All the people in moms life, they are kind of crazy.

Monday
Lasagna primavera (made with rice cheeses ssshhh! don’t tell, no one will ever know the difference!)

Tuesday
Grilled sausage and sauerkraut

Wednesday
Roast local beef with red wine sauce

Thursday
stuffed poblano peppers (no cheese on mine!)

Friday
Indian braised Chicken

Saturday
out

Sunday
Lemon/horseradish fish cakes

Snack
peanut butter granola bites

I wanted to give an update on my homemade detergents now that I’ve had some time to use them.

The laundry detergent is perfect. The smell is fantastic and the clothes come out smelling clean, not heavily perfumed. (Can you tell when people use Tide? I always can.) My skin hasn’t had any problems at all, neither has Honor’s. And the clothes come perfectly clean too.

The dish detergent, however, is still not perfect. The first few loads of dishes came clean, but now the glasses are cloudy and any remaining speck of food left on the dishes prior to loading remains there. So I tried adding a little vinegar to the rinse cycle. (Who wants to babysit their washer tho? It takes an hour for my dishes to get to the rinse cycle.) It helped, but it wasn’t enough. I started thinking about what makes the laundry detergent work and not the dish detergent: the lack of actual soap. So I’ve been squirting a little bit of regular dish soap (Method brand pink grapefruit, of course) into the soap cup. It seems to be working, but still needs further testing.

I’m also going to try corn starch. I read that it makes your glasses sparkly clean. Plus I’m hoping it will help with the major caking issue of the detergent. (Which is not so with the laundry soap.) I also might try Zote bar soap grated up in with the dish detergent as I heard that it is food safe, but this needs further research.

Anyway, I’ll get it figured out… I’m determined now! And just as soon as I do, I’ll post results.

Dear Blingo,
Since nearly the beginning of your life I have been a large fan of you. I have referred many, many users to you. In turn, you have also been good to me. I have won many a fantastic prize, including my much loved and used ipod nano.

But alas, you have sold out to the corporate giant. I kept using you faithfully even when you became PCH. I even kept coming back when I stopped winning prizes. (It’s been FOREVER since I’ve won, yet I use you every day.) But now that you have discontinued your use of Google results and sprinkled your results with sponsored links, it is time that we part ways.

I will always remember how good you once were.

Longing for the old Blingo,
Allison ******

I whipped this up last week as a model for Tangle. We ordered this yarn without any patterns in mind (the yarn is just so dern cool!), so I wrote a simple bag pattern for it.

Stats:
-pattern: cambio summer bag free at Tangle
-yarn: Lana Grossa Cambio – cotton core wrapped with polyamide, 2 skeins
needles: Size 6 and 10.5

“How we treat the creation reveals how we feel about the creator.” – Rob Bell

I have not yet had the time to research it in the Bible specifically, but I personally believe that it is a Christian principle to take care of the planet that we live on. I am happy to see that my beliefs are being echoed amongst many mainstream Christian leaders.

(Please note: I do not necessarily agree with all statements made in the above link. But I do feel that it is a large step in the right direction and worthy of commendation.)

• Spring is in full force here. Why don’t people knit as much when it becomes spring? I do, there are so many wonderful yarns for spring. I know this because we carry every single one.

• Sometimes your heart has to break a little before it can soften up. I learned that this weekend.

• The post office lost a very important package for Tangle, full of hand-sewn Misocrafty bags and a Martha Stewart garlic peeler from Macys. I will mourn this loss for a very long time.

• This weekend our friend, Jim’s lone employee, moved over the mountains to the big city. We will miss her but I’m interested to see how Jim enjoys being a one-man-show again. I think this will be a good change.

• If you haven’t seen Dan in Real Life, you should.

• PS: if you want to click on my google ads, that would be great, I’m only $4.53 away from getting my second, ever, check from Google. :)

“Mom, you know why corn is good? Because you can put butter on it.”

• A few days ago apartment therapy kids featured our bathroom with a small interview with me on how we did it.

• I took Honor to visit the preschool at Eden’s school to see if he’d want to go there next year. When I asked him to tell Jim about it later that night he said, “I don’t want to go there, it was just a bunch of girls.”

• I scored this clutch on clearance at Old Navy last night. I really love clearance.

• And I started swatching that great Rebecca sweater that I posted about a few days back! I’m excited. Plus, I love the yarn, it’s SO light weight.

• PS: Tangle now has it’s very own blog!

Here’s the table. As you can see, the chairs are still not done. I have a plan for them, but I keep wavering back and forth between painting them and finishing them. Wow do I hate sanding! So we’ll see. But I’m really happy with the table. Here it is with both leaves in and the two rounded sides folded down. It needs a little bit of touch up still, but that’s another thing that I keep putting off. As with everything, the dining room continues to be a work in progress.

I got this chandelier at Target for 75% off. It was originally $130, but I took a gamble that it would still be there and waited until it was marked down. After a couple weeks of visiting Target about every other day to check on the price, I was successful in my great deal!! Nothing makes me happier!

Anyway, I think it fits the room perfectly. My only complaint is that it doesn’t disburse quite enough light. I think that we’re going to have to add a few more lights in, maybe recessed lighting? That sounds like a good weekend project for Jim doesn’t it?