Happy Halloween!

Tags

Dog costumes, Golden Retrievers, UnderDog

Hi Everyone!  Lola here.

The Lady is busy getting ready for trick-or-treating.  I just wanted to show you how easy it is to make your own Halloween costume.

I was inspired by Lady’s post yesterday.  I don’t have a closet, so I checked my doghouse for materials.  There were two towels.  Great!

A little this, a little that,

and TA-DA! 

Guess who I am.

I’m UnderDog!  See the resemblance.

 

Be safe this evening and have a good time.  Share your Halloween photos with us on Flickr.  Just add them to the group The Lady at Home Photo Group. 

The Lady will be back next time.

Halloween, Scary Expenses?

I recently heard that Halloween is the second-highest grossing consumer holiday.  I’m not sure if that is true, but it’s certainly believable.  We live in a neighborhood where trick-or-treating is huge!  People actually bring trailers full of children to our street to ask for candy hand-outs.  All that candy can get to be expensive!

Not to mention the costumes.  I’ve seen some kid’s costumes as high as forty dollars or more!  I also heard adult costumes are beginning to edge out children’s costumes in sales.   I guess that’s because it’s a little easier to make a child’s costume than an adults, but it begs the question, where are all these adults wearing their costumes?

Why to Halloween parties of course!  Parties can be expensive–with food and decorations and  music and cocktails  or cokes and prizes and  games and paper plates.  Yes, I just counted paper plates as a big party expense.  I’m on a tight budget remember.   

Have you seen some of the things people do to decorate their homes for Halloween?  Wow! It’s beginning to look a lot like. . .spending.

This Halloween, whether you visit your church’s fall festival, host a Halloween party, or take your kids trick-or-treating, remember that it’s not about having the coolest, most expensive costume, the best candy, or the most outrageous party.  At least, not if you’re trying to ditch debt. 

If your debt-free and want to give out king size Hershey bars to every grubby goblin that comes to call, more power to ya!  Just let me know where to bring Dorothy and the Scarecrow.  I would love a big ol’ chocolate bar.

I realize it’s a bit late in the game for this, but if you are still searching for a costume, check your closet.  Search the internet, search your brain.  Surely you have something in the closet to turn you into SuperMario, or Michael Jackson, or Punky Brewster.  I saw a guy on tv who cut a golf ball in half, stuck it to his forehead and called himself The Unfortunate Golfer. 

I still remember that from two or three days ago.  I don’t remember any expensive costume I’ve ever seen.

Some years, I do a great job on budget costumes.  Last year, I bought my daughter a dress on ebay for a fall pageant for only ten dollars.  A few weeks later, it was transformed into BoPeep’s dress.  A bag of cotton balls and a onesie made my little one a sheep suit.

Yes friends, the HOLIDAYS are upon us.  While that means lots of fun, family, and festivities, it can also mean a lot of debt.  Keep focused with me through these next few months.   I’ll be posting ideas to curb your spending.  Come January, we’ll have less debt, not more.

 

Are My Kids Weird?

I read a lot of articles about how to get your kids to eat fruits and vegetables.  I’ve never had to coerce my children to do that.  In the early years, I assured myself that it was due to my superior mothering skills.  I had trained that child to love whatever I put on her plate. 

I have since learned better.  There are too many wonderful mothers with children who hate veggies for me to think differently. Each child is a unique person with a mind of her own.  While mothers and fathers play an extraordinarily important role in shaping their character, it’s really impossible to teach someone to like, um, say, english peas. 

(The Lady has been known since childhood to swallow english peas with a swig of tea much like taking pills. )

Today, for lunch, I served one of my favorite short-cut products on the market.  I love these frozen veggie mixes from Green Giant.

My favorite is called Healthy Weight.  It’s a blend of carrots, black beans, sugar snap peas and edamame (soybeans).  I used to serve these all the time for lunch when I wanted to be sure my little girl was getting enough veggies.  Lately, I had sort of forgotten about them.  My younger daughter had never tried it.

So today, I was curious as to how they would react.  From my five-year-old, I heard things like, “Mmmm, the sugar peas are delicious, ”  and “I don’t like carrots, but I’ve never tried these before. . .not bad!”  (I certainly cannot take credit for that miracle.)  And this homeschooling mom’s treasure, “Can we eat the seed pods?”

From my two-year-old, “I love this fruit.”  Fruit?  She thinks it’s fruit? 

And my favorite, “What’s this?”

“Edamame”

“Dat’s e-Daddy?”

Yes, that’s right, Daddy even outranks Mommy in the name of a vegetable.  Not Eda-Mommy, EDaddy. 

Anyway, I began all this to say, if you’re needing to boost the nutritional value of your diet without a lot of effort, these are good. 

And who knows?  Your kids may even like them.

 

 

Roasty-Toasty, Sweet-n-Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

Tags

Pumpkin Seeds, spiced, toasted pumpkin seeds

Whether you make a spooky,

or goofy face,  

after you do this, you’re going to have a lot of this.

Pumpkin seeds.  What  to do with all those?  Eat them, of course.  (For eating, it’s best to use the seeds of the slightly smaller “sugar” pumpkins, but the big guys aren’t bad. )

Before you begin, you can give your seeds a good washing.  I filled my sink full of water, dumped in all the pumpkin “guts” and sort of rubbed them between my hands to separate the seeds from the flesh.  The seeds float, but the other stuff doesn’t exactly sink.  I used a mesh strainer to gather the seeds and then scooped the other stuff into the trash so I wouldn’t clog my disposer with it.  In other words, if you fill your sink with pumpkin guts, don’t blame me when your husband is fussing at you for breaking the garbage disposer.  🙂

Next, get a pot of water boiling with about a tablespoon of  salt. Boil your pumpkin seeds for about ten minutes.

Oooh, look! An orange-ish foam starts to collect on the top.

 Yes, this is new for me too.  I’ve toasted, but never boiled the seeds.  Boiling them in salted water seasons the nutty meat inside the crunchy shell.

While they are boiling, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. 

Then get your spice mixture together.  Begin with a heaping teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.    It’s cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and maybe something else–I can’t remember.  I’m not a huge fan of nutmeg so I don’t go overboard with it.

Add another heaping teaspoon of cinnamon.  By the way, “heaping” just means mounded up on top.   (Don’t let the picture fool you.  I began with half a teaspoon and added more after I tasted the mix.)

A good half-teaspoon of cayenne pepper will give it a nice burn.  If you’re feeling timid, at least a quarter teaspoon.  Brave?  Give it all you want.

Two table spoons of brown sugar.

And a half-teaspoon of salt.  Or more if you like.   Mix it all together thoroughly.

Drain your boiled pumpkin seeds and drizzle with oil.  Not olive oil, just whatever vegetable oil you have on hand. 

Then dump in the spices.  Mix it all together until each seed is coated.

Then spread on a baking sheet and roast for 10-20 minutes.  You’re looking for golden brown and delicious. 

That’s one of my favorite phrases.  “Golden brown and delicious”.  It sounds magical.  So many good things come out of the oven at golden brown and delicious.  Sounds like the residence of a fairy tale character.  “She lives at the corner of Golden Brown and Delicious.”  Or perhaps a corporation of bakers, “Welcome to the office of Golden, Brown, and Delicious.”  

Okay, I’m officially off my rocker.  Back to the seeds.

When they are toasted, they are easily crunched through, but if not completely toasted, they become tiresome to chew.  The outer layer is woody and fibrous.  You can split and spit like a sunflower seed, but if they’re crisp, that’s not necessary.  

Mine were great right out of the oven, but the next day they were too soft.  Even after being in an airtight container.  Perhaps I will re-toast them before snacking next time.

I’m thinking this spice blend would be good on some nuts, pecans maybe.  Serve them on halloween when you’ve had too much candy but want a festive treat.

Enjoy!

Alligator Pancakes

Tags

fiber one pancake, making pancake shapes, pancake mix, Pioneer baking mix

We tried something new with pancakes this weekend.  I usually prefer Pioneer Baking Mix (not pancake mix) for pancakes.  Yes, they are easily made from scratch, but somehow my from-scratch pancakes never taste as good as Pioneer.

But the other day as I was grocery shopping, I decided to try Fiber One Pancake mix.

We had tried their muffin mix before and really liked it, but I think the pancake mix was a mistake.  Seems like there is a lot of sugar in the pancakes.  I’m not sure the added fiber is worth the added sugar. 

Next time I want added fiber, I’ll just stick to the wheat germ.   Pioneer pancakes can take anything you want to throw in–raisins, dried cranberries, a little orange juice, wheat germ, walnuts–I call them trail mix pancakes.  Sometimes we’re really decadent and put chocolate chips.  I try to compensate by avoiding the syrup.

This mix did, however, hold up to being over-mixed.  With most muffins, pancakes, etc. you should leave the lumps and just let it rest a little or you could get tough baked goods.

But today I overmixed on purpose to get rid of any lumps.  Why?  Because I was funneling my batter into a plastic squeeze bottle (the kind you find ketchup or mustard in at diners) and the lumps clogged up the spout.

Putting our batter into the plastic squeeze bottle allowed us to squirt it into the pan to make designs.

Here, my daughter is making an octopus.

This Fiber One mix cooks extremely fast.  I’ve been making pancakes since I was standing on a step-stool and I’ve never seen batter bubble and set this quickly.  Weird.

She was so proud.

But my little one kept hollering, “I wan alligator pancake!”

I could never have done that without the squeeze bottle.

Of course, you can always try a Picasso Pancake.

Or perhaps I should call this a Pollock Pancake. 

This is what you get when you just want a regular pancake but you put all your batter in a stinking squeeze bottle!

Another trick is to first draw your child’s initial, then pour on the batter around it to make a circle.  You end up with a sort of badge with their initial in it.

Ahh, Saturday morning pancakes. 

Was there every a better tradition?

Hi, everyone!

Hello, everybody!

My name is Lois and I’m going to be guest-blogging on the Lady’s Scrapbooking pages from time to time.  I thought I’d start things off by telling you a little bit about myself.

I’m married to the most wonderful man – my own personal Superman. (I thought I’d get that out of the way since I know someone will ask) We have been married for over 17 years and have two beautiful little girls (of whom you will see a lot in my scrapbooking pictures, I’m sure). I work full-time in the software industry but I am lucky enough to be able to work out of my home.  This allows me a great deal of flexibility to fit my life in and around my work schedule. (I’m very lucky, I know)

I have been scrapbooking since 1993 – I was introduced to scrapbooking at a mother’s workshop I attended with a friend.  I wasn’t the mother, she was, I was just along to help her with her newborn.  Together, we started scrapbooking. I was capturing the travels and escapades of two relative newlyweds while my friend captured memories of being a new mom. Soon, I was hooked.  I counted last night and I have over 50 scrapbooks sitting on the shelves in my living room.  I can’t believe I’ve done so many, but like I said, I’m hooked!

Right now, I have several projects in the works that I’ll be sharing with you over the next weeks and months:

• Me: The Abridged Version – this is a scrapbook project I started after taking a class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. (I love their classes) It focused on capturing details about your own life… but doing so in an encyclopedia-style way.  So, each page is a letter of the alphabet and I have entries which describe things about me that begin with that letter.  You can see an example here.
• Project 365 – this is an idea I got from Creating Keepsakes.  Basically, you take a picture every single day for a year.  And then you create a 2 page spread for the week using the seven pictures you took that week.  The idea here is to capture the minutiae of every day life – things outside the birthdays, holidays and vacations we usually scrapbook but are really the essence of our lives.
• A family album and an album for each of my kids – these are more traditional albums which, so far, have been chronological in nature.  I’m running about 3 months (at least!) behind on these right now – I seem to have more energy for the other album projects than I do these albums at this point.
• Miscellaneous mini-books I create as the mood strikes me.

I’m looking forward to sharing my ideas, inspiration, and thoughts around scrapbooking with you – I’m also looking forward to hearing from you!  Please feel free to comment and let me know anything you’d like to see on this blog.  I’m hoping this will become a dialogue of sorts – where we can share ideas and inspiration with each other… and keep each other motivated to scrap!

Announcing the Return of Scrapbook Sunday

Tags

grief journal, memories, Scrapbooking

I recently mentioned that I would like to host a guest writer in my scrapbook section.  I was contacted by a lovely blogger known as Lois.

Lois has been blogging for some time now but has fairly recently begun to share her scrapbooking skills.  I love her post about creating a scrapbook about yourself instead of your children or family. 

In the future, Lois will be writing here on The Lady at Home, but for this week, click here to read about creating your own Me: The Abridged Version.

Apparently the concept is from Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, which I had seen in a magazine article.  The woman in the article created a book in memory of her dear son who had passed away.  On each page, a letter of the alphabet is the heading/title.  The journaling is then some small topic that begins with that letter.  A is for attitude, athletics, or alligator t-shirt.  B is for boat, bananas, or bad haircut.  Whatever details come to mind. 

If you have recently–or not so recently–lost a loved one, I think this is a wonderful way to preserve your memories of that person.  Having the alphabet to give you direction leaves your mind free to follow whatever thoughts come along.  It doesn’t have to be the big stuff.  After all, it’s the little things that make us who we are.  And it doesn’t have to be a beautiful scrapbook to preserve your memories, a simple journal would have the same effect. 

Well, this was intended to be an introduction to Lois’s idea and not a rambling of my own thoughts, but I’ve never been good at shutting up when I have an idea.  I guess that’s why I have a blog! 🙂

Be blessed!  I’m off to watch a rented movie and munch on pumpkin seeds.