Catchup.

Remember that cold I had last week? Yeah, I still have it. It got better for a while, then tried to make a comeback so I punched it in the face with Mucinex. Now I'm sapping the rest of its energy with vitamin C and peppermint tea. That'll be the last time I ever wish away a cold.

One of the blogs that I read with great frequency is written by a Canadian TV personality with a bit of a perspective on life. That perspective is "Do it myself", which coincidentally, is one of the first phrases I spoke as a child. This lady (Karen) completely redecorated her house, is growing her own vegetables from seeds, and recently adopted some cute little chicks which she intends to rear into egg-producing hens. That means making her own chicken coop, but we'll get to that later. What I wanted to show you was this neat little way to grow alfalfa sprouts.

The Art of Doing Stuff | How to Grow Alfalfa Sprouts

Alfalfa sprouts remind me of my grandfather, who used to put them on his sandwiches. He still might, I just haven't asked him recently. (On a related note, I think his birthday is coming up soon. I wonder what I should get him.) Anyways, short version of the tutorial is put seeds in a jar, rinse them with water, and then you get sprouts. That's so simple I want to find out if I like alfalfa sprouts. H. and I could put them in our salads!

Here's a quick list of very specific links that stand out for very different reasons:
~ How to Grow Vegetables from Seed
~ The Crappiest Gift Ever
~ Dollar Store Week : The Mirror
I'll let you peruse around the rest of the site at your own pace.

And now it's time for Silly Songs with Chucky, the part of the show where Chucky comes out and sings ... a silly song.


My husband and I love to eat
What we eat is sometimes quite sweet
We tried out a recipe
For bars made with toffee
And learned that we'd rather have meat!


Limericks are a form of song, right? (H. rolled his eyes when he read that.) So the story behind the song is that I was all excited to try out the beautiful stoneware bar pan that we received as a wedding gift. The recipe that I chose sounded like it would work - a little this, a little that - so I mixed it all up, added walnuts instead of pecans, and threw it in the oven. The stoneware pan cooked everything evenly and beautifully, and I was so excited to try out the finished product. Little did I know that when you cut out half the sugar (I figured it really didn't need two whole cups to one cup flour), it leaves the bars tasting like flour and walnuts. H. described it as "bitter", and told me to throw them out. I was sad to see that all those ingredients were wasted, but such is life.

Last night, we used the bar pan for something outside of its comfort zone. We covered it in aluminum foil and cooked our chicken enchiladas on it. It's the only thing we have that can contain all the enchiladas all at once, which makes cooking them in the oven a breeeeeeeeeeeze. So yeah, I'm kind of in love with that pan. I wish I had taken a picture of all the cooked enchiladas sizzling on it. So smelly (in a good way!).

Looking around at all of the DIY planter tutorials I've found (almost all of them including wood and wood glue and sanders), I think I might just go to Goodwill and see what they have that's plastic and large enough to accommodate soil. I super-dee-duper want to plant something soon.