These old things?

I just knitted them up over the weekend.

quote of the week

We took the youth out this morning and on the way the kids in the back of the car started talking about the movie Saw IV -

Me: "Hey! Isn't that rated R??"

YW (genuinely proud of herself): "No - I've never watched a rated R movie. It was the unrated version."

Kitchen Table 2.0

So maybe we're in a DIY phase...

This weekend we looked around for some more hand-me-down-got-for-free-at-a-garage-sale-when-we-were-students furniture to paint (turns out our house is still full of it) and landed on the dining room table.

A few of the things we wish we'd known beforehand:

1. Spray gun is essential (we used it for the black paint but not the primer -- you can still see some pretty healthy brush strokes when the light hits it)

2. Satin finish would be best: We did coat 1 in glossy, then coat 2 in flat. oh well.

Overall I still think its an improvement!

Success!

After a few weeks of having traps in our attic, with no results, the critter company decided to put some traps along the outside of the house. The first night we caught one cat and one raccoon (reluctantly, I let the cat go, hopefully it stays away now). The second night we caught two possums, one mom and one baby. It would have provided more than a few meals for a family from Arkansas. All and all, we are feeling pretty good about reducing the population of small mammals living in, under and around our house.

Suggestions Please!

I have very, very straight hair. I would like to sometimes have curly hair. About every 6 months I try something new, 45 minutes later my hair is flat and straight again, I get frustrated and vow that I will never try to curl my hair again.

Putting the curls in is not the problem -- its keeping them.

So its that time of year again. Enough time has passed that the frustration and disappointment from my last experience have faded and I'm ready to experiment again. I refuse to believe with all the advances in sciences we have made, that there isn't a product out there that can keep my hair curly for longer than an hour. (Hair spray and mousse so far haven't been up to the challenge).

Any ideas?

Wild Kingdom

A few weeks ago, we woke up to some loud crashing in our attic. After we heard it again a while later, we broke down and called a "critter control" company. We figured we may have a racoon or a possum. While they couldn't find anything living up in our attic, they left a bunch of traps. Every few days I check the traps, but so far, nothing.

Last night we were talking to our neighbor, leaning against our tree, when he noticed something in the tree above us. I guess that means we were not hearing things after all.

Things I've learnt in the Kitchen (recently)

1. Baking powder does go bad.

This was discovered Christmas morning - the first year I spent Christmas with my in-laws and insisted that I would make Christmas breakfast for everyone.

2. The temperature of the butter matters.

This was discovered last night. Just making some regular peanut butter cookies that I've made a hundred times. But my butter was frozen so I just zapped it in the microwave and poured it in melted. 30 minutes later I poured the cookie dough into the bin.

Just thought I'd share, in case someone else is as clueless as me in the kitchen. Maybe this will save your next batch of cookies!