Friday Photo

And we're off! Little Sweet Nutkins is officially mobile now. She skipped the army-crawling stage and is slowly but surely crawling around, I suspect looking for something to eat. Lucky her to have five messy sibling who constantly drop crumbs everywhere. Now if she could just get her mama to quit vacuuming it up! Have a fun weekend and I hope you have lots of good things to eat too!

The Glamorous Tightwad

I have long been addicted to being a tightwad. You know it's bad when your mother-in-law stages an intervention. Part of my therapy has been to force myself to buy bread and salad dressing even though it cost considerably more than making it yourself. My progress has been inspiring, at least to myself it has.

Well, my new venture with buying stuff instead of making it myself like the proverbial Little Red Hen has taken a serious hit. A slam into a brick wall hit in the form of this book. Do It Gorgeously by Sophie Uliano, also author of Gorgeously Green and the website and blog, www. Gorgeously Green .com, has undermined all my progress. Her focus is on making your own products (think Pine Sol and insect repellent) to save money, be more "green", and reduce the toxins in our homes. I am hooked! So far I have made:

Green Goddess Washing Powder. Super easy to make and use.

Gentle Facial Exfoliating Scrub. Oatmeal and lavender, can't stop using it!

and All Purpose Cleaner. Makes cleaning the stove and counter easy and quick. I also tried her recipe for Best Ever Cough Syrup, Rinseless Car Wash,

and Gorgeously Green Purifying Green Clay Mask.

Up next is Chamomile and Aloe Cleansing Cream to go with Geranium and Apricot Moisturizer, Regenerative Floral Beauty Balm, Vanilla Body Cream, Whitening Peppermint Toothpaste,

Cough Drops and Citrus Furniture Polish. There's a bit of everything in here.

There is an initial cost on some of the recipes, especially the beauty products, since they use essential oils but they last for a long time. I have my list and will be purchasing things as the budget allows. So, here's to my new venture as a glamorous tightwad. I like the sound of that already!

Friday Photo

What better way to scoop homemade laundry soap than with an antique silver spoon!

Of Disasters, Culinary and Otherwise

Lately I have been slightly forgetful and distracted. Not too bad of a problem unless you forget to turn off the burner under a pan with a colander full of pasta in it. Then being forgetful tends to chap your hide. And did you know that after it cools, you can peel melted plastic right off of the beautiful pan you just "inherited" that same week from your mother-in-law. A great deal can be accomplished with a good dose of determination!

And a little note to self, if you put some chair cushions into the washer to clean them, check them first to see what they are stuffed with. In the off chance that they are stuffed with a million little chunks of foam, try another method of cleaning besides the trusty old washing machine. Otherwise you will find yourself scooping out wet little chunks of foam with a dixie cup for at least half an hour. And that's all the nuggets of advice from little old me today!

100th Post and and Exciting Recipe!

This is my 100th post! I have to say that this blogging thing has been more fun than I imagined. It's very gratifying to me to share bits and pieces of my days with who ever will listen. Oh and to do something that isn't undone in 5 minutes is psychologically necessary for me at this season of life. I can hear all you moms saying AMEN!

To commemorate this momentous day I am posting a Very Exciting Recipe for you. This concoction has changed my life and has won the hearts of several people I know. Are you ready? It's natural ant killer. See, I told you it was exciting.

Last spring brought the migration of black ant through our part of the world. Growing up in Louisiana makes one slightly immune to the threat of ants. We had black ants, sugar ants, fire ants (never was immune to those), carpenter ants and many other kids of crawling pests. As long as it wasn't a fire ant it just didn't bother me. Whenever I saw one I'd just get rid of it and not think of it again. Well, then one lovely morning I walked into my kitchen to find a swarm of them on my countertop and that was it. A swarm of anything just grosses me out.

As it happened the termite man came that day for our annual termite inspection and after I told him about the ants he kindly filled my spray bottle with some of his noxious poison to spray on the pests. After repeated warnings of how dangerous it was and how it could kill snakes and small animals, you can imagine how thrilled I was to spray it around my kitchen. So I looked up natural ant killer and found a recipe that used things I already had. A few hours later my container of goo was filled with dead ants and they never came back! When a few were found this month scoping out our kitchen again, I made up another batch and again we are ant free. It's the best thing ever!

All you need is borax, sugar, peanut butter and a small plastic container. Ants are attracted to sugar and protein, so the sugar and peanut butter act as bait. The borax is toxic to bugs. The ants eat the bait and die, then they are carried back to the colony where the other ants eat the dead ones (grotty, I know) and before long the whole colony is toast. Borax is toxic to people too if you eat a large amount so if you have small kids, make sure you keep it up out of reach. Or don't worry about it if your kids don't eat everything they see like mine.

Here's how to make your own ant killer. Mix 3 parts sugar to 1 part borax. For my trap I used 6 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of borax. Add just enough water to make a paste then stir in a teaspoon of peanut butter. I use a small plastic container that I can throw away after the demise of the ants. Use a knife to carefully poke some holes around the top so they can get in easily.

Here you can see a photo of my lovely trap. I would show you the inside with all the dead ants but it's pretty gross. Although after the plague last year I wanted to show everyone my dead ants. Now, run out and get yourself some borax and get rid of your ants. You can send me tokens of your gratitude when you see how quickly your ant problem is gone. Just don't send me your old ant trap, I know how excited you will be about it but just tell me, I'll believe you. Good luck!

Resting

These little feet, what can you say. Is there anything more darling than baby feet. My littlest one often sleeps with his feet folded up under his diapered bottom. I can't remember if any of his siblings slept like this but then again there are a lot of things I can't remember lately. A lack of sleep and chaotic days can do that to a person. Quite often people ask me how I manage with five little ones under six years of age and the truth is that I don't always manage very well. By the grace of God and lots of help from my husband we make it through every day with a minimum of bumps and bruises, physically and emotionally. Today I was able to spend some time alone at my mother-in-law's lovely home while she was out of town. Something in my crazed eyes must have tipped my husband of that I needed a break. Most of the time I was able to rest and found myself thinking about expectations. Much of the stress of my day comes from expectations that are not realistic or even humanly possible in this time of my life. I would venture a guess that I am not all that unusual as a mom in this area. I want kids to play peacefully and share their toys, to be content with their food and not always ask for snacks, shut cabinet doors and not suck on the tube of toothpaste because I told them not to. How hard could that be? So I was able think about what my expectations should be. That life will be messy and loud, people will fight, they will be constantly hungry, I won't be able to have meaningful devotions every day without interruptions, I should check the toilet seat before sitting down. Part of life with kids, part of the gift I have been given. My prayer is that I can rejoice in my gift instead of asking for the receipt. His mercy is new every morning, even if that morning starts long before the sun comes up!

Snowy Monday

We woke up to a fresh layer of snow on top of the remains of the snow from the weekend. Our morning has included hot biscuits for breakfast, math from the new workbook, letters made out of salt dough, tent making, a computer induced meltdown and lots of dishes washed. Lunch was a pot of cream of broccoli soup and a loaf of wheat bread still warm from the oven. Before I go tackle naptime I want to share a quote from my precocious four year old. "One hand rose up like a little rose in a flower bush, sprinkled by the sun." Monday is a good day after all.

The Great Flour Explosion of 2009

Just in case you were wondering, this is what your kitchen will look like if you put too much wheat in your grinder and then go in the other room.

Accidental Science in a Pan

I've been working on a couple of fun trash to treasure projects to post today for the Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented, but something is wrong with my memory card. It seems to have no memory of it's job of transferring photographs from the camera to the computer so instead I am going to regale you with the tale of my grungy burned pot that was rescued and formed cool crystals during the dark and stormy night while we all slept peacefully in our beds. Kind of a trash to treasure story in a way. Also, a good housekeeping tip for those unfortunate times when you burn something in your favorite pan and no amount of scrubbing and scouring can remove a smidge of it. Not that any of us burn anything to the bottoms of our favorite pans, but in case some unthinking person should burn something in your favorite pan, now you can work a little kitchen chemistry and salvage your pan.
Above you see an example of a pan with a nice layer of black gunk, pour 1/4 cup of Borax in your pan, add some water, bring it to a boil and let it sit overnight. In the morning rinse out the pan and wipe/scrub out the black gunk and, ta-da! your pan is like new! Last time I did the Borax water treatment on a pan, in the morning it had formed these cool crystals. I was amazed, I showed my kids, they were amazed. If I had been a really awesome homeschool mom, we could have researched why borax and water made these big crystals but I am low on the really awesome factor lately so we just looked at them. Then I set about to clean my pan.
Yeah! What a nice shiny non-black pan that is! By the way, if you aren't familiar with Borax you can get it in the laundry section of any store. It is great to add to any laundry, especially linens and cloth diapers, you can do general cleaning with it and tough cleaning jobs (like charcoal in a pan), and I use it to make laundry detergent. My favorite use for it this year was a safe and 100% effective ant killer. Following the Great Ant Invasion of 2009 I made some ant killer with it and finally got rid of the sugar ants that had moved in with us. Everyone I knew had ants swarming in their house. I was so excited about my ant killer that I considered patenting the stuff and handing out samples at the grocery store but then I remembered that I would have to take all the kids with me so I decided to just stay at my ant-free home and read. So, get you some Borax and you will be prepared for any emergency that involved burned on crust or small crawling insects. You will be prepared!!