Friday, August 28, 2009

Play dough

Did you know you can make play dough? Well you can and it is super easy. It is also edible. Probably not very tasty, but definitely not bad or poisonous.






Andrea was over that day, as well, and helped me sculpture.
Although I absolutely hate mice, I thought this one looked pretty good. Andrea has a pretty good looking Ostrich as well.






Thursday, August 27, 2009

Green beans and kitty cats

Michael has this infatuation with cats. He hears their meow and turns his ear towards them. He has started to chase them towards the road, kind of scary but I thought this picture was cute.

Here is Andrea again, helping us snip green beans. We had so many to do. We watched at least 3 movies as 3-5 of us snipped beans. We got quite a few quarts as well.














Raspberries and Jam!

We picked some raspberries from our patch and a friend of ours, just up the road. We decided the best thing to do was to make jam! Freezer jam at that! Hmm, hmm, good. Andrea is the girl you see in the picture, she is in our primary class and our neighbor and I watched her for two weeks before school started.









Saturday, August 8, 2009

Did you know that you can can butter?

Yep its true! Just watch for a good sale on butter and purchase a bunch, $1.50 or less for one pound is a good deal here. Then just gather up some pint jars and never been used lids. Put the lids in boiling water so they will seal after placed on the bottle. Here is my little operation set up on our oven.


Make sure you sterilize your jars in the dishwasher, or if you are so fortunate enough to do your dishes by hand, then sterilize them in the oven. I looked up sterilization methods on the internet. My instructions said to leave the jars in the oven at 225 for 20 minutes, and then until you are ready to grab them. Make sure the jar is hot because it will shatter if you pour boiling butter into the cold jar.


Bring your butter, I typically had two pounds of in at one time, to a boil then turn down and simmer for at least five minutes. Simmering it means you won't have to shake it as often as it is settling.





Here is the rest of my setup. Rings, hot pads, recipe book to give me the play by play, and a rag to keep the butter from spilling all over the table. When you fill your hot jars don't fill them all the way, you need space to shake.



See how the butter separates as it sits? You should hear a ping of the seal, informing you that the jars are sealed! After the jars are cool enough to touch, shake them four shakes. Then wait another 15 minutes and shake four times again.



This is the time you place it in the fridge. However, you have to watch it and shake it every five minutes so that they don't settle separated. You want your final product to look the jars on the right. After they have "settled" into their mixed form, leave them for an hour in the fridge.


Then you can make shapes that tell your husband or helper where the jars go. (In our case, down the stairs to the storage room) :)
They have a shelf life of one year.






I am working on some pillowcases for our living room that I can't wait to post, so until next time!

domesticj

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Duct tape and Vinegar

I have some good news! And no I didn't save a bunch of money by switching to Geico, but I have some home remedies for you to try next time you are in a pickle. In addition to using duct tape for prom dresses (isn't that dress amazing!), babysitting, good old fashion taping things together and any other sort of thing you might use it for, you can use it to pull slivers out of your flesh. Josh went tubing down the canal last week and got a whole bunch of fiberglass slivers from old duct tape, used to patch a hole, and it was just eating up his arms. Being the "domestic" one that I am, I suggested putting tape on his arm and seeing if it would catch the slivers enough to pull them out. Believe it or not, he called me crazy, but believe it again if only a few minutes later he was on the bed putting duct tape on his arms and asking me to rip it off. Any chance I get to do something like that, I take advantage of. :) Low and behold, it worked! He instantly felt relief and the rash and slivers were gonzo!

Another remedy, especially for you white skin folk is to apply white vinegar to your sunburn. Sure it may stink for a while, but it won't stink as bad when you are peeling and dying of pain! I am a very sun sensitive person, so I take sunscreen and Aloe Vera
very seriously. When mom told me about this, I knew I had nothing to lose. It works for me! As I was searching for this Vinegar picture I ran into a blog that talked about using vinegar to clean things. Check it out! www.vinegartips.com/cleaning

Until next time!

domesticj