Singin' those grocery store blues...

Am I the only one that puts off going grocery shopping as long as absolutely possible?  Today I managed to scour the freezer and pantry and was able to come up with the required ingredients to make Buttermilk Ranch Roasted Chicken with Potatoes and Yellow Squash Casserole.  Very tasty, though probably a salad or green vegetable would have been a healthy addition.

Ah, well.  We had a home-cooked meal; Carey was able to make a couple of plates to take to work with him; and the freezer is now virtually a clean slate, ready to fill after the next torture session shopping trip.  After tonight's dinner, we are down to nuts and fruits in the freezer and protein powder in the pantry.  

I guess I have to go shopping tomorrow.

That is unless someone shares some loaves and fishes with us...or I could talk Carey into fruit smoothies for dinner tomorrow night.  :)

edit:  not five minutes after publishing this post, I received an email containing recipes for "5 Fruity Smoothies."  I think it's a sign!

What I'm reading Wednesday AND tip of the week...

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I've been on the reserve list for this e-book at the library for a long time.  When I received notification that it was finally available, I had just started another book, was about to leave for my quilting retreat, and I had a ton of things to get done around the house, so I was almost entirely through my two week check-out period before I started reading it.  I'm about a third of the way through, and my library loan is about to expire.  Luckily I know a little work around for keeping library e-books past the due date with nary a smidgen of guilt.  

I think I've posted this tip before, but it bears repeating.

I keep my old Kindle e-reader solely to read books on.  I like to read on it because it is much lighter weight than my Kindle Fire, but also because when I have a library e-book on it, and it is close to the due date, I just turn the wifi connection to my e-reader off.  That way the library recalls their e-book from my Kindle account so it's not overdue, and the next person on the wait list can have it to read.  But since my device is not communicating with Amazon via wifi, the book stays available to read on  my e-reader until I turn wifi back on to the device (which hopefully I remember not to do until I finish reading the book).   No guilt, no fines, no muss, no fuss.  So awesome.

Another birthday, another cake: Part BEE...

Several months ago, Chloe showed me the cover of Family Circle magazine's April issue.  It depicted using M&Ms and pretzels to decorate a cake and cupcakes with flowers and butterflies, and she wanted her birthday cake like it.  (The child is a forward thinker, her birthday is August 1.)

Then earlier this week, she sprang on me that she wanted a cake with a bee and flowers... real flowers.  

I aim to please, so I did both.  Of course, I took the box-cake-and-prepared-icing shortcut.

After frosting the entire cake with green icing, I sketched the bee into the icing with a toothpick.  Then I piped melted chocolate chips over the sketch lines.  I placed a little white frosting into a bowl, and heated in the microwave for about 15 seconds and stirred well.  It made it liquid enough to be carefully spooned into the piped areas and fill the wings in...using another toothpick to coax it into small spaces.

Then I colored the rest of the bowl of white icing yellow, and filled in the body of the bee.  After giving it a little time to set up, I piped on the stripes out of melted chocolate chips.

Piped inscription, "Happy Bee-day, Chloe."

I wasn't sure if the flowers were in any way toxic, so I covered one edge of the cake with plastic wrap.  I cut the stem off of several daisies, and laid them on the plastic wrap, using a little icing piped to their backs for 'glue.'

Done and delivered!

Another satisfied customer.  :)

Another birthday, another cake...

Chloe gave me very specific details as to what she wanted her birthday cake to look like.  Today I rounded up all the ingredients.

Tonight I baked cakes and cupcakes.

Tomorrow they will be decorated.

To be continued...

Foaming hand soap refills...

The most oft used hand soap dispensers around the house were all empty or near empty.  Time to refill them.

First thing I do is boil a pan of water and let it cool.  Gather up all the dispensers from around the house.  Rinse them out well.  I added a little bit of the cooled boiled water, shook well and poured out...probably don't need to do that step, but I did.

While rinsing, and with containers in sink, fill with water, and add the pump back in and screw on.  The pump displaces more water than you might think.  Remove pump, and mark the level of the water, so that you will know where the maximum fill line is.  (The Dial dispensers in the front row of photo below already have the fill line marked.)

Then fill each of the clean dispensing bottles about 2/3 to 3/4 full of cooled, boiled water, then add liquid soap of your choice to the fill line.  (I've read that boiling the water, or using distilled, is important to keep contents from getting icky over time.)

The two left ones in the front row are cloudy.  They are ones that I used Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile Liquid Soap to make.  Not sure why it makes a cloudy mix.  I would probably opt for another, clearer option, but Carey, who is not a fan of foaming soaps in general, likes the Dr. Bronner's hand feel better than others.  The one on the far right is clear, and I used a bottle of regular non-foaming hand soap to make that.  (I bought the non-foaming for its cute container, and I will try to convert its lid to a foaming dispenser when it is empty.)

This photo shows my dishwashing liquid on the left, and the newly filled foaming hand pump on the right.  I used the dishwashing liquid to make the foaming refill for this one.  The other day as I was pouring dishwashing liquid into my hand to help cut the cooking oil that was on them, it occurred to me that I should just use dishwashing liquid to make the refill for the kitchen's hand pump. 

So there's a little chore to mark off the list.  I figure I probably saved about $10 by not buying new pump dispensers, and I didn't have to leave the house.  Win/win.

Good news/Bad news...

The good news:  I have successfully completed my three major goals for the week...and it's only Tuesday!

The bad news:  I can quite easily think of three (hundred) other major things that need to take their place.  :)

Ah, well...

I've knocked quite a few things off the regular to-do list as well.  In fact I've clipped along at such a pace that I forgot to take photos of some really cute creations, and now it's too late as they have been gifted.

This week my back and head seem to have left the aching of last week behind, so I'm hoping I can make up for the lost time.

Half-square triangle quilt...

After I finished basting the vintage quilt top at the retreat last weekend, I worked on this half-square triangle throw.  

It's made with two print charm packs and two solid charm packs.  I got all the HSTs assembled at the retreat, as well as all the rows done but for two (which I added this afternoon).

I hope to take it to a longarm quilter, along with another top, and have it back, bound, and ready to drape on the sofa before the autumn nights turn cool enough to need it.