clothespin's Profile

The best kids parties I've ever been to were hosted by friends of mine. Plenty of stuff for the kids (bouncy house, a visiting princess, bubbles...) but then adult music and food and lots of beer and wine. A good mix of kids and adults were invited which is also key... The kids crashed long before the adults - who sat around in the back yard having a good time late into the night. It was the combo of adult and kid party that made this one that dads never complained about attending. In fact, we looked forward to it every year... but they've since moved away (deployed military) so I guess it is our turn to try to recreate the fun.

My mother in law tells a story of her husbands grandparents (my husbands great grandparents) who lived in the hills of North Carolina. Back before being an independent woman was the norm, Great Grandma had her very own sense of identity it seems. She had inherited some sum of money (my guess is it was fairly modest at best) from family and didn't want to mix it with her soon to be husbands. SO - they kept all of their money separate their entire marriage. One day, they decided to add a pig to the family farm and the negotiations on who would pay for what apparently took some weeks. Finally, it was decided that he would buy the pig, she would feed the pig and then they would split the proceeds upon it's sale. My MIL says that their entire marriage was like this and it worked well enough for them. Just cracks me up.

Personally, I grew up in a traditional house wife on the farm for a mother family... and swore I would not repeat it. My struggle has been coming to terms with being a stay at home mom to our 3 year old and one on the way, while keeping my sanity. Hubs does help, doing some laundry and often the dishes, but the rest is my realm. Honestly, I'm not very good at it, likely because I'm STILL rebelling against the traditional woman's role.

http://lifeontheclothesline.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/grams-cookbook-page-16/

I haven't posted in a while, but I have a recipe straight out of the wedding cookbook of my great grandmother from 1917. I plan to start posting again soon, but as you can tell by reading my blog, things have been a bit crazy around here since September! Hope that this recipe helps!

Just wanted to let you know (especially ) that the Marmite de Bouillon IS here in the US.

http://www.amazon.com/Knorr-Homestyle-Chicken-4-66-Ounce-4-Count/dp/B0057OR5KC/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1320440845&sr=1-1

Knorr Homesytle Chicken and according to the Knorr website, this is the US name for the exact same product.

http://www.unileverusa.com/innovation/productinnovations/revolutioninstock/

As one who is living in an RV now and with extremely limited freezer/fridge/pantry space - this looks like the perfect option for me! Can't wait to try it!

My guess is that you could chop up a decrepit old carrot from the veggie drawer and achieve the same results as using peels. Great idea though - one I'd not heard of before!

Just this past week, my 3 1/2 year old daughter locked herself into our RV by herself. It took almost 2 hours before the locksmith arrived. A sheriff came before, said that as there WAS NO DANGER there was nothing he could do, and then left. Guess what? She was fine. PBS kids was on the TV, she had her OJ and other than crying when she saw me looking through the window, she was OK. It was I who was flipping out.

So, when I see this question... well... really? Get over it people. I put the PBS on the TV on a show that she really likes, usually Sesame Street or Curious George, and take my shower. She's never gotten into trouble and I get to get clean at a reasonable time of day.

Really, kids can handle being along for a few minutes... clearly, it depends on the kid, but at least for me, I know that she's not going anywhere and anything that is dangerous is already out of her reach anyways!

I grew up with pumpkin mugs with frogs in the middle. LOVED them. I had them at my house and a few actually survived the fire. Not in good enough shape to ever actually use again, but they're in one piece at least. Though, now I have no idea what I'm actually going to do with them...

OK, so I really like the first picture. I know... And, I like the 3rd with the blue and orange, I really like that one a lot actually. What concerns me about all one color is the ability to match it down the road when color preference change. but that may just be me not being a designer and not caring THAT much about the style... form and function have to come first (and the ability to adapt and add to later down the road), at least in my limited budget life.

I like the all cotton baked potato bags that you use in the microwave. Easy to sew and work really well. Just wash the potato and leave wet, do NOT prick it, stick in the bag and nuke on the potato setting. They're always done and the bottom isn't hard like in normal microwave potato cooking.

However, I really like the crockpot idea, so will probably start doing that. I love that it won't heat up the place, especially here in Texas where it's hot all of the blasted time.

Collards. OK, to be honest, I had never actually TRIED collards before, but green and slimey and... blech. But, then, I moved to Alabama.

At the Auburn farmers market was this vendor who sold washed and chopped collards and every week I would talk to him and every week he would try to convince the Yankee to try them. Finally, one week, I gave in and bought a bag.

I sauted onion and garlic, added sliced sausage and then the collards and served with Ume Plum vinegar and... OH MY.

LOVE. Deep, abiding, passionate love. I couldn't get enough of them and we ended up eating black eyed peas and greens and cornbread a couple of times a week. I tried to convert fellow Yankees in the area to the collard love fest and well... it didn't work so well. I was very confused, I mean, they were great! I even bought them and blanched then froze the greens in fear of not having access to them in the winter and the poor vendor became a bit fearful of the Yankee monster that he'd created...

And then, well, the little stick that I peed on came back "pregnant". Yup, collards were my very first food craving! My baby was born in Alabama and has collards and beans in her soul. Though, she still won't eat the greens, she does love herself some black eyed peas!