I'm getting better... I hope.

I am nearly wiped out ! Cooking nearly all our meals takes it out of me. Not to mention the cleaning. I’d ask my guys for some help, but I get vague promises they’ll do it later ‘til the kitchen’s unusable, and it’s a bigger mess I end up cleaning anyway. It’s easier to just keep it picked up as I go. And I made a fantastic dinner – meatloaf, hand-mashed potatoes with garlic and mozzarella cheese, beans baked in brown sugar and ketchup sauce, and corn. Both my fellas went back for seconds. It was sooo good, but I probably gained five pounds, darn me for making such tasty things…

Plus, as a mid-week pick-me-up, Dearest Son and I made gingerbread cookies. From an Aldi’s pouch, otherwise just assembling the ingredients would be cost prohibitive. They came out pretty well, for the most part. We made sure to eat the small batch with burned bottoms before Beloved Hubby came home, and even those were delicious. When I get to go back to Aldi’s, I’m buying at least four more cookie-pouches. We never quite get the three dozen yield on the packaging, but the two dozen we do get are warm and heavenly – and only cost $1.59, an egg, and a few minutes of electricity ! The one Dollar Tree pouch I tried just wasn’t as good, and didn’t make nearly as much. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen them in a while.

Plus, I’ve caught a cold. It’s not too bad, just my throat hurts and my nose is red from frequent tissue friction. And we actually buy good tissues ! I shouldn’t be surprised, my fingertips are so dry, they snag fabric. I’ve been applying lotion several times a day, but between hand-washing and kitchen cleaning, they’re still sandpaper-dry. 

CoughCough^hack!^

Not well today. Here’s a photo. Version #3 of the point-waist dress from the Dollar Elsa pattern, as just the bodice. Skirt is my own original pattern design. Enjoy !

When Merri's eyes are smiling...

Errand day ! I promised my Health Check rep that I’d send back the stopped-working and the never-worked Cardio Commander units today – the VA’d already been kind enough to send me UPS shipping stickers and even packing tape, so I had no excuse. Packed ‘em up according to instructions, and while I could have scheduled a pick-up, the UPS Store wasn’t far from where I needed to go anyway, so…

I had two returns to take care of, one to Lowe’s with a receipt, one to Home Depot, and a bank deposit to make. Both Customer Service folks were just wonderful, and took care of me perfectly. (grin) And we can kind of use the cash ! Glad to have the CCommander clutter out from underfoot, and the returns done.

The apple pancake recipe went OK, but no matter what I could have done to it, it still would have tasted like hot applesauce. I may make it again later. It’s much easier to get creative in the kitchen when it’s clean. Made chili mac out of leftovers from last night’s dinner – yum !

After dinner, I got to sew. Version two of the ‘Dollar Elsa Dress’ – fit is a bit better, but I want to work on the bodice a little more. Even with the seam down the middle (not in the original design) it’s still a bit too wide for the doll, and I put in a dart to cinch up the sides a bit. We’re getting closer !

This is one of the Jo-Ann’s fabrics, a half-off half-yard. Still have over ¾ of it, and ironically, the whole fabric cut was a dollar ! I think version 3 is gonna be just the bodice, and a separate skirt or pants. Gets boring making the same thing over and over.

But doesn’t Merri look great ? 

Slow but active Sunday...

Another quiet home day. Baked three apples to use them up, but while I had the brown sugar the recipe called for, I didn’t have cinnamon. So I crushed some of Dearest Son’s breakfast cereal and sprinkled that around the Pyrex instead. Added some raisins later. Not sure if it made a difference, but while the apples were mushy, they were delicious and smelled heavenly. And they were eaten up pretty quick. Since I still have more apples, I may wait and do it again Friday, especially if we’ve snagged some vanilla ice cream by then ! And cinnamon.

Beloved Hubby put in six hours of work today, so I tried to do about the same in housework. My ‘keep the kitchen clean, five minutes at a time’ thing is working. While I’m waiting for something to finish cooking, or start boiling, I rinse dishes, load / unload the dishwasher, clean up the hand-washables, soak the dirty stuff, wipe down counters. Heck, I’m in there anyway. Then, after the dinner dishes, about all I have to do is a quick counter-wipe, and the kitchen’s clean and ready for a new day, nothing in the sink and nothing to dread. My day seems to go better when the kitchen’s in good shape.

Decided that Dearest Son’s now in charge of keeping the living room tidy, and we worked on it together after breakfast to get a firm idea of what it should look like. I’ll probably still have to ride herd on him, especially if the TV is on, but he’s old enough to learn some cleaning. Since most of the mess is his anyway…

Tried the AT& T Interactive Workout today. Ummm… well. So far, the workouts are very short, and there’s only a few of them. Even so, while the model manages to get twelve reps on each side, they never show her switching sides, which takes me a few seconds, so I’m either running behind or shaving off a few reps. I haven’t figured out how to ‘favorite’ anything so it’s in My Workout, but there’s so few of ‘em, it’s hardly worth the research. All that said, I was wheezing a bit in five minutes, and burned about 38 calories (then had the aforementioned baked apple slices), so it hardly seems worth it, but even a little exercise is better than none. Still, I think making m’self use the upstairs bathroom is more of a steady workout than AT&T’s.

The interactive music channels aren’t much of an improvement over the ‘regular’ cable music channels – there’s not one Trance or Techno or House channel in either of the interactives, much less the regular. I liked the Swing and Singers channel, but you can find 40s music anywhere. You win again, internet.

No time to sew today, but I’ve cut out version 2 of the dress I stitched yesterday, with the revamped pattern. Hope it works ! Should have some time to try it tomorrow.

I'm sewing again !

Well, given the choice between interactive workouts and stitching up a new pattern, guess what won ? Bonus clue : Tia’s wearing it ! I was snurfling around online, looking for patterns, preferably free or cheep, and found this one, for an Elsa dress. I promise you, I was *not* looking for anything Elsa – I got plenty patterns for her dress already ! But it popped up over at Craftsy, among the free and super-cheap patterns, so I decided  - I’ve been good, I can splurge for a buck. It may not look a lot like Elsa’s ice outfit, but I liked it !

Plus, I’ve wanted to try a pointed waist dress. It’s kind of hard to see, but Tia’s dress has one. The directions weren’t very good, basically two pages of solid text and four of pattern, and that was it. Only photos were on the ‘buy this’ page. And even with all that text, I got no special directions about the waist, just ‘attach skirt to bodice’. Took me three tries, and it’s still not quite right… but the model shown to sell the pattern had a pucker there, so maybe I didn’t do too badly.

Cut out the paper pattern and took about a half inch off the back and a quarter inch off the front before I cut fabric, and ended up putting in side seams where there weren’t any. Once it was done, it’s still a bit big, so I took some more off the back, a bit more from the front, made the armscrye a little smaller, and increased the neckline and back a quarter inch – it sits a bit lower than I like. Maybe I’ll stitch it out again, see if my alterations work.

BTW, this is the fabric I got over-charged for at Hancock's last week. I still have half of it left ! Ranks that I paid too much for it, but it really is pretty. 

Otherwise, another grey day outside. Not sure if what we got going on is heavy mist or light rain, I just know I miss the sun ! Cleaned out a couple Boxes o’ Moving Junk, cooked some good meals. Long as there’s food in the pantry, and the house is nice and warm – and the internet’s working ! - a lack of cash isn’t such a big deal.  

You see who really wears the tiaras around here !

Here's 'KJ', my Kenmore-Janome sewing machine in pink,
and 'Brody' my Brother embroidery machine, in blue. 

First TGIF of 2015 ! Hope yours was great !

Another busy one here. Dearest Son and I got the last of the furniture upstairs and placed, then loaded up the roll-cart with more backyard garbage from the previous tenants. Won’t be long now before all we can trash in a pick-up can is gone, and unless Beloved Hubby can chain-saw the sofas, the two smashed TVs, and the old water heater, we’ll have to either run it to the Transfer Station and pay a few bucks for disposal, or wait ‘til Spring Clean (2015 schedule not yet determined) and hurf it to the curb. It’ll be so nice to see cardinals, wrens, and squirrels back there instead of broken chairs, old mini-blinds, torn-up carpet, and unidentifiable stuff in going-fast bags. And I can cancel the second can – although it’s a negligible fee, we just won’t need it after the backyard mess is cleared.

I just wanna know, why is it always raining when we have to do that ? Holiday schedule shifts or not, each time we’ve had the can to gather the others’ trash, it’s been raining.

I confess, I’ve been pining a bit for our Wii, mostly for Wii Fit. I’d meant to restart that when we moved here, but our console has pretty much had it, far as games go. I haven’t been doing my Grokker.com workouts, either – but today I found out that our AT&T TV (that we’re really not using) has an interactive and programmable workout channel, and it’s free, too. There’s also music and games channels. Hoping to try it tomorrow.

The shopping spree is definitely over. Glad I didn’t spend much ! I worked the bills, and we are gonna be tight for a couple weeks. Luckily we don’t need much. And I got so much to play with !

Cheers ! Happy 2015 !

(lol) Made from-scratch hash browns from some starting-to-go potatoes, and they were delicious ! It’s a big effort, takes a long time, and makes a huge mess, so I don’t do it often. Dearest Son, despite loving the hash brown patties we buy at Aldi’s, didn’t want any… but just as I was putting the last shreds on, he said that maybe he’d like a couple of the patties. Not my home-made crispy delights, which was kind of like telling your Mom you don’t want her made-just-for-you peanut butter and favorite jelly sandwich, but you’d really like an Uncrustable. He got the stink eye for that one. And made himself something else for breakfast.

Otherwise, I was busy. Put the new Dollar Tree calendars up. For the first time in three years, I don’t have an MH one. Was tempted to get the little one for the February image of Ghoulia and Slo Mo, but (spoiler alert !) the same image is included in the classroom-exchange Valentine’s Day cards I also got at DTree. Did three loads of laundry – had to get that freshly cheap-serged new fabric washed – and finally got off my lazy rear and conquered the last four cabinets I’ve put off since we moved. Got tired of moving and working around stuff that was supposed to be *in* those cabinets, so I got to work getting them clean and ready to use. The previous tenants had a real bug problem, hence the delays. I didn’t wanna deal with it either ! But the vacuum cleaner is my new friend, it’s done, took less than a half hour (ain’t that always the way with something you put off for weeks/months !), and the last of our kitchen / laundry area clutter is home where it belongs. Whew ! I’m very proud of that.

Waiting ‘til tomorrow to take down the tree, but I went ahead and got about half the Junior-fur out of the tree skirt and put that away before he claimed it again. He liked to drag it over to the vent by the patio door and have a nice warm nap several times a day. Still trying to figure out how a cat untied the thing, several times, but some mysteries are never solved.

I’m not sure what got me so charged today – I’m exhausted now ! – unless it’s possibly reading a bit from unf**kyourhabitat.com (and yes, it is spelled out correctly at the site. It uses some language but is quite encouraging, so if you can tolerate (or even kind of expect or sort of like) the profanity, you may wanna check ‘em out. The challenges are simple, don’t take very long, but so far, each one has left me with a great feeling of accomplishment.

Oh and Aldi’s pouch-style dishwashing detergent  (20 for $2.49 here) works very well. I’d have bought the regular powder stuff, but it’s hard to compare cost per use when nothing on the box says ‘use Q ounces per load’, so far all I know the powder is a worse buy.  We may need a rinse agent, as the melmac plates often end up with some residue on them. Sparkly clean otherwise, though.

Blue tiara fits well, too.