Christmas Shopping Tip

FYI: If you are doing any Christmas shopping online this year, check out amazon.com. They have a program called amazon prime where you get free 2 day shipping. It costs $80 a year, but they have a free 30 day trial. Perfect for Christmas shopping. Just don't forget to cancel before the 30 days is up!

Tree Stand

I dream about Christmas decorating . . . not a lie. I love it! I am kind of obsessed. When my husband and I were looking to buy a house, in every (and I mean every) house we walked into I would think to myself, "where would the tree go?". So, don't be surprised that the next few posts will be about decorating for Christmas.

A few years ago I got really bored of hiding my Christmas tree stand with a tree skirt, so I decided to try something new. I found a trash can for $10 at Walmart and headed to (you guessed it) Home Depot for some plumbing supplies. Drilled some holes in the bottom of the can, attached the (I don't know what it's called, so I will call it "thing") thing to the can with bolts and nuts. Then screwed in the pipe. I filled the can with gravel to keep my tree from falling over. I love the clean look. I have done this with a live tree as well. You just leave out the pipe, make sure you have a long trunk, and pack in gravel around the trunk.

Hot Sauce

This year I decided to try planting a garden. I don't know why I thought I could keep anything alive, since my record with anything green is 0 and about 250. Sure enough, most of what I planted didn't survive. Coincidentally, my tomatoes all decided to get flower end rot until I completely gave up and stopped caring for them at all. Then, when I went to rip them out of the ground a few weeks later, I had a huge bagful of good tomatoes on the vine. I guess the secret for me is to stop caring for my plants completely. 

Anyway, I found that the one plant that flourished under my care was a serrano chili plant. Great! I hate spicy food! What am I supposed to do with all those chilis?!?!?!?! I decided (since I am a selfless and loving wife) to make hot sauce for my husband who loves spicy food, but never gets it made for him. Since I had done some pickle canning this summer, I thought that it should be a pretty simple and similar process. So I tried it, and it turned out to be (quoting my husband) "the best thing you have made with that machine yet". (By machine he meant food processor.)

It is not too spicy, a little bit sweet, and has a ton of flavor. 

Who would have thought that such a simple process would turn out such a spectacular sauce.

Here is the process.

wash chilis, then trim the stem and end

chop them in a food processor

then I packed the chilis in jars, added a pinch of salt,
and then filled  them with vinegar that I brought to a boil first

then I processes the jars in a canner for 10 minutes

I am sure that this whole thing could be done with any type of pepper or chili and would turn out great. 

Now, I just have to watch and see what all my husband will think to put this on!

Was there an October this year?

To say the last month has been busy would be the understatement of my life. I feel like I missed the whole month of October. My lofty dreams of posting to this blog at least twice a week quickly flew out the window when I got an unexpected job offer a month ago. Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to be working again, but going from no job one day to full time the next was quite the adjustment. Especially since my life wasn't exactly sitting around doing nothing with my time. There is a house to run, a ministry to help with, and countless people that need to be fed. What am I doing you ask? One of my favorite things in the world, painting. Yep, painting. I love my new job for many many reasons. I love to paint, pick out paint colors, go to Home Depot almost daily, all the while getting paid. One of the best things about my new job is the fact that for this week, there is no work. It's the best of both worlds. I get to work when there is work and get time off when there isn't work. So here we are a month later and I finally feel like I can breathe again. Whenever my life gets crazy there are always a couple of visual clues which even the most novice of detectives would come to the conclusion that this woman has had a busy few days/weeks/month. The first one is the amount of dirty dishes that accumulate in the sink. Dishes is my least favorite of all household chores, so they are easily the first thing that I procrastinate to get done. It feels fabulous right now to (for the moment) actually be back on top of dish duty. 

The second clue to how busy my life has been is my purse. It seem that when life is out of control, my purse accumulates all sorts of stuff, which when added to the amount of stuff I carry around on a normal day makes for an interesting combination. 

I cleaned out my purse the other day, and this is what I found.

5 pens, a wrench, a multi-tool, a tide-to-go pen, 2 surgery markers, a packet of nail files, glasses cleaner, bandaids, a chapstick, a lip gloss, a lip stick, a pair of earrings, hair clips, an apple, nail polish, nail stickers, a lot of trash (the pile in the upper right corner is all trash), a pile of receipts, 3 hand sanitizer gels, hairspray, 2 packs of hand wipes, lactaid pills, lotion, an attachment for my paint sprayer, a blinking light, gum, tic tacs, my check book, wallets, money, a menu for a mexican restaurant, a survey about being on jury duty, and a pad of paper . . . no wonder my purse was so heavy!

So, all that to say, I am back in the land of the living and functioning and posting blogs. I hope to keep posting regularly . . . until the next job calls.

Gadgets

I love gadgets! There. I admitted it. I love going into a kitchen store and looking at all the cool things they have to make your life easier and your cupboards more cluttered. You name the gadget and I either have it, want it, or have deemed it unnecessary. Slap chop? Got it. Soda fountain milkshake maker? Got it. Quesadilla maker? Got it. Automatic scissors? Got em, and they're awesome! The list goes on and on. I have often been the brunt of jokes because of all of the gadgets in my cupboards. (Coincidentally, the people that have teased me the most about my gadgets are the same people who encouraged me to have a blog, because they think that I do cool stuff. . . . don't they know that gadgets are the source of all my powers?) 
I digress. I thought that I would share with you, my faithful readers, some of my all time favorites. I think all three of these are well worth the money. 


The Apple Corer/Peeler/Slicer
This thing does exactly what it says it does. It cores, peels, and slices apples all at the same time and does it well. It especially came in handy on the day that my friend and I got a ton of apples and made jars and jars of applesauce and apple butter. It can also peel a potato in about 5 seconds. I love double duty gadgets!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A6E91E/ref=oss_product

The Salsa Express
Along with gadgets, I love county fairs! One of the things I love most about the fair is all of the booths with all of the new gadgets! This summer I went to the fair knowing that I wanted to get a salsa maker. I had tried my hand at gardening and wanted to make some salsa with all the tomatoes that were supposed to grow. Well, the tomatoes were a bust, BUT the salsa maker was not! I love the fresh salsa (made with store bought tomatoes . . . . .who can't grow tomatoes?!?!?) One of the best other uses that I have discovered is chopping other vegetables for recipes. Garlic, carrots, onions (without causing tears to stream down my face), anything that needs to be chopped small. It works great!

http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Chef-Express-Salsa-Maker/dp/B0012ZDZEK/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285450739&sr=8-1

The Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner
Talk about a time saver! You hit the button after you get out of the shower, and it CLEANS THE SHOWER FOR YOU!!!! For someone who hates to clean, this is a great thing! I have one in each shower and it really does keep your shower clean. Every once in a while I will still scrub the shower down, but only about once a month. 

http://www.amazon.com/Scrubbing-Bubbles-Automatic-Shower-CleanerStarter/dp/B001QJAHIY/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285450773&sr=8-1

I am sure this is not the last posting of gadgets that will be present on this blog. I wanted to ease you all in to the madness! Thanks for reading! I am off to make some coffee in my newest gadget . . . a Keurig coffee maker!

Chicken and Biscuits

This recipe is one of my all time favorites. I make it all the time, and people always ask for the recipe. It is so good, that I was too excited to eat it and forgot to take a picture for this post. I was glad that we hadn't eaten it all, so I could get a shot of it. But don't think for a minute that those leftovers lasted until the next day. They became a late night snack.

Chicken and Biscuits
3-4 cups of cooked shredded chicken  - I usually buy an already made rotisserie chicken and cut it up. If I am cooking the chicken myself, I put 3 or 4 chicken breasts in a pan, sprinkle them with poultry seasoning, and add about 2 cups of chicken  broth to the pan before baking. 


2 t poultry seasoning (if you baked the chicken yourself with the seasoning - don't add it here)
1 large can of Veg All mixed vegetables (really any mixed vegetables would work)
3 cans of cream of chicken soup (I always use the reduced fat.)
Fresh vegetables - Whatever vegetable is on sale. I have used broccoli, asparagus, green beans, it all works.
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper


Mix all together. Add to a 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. 
Serve with refrigerated biscuits that you sprinkle with a little salt and pepper before baking.  

Bulletin Board

This Summer I made a bulletin board for the middle school room at church. I took pictures of the process knowing that this whole blog thing was on my to do list. Yesterday, I was talking with my dad when he asked what my next blog was going to be. I told him it was, "how to make a bulletin board". To which he replied, "can't you just buy a bulletin board?" 

Of course, you can just buy a bulletin board. However, they can be expensive, especially if you need a custom size (like we did). 


Here's what I did. I went to my favorite place . . . .Home Depot.
I bought one 4'x8' sheet of white building board (it's kinda like dry wall) for $15, and four 1"x3", 6' strips of pine for $5 each.


We needed a bulletin board that was 4'x4', so I cut the building board using a box cutter. (BTW - The sharper the blade, the cleaner the cut.)

Then  using a miter box, I cut the ends of each pine strip to a 45 degree angle. 

Then I lined up each pine strip against the building board before marking the opposite end to cut. 

Everything got painted black. (with paint leftover from the kitchen cabinets)

Starting with the strip that was going across the top, I glued, then screwed it into place, making sure it was level.

Then the board was glued and hung with screws before adding the rest of the strips.  

 Here it is. Complete with pictures from Summer camp. 

Thanks for reading! This night owl is going to bed now.