Move over, Martha Stewart. There is a new happy homemaker of the year, and that would be me. Do you doubt me? Observe:
Baked Goods: We're going to St. Andrews, Scotland in July! Matt is going to perform at the World Saxophone Congress, and I am going to sit in our quaint guest house, tour castles, wander along the shore, and generally enjoy myself. To celebrate the news, I wanted to enjoy some Scottish cuisine. I decided against haggis. Instead, I whipped up a batch of cranberry-chocolate scones with the help of my Better Homes recipes app. It wasn't a difficult recipe, but they're really serious about only blending the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed, and kneading the dough just 10-12 turns, They weren't horrible, but they were tougher than I wanted them to be. Better than haggis, in any universe. I'd make them again, but stir them less. I also invented a fast new breakfast recipe when I ate all of my granola bars. Spread peanut butter on a tortilla, sprinkle with chocolate chips, roll up, and go.
Thriftiness: I'm a sucker for money saving articles, even if most of them advise me to give up my daily latte that I don't drink, or give up cable when my husband would wither and die without ESPN. But I recently saw one that advised making your own laundry detergent, and it seemed legitimate. I researched it a little, and came up with this link:
http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/
I wasn't interested in trying to find anything difficult, like Fels-Naptha soap and washing soda, whatever those are. I used recipe #8, which only required me to grate a bar of soap, melt it in a saucepan, and add hot water and baking soda. I used a bar of Yardley Lemon Verbena soap my grandmother had mailed me a while ago. She likes to mail me things. Therefore, the only cost for the detergent was $1.04 for baking soda. The recipe makes 2 gallons, or about 64 loads. Compare that to the usual Target brand we use, which washes the same amount for about $7.99. Not too shabby. We washed four loads this weekend, and everything smelled nice and looked clean, so I think we have a winner.
Sewing: My brother-in-law Greg is probably my most devoted reader, so he's overdue a shout-out anyway, but last night he was heading off to work with a hole in his khakis. I offered to fix them up for him. He went off to work with the hole, and then came over today and sat on my couch in his unmentionables while I stitched them up. When I brought them over for his inspection, he asked, "Wait, where was the hole?" Boom. Invisible stitches.
Yep, it's pretty much only a matter of time before I'm writing for Real Simple.
