unplug

Who is with me on this?

the crazy neighbor lady

I'm sure that's what the people in my neighborhood were calling me today. Do you know what these are? They sang to me from the recycle bins. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them. If nothing else, the kids will enjoy using them in the sand and water table.

chicken and ducklings

OR chicken and dumplings, as most of you may know it. It was rainy and dreary here the past few days. I felt the need for comfort food. I guess I've never made dumplings for the big kid because she had a hard time understanding we weren't eating ducklings. She was fascinated with the concept because it tasted like chicken noodle soup - without the noodles! She's as easily amused as her mother.

By the way, we do real dumplings. Not that biscuits-floating-on-top-of-soup business so many are fond of. I have an aversion to anything bread-like being left near moisture on purpose. Bread pudding? No thanks. Just 2 eggs and a 1/2 cup of flour, some salt and pepper, and dinner is served.

If I am staying authentic and have it on hand, whole allspice in with the chicken and broth is a must. Sounds weird, right? It's how granny always makes it. Yum. This is the same way granny makes her noodles, just add more flour, roll, cut and let dry. Depending on where you fall in my family, you may or may not serve the noodles, chicken, and broth over (ready for this?) mashed potatoes. Carbs galore.

sew-sew projects

I'm not terribly pleased with how either of these turned out. I followed Cute2Carry's tutorial, tracing a cardboard sleeve. The coffee cozy seems bulky. I know I've seen a tutorial for a button and hair elastic closure; I may need to give that a whirl.

The crayon roll was irritating. It didn't take a long time but the steps seemed to drag on. No way around it, that I can see, just not as much fun as I thought it would be. The 3/4" spacing to fit 16 crayons was too close, I think. I'm going to try again using 1" spacing and only fill with 12 crayons. I've already cut 2 more using the 13" length from the Chocolate On My Cranium tute. I'm going to try the 16 1/2" length tute from Skip To My Lou, next.