Interesting fact: April 18th is the Anniversary of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride
April 18th
Written by admin on February 7th, 2012Apple Designed T-Shirts
Written by admin on February 7th, 2012Decorate white t-shirts by cutting apples in half, brushing fabric paint on the surface, and pressing the fruit on the shirts. You could even take a bite out of an apple to personalize it further. Accent the apple prints with black seeds, green leaves and brown stems.
Additional idea: Wear them to go picking apples.
Shrunken Apple Heads
Written by admin on February 7th, 2012Peel a large apple, red or golden delicious seems to work well
Coat the apple with a mixture of 1/3 cup lemon juice and 1 tablespoon salt
Using a knife, carve eye sockets, nose, mouth and ears
Stick cloves in eye sockets and rice teeth (be creative, especially if this is a Halloween decoration)
Place the apple on a cooling rack in a warm, dry place for 2 weeks, shaping the face as it shrinks and harden.
This Weekend
Written by admin on February 3rd, 2012This weekend we are heading to my in-laws woods to finish cleaning up the roads from the huge October storm that took out all our tubing for maple tapping. The storm took down an enormous number of tree tops which has taken us lots of Saturdays to clean up. This Saturday might be our last to work on this project though!! Thankfully this winter never has really materialized giving us lots of nice weekends.
February 1, St. Brigid’s Feast Day
Written by admin on February 1st, 2012Today is St. Brigid’s Feast Day. At dinner we read about St. Brigid while we ate vegetable soup and some oatmeal scones.
The Oatmeal Scones recipe follows. They were okay and as substitute for St. Brigid’s bread, which I could not make because I was lacking buttermilk and every recipe I checked needed buttermilk. I think next time I’d add maybe blueberries or dried cranberries to these scones.
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1/3 cup milk
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.
- In a large bowl, mix the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, salt. Make a well in the center. In a small bowl, beat egg until frothy, and stir in melted butter and milk. Pour into the well, and mix to create a soft dough. Pat dough into two 1/2 inch thick circles. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Score 8 wedges into each circle of dough.
- Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until risen and browned. Split wedges, and serve warm.
Getting Some Projects Done
Written by admin on January 6th, 2012This year WILL be the year of accomplishing some projects (I hope) that have needed to be accomplished for a LONG time. I can be such a procrastinator, it is terrible.
For example; this morning I super-glued broken tops back on 2 bookends that have been broken for literally SIX years! I have carted these broken bookends around through two states, one apartment and two houses. It is silly little projects like this example that need to be finished. But I have two completely fixed and functional bookends that don’t even look like the tops were broken.
Today I also actually put away our Christmas decorations on the last day of Christmas even!!
Yesterday I went through Dave’s closet and got rid of everything that does not fit or does not like.
So I pray I can keep this roll going and get lots done this year!
Eating Cheaply While Traveling in the USA
Written by andrea on October 20th, 2011We are planning a trip in a few weeks and Dave has challenged me to fed the family for less than $42.50/day. That is a family of 3 for less than $42.50! I was online looking for some options. After scanning through the first 30 or so sites that came up when I typed in the line I used for my title, I decided something. They all had very boring options. They actually offered the a-duh options like packing granola bars and fruit. Well, I already thought of that stuff. What I was looking for were real options especially for dinner.
I am going to see what I can come up with while we are out and about. Breakfast is going to be pretty straight forward at most of our stops because we are staying in mid-grade hotels that offer free continental breakfasts. Thankfully, over the years these have evolved from coffee and donuts to include hard-boiled eggs, OJ, healthy cereals, yogurt, whole grain breads and some serve eggs with bacon or sausage. Lunch service is generally going to be cold cuts and cheese sandwiches with cut up veggies and fruit.
Now the challenge is going to be dinner. I’m estimating $7/day (average) for lunch which leaves me with $35.50 for dinner. That’s actually a lot and we could eat out pretty decently for that amount, but like I said Dave challenged me to fed us all for under $42.50/day. And I plan to be at least a little creative.
Not all of the hotels we’ll stay in will have a microwave so I’ve also got to plan for that scenario.
I’ll update the blog as my ideas come and I’ll let folks know how we did in the end. I just hope I can come up with some yummy and cheap dinner options!!
Beautiful Rainy Day in Vermont
Written by andrea on September 24th, 2011Dave, John, Dave’s father and I drove to Vermont for the day. We left pretty early and were to our favorite cheese shop before 10:00AM. They make a Gruyere that Dave really, really likes. We drove through Townsend and on through Jamaica to view some of the damage from the flooding of Hurricane Irene a month ago. Dave will probably post pictures soon, but it was amazing to see how the water just ripped out a bridge and homes as it swept through.
We went as far was Weston Priory. We arrive 5 minutes into Mass so we missed it and we missed the bookstore too. But it really is lovely there so we walked around briefly, took a few pictures and left. On our way back to CT, we stopped in the town of Weston to have lunch and stop at the Vermont Country Store. I found a little tugboat for John to play with in the bathtub that I think John will love.
So all in all we had a very nice day.
Old Map Crafts
Written by andrea on September 15th, 2011Dave collects and has a private library of maps. He owns a website called Broer Map Library where he has maps he’s scanned available to the public online. It is because of this that we have about 35,000 flat sheets of maps in our home and my in-law’s home. Our goal is to obtain a large format scanner so tat we can scan all these maps and others as we come across them and make them available online for everyone. Large format scanners are very expensive brand new and much cheaper used, but come with their own set of problems.
Until a large format scanner is obtained, we have thousands of less than useful maps that we have decided to “recycle”. This morning I’ve begun bundling 6 random maps into a roll and tying a string around the roll. Eventually, I plan to “fancy” these up with craft paper, twine and a cute label so that I can potentially find specialty retailers willing to sell them for wrapping paper and other crafts. But firstly, as an experiment to determine the usefulness of this whole idea. This weekend we are going to sell “pre-fancied” rolls at my mother-in-law’s church yard sale. I’m going to sell individual sheets for $1 and rolled sets of 6 for $5 and see how things go.