D.B. Tip #6

Tidy D.B. – a great use for one of those small crockpots!  I think they’re called “little dippers”.  I have one for heating herbs in oils…and it works great for this perfect little D.B. Tip.  Did you know you can use your crockpot as an air freshener?  Seriously!  Who’d have thunked it?  Morning sickness has been very rough the last couple of weeks…and smells have been the worst culprit.  I ran across this perfect idea at A Year of Slow Cooking and can honestly say it’s been a HUGE blessing. 

Healing Ear Pain

Poor CareBear has been suffering for over a week now from one of the upper respiratory illnesses going around.  Don’t worry.  She’s being watched close and is now well on her way to being back to normal.  The downside is that she’s missed a weeks worth of seminary, and had to suffer through her final exams for this block…coughing the whole way through.  (She did very well by the way.)  To make matters worse,  midweek she developed an earache.  I’m sure everyone knows the kind I mean.  The ones that seem annoying at first…during the day…but then turn into wicked torture somewhere around midnight.

Super Easy Personal Pizzas

If it’s easy and has to do with cooking, then it’s loved by me.  When it’s loved by the kidlets, it’s a bonus!  Pizza should be a no brainer then.  Even when I take the time to make pizza crust (which really is easier then it sounds), pizza is an easy meal.  And when I go all out and make personal size crusts and let them make their own, I become the Mom Hero…at least for that day.  I found an even easier way to make personal pizzas.  Other then lining up the ingredients and oven duty, I don’t have to put any effort in it at all.  Can’t get easier then that! (…except maybe ordering a pizza in…but then I stress about the cost…and having to open the door during a bad hair day…)

D.B. Tip #5

Tidy D.B. Tip: Harness the cleaning power of vinegar! Not only as a disinfectant…but to help repel dust!

Pumpkin Power Muffins

A few years ago we discovered that the simple cereal breakfasts weren’t working very well.  The kidlets were going through a box of cereal almost daily and were still hungry a short time later.  Then we discovered that some of us had allergies…to cottonseed oil, food dyes, preservatives, and oats.  Eliminating these things from our diet has been a challenge, but the effort has been worth it.  But this left me trying to figure out how to do breakfast…and keep it simple enough that everyone could basically feed themselves.  I think I’ve mentioned before how much I hate cooking.  Couple that with how much mornings hate me and you can imagine how discouraged and cranky I was feeling.

Whole Wheat Bread

I don’t consider myself a baker, but apparently a couple of my great uncles were professional bakers.  There have been many times over the years that I’ve wished to have their knowledge and expertise when it’s come to making bread!  My family has been wonderful at eating my trials and errors…no matter how funky the bread has looked.

Pina Colada Slushie

Homemade…Bestmade.  I fell in love with a local fast food’s summer pina colada slushie.  But neither my pocketbook, nor my tummy would let me indulge as I would love to.  So I did the next best thing…I figured out how to make it at home.  Definitely cheaper…and without all the additives that send my insides on a unpleasant roller coaster ride.  My sis asked me to share…so this one is for you “Youngest Sis”.

Outside the Box

…or cupboard in this case.  I’ve been slowly mucking out my kitchen and trying to reorganize it in a way that works better for all of us.  Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot I can do different then we have been doing.  My kitchen isn’t all that big…and with 8 of us, disorganized is just a fact of life that I’m slowly learning to live with.  I did do something knew though…

72 Hour Kits and the Allergy Monster

There are many many reasons that I know of for having Emergency and 72 Hour Kits…and probably many many more reasons I haven’t even thought of.  I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit that the closest we are to having these kits is the stack of camping stuff buried in the garage.  Dealing with a disaster, I think, would be easier then digging that stuff out!  Now some of you are thinking “Wait a minute!  You’re supposed to be the Ward Emergency Preparedness Specialists!”  Ya, well…let’s not even think about that right now.  Let’s just talk about why I don’t have these kits put together.

Ants

“Ants are found on all continents except Antarctica, and only a few large islands such as Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia and the Hawaiian Islands lack native ant species.Ants occupy a wide range of ecological niches, and are able to exploit a wide range of food resources either as direct or indirect herbivores, predators and scavengers. Most species are omnivorous generalists but a few are specialist feeders…More than 12,000 species are currently known (with upper estimates of about 22,000)…” quoted from Wikipedia.