U is for Useful

I wasn't sure what to do for 'U' then I heard someone talking about something useful they did and then it struck me, I could talk about something useful to my blogging.

Someone once told me that it was always a good idea to keep a pen and notebook beside your bed.
You never know when a great idea or post will come to you or you might remember something that you need to sort the next day etc, so always good to have something to be able to jot it down on and with.

It seems that blog posts come to me as I lay drifting off to sleep. These wonderful ideas spring to mind and suddenly I am layed there with my eyes closed writing the post in my head. The words are flowing and they sound good too.
So I have started to turn my light back on and write down what I was planning in my head, then I don't have to try and remember it the next day or forget the wonderful words I used in the original draft of the post.
Steve doesn't go to bed until much later than I, so I never disturb him as he is usually not in bed at this time!

I find this useful because once it is written down on paper then I find I drift off to sleep much easier as I no longer have all these words racing round in my head, which is great because I love my sleep.

WFMW - Egg Cups

Time again folks for Works For Me Wednesday, from Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

Whilst at the caravan, the boys announced one morning that they wanted boiled eggs for breakfast.

Nothing wrong with this except that:

1. I can count on one hand the amount of times they have requested eggs for breakfast in their whole life.
2. We do not have any egg cups to hold the eggs at the caravan

So whilst we were happily saying yes to the eggs, we were racking our brains over what we could do for egg cups.

Steve finally came up with the idea of using the egg carton.

He just cut out each little section that was holding an egg and voila you ahve a disposable egg cup.

Perfect for the caravan and when your kids want inprompture boiled eggs!

WFMW - Useful Hints

I got sent these Useful Hints on email. Some of them actually sound pretty good and I know there are a few I will be putting into action at my place really soon.

Hopefully you will find something that you know you can use too.

Bananas
Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to Pick the little 'stringy things' off of it. That's how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Cheese

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.

Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

Scrambled Eggs

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of Spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

Brownies

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints In double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Garlic

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste Of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Left Overs

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply Chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them In a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 For 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

Reheat Pizza

Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low And heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on The cooking channel and it really works.

Easy Deviled Eggs

Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting

When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer For a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes With the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating Refrigerated Bread

To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in A microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food Moist and help it reheat faster. N

Newspaper Weeds Away

Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, Put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and for- Get about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not Get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass

Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

No More Mosquitoes

Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away!

To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

Flexible vacuum

To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel Roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

Reducing Static Cling

Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt Or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and ... Ta DA! ... Static is gone.

Measuring Cups

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such As peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Foggy Windshield?

Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car . When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening Envelope

If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

Conditioner

Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.

Goodbye Fruit Flies

To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

Get Rid of Ants

Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

Works For Me Wednesday

I can not believe that over my 3 weeks away I managed to find many helpful tips that I want to share with you.

Now I just have to try and remember to get them posted and linked at Rocks In My Dryer on the right day.

What works for me this week is how to remove tar from floors.

We managed to get tar on the lino in the caravan during the holidays. It was so hot the roads of course were going all soft and sticky.

I noticed the tar on the floor and thought someone had spilt coffee granules, but no, it was tar and it was not coming off easy either.

My mum then said that her mother had always used butter to remove tar?!

Yep that is what I said, butter or margarine.

You simple get some kitchen paper, wipe it in the butter/marg and then use a little elbow grease to remove the tar from said area.

For the larger spots, then I also gently scrapped with a knife after rubbing in the butter, then rubbed again with the butter.

It definitely took a little elbow grease to remove the tar, but I was amazed how easily it came off.

Way to go Grandma

WFMW - Kitchen Organisation Edition

It is that time again when Rocks in My Dryer hosts her Works for Me Wednesday.

She has chosen the first Wednesday of each month to be a themed edition.

This week, as you have read is about kitchens.

What works for me is a small simple tip.

I do not have sponges in the kitchen to wash up and clean with, I use face cloths.

I learnt this tip from my mother.

After watching a programme on bugs, germs and bacteria that float in the kitchen, the worst area for it was........you guessed it, the kitchen sponge.

Because people buy their sponges then they do not change them until the sponge is worn, but they are not cleaning them either, so everything is growing on them.

The joy of the face cloth is that you buy say 10 cloths of one colour, preferrably a colour that doesn't match the bathroom so you know they are kitchen cloths, and then you have the ability to change the cloth everyday.

This then allows you to have a clean cloth around the kitchen everyday, no more bacteria growing on your sponge.

Cleaning the cloth in the washing machine ensures the bacteria are killed and washed away.

No more smelly sponges being used for everything possible and left lying around the sink for days until they are worn.

Works for me......

Pop over to Rocks in My Dryer to find out what works for others today.

Oh yea, also remember it is PINK month, so get out there and support Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Works For Me Wednesday

Over at Rocks In My Dryer, it is again WFMW where she posts what works for her and we post back with what works for us.

It has been a while since I last posted anything.

This week what works for me is LOVE & FAMILY

With my wedding coming up on Saturday, then having all my family around helping us and all working towards making Saturday a wonderful day for us, then that works for me.

Tomorrow all the grandparents will be staying here and the boys are going to have a ball with them all here. They talk about them constantly.

So love and family works for me as I am sure it does for everyone out there.

Works For Me

HOW TO CLEAN THE HOUSE

1. Open a new file in your PC.

2. Name it "Housework."

3. Send it to the RECYCLE BIN.

4. Empty the RECYCLE BIN.

5. Your PC will ask you, "Are you sure you want to delete Housework permanently?"

6. Calmly answer, "Yes" and press mouse button firmly.....

7. Feel better?

Works for me!

Now this type of housework I like, I wish everything was this simple to get rid of!

Memory

Its Wednesday again and time for another WFMW Tip.

Since having children, which is just coming up for 5 years, I have noticed how bad my memory is!

It is not totally shot but enough that sometimes I will think about something, get up to make a list of the things and then only come up with 2 of the 3 things I was thinking about.

My long term memory seems fine, but the average day to day stuff can sometimes just slip right by without a blink.

Now to someone who can remember the most stupidist details and was always able to remember everything for the day, then this can get a little frustrating and annoying. Just another way that motherhood has affected my life that sometimes bugs me!

When Ben was first born I found that the way to solve this little problem was to have a notebook on the counter in the kitchen, and anything and everything got written down in it.

If I thought of something I had to do, then down it went, if I needed to write a number down, then that is where it went, when I was trying to organise things this is where I did my calculations.

Made life easy when you wanted to look back at something and be able to find it.

I have noticed that since we have been in Hamilton I haven't been using a notebook and things are getting forgotten and lost again.

So the notebook has come back out into the kitchen and hopefully things won't get forgotten or lost again!

Wedding Ettiquette

Sadly I can't wait for Shannon to do a 'backwards' WFMW as this question is burning inside me and I want to have an answer.

So I am sorry that I am doing a backwards one on a normal WFMW.

Now as you are all aware I am getting married in September.

Everything is going fine and all bookings are coming together really well.

Who ever said that organising a wedding was a stressful time? What were they talking about, although ask me that at the beginning of September!

Anyway, my question at present is this......

"Even though we have placed an RSVP on the invitation, do you chase people to get a reply or do you automatically assume they are attending and count them in the numbers for the reception. Or do you assume because they haven't RSVP'd that they are not coming so therefore don't include them in the numbers and then have the embarassment of them turning up on the day and not having a seat for them?!"

What is the right thing to do?

People have until Aug 18 to RSVP and we have informed the restaurant that we will give them finally numbers at the beginning of September.

Do I follow up with people closer to the time or do I just leave alone??

Doesn't WFMW

I have just gone over to Rocks in my Dryer and discovered that this weeks theme for WFMW is actually 'What doesn't work' rather than what does work.

So having just spent about 20 minutes getting the post all sorted for this weeks carnival I have decided that what doesn't work for me is Time Differences!

Because I am so many hours ahead of the USA I can sometimes write my WFMW in the morning (my morning when the USA is still fast asleep) and then have to wait for the end of my day before I can link it to 'Rocks in my Dryer'. Sometime I don't link it until the next day!

This is great as long as there isn't a particular theme like today.

Oh well, my great tip can wait till next week.

WFMW Again

Yes it is that time of week again for another helpful tip of some kind.

This week I am not sure if it is a tip or just a great way of doing something that everyone probably already knows about.

Anyway, I have discovered a wonderful recipe for making Pizza Dough, curtesy of Sophie Gray, The Destitute Gourmet.

The part of the recipe I love and think you can do with any dough making is how she gets the dough to rise.

When you have finished kneading the dough, place in a greased bowl and cover with greased glad wrap, then place in the microwave on low power for 1 minute. Rest for 10 minutes (in the microwave), then low power for 1 minute and then finally rest for a further 10 minutes.

The dough will now have risen to double its size and be ready to shape.

Here is her recipe for Pizza:

For the base:

2 heaped cups of plain flour

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 satchet instant yeast

1/3 cup milk

2/3 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 200c

In a large bowl combine all base ingredients.

Mix to form a dough then knead on a floured bench for around 5 minutes till smooth, springy and elastic.

Dust the dough with flour as required during kneading.

Place dough in a clean greased bowl and cover with greased glad wrap.

Place in microwave on low power for 1 minute, rest for 10 minutes, low power for 1 minute and rest for another 10 minutes.

Whilst dough is in the microwave prepare your favorite toppings

When the dough is doubled in size, punch it down and roll out to desired shape, either 1 large pizza or several small ones (makes 4 nice small ones) place on a baking tray.

Decorate with your favorite toppings.

Allow dough to rise a little then bake in the pre heated oven for 15 minutes or until the dough is golden and the topping piping hot.

This recipe is wonderful to make with the kids. Check this out to see my 2 helping make the dough. They then decorate the tops themselves before they go in the oven.

WFMW

Time again for a tip in this weeks Works For Me Wednesday over at Rocks in my Dryer.

My little tip is one I read about the other week, but sadly can not recall where I saw it.

Anyway, all kids love feeding the ducks, my 2 especially.

But keeping the bread until we have enough is not quite so much fun, but now it is easy.

Keep a plastic bag in the freezer and place the scraps of bread for the ducks in there.

When you are ready to feed the ducks, take the bag from the freezer and viola, bread for the ducks that is not mouldy.

Works for Me Wednesday

Ok so I am a day or so out, but with the time differences etc I can be forgiven.

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer holds WFMW each week, this is where you post you tip saving ideas and then link it to her web site so others can come visit and read you marvelous tip.

Weekly Menus

When Ben was little I found after the long day of looking after him I had no energy to decide what to have for dinner! Were we going to have chicken, mince, sausages? If so how were they being cooked? What were we having with them? Had we had chicken the night before and now having chicken again tonight?

Some days it just became too much.

So one day I sat down and wrote out a list of all the meals we liked and ate.

I then wrote out a page with 4 weeks on it and started filling it in with the meals. (picture not the greatest, but gives you an idea)

Now this was the tricky part because I tried to make sure we didn't have chicken 2 nights running, also that what we were planning for the days when I was at work didn't take more than 30 minutes to cook, due to the time we got home etc.

Making pizza from scratch takes time so had to be something we had on the weekends, same with a roast dinner.

This probably took about 2 or 3 attempts before I had it finalised, but then I ran with it and it worked.

No more worrying about what to have, how to cook it or when to start it.

I could look at the menu at 8am and plan the day knowing when I had to start cooking dinner etc.

So if you want some control over meal times the try this. It is easy but can be time consuming to start with while you get it all set up, but the time saving afterwards is great.

So is the less stress from not having to worry each day about dinner.

I have since updated ours several times, as new meals come into play, the boys will now eat chilli, and other ways of doing chicken etc so I refresh the menu when we have new things to eat.

Backwards WFMW

By checking out other peoples WFMW ideas and questions this is how I manage to stumble across some wonderful blogs to check out on a more regular basis.

Todays WFMW is 'backwards day' meaning that we ask the questions and hopefully someone will give us an answer that might just work and solve our problem.

My question for today is blog related as so many seem to be, anyway I have managed to subscribe to a few sites so I can see when they have posted again, but how do I set up my site so people can subscribe to me?

If anyone has a simple way of explaining or a useful site that makes it easy then I would love to know.....

By the way, don't forget to check in with Rocks in My Dryer to find out what others are asking about today.

Works For Me Wednesday

This is something I have picked up from a blog I view daily Over Whelmed with Joy. Ok she picked it up from a blog she views too, but that is how things get carried forward and a trend started.

Anyway, it is a way of letting you know about something that works for me, a little tip or product etc.

My WFMW Tip is something I actually saw someone else do one time and was a little puzzled to begin with as to what she was actually doing, but once completed I realised and thought "what a wonderful, simple but effective idea"

This is a tip that is useful when cooking, baking mainly.

I always find that when I have lined the tin with baking paper that however hard I try it never stayes in place and is even worse when I go to pour the mixture into the said tin.

So by securing the baking paper in place with 4 pegs makes for so much less mess and frustration.

The paper then stayes where I want it to stay until I am ready to put the mixture in the oven, then all you do is remove the pegs and place tin in the oven as normal.

So simple but so effective.