Stormi's Profile

We have a patch of unused lawn in the back yard, just outside the door, where we want to put down flagstone or pavers. I had thought to just put an outdoor dining set from Home Depot or Lowe's out there, with an umbrella over, for our al fresco dining space. But the first photo reminds me so much of many of the outdoor living areas I got to share with friends in Germany and Italy and the south of France while living in Europe. I would really love to recreate that here, and living in the southern US, we can use all the shade we can get.

The Dollar store has cute paper or sometimes plastic Chinese takeaway boxes; they aren't appropriate for anything drippy but they are perfect for a stack of cookies.

My two stepchildren are 15 and almost-13; the older, a boy, proudly declares himself a 'Meatatarian' and will eat almost nothing but meat, white rice, and Rice-A-Roni. My girl eats pasta with cold jarred Ragu. Stepfamilydom is very new to us all, and they lived mainly with their father who does the best he can (their mother doesn't cook. Ever.) And of course the two kids love junk food, as does their father. We're working on changing things, but it is very hard.

I see some encouraging signs in my stepson, who loves hot chilis, and has recently discovered the goodness of the onion. I may never get him to eat broccoli, but if I can encourage him to eat more spicy things, we may be able to branch out into ethnic cuisines; Thai and Indian. A spicy sauce covers a multitude of sins. Or vegetables.

I use waxed paper to wrap my sea salt caramels, but to make it pretty, I cut up pieces of tissue paper the same size as the waxed paper and layer them, w.p. on the inside and decorative tissue on the outside. My tissue paper or iridescent foil comes from the dollar store, and that's also a great place to get other items to package the candies. I just found silver and gold Chinese takeaway boxes, and usually at Christmas they have lots of boxes and tins for packaging gifts.