Remember Shrinky Dinks? I’m not sure if they ever went away but today it seems they are more popular than ever. There are several craft projects people do with these, and my husband had an idea to make tokens for a game he enjoys playing. So we bought a pack of Shrinky Dinks that you can use with your printer. Here is an idea of just how much they shrink down from their original size.
Anyway, I’m not sure what I want to make. We only bought the ones for the printer but there is a cheaper pack that you just draw on. I’m thinking that would make for a fun craft day with the girl. I’ve been wanting to do more crafts with her especially this summer to give us something fun to do.
We are dieting in our house. We are not eating on the same plan. I have opted to do Atkins and have lost 25 pounds so far (Yeah me). My husband is trying the Mediterranean Diet which includes eating a lot of pasta, bread, and rice - all no-nos on Atkins. Since I do most of the cooking, I needed to find a way to cook both of our foods without using the stove. I’m determined not to turn it on this hot, hot summer. Luckily I ran across a product called Pasta Perfect
You put in your pasta and then add hot boiling water. Then put the strainer top on followed by the cap. Then wrap with the insulated hugger. It came with a cookbook that has listed the amount of time needed to cook various pasta. I’ve used it twice so far. I works great and cooks the pasta. I just heat up the water in the microwave. I always cook way too much pasta when I cook on the stove top. With Pasta Perfect, I measure out a bowl and then add it to the cylinder. Clean up is so easy since it’s just one container. The first time I even used whole wheat pasta, and it turned out pretty good. I have to take my husband’s word for it since I didn’t eat any.
So between the Pasta Perfect and the grill, I can cook us both meals without having to touch the oven. That’s definitely a positive since it is already pretty hot and it’s not even July yet.
Summer is here and so that means there are mosquitoes everywhere. Mosquitoes seem to love us, so we always have a problem with these pesky insects. While I’ve tried remedies before, this year I’ve decided to plant flowers that mosquitoes do not really enjoy. One of those flowers is apparently Marigolds.
I’ve never really liked Marigolds. They really don’t have a nice smell and the yellow flower always reminds me of a Homecoming corsage. But if they deter mosquitoes, then I’m willing to put that aside and give them a try. Best of all, Marigolds are just $1. I have already bought five and plan to buy more. They will be placed all around our deck as well as the kid’s play set. It will be field of yellow but hopefully it will be a mosquito-free zone.
I don’t think I shared what I got for Mother’s Day - a grill. We have only wanted one since we got married 15 years ago. It’s a small one and is charcoal not gas, but I prefer it that way.
I think of the grill as the gift that keeps on giving. We cook out, and my husband mans the grill. That’s one less meal I have to cook. Lately we’ve been grilling enough for a few meals, so I have even more nights off from cooking. With summer here, I definitely want to stay away from the oven. Thanks to my well-planned Mother’s Day gift, I may be getting a nice break from the kitchen after all.
All week I had been waiting for Sunday night and the LOST series finale. It’s been bittersweet watching this last season knowing that the end is coming. I will not go into a lot of detail about the finale or the last season so as not to spoil it for anyone - including my husband who has only seen a few episodes from season six.
From reading tweets and Facebook updates, it seems there are quite a few who still are as confused as ever about LOST and weren’t happy with how it ended. Maybe they should have chosen one of the ‘alternate’ endings.
But as a series finale, it did answer some questions and left a few hanging. I figured they couldn’t answer everything because it seemed no one knew all of the answers. After watching the finale, it took a few hours to digest just what had happened. My first impression was I didn’t like the ending but after thinking on it, I like it better. I think you can take away from the finale that ‘it’s all good’ for our castaways.
This summer I hope to watch all of the seasons again. I do think that about around season three that the writers might started to stretch out the series since I remember when it premiered that it was supposed to be a three year TV show. So that’s my big summer plans - watch a TV show that I’ve seen every episode but want to watch again for clues.
I told my four-year-old that my hobby was rearranging furniture. I’m always trying to get the most out of our small living space. I think the statement confused her but soon she’ll learn. I usually go through this desire to completely rearrange our furniture every six months. This week I’m working on the living room and the kid’s bedroom.
We moved Rae from her toddler bed to a twin bed about a year ago. During the winter, we set up her toddler bed in our bedroom because we have no central heat and only one portable heater. Well, she didn’t want to give up her toddler bed when she started sleeping in her room again - so for a while she had a twin and a toddler bed in her very cramped room. We really want to keep the twin bed so on the rare occasion that we have company they have a place to sleep. About a year ago, I tossed our couch out. It was uncomfortable and falling apart. I did keep the cushions and some of the stuffing that I used in several crochet toys I made. Rae has never quite gotten over that I got rid of the couch. She misses it for some reason, so I decided to move the twin bed into the living room making it a make-shift daybed. This way we have a ‘couch’ and she has more space in her bedroom. This way when she does finally outgrow her toddler bed and is using the twin bed again, we already have a space reserved in the living room for a couch.
Summer is almost here. Rae has only a few weeks left of preschool and then she will be home 24/7. I know she will be bored and wanting to do some fun stuff. Her favorite thing about preschool is crafts. They make a craft almost every day. So I’ve been gathering some supplies when I find them on sale. One item that she has enjoyed in the past is foamies - you know the pre-cut pieces of foam that are in various shapes. You can get kits to make castles, ships, etc. Around the holidays you can usually find kids to make themed foamies. I picked up one pack around Halloween that you could make foamies like Frankenstein, witch, ghost, devil, etc. With a little cutting of some of the shapes, we were even able to make up our own like this one -
Foamies are cheap entertainment especially when they are on sale. She has fun putting them together and then playing with them. Hopefully I can find some new ones soon before Summer officially gets here.
One of our favorite wedding gifts we received 15 years ago was a picnic basket. We used it on almost every trip. The top finally started to unravel and even though I still use the bottom of the basket, I’ve been looking for a replacement. I found a lovely basket at a second hand store for $5.99. It needed a slight repair as one of the handles was missing its wooden holder. But being resourceful, I was able to come up with a solution.
After trying a few different ideas, I thought of using a bottle cap. I had picked up a few bottle caps a while back for crafting purposes. This one looked the best and was also red - matching the basket lining. I cut down a chopstick to hold the handle in place. Then I sanded the inside of the bottle cap slightly for a better super glue hold. Within a few minutes, the glue had set. So far no problems. We’ve made one trip just fine. And if anything should happen, I have plenty of super glue and can always find bottle caps lying around.
I love finding a good bargain and being able to fix problems for free.
We really needed another can crusher since ours has been MIA for nearly two years. We are drinking more can drinks lately. Since we are taking them to the recycling center for cash instead of just dropping them off for pickup, we really needed a crusher so they take up less room.
The neat thing about this one is that it holds up to five cans and the crushed cans drop out of the bottom. My husband re-purposed our old car tag to make a chute for the cans so that they land in the garbage can.
The multi-can crusher gets lots of attention - which is another bonus. It seems everyone wants to crush at least one can with it. That’s fine with me since it’s less work for us.
I remember one Mother’s Day when I was a child asking when was kid’s day to which my father replied that everyday was Kid’s Day. Well, that’s how I feel about Earth Day. Earth Day is everyday. It’s where we live and we should strive each day to do something nice for Mother Earth.
For Earth Day, I’m taking all of our plastic bottles for recycling. They have been piling up - so it’s time to drop them off.
Plastic bottles are not the only items we recycle. We recycle cans and Capri Sun wrappers. In fact, a lot of schools collect Capri Sun wrappers to turn in for cash for their school. Each wrapper is worth 2 cents but my kid alone - the way she drinks those things - could be worth an extra $50-$100 to a tight school budget.
This summer we should have a nice load of aluminum cans for recycling. It’ll be nice to get some extra pocket change for those cans, too.
Ever since we started recycling our plastic, we have less garbage each week. This makes me very happy to know we are sending less to the landfill and using less garbage bags.
