What I Loved About Last Week 2nd Edition

Hello and a blessed Holy Week to "all" my readers!  I'm back with another week in review!  Here's what I loved about last week (3/26-4/1):

At My Parent's house playing on the Plasma Car

1. Eating outside.  We've been taking advantage of the beautiful weather lately by spending the evenings outside.  The kids both love playing outside (in the dirt, on the swings, on their bicycles/tricycles, practicing fishing casts, etc.) and I'm growing to love the outdoors more the older I get.  (I didn't really used to love it outside, mainly I hate bugs (mosquitos/flies) but Andy - Mr. Would-Rather-Be-Outside-Than-Anywhere-Else - is turning me more and more into an outdoor lover.)  So, with all the playing outside, what's easier than fixing dinner (on the grill) and eating outside?  Not much - so it's what we've done several  nights this week.  And it's so easy to clean up too!!

2. Speaking of the nice weather, have I told you how much I love it?  Well, I do.  And I love being able to have the windows open too.  Our house was built just right for having the windows open.  If you open them all, there's a nice breeze that runs through and cools down the entire house - and I (as well as our budget) really like that!

3.  Speaking of the nice weather (Part deux... or is it trois...) we've also been riding our bikes to take Ira to school.  We have a great Schwinn Bike Trailer that we got when Ira was 9 months old that is perfect for Ruby (and Ira too, only this mama's not in good enough shape to pull the 60-70 lbs. of the 2 of them combined for very long - one day was enough for me!)  So Ira's riding his own bike.  He still has training wheels on, and let me tell you, riding a bike with him is a REAL exercise in patience. We've tried letting him go without training wheels and that just doesn't work at all (every time he'd get going, he'd STOP and fall down) but the training wheels are angled far back (so that he doesn't totally rely on them) and he does this crazy, awkward knees-pointing-out pedaling thing that makes me totally understand why he cannot manage to ride without training wheels.  And sometimes he has the focus of a flea, so riding his bike without hitting everything around him (because Heaven forbid he watch where he's... IRA DON'T HIT THE... too late) would be asking so much.  So what if the ride to school is kind of like a circus - we're getting fresh air and good exercise.  He will get how to ride a bike eventually... right?!


4. Sewing.  After getting a sewing machine from my parents last year (2010) for Christmas, I've really developed a love for sewing.  I even made myself an Easter Dress for this year.  It's nothing extravagant, but I'm very excited about it.  I LOVE being able to make modest clothes that actually fit my tall self just right.  It's nice being able to wear a knee-length dress that's actually supposed to be knee length.  As opposed to wearing a knee-length dress that's supposed to be tea-length - not that I've ever done that.



5. Pie success.  Now, because I have no shame, I'll admit that I cannot make a pie to save my life.  I think I've mentioned it before.  Well, I finally figured out that all I needed was a little vodka.  Not for myself!  Yeesh!  For the pie crust!!  (Although, I had to stand up for myself just a smidge when I went to the liquor store to buy it - "Excuse me sir, I promise I am not an alcoholic, but could you please tell me where to find your cheapest vodka.")  According to America's Test Kitchen, it is the perfect moistener for pie crust because the ethanol in the vodka does not turn the flour into gluten (which makes for a tough crust) like water does.  Well, to have a pliable pie crust (which has been my problem all along) you need plenty of liquid.  But if you add too much water, you end up with a tough old heifer, which no one likes - I know - I'm mixing metaphors - it's my specialty.  Well, vodka won't do that because of the whole ethanol/gluten thing - so you can add enough liquid to make a VERY workable pie crust, while still turning out some of the flakiest, yummiest stuff on the planet.  And the alcohol bakes out while it's baking, so you won't even turn your kids into alcoholics just because you want to make a decent pie crust.  Now isn't that a win-win situation?  So I was proudly able to take a homemade Tropical Sunrise pie to our Altar Society Quilt Bingo.  Score one for science!

6. Ruby making "snaremiches."  For her birthday at the beginning of March (which I've yet to post about, I know, hush your mouth) Andy's parents got Ruby a Melissa & Doug Sandwich Set.  It's all cloth (mainly felt) so you can actually stack up a huge sandwich and have it stay together (unlike with the molded plastic junk.)  That's a fact that hasn't been lost on either of our kids.  They both love it because it's actually like making a real sandwich.  And the set is a real winner, including everything from pitas and subs to slices of bread and just about every kind of meat, cheese, vegetable and condiment you could ever dream of putting on a sandwich.  Needless to say, it's gotten played with a lot.

7. Getting our budget updated.  Although we operate on a cash-only system for our groceries and sundries budgets, I track every penny we spend on everything else too (which is actually pretty darn easy with online banking.)  Well, it'd been a couple of months since I'd entered everything into our spreadsheet.  And even though we'd gotten a little off track these last two months (which I knew going into it), it is good to know where exactly we stand and where we want to go.

And I think that's about it for me!

Wishing you a reflective Holy Week,
Michelle

All Hallows Eve, a week late

Goodness, it's been awhile since I blogged!  I do have an excuse though! 

It all started when we got a note from school saying that Ira would need a saint costume for the All Saints Day party at school.  Being the over-achiever, can't-ever-do-anything-halfway type that I am, I decided I would make him a cassock for his St. John Baptist de la Salle costume.  He also wanted me to make him a ghost costume for Halloween, which I thought would be easy enough... unless you're me who has to complicate everything...

Initially, I thought I could make up my own cassock, but after looking at more pictures of them online, I decided they were actually kind of complicated and I might want to go off an actual pattern.  Problem being, there's not much of a market out there for size 5 cassocks... who would've guessed?   I did find a Butterick pattern for a men's cassock, however, and I knew with Andy's mad spatial skills that he would be able to modify the pattern down to Ira's size.  So I bought the pattern and fabric the same day as our zoo trip and Andy set to modifying the pattern that night.  When he finished, he let me take care of shortening the pattern pieces to Ira's height.  Now mind you, the only things I have ever sewn have been for myself, and you can guess that the direction I need to go with patterns is not shortening...ever.  I lengthen... shortening is a whole different ballgame, and I obviously missed something, because although I tried to make it so that I had 6" to take out at the bottom and 4" at the sleeves (you know, so I don't have to go through this rigamarole every year) it ended up such that it just fit him this year, and unless he doesn't grow at all, it will most likely not fit him next year... grrrr....  See, I do not have mad spatial skills like my hubs does.  I'm just special...

Cutting it out wasn't too awful bad, it's just my least favorite part of sewing.  I just like to sew.  Laying out, cutting out, lining up, pinning, blech... I mean, I deal with it, because you can't really sew without doing those things (I've tried. It doesn't work.)  I just don't like it, and there might have been some cursing involved...  Sewing it together went pretty well actually, modifications and all (which is crazy because we and by we
I mean my husband had to take 10" out all the way around)  Some things were literally lost in the translation (like a lot of the notches and markings) and it was tough because there were pleats, which I've never done before and they were tiny because they were for someone with a 20" waist, but all in all, I'd say it turned out really well.  The pattern definitely left some questions as far as finishing the sleeves and the bottom hem, but I figured it out well enough to make it look good.

Needless to say, it took about 2 weeks of finding time here and there during the day and after the kids went to bed to finish, then it took about a week afterwards to catch everything that I'd let slide (like housework, laundry, etc.) back up.  Finally this week we're starting fresh with a clean house and not much on the to-do list, so I thought I'd catch up the old bloggeroo.  I'm hoping to get back to the Photo of the Day type posts because they're just less overwhelming to me, but what do you all think of them?  Are they too boring/uninformative?

In the meantime, here are some pictures from All Hallows Eve!

Okay, this one isn't from All Hallow's Eve, this is Andy modifying one of the 6 pattern pieces

St. John Baptist de la Salle was not acting very saintly while I was trying to take this picture...

A back view so that you can see the pleats on which I worked SO diligently!

Classic Ruby face. Pardon the red-eye.  I don't have photo software on my laptop and did NOT feel like turning on the beast just to blip out a couple red eyes.  And in case you're wondering what the red streaks are all over our pumpkin, those are Ira's doing.  He said he wanted to put chicken pox on our pumpkin... not sure why, but who am I to stop him?!

Ira ghost and Ruby "lily bug" (as she says it.)  Ready to go trick-or-treating.

 

Make your own Swiffer Wet-Jet resusable cover

So, after using the Wet-Jet covers in this post for about two weeks, I decided I could make something a little better on my own.  I recently got new towels for my kitchen but couldn't bear to just throw the old ones out.  They are nice, absorbent bar-mop-type towels, and I thought they might be good candidates for Wet-Jet covers.  I am thrilled with how these covers turned out, and thought I would share my process with you.

First off, my Wet-Jet is fairly old, and I'm not certain they're made exactly like this anymore.  It has a "bump" on one side of the head that originally had a scrubber on it.  It makes making the cover a little more difficult than if it were flat (as I suspect the more recent models are) but really, it wasn't hard to work around.  So, check your Swiffer Wet-Jet first, because if it's different than the one I have, your directions will vary from these slightly.

See the little "bump" on the right side of the head?

My old dish towels measured 18.25" by 16."  I wanted to utilize as many of the finished edges as possible, so my only cut was to make a rectangle 18.25" by 6.75"  (You will be able to make two covers with each towel!)

I LOVE my Gingher brand scissors.  They were a little pricey (I got them half price for 18 dollars) but they cut through everything as if it were butter!  Well worth the money!

Next, so that you don't have fraying when you wash them, turn the cut edge under (about 0.5") and iron, and then under again and iron. I chose to use the "terry" side of the towel to be the bottom (the part that will scrub the floor.)

Using the rick-rack stitch on my machine, I sewed along the turned-under edge to secure it down.

Then I folded up one side 3.25" to make a "pocket" to go over the "bump" side of the Wet-Jet head.

Now, if your Wet-Jet head is like mine (with the bump) you'll want to just tack the corners of the pocket down so that it can easily slide over the bump.  (If yours doesn't have a bump, you could just sew along the edges of the pocket.)  My machine has a cool star stitch that worked really well for making a nice strong stitch here.

For the other side, fold under 2" than under again (just so you don't have to cut and make another hem.)  This will make the pocket for the flat side of the Wet-Jet head.

Using a zig-zag stitch, sew down both sides of the pocket, making sure to catch all 3 layers of fabric.

Pardon my messy zig-zag.  My machine wasn't very happy with me for sewing through 3 layers of finished edges.

And voila, you're done!  You now have a cheap, easy, reusable solution to those expensive disposable Wet-Jet covers.

P.S.  If you're like me and hate to pay for the bottles of Wet-Jet solution sold by Swiffer, use a vise-grip to take the cap off of one of your existing bottles and clip off the little flanges around the inside of the lid with a fingernail clippers.  You will now be able to easily remove the cap in the future.  Fill it with your favorite floor cleaning solution.  I use 1 quart of hot water and 1.5 teaspoons of borax on my linoleum for a great clean shine.

Photo of the Day

Recently, I've been thinking about this blog.  I really do like to blog.  It's just I am not very good at getting to it each day.  I think it just seems daunting to me.  But I do want to do it, because I think it's a great way to document/"scrapbook" our days.  I read this article, and although Evernote sounds like a great site, I just really don't want to ADD anything else, so I'm going to try something new.  I'm going to try posting a "photo of the day" several times a week (I'd say every day, but I doubt I'll be that consistent) with a brief description/explanation for the photo.  

Ready?  Set?  GO!

I have been scrubbing our floors on my hands and knees since I ran out of Swiffer WetJet Refills, knowing that I'd seen a tutorial at one point for making them out of cloth diapers.  Well, finally today I'd had enough so I got my Gerber prefolds out of our storage room (previously used as burp cloths) and went after it!  I originally made one using this tutorial but was disappointed with how it fit.  Plus, there was a lot of waste (one diaper made one cover.)  So I decided to just make my own up and was able to get two covers out of one diaper!  Hooray!  (If you're interested, I basically just cut the diaper in half, made a 12"x5.5" rectangle, used the excess to make the little pockets for the sides 5.5"x2.75", then used a zig-zag/straight stitch combo to make sure it didn't fray.)  I haven't used it yet, but I'm getting ready to.  EDIT: I just finished using it and it worked GREAT!  Possibly even better than the stupid disposable ones at picking up dust/dirt in the edges/corners of the room.  I used the one from the flitterbug website that I had cut down smaller length-wise but not width-wise and I'm glad I made the widths on mine narrower, it doesn't slide around as much, potentially covering the spray nozzle.  My hopes are that I can use one of them for major cleaning and the other two each night during the week just with water on them to maintain the floor (which would be a MAJOR improvement over the once every six weeks whether it needs it or not situation we have going on right now (kidding...sort of...)  It might even be a great chore for Ira...

Take care!