Sweet treat turkey appetizers

You know how it is. The in-laws are coming over. Your mother-in-law is an amazing cook and you really have nothing to offer but space. The natural solution is to make something that serves both as decoration and as food, because one thing that Thanksgiving is always short on is food.  It doesn't take much, some nutter-butter cookies, Dots or gumdrops, black and white icing, clear tumblers, and some candy corns

1. The first step is to make the turkey bodies by using the black and white icing to make eyes and pupils and then attach the candy-corn beak. It's okay if some of them look a little inbred. They're turkeys. 

2. Next use scissors to cut partially through the gumdrops or dots so that they can sit and adhere to the rim of the glass. 

3. Using the same icing, affix the body to the cup. 

 4. Lastly, fill the cup. The picture shows butter-scotch pudding topped with crushed chocolate cookies, but in reality I served them filled with Jello. I used raspberry and lime (red and green), which makes a brown color and in theory is like raspberry-limeade.

I realize the body and head are disproportionately sized, but one always wants a full-breasted turkey. Also, if you really want to make a showing, you can use licorice at the side of the candy corn to make the gobble.

Pigs! What's the matter with Pigs these days??

Usually after work we have a meeting. Today it was canceled. At first I was a little glad. My son has soccer practice at the same time and to this day I can't be two places at the same time.

I took him to practice beneath an overcast sky, dropped him off and headed for the store. (Two kids are easier to wrangle). I picked up a few items and then when asked the question "Paper or plastic?" asked for paper. Inside the store I don't get cell reception and I also cannot monitor the weather. I left the store 20 minutes later to a torrential downpour and a missed call from my son's coach. (It's always good to be that mom. The one who only signs her kid up for soccer because it's an inexpensive form of babysitting. Awesome!)

On the way home I remembered it was our day to feed the pigs, so we made a U-turn and headed to the pig pen without bothering to go home and change clothes. (Pigs are not known for their placid ways. Maybe pigs like "Babe" and "Wilbur", but not real pigs.) All day long pigs have five things to do: eat, sleep, drink, poop, and think of ways to get out. These pigs had chosen the latter.

I was wearing my platform flip flops and a white and teal striped sun-dress; not exactly prime attire for chasing pigs through wet elements. Fortunately, there were a pair of irrigation boots just inside the barn. Hiking up my skirts, I stepped into the boots and tried not to think what my toes might be brushing up against (I once put on a pair only to find that a mouse had made its home in the toe. The experience still makes me somewhat wary of irrigation boots).

This left me with another problem. The outside of the boots were not clean and I was still in a white dress. Problem solving, I held my skirt up with one hand and used the other to drive the pigs back into the pen. One chewed on my abandoned flip-flop, so I might have driven her in a bit more forcefully than the others. (It's not like you can pick up another pair of those at your local Payless).

We checked the food (check) and water (pretty low). The irrigation water near the barn hasn't been turned on and the tap for the culinary water is at the front of the property while the barn is at the back. Still holding my skirt at a less than modest level, I dragged the hoses across the acre to the culinary water spigot. Then I turned it on and walked back across the property to make sure there were no twists or kinks in the hose. I got to the barn and told my son I was going back up to the car port to stand out of the rain and that he should holler when the barrel was full so I could turn the water off. Again, I traipsed back across the property.

Just as I found a relatively dry spot beneath the carport (one of the hoses has a leak and was spraying) I heard my daughter - who had been told to wait in the car - "Mom! He's Pooing!"

Barns without water are certainly ill-equipped with indoor plumbing. Back across the property to the van to discuss bathroom habits with the youngest. At this point I will stray from the tale to interject that if I put all the groceries into one bag, instructed him to "go" in the bag and wiped his backside with a the receipt, I will never admit to it. It might be that it happened or it could be that this was merely my well-thought-out back up plan in case he couldn't hold it.

Back across the property, skirts hiked up, in the rain, to the car port. Eventually my other son yelled that the barrel was full so I turned the water off, disconnected the hose, and (one-handed) dragged the hose back across the property so that it didn't kill out the lawn in the front yard.

We piled into the van and drove home where I grabbed the overloaded grocery bag, which promptly split and scattered groceries all over the driveway (Who asks for paper on a rainy day??? Morons, that's who!)

We live in a desert, one that is struggling with another year of drought. Two weeks ago, I looked at my parched lawn and thought It's only April. How are we going to make it through another summer? Needless to say, I've been praying for rain. When one lives in a region such as this, he or she becomes highly dependent on the Lord for adequate precipitation. Granted I don't have to have a lawn and it's not like I can eat my flowers, but women don't have to wear makeup and dye their hair. The fact is I appreciate simple beauty in a garden and we have taken measures to use less water, plant resilient plants, and make sure the water goes and stays where it's needed. Even so, when there is a good rainstorm I can't help but think Good job, God, because while a good portion of the world considers it a phenomenon of high and low pressure and nature, I know that there is a Heavenly Father who is very aware of His children.

Also - despite my best efforts- my white dress ... isn't.

Dreams

A week ago I had a dream about deer. The fortunate thing was just as the deer closed in, a mountain lion closed in and scared away the deer. Then the mountain lion turned into a woman at work.

 Last night I had a series of dreams.

In the first I dreamed that I was in Las Vegas and wanted to see a show. We looked around and finally settled on one we could afford, which ended up being a comedian whose act consisted of him stripping down and urinating on the ice. When I wasn't appreciative of his humor, he followed me the rest of the dream (still naked) and tried to force a recorder (like the musical instrument) into my mouth.

In the second dream, I was at my moms with three cuts of meat. One still contained fur. There was a panther in the house with us and as we all know, Panther's belong outside, so I took one of the meats (surprisingly not the hairy one) and tossed it out the back door. The panther immediately took off after it, but was intercepted by a mountain lion which took the meat and one of the panther's limbs.

In the third dream, I dropped my children off at my mother-in-laws and then left in a 15 passenger van with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law. On our journey, I realized I didn't necessarily clarify with my mother-in-law about watching them and hadn't seen her when I dropped them off. I tried to place a call from a land line inside the van (call wouldn't go through). Meanwhile, my mom was discussing RPM's with my brother-in-law and was making eye contact with him in the back seat rather than watching the road. When I looked down, the speedometer was 212. I told her I had children who depended on me and asked her to slow down. She complied and was then passed by UHP with the lights on. Suddenly I was driving and it was dark and bodies and blood were all over the road. Among the stricken was Spiderman (guess he's not invincible).

That was about the point I woke up to a child who had to use the bathroom and had suddenly forgotten all of his skills and couldn't do it independently. This same child caused a delay of game in the morning routine as he argued about putting his superman shoes on because he wanted to color the white sides the color of Kryptonite. Same child also insisted that he be rebuckled into his car seat so he could assert his independence and show me how he could get out on his own without having to undo the top strap. (He's a contortionist). Then I'm left with the choice of being further delayed and allowing his demonstration, or forcing him out of the vehicle and showing up at the sitters with a sobbing 3 year old.

I only include the last part of that because a lot of mornings are like that and I think as I go to bed it is with great anxiety over getting everyone where he/she needs to be and doing it without permanently damaging too many relationships. For that reason, I think my anxieties come out in my dreams.

Re-purposed Pallet

According to my brother-in-law there are about 3,000 things to do with old pallet wood.

This is what I did.

"To what end?" one may ask. Originally I built it for a booth for an emergency preparedness fair. Seems a strange type of fair, but when one lives so near a fault line, it is probably a good idea.

Then I decided to make it slightly more useful for us. put it on casters and waterproofed it. I also covered the top with backer-board and tiled a counter top, which matched the wood until I put the sealer on it. It has two deep basins sinks which are perfect for filling with ice and keeping drinks chilled at a BBQ or for washing fruits and vegetables before preserving them. The drains are attached to a hose that can be placed in the nearby garden so as not to waste grey water. At a future date, there will be a faucet attached to the wall. 

There was some excess, so I searched for items to make from pallet wood and stumbled across these trays. I like them and my dad has given me a number of handles over the course of my lifetime, so I made one. The issue is it's large enough to hold a half-baker sheet cookie tray, which makes it a bit too big to store in the cupboard.

The natural solution then, is to make it a wall hanging so it can be displayed on the wall when it's not in use and then be taken down and rinsed off when needed. One of my friends helped me out with the lettering. She's pretty skilled when it comes to most things. 

As for the booth. It would be a nice place for a kissing booth for my daughter's sixteenth birthday party. Just kidding, I'm not that kind of mom and I'm really hoping and praying she isn't that kind of daughter. She was told she could sell lemonade from it, but then considering the neighborhood, probably she can't. It will fit on the patio once we get that built and can be used as a side bar for drinks or desserts or for a fishing pond or for puppet shows. Yes, we have a lot of puppeteers in our household. Since I don't actually have the patio, I've included some desserts here and you can imagine attending a Halloween party at our house with these sitting on the booth/bar that is located on the patio when it is built. It makes for great ambiance, don't you think?  

Another use for pallet use is as a table top. One of my neighbors was throwing out a card table because one of the leg braces had snapped, but as I know a guy that welds, I picked it up. The legs were brown and the top was this lovely vinyl that I didn't particularly care for, so I decided to paint it and recover it. When my grandmother died, she had some folding chairs that she didn't take with her. One taupe, three white, and two gold. A card table isn't astronomically expensive, but free is still better, especially when one has the materials to fix it up properly. 

The first step was to remove the table top from the frame. In this particular case the top was held on with hex screws so I just removed the screws and off came the top. 

The next step was to sand down the chairs and table, or at least rough them up so the new paint would hold well. Once that was done it was a matter of painting. While a brush or roller could be used, I own a pneumatic paint gun and I find that the coverage is more even when the paint is sprayed on, so that is how I applied the paint. 

Then it was a matter of recovering the top of the table. I chose fabric because it is more lively, and then put on a layer of vinyl to make it water and stain proof. I cut the fabric and vinyl larger than the original top so that it could be folded over and stapled down. I cut it about 1 1/2 inches bigger, but that measurement would vary depending on the thickness of your surface. 

Then I folded the edges of the fabric over to the back side of the tabletop and fastened it with staples, carefully gathering the edges to go around the curve. The same process was repeated with the vinyl. 

Once the top had been recovered, I attached the frame to the top and had a brand new (to me) card table.
It would be nice if I had a lovely photogenic background, but the unfinished basement space will have to do.

Remarkably, my sister also found a cast-off card table. (Can you imagine? People throwing out perfectly repairable furnishings.)The top of hers had vinyl that wrapped around and over the sides, but it had been destroyed. She peeled off the top and was left with just the frame, which she also spray painted black.

(Above is the top, after she disposed of it. Sometimes I don't remember to get before pictures)

Then, instead of buying the wood or backer board for a new surface, she used pallet wood, sanded it down and stained it to make more of a beach style card table.

She already had the chairs to go with it. What a remarkably talented individual she is, right?

Upcycled camper into a playhouse

Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who fell deeply in love. To commemorate their love, they married and spent the rest of their days building a small (quite small) empire. There was a house that started as a basement and ended in two levels, an enormous garden, an apricot tree that overshadowed a chicken coop, five children, and - of course- a camper. 

So why then, the picture of the chicken? Clearly I was photographing the chicken, as any rational chicken-owner would do, but in the mid-background (in front of the truck) you'll see the camper. My grandparents, the lovely individuals from the story, used it for quite awhile and then abandoned it when they purchased another camper. Eventually, they passed on and didn't take the camper with them. No one in the family wanted it and it wouldn't sell, so I envisioned a playhouse.

This is were the "before" pictures would have been useful, but I'm terrible at remembering to take those. We poured a small cement pad and hauled the camper to our house. There was no use for the bed and no guarantees that the paint wasn't laced with lead. So we (my husband and I) gutted the interior and covered the walls with tub board and bead board. We put in a laminate floor and built and painted cabinets. This is what we ended up with.

 I also made curtains and recovered the little card table I bought at a thrift store. Originally I covered it in a vinyl tablecloth, but when children tore through that, I recovered it with new vinyl as well as a thick layer of transparent vinyl. I'm hoping it is slightly more enduring.

My husband was adamant that we leave the exterior as it was, but I thought it rather drab so one day while he was at work. . .

 Even if you hate the paint job, you have to admit it brightens up the winter landscape.

And look at it in full bloom. (That poor little girl has flowers for a face. Makes it hard for her to see, but she blends into her environment quite well.)

 And when you add the wash tub and teapot planters, it's downright whimsical.

The washtubs I accessorized with the butterfly and dragonfly. They were purchased as wind-chimes from a dollar store. I took off the chime part and riveted what was left to the tubs. The teapot planter had its origins as a topless table frame from a second-hand store. I built a top out of backer board and tiled and grouted it with colored tile. The teapot came as is, but the cups I purchased separately and used a masonry bit to drill holes in the bottom. It should be noted, if one attempts to replicate this process, be sure to douse the bit and hole with water, frequently. It also helps to have a drill press. E5000 glue works well to secure the teacup to the saucer, but the saucer stuck in the mortar without incident.

 And what about those cold winter months when time is better spent indoors? Meet the fridge-sink-oven-microwave combination. If only it were real, it would be the ultimate for deluxe apartment living. This isn't a tutorial as much as it is an idea.

 The top is a section of Formica counter top, the portion cut out for the placement of a sink. I cut out a square section large enough for a painted 8x8 baking dish and used silicone to glue it in. The faucet came from a remodel job. I bought the burner because who gets rid of a single burner? My dad gave me the handles and hinges. What a good guy!

The fridge is slightly more complex. Throughout my childhood I played with a little metal fridge. I'm not sure of its age nor origin, but it had an avocado green exterior, which dates it somewhat.

After years of use, it fell apart. It's been repaired a couple of times, but continues to fall into disrepair.

During one of its down times I photocopied it onto 11x17 sheets of paper, which I later mod-podged onto the interior of the door. If I had more time, artistry, and a steadier hand, I might have painted it on, but this was an easier route for better results.

cub scout cakes

Sometimes when you are married to the cub master you end up "helping" with things like pack meeting and arrow of light ceremonies and the likes. In his defense, he did bake all the brownies, I just frosted them. The beautiful thing about attempting to replicate a patch is that from a distance the embroidery looks like a bobcat, wolf, bear and a webelo (whatever that is; blue-peeled banana? corn on the cob beneath a blue moon?) Up close, it really is a bunch  of stitches and not very distinct. It makes it much simpler to replicate with icing; just a matter of creating the basic outline of the head and then back and forth to make the fur. I do wish the lettering were a little more even, but it got eaten even with irregular font size.

Or if it happens to be a sports-themed night, perhaps football shaped brownies are the order of the day. They're regular brownies (two batches) baked on a half-baker's sheet or a jelly roll pan. After I took them out of the oven, I used a cookie cutter to cut them out. I didn't really have a football shaped cookie cutter, so I used a small can, used a can opener to open both ends, and squashed the two sides to make the shape. Then it was just a matter of using a #4 piping tip to make the stitching. (I did the stitching on the side that was against the pan as it baked because it was flatter).That's what one does when her husband asks for help but she doesn't really have time.  I also bought ding-dongs; um. . . I mean hockey pucks for the dessert.

Tie Skirt

I know the concept isn't original. Perhaps the design though, is.
In most of the tutorials I looked up, the recommended construction technique was to unpick the back side of the tie, remove the inner core, stitch it together either in the creases or on the raw edges, and if you stitched it in the creases, re-hand-stitch (see how I hyphenated it to make it my own word) the back side of the tie. Sounded like a lot of work.

One site suggested sewing together the edges as you would any other seams with the fronts of the ties together and then pressing the seams.

I instead used a vine stitch from my mom's sewing machine (mine doesn't have anything so fancy, and slightly overlapped the ties.

The result was as I imagined, except at the top. Since ties are cut on the bias (this is where hind-sight comes into play) the top of the skirt was skewed.. I thought about wearing it anyway, but it was too much.

So I found a pair of jeans that weren't exactly the latest trend and cut them off just below the pockets. I like the flower embroidery below the pocket. Note: If you choose to follow this technique, make sure to leave the pocket lining (the white part) intact or you'll end up with really short pockets that don't hold much.

The last step was to stitch the ties on to the pants. I cut off the top of the original skirt, which resulted in a much larger opening. So I pleated the top by sewing the first 2-3 inches of one tie to the tie that was not next to it, but the next one over. That's a really confusing way to explain it. If you look at the picture, the blue and yellow striped tie is sewed at the top to a burgundy Tabasco tie leaving the navy Aztec looking one in between. The result is a pleated tie skirt.

If you buy all the ties, it is quite expensive. Even if you purchase them second hand, at $2.00 a tie it adds up quickly. I think this one had 30 something ties in it. Talk to all of your tie-wearing friends. It is likely that one or many of them will have a few hanging out in the closet that they no longer wear. You could try to match colors, patterns, widths, or you could have a completely random selection. This may look random, but actually each tie has a color in it that matches the tie next to it (you'd have to look closely on some of them).

I like the uniqueness of it, the length, and best of all, many of the ties belonged to my dad. Other than the fact that it should probably be dry-cleaned, I love it.