Comfort Food

I have been kicking around ideas of different ways to make quick things for my little girl where I can control the ingredients and came up with a pretty tasty breakfast treat.

Ingredients:

Package of Grands! Biscuits

Apple pie filling – no high fructose corn syrup

Vanilla frosting

Directions:

Shape the biscuit into a bowl, fill with filling, bake according to directions on biscuit package. Heat up frosting in microwave and when biscuits have cooled slightly, lightly drizzle with frosting. I also think that putting some cream cheese in the biscuit before the fruit would be tasty as well.

A PRAYER FOR AN ANGEL: PLEASE READ AND HELP!!

A PRAYER FOR AN ANGEL: PLEASE READ AND HELP!!: PLEASE READ HER STORY AND LET HER KNOW SHE HAS YOUR SUPPORT!! What can you say about one of the most warm, caring, insightful person yo...

This is my daughter's daycare lady. She has cared for her since she was 7 months old. This news has been truly devastating for her family including her daycare family. Being that she is a daycare provider she does not have the health insurance that other jobs might provide and she is now finding herself in financial straights. I wish I could help more but my one hope is that by reading this others will find it in themselves to donate and share the story of this wonderful person.

Thank you.

It’s Hot Outside! Let’s think of others!

So, with the heat being extra stifling I have been looking for things to do that don’t require me to be outside much. My suggestion to all who are looking for something to do is to create a care package. Now, I have a nephew who is currently a cadet at West Point so that is where I will be sending my care package but, there is a great website: http://www.anysoldier.com/ where you can send letters and care packages to soldiers oversees who are in designated harms way areas. You need to check the lists and you have to direct to a specific individual but they are usually part of a whole unit that you would be sending to.

Back during the Kuwait war I connected with a soldier who was stationed in Kuwait and enjoyed being able to send him cookies and other mementos from the states that let him know that he was appreciated and was being thought of. There is no more dangerous job than that of a soldier in an area of conflict and none more deserving of our praise and thanks then those soldiers.

From the website I found that a cool things to send soldiers in an area of conflict is… wait for it…. BEANIE BABIES! Now, I was never a collector of Beanie Babies, but what a great way to slim down a collection than to send them to a soldier in a care package. It is easy for them to carry and they can pay it forward by giving them to the children in the area! Other items that are frequently listed are:

1. Baby Wipes
2. Single packs of individual drink mixes (w/electrolytes)
3. Snack bars (100 cal snacks)
4. Ibuprofen
5. Loofa sponges
6. Odor eater balls for boots
7. Allergy medication
8. Gum in the punch out packs
9. DVDs and CDs (these are highly stolen items and need to be marked with www.anysoldier.com on the sleeve and the disc).
10. Socks
11. Razors
12. Soups

What better way to spend a hot summer day than by putting together a care package to benefit a group of soldiers. It makes me feel good just to write about it.

Time on My Hands

I have had so many thoughts about what I could do with my town home to make it a better livable space and I have acted on some of them. Townhouses are notorious for their lack of storage. Since mine is built on a cement pad there is no basement. My biggest challenge has been the one main closet downstairs.

To be truthful, it is not by any standards an adequate closet. One might go so far as to call it a hole under the stairs. It was fitted with a folding door, a rod for hanging things and a small shelf above the rod which was practically useless due to the angle of the steps.

Along with the inadequacies of the closet was the problem that the kitchen was sorely lacking in storage space. I have always liked the idea of a pantry but there really wasn't anyplace to put one so instead I re-purposed the sad excuse of a closet. I took out the hanging rod and installed adjustable wire shelves. To make up for the loss of coat hanging space I attached hooks to the opposite side. This made the closet more useable and allowed for the use of space further back in the closet. There is still a large triangle of space that is unused or basically just junk space for which I have additional plans.

Now, to make up for my lack of a good closet I decided that the garage needed a make over. I had a two foot shelf installed from the supporting beam to the kitchen door and had a 5 foot closet built to the left of the kitchen door.

Along with a hanging rod in the closet, there is a shelf above which is perfect for baskets for mittens, gloves, umbrellas and space for shoes in a basket on the floor. I also had a shelving unit installed to the other side of the kitchen door and I am currently using it for my larger kitchen appliances.

There is a bin for plastic bags to recycle and space below for a garbage can and paper bags. I keep my re-useable grocery bags in the basket on the side of the case. On the 2 foot shelf I store my holiday decorations (those not affected by cold), clothes that my daughter is not yet big enough for, spare blankets, camping equipment, coolers, and a tv/dvd that I use when working out on the elliptical machine. I just recently completed the work area in the garage by installing peg board and shelving and some new hanging pieces.  Having a lot of storage in a garage in a town home is key to making the house work for you.

This is the finished workspace.

 My little girl has shelves at just her height for all her outside toys!

 The old shovel, broom holder has been replaced and additional hangers added.

 The closet is complete and there are shelves above the hose area for pots and potting soil.

 I even included a sign that had belonged to my grandfather when he had a Surge business!

 I am now preparing to finish stripping an old dresser... this is the perfect place to work!

What to do with Receiving Blankets

I love quilts! I have always wanted to make one and started sewing some blocks together to see how it would work. Not so good the first go round. Then I talked with someone who had done a couple of quilts and got a good hint on how to do a first quilt. The secret is to start off with strips of fabric. I started with my niece's blankets that my sister didn't want. I cut them into 5 inch wide strips and sewed them together in groups of 4. After that I cut them across the seam into 5 inch wide strips. I then alternated and sewed the strips together, found a nice complimentary color for the backing and a light weight fill and then tied it.

The result was a blanket that was good size for a crib, but not quite the final product that I wanted. I then started the same process with my daughter's blankets. This time I created 3 X 3 blocks and used a complementary fabric in between the squares and for the backing. I found a fill that was woven like a blanket that would work whether I tied it or not and the final quilt was the perfect size for my little one's full size bed and I had enough scrap left over to make a pillow.

The pillow from the left overs.

 Finished and laid on her bed to check the size.

 Did I mention that she LOVES her quilt!

Thoughts

I was recently speaking to a neighbor and discussing the joys of living in the space crunch of a townhouse when it came to me that it would be good to write about this along with other little ideas that tend to come to me about living and how to make a space a home.

The hardest part about our current economic situation is that we are now having to change how we live, whether it is about cutting back on spending, having to live in a smaller house or townhouse, changing to an apartment or changing the way we travel. Life brings us obstacles and the trick is figuring out how to surmount them.

My focus has been taking a townhouse, that used to belong to my sister, and making it feel like a home for me and my little girl. The challenges are many. There is little storage, no basement and only one full bath (there is a half bath off the kitchen). While I was taking to my neighbor, I was telling her about the things I had done in my townhouse and she thought these ideas were so interesting that she wanted to adapt them to hers as well... so this is what this blog is about. Ideas that I have and general thoughts.