Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Christmas is a comin',
For my nephew I think i'm gonna find some AMERICAN made tin toys. Or....I don't know. There are too many things i'd like to get him. ;-D
I'm in the process of crocheting a dishcloth and a scarf and knitting a dishcloth. Also, I am making a bunch of crocheted scrunchies for my girl cousins.
A few weeks ago, while I was cleaning my hot-spot, I saw I needed a pencil and pen holder. I took a votive candle holder and pried the candle out and glued strips of scrapbooking paper I bought. It's really cute! I'll show a picture later. Gotta resize it. Anyway, I thought something of the sorts would be a good Christmas present. :-D
Live Laugh Love,
Jami
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
S&T Friday
That's all for now!
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Tips and stuff
Today I washed my Blazer. Boyshowdy, was it in need of a good washing! Mama, yesterday, washed off the Avalanche with just a microfiber cloth and water and when Daddy came home he asked who had washed the truck. So I thought I would try the microfiber washing on my vehicle as it was very dirty. It hasn't been washed any this year. *shameface* Let me tell you, I don't think that Blazer has ever been that bright and shiny and clean as it is now. Maybe when it was in the showcase.
I was amazed. So, if you want to clean your vehicle and you haven't got much time, you can use a microfiber cloth and wipe your vehicle clean as if you used a bucket of soap and water.
Also, I want to tell y'all about this nice dish soap. It's called Crystal White. It was about $1.79 for a 40 ounce bottle. My family uses Dawn. Well, did use Dawn. Dawn has changed their formula or something and it stinks. Plus it wasn't cutting grease as good as it said it does. My mama has read about Crystal White from different blogs and decided to try it. Wow. Not only does it smell good but it cleans good too! One of our pans had grease(or whatever you call it) spots on it. With help from a scrubber, it came off!(course it need a bit of coaxing as it was up there pretty good) I'll post before and after pictures later. :-)
Here are some tips I have found interesting. All these have come from a book called "How to Run Your House without it running you"
- Here is a trick to use when the house is a mess and you hear visitors coming up the driveway. Run and put the vaccum cleaner in the middle of the floor as though you were just beginning to clean. Then you can relax and enjoy the visitor.
- For daily pickups, carry a large paper bag with you. Into it, empty ashtrays and wastebaskets. It saves trips back and forth to the trash can.
- Remove lint and dust from beneath the refrigerator or any very narrow place with a "dust mop" made from a yardstick that has an old nylon stocking over it.
- When the liquid in a spray bottle of window cleaner gets low, cut a piece from a drinking straw and use it as an extension on the sprayer tube. It works fine- lets you use the last bit of cleaner in the bottle.
- Use kitchen tongs to grasp the dishcloth when you clean the inside of tall jars.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Show and Tell Friday
Friday, June 15, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Friday, June 8, 2007
Show and Tell Friday
The one the far left is a Thomas Kinkade globe. It plays music but I haven't a clue what it plays. The one beside that is a child (holding a bell) with penguins. It plays a Christmas song. The next one has a wizard with a clear ball and a sorcerers wand(it has a moon on top) in his hands. I don't know the song that one plays either. Then the one on the end is a castle and plays "Under the Sea"(the song from the little mermaid)
The blue one is Disney. It plays "When You Wish Upon a Star". The next one is a British soldier with a castle and guards on the base. My aunt brought that back from her honeymoon in London England 1997. Next is an ark with animals. It plays a song but, again, I haven't a clue what it is. The black one has Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, it plays "There's No Business Like Show Business". The last one is Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara dancing. Plays "Tara's Theme."
The lantern is one I picked out. It's the Polar Express. There is a switch on the top that lights up the inside. The other one is a snowman ice skating that lights up and changes color. (I didn't realize that the snowman is hard to see until my mom pointed it out.)
I have a few more but I think I put them up from lack of room. :-D
Visit Kelli's to view other Show and Tells!
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
The ABCs of Order in Your Home
By Marilyn Rockett
May 4, 2007 - 3:33:21 PM
Okay, Ladies—let’s talk. It’s time to drag this idea of organization out of the shadows, dust it off, and take a good look. We know we need “it” but we aren’t sure where to get “it” or how to keep “it.” We see a friend or acquaintance with “it,” and we wonder how she does “it.”
Why does organization seem so difficult? We long for order out of our chaos, but the whole thing seems to elude us at times. If we could just grasp “it” long enough to show some positive progress, we would feel hope for long-term solutions to our dilemma.
Each of us fights a private battle with organization. Do you lack training? Do you have lazy habits? Do you have a rebellious spirit toward your role in the home? Are you just too busy juggling too many balls? Is school time or your use of a particular curriculum crowding out other important tasks because you fear that you won’t provide a good education for your children? Have you forgotten your priorities? Maybe you’ve never sorted out your priorities; consequently, you jump from one task to another, leaving unfinished jobs strewn from one end of the house to the other. Whatever your particular nemesis, you may be tired of the fight and you yearn for peace and order in your home.
If you desire that order, you have come to a profitable place for change. As in anything you do, you have to want the results or it just won’t happen. My experience has shown me that there is no one “right” system for everyone, but there are certain principles that help all of us, no matter what battle we fight.
When all around you is falling apart, you must begin small, taking one baby-step at a time. Begin at the beginning with the ABCs of order.
Acknowledge Your Successes and Failures
Despite your feelings, you probably are doing some tasks well. Identify those things and examine why you are successful in those areas. Even if you see only one thing, look at it and ask yourself these questions: Do I like doing this particular thing? Am I good at it, and do I feel successful when I do it? Is this an easy task for me?
For example, you may love to cook. You love to create new dishes that are nutritious and tasty. You enjoy experimenting with recipes, and you seldom use one exactly as it is written. Possibly you serve several “famous” dishes that everyone raves about. Experiencing the joy of seeing your family savor a wonderful meal that you have prepared for them makes homemaking worthwhile to you. However, your home is falling down around you—the laundry piles higher every day, green rings decorate your toilet bowls, and you would rather throw a shirt away than sew on a button.
You obviously have applied your creative spirit to your culinary skills and have experienced success with that area of your responsibilities. Congratulate yourself for that ability and keep up the good work! Remind yourself that you do some things well.
Now, look for ways to carry that same creative bent to the things that you enjoy less. Decorate your bathroom by hanging fresh curtains and some lovely pictures. Use a pretty tray to keep items neatly on the bath counter. Add a picture of your husband or your children to smile at each morning as you get dressed. (One of my favorite pictures sits on my bath counter.) It is harder to leave that green toilet ring when your bath is pretty and inviting.
If the mending stares at you but you would rather put off doing it, try gathering all your supplies into a pretty basket large enough to hold them, plus a few mending items. Place the basket next to your chair in the family room (or on a shelf nearby, if you have young children who love to rummage through things like baskets). When you sit down in the evening, pick up the mending while a family member reads aloud or the children relate their day to Dad. Tackling one or two items quickly is easier than facing a large stack of mending at one time.
Accept the fact that you can do some tasks better than others. Admit your weaknesses and look for ways to improve in those areas.
Build a Basic Routine
If you often jump from one task to another without finishing anything or you feel as though you don’t know where to start on most days, you need a basic routine. Your creative spirit may bristle at the thought of a “schedule,” but a simple, doable framework frees you and allows time to accomplish the basics.
Make a weekly routine based on a predictable sequence rather than on certain minutes or hours to do what you need to do. A simple routine that you stick to, even for part of your day, is the single most helpful thing you can do to restore order to your home. After all, it was skipping those basic responsibilities that brought about the chaos in the first place.
A simple, skeleton routine that allows for housework time, play time, and school time allows you freedom to be flexible while still maintaining order and a generally clean and tidy home. If you keep it simple, you will find more time to do other activities without sacrificing your home on the altar of the urgent.
Evaluate each room in your home, deciding which things are most important to accomplish and which could wait, if necessary. Write those things down on paper as you walk through your home. Then use the list to establish your routine. You and your family must grocery shop, cook meals, wash dishes, do laundry, clean floors, and make beds—or at least change sheets occasionally. You may want to include a daily pick-up time to help keep clutter to a minimum. Include anything else that helps you maintain your home at a reasonable level of functionality.
Put your routine on paper, marking blocks of time each day for activities such as housework and chore time, school time, fun time, and any particular commitments such as music lessons, sports practices, and so forth. Post the routine where the family can see it, and stick to it as much as possible. Remember that you don’t have particular hours or minutes to do things, rather you have blocks of time to accomplish the necessary tasks—chores after breakfast, school time after chores, and library trips on the days you take the children to music lessons, for example. If an emergency shifts your routine, just go back to the basics as soon as you are able. Assign chores to each of your children old enough to do them, and supervise to see that they complete what you expect of them.
Most important, don’t overplan. If you stay too busy with multiple activities, you won’t have time to teach your children to work and to maintain your home in a God-honoring way—not perfect, but presentable.
Continue to Change
Motherhood, homemaking, parenting, and teaching children are not for wimps! Those jobs are difficult and require continual learning and adjusting. I don’t know anyone who has ever accomplished all of them perfectly.
Change is difficult, isn’t it? If you haven’t done well in keeping your home, determine why and then work on that particular problem. Your example of a commitment to persevere will teach your children to keep going when things are hard and to continue to learn and grow in all areas of their lives.
Don’t be afraid to make changes in how and when you do things. If something isn’t working, change it. Find the best method and time for you and your family, and don’t do something just because your mother did it that particular way. Ask older women for help and ideas or find a mentor. Scripture tells us that the older woman should teach the younger woman (Titus 2:3-5), but we seem to forget that practical admonition in today’s culture. Someone else who has been where you are often can see problems that you are overlooking. Don’t be too proud to ask for help.
I’m so grateful for the new beginnings the Lord provides when needed. He desires that we work toward homes that honor Him, and we can trust that He will give us the energy, power, and new beginnings for our tasks.
Praise Him for your strengths and offer your weaknesses to Him for His correction and change. The only “it” that matters—and that you need—is a heart that longs to honor the Lord through your home and a desire to go back to the basic ABCs, when needed, to accomplish what He has given you to do.
You’ll need:
2 rolls of jumbo buttermilk refrigerator biscuits
1 cup of sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (or margarine)
1/2 tsp vanilla
Preheat your over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
So you’ll want to break out the biscuits, cut them into quarters. I used my pizza roller because a. I’m cool like that and b. all my knives were being washed.
Take the cinnamon and white sugar and put it into a largish plastic bag. I used a turkey bag because I need to get more Ziploc bags.
Toss in the biscuit pieces about 8 at a time and shake it up!
Arrange them neatly in a Bundt pan, tube pan, or 2 9 inch round cake pans. Don’t squish them together, just put them so they are just touching, like so:
If you’re wanting to add walnuts or raisins, now’s the time to do so. Just intersperse them with the dough balls.
Then, in a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter, add the brown sugar and vanilla. Boil it for one minute, then pour over the dough. Poke it in your 350 degree preheated oven for:
Bundt or tube pan: 20 minutes9 inch cake pans: 15 minutes
Keep an eye on them, because there’s nothing more horrid than burnt monkey bread. Except maybe stinky cookies.
Take it out of the oven, flip over onto a plate, and attempt to wait until it cools to start chowing down. Enjoy!
Monday, May 21, 2007
The Modest Clothing Exchange
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Stromboli
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Stromboli
To make a stromboli, you need:
frozen bread loaf (you can find this with frozen biscuits, etc.)
meat (about 3-4 cups)
cheese (about 2 cups)
flour
a tiny cup of water
First, prepare your bread dough. The glorious thing about frozen bread dough is that I can take a loaf, put it in a baggie, and let it sit from early morning (around 10:00 AM) until time to begin the recipe (45 min. before time to eat). It's great for grocery day!
An hour before eating, prepare your ingredients. For this stromboli, I used ham from our freezer and shredded cheddar cheese. I chopped the ham and let the cheese defrost (we freeze cheese as well). Then, it was time for the fun!
Lightly dust your surface with flour and plop out your thawed (and probably slightly risen) dough.
Next, slightly flour your rolling pin and roll the dough out into a rectangle. Take into consideration the length of the cookie sheet or bar pan you will be using to bake it. You don't want stromboli hanging off the end! :o) I really have to beat my bread dough into submission. Work it, girls! ;o)
Time for filling! Lay your fillings straight down the middle of your rectangle. I always put meat on the bottom and cheese on top. That's the way my MIL taught me, but I'm sure if you really want the cheese on the bottom, it's okay. ;o)
Time to fold it up. Take one of the long sides of dough and bring it to the middle of the stromboli. Fold the other long side of dough over and seal. A quick tip? If it won't seal, wet your index finger in a cup of water and "paint" under the edge. Then press down. It works like a charm!
Fold up the "ends" of your stromboli too, so that it looks like a burrito. Now comes the tricky part...
FLIPPING THE STROMBOLI!!
Position your cookie sheet or bar pan above or below your stromboli and flip it onto the pan. Make sure to flip it over, because if you don't, your stromboli will burst open, leaving a filling mess all over the place. Not pretty. :o( Make sure the "seam" is DOWN on the cookie sheet.
I always feel like a real Italian chef at this part...unless I can't get the 'boli to flip! Then, I hold my mouth just right and FINALLY I can. LOL
Sprinkle some extra cheese on top. It's time for the oven!
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and it's time for dinner. We usually serve these with a fruit salad or green salad. They are very filling, so I don't serve up heavy side dishes- they won't get eaten. :o)
Some great 'boli flavor combinations:
ham and cheese
chicken, broccoli, and parmesan cheese
beef and cheddar
taco meat and cheddar
bacon, scrambled eggs, and cheese
And the list goes on! Use what you like and it will be delicious! :o)
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Makin' Noodles
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Dear Mothers,
Ya know homemade noodles are so easy to make. And they are just flour and eggs salt and pepper. So if you have just these few ingredients and some meat and vegetables, you can make a meal. I used to make the noodles and add spaghetti sauce and hamburger to it. I have also made my own lasagna noodles. Once you learn to make these noodles, you will have a ball with them and they taste so much better than store bought.
So to start out with, just get a big pan of salted water to boil on the stove while you are making your noodles. OK, get out your mixing bowl and put in about 2 cups of flour. Then add enough eggs to get a dough goin’. Add a tsp of salt and some pepper. So the dough is just flour and eggs, no other liquid. So just play with this dough until it is like Play Dough. It should be that dry so you can roll it out on a floured surface. Roll this dough very thin. Now if you are having trouble getting it rolled out, just take smaller hunks of dough and roll it out. Then take a pizza cutter or knife and slice up strips. I do mine a handful at a time and put them in the already boiling water. This way the noodles have plenty of room to cook. And then cut another handful and throw them in. They will sorta float around in there. Stir them gently as to not break the strip up. Cook them for at least 45 minutes. After all the noodles are cut and in the boiling water, just turn them down and let them simmer a while.
Now you can dry these to use for later if you have too many. This is how to dry them. After they are cut, not cooked yet, just leave them on your cutting board in strips and let them dry a few days. You have to turn them over and get them really dry. After they are dried you can put them in a jar to use in a few weeks. Don’t seal the jar but put the lid on lightly. Or just make a lid out of cloth and put a canning lid around it. This way the noodles continue to dry. Also you can freeze the raw noodles in packages. And here is another noodle idea. When making the noodles, add a little tomato sauce and make the noodles red. Then I add herbs to these like basil or any Italian seasonings.
The lasagna noodles are just made by cutting the noodles in the size of the lasagna from the store and then make your dish as usual. Of course, boil them as I described the noodles in boiling salt water. When making the vegetable soups or stews, I used to add the noodles to the bubbling soup/stew. Your liquids have to always be boiling before you put the noodles in.
But hey, Happy Housewives, just try to learn these homemaking skills as it will save so much on your grocery bills. Also it will keep your families much more healthy and happy knowing their meals are homemade! Learn to make good cornbread, pies, muffins and cakes. Try your hand at making everything from scratch. Learn the feel of biscuit dough and how it is different then pie dough. Learn to be confident in your work place the kitchen.
Love,Connie
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About Me
- Jami
- I'm an 18 year old stay-at-home daughter in the beautiful state of North Carolina. I'm learning to be a godly homemaker.
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