Housesitting!

I'm fairly certain that time warps when I'm blogging. I write a post, leave the computer, and WHOOSH! It's two weeks since my last post!

That being said, time has also warped me into housesitting for a couple from my church. DH and I have been having a blast eating other people's food and watching other people's television! ... And watching their poodle. Well, something had to be less than perfect.

I fixed our Christmas dinner here: a sumptuous feast of mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls, and roast duck. I had never made duck before, so I was pleased to say that it turned out all right! But holey moley!!! It is such RICH meat! I ate a little drumstick, and was good for the rest of the week. Now we have a ton of duck sitting in the fridge that I need to use up somehow. Any ideas?

All this talk of food is making my stomach turn a little. I've been having bouts of queasiness for the past few weeks.... no reason in particular. *wink wink*

Christmas Shopping Rant

Today, Adam and I are going to go Christmas shopping.

*whimper*

I am very bad at gift-giving. You've heard about the Five Love Languages? "Gifts" is the hands-down, absolute lowest love language for me. It barely comes on the radar. I couldn't care much less about having a stack of presents under the tree for myself (which will be a good thing this year, because we're broke, lol), and while I appreciate the thoughtfulness and generosity of the giver, I have a hard time attaching great significance to presents. So Christmas shopping is a torturous affair for me.

This is especially true because I have a couple particularly difficult people to shop for. Actually, my mom is sort of easy to shop for, because she has all sorts of likes: lotions, candles, snowmen, quilting, bird-watching. But there are only so many bottles of lotion and candles that a woman can take, you know?? The other one is a sibling-in-law, who, as far as I can tell, already has everything. Hmmm. There needs to be a venue that sells things only for people that already have everything. Oh wait, that's called SkyMall.

Well, it's time to stop complaining and start getting serious about this gift thing. Wish me luck!

Works For Me Wednesday: Take Some Stress Out of Gifting

WARNING TO MY RELATIVES: Don't read this one, or you will know what you're getting for Christmas!

I have a lot of family members. I'm one of five kids, and my husband is one of six. Thankfully, his side does a drawing for Christmas, so each person only has to get a present for two other family members. But even then, this still amounts to a lot of gifts!

With so many people to give gifts to, I decided to simplify this year, and....

Give everyone the same thing.

This year, I'm making everyone aprons, but they're in a variety of patterns and designs. My sisters and female in-laws are getting cute, cute aprons, and my brothers are getting MAN-aprons, AKA tool belts. It was amazing how easy it was to gather all the materials needed! After finding the patterns I wanted (hint: eBay has some great deals on brand-name patterns!) it took just one evening of calculating yardages and taking a trip to Hobby Lobby to get me set.

This also applies to smaller gifts for people outside the immediate family. I'm thinking specifically of ornaments, because those are such great little gifts! DH and I are going to a church ornament-exchange party next week, but we are armed and ready, because I am mass-producing these puppies.

Thank you for stopping by! You can find oodles of other great tips at We Are THAT Family!

Movin' On Up!

I have a new job!

Or at least, for a trial period. But I'm pretty confident that they'll see what an awesome employee I am, and keep me on.

I'm excited because it's actually a job in my field. Not a glamorous job, mind you, or even my ultimate job goal, which is being a professional violinist/violin teacher. This is a secretarial job for a large musical instrument and supply store. But, it's a step closer to where I need to be, and for goodness' sake, I won't be slicing ham all day anymore. Hooray!

Whatsoever a Man Seweth, So Shall He Rip

Today, I finished Present #1 (You know, what I was talking about in the last post). It was frustrating as all get out, because my sewing machine kept inexplicably jamming up and ruining the stitchwork. I'm thinking it was the thread, because the item pictured in the previous post just rolled of the machine without a hitch, but once I changed the thread, everything went to you-know-where. My time was divided yesterday among screaming at my sewing machine, ripping out stitches, and hissing, "...And you'd BETTER use this! A LOT!!!" to the non-present recipient of this particular gift.

But now, it's mostly done, and I'm looking forward to CHANGING THE THREAD moving on to the next project. I've decided to wait until everything is done to show pictures, so that way, the relatives won't be banned from this blog till December 26th.

Not to mention, I would be one angry-looking model right now.

Family Members, Please Do Not Read This!

I am serious, family members! I mean, you COULD read it-- if you wanted to know what you're getting for Christmas. And that's no fun at all! So go to Facebook now and stalk me there. I'll wait a minute for you.

(Are they gone?)

All right! So I was sick for the past few days. The first day, it started as a tickle in my throat. Day Two, My throat was sore as all get out, my joints hurt, and I was dizzy all day. So I read this. Yesterday, I was more mobile, but my throat still hurt like the dickens, and DH and I were sitting there, coughing at each other.

So, what else was there to do but sew?

This year, I'm giving my sisters/sisters-in-law/and maybe other lovely ladies in my life aprons for Christmas. Not your average, run-of-the-mill restaurant apron. We're talking cute aprons! Feminine aprons! Things that make you feel like Snow White in the kitchen!

So, of course, I had to experiment on my first apron. I got the free pattern here.

I'm pretty sure I made The World's Cutest Apron yesterday.

Here's a closeup on the pleats.

Meatloaf was no help at all:

And look at all the useful things you can do in it!

I was thinking of giving this one as gift, but now I'm not so sure. ;-) Be on the lookout for the lowdown on the next apron!

How We (Are Trying To) Do Meals Around Here

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I had fallen off the Homemade Dinner bandwagon. And landed HARD. It was so easy to shirk on making dinner-- I work in a grocery store, for goodness' sake, so there is always something to nibble, just a checkout line away! In the past, I had a system down, in which I made the same dish on the same night of the week: Meatloaf Monday, Baked Potato Thursday, etc. But after about two months of eating the same seven dishes incessantly, and convinced that my husband wasn't thrilled with the arrangement anyways, I needed a break! Then other things happened, and I never got quite back on the square-homemade-dinners bandwagon.

Needless to say, though, this blew the weekly grocery budget off the charts.

The clincher came the other night, when my husband announced that we have a slow leak in the bank account that was directly linked to our poor dining out habits. and THEN he said, "Remember when we used to have the same meals every week? That was sure great!" My jaw hit the floor!

After I put myself back together, I set to work on a new dinner schedule. But this time, the dishes of each weeknight are revolving around ingredients or a type of dish-- not just one particular dish... Although we did keep Baked Potato Thursday, because that's just spud-tacular!

(Sorry; couldn't resist!)

So here's my menu breakdown:

• Monday: casserole/pasta dish
• Tuesday: bean dish
• Wednesday: soup
• Thursday: baked potatoes
• Friday: free (whatever sounds good or is on sale for the week)
• Saturday: freezer/pantry item
• Sunday: spaghetti (or ravioli, etc.)

So this week, it's:

• Monday: Beef Carrot Casserole (my mom's recipe!)
• Tuesday: 3-Bean Casserole
• Wednesday: Lentil Soup (my mom's recipe again! I was feeling a little homesick when I made the list, with Thanksgiving coming and all. :-P)
• Thursday: Baked Potatoes
• Friday: Ham/Veggie Linguine
• Saturday: Chicken Pot Pie (based around some cooked cubed chicken in the freezer that needs to be used)
• Sunday: Spaghetti

It was nice to have a good, homemade meal every night this past week! Really, the hardest part of making a dinner is planning it all out. Give me the recipe and the ingredients, and getting a dinner on the table is a delight!

Well, I have to go-- it seems that a certain casserole is ready to come out of the oven!

The Bedroom Mess Monster

All right, it's time to tell you the horrible story about our bedroom, and about my valiant cleaning efforts this past week.

Before marriage, I was always hearing the phrase, "Don't bring baggage with you into the marriage!" I thought to myself, "Great! I don't really have any emotional issues, so I'm just peachy!"

Now, I'm wondering if those advisors were being a little more... literal.

A year and a half ago, my husband and I joined hearts, hands, and lives, as well as all of our random college-life paraphernalia and boxes of junk from our childhood bedrooms. I was suddenly the proud new co-owner of a HUGE Rubbermaid container literally bursting with clothes, a Darth Vader costume, and a large collection of random glass bottles that DH to this day refuses to part with; and DH, I'm sure, felt that he had moved into a Jo-Ann Fabrics store/Obscure-BookWorld.

The Monster was born.

We consolidated our things the best we could as we set up house. We live in a one-bedroom 705-sq. ft. apartment, so our bedroom became a sleeping area, sewing room, library, study area, and general storage area. We crammed everything in as best as we could and went on with life.

Meanwhile, throughout the first eight months or so, our families and friends sent us a large volume of boxes full of goodies as well as random junk. Not quite sure what to do with all this stuff, we stashed it under the bed, promising to "go through it later". Little did we know that we were inadvertently feeding a Monster.

Christmas came and went. Birthdays came and went. The monster under our bed started creeping out and even sprouted a couple of clones in the corner and the closet. We got cats, who spent many delightful hours romping under the bed, pulling things out of boxes and gleefully doing the Monster's bidding.

Finally everything came to a head the other week when I realized that I hated stepping on Christmas ornaments first thing every morning (that's just not quite the way I like to feel the Christmas spirit).

So last week, I just went in and decluttered a corner. Nothing too big. The Monster barely stirred. The next day, I cleaned out my dresser. Again, just a little baby step. The day after that, I sorted through a chest. The past few days, I've been under the bed, just doing one box a day.

Inch by inch, the Monster is shrinking. I have carted out two bags full of trash and a box full of give-away stuff. Sometimes, when I'm going through things, the Monster whispers insidious things in my ear like, "But that was your mom's sweater in high school! Shouldn't you keep it, even though it has a huge tear in the arm?" or, "But you've only had those magazines for a year! Maybe you'll read them next year!" I smile in his direction and chuck the offending item in the trash.

I purposely didn't clean up all the visible mess before starting on the deep-cleaning, because I still need a visual reminder to get some work done, so the bedroom still doesn't look very impressive. I'm still a loooong way off from Martha Stewart clean. However, I have already found many treasures:

• $39 cash
• The tweezers I have been tearing apart the house for
• Nine ponytail elastics (I was down to one)
• This awesome book on homemade stuff (underneath a pile of magazines in a box sent by family)
• Also underneath that pile of magazines, a wedding-gift check for a good sum of money. And it was expired. I wanted to jump in a lake.

So that is what is going on with my bedroom now. I'll keep you posted!

Confessions

Wow! Has it really been three months since I last posted? Sure enough, I have been on Blogger almost daily, reading other blogs and gleaning information and insights into life; but, to be very honest with you, I have not had much material to blog about lately, because...

....My Downright Domestic moments have been few and far between these past few months!

However, that is all changing. Opera is over till January, so there will be no more craziness in that direction for awhile! Also, Adam just turned in his two weeks' notice (school all day + work all night = a questionable academic future), so there won't be any more one-car, schedule-juggling insanity. Of course, on the flip side, this means that I need to somehow squeeze more hours out of my boss, or, preferably, get a better job.

(Honey, you can graduate anytime now!)

Oh yeah, I am SO ready for those days of bon-bons and daytime television. ;-)

Anyways, I have been progressively acting a little more Domestic every week. In a nutshell, I have:

• Baked that infamous artisan bread with great results!
• Decided what I'm making for my womenfolk relatives this Christmas. I'm super excited about this and can't wait to share it with you!
• Accomplished a lot more baking around here-- bringing muffins to work, taking scrumptious pumpkin scones to Sunday School... Adam says I'm already halfway to being a grandma.
• Started tackling the Bedroom Mess Monster. Oh, my word, y'all. I am seeing parts of the bedroom that haven't seen the light of day since we moved in 1 1/2 years ago!
• Last night, I pored over cookbooks and put together a meal plan, in which we eat the same dinner (or loose variation) on the same day of each week (Spaghetti Sunday, Baked Potato Thursday...). This was highly successful in our early marriage, so I'm hoping to be able to implement this again.

So that is what's on my plate right now. I will be keeping this blog updated on all that's going on above, so stay tuned!

Cat's in the Can!

I am convinced that there is such thing as a cat sin nature. I think this because I live with two cats who have their favorite "pet" sins.

Mel loooooves to sharpen his claws... on our nice couch. No other item, not even the entire cushy $5 Goodwill chair that we designated as the Scratching Post, will do. But I can live with that, because it's really easy to catch Mel in the act and bring him to The Chair.

Meatloaf, however, has discovered the bathroom garbage can. Or, to be precise, he has discovered how much fun it is to knock the trash can over and spread the contents out all over the floor! It's hard to catch him in the act because when I finally get to the scene of the crime, Meatloaf is sitting in the bedroom, innocently licking himself.

Ooooooooooooooh!!

Spraying him with a water bottle when I do catch him doesn't seem to be too effective, and the internet is strangely silent about this sort of menace, so I'm going to try the one piece of advice I did find on the web: putting a wet paper towel sprinkled with cayenne pepper in the trash.

Hope this works!

Houseguests: the Final Installment

Well, as of yesterday, our houseguests are finally gone. And it wasn't the best of partings. :-(

Adam beat me back home by five days, since I went to Pennsylvania to be a bridesmaid for one of my best college friends (and it was a beautiful wedding! Pictures to follow!). When I talked to Adam on the phone throughout the week, he informed me that our guests were treating him particularly coldly. They were barely talking to him or even acknowledging that he was there. I thought maybe they felt awkward because I wasn't there (they were more my friends, music department and all), so I decided to wait till I got home to worry about it.

And then I got home.

And then I REALLY worried about it.

In my absence, and in the name of "cleaning", they had: rearranged furniture and cabinets, broken dishes, taken steering wheel covers and decorative features off our car, torn a hole in our nice new couch, filled the linen closet with dirty towels, locked our kitties in the bathroom repeatedly for no good reason, and gave us a record electric bill, among other things. And and AND! They had taken anything they perceived as "junk" from the living areas and just chucked it into our bedroom, so I got to walk into a DISASTER room with a bed when I got home.

In spite of all this, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they had merely been trying to clean our house as a favor, albeit in a foolhardy way, so I let it be.

But.

They were extremely cold to me, as well. Adam and I would walk in the house after work, and they wouldn't even say "hi" to us. They avoided conversation with us, and would huddle somewhere and whisper amongst themselves.

So, seeing that our friendship was rapidly disintegrating and that they were grossly overstepping houseguest boundaries, I finally broke the news to them that they needed to go. They left yesterday with a terse, "Thanks for letting us stay." No hugs. No smiles. No indication that we had a friendship of several years under our belts.

I'm really sad and perplexed. Sad because in saving them from the gutter, I destroyed our friendship. Perplexed, because there is no reason why that should have happened. But, I also feel a calm. I did the right thing by helping out friends in need, and I know that God is watching.

But losing my friends for no reason? That just sucks.

Greetings from New York!

I know that I have been extremely slack lately in my blogging. Aside from all the houseguest craziness at home, I have been preparing an unplanned trip to the East Coast to visit the in-laws! So here I am in New York, hogging their computer. I'm sure they love me even more for that. :-P

(On a side note, I found out that they actually read this blog all the time. Time to start watching my language, LOL).

Yesterday, they sent me to Blockbuster to bring home a couple videos. When I go to a video store to choose movies for a whole group of people, I experience a mind-clouding bout of Movie Choice Anxiety. Is it too girly for the guys? Is it raunchy? Is it stupid? Is it something they've already seen ten billion times??

I came home with Unbreakable and the old The Day the Earth Stood Still, which are both pretty depressing movies. Dang it! Why didn't I just get Pollyanna or something?

Well, I'm going to get off now and talk with the family, eat their food, and maybe watch a depressing movie tonight. Cheers!

Entertaining Angels Unaware

This has been a very unusual week in the Domestic household. Last Wednesday, on the way home from work, Adam got a call from two college friends, asking if they could spend the night at our apartment.

On the way there, I repeatedly thanked God that I'd done a little cleaning that day! However, I soon found out that there was really no need to worry about that.

On the way back home, I learned that their summer was a sad story of broken promises, sickness, and life's curveballs, which had left them basically wandering the streets and sleeping on sidewalks for the past month. They were glad to just have a place to sleep without fear of someone calling the police on them!

We were pretty much the last people they decided to call for help. They had tried everybody else in the city they could possibly think of, and... no one would take them in.

Why? There were several excuses, but the main reason that people turned them down was because one is a guy and the other is a girl.

Evidently, it's easier on a person's conscience to let a couple of friends wander the scorching streets and go for days without food than to look after their well-being in a potentially compromising situation.

Frankly, I was appalled, yet painfully aware of all the other times I have withheld help from others in much more minor, but still present, need. When Adam and I were talking about this the other day, he reminded me of this Bible passage that I often forget:

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ (Matt. 25;34-40)

So now, a week later, these friends (who are platonic, by the way) are still here with us, because we told them that we want to keep them until they find another place to stay. They have one lead and are waiting to see if that will work out, but until then, it's the four of us and two cats in our little apartment!

Since Adam and I are poor college folks ourselves, I'm trying to figure out a way to feed two additional people without breaking the bank. Any ideas?

I Made Some Really Great Muffins Today!

Here is the recipe:

Whole Wheat Breakfast Muffins

I tweaked the recipe a little. I replaced half the oil with applesauce, added a little extra baking soda, and grated a carrot into the batter for extra nutrients (shhh, don't tell Adam!). The batter looked a little dry, so I also added a splash of milk.

They were very moist and tasty! I should have disregarded the instructions to add the ingredients in the precise order listed, because what I ended up with was soggy brown sugar at the bottom of the bowl that didn't readily mix in with the rest of the ingredients. Next time, I'll mix up all the wet ingredients together, add the brown sugar, and then add the dry ingredients.

Do you have any good muffin recipes to share?

A Day for All Chores

I realized that I haven't really been talking much about what's actually going on in the Downright Domestic household, which is a shame, because that's definitely one big reason why I read other blogs! I enjoy witnessing the vicissitudes in other people's lives. It's kind of like a TV show in real life: Did So-and-So have a great vacation? Did XYZ ever solve that gardening problem? Tune in next time to find out!

Yeah, you can tell that I don't watch much TV. Am I the only one that feels this way about the bloggy world?

So the past few weeks, I've been working at a newly-opened grocery store. It seems that there's something wrong with an entity called The Economy, so people aren't as willing to hire new graduates. So I'm doing the whole minimum-wage job thing. However, there is a definite perk to this job.

My husband is also working there!

If I'm going to spend one third of my day not sitting in front of the TV eating bonbons, I might as well spend it with the one I love, right?

I like to imagine that it's similar to the Olden Days, when the wife would go out in the fields and work side-by-side with her husband. Only now we're shaving deli meat together, ha ha. Nothing says romance like making large vats of potato salad with your husband, right? But we seriously are enjoying working together, and I think it's doing our coworkers some good to see a healthy marriage lived out.

We got Sunday and Monday off this week, so now I'm gearing up to do all sorts of fun stuff like cleaning, banking, and... grocery shopping. At our place of employment, nonetheless! They just can't keep me away!

P.S. Does the font on my blog appear smaller than usual? I was playing around with the HTML earlier, but I can't tell if I messed up the blog itself or just our web browser.

Wedding Registry Tips

This year, it seems, all of my friends decided to tie the knot.

Subsequently, I have waded through more than my share of wedding registries, trying to find that perfect gift for them. Some things on the registry made me shout out, "Amen, sister! Good choice!" and others left me chuckling. Seriously, a coaster holder? A banana hook? Blue jeans?

Eventually, I started thinking about my own registry. Having been married for a little over one year, I am now an expert at marriage (ha ha) and can maybe help brides-to-be with what worked for me in my registry.

What turned out to be the THE BEST ITEMS:

Heavy-duty metal measuring cups

• They won't get dents or melt in spots, ensuring accurate measurements every time. Not to mention, they're heat-proof! I once accidentally left a burner on and started a fire with a bunch of metal utensils and a plastic measuring cup. Guess which one bit the dust. Also, I like to occasionally make mini-pies in the metal cups and stick them right in the oven. Try that with your plastic cups! (no, really, please don't)

Knife Block:

• A great way to get all the knives you'll ever need-- and an easy place to store them! Be sure to request a block with knives that you'll actually use. I knew I would need a chef's knife, a bread knife, a paring knife, and some steak knives, so that's what I looked for. A boning knife or an oyster knife, not so much.

Pyrex Dishes

• Mixing bowls, baking dishes, measuring cups: they are all indispensable in my daily kitchen. They are oven-, microwave-, and dishwasher-safe, and they're very hard to break. Believe me, I break things all the time. :-p A huge plus is that they now come with lids!

Something for Hubby

• My husband, who loves quesadillas, was absolutely enthralled with a contraption called a Quesadilla Maker. So, being the nice fiancee that I was, I added it to the registry. Personally, I think it's a waste of cupboard space, plastic, and Chinese labor. But when I see the glow on Adam's face and the chorus of singing angels that fly around his head when he makes quesadillas on that thing, I know that it was a good idea.

What turned out to be a BAD IDEA:

-Kitchen-Aid Mixer

• Hear me out on this. I LOVE Kitchen-Aid. I drool every time I see one in the store. It is awesome. So I asked for it. For some odd reason, however, no one wanted to shell out $300 for a wedding present! What I should have done was ask for a more modest mixer, waited several years, and then twisted Adam's arm on my birthday. :-P But as it is, I ended up having to buy a mixer I could afford... which has one speed and leaves lovely metal shavings in my cookies.

Wine Glasses and the like

• In the spirit of putting enough items on the registry, I asked for all sorts of wine glasses, goblets, snifters... you name it. This may be a good idea if you are a great wine connoisseur or entertain a lot, but as a near-teetotaler who was attending a university with a stiff no-alcohol policy, I wasn't thinking. After the wedding, I set up house with 956878 wine glasses and ZERO real glasses I'd actually use every day.

Incompatible cookware

• Another classic case of Not Thinking. I asked for metal spatulas and stirring utensils to go with my collection of Teflon pans and griddle. I seriously have only one pan I can use those with. After the wedding, I had to go out and buy all silicone/plastic cooking utensils. Did that solve the problem? Mostly. Unfortunately, my dear husband was not as enlightened about not using metal utensils on Teflon. That was a sad day.

Silicone Bakeware

• It is a great idea, unless you're someone like me who hates creating more dirty dishes than necessary. So putting a silicone liner inside a pan I would have used anyways didn't really jive with me after the first few weeks. They now sit on a high shelf and say, "I'M SO LONELY!" every time I open the cupboard.

What I WISH I'd put on the list:

More kitchen utensils

• I forgot to ask for a lot of utensils that I'd need: pizza cutter, ice cream scoop, vegetable peeler, meat thermometer. And a good rule of thumb: you can NEVER have too many scrapers/spatulas, whisks, or wooden spoons.

Rugs

• Nothing says, "home" like bathroom rugs, kitchen rugs, and welcome mats! And nothing hides carpet stains better!

Sheets

• This was a major fail. There is nothing like setting up the bed after a long day of moving and discovering that you don't own a single pair of sheets. And those things are expensive! We went through our first year with one set of sheets, no joke. Wash, dry, and remake the sheets in the same day. Last month, I thought it'd be appropriate to get us a second pair of sheets- second year of marriage and all- and there was much rejoicing in the house.

In conclusion

• Research your registries. Registries are awesome, but some are more awesome than others. I have heard rave reviews about some retail store registries and horror stories about others. I will say this: as a gift buyer, Bed, Bath and Beyond has always been an easy place to navigate with reasonable prices. I would have liked to have registered there, but my tiny hometown was two hours away from the nearest BBB store. The place I registered offered some nice perks, like 5% back on every registry purchase, in the form of a gift card, but the merchandise was a little too expensive for my liking.

• Ask for high-quality items. Lord knows, if you're young like I am, that you probably won't be able to afford this stuff on your own for a while. And it is truly devastating when a wedding present breaks! So ask for things that will stand the test of time.

• Ask for things that you think you'll actually use. Apartment space is limited, after all. Think about what your mom uses in her kitchen/bathroom/bedroom. Ever hear of the 20:80 rule? It states that people use 20 percent of their kitchen items 80 percent of the time.

• Research your appliances. Consumer Report is great for this sort of thing. You don't want a coffee grinder that never fails to give you an uneven grind (this is the voice of experience speaking) or a vacuum that is notorious for clogging up.

I hope this was a help to somebody out there. Have fun with your registry, and Mazel Tof!

This post is linked to We Are THAT Family, who is hosting Works For Me Wednesday. Check out all the great ideas flying around!

The Church of Google

The past five years in my college town, I've been searching for a home church.

Please don't think that I'm an extremely picky person! I've had two years of carlessness, and then semester-long stays at churches where doctrine was either really weird or not taught at all. And then there was the last five months, where my choices were to either work Sunday mornings or be homeless. :-P

*sigh*

I'm really not that picky. I just a want a place where the Word of God is explained, and I don't feel lost in a crowd of thousands. And, as a musician, it's very important to me that the music is quality.

But where to start in the so-called "Buckle of the Bible Belt"? My city easily has over one thousand churches! It is possible to attend a different church every single week for years!

So Saturday night, I decided to throw fate to the wind. I told Adam, "The first church that comes up when I google '(name of city) church' is where we'll go tomorrow!"

Fortunately, I didn't get anything weird.

And, surprisingly, it wasn't one of the several megachurches in the area (not that I have anything against megachurches. They're just not my thing). I was intrigued. So we went.

Turns out, it was one of the best services I've ever been to in this town! The congregation was sweet, the sermon actually required that I crack my Bible open, and *gasp* they even had a little orchestra!! Be still, my beating heart. We'll be going back!

All the same, it was a little awkward writing on the visitor's card what influenced me to be there: "Google Search".

Kitty Trouble: Part 2, and Other Things

I have been AWOL from cyberspace this week because my laptop decided it would be fun to play dead. I'll go get that fixed sometime, but for now, I'm stuck with snatching time on the "family" computer when DH is otherwise occupied (I just hate asking other people to get off the computer! So I wait. And wait).

I should have known the rest of this week would be weird when I got out of bed and stepped on a kitten's head, which probably ranks in my Top 3 Most Horrifying Experiences. Between wiping up blood and earnestly beseeching God for some divine intervention in the kitty's life, I didn't do too much.

Turns out, after a couple precarious days of listlessness and being fed from an eyedropper (he wasn't eating or drinking anything), he perked up! In fact, I think he's forgiven me, because he's contentedly sleeping on my lap as I type right now.

Or he might be plotting his revenge. You never can tell with cats.

Seven Quick Takes

1. I am staring my third week of unemployment in the face. Ouch. I'm just happy that God is watching out for us, because otherwise, I'd be a ball of nerves! More on job things in a couple takes.

2. After a half-hearted attempt in high school (that ended after failure at turning on the typewriter. A technologist, I am not), I am making myself learn to type correctly, mainly using http://www.freetypinggame.net/. Anything with the word, "game," will usually do the trick. Oh, the joys and woes! The joy of earning 2347894 points in Alien Blast! The woe of the computer numbing my brain with nonexistent word after word (jaka... dfjk... jss;a... klls...), and then taunting me with, "You only type 19 wpm, you loser! HA HA HA HA." Okay, maybe not like that exactly. But that's when I go play Alien Blast again.

3. I have wanted to audition for the city opera chorus for a very long time, but I kept chickening out. In fact, I didn't call last month when they were holding auditions. But, this week, I started feeling convicted about letting my God-given talent go to waste, so on Tuesday, I sent a rather dubious email tasking if they were all full yet. I got a reply in seven minutes that said, "Come and sing tomorrow." Whoa! I'm thinking Someone upstairs was behind this. So I went and auditioned, and the director told me right there that he'd find a spot for me in at least one opera. Woohoo! That's a start! 

4. But, of course, you know what they tell all musicians: "Don't quit your day job!" Of course, the trick is having a day job in the first place! I am currently experiencing much angst (I just love that word) in my job hunt. First off, potential employers who require inquiries by email either a) never reply back-- not even a "Sorry, but you're not the one we're looking for." They just remain stony and silent, or b) they send an automated message directing me to an application site that asks what my SSN is and whether I'm interested in getting educational literature. Shaaady.

5. Also, it's a little frustrating being a recent college graduate, not having had much time in which to cram things that look impressive on a resume. I have the skills to excel in whatever a job can throw at me--- just *standing on a chair and singing musical-style* pleeeeeeeease give me a chaaaaaaaaance! In the meantime, I'm trying to learn new things (such as typing like a human being) and grow as a person so I'll be all ready for that perfect job.

6. The other day, I finally bit the bullet and inventoried the fridge/freezer. Now I'm wondering, why didn't I do this sooner? I actually know what I need to use up soon, and don't even get me started about all the treasures I found hidden in the freezer that I totally forgot were there. We won't have to buy much groceries for a while! Hooray!

7. My trials with the kitties are diminishing. We even named two of them. One is called Minion, because he's kind of evil, or at least as evil as a cute kitten can get. The other, his polar opposite, is named Mel, because he's so mellow. The other two are impossible to distinguish from one another, so we're not even trying to name them.. It's interesting to see how treating some kittens as individuals as opposed to others is really changing how the cats interact with us! Mel and Minion are extremely friendly, while the other two kind of slink away when Adam or I come near. I wonder if this is applicable in any way to humans.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out other people giving their Seven Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

Works for Me Wednesday: Kitty Corners

I don't have any kids yet, but having been a babysitter extraordinaire in high school and the eldest of five siblings, I have had considerable experience in keeping kids occupied! 

What works for me today is a great game that always goes with me to a babysitting job.

This game is bingo with a twist. Players roll two dice, one with an assortment of kitties, and the other with actions. The players put little cardboard mice on any squares with the rolled cat doing the rolled action. When someone gets five in a row, they yell, "Top Cat!" You can read more about it here.

This is a great game for all ages. I have played this with a five-year-olds, my siblings, college roommates, and my husband. Kids especially love this game because a) it's really simple, b) all the cats have their own names, so it's that much more personal ("Let's find Ginger eating her food!"), and c) you get to throw  roll dice!

When I would go back to babysit a family a second time, almost invariably the first question out of the kids' mouths would be, "Did you bring Kitty Korners?" 

For more great ideas, visit www.weareTHATfamily.com!

Cat Attack!

Yesterday, I mentioned an event that pretty much turned the entire Downright Domestic household upside-down.

We began Friday with a trip to the beach with a friend who will be leaving town soon; we ended the day by taking these home:

Please don't tell our landlord.

We were ecstatic because we both love kitties and have been considering getting one for a while. This could be an opportunity for a free kitten! we thought.

Ever hear of Baby Think-It-Over? It is a life-like baby doll with real-life crying intervals and care needs that high schools programs will give to teenagers for a few weeks to convince them that having babies in high school isn't such a good idea.

More than once, I have turned the kitties upside-down and checked for batteries.

They are incredibly cute and fun to play with, but we are realizing quickly that we simply don't have the room for a cat. There isn't any good spot for a litter box or food.

I have boarded up and stuck more towels in nooks and crannies than I can remember (just how did I find out about these secret passages? Guess). Last night, I rounded up all the kitties to put them in the bathroom for the night, as usual. After much time spent fruitlessly searching for one lost kitten, I decided to just leave him out for the night. Maybe then he'd learn his lesson!

I woke up at four this morning to ear-splitting screeching from the kitchen. Where did I find this lost kitty? Inside my closed table-linen drawer. Don't ask me how. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

In spite of all the kitten adventures, Mama cat has proven to be the worst of the bunch. We have been the lucky recipients of a non-stop monologue from the cat. When one of moves to the other room to get away from the noise, she follows us, meowing all the way. We go to sleep listening to her vocalize. Come to think of it, this cat may be a perfect specimen to try this hilarious idea.

So, all in all, I'm having fun with the kitties, but I will be even better when my friend returns in a couple weeks to get his cats back!

Evidently, this whole marriage thing is working out

I am pleased to announce that, as of yesterday, Adam and I have been blissfully married for one whole year!

According to tradition, the one-year anniversary gift is supposed to be paper. This could be a book, a love letter, tickets to something, or whatever else your imagination comes up with. 

Adam told me he was going to buy me a ream of paper. What a romantic! (and a kidder, of course. I hope. For his sake.)

We actually didn't end up giving each other anything because we had an event that disrupted our entire weekend, which I will write about tomorrow. So I'm still open to suggestions as to what to give hubs for our one-year mark!

One fun thing we did was buy the game of Life and play it on a blanket at the park. Adam is awesome because he lets me cheat. I was doomed to go through Life without landing on a single kid space, so he turned a blind eye when I landed on the kid spaces anyway. :-D

So, thank you, Adam, for putting up with me for a whole year! I love you, and am ready to celebrate another hundred anniversaries with you!

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!

As you may have noticed, I have not been blogging for about a month or so. This is how it feels, coming back to the land of the living:

This is also a very close representation of what I go through every morning before I've had my coffee. That being said, I have been reading and somewhat keeping up with my favorite blogs- I just haven't had any creative blogging ideas for a while.

This has been a crazy month! I finally graduated from college a few weeks ago, thank You, Jesus. My parents came down from Washington State, and unfortunately, they were the only ones taking pictures, so it might be a few years before you ever see any graduation photos besides these two:

Yes, I am standing in front of a giant pair of hands. My university is like the Disney World of academia. 

Adam is such a giant compared to my family! I'm thinking my parents agreed to let him marry me because they were afraid he'd beat them up. :-P

Every year, the Music department chooses one instrumentalist and one vocalist from the graduating seniors to do special performances for the hooding ceremony. I was honored to be the chosen vocalist! So on the day of hooding, I got up in front of a packed house in my regalia, and started singing. A few minutes into it, I felt my mortarboard hat s.l.i.p.p.i.n.g. off. And then it just fell off right in the middle of a cadenza! ACK! Everybody laughed, but fortunately, I'm very experienced at humiliating myself in public, so I was unruffled. That's one hooding nobody will ever forget!

Tomorrow will be one week since my last day at the Mexican restaurant. I'd been feeling impressed by God for a while to give my two-week's notice, and one day I finally stopped saying, "God, are You CRAZY?" and handed in the notice. So now, both Adam and I are job-hunting. It's kind of an uncertain time for us, but I'm trusting that God is not playing some sort of April Fool's joke on us, and that He'll provide for us what we need.

Wax Removal

Aaaaaaaaand I'm back from a nearly three-week hiatus! I haven't been home enough lately to be Downright Domestic, because I'm pretty sure my manager at work is trying to kill me. Lol. According to my little Sitemeter, however, nobody's been by here anyway, so everything's good. ;-)

One homey thing I did do the other day was remove wax from a doily. Apparently, my husband is so fascinated by watching wax melt that he will let it flow freely over any doilies in its path. *smacks forehead* After picking at it, freezing it, and searching the internet in vain for solutions (for some reason, removing wax from doilies is not a hot topic!), I threw the doily in a pot of boiling water, changing the water from time to time. Eventually, the wax melted off! Hooray! All in a day's work!

On a side note, does anybody know how to remove wax from a pan? :-D

My Favorite Things: Crocs

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and I've decided to finally take the plunge. Every Thursday, I will write a post dedicated to a product that I find to be fabulous, inexpensive, cute, or a help to the Downright Domestic way. Since my name is Maria, and everybody is always singing the Sound of Music at me, why not title this little series, "My Favorite Things"?

So for my first installment, I will bypass the talk about raindrops on roses and whiskers on

 kittens and tell you about one product my feet just love:

Wait wait wait! Don't close the browser on me yet!

Crocs have evolved way beyond those first ugly ones with holes in the top that look like garden shoes. Now, they have products like this:

And this:

But it's not the looks that make me love Crocs. It is their wonderful comfort. These shoes are so light, it feels like you're not wearing anything at all. The shoes are sized slightly bigger on purpose, so that your feet have room to expand-- no pinched toes here! They have little massage nubs on the soles that feel great when you first put them on, but don't irritate you after ten minutes (like some athletic sandals I've tried).

When I first got my waitressing job, it took me about three weeks of achy feet to break down and buy a pair of Crocs specially designed for restaurant work. It was a good investment! Not only do my feet feel better at the end of a long shift, but I'm not slip-sliding over greasy, wet floors, either, like my tennis shoes do.

They last a long time, too! I wore my first pair nearly every day for a year before they gave out on me (I wore a hole clear through the sole! LOL). And when it's time for them to go to Shoe Heaven, you can just drop them off at designated retailers, and the Crocs company will recycle them and give them to impoverished people around the world!

So, are you convinced to go buy yourself a pair sometime? Well, you're in luck, because you actually have an opportunity to get them for free! Simplemom.net is hosting a $50 Crocs giveaway here. The giveaway ends Friday the 10th at midnight, so make sure to get over there soon!

Works For Me Wednesday: Microwave Mug Brownies

Some days, my sweet tooth slaps me in the face and demands to be fed right now. If you're like me, though, you really don't want to make a whole batch of cookies or an entire pan of brownies. Because... well... this happens.

  

Gotta keep that girlish figure, right? ;-)

Allow me to introduce you to a dessert that will revolutionize those sweet cravings! Reader, meet Microwave Mug Brownies. Microwave Mug Brownies, meet Reader. All right, now that we've got introductions out of the way, you're ready for the recipe!

1/4 cup flour

2 Tbsp. sugar*

2 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1 Tbsp. canola oil

2 Tbsp. water (or more, if it's too dry)

Mix all ingredients together in a microwave-safe mug. Try not to eat all the batter before it makes it to the microwave! Nuke for 1-3 minutes (depending on how fudgy you want your brownie). 

*The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of sugar, but even I can't voluntary eat that much in one sitting. It seems to be fine with half the sugar.

You can also add chocolate chips for extra chocolatey goodness.

Last time, in a half-hearted effort to redeem this nutritionless dessert, I used half whole wheat flour. My husband actually liked it better that way! Feel free to experiment with the recipe.

Eating a rich dessert with controlled portions Works for Me! Check out all the other great tips at We Are THAT Family!

Works For Me Wednesday: Reusing Plastic Bags

Welcome to my blog! Today is Works for Me Wednesday: Backwards Edition (hosted by We Are THAT Family), so I will ask you all for solutions to a quandary of mine. MWUAHAHAHA...

I have a confession to make: I have about a million plastic grocery bags stashed in a closet. The past month or so, I have been taking my own reusable bags to the store, so I've slowed down the rate at which those things are reproducing, but I still have a good amount of them!

I hate to throw them away since they can be reused; I'd like to know the clever ways you all have used plastic bags. 

So far, this is what I use them for:

• Trash can liners
• Packing material (instead of foam peanuts or newspaper)
• Wet swimsuit/dirty laundry bag when away from home

What else can I do to use up my army of plastic bags??

Recital Time!

Tonight is my big Senior Recital--- the one thing standing between me and graduation! I am super excited to put on a frilly dress, do my hair, and sing in front of a crowd! I'll let you know how it goes!

Cleaning with FlyLady

One thing that has been so helpful to me lately is FlyLady's website. You would think that a 700-square foot apartment wouldn't even have room to get messy, right? Then you've never lived with me or my hubby, both of whom are Messy People! 

I had been living under the false notion that it was pretty much impossible to work nearly-full-time and be a housekeeper, as well. And I'm not going to lie, even with FlyLady, it's still difficult! If you have any spare maids, send them my way! ;-) However, what I love about FlyLady is that it makes housework manageable and seeks to make my house cleaner through little changes in habits! Now that's what I'm talking about!

Some of her advice I don't follow. I just... can't... wear shoes... in the house! Some of her advice made me think, "Are you for real???" but when I followed it, it made things so much better! One thing I'm thinking about in particular is shining the kitchen sink. It sounds kind of harebrained, but I've noticed that I really can't shine the sink without also washing the dishes and clearing the counters. This all takes me 5-10 minutes every night. Voila, instant clean kitchen!

The thing I like the best about this method is that it's extremely low-pressure. FlyLady says (to loosely quote her), "The house did not get messy overnight, so don't try to get it clean overnight!" How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! How do you clean the house? One little task at a time!

I'm very interested in hearing from anybody else who uses the FlyLady approach to housekeeping. I've only been doing this for a couple weeks, and have had success so far, but I'd like to know what people a few months into "FlyLady"-ing have to say.

Works For Me Wednesday: One Old Banana

It has happened to everybody: you come home from the store with a beautiful, slightly green bunch of bananas. One by one, they are eaten, until you have forgotten all about that bunch you brought home. A couple weeks later, you find one pitiful banana languishing in the bottom of the fruit basket, sporting an unpleasant brown-and-black coat.

(Now THAT is one bad banana!)

"Aha!" You say. "This looks like the perfect opportunity to make banana bread!" Unfortunately, every recipe seems to call for at least two bananas. If only your unfortunate fruit had a friend!

Here is where you take that one banana... and put it in a batch of pancakes! Maybe add some chopped walnuts, or some chocolate chips, if you really want a balanced breakfast :-D (wait-- what? Chocolate isn't a food group??). This instantly jazzes up your breakfast and becomes something that you'd pay six bucks to eat at IHOP. Works for me!

Check out all the other great ideas at We Are THAT Family!

Back I Am, Sam I Am!

I just loved Green Eggs and Ham when I was little. But I digress!

This week is Spring Break. I took off work, Adam did some planning, and we drove down to Dallas and spent a few days there! It was especially enjoyable because we finally got to go together! Travel costs are expensive (can I get a witness?), so when there are weddings, school trips, and the like, usually one of us goes and leaves the other behind. How sad! So we definitely appreciated this trip!

On a side note, Enterprise Car Rental is now our favorite car rental company. Have you ever seen all the restrictions and sky-high fees imposed by rental companies for drivers under twenty-five? (which both of us happen to be) It's always so frustrating to have a squeaky-clean driving record, and yet not be able to rent because I'm not thirty-six months older! Enterprise, however, was very reasonable with a friendly staff and good rates. We'll definitely be there next time we rent!

We ended up going to Six Flags theme park, touring Dallas, going to a museum, and hanging out with my former roommate (at whose house we stayed). I'll post pictures soon, but right now, I want to go to bed!

On another unrelated note, there seems to be a huge Blog Party going on, and it looks like fun! Maybe tomorrow, I'll pull something together and join the melee!

Chemistry Lab!

Tuesday Night was Chemistry, and I actually took pictures! Behold, the fun...


The experiment was about separating the caffeine from Mountain Dew syrup. Ohhhhh, yes, there is lots to be found. Here I am with my friend Ruth, who ended up being our partner for the evening.



Adam, looking very scientific.



He was the self-appointed pincers handler. He really loved it...



...maybe a little too much.



Naw, he really loves me! Even when I'm wearing dorky lab glasses!



Ruth recording data and trying to not get sucked up into our silliness.



Evaporating the Mountain Dew...




For some reason, I always feel like I'm in the kitchen. I just can't quite put my finger on it...



Writing up a lab report so we can go home!


Our textbook is really horrible (mixing bad theology with science), and the writing it assigns is equally horrible, so Adam and I don't really take it seriously. In fact, I think our lab report ended with, "And they all lived happily ever after." Every week, when we come into class and the professor gives us a weird look, I have to remember what on earth we wrote last week. :-)

There you have it! Proof of our misadventures!

Works For Me Wednesday: Tortilla Snack

 I learned about this hearty snack at Backpacking class (I know, that is pretty much one of the most far-out classes offered at my school!). It worked really well for me when I was on a three-day backpacking trip, as well as now, whenever the hungries strike! This is a poor man's Power Bar, if you will.

What you need:

1 tortilla

Peanut Butter

Honey

Uncooked oatmeal

Smear peanut butter on the tortilla. Add honey. Sprinkle with a liberal amount of uncooked oatmeal. Roll up and enjoy!

You could probably add raisins, coconut, nuts, or whatever tickles your fancy. Personally, I find the original combination so good, I actually haven't experimented yet. Best of all, this is the only snack I can think of that actually satiates my appetite and doesn't leave me rummaging through the pantry again in ten minutes! Works for me!

P.S. For a really good homemade whole wheat tortilla recipe, look here. I substitute canola oil for the olive oil, because olive oil is too pungent for tortillas, in my humble opinion. :-) And I've found that cooking on an electric griddle works the best.

You can find other great tips at We Are THAT Family!

Thank God It's... Tuesday?

Tuesday starts my "weekend", since my real weekends are spent serving people burritos. Today, I am thinking about rollerblading because the weather is glorious and I feel like a quick trip to the hospital! Just kidding about the hospital part-- but if you ever saw me rollerblading, you'd know why I say that.

In October, I planted a few daffodil and tulip bulbs and hoped for the best. So far, about three daffodils have bloomed, and it looks like one tulip will make an appearance in a few days. Unfortunately, these are the sole survivors of an apartment maintenance man's Weed Whacker holocaust. Boo!

Spring has sprung! Trees are blooming, the weather is warming up, and I now have to start worrying about what my toenails look like. Spring Break is next week, so Adam and I are trying to figure out what to do that week. Right now, we're thinking about hopping on a bus and visiting Six Flags over Texas, if we can figure out accommodations! I am really excited about that idea because I've only ridden on the same three roller coasters my entire life! 

Works for Me Wednesday: Jewelry Organization

Since I've participated in WFMW only once before, I'm going to go ahead and write a new post about what I think is the best household solution I've ever come up with!

I am a gal who loves her necklaces.

I am surrounded by people who love to give me necklaces.

Over the course of a lifetime, little jewelry boxes ceased to work for holding all my bling. Even those large stand-up jewelry chests, as beautiful as they are, left much to be desired, since I own more than ten necklaces, and several are too long to fit on the necklace racks. (not to mention, the price of one of those things!)

BUT!

Take some of these...

And one of these...

And voila! Easy, organized necklace storage that is out of reach of little hands! 

You could use a really decorative bulletin board, too! I used to have a purple/orange/green flower foam board... that my newlywed hubby absolutely refused to hang in our room. So I just kind of hide this one behind the door area.

That Works for Me! Be sure to check out all the other great ideas at We Are THAT Family!

Vive la France!

I am so excited, y'all. I am actually making concrete plans to fulfill one dream I have had for nearly a decade: to visit France! The costs have always been high enough that I would go to Travelocity and play around with itineraries for France, but never actually do anything serious about it. A girl can dream, right?

However, last night was slow at the restaurant, and I was bored... so I decided to rope my two younger sisters into going with me. :-P Adam's not a big France fan, so he's perfectly content to stay at home and let us girls wreak havoc in Europe. We always talked about going to France together when we were kids, and after a couple phone calls last night, I found out they're still game!

I love my sisters. Always so willing to make sure I'm not the only one being ridiculous.

(Wow, we all look so young! This was taken nearly five years ago, when we were all >18 years old!)

May 2010. We are going to France. 

Dreams

Today, I sang for a special little concert that the university music department was putting on for an accreditation committee. I also played violin for an original composition by one of the composition majors. That was really funny, because there was a flute player onstage, a clarinet player playing from backstage, and me, playing from the back of the auditorium. Don't you just love twentieth century stuff.

I love performing so much! I really look forward to the day when I can do what I was born to do (and no, it's not waiting tables!).

Adam hasn't been feeling well today, and when I came back home, he was still in bed. And I unwittingly woke him up from the most amazing dream. He dreamt that he somehow won $500 million dollars. He then decided that we'd live like we were making only 50k a year (funny how this is pretty much exactly what he'd do in real life), and he wanted to get a new, but used, car, and he wanted me to quit my job and be a stay-at-home wife. 

I was so sad to wake him up from that! I was very tempted to say, "Go back to sleep, and let me dream with you!"

Well, I'm going to go do the laundry, and maybe play the lottery today. ;-)

Fire in the House!

And that is exactly what happened this morning.

Every morning, I boil a kettle of water for my French press coffee, and go take a quick shower or something in the meantime. Today, instead of turning on the burner on which my teakettle rested, I accidentally turned on the burner with plastic dishes on top.

Thank God for fire alarms. 

I rushed out of the bathroom, and Adam jumped out of bed, to find angry, thick, black smoke swirling overhead. We ran into the kitchen to find a huge fire a-blazing on the stove! 

Things from here on are blurry. I remember Adam heroically confronting the fire... by blowing on it. I was a little more concerned about the neighbors forming a mob as the fire alarm pierced the air at nine in the morning, so I grabbed a fan and got it out of the box at superhuman speed. Amazing what adrenaline will do for you!

I also remember Adam dropping to the floor and crawling on all fours over to the front door to open it. Me, being much more practical, took three large leaps to the door and yanked it open, watching a huge puff of smoke billow out. I ran out, hacking and coughing. 

There were several neighbors standing outside, just watching. And then I suddenly hoped I had tied up my bathrobe securely when I threw it on.

After all was said and done, I am now short one cookie sheet, a Pyrex dish, both my spatulas, and a 1/4-cup measuring cup-- the cause of the fire. I hope to have some pictures for you someday.

I had to go to work in an hour, so I jumped in the shower. The ash had migrated into the bathroom. Dear Lord...

AND... I didn't ever get to have my coffee. Talk about adding insult to injury!

I wouldn't mind if this was all that happened. Unfortunately, those of you who have observed plastic burning have also probably noticed the stringy ash it produces. Every single inch of my house is now covered in the stuff. Luckily, the one exception was the bedroom, so I have a nice, soot-free place to go tonight. However, I spent that entire day cleaning the kitchen alone. The soot got into the cupboards, so I've been washing many dishes. 

AND I've been washing them all by hand. Because evidently the only thing that works on this ash is Liquid dish soap!

AND I accidentally broke the French press while I was cleaning. This was clearly NOT my day! Either that, or God is going to great lengths to break me of my coffee habit.

So now, I will always look twice before turning on a burner!

WFMW-- Handy Recipe Helper

Graciously hosted by Rocks In My Dryer.

Ahhh, sticky tack. Its uses have matured with me. That wonderful substance reminds me of Sunday School giving charts (why was the fifth-grade class "thermometer" always higher than my class-- except for when I was actually in fifth grade myself? Hmph), and later on held any thing I ever hung on my dorm wall in college.





Come to find out, it has also become very handy in my post-dorm days: namely, for keeping the recipe I'm currently working on from getting covered in oil, obscured by a flour bag, or just getting lost. Any cupboard will do!




Works for Me! (and for my recipes, too)