Mouse Quest, So Gross

DAMM....

Please excuse my language.

Mice....

You know when you have them, there are signs.

I'll skip the graphic descriptions,

 cause,

it makes me want to,

well, you know.

 Ew, Ew, and again Ew!

I put out the bait last week,

three goners thus far,

Ew again!

Yummy grill stuff!

Today I'm cooking the hubby breakfast taquito's

from the stuff we grilled on Sunday.

Veggies, meats, you know!

Breakfast Taquito's.

Nat6han says, "yum".

And I still smell Ew!

DAMM!

Again, please excuse my language.

Gross, gross!

Since this place is still under construction....

I pulled out every cabinet/drawer I could, looking for said Ew.

Lots of dust and you know what, but no Ew!

Drawers, floors and cabinets are sparkling clean,

even cleaned the oven and fridges.

Not a Ew in sight!

Needless to say,

no sewing/soap-making happened today!

Although,

 I did learn how to make my own flavored jello,

stay tuned if your not too grossed out.

Till next time,

Bonjour

Traveling Road - Show

I had every intention of sewing today, really I did.

Several projects are waiting in the wings,

begging to be started, completed, dreamed.
But you know as well as I do, sometimes

reality steps in and whacks you straight across the kisser.

Terry's Traveling Road - Show.

This traveling road - show that I call my company

is high maintenance to say the least!

There’s displays, tables, chairs, canopies, tarps, dollies, corner weights….

Bla, bla, bla!

All of which, at some point or another, need

maintaining/repairing.

Pail-o-concrete!

Last week it was the weights.
4 - 80lbs. pails of concrete that we tie at each corner of the canopy.

Sometimes it can get pretty windy here in North Texas!

Pails are worn out/cracked/falling apart.

Ok, chisel/beat off old pails, replace with new/recycled ones.

(I order my palm and coconut oils in 5# pails, perfect for the weights).

This week, canopies/ dolly!

Let me just start off by saying, hurricanes in the gulf, mean mucho rain here!

I’m not complaining, just saying….

We’ve missed the last 2 Saturdays at The Farmer’s Market do to rain.

So, need to fix holes in canopies.

SO…

Today it was, patch holes in the canopies day and
fix flats on the good dolly day.

Soap + water in the shower is a good thing,

soap + water at a show, not so good.

Sewn and vintage items in the rain,

not so good either.

Mini Bags.

Vintage Items

I have 2 canopies,

one looked like it had been involved in a drive by,

the other?

Mice, puppy, starving child, hungry husband?

I don’t know!

Patch, seal, pray, done.

Fix a flat did the trick on the good dolly,

not that the other one is bad, it’s just not the good one!

Hopefully the weather is good for the weekend market.

Maybe some sewing tomorrow?

All hold hands and pray/chant.

Hope things are good on your end.

Till next time,

Bonjour

Satellites are not linking up in outerspace, damm hurricane!

I’ll be lucky if this even posts!

(Oops, that was a tad bit insensitive).

Time For Me?

Oh My, Busy, Busy Bee....

Soap shows are over till fall, no more late night product making....

I'm out of, or near out of several soaps but that can be rectified in a day or two!

(Like Tomorrow and Sunday).

Time to concentrate my energies on other endeavors!!!

Cooking, painting, redoing?

Let's start with cooking.



Nathan holding his cookbook



As I've had time Nathan and I have been working our way

through the cookbook 

Rachel Ray 30- Minute Meals For Kids.

A gift from his Aunt Heather.

We've done several recipes in the book but Nate keeps going back

 to the Shrimp Scampi recipe.

Nathan, shrimp is $6.99 a pound, let's try it with chicken!

OK then!

Today we tried altering the recipe to use chicken.

The original recipe goes like this.

RECIPE

1 pound angel hair pasta/ we used thin, whole wheat spaghetti

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsps EVOO

3 tbsps butter/ we just used more EVOO

1 lb. shrimp/ we used 1 lb. cubed chicken breast 

1 cup chicken stock/ we had canned turkey stock

4-5 blades fresh chives, snipped/ we used dried, ground rosemary, dill, lemon balm and chocolate mint

A hand full of fresh parsley/ we used fresh lemon balm

tablespoon or two of flour, (not in the original recipe)

Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Bring a pot of water to boil, add pasta.

Cook pasta aldente. Drain.

Heat oil in saucepan and add dried herbs.

Sautee herbs about 2 minutes then add cubed chicken.

Cook chicken until almost done then add chopped garlic. 

Sautee about 2 minutes.

Add flour and cook for another 2 or so minutes.

Add the stock and  raise heat up to a boil.

( May need to add some water to mixture depending on how thick or thin you want your sauce to be).

Remove the pan from the heat and add the drained pasta.

Stir/toss to incorporate.

Garnish with fresh snipped/chopped lemon balm.

Serve with toasted, buttered herb bread.

YUMMO!!!!!

Chicken was $1.97 lb., boneless, skinless.

Pasta was $1.00 lb.

Surprisingly inexpensive for several gourmet lunch box treats.

What do you think, would you make this recipe?

Would you change anything?

I think we'll make chicken toes next!

Till next time...

Bonjour

How We Grow Lavender

Well....

Let me just start by saying, lavender doesn't grow well in North Texas!

If I lived about 3 hours south down interstate 35 I would have fields of it.

Down around Austin there are real lavender farms, acres upon acres of lavender.

It's the new cash crop!

Austin is hilly... read.... loose, drainable soil.

We have tight, not so drainable soil.

What grows well here are cotton and maize, useful crops I'm sure,

but...

 cotton and maize don't make for a good soap or bath tea....



SPANISH LAVENDER



So,
What to do, what to do?

We've tried and failed with the elusive lavender

until we talked with a master gardener.

She was one of the speakers at the lawn and garden expo a few years ago.

Her advice was....

Dig a large hole, add about one gallon of pea gravel, 

insert the lavender plant,

backfill halfway with pea gravel,

backfill remainder of hole with your native soil,

ring your lavender from the stem out, about two feet,

with a layer of white marble chips.

Viola....

 The dynamics are...

the pea gravel mimics the rocky soil, aiding in drainage,

the ring of white marble chips reflect the sun into the plant center

aiding in faster dry time of the foliage during wet weather.

Seems to be working, we have eight lavender plants all doing great.

As to the type of lavender,

we have one spike, huge plant but the flowers are very elongated,

the other seven are Spanish,

it's more compact, with bushier (fatter) flowers.

I prefer the Spanish.

Lavender it seems, likes loose, rocky, well drained soil.

Don't over water.

I hope you give lavender a try, it's a lovely plant and our bees love it,

 they also love the buford holly and the rosemary.

Let me know if you have success with this method.

And, as usual, it's way past my bed time.

Till next time,

Bonlour

making Soap and Other Endeavors

SOAP, SOAP AND MORE SOAP!!!

WOW....

It's been a very busy weekend.

I have a show coming up at the end of March so product making was in order.

200 lip balms, 36 body butters, 60 bars of soap.....

that's just a start, I still have bath teas, bath oils and more soap to make.

I'm also revamping my show display. Most of my display pieces are

made of wrought metal so changing the look is quite easy.

Krylon is my best friend.
I'll post picks when I get everything finished.



ARE YOU GOING TO FIX ME?



I'm still working on the floor lamp and yes, I did find the missing piece.

ALMOST THERE!!!

Well it's time for me to re-enter that other world (work)
so I'll have to cut this short.
What was your weekend like?

Till next time,
Bonjour

I've been sick. Really, I have!!!

SO......

We had a really great Christmas here, no excess, just great times with family.

Steve's daughter Amber and her husband Felix came up from Houston bearing many homemade gifts. We don't see them often enough so it was quite a treat to be able to visit and exchange gifts. Amber made me a brown sugar scrub which smells and feels wonderful and gave me a spiral notebook with my soap display on the front, very cool! Forgot to photo Amber and Felix, !!!SNAP!!!


PERSONALIZED NOTEBOOK



My youngest daughter and the grandkids came by for Christmas lunch, we did a Mexican Fiesta theme.

Fajitas, refried beans, spanish rice, enchiladas, guacamole. YUMMO!!!

We did the traditional lunch at Thanksgiving so something different was in order.

Forgot to photo the food but did remember to photo the kids.



NATE & ABBY

US

                    

HEATHER IN ALASKA

My oldest daughter Heather is in Alaska so she wasn't able to attend our little party.
She's been sending me photos of all the cool stuff there. I'm  planning  a post about her adventures.
She's a traveling nurse and  has a 6 month contract there, we sure do miss her!!
The tall boy in the US photo is her son Brian and the girl in green is her daughter Lauren.

I've been sick, but I'm feeling much better now.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Till next time.
Bonjour

Soap, Soap & More Soap



SOAP DISPLAY



I KNOW...

Time just got away from me.

Fall is one of our busiest times for The Soap Co.

I have 2 more shows for this month, 1 in November & 1 in December.

Needless to say there has been a lot of soap making going on at this place.

Last week we were at Cedar Hill's Country Day & tomorrow we'll be at The Ennis Fall Festival.

I love doing the shows! Everyone has a party attitude & I get an opportunity to see a myriad of other crafts & talk to a lot of great people. 

  In the booth next to us at Cedar Hill there was a 15 yr. old girl who did Duct Tape crafts. She had wallets, headbands, beautiful roses with long stems that you could wrap around your wrist to fashion a bracelet....

I was pretty impressed with her, at 15 she is running her own business with an Etsy Shop to boot.

She wanted some of my products, I wanted some of hers, so we traded. There's always trading going on amongst the crafters. My friend Loretta came by for some soap & I got some of her corn relish & apricot raisin chutney. 

We had a really good show &  I'm looking forward to tomorrow's, but right now I have to go & make some body butters & bath oils.

Till next time,

Bonjour