So, if you're looking for a quick, fun lunch...try these...I think you'll be pleased.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Quick Pizza Lunch
My kids loves these things. As bagels, I don't think they're very good, but as a quick pizza lunch, they are perfect.
Why? Because most bagels and English muffins have too much bread (for my tastes) for individual pizza. These bagel thins solve that problem. Using these little babies, you can make pizzas in about 5 minutes. Six little individual pizzas, personalized to each person's tastes...all at the same time, all for lunch.
Here is the thing, I think the Bagel Thins are too expensive for what they are unless you get them at Costco (or some other discount place). With the warehouse price, we got three packs for $5. (I think each pack has 8 bagel thins, but don't hold me to that.)
So, if you're looking for a quick, fun lunch...try these...I think you'll be pleased.
So, if you're looking for a quick, fun lunch...try these...I think you'll be pleased.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Glove Compartment
A few months ago, my friend Mrs. M raided our local Habit for Humanity store and picked up some terrific cabinet fronts for a few dollars each. Her plan, originally, was for a bunch of signs made from her Cricut. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with any inspirational sayings and went home without a sign. A few days later I was struck with inspiration. Called Mrs. M and said please, oh please, may I please have that long, skinny brown front. She said sure. (Unfortunately, it took me two months to finally get my little project done and in use...isn't that how it always is?).
A few cup hooks, some binder clips (my sister sent these adorable things to me...she knows that 12 years after leaving corporate America, I still have a thing for office supplies), and some metal face plates and I have an awesome way to hold our work gloves.
I was going to use vinyl letters or stickers to "write" the names, but instead I just settled for my Sharpie. I can always go back later and refine those if I decide to. (Like if the kids want to see their actual names, rather than their nicknames.)
This gives all of our gloves a home and adds a little charm to the area above the potting bench. All that for $3, including the cabinet front and the cup hooks. I'm just so tickled.
A few cup hooks, some binder clips (my sister sent these adorable things to me...she knows that 12 years after leaving corporate America, I still have a thing for office supplies), and some metal face plates and I have an awesome way to hold our work gloves.
I was going to use vinyl letters or stickers to "write" the names, but instead I just settled for my Sharpie. I can always go back later and refine those if I decide to. (Like if the kids want to see their actual names, rather than their nicknames.)
This gives all of our gloves a home and adds a little charm to the area above the potting bench. All that for $3, including the cabinet front and the cup hooks. I'm just so tickled.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Food for Thought
The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination. ~Elbert Hubbard
How much beauty would we reveal, I wonder, were we to eliminate the excess in our own lives?
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Do you have one of these? (UPDATED WITH PHOTO)
Fast forward a few months and it was my turn to head over to the neighbors with my contributions to the meal. She was making stew, so I thought the rolls would be perfect. Again, they were amazing and easy. They were good enough, in fact, that I think you should make them yourself.
Plain Dinner Rolls - Cloverleaf Rolls
From Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook
Makes about 24
Ingredients
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (1 pkg)
1/4 cup water, warm (110 degrees F)
1 cup milk, scalded
1/4 cup sugar*
1/4 cup shortening*
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted
Instructions:
Activate yeast in water. Set aside
Combine milk, sugar, shortening, and salt; cool to lukewarm.
Add 1 cup flour to milk mixture, beat well. Beat in softened yeast and egg. Gradually add remaining flour to form soft dough, beat well.
Cover and let rise in warm place until it doubles in size; about 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease standard muffin tin. Turn out dough on lightly floured surface and shape dough into small balls (about an 1" in diameter). Three should half-fill a muffin cup. Melt butter and put a teaspoon of butter on each muffin. Let double in tin and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
Notes: Interestingly, my friend's version of this cookbook is the 1953 version, while mine is the 1965 version and some of the recipes have been slightly modified from their original versions.
*The roll recipe in my version uses 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of shortening only as an alternative version of the recipe for richer rolls and actually calls for 2 tablespoons of each. (Trust me, you'll prefer the 1/4 cup version.)
(UPDATED BY ADDING A PICTURE OF THAT SEEMINGLY UBIQUITOUS COOKBOOK)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Quick Fix for Under $3
My neighbor was getting rid of this antique cabinet and I immediately thought it would work for Buttercup's room. It is a really cute little cabinet and, while it needs some tender loving care, it is shabby chic the way it is now. The piece was obviously some kind of curio cabinet and originally had a glass front which disappeared long before we got it. Since Buttercup doesn't have a dresser, I thought this would work well for her and keep her room from feeling crowded. She loves it and has been using it for two months. Yes, it has taken me this long to put some fabric in it. Better late than never, right?
Life calmed down and it was time to fulfill my pinky promise. So, I headed to Walmart and bought a yard and a half of lightweight cotton fabric. Attached it with a little velcro and, viola, a quick fix for under $3.
Oh, and Buttercup says it is just "perfect". No greater praise than that, right?
Life calmed down and it was time to fulfill my pinky promise. So, I headed to Walmart and bought a yard and a half of lightweight cotton fabric. Attached it with a little velcro and, viola, a quick fix for under $3.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Stuff - Dealing with it All (Part 3)
Okay, so thinking about where an entire society got the habits of collecting stuff was too much fun, but what does it all mean? Honestly. You know as well as I do that you can read book after book about clutter and organizing, clearly understand the situation needs to change, and still be living with the effects of too much stuff.
Just like an overweight person who has read every diet book known to man, but is still overweight.
Knowledge isn't the issue when dealing with too much stuff. While they're fun to see, those before and after transformations that we watched on shows like Clean Sweep, I really don't think that anything truly changes for those people. Why? Because it seems to me that all that work just gave them new space to fill. One or two afternoons of introspection does not create a lifelong behavioral transformation.
So, what is it? Why can't we take what we know and apply to our own lives? In order to solve the problem, we have to look at what the stuff IS and is NOT. Specifically, too much stuff.
Too much Stuff is: Inanimate. Overwhelming. Taking up space in your mind and your home. A source of conflict between who you want to be and how you want to live and who you actually are and how you actually live. A source of guilt, embarrassment, and frustration. Not useful in your life.
Too much Stuff is NOT: Possessing of feelings. Judgmental. The definition of your worth. Proof of love.
But, you know this. None of this earth shattering. None this is a surprise to you. Just like the perpetual dieter, it hasn't changed your reality. Why? What is holding people back from clearing it out? Being done with it all? Living within their spacial, their economic, and their mental means?
I asked around. I talked with friends. I've received all kinds of off-line emails since I started this topic and I think I've figured out a way to quantify it...to put it into terms that are simple enough that we can all start chipping away. No, I don't have a system for you to follow. No, I don't have a 10-step fly-lady type of schedule for you. Instead, I have a new way of telling you what I believe to be the simple key and, if people are interested, some of the things that have worked for me along the way. No miracles. (But, it is easier than dieting!)
So, here it is:
We hold on to stuff that is no longer useful or acquire more stuff than we need because it is our way of insulating or protecting ourselves from perceived possible future emotions. Think about it: possible future emotions.
Let me explain:
My sister, who knows I'm going to use this example and won't kill me for this, has four sets of china. FOUR sets of china for a married couple with a household of exactly two two-legged beings. She has her wedding china, her Christmas china, her mother's china, and her mother's friend's china. She doesn't want four sets of china. She can't use four sets of china and yet, she holds on to all four sets of china. Why? In our discussions, we talk about how much her mother loved her own set of china. How she collected it over 30+ years of marriage. How much my sister doesn't particularly care for the pattern. (Oh, there is nothing wrong with it...it is lovely; she just doesn't care for it.) Let's not even get into the mother's friend's china. So, let's recap: Both women for whom this china was so special have died. The china is a source of duty and guilt for my sister. Why doesn't she get rid of it? Because she's afraid of the disappointment she imagines her mother would have felt at knowing she got rid of the china. So, duty and guilt are warring with perceived future disappointment.
Let's be clear here: My sister's mother has passed away. My half-brothers and their wives don't want the china. There is no one to express this anticipated disappointment and yet it is powerful. Then there is the loyalty the mother and the friend felt for each other and my sister is tackling feelings of disloyalty by not perpetuating that bond between those two women in her own mind.
Let me give you a different example: I wrote about my dilemma with my scrapbooking supplies. It seemed so silly, but I was really agonizing over the disposition of my scrapbooking stuff. So why couldn't I just make a decision about it? Because I was anticipating my own feelings of failure or inadequacy if I failed to follow through with a project I anticipated completely. By holding on to the items, the potential for the paper to be used, the scrapbooks to be completed (or at least show progress) remained. I didn't have to deal with or acknowledge the reality that they weren't getting done and, most likely, wouldn't get done. I was protecting myself from future possible feelings of failure or inadequacy. Let's go further with my example: What if I found time to scrapbook? I might have future need of the stuff! I was protecting myself from the possibility that I would not, in the future, be able to replace the things I got rid of. Again, perceived future emotions are making decisions for me right now.
That is it. That is my miracle epiphany. You are holding on to stuff that no longer "fits" your life or never did "fit" your life as a way to protect yourself from future possible emotions.
Let me give you another example:
I had a friend who asked me to come over to help her organize and rearrange her family room. In her room was a big square wooden cube that was open at one end. It was probably 3' x 3' and beat up but good. I asked her about it, asked if we had to decorate around it. She said absolutely. What? It turned out that the cube was an empty speaker from 1970. Her uncle had given it to her years ago and she just couldn't get rid of it because he gave it to her and he'd be so disappointed in her. He had died 10 years before and had gotten rid of his speakers five years before that, but that had no relevance to her. Here she was, trying to decorate around an empty speaker cube. She was unshakable. I couldn't get her to budge on it.
Holding on to something that someone gave you, especially a hand-me-down, protects you from the feelings that you've somehow been disloyal or unworthy because you didn't want whatever the item was. The thing is NOT the person, but the thing allows you to keep yourself from disappointing someone. Holding on to the item allows you to put off the feelings.
But what about people who just buy too much stuff? People who keep bringing stuff into their homes long after their homes are full? People who are paying money to rent homes for their stuff? What? You don't think of it that way but whether you have rooms full to the brim or you pay for a storage unit, you are paying money to avoid feeling things.
What?! You don't have sentiment attached to all that stuff. No one gave it to you. You just got a good deal or thought you'd do something amazing with it or some other amazingly valid reason it came into your home. Guess what? If you didn't do the project or the good deal didn't match your home or the gift was never given and you still have this stuff, you're protecting yourself from future feelings, too. You are...they're just different feelings.
Remember I said that your stuff did NOT validate you, did NOT define you, and did NOT prove your are loved. Yet, buying stuff can make you feel like you're different than you are...you hold on to the feelings those intentions create. Want to see yourself as creative, generous, wealthy, elite? In our world, it is easy to try to create at facade that would seem to perpetuate those things. So, if you are always buying potential gifts, but don't always get around to giving them away, you can't get rid of the stuff or you'll have to admit you didn't gift those things and you will have to own that. All those craft supplies? If you give them away, you're having to admit you're not as crafty as you'd like to think of yourself as being. Expensive clothes, decor items, electronics? If they don't fit, you can't afford them, or you don't use them, getting rid of them would force you to be honest about yourself and deal with the secret feelings of inadequacy you are running from.
You know it. You know all of it and you don't want to deal with it. So you don't. You put it into some inaccessible areas in your home and your mind. Maybe you just have a couple of "bad" rooms. Maybe it is your deep dark secret and you all storage units full of stuff. You tell yourself it doesn't matter...because you are protecting yourself from future possible emotions.
So, I'll leave you with this: Your stuff doesn't define you. Your stuff doesn't love you. Your stuff doesn't prove you're worthwhile. Your stuff is simply inanimate objects that is designed to provide usefulness and convenience to your life. It is not supposed to be a burden, a duty, or a source of shame or guilt. It has no feelings and is not the repository for your memories...for that, you have a heart.
Think about it.
Just like an overweight person who has read every diet book known to man, but is still overweight.
Knowledge isn't the issue when dealing with too much stuff. While they're fun to see, those before and after transformations that we watched on shows like Clean Sweep, I really don't think that anything truly changes for those people. Why? Because it seems to me that all that work just gave them new space to fill. One or two afternoons of introspection does not create a lifelong behavioral transformation.
So, what is it? Why can't we take what we know and apply to our own lives? In order to solve the problem, we have to look at what the stuff IS and is NOT. Specifically, too much stuff.
Too much Stuff is: Inanimate. Overwhelming. Taking up space in your mind and your home. A source of conflict between who you want to be and how you want to live and who you actually are and how you actually live. A source of guilt, embarrassment, and frustration. Not useful in your life.
Too much Stuff is NOT: Possessing of feelings. Judgmental. The definition of your worth. Proof of love.
But, you know this. None of this earth shattering. None this is a surprise to you. Just like the perpetual dieter, it hasn't changed your reality. Why? What is holding people back from clearing it out? Being done with it all? Living within their spacial, their economic, and their mental means?
I asked around. I talked with friends. I've received all kinds of off-line emails since I started this topic and I think I've figured out a way to quantify it...to put it into terms that are simple enough that we can all start chipping away. No, I don't have a system for you to follow. No, I don't have a 10-step fly-lady type of schedule for you. Instead, I have a new way of telling you what I believe to be the simple key and, if people are interested, some of the things that have worked for me along the way. No miracles. (But, it is easier than dieting!)
So, here it is:
We hold on to stuff that is no longer useful or acquire more stuff than we need because it is our way of insulating or protecting ourselves from perceived possible future emotions. Think about it: possible future emotions.
Let me explain:
My sister, who knows I'm going to use this example and won't kill me for this, has four sets of china. FOUR sets of china for a married couple with a household of exactly two two-legged beings. She has her wedding china, her Christmas china, her mother's china, and her mother's friend's china. She doesn't want four sets of china. She can't use four sets of china and yet, she holds on to all four sets of china. Why? In our discussions, we talk about how much her mother loved her own set of china. How she collected it over 30+ years of marriage. How much my sister doesn't particularly care for the pattern. (Oh, there is nothing wrong with it...it is lovely; she just doesn't care for it.) Let's not even get into the mother's friend's china. So, let's recap: Both women for whom this china was so special have died. The china is a source of duty and guilt for my sister. Why doesn't she get rid of it? Because she's afraid of the disappointment she imagines her mother would have felt at knowing she got rid of the china. So, duty and guilt are warring with perceived future disappointment.
Let's be clear here: My sister's mother has passed away. My half-brothers and their wives don't want the china. There is no one to express this anticipated disappointment and yet it is powerful. Then there is the loyalty the mother and the friend felt for each other and my sister is tackling feelings of disloyalty by not perpetuating that bond between those two women in her own mind.
Let me give you a different example: I wrote about my dilemma with my scrapbooking supplies. It seemed so silly, but I was really agonizing over the disposition of my scrapbooking stuff. So why couldn't I just make a decision about it? Because I was anticipating my own feelings of failure or inadequacy if I failed to follow through with a project I anticipated completely. By holding on to the items, the potential for the paper to be used, the scrapbooks to be completed (or at least show progress) remained. I didn't have to deal with or acknowledge the reality that they weren't getting done and, most likely, wouldn't get done. I was protecting myself from future possible feelings of failure or inadequacy. Let's go further with my example: What if I found time to scrapbook? I might have future need of the stuff! I was protecting myself from the possibility that I would not, in the future, be able to replace the things I got rid of. Again, perceived future emotions are making decisions for me right now.
That is it. That is my miracle epiphany. You are holding on to stuff that no longer "fits" your life or never did "fit" your life as a way to protect yourself from future possible emotions.
Let me give you another example:
I had a friend who asked me to come over to help her organize and rearrange her family room. In her room was a big square wooden cube that was open at one end. It was probably 3' x 3' and beat up but good. I asked her about it, asked if we had to decorate around it. She said absolutely. What? It turned out that the cube was an empty speaker from 1970. Her uncle had given it to her years ago and she just couldn't get rid of it because he gave it to her and he'd be so disappointed in her. He had died 10 years before and had gotten rid of his speakers five years before that, but that had no relevance to her. Here she was, trying to decorate around an empty speaker cube. She was unshakable. I couldn't get her to budge on it.
Holding on to something that someone gave you, especially a hand-me-down, protects you from the feelings that you've somehow been disloyal or unworthy because you didn't want whatever the item was. The thing is NOT the person, but the thing allows you to keep yourself from disappointing someone. Holding on to the item allows you to put off the feelings.
But what about people who just buy too much stuff? People who keep bringing stuff into their homes long after their homes are full? People who are paying money to rent homes for their stuff? What? You don't think of it that way but whether you have rooms full to the brim or you pay for a storage unit, you are paying money to avoid feeling things.
What?! You don't have sentiment attached to all that stuff. No one gave it to you. You just got a good deal or thought you'd do something amazing with it or some other amazingly valid reason it came into your home. Guess what? If you didn't do the project or the good deal didn't match your home or the gift was never given and you still have this stuff, you're protecting yourself from future feelings, too. You are...they're just different feelings.
Remember I said that your stuff did NOT validate you, did NOT define you, and did NOT prove your are loved. Yet, buying stuff can make you feel like you're different than you are...you hold on to the feelings those intentions create. Want to see yourself as creative, generous, wealthy, elite? In our world, it is easy to try to create at facade that would seem to perpetuate those things. So, if you are always buying potential gifts, but don't always get around to giving them away, you can't get rid of the stuff or you'll have to admit you didn't gift those things and you will have to own that. All those craft supplies? If you give them away, you're having to admit you're not as crafty as you'd like to think of yourself as being. Expensive clothes, decor items, electronics? If they don't fit, you can't afford them, or you don't use them, getting rid of them would force you to be honest about yourself and deal with the secret feelings of inadequacy you are running from.
You know it. You know all of it and you don't want to deal with it. So you don't. You put it into some inaccessible areas in your home and your mind. Maybe you just have a couple of "bad" rooms. Maybe it is your deep dark secret and you all storage units full of stuff. You tell yourself it doesn't matter...because you are protecting yourself from future possible emotions.
So, I'll leave you with this: Your stuff doesn't define you. Your stuff doesn't love you. Your stuff doesn't prove you're worthwhile. Your stuff is simply inanimate objects that is designed to provide usefulness and convenience to your life. It is not supposed to be a burden, a duty, or a source of shame or guilt. It has no feelings and is not the repository for your memories...for that, you have a heart.
Think about it.
Seriously? Seriously.
I live in one of the first counties to have banned phosphates in dishwasher detergent. I am also one of the hold-outs who quickly realized that the phosphate-free stuff wasn't going to work in our hard water, so I stocked up on the "good" stuff before the ban went into effect more than a year ago. Unfortunately, my stash has run out and I'm a bit peeved.
Now don't get me wrong. I completely understand the desire to get phosphates out of our waste water, but this is unacceptable.
This is what my glass looked like after going through the dishwasher. (I broke it when I put it into the sink to hand-wash.) So, for all of you who think those of us with hard water are just being babies about this (and there are plenty of them), take a look at this glass. Let's be clear here: This was washed with one of the "new, reformulated to work better in hard water" formulas. Really? Oh, yes. This is much better than the one I tried last year. Still, I'm thinking this isn't going to work for me. (And I didn't even show you the silverware...trust me, you really didn't want to see that.)
What do you think?
Now don't get me wrong. I completely understand the desire to get phosphates out of our waste water, but this is unacceptable.
This is what my glass looked like after going through the dishwasher. (I broke it when I put it into the sink to hand-wash.) So, for all of you who think those of us with hard water are just being babies about this (and there are plenty of them), take a look at this glass. Let's be clear here: This was washed with one of the "new, reformulated to work better in hard water" formulas. Really? Oh, yes. This is much better than the one I tried last year. Still, I'm thinking this isn't going to work for me. (And I didn't even show you the silverware...trust me, you really didn't want to see that.)
What do you think?
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Do you ever wonder how your kids see your family?
I am apparently well-hydrated and egg-shaped...at least according to Buttercup.
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