Snow and Seeds

Despite the fact that, once again, our lawn is blanketed with snow and the city has been at a standstill, my calendar for February 1 called for three things to happen. 1. Top up the oil on the car (it never makes it to the next oil change without needing a little extra oil, not that the mechanics can find a leak no matter how much they charge me) 2. give Nigella her heartworm medicine and flea and tick drops and 3. start the broccoli seeds.

Yep, school may have been cancelled due to snow and the temperatures may have been in the teens this weekend, but I'm starting my summer garden. I know, it's nuts. But since the last frost around here averages April 15 and the broccoli I'm planting needs starting 9-10 weeks before that, well, that would be today, so start the seeds I did.

In the renovation of my little studio, which I'm starting to feel is a bit of an obsession (our miter saw was ruined by the flood so I couldn't cut the molding for the windows unless I did it by hand with a hacksaw, so I did it my hand with a hacksaw. Why? Because I'm impatient and I want it DONE!) I hung strips of that ugly but functional bracket hanger on either side of one of the windows with the idea that I could have a little seedling propagation center in here which, besides being a good out-of-the-way place to start seeds, gives me an excuse to keep this room heated so I don't have to open the doors and wait a half hour for it to heat up every time I want to come in and work. At some point the idea is to paint the strips brackets and shelves with trim paint but since the seeds went in the dirt today, the shelves went up without paint. Not ideal, but like I said, I'm impatient. (ack, the window is also not scraped! Terrible!)

I'm also cheap. Cheap as in, I did by a set of jiffy pots with a plastic cover so Evie could see the magic of compressed soil mixed with water and found some other put-them-right-in-the-soil pots on sale, but other than that I've been collecting yogurt pots, sour cream tubs and toilet rolls for the past few weeks to start the 20 or so different varieties of seeds that I ordered from here and here. Where did the broccoli end up, well, as a matter of fact, in an egg carton.

OK, so I have no idea if this will work at all but I had this idea that if you planted seeds in empty egg shells they would eventually burst through the bottom and carry on growing. And since I cant really line a row of egg shells up on the shelf and I'm not sure when exactly this bursting through of the shells will occur and thus need some back up containment, the shells are nestled in an old egg carton.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will work brilliantly, because we ALWAYS have empty egg shells, being the crazy big egg eaters that we are, and also because I'd love to be able to wallow in my cheapness by starting all my seedlings in egg shells in the future. Plus, it looks cute.

Like Paddington

Marmalade is one of those things that I can not believe I hated as a kid. Like Clams. And Mushrooms. And, well, many things that I either wouldn't taste at all or that my taste buds had not grown into yet. To be honest I'm not even sure when it was that marmalade went from "eww yuck!" to "yes please and seconds!" but at some time between 1977 and when I was, say..20, it did. And thank goodness.

I can't really say that I am a passionate jam eater. I like jam. I love to make jam. Really, any good jam is fine by me. But most jams are just, well, jam. Good in their place, fun to make, something I like with breakfast. Marmalade and Lemon curd are probably the two that stand out though as things I love in the jam world. I dislike crappy lemon curd and I hate bad marmalade.

Needless to say, I was a little bit excited when last weekends marmalade turned out delicious. Tart but not mouth squeezingly so. Sweet but not cloying. Just the right balance. Which was lucky because, although I've made lemon curd many many times (and plan to again later this week!) I've never done marmalade. And trying a new jam can be tricky. But like any good little scholar, I've been studying. And I've read a good two dozen marmalade recipes in the last few weeks, from the slightly spartan version in my old "Stocking Up" to some wild and interesting varieties in my cookbooks and online. In the end I used close to the proportions of the basic Seville Orange Marmalade in The River Cottage Handbook no. 2 but substituted the Seville oranges (which I couldn't find despite them being in season and the fact that I went to three different grocery stores!) with 2 navel oranges, 2 tangelos and 2 lemons. And then just for shits and giggles (hi Uncle Greg!) I threw in a chunk of ginger root for part of the boiling time. The result was a dark, slightly reddish and well balanced (for my tastes at least) marmalade. I'd like to try my hand at a lighter version so if I can refrain from eating all the clementines in the bowl on my counter (very hard though, they are so good!) I'll test out a clementine version too. But first I need to get to that lemon curd. Or maybe the marmalade should come first. I cant decide....

Three fruit ginger marmalade

2 tangelos
2 navel oranges
2 lemons
10 cups of water
1 inch ginger root, peeled
7 cups of sugar
1/4 cup of honey

Scrub fruit. Cut all but one lemon in half, remove pips and squeeze, reserving juice.

















Slice peels (pith and all) into medium thin strips and add to juice along with water. Allow it to sit overnight.






The next day, bring to a boil an then reduce to a simmer until reduced by a third and until peel is tender. 2-3 hours. Add sugar and honey, place ginger in tea strainer and add it to the pot. Bring to a hard boil for 20 minutes then remove the ginger and squeeze the last lemons juice into the pot. Return to a hard boil for an additional 15 minutes or until at the setting stage. Turn off heat and allow to cool 5 minutes. Stir slowly to check for pips, fishing out any you find. Pour into sterilized jars and process

Floods, Jams and the Best Playdoh Recipe

We had a busy weekend at our house, between Will working most of both days, drizzly weather that kept us in and some distinct hints of stir crazyness, things were not super calm. And all of this culminated in waking up this morning to find almost a foot and a half of rain water standing in our basement which, although it's now gone, has left a sludge of mud over anything close to the ground.

However, despite the rain and the over worked daddy and the mud and the stir crazy kids and mommy, there were good things too.

* I made marmalade. Really, really yummy marmalade. Recipe coming soon!

* I finally got my color scheme worked out for the mudroom (which was a whole drama on my part that I wont go into, I'm just glad I'm finally making real progress)

* I ordered all my vegetable seed, most of my sets and some of my flower seeds for spring planting, and I even came up with a place to start a bazillion baby plants

* I FINALLY found the BEST playdoh recipe ever. Seriously. It's survived being left out twice for extended periods of time by someone in our family who shall remain nameless (hint, the shortest human) and is still going strong, smells divine and is just all around great. So instead of photos of the mud or the marmalade or the mudroom (three m's...) I'll leave you with this. You'll never need to buy playdoh again!

Peppermint Playdoh
1 c. flour
2T cream of tarter
1T vegetable oil
2 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 cup kosher salt

Mix all ingredients in a bowl then add 1 cup of BOILING water. Stir until combined, turn out onto a floured board and knead until smooth. Color can be added to the boiling water or at the kneading stage. Store in an airtight container. (Orange extract would be lovely too!) This makes about the equivalent of about two standard playdoh containers, a little more, so if you have old containers lying around, they make great storage for this.

6 Month Mark

I was flipping through last years calendar today (transferring dates, always a fun January task) and I realized that as of this week we have owned our house for 6 months. I was kind of shocked. I knew it hadn't been long but it felt, it still feels, like MUCH longer than 6 months.

I remember walking through the house on the day we closed thinking "what have we gotten ourselves into?" This is the third home we've owned and it wasn't really in any worse condition than the other two, both of which we renovated in a relatively brief time. But with those houses, both 1920's bungalows, the changes were mostly just paint and decor. Yes, we replaced the kitchen counters in one and we ripped out the whole bathroom of the other, but the bones of those houses were so beautiful that really all they needed was a little love. This house had much less character to begin with, and a truly truly terrible kitchen.

On that day I felt like we would never make a presentable home out of the mess we faced. With Will ripping the carpet off the stairs and telling contractors where to knock down walls and put in vents, I thought about the finished, not the way we would finish it but never the less finished house we were already living in and I felt totally overwhelmed.

This afternoon I went hunting through iphoto looking for photos of the before and realized that we've come much further than I ever thought we could. There is still plenty to do. The yard is practically untouched. The mudroom, the basement, and, of course, Will's long list of things to finish, but I can barely remember the house as it was. Which is a really good thing because, ugg, it was pretty ugly.

So now when I feel like we aren't moving fast enough to get that to-do list done or the mudroom in working order, I'll *try* to think back to those before photos or these or these and stop stressing. I can't guarantee that it will keep me sane, but I will try. So, to help me remember and just in case you'd like to see, here are some before and after of the kitchen, dining room and kids room (see links above for bathroom and living room)

Pillows

Yesterday, with an extra day off of school for Briton and a sunny weather forecast for most of Virginia, I decided to whisk the kids up to DC for the day to go play at the museums. It's one of the things I have enjoyed most about living in this area, the ability to pop up to DC to see a museum instead of trying to squeeze them all into a whirl wind vacation. And after having a fabulous time with the kids in the almost empty Spark Lab of the Museum of American History and the equally quiet butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum I've just about decided that it would be worth playing hooky on a week day every now and then just to get the museums practically to ourselves













And since we were up there anyway we also made a detour before into Trader Joe's and after to IKEA. But that didn't affect my decision to take them up there to begin with, of course not, what kind of mom do you think I am!

I didn't really need anything specific at IKEA. I think we've pretty much gotten past the point where we load down our car, or even a Uhaul, with their huge boxes. But I did need a few more jars for the kitchen and boxes for my craft and sewing stuff (and very pretty and organized they look in their new crisp, white boxes!) and a few other odds and ends. And while I was puttering through the kitchen doo-dads (very cool cookie cutter set featuring forest animals - moose cookies anyone?) I also thumbed through the fabric section. I always forget about their fabric. And while when I do get a chance to browse the fabrics I generally love the funky prints, they are usually too wild for what I'm looking for. But not this time.

I've been looking for some interesting fabric to re-do some of the pillows in our living room for a while now. The problem is that we have two dark brown couches in an already dimly lit and darkly painted room. The effect is cozy, which is what we wanted, but also a little, well, dark. New, lighter (and warmer) curtains have helped but since the pillows that grace out couch have been with us since we were newlyweds with a strange fascination for monkeys, it was time for a little updating. I still need more. Where I used to have four pillows for our one small love seat I now have three for two couches, so even with the newly spruced up cases, it's still a little sparse, but it's better. And brighter. Which is just what we needed.

In the past I've cut even fronts and backs, stitched up the sides and hand sewn the opening where I stuffed the pillow in. After browsing all the pillows on this site (I love the shirred one but I'm not sure Will would go for it - or that it would last long being used as stepping stones over a river of lava) I decided to make an envelope style case this time around. I'm not sure which I prefer now that they are done. While I hate! hate! hate! trying to stuff a pillow into a very small hole and sometimes don't get around to closing up said hole for a while, I also like having two "fronts" to the cases. The envelope style is easier, but unless I decided to add some decorative buttons, there is definitely a front and a back to them. But for speed and ease, well, they sure cant be beat. I was able to knock out both while Evie, who ended up with a fever at 4 this morning and is currently lounging on the couch working her way through my aging VHS Disney collection, watched the second half of The Little Mermaid.

Find the place on your fabric where you want the front to be. Don't forget this or you might, as I did, end up one day with a pillow with only three-quarters of a monkey on it, not the look I was going for.




Cut a square that is about 1/2 inch bigger than your pillow. I like to cut two side and then fold it into a triangle to get a perfect and even square.


Cut two pieces for the back that are the same height as the front piece but only about 2/3 the width.





Fold over and hem one of the long ends on each of the back pieces then layer the pieces so that the back overlap and all front sides are facing.






Stitch around, trim the edges and corners,











Turn and stuff the pillow in.
Done. Now I just need about four more.

One of those teaching moments.....

First a little disclaimer. This project is one that comes from my teaching days. I'm not really sure where it originated but it was always one of my favorite activities to do with the kids. And I loved my pin so much that I actually wore mine on my winter coat every day until it fell apart, about two years later.

A holiday like MLK day is always a conundrum for me. On the surface, it's just an extra day off of school, for good or for bad. Which generally depends on the behavior of my children. But they are both at an age where they can, and should, have an understanding of what the day is for. At the same time, it's hard to imagine spending the entire day talking about something that, while infinitely important, is also a difficult thing to fully process, even as an adult.

So while we spent most of the day playing and enjoying the sun (Yay! Sun!) we did invite the neighbors girls over to make MLK puzzle pins.

If you've got an old puzzle lying around with missing pieces, grab a handful for this project, otherwise, there are lots of Christmas puzzles out there on the clearance shelves right about now.





It's much easier to paint the back side of the puzzle so you don't have to cover over whatever busy picture is going on on the front. For each pin, paint one cream colored piece and one brown piece.





Once they have dried, hot glue the two pieces together (having an "in" bit on each side makes the ribbon part easier down the road.Tie a thin ribbon around the two with a bow secured in the middle.Hot glue a bar pin on the back and allow the glue to dry completely before pinning them on.

Easy Peasy as my kids would say.

Have a Happy Martin Luther King Junior Day folks, and while your having a fun day off (or even if your stuck at work - boo hiss) don't forget to share the love with the next generation.

Mudroom Update

First I'd like to say I have finally stopped procrastinating and the basement is now clean. Well, the non-shop part of the basement is clean, I'm not messing with the tool area. Mostly because I'm not allowed to touch power tools. This is not, I should make clear, Will's rule. It's mine. I have an awful feeling that I am genetically predisposed to injure myself with power tools, so I stay away for the most part. Also I just don't want to clean that part of the basement. But the rest has been dragged out of it's post holiday, too many missed trash days chaos and into something remotely associated with cleanliness. Oh it's not bring the company down to see it clean. and there is that large pile of stuff to be taken to Goodwill, but that will have to wait until no one under the age of seven and a half is looking.

In theory, this should mean that I am now free to focus my energies on the mudroom. Sadly (and probably correctly, but don't tell him I admitted it) Will has declared that before we do much more with the mudroom there are a LOT of projects at the 90% done phase that should be finished before we get engrossed in a new one. Bah. That's no fun. But as I said, probably a good idea. Although since I had already made a good start on the room I feel that I'm totally justified in adding it to the "to be finished" priority list.

Like I said, I have made a start AND I scored two great finds for it this week as well. Yesterday I bought this chair at Salvation Army where I was hunting for interesting mugs for a waterslide decal project I'm messing around with (check back next week for photos). Will's not a big fan of the chair but I think it has good possibilities. What the possibilities are exactly I haven't really decided, but I definitely see it as an in-the-corner veg chair for the finished room.






The other score was this mantle which I've already give several coats of shiny black paint and which will be appearing (sooner rather than later I hope) as something other than just a plain mantle. But I wont tell you what just yet.




It's still a mess, but between the paint and the lack of junk (other than building supplies) it's looking better. Now if we could just push it to the top of that little (big) list, we could get the trim and the floor and the storage in and I would finally have a place to pack full of all my craft, sewing and writing junk.

Humm, did I just suggest that I should clean out junk so that I can fill it up with junk? Yes, yes I did. Well, what can I say, I'm a recovering pack rat!