A Motley Gift, Indeed

Ladies, I have been so happy to be a part of Motley Moms this year. What great fun it has been. In honor of you, I have decided that you each need handmade slippers to pamper your tootsies. But, since times are tough, I have gone the frugal route and decided that a craft day was in order.

Before you proceed, please note that these are slippers for the discrete woman. They are soft and hygienic. They include non-slip grip strips on the soles with built in deodorant feature to keep feet smelling fresh. As a bonus remember that you will no longer need to bend over to mop up spills. They are disposable, biodegradable, and environmentally safe. They come in 3 convenient sizes: Regular, Light day, and Get Out the Sandbags.































Let me know if we actually need a craft night to create more of these fine slippers. I laughed so hard, I cried. Seriously.

Economics 101

You could spend hours analyzing news reports on unemployment rates, the cost of a barrel of oil, and the number of foreclosed homes, but you don’t have to be a financial wiz to know times are tough - just look at the price of a gallon of milk. In my former life, I was paid to analyze revenue and expenses, and account for inflation and potential growth for our company, so here is my “expert” and humble opinion. While our country may or may not be facing a recession, there is a big gray economic depression looming over my family.

In these tough times, we are determined to pay what we owe to all of our creditors and live within our means so that I can stay home with our son. Lately, living within our means is really cramping our style, and so I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my grandma and how she survived the great depression. She saved everything; nothing was trash. Bacon grease was saved in an empty coffee can to fry something else. All scraps of food went into a five-gallon bucket on the back porch to feed the chickens. She made her own jelly and canned everything that her garden produced. When she made a cake, it was from scratch, and many of the gifts she gave were handmade embroidered pillowcases or crocheted blankets. Even though she was very young during the depression, she never changed her habits.

I have also been spending a lot of time asking God to help me be a good steward of the money we do have. Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” It is still hard for me to accept what is a need in my life and what is a want, but God has been so generous to us. Here are some ways we have been enjoying his glorious riches on a shoestring budget.

1. Be creative. I decided to make my son’s Halloween costume this year even though I really didn’t know how I was going to do it. He wanted to be a pirate, so I was able to buy 1 yard of felt for $3.00. One yard was more than enough for his hat and patch leaving plenty left over for something else. Grandma would be proud.




2. Reuse. I wanted my son to have a swing. We left his baby swing behind when we moved, and I promised myself he would have a new one here. A local tire store let us have a used bald one for free, so all we had to do was buy the rope.

3. Treat yourself at home. We were lucky enough to find a lime tree in our back yard, so as the limes ripen, I am making some lime shake-ups just like at the fair. I love sweets, so I decided to make my own candy instead of buying it. This weekend I made some caramels to go with some apples, and some fudge.

4. Go green in cleaning. I found a great website today that gives instructions on making your own household cleaners out of cheap and environmentally safe products. These are the things my Grandma used to clean with. Check it out: http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/120/diy

5. Reduce (this one isn’t for the faint of heart). Being the primary toilet paper user in our home, I have decided to limit small jobs to two squares. When I use the soap to wash my hands, I try to use a smaller dab. If I can cut my use in half, I am basically cutting prices in half too.

I hope this will give you some ideas for living it up at home, and if you visit my home, you might want to bring extra toilet paper.

Fun Fall Things

Rachel got me thinking about Fall with her post the other day about her pumpkin muffins. They looked so good and they also inspired me to start brainstorming (that might be a bit strong) for ideas. That being said, I love to scour magazines, books and the Internet for ideas for all kinds of things. Being a teacher, I do almost nothing original. I prefer to say that I borrow the idea and make it my own. Here are a few things I've been thinking of cabbaging on to.

The Wack-O-Lantern (Just the name makes me love it!)

Use a mallet to pound golf tees into the pumpkin at random. (Won't THE Princess love this? I even think it looks kind of Martha-ish!) Remove and reuse the tees as you go. When you're done with poking fun, cut an opening around the stem with the carving knife (a job for an adult), remove the lid, and clean out the goop from inside. Place a candle inside the pumpkin and get your glow on.

Pumpkin Snowman

The pumpkin version of a snowman! Stack three pumpkins in graduated sizes, drilling holes through the pumpkins and inserting a large stick to secure. Add stick arms and a face using a black marker.

The Pumpkin Vase (An oldy but a goodie from Martha!)

Select as round a pumpkin as you can find. Cut off the top, and scoop out the inside pulp and seeds. Inside the pumpkin, place a plastic paint bucket or any plastic container that fits easily. Place a cube of Oasis floral foam inside the container, thinning it to fit. Press the foam down to make it level, and drench it with water (enough so that a small pool collects at the bottom of the container). Arrange seasonal flowers, dried leaves, and berries as desired.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds (Not at all original, I know.)

I always save the seeds from any pumpkins that we carve or that I cook with and make roasted pumpkin seeds. They are easy to make. Separate the seeds from the pumpkin pulp, rinse them in a colander and pat them dry with a paper towel. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with Pam. Put in the oven at 300 F for 8 minutes. Stir and leave for another 8 minutes. I have flavored them with the traditional salt, and then tried other flavors. We have really liked paprika, cinnamon sugar, and red pepper. It makes them "designer" pumpkin seeds, don't you think?

Pumpkin Butter

I have to confess, I do this about every other year. I make and can pumpkin butter (similar to apple butter) to give as gifts. I'll get some pumpkins on the cheap right after Halloween, cook them down, and make pumpkin butter. Mmmmm...I hope I can wait that long!

What Fall ideas do you have? What are you working on?

I received an amazing gift this week! Our dryer has been doing strange things to our clothes, and when a large brown slash mark appeared on the leg of my brand new khaki pedal pushers, I was fit to be tied. We had been talking about replacing our old dryer for a while, but with this latest casualty it was definitely the right time. After some careful research we chose the model we wanted and scheduled the delivery.

I watched the deliverymen unload our new dryer from the back of their van, and as they lowered it to the ground I saw one of the most marvelous things I could have ever imagined. Struck breathless, I ran to the stairs as they began hauling the heavy appliance to our door, and I asked, with a little too much excitement on my face and in my voice, “Can I keep the box????”

If you have tried to find appliance boxes lately, you understand my enthusiasm. When I called local stores that sell large things, I was generally greeted with the same answers: “We shred the boxes as soon as they come in,” and “Companies don’t use boxes to pack large appliances much anymore—they shrink wrap them.” My favorite, of course, is the proverbial, “Call back and talk to [the appliance guy] on [insert day of week here]—maybe he can help you.” Of course, [the appliance guy] was never there, or if he was, he had no idea what I was talking about. I soon gave up my crusade to find the Holy Grail of pre-schooldom, the multi-purpose appliance box.

If I had known that I was going to get the box with my dryer, I probably would have sprung for the dryer a lot sooner, like at the beginning of summer when I really needed the box for my toddler French class. That would have saved my new pants from their disfigurement, too. But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20, and I have the box now, so I plan to cherish it and use it for all it’s worth—we’ll start by spray-painting it red so that we can pretend it’s a barn. Then what? Maybe it will be a school bus or a post office—it could even be a cave. Then, when the time comes that our dear box cannot hold another coat of paint and it is too feeble to stand, we will use it to cover the ground so that we may spray paint the next box, if we are so blessed as to need a new washing machine.

The Wonder Horse

I find myself trying to recreate some of the adventures and activities that I loved as a child for my own children. I grew up on a horse farm. Now I live in the city. I love my house and my neighborhood, but I long to create some of the joys of farm life for my own kids. One thing I really loved, before I was allowed to ride a horse on my own, was my Wonder Horse. (My parents strategically placed the Wonder Horse here to make it look like it left something behind. Nice.)

You have seen them, plastic horses you could sit and "ride." I looked on eBay and they go for anywhere from $30 to $100, plus shipping. A little steep for an old plastic toy.

Then one day, while poking around the local flea market, I found one! A Wonder Horse!!! It didn't have the metal frame. It was pretty rough looking, faded paint and scuffs from years of being ridden. The name alone made the $2 I paid for it a steal! I wasn't sure what I would do with it but I had what I coveted, the Wonder Horse!

THE Princess asked me a few days later, after I had washed the Wonder Horse, if it was from a merry-go-round and that got me thinking! The next week I scoured the flea market for a simple but working floor lamp. I found an old brass one without a shade for $1, it was perfect!!

I went home and told my husband, RM, what I was envisioning. He promptly mounted the Wonder Horse on the lamp to make it look like a carousel horse, made sure that the wiring was working and safe, ran some sandpaper over it and handed it over to me.

I ran to the WalMarts and got an 88 cent can of latex spray paint in off white, taped off the metal lamp workings and cord, and went to work. I custom painted the Wonder Horse in colors that THE Princess loved and gave it clear coat. I was stumped about what to do for a shade, they were more expensive, even at the WalMarts, than I had paid for everything else. A couple weeks later my problem solved itself. I found flowery shades at Big Lots for $2 each. Sweet.

Now THE Princess enjoys her own Wonder Horse, albeit in a different way.




And I'm not calling our Wonder Horse old, it's 'retro' people. I'm always trying to be on the cutting edge of style!

Now, any ideas about how I can recreate this????