off again.

I can store 4 heads of lettuce chopped up in 2 gallon sized bags in the fridge and my salads are ready for the week.  If I have time I'll chop up a baggy full of cucumbers too.  Maybe tomatoes too.  We'll see.  I made some poppyseed dressing on Sunday and I will lose at least a pound of two this week.  I just need to stay away from chips and dip.  As the pound of two that I lose this week was lost last week also.

If I get time over lunch today, I'll get the waist and hems done on those other two leggings.

Stretchy pants are the bomb!

Maybe I'm being extra productive today because I was awake at 4am.  

I'm sure I'll be crashing by mid afternoon.  Where's my pop?!

DIY rocks

It's snowing more.  shoot.  

not much, but just enough so you can tell who didn't shovel the LAST time it snowed this much.

me.

sigh.  

I helped Leon complete his Sans Plushie last night.  He was determined to get it done before the weekend and we sure did!  He did a lot of the work himself, but wanted me around to run the sewing machine and serger.  He's gotten really good at threading his own needle and last night I was trying to thread a needle and his eyes were up close. He laughed at me and said, "Whoa, that was WAY off!" as I made my attempts.

The confidence he instills in me... ;)

He's gotten the knack of using my needle threader contraption, which only works on about half of my hand needles.  So he's in charge of it now.

And I think that little sneaker took it to school with him!  I just went inside to take a pic of it and can find it NO where...

Oh well, I hope he brings it home in one piece.

I'm looking forward to the weekend!  Not because Leon will be at his mom's, but because  I don't have really anything else too much planned.  The bills can wait til Monday.

Things on my to do list for the weekend.

1) sew

2) clear off craft table

3) sew

4) shop a little

5) sew

6) cook something like personal pan pizzas for Sunday night.  Leon's request when he heard I was planning on making that for tonight.  "Grandma... can you make that on Sunday so I can have some too?" You bet!

7) sew

I made a 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent a couple days ago and finally found time this morning to get 8 gallons of detergent portioned out.  It would have been 10 but I ran out of old detergent bottles and milk jugs.  You fill it half with the soap and half with water, thus 10 gallons total.

So the rest sits taunting the dogs until we finish off some milk or I find someone with spare bottles.

That should last a while!  I gave a gallon to Meri a few weeks ago when she ran out of the regular expensive stuff.  I had all the supplies on hand so this batch cost me nothing.  Ooh - except for the Fels Naptha soap I had Robb bring home last week. 98 cents.

Here's the recipe if you want it.

Homemade laundry detergent

1 Fels Naptha bar shaved or grated down to little bits.

put in pan with 4 cups of hot tap water and set temp to medium or low heat.

Stir occasionally until the little bits all melt in.  That could take maybe 10-15 minutes.

While that is happening, fill a 5 gallon bucket half way with HOT tap water.  

Add the following

1/2 cup Borax

1 cup Washing Soda

Stir well.  

Once the Naptha bits are melted, pour it into the bucket and stir again.

Fill the bucket with more HOT tap water up to the top.  Well, within an inch or two.  You don't want this stuff to slop over.  

stir again.

Let it sit over night and cover it or you family or pets might try it out unsuccessfully.

Or accidentally drop something into it.

Stir it well the next day with a LONG handled utensil.  I use my husband's grilling spatula.  

It's great big!

It congeals a bit so chop/stir it well before funneling.

Then with a funnel, fill each detergent container half way with the detergent and shake well before filling up the rest of the way with tap water.

I still have a couple gallons that aren't empty yet and one that is store bought because my MIL prefers us to use that on her clothes. And that's fine.  But I'll be frugal for the rest of us!

I try to mark the jugs with a big X if it's homemade.

Can you tell my favorite go-to store is Aldi?

Shake jug before using each time.  It's supposedly really concentrated, but I use a full cap (about 6 ounces) for each load in my top loading washer.  Meri has a front loading washer and she uses about 1/2 cap.

One thing to get used to.  If you're expecting it to suds up a lot, it won't.  I've been told you can add some scents to it but I haven't.  

Well.  back to ye old grind.

Have a wonderful weekend and tell me all about it on Monday!

Weekend Wampage

The weekend didn't start on time...  All day Friday, at work, was crazy and it lasted until 6:30 whereupon I crashed. Well, after making a quick pizza using hamburger and Bisquick.  Robb had a ton of chauffeuring to do over the weekend and he got back about that time to eat with me.

Oh and hey look!  Leon pulled out a tooth on the bus on Friday!  

We've been humming the All I want for Christmas song all weekend.

On Saturday, Leon and his little brother, Finn, came back to the house and we babysat most of the day while their mom worked.  

Leon and I played Battleship and Finn wanted to join in.  He wasn't too accurate with putting the pins into the holes I pointed at, so luckily we had a spare Battleship board and he took over that one.  He had a lot of fun until he spilled it.  But then he was meticulous on picking up all the little pieces, so that was ok.

The  game was fun for Leon and me tho.  Well, until I got a HIT!  So I guessed the spot after the hit and it was a miss.  Then quessed the spot before the hit and IT was a miss.  Then guessed the spot ABOVE the hit and IT was a miss too.  ummmm Leon?  Come here for a minute...

I covered up the bottom of my board and asked him if he could explain this...

Oh....  hmmm...

When he got back to his board, which he left on the floor under the desk, Finn had already found it and had moved some pins for him.  Yeah - this wasn't going to end well...  So we broke for lunch.

AND while Finn took a 2.5 hour nap, I got to sew.  Still on that top that I made a leggings out of a while back.  

I don't know what it is about this fabric, but it sucks to do a seam with my standard sewing machine.  The stitches pop and ploop all over the place.  So much so that I was kicking myself for not going with my initial decision of handstitching the hems into place.  So I serged the hems off and used up all of my hem tape to tack a new hem in place and then started handstitching it.  SO much better!  But taking forever.  

I'm about 90% done with the sleeve hems and I'm sure the hem hem will take all week with the amount of down time I have to actually sit...

After the boys went back to their mom's we had a nice birthday dinner for Robb's mom and Meri and Ryan were able to come.  And because my camera was too slow to come up on my phone, this photo is staged.  

I had HyVee make up some gorgeous little cupcakes, because WHO needs three leftover cakes in a two week span?  NOT THIS CHICK!

I'm just rather relieved there aren't any birthdays in our household NEXT weekend.  

I found the Last Supper pic on the right at a garage sale years ago and it's been there almost since we moved in here, 21 years ago.  But moved it a bit and added the Jesus knocking picture over the weekend.  This pic used to hang in our old church, then in Mom and Dad's home and THEN in her nursing home room up until the end.

And now it's mine.

My dad likes to think of it as, "What if Jesus came to visit your home?  What would you cover up quick that you would be ashamed if he saw? or would you even look up from your phone to answer the door?"

I love it.

Leon says that it looks like it's always been there.  And it fits the space well.

On Sunday, I started feeling like my old busy self.  After a taco potluck at church and picking up Leon from his mom's again, I did some housework and made a 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent based on the Duggar recipe that I found many years ago.  I'd gotten lazy lately and been using store bought.  *GASP*

And while I'm at it, here is my favorite homemade salad dressing recipe.  Matthew asked if I had any made when they were here last weekend and that inspired me to make some this weekend.  

I always use Splenda instead of sugar so it's sugar free!

Sorry you missed it Matthew!

Spent some time visiting my bestie and will have lunch with her today.  I don't know what I'm going to take, (it's my treat today) but it will probably be pepperoni pizza from Casey's...  

Leftovers for supper.  And the chicken taco mixture is all gone...

I am very envious of my bloggy friends who have a menu planned for the week.  In my house, if I did that, someone would eat all of a main ingredient and I'd be stuck making some exotic dish using hotdogs instead...  really...?...

Oh!  We're down to just one dog now.  And he's depressed.  

pre-cone of shame.

Altho he has the run of the house now since the bladder challenged one has finally left.  Reedus has had some issues with chewing on his legs and it's only gotten worse.  The vet has chimed in, so has an old 4H friend who specialized in dogs.  Well, after I asked their advice.  

We found that if you baste lemon juice on the bandage (it was recommended) that Reedus loves it.  He also loves the Hot Spot spray from Petco.

Meri and I made a pepper flake puree mixture that we're smearing all over the dog bandages and dang it..  Reedus sort of likes it...  After a little while of licking it, he goes and drinks a LOT of water. 

So this MIGHT work...

But he's laying at my feet today all bandaged up so if his cone of shame head even goes near his hurt legs, I'm grunting the "ET" command and he leaves it alone.  At least until I'm out of the room.  I guess I'll be programming from the dining room until he's healed...  Silly dog...

He's got a meaty bone that I got from the store but he's leaving it alone today.  sigh.

Anyway, back to work.  Have a good week!!!

Sew... Last Week...

As usual, our Christmas started early.  On Saturday, Robb's sister and her family arrived and we had a super secret steak night.  The day was full of cleaning and food prep until they arrived mid afternoon.  

Sunday afternoon was full of re-clean the house and constant dish washing in front of them. They helped some too but mostly our BIL worked on Meri's car in the sub-zero degree weather.  He is a car wizard...  and a great guy!  We wrapped up a ton of presents that afternoon also as well as got some crock pots full of soups.  That evening, Robb's brothers and their families arrived and we had Robb's side of the family Christmas soup dinner and gifts.  

 

The tiles went over well!  As they were opening and admiring them, I said, "Do you remember these gracing the wedding reception tables as cheese platters?"  One nodded in agreement and enthusiatically said YES!  

LIAR!  "Well, you didn't.  They didn't make it ONTO the tables!  So we decorated them and now they're yours."  They make awesome coasters and trivets.

On Monday, we mostly relaxed.  One of Robb's brother's families hung around and didn't leave until Tuesday morning.  So we put together a puzzle that I had received the previous year as a gift and then we colored it.  Pretty cool!  And these women below are puzzle masters...

On Tuesday, they took off and I re-cleaned the house and did some more food prep with Robb.  We were having our personal family Christmas that evening.  Maddy and Matthew were able to attend after all due to a wedding that Maddy wanted to go to that weekend.  Matthew still had to work, so he left her here for the rest of the week and headed home on Wednesday morning.  But we were all together on Tuesday night (most of us for the dinner) (Chinese food this time!  Turkey and ham are getting old...) and then all of us for gifts as soon as Ryan got home from work.

The kids practiced being surgeons while waiting.

 

 

and Meri just napped.

Leon was super patient waiting for his dad, and we did let him open a few stocking stuffers.  It was a very late night for all of us.  

 

They all loved their sharks vs mermaid blankets.  Or at least, that's what they said!  

But Ryan hasn't taken his off and waddles around the house with his feet in the fins all the time, so maybe they really did like them...  

Leon found 3 pins still in his...  oops!  

 Ryan had brought home a package of giant handbells party crackers from work that night and we had a blast pulling them apart and playing music with the bells provided.  There were 8 of us and 8 bells and Maddy directed calling out the bell numbers.  

SO much fun!  Staying up til midnight was totally worth it!  Plus we got some funky little hats to wear too!

I spent the rest of the week working on refinishing a special chair for Matthew. 

 The college cross country team pick up any furniture on the sides of the roads when they're running and give it to the freshmen men.  Matthew was the proud recipient of a super comfy chair and loved it all through his college career.  However when they got married and moved all their furniture into their apartment, this one stuck out like a sore thumb.  The upholstery was very outdated, worn and ripped in spots.  After a lot of deliberation, they had Robb and I move it down and out to the dumpsters.  On the walk out, Robb joked, "Wouldn't Matthew be surprised if we recovered it and gave it back to them for Christmas?"  So we threw it into our van instead.  

He got to unwrap a section of the new fabric (same as the new futon cover) pinned to the old fabric.  "wha??"  He didn't understand what it all was about until Maddy started laughing and then he realized it too.  Now they'll have MATCHING furniture!!!  Well, almost.  I wasn't done with the recovering yet AND since I'd lost the paper with the futon measurements, I didn't have the futon cover done either.  Maddy got to open a scrap of fabric that illustrated that gift. The futon project is totally THIS week.

I had last week off from work, but spent every spare minute working on the chair.  Well, when I wasn't sitting down and reading my new Cook book that Ryan gave me this year...

The girls and I were going to try and drive to go see my folks on Thursday but the weather was icy and we had to turn around and go home.  Friday was only more snow, so that didn't work out either.

Instead, we spent the morning making the rest of the lefse and some crab rangoons and deep fried stuffed pickles.  Then I got back to that darn chair.

Good thing I didn't have anywhere else to go because that chair was a tricky one!  But finally got it mostly finished by the time Robb and I drove Maddy back to Wisconsin on Saturday. 

That night, Maddy and Matthew helped me put the hardware back on the chair parts and put it all together again.  After putting in some sliders backwards the first time, we had success on the second attempt and he tried it out.  

Don't know what we'll do with the extra screws...

I left them with those two in case they discover what they're for... :\  

I learned a lot recovering the LazyBoy and found some things that I'll do differently the next time I recover it.

And I think the Christmas tree will stay up until I have more energy back.  Maybe Easter?

My Goodness My DIY

On Friday night, Robb and I left work early and headed to Des Moines.  His band was playing for the 10th anniversary of a pub smack in the middle of the city.  They play here every St. Patrick's Day too.  We got there at 5:20 or so and I found a table when Robb went to warm up with the band.  I got my obligatory Diet Coke and waited for 40 minutes before the band came upstairs and played.  And since it was their anniversary, the bar people kept coming around with free food.  

Have you ever eaten bacon wrapped oysters on bruchetta before?  It's messy but delicious...

We left as soon as the band was done and got home in time to visit with Robb's brother for a little bit.  He was visiting and trying to get an apartment lined up for his son for next semester.

The next morning, I picked up the quilts from the quilting lady before my ASG sewing meeting.  They look fabulous!!! 

I need to set aside some time to get the edge binding done but that shouldn't take too long.  

It just takes time.

Coincidentally, my most prized and scarce resource.

 Saturday afternoon, I waited patiently until Meri got home from band practice and we dug into some craftsy things that we'd been wanting to make for girl gifts this year.

Lush Bath Bombs...

Since I didn't have the fancy schmanzy molds, we used the round half of some Easter eggs.  

I've got a billion of those!!!  

We got onto a roll and I mixed up batches while Meri formed.  Got six batches done.  

Here is a link to the recipe we followed.

They turned out awesome and smell fantastic!  

Well, not if you ask Robb.  He said that we stank up the house with the fru fru smells.  We used Lavendar, Rose and Yling, Ylang.  

I bought some round Christmassy tins and we put the little balls into cupcake liners and filled them up.  Only 5 gifts so far, but I see more bomb making in our future.

Meri took all the leftover bits and bobs from molding them and had the most wonderful soak that night.

Have you done any DIY gifts this year?

Don't eat that!

I jumped on the band wagon!  

Not this one!

The DIY bandwagon...  I made my own liquid laundry detergent last week.  I'm not sure I did it right...  Is it SUPPOSED to be that watery??  

Wondering if my version would be helped by also beating our clothes on rocks...  The clothes don't still smell... maybe it's ok...

Anywho!  This weekend I made my own dish washer tabs!  We've had fits with our dishwasher for a LONG time.  We have hard water and I'm sure there is build up in the tubing for the top rack because it just doesn't get hit as hard as the bottom...  So I've been working on it.

Someone passed on some news from their dishwasher repair guy (so it's 2nd hand advice) (now third) that the little store bought dishwasher tab gel covers may not dissolve all the way and the little gummy bits get caught and clog up inside the spinny water shooter thingys.  (I don't think that was the actual label for that part) but you know what I mean...  So a month or so back, I switched to the powder again.  Eh.  It's ok, but not great yet.

So I found this recipe via Pinterest.  The credit goes to, of ALL things, Raisingheathens...  I threw Holy water at my computer screen and clicked on the link.

I made little briquets of the tabs by using my mini muffin pan.  I keep them in an old container of store bought dish tabs because if I had a cutesie glass jar sitting around the kitchen, someone would break it.  

It was super easy to make and after they'd dried about 30 minutes or so, Meri knocked them out onto some wax paper.  She hit the back of each piece of muffin tin with my meat tenderizer hammer.  They dried to hard little rocks by the next day.  

That night my mother-in-law asked what we had baked.  Umm... Don't eat those.

The finished product is a smidge too big to drop in the actual slot in the dishwasher so I just drop one into the silverware holder.

 

Dishwasher tab recipe

1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup sea, kosher, or other coarse salt - I used Sea Salt because I had some on hand.
1/2-3/4 cup lemon juice, from a bottle

Stir well and use the medium Pampered Chef cookie dough scoop to make them uniform in size.  We used a bit of Saran wrap to press each one down into the muffin tin piece.

So far, I think they're doing well in the dishwasher!  I still pour in a little vinegar with each batch too.

What DIY thing do you do that you are liking the result of?

Pinterest Addicts Rock!

 Let me just say... If you have nothing better to do than browse through Pinterest and post interesting crafts and recipes on Facebook, then I salute you!  

I just don't have time...  So I appreciate all the postings from you guys that have sifted through all the junk out there!  

Here are a few I enjoyed and plan to try out.

 

This is actually something a friend of mine makes for a side business.  She has Pinterest boards too...

 I had to post it to Maddy's wall, because she's a coffee addict...

Crockpost Lasagna

Children's Homemade Christmas Ornaments, because HELLO!!!  Christmas is a few short months away!!

And something that Meri would appreciate posted to her FB wall...

Pinterest truly has something for everyone.   And I'm so glad I have bored Facebook friends.