Kitchen Table
We finally found a kitchen table! There's a secondhand furniture place near our house, and we drove by several times but it was always closed. Well, one day last week it was finally not closed, so we popped in to see what they had. This beautiful table, which can be made smaller by putting the end pieces under the larger center piece, was only $40. There were chairs available for purchase as well, but they didn't really match the table and we didn't have another $40 anyway so we passed on those. However, I have a graphing calculator for sale...
Cast Iron Skillet Cookie Cake
I need this cookie cake like I need a hole in my head. Nevertheless, when I ran across it (thanks to Aparthemt Therapy's The Kitchn) in my google reader feed I decided pretty quickly that we were going to make it anyway. We had almost everything we needed to make this cookie happen, so when we bought groceries the other night we made sure to get the only missing ingredients: chocolate chips and butter. While Ms. Dianne and I were working on the muslin slipcover I posted about recently, Kyle whipped up this cookie cake and...
DIY Muslin Slipcover for a Thrifted Chair
I picked this sweet red velvet chair up at the Salvation Army five or six years ago, while I was still living with my parents. I loved it for its lovely curved back and the millions of buttons. The chair languished upstairs in my old bedroom while I moved from place to place--first I was in a dorm room with no space to spare, and at my next two places I had a huge turquoise sectional that didn't leave room for much else. When my parents offered us their gently-used living room furniture, we gladly accepted it and got rid...
I haven’t fallen into a well.
Nor have I been kidnapped, slipped into a coma, gone on a crazy meth binge, ect. However, we are homeowners now! We've been in our new house just over a week and are working like crazy to get everything unpacked and in order before school starts next week. I'm so sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm trying hard to get back into a normal routine. Once that happens, I'll be back to posting more regularly. We're going to the local farmer's market for the first time tomorrow, I've got tons of plants to get in...
Homemade Fig Newtons
As I mentioned last week, I recently came into possession of a lot of figs. We turned a lot of them in to jam and preserves, but I was still left with at least a gallon of fresh, beautiful figs. They're great to eat whole, but one of my favorite incarnations of figs has always been fig newtons. I made a huge batch of these and within a couple of days they were gone, so I guess I'm not the only one who loves fig newtons! This recipe is definitely going into my recipe book to be made again. For Filling: 5-6...
This week has been full of:
I've had my eye on this spooky-looking plant in my parents' front yard for a while. It finally bloomed! The pear trees out front have been weighed down with these tiny, sweet pears for the last couple of weeks. The limbs were almost at the breaking point when I finally got out there to pick them. Thanks to my Nana and our neighbor, Granny, I've recently come into a lot of apples. There's no way I could eat or bake them all into something, so I decided to can them. Come October when the four of us are 500 miles away...
Projects for Fabric Scraps
Sorry for my prolonged absence and sporadic posting. If it's possible for things to be both dull and hectic then that's what they are--we've got a lot of last minute school/house stuff to deal with, and none of it should really be that taxing, but it's so hot that all I want to do is sleep through the day and watch television all night. Additionally, we're drowning in fresh apples, pears, and figs right now. The last thing I need is sweets (you know, in combination with the sleeping all day and watching television all night), but I can't let all...
Annie Leonard’s The Story of Cosmetics
I absolutely love Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff project. The videos are so informative and easy to understand, despite the fact they deal with pretty controversial and complex issues. Her most recent installment, The Story of Cosmetics, has to be my favorite so far. It's an honest portrayal of the cosmetics industry's lack of regulation and real concern for its consumers. I want hold a mandatory viewing for all the people who have looked at me like I'm paranoid or have too much time on my hands when I've told them I make my...
Chevron Terra Cotta Pot Tutorial
I made these back in May as Mother's Day gifts. True to form, I neglected to take any usable pictures (I did a lot of work on these while watching Dexter and just couldn't take my eyes off of the television long enough). I passed out my Mother's Day gifts and put this project on the back burner until I got the chance to go through all the steps again and take pictures. (Side note: the above picture was taken back in May, while we were still living in our crummy little apartment in Columbus. I know it's only been...
BPA in home canning?
I've been canning a ton of tomatoes and a few jams and jellies with my grandmother this summer. The benefits are many: spending time with my grandmother, learning a skill, and slicing a huge chunk out of my grocery bill--just to name a few. But I hadn't really considered that there could be any negative aspects until I read Grist.org's Ask Umbra on the dangers of BPA in canning lids and canned food. BPA, or Bisphenol A, is a compound found in plastics that's hard to avoid because it's just about everywhere (the Environmental Working Group...
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Now Reading
Planned books:
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Current books:
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Winesburg, Ohio (Bantam Classic) by Sherwood Anderson
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The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Recent books:
- Blood and Milk by Sharon Solwitz
- Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds (Pitt Poetry Series) by Angela Ball
- McGee by Rose Marie Nichols McGee, Maggie Stuckey
- Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy
- Why Did I Ever: A Novel by Mary Robison, Mary Robison
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