Are you getting tired of the canning posts? I hope not because there’s more to come over the next little while. Today, I’m going to share two lessons I learned from this past weekend. Saturday morning, I decided I needed to get out of the house and away from home for a bit, so we drove over to the Collinsville…
A local farmer was selling corn from the back of his truck yesterday, so we stopped to check them out. When I asked how much, the farmer said, “Three dollars a dozen ma’am and there’s a worm guaranteed in every ear. We don’t use any sprays on the corn we grow.” I asked for 6 dozen. Once he’d gotten those…
Well… when you own a pressure canner… (<-affiliate link) canning season runs year round because you’re replenishing your stock of soups, stews and broths. But this is by far the busiest time for canning. Yesterday our son and I went to one of the local farmer’s/flea markets just to see what might be available. We came home with a bushel…
A little over a month ago, I wrote a post about how to make homemade paninis without a panini press. Well, the loaf of tomato basil bread from Panera was quite large and we had part of it left over. We also had some meat, cheese and sliced peppers leftover, but not enough for another entire meal for the three…
I love to sew, but I know there are those who either can’t or simply don’t want to, so for this month’s Christmas on a Budget post I thought I’d share two inexpensive no-sew ideas for things you can start collecting now to have ready come December. First up… Our family is making the switch from using paper gift wrapping…
The past couple of days, our area has gotten a bit of a reprieve from the excessive heat that the Southern States have been experiencing. But the temperatures are due to head back into the 90s later this week though hopefully not the high 90s we had been enduring. Usually when the summer heat hits, I take a break from…
Last week, for WIP Wednesday, I posted pictures of the lawn chair cushions that I was in the process of making. Well this Wednesday, I can report that the lawn chair cushions have been moved to the 2011 – Projects Completed list. Here’s a before picture. Of the 5, the one on the left was in the best condition and…
Refinishing this Singer Art Deco Sewing Machine Cabinet was a labor of love for my husband, Dave. Hours and hours went into disassembling, sanding, reassembling and refinishing to bring her back to her former glory. Before I show you how she looks now that he’s finished working his magic, let me show you what it looked like when we brought…
Another of the major projects that I wanted to get done this year was recovering the cushions for our lawn chairs. We bought the set of 5 chairs in the fall of the year 2000 when we first moved to Maui to give us something to sit on (both out on the lanai and inside the house) while we waited…
This year, in addition to growing herbs, strawberries and tomatoes in our three little square foot gardens, I’ve been experimenting with some container gardening. I have two large planters that sit on either side of our garage door. I usually fill those with some kind of tall grass in the middle surrounded by flowering annuals.  This year the tall grass…