Pantry Perils

The pantry. God, I'd love an honest-to-goodness pantry. Le sigh.

So you took the chicken out of the freezer to thaw, but that's as far as you got into planning dinner. And now it's five o'clock. Crap. Or maybe Benson and Stabler are at the door and you want to offer refreshments. What now? Well, if you have a well stocked pantry, you'll be all...

Pictured: swag

and less like...

Pictured: guilt

But what IS a well stocked pantry? Well, it's your kitchen staples...dry goods and the like. I made a list :) I love lists. So much. But anyway...

Absolute Must Haves:

These are items that are always, always, ALWAYS on hand at my house, regardless of time of year, how often I think I'll use it, etc., AND ALSO should be in everyone's pantries. In other words, STAPLES.

Dry Goods/Things that don't need refrigerating until AFTER they've been opened:

• Baking powder
• Baking soda (also awesome for cleaning!)
• Barbeque sauce
• Bread crumbs
• Bouillon cubes (or canned broth, I suppose, but I prefer the cubes)
• Canned vegetables 
• Coffee (fo' sho'!)
• Cornstarch
• Flour
• Garlic, bulb
• Hot pepper sauce
• Jelly (seriously, I ONLY buy grape. Nothing else should EVER go on a PB&J sandwich. But I gueeeesss you can buy whatever you want.)
• Ketchup
• Mayonnaise
• Mustard ("deli" otherwise known as brown or spicy, plus whatever others you might use)
• Oil (vegetable AND olive)
• Pancake syrup
• Pasta (a variety shapes and sizes--I keep about four pounds of "thin spaghetti" on hand at all times because that's what we eat most, plus a box each of elbow, penne, ziti, and lasagna. If you have a wee one, add pastine to the list)
• Peanut butter
• Popcorn kernels (it REALLY doesn't take much more effort than the microwave stuff)
• Potatoes 
• Quick sides (ya know, Betty Crocker and Lipton side dish type things. Especially au gratin potatoes)
• Rice
• Salad dressing(s)
• Sugar (at LEAST granulated and brown, if not those and powdered/10x)
• Tomatoes (crushed, paste, and sauce {NOT to be confused with spaghetti sauce})
• Vinegar (balsamic and white -- buy the biggest bottle of white you can find and use it for cleaning and cooking!)

Spices (and herbs...but they all go in the SPICE rack. Jus' sayin'):

• Basil
• Bay leaves
• Chili powder
• Cinnamon
• Cream of tartar
• Cumin
• Garlic powder (salt, too, if that's how you roll)
• Marjoram, ground
• Nutmeg, ground
• Oregano
• Paprika
• Pepper (black, cayenne, crushed red flakes, white)
• Poultry seasoning
• Rosemary
• Sage leaves
• Salt (table and kosher)
• Seasoned salt
• Thyme
• Vanilla extract

Fridge and Freezer:

• Butter (buy extra, it can be frozen!)
• Cheese (sandwich, Parmesan, cheddar) 
• Eggs
• Lemon juice
• Milk
• Produce, fresh or frozen (I'd list stuff, but really, we all have our favorites, so stock accordingly)
• Dinner meats (ground beef, poultry, pork stuffs, etc)

Optional Items:

Items on this list are just useful (some are super useful) things you might want to add to the pantry, but may not be considered "staples" (in my opinion). Some I would consider staples...either to MY kitchen (my grandfather will tell you that Old Bay is a staple. I, however, have NEVER used it), or I only keep stocked seasonally. Things marked with + I do consider staples for my own kitchen. Things marked with * I buy seasonally. Things not marked, I don't buy at all, but YOU might want stock.

• Allspice
• Beans (especially chili)*
• Biscuit mix
• Canned pumpkin*
• Chocolate (chips in all types of flavors and sizes, baking squares, powder)+
• Chocolate syrup
• Cornmeal+
• Craisins*
• Crisco+
• Evaporated milk*
• Fruit, lunchbox packaging*
• Gelatin+
• Heavy cream*
• Honey
• Microwave popcorn
• Molasses*
• Nonstick cooking spray (I preseasoned my cast iron then used the hell out of it! No use for nonstick spray here :D)
• Oats (quick-cooking and rolled)+
• Roasted red peppers+
• Salsa+
• Spaghetti sauce
• Sour mix (for the margaritas, ya know)+
• Tortilla chips+
• Tortilla shells+

Did I forget something? Comment and let me know!

To the Hippiemobile! Wait. What?

Why can't we be friends?

Confession: The Girl is a long-haired, dirty hippie. True story. We're democrats in this family, but she's hardcore. She's got that idealism that hasn't been touched by cynicism getting old age, yet. Good for her! But evidently, I've got to decorate her room around her hippienessism. Greeeeaaat. She requested curtains that actually keep the sun out (because God forbid she rise before noon) and a chandelier. Heh? She meant mobile, but I got'er. That's easy, so we trotted off to the Dollar Tree to purchase some flowers (daisies, actually. A hippie's favorite flower and wouldn't ya know, HER favorite flower. Go figure.) and she mentioned a love of butterflies. Also, easy enough. I'll just make some out of scrapbook paper, right? Oh! But WHAT IF...I make it more complicated than it needs to be and I make TIE-DYED BUTTERFLIES??!!! Yes, of COURSE. And this is the final product.

Check out those badass butterflies. I think it could be fuller, but she likes it the way it is *shrug* Want some tie-dyed paper for your own tree hugger? It just so happens that I tried a million different methods so you don't have to AND wrote a tutorial JUST. FOR. YOU. And you don't even have to make butterflies! Aren't I great? :D

But a daisy, tie-dyed butterfly mobile alone does not a hippie room make. So I said to myself, "Self, what do hippies like?" Peace signs! Yes! What else? Beads! Anything else? Not war. I was kinda getting nowhere. I didn't want her room to just be a bunch of cheesy, store-bought stuff with peace signs printed on them because that's, well, cheesy. Plus the concept of a bunch of pre-fab stuff doesn't keep with my idea of hippies. But WHAT would a hippie room even look like?! So I turned to my most trusted resource -- Google images -- and prepared to assemble my inspiration. Turns out you have to be really specific when researching or you get a bunch of black light posters and more psychedelic results than what may be appropriate for your 14-year-old daughter. Once I got my search terms right (bohemian hippie rooms) I got this:

Ok! I can do this! There's very much a Moroccan feel to this. In fact, Moroccan lamps were in SO many of the pictures and it just so happens that I own a few. Score! I also learned that a big part of "the look" is about a lot of textiles that don't match. Well, ain't that lucky! She HATES stuff that matches! I've made a list of things that I'll be incorporating into this "design." As I check each one off, I'll share with yous! Fingers crossed I'll have it all finished by the time they come back from their dad's...

Next up: the ugliest curtains on the planet. She'll love them!

Tie-dyed Paper

I followed all sorts of tutorials and tried all sorts of methods I found online to make tie-dyed paper. I suppose they "worked," but none of them produced results that actually looked like tie dye. The fact is, paper just DOESN'T crease the way you need it to for traditional tie dying patterns. After trying everything else, I decided I was going to have to try an idea I'd discarded earlier: tissue paper. I was afraid it would be too fragile for what I was going for. Turns out, it's REALLY forgiving. I didn't have a single piece tear on me. Well then.

If you wanna try it for yourself, you'll need:

• Tissue paper (intact, cut to smaller pieces, torn into sort-of squares, whatev)
• Permanent markers (you could use Sharpies, but mine were from the dollar store)
• Rubbing alcohol
• Pins/rubber bands
• Something to protect your work surface
• Spray bottle
• Iron

Ok, so the basic method is REALLY simple -- "shape" your tissue paper, color, spray with alcohol, wait to dry, unravel, iron. But you're going for an authentic pattern, right? So here's the easiest/most recognizable one. This was really hard to photograph, so bear with me!

Step 1: Pinch your paper in the center

Step 2: While holding the center, spin the outside edges counterclockwise (or clockwise, counter is just easier if you're holding with your right!)

You'll do this with your paper still on the work surface. I only lifted mine for the photo!

Step 2b: Continue spinning, making sure to keep the paper flat -- don't let it work it's way into a cylinder -- until you're left with a wadded up, spiral of paper. I won't lie. This is WAY easier with a shirt than paper. It took lots of practice to get it right, so don't get discouraged! Just unravel and start over with the same piece or just go with it! I doubt hippies were perfectionists ;)

Wadded up, spiral of paper

Step 3: Pin or rubber band at this point to keep the shape. You can use rubber bands to mark off your colors, too, just like with a shirt. I didn't have any rubber bands, though, and mine came out just fine :)

Step 4: Color! Yay, fun! There are no rules for which colors you use. Just use at least two and color ALL sides of the spiral (you'll want your colors to match up on the front and back, though).

Step 5: Spray both sides with rubbing alcohol. It just so happens that my sprayer thingie for my spray bottle fit on my bottle of alcohol. And I'm lazy. If yours doesn't fit, you'll have to do it the non-cool way and fill up your spray bottle.

Step 6: Leave it the way it is, pinned or banded, to dry. This won't take long at all.

Step 7: Carefully unwrap (it may still be a wee bit damp in the folds). Admire your ingenuity ;) This one, made specifically for the tutorial, came out the best. Natch :/

Not ironed. Again, laziness.

You'll want to iron it at this point (or maybe you don't. Who am I to say what you want to do?!) But IF you do, it's safe to do with a "cool" iron (what does that even mean?!). I ironed mine on, I think, the second setting on the iron. If you want, you can then cut it into a butterfly shape for your tree-huggin' kid. Or whatever. There are a bunch of actual patterns for tie dying clothing. I tried a few using tissue paper for The Girl's mobile and most of them came out exactly how I'd intended. I even attempted (and succeeded!!) the double spiral. So, go on wit' yo' bad self! And make some of your own. If you do, share them with me. I'd love to see what you come up with!

Summertiiiiiiiime and the livin's easy

I know. I KNOW! I've been quiet. In my defense, the summer visitation schedule is broken up into four three-week blocks. So I've had the kids. But still, "What have you been doing?!" you ask. "It's not as if your kids are small and need you to follow them around!" you say with a roll of your eyes. This is true. They're not toddlers.

So, first, we did this:

Then we did this:

Oh! We DID go on vacation where we did these things:

Over and over and over again. We ARE actually pictured here.

Sometimes it's best not to ask

Escorting me on a stroll through the gardens

Maze

Creepiest kids EVER

You have no idea the excitement pictured here.

I did this. I can't even...

Dead-on accuracy right here.

There was a cow. She ran. For a cow. I can't make this stuff up.

Pictured: Fail.

This is the second time he's fought the British.

Finding ghosts.

Then we came home and did this:

Then we stopped doing that -- VERY briefly -- to do this:

What? There was a bug on the ceiling. That's my bug-killin gear.

After careful review (gold, glittery powder?!), it might've been a fairy. Crap.

So yeah, that's about it. BUT. BUT! While they're at their dad's house for the next three weeks, I'm going to FINALLY work on The Girl's room. You might've noticed from the picture of us gaming that there's not much going on in her room. We did hang curtains, but they're only temp curtains. And she put up One Direction posters. That's all about to change. Well, not the posters. She'd kill me. But I've kinda slacked on her room since she's not here full-time. The other rooms took priority. But I'm totally gonna decorate (and unpack that damn box she's left sitting on the desk for two months!!!) now so she truly has a room here.This means diy projects and tutes. I'll blog all about our vaca, too!

Best. Moms. Ever. -- Part 2

As you remember, we'd just dropped the girls off at their very first non-chaperoned One Direction concert. Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Agent S and I had spent some time in the car Yelping before we pulled off. After making our selection, and subsequently pulling away from our non-parking spot, we thought it was too long for the girls not to have called. So I dialed The Girl's bff, prepared to yell at her like she was my own for not calling when she was told to. When she answered, she explained we HADN'T dropped them off at the stadium, but at a parking lot on the other side of the park, from which, they had to walk a ways to a tram, which they were currently on, with all the other concert-goers. Oops. We'd just abandoned our girls! Oh well, they seemed fine :-) If they can take the subway to school this September, they can handle a tram with a throng of other adoring fans, right? She hung up, informing us they were just about to get off the tram to go wait "in a long line over there" with promises to call when they were on the inside. And they did. Almost immediately, actually. Turns out the line moved pretty quickly. Assured of our babies' safety, we could finally go eat.

When we reached our destination, there was a little shopping "village" next door. With. A. Scrapbook. Shop!!!!!!! Called Times To Remember.

Eating is overrated. We had to go in. They had such fun stuff...stuff they make there in the shop and SO much Hersey Park stuff I wish I'd known about when I was making a scrapbook as a gift for My Fella for our one year :( C'est la vie. We asked the nice sales girl what was going on in the back of the store. And do you know what she said?! She said they were having a YARD SALE!!!!!!!! A YARD SALE, peeps! Where people brought in their unused scrapbooking supplies and sold them super cheap. Oh. Em. Geeeeee.

Isn't it cute?!

So many ribbons!!!!!

I really couldn't justify buying a lot of what I wanted to, but we did make a few purchases. I snagged some stickers I'd been looking for and Agent S picked up a DIFFERENT family tree paper than the pattern she'd previously bought.

Pictured: Shattered dreams.

I wanted to take some more pictures for yous, but the store was closing and Agent S thought we should let the poor salesgirl go home for the night. I DID snag one more as we were leaving, though.

Agent S: "Challenge accepted"

The store is holding a challenge in which they're offering a new, two-page layout kit every week for eight weeks this summer. You can read more about it on this page of their site. If you live in the Hershey area, you can just stop in and pick up your kit. If not, well, the site DOES say they'll mail things, but that the online store is not currently open. You CAN still view the online catalog, though, but I'm not making any promises about how frequently it's updated. And the the salesgirl did tell me they'd happily take a phone call to see if they carry something specific. I'd wager you can call or email, give your card info over the phone, and they'd ship a purchase to you if you were interested.