Happy Mother's Day, Mama

A card just won't do, Mama.

Instead of writing about how much I love you (and I do), seems like a good idea to review four really important lessons you taught me. Took years to understand most of them. Probably don't have it all quite right even now.

Never chew gum "off the property."
I always thought you hated the sound of gum being snapped, but it wasn't about the gum, was it? It was about showing the world our best, about having respect for ourselves and others. You taught us there was a time and place for everything.

Say "Thank you."
Yes, you taught us basic manners. Beyond that, you taught us to be truly grateful for things and to express that gratitude. Long before it became fashionable, you knew that gratitude changes everything.

Pick up your feet when you walk.
You always did hate the sound of dragging feet, but that wasn't the whole story. Picking up our feet pretty much guarantees that we step lightly on the earth. We trust that the ground will be beneath them when we put them down again. You taught us to let go, again and again, in ways big and small, our whole lives long. Turns out, there aren't many skills more important for life.

Home is where you are.
We grew up hundreds (sometimes thousands) of miles from your home, mostly in a town where you barely knew a soul. But you gave us an unshakeable sense of home. Wherever we are, wherever we may go, your love is there. That has given us the freedom to see the world, knowing home is always right there waiting. Not always in the same place, because you have moved through the years, too. But always, always home.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

When Life Gives You Grapes, Make Raisins

We hoped to show you another project for green living today but didn't get it finished in time. Aunt Grace is flying in from California this afternoon, and Mom's in a spin, getting ready.

Aunt Grace is my grandfather's sister, the only surviving sibling in that family, and one of our favorite people in the world. Look up the word indomitable in the dictionary and you'll find her picture. 

Years ago the women of our family went to the national quilt show in Paducah, KY. Grace flew from CA to Iowa and then drove to KY, arriving well after dark. I flew from Minneapolis to Kansas City, then Mom, her sister Donna, my sister Deb, and a couple friends-who-became-family drove to KY together. Moments after we got there, Mom realized she'd given Grace the wrong hotel name/address. Worse yet, the hotel Grace was looking for no longer existed. We panicked a bit. I got a phone book and started calling every hotel in town, explaining the situation and asking them to watch for an elderly lady who was confused and concerned.

Yeah. Don't know who I was describing, but it wasn't Grace. About 11 pm, we heard someone beating on the door of our room, yelling, "You can run, but you can't hide!"

When Grace got to the address she'd been given and discovered nothing but a demolition site, she found a gas station with a phone and called my dad. He told her where we were, she got directions from the gas station guys and drove herself over there. In a strange city. In the dark. She was 76 at the time and had had a mastectomy about a week before the trip. Still had drains in place, even.

That was nothing for Grace. When she was a young woman, her husband came home with a pick-up bed filled with grapes he'd gotten from some farmer for a couple dollars. She didn't miss a beat. Just pulled out a ladder and crawled up onto the roof of her house. Spread screens all over and laid out the grapes to dry into raisins.

When I grow up, I'm gonna be like Grace.

Meantime, I cleaned out my pantry on Sunday. Among other things, it was chock-full-o'empty containers. You know, old cookie tins and wide-mouthed jars—things that could be really cute and useful if only I did something with them other than stuff them into the back of the pantry.

Here's what I did with a tin that once held ginger cookies from World Market.



It took three or four coats of spray paint to cover the original wild markings, but it worked eventually. I used Aileen's Jewel It glue to apply the rick rack. (It should hold through hand washing.) A little small-g-grace for the pantry. 

See you Friday. We'll try to get that green project done by then. It's majorly cute.

Going Sleeveless

This cute little reusable sleeve is going to cut our carbon footprints. Just a tiny bit, mind you, but every little bit helps.

Out early the other morning, Mom and Debbie and I stopped for coffee and bagel on a whim (read no travel mugs with us). Of course, the paper cups were too hot to handle, so we reached for cardboard sleeves. As soon as we picked them up, Mom and I looked at each other and laughed.

Using the cardboard sleeve as a pattern, we made one for each of our purses.


We sandwiched Insul-Bright (an heat-insulating batting) between two layers of fabric and stitched them up. Added Velcro and some trim, and we were done. Now we won't throw away cardboard coffee sleeves, even when we have to use paper cups.


Stay tuned. We've got a couple more projects for green living up our sleeves. If everything goes well, we'll show you the latest on Wednesday.

Super Easy Placemats

Mom and I have been on kind of a placemat kick since we figured out the ones she uses most of the time are about 30 years old. She has some fabric in the stash that's been waiting to become placemats for almost 10 years. It's time. It's really time.

We played with some heavy interfacing/stabilizer a couple of weeks ago, working on the projects for the book proposal. I got the bright idea that we could use it for placemats. Turns out we can. 

We made one this afternoon. Super easy and we love the way it turned out.

Even if you don't sew a lot, you can make these guys. All it takes is a bit of measuring, some pressing, and a couple lines of  stitching.

 

Start with:

*heavy-duty interfacing and stabilizer (we like Timtex but other brands work, too)

*fabric (two 16 x 21 inch pieces for the foundation and two 3 x 45 inches pieces for the border)

*fusible web (we like Wonder-Under)

Cut a 15 x 20-inch piece of the Timtex. Cut two pieces of fabric, each slightly larger than the Timtex.

Now cut Wonder Under to fit the fabric. Iron the Wonder-Under to the back of the fabric. Remove the paper backing and iron the fabric to the Timtex. Repeat on the other side.

 You'll end up with a sandwich of fabric/Timtex/fabric. 

Cut two strips of border fabric, each 3 inches by 45 inches. Press under 1/4 inch on each long edge, then press the strip in half lengthwise. Cut 3/4-inch strips of Wonder-Under and press one to each side of each strip.

Press a finished strip to the top and bottom of the placemat and trim the edges. Stitch the border in place, close to the folded edge.

Fold under 3/8 of an inch or so on one end of a strip. Slide the placemat under the folded edge and then sandwich the strip around it. Press in place.


Stitch. Repeat on the other side.

That's it. You've made a darling placemat in no time flat. Now. . .about that napkin. We're all thinking green these days. Cloth napkins are inexpensive and easy to make, and they can be used practically endlessly. 


One yard of fabric will make four napkins. I got this piece on sale for $4.00 a yard, and it took less than an hour to finish all four. All I did was press under 1/4 inch all the way around and then press that under again, to make a double-folded hem. Then I stitched around the edges. (Straight lines are not my best thing, so I use a small zig-zag stitch. Worked great.)

Ants

Michelle asked about an ant problem. I really have never had a problem with them so I don't have any real first hand advice for you. I do have a book called "Club the Bugs and Scare the Critters". It's by Dr Myles H Bader. Here are a few of his suggestions,

1 Giving the Queen Heartburn
3 1/2 Ounces of Strawberry jam (any sweet jam will do)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of wet, canned cat food (cheap brand)
1 Tablespoon of boric acid

This concoction is a treat for ants and the workers will bring the treat to their queen. The queen gets excited and quickly gobbles up the goody and within a few hours dies of heartburn. Make sure this treat is out of reach of children and animals that you wish to have around for awhile. If they do ingest it, it will make them very sick. However, it doesn't take very much to do the job and eliminate the queen.

2 Feed them Melon

If you have a bad ant problem and can't get rid of them, just leave a slice of watermelon or cantaloupe in your yard far from the house. They would prefer melon to anything you have in the house most of the time.

3 The Ant Trapper

6 Tablespoons of granulated sugar
6 Tablespoons of active dry yeast (fresh)
1/2 cup standard grade molasses or honey
10 small plastic lids or bottle caps

Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix thoroughly until it is smooth. Place the mixture into the lids or caps and place near an ant trail or near their mound. The mixture can also be spread on a piece of cardboard or small stick and placed in their pathway or in a crevice.

4 Getting Rid of Ant Hills

1/4 cup of liquid hand soap
1 gallon of cool tap water

Place all ingredients into a bucket and mix well, then pour 1-2 cups on the anthill and repeat after 1 hour to be sure that the mixture penetrates deep into the chambers.


5 Repel Them with Tansy

If you sprinkle some fresh tansy leaves in the corners of your kitchen counters and in the window sills it will repel ants 100%.
Tansy is a perennial flowering plant of the aster family. Lots more information if you google it.

These next two are just interesting

It takes 500,000 sugar ants to equal a pound. If you weigh all the ants on earth, they will weigh more than all humans on earth.

In Africa a hungry ant can enter an elephants ear and eat them from the inside out. A number of elephants every year fall prey to ants.

If you think you know where the ants are entering the house and need to be sure, just place some strips of masking tape glue-side up and put some sugar or honey on it. Check it in the morning and see how many ants you trapped.


Hope one of these things works for you Michelle. Let us all know what you think.

Mama

Plant Some 'erbs, Herb

Last Saturday we went to the farmers market. Actually, we went to TWO farmers markets--one in Overland Park, KS, and one in downtown Kansas City. What a great way to spend a morning.

We each picked up some herbs and thought we'd show you our kitchen herb gardens. If you haven't planted one, try it. There are few pleasures more pure than harvesting your own herbs for a dish you're cooking. Container gardens like ours are oh-so-convenient and easy to do.

I'm crazy about galvanized buckets. Love them. And here's the deal--since I use them for lots of things, I hate to put drainage holes in them. After all, they could become something entirely different later, but only if I haven't poked them full of holes. SO...I don't.

But container gardens need drainage, you say? Right! We solve that problem by filling the bottom of the container with plastic bottles before adding the dirt. Works like a charm. My theory is that the bottles create little rivers and valleys for the water to run into. They also replace a lot of soil, so the container ends up lighter and easier to handle, which I like.

The bottles I had saved were too big for this container. They fit inside, but didn't create quite the right number of hills and valleys.


That's better: I cut some of them in half. A generous layer of bottles goes in first, then the dirt. We use Scott's potting soil with the moisture retention stuff. It helps come July and August when it's over 100 degrees in the shade!


Here are our herbs. (only $5 for all 4 at the farmers market!)

We slide each out of its pot, break up the soil around the root, and slip it into a pocket in the new soil. Pat the soil around it, and it's set. I put basil, thyme, and chives into one pot.


x

And dill into another. (It gets really big.)

That's it. Now all they need is water. We'll pinch them back from time to time. Basil gets leggy if you let it and chives try to take over the world. A quick pinch now and then takes care of that.

Dad Cooks!

While Mom and I have been hard at work designing and sewing up projects for the book I'm writing, Dad has been keeping us fed in grand style. We can't show off the projects yet, but we can show you one of Dad's casseroles.



He got the recipe from his favorite cookbook, Taste of Home's Contest Winning Recipes, 2004. Before Mom had shoulder surgery last year, Dad read through nearly every recipe she has, looking for things he could make while she was out of commission. He made lists, shopped, and cooked up a storm. Baked pies from scratch and everything. Still does, once in a while.

Anyway, here's his recipe for Cajun Cabbage Casserole. We finished everything in the nick of time, so we should be back with something interesting to show you on Friday.

1 lb. ground beef
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (10 ounces) diced tomatoes and green chilies (Rotel)
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
½ c uncooked long grain rice
1 t salt
½ t dried basil
½ t dried oregano
¼ to ½ teaspoon each white, black and cayenne pepper (Dad stays on the low end of the range)
4 to 6 drops hot pepper sauce (Dad usually leaves this out, depending on whether he expects anyone with a sensitive stomach in the dinner crowd)
1 small head of cabbage
1 c shredded Colby cheese

In a skillet, brown beef, green pepper, onion and garlic. Drain. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato sauce, rice and seasonings.

Spread in an ungreased 9 x 13 baking dish. Top with cabbage and cheese. Cover and bake at 350° for 65 to 75 minutes or until the rice is tender.