Holy Guacamole!

There are certain things you sacrifice when you live in rural Montana. Fresh produce is high on that list.  Avocado's top that list.

If you're lucky enough to find good quality avo's that didn't suffer too badly during their trip from sunshine and 75º to frozen tundra, they're not going to be cheap.

So when you find them in good shape AND only .88¢ a piece, you buy those suckers!!

Which is precisely what I did, because I LOVE guacamole. Love it. I could eat it every day. For obvious reasons, I dont.  So this was a treat!

Simple, Fresh, Guac

1 perfectly ripe avocado
1/2 of an equally ripe roma tomato, finely diced
1T finely diced onion (if you're smarter than me and remember to buy onions)
Dash of salt, onion powder, garlic powder
Skosh of lemon juice (Is "skosh" a legit measurement in the culinary world? I dont know…)
1T mayonnaise
**Optional…pepper, red pepper flakes (if you're not a spicy food weenie like me), cumin, or anything else that sounds like it might be good! Just start with little amounts, because you can always add more.

Look at these beautifully ripe beauties! A winter miracle!

Aw, I <3 you too avocado!

 The cast of characters. Minus the onions, because I'm a flake.

Mayo….it makes everything better. Yes, I realize that's probably more than 1T. I like my mayo, what can I say? 

Smush it all up with a fork, adjust seasonings and spices to taste, devour with tortilla chips. Or a spoon. Whatever. 

Our DIY Kinetic Sand experiment

Every time I go into our local ACE Hardware store, I end up playing with the sample Kinetic Sand they have on display. I wanted to get some for my kids until I saw the $15 price tag for a tiny container. Sorry….I'm WAY to cheap for that!

So I gave a DIY recipe a chance. It turned into an experiment for the What Not To Do file. I used this recipe from gimmefreebies.com and it didn't go well. I think part of it had to do with measuring the sand, but it just didn't work. I added WAY more cornstarch and WAY more dish soap to get it sort of right but it never stuck together like the "real" stuff does.

This was in the process of adding, adding, adding more starch and soap…still too sticky.

Finally got it to stick together and be moldable!

The punks still had fun with it but it only survived one use and I'm still finding sand in my kitchen….

Yep…..she ate it…..

I decided to keep digging to find a good recipe for this, and came across this article that explains what the main ingredients in the "real" thing are. I found this excerpt interesting….

"We did a little digging into Delta of Sweden's product-specific medical fact sheet (the document you bring to the doctor after you notice all of the sand has disappeared and Junior's belly looks full). While the proportions are not revealed, there are only two ingredients listed: "silicon dioxid" [sic] and "polydimethyl siloxane."

Silicon dioxide, which is what we assume they meant, is basically sand and presumably the 98% part. Polydimethyl siloxane or PDMS, on the other hand, is a rubbery, viscoelastic material that's a key ingredient in Silly Putty.

So is it safe? It better be: PDMS, a silicone agent found in caulk, can also be used as an antifoaming agent—something that both McDonald's and Wendy's list in their ingredients for Chicken McNuggets and french fries!"

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Either Silly Putty (and Kinetic Sand) is completely safe for the punks to eat, which they inevitably will at some point in their play, or we REALLY need to stop eating at the Golden Arches!

I think we'll stick with our home made play dough!

Crochet Flower Pattern FREE!

I have a project in mind for my daughters room, but I couldn't find a crochet flower pattern that I liked for it. So I made one up.

This could also be used as an embellishment on just about anything you want, or glued to a hair clip!

It could also be made smaller by decreasing the number of hdc's in the first round, just make sure to keep it an uneven number…for some reason, flowers look weird with an even number of petals! Or maybe it's just my OCD. You do whatever you want with your flowers!

Here's the pattern! Keep in mind, I'm not a professional pattern writer. In fact…this is the first pattern I've ever written! I'll do my best, but feel free to comment with any questions!

Also….if you want instructions with pictures, keep scrolling down!

Crochet Flower

Ch 4, ss in first chain to create loop (or use a magic ring if you want to pull the center closed tight)

9 hdc in center, finish off, change color

Ch3, 2dc, ch3, ss in first hdc

*Ss, ch3, 2dc, ch3, ss in next hdc

*repeat around until you have 9 petals

ss in base of first ch3, finish off.  Leave tails to sew onto project, or cut short to glue onto canvas.

I used a couple different hook sizes. This shows the difference in size between an I hook (pink flower) and a G hook (purple flower)! The pink one is just a bit bigger! Experiment with different hook sizes if you want bigger or smaller flowers! 

Instructions with pictures! 

Ch 4, ss in first chain ( fourth from your hook, where the blue star is!) to create loop

This is what your loop will look like after you slip stitch into the first chain.

Half double crochet in the center of the loop. This is the start of a hdc.

Pull through all three loops

Keep going with the hdc's in the center hole until you have 9, then slip stitch in the bottom of the first hdc you made (where the blue star is!)

Chain stitch and cut the loop and pull it tight to finish off. 

                                            

Pull up a loop of the petal color in the same stitch you finished off in. 

Chain 3

Two double crochets in the same stitch, then chain three

Slip stitch back down in the same stitch

Slip stitch in the next stitch over, and chain three

Then the same two double crochets, chain three, slip stitch all in the same stitch, then move to the next.

So you will *ss, ch 3, 2dc, ch3, ss* around for a total of nine petals.

Then slip stitch in the bottom of the very first chain three (where the blue star is!)

 Finish off the same way you did the first round.  Leave tails to sew onto project, or cut short to glue onto canvas.

The petals always look rumply to me, so I push them around and flatten them til they look right! 

Perfect Pennant Giveaway!

Jessica is one of my very best friends, and she makes adorable pennants for holiday decor or birthday's, or whatever you can imagine! She is giving away a Valentines mini banner on Facebook when her page reaches 100 likes!

Check out The Perfect Pennant, "like" her page, and enter the giveaway!

*Deep Breath* NaNoWriMo

I just signed up. I suppose that means I'm doing it.

I guess most people don't even know that I write in the first place, other than this blog. I've always loved reading because I can immerse myself in a different place or time, but it's really fun to be able to create all the details myself! I've started a couple of novels (or what I hope will be novels someday) but never finished one.  Kind of like every other artsy thing I do, I start it and then it sits, ignored, for months. Years. My pile of unfinished crochet projects will attest to my lack of finishing power!

I'm hoping NaNoWriMo will be the motivation and inspiration I need to actually put a whole story together and not just write a few scenes. Creating expectation for myself is a hard thing for me to deal with. Every time I tell someone about a project I'm working on, I feel obligated to work on it and finish it. I don't like feeling obligated to anything…so it doesn't get done.

I know….right? Totally contradictory. I'm not sure why I think telling the whole world that I'm writing AND have a 30 day deadline is going to help me write, but I might as well give it a shot!

So here I go….50,000 words from November 1st to November 30th.

Meal Planning

Yep, I need to get back to it. It saves my grocery budget, and a little bit of my sanity.

I dont make as many "quick runs" (read: $40 bucks later I get out of Albertson's with everything BUT what I went in for) and I dont have the stress of "What the crap am I going to make for dinner?!" at 6pm.

I'm also planning on making some freezer meals as I go, as well as some meals for Chuck to take back to work with him.

I'm going to start with an inventory of my fridge, freezers, and pantry to figure out what I have in the first place! Then I'll go through the millions (only a slight exaggeration) of pins on my recipe Pinterest board and decide what we're eating for the next couple weeks!

I'm going to use this system from The Resourceful Gals to streamline it. Hopefully.

And, of course, I'll share it on my favorite Cafemom group, Make Life Beautiful! 

Throw Back Thursday!

Throwback to this crazy little boy and his dog! 

Where does the time go… 8 years ago, he was a spunky little baby. Now I'm dealing with parent teacher conferences and baseball teams and his three siblings!