Art on the Go – BusPainting

I was so excited when my mother-in-law Pat introduced me over the internet to artist Kathleen McElwaine from Leander Texas.  Kathleen does beautiful watercolors and on the bus! 

She commutes on the bus into Austin twice a day and began a series of watercolors entitled BusPaintings.  She says, “Early on when I began taking the bus, I did do some character studies of people riding the # 983 Express. But then I became hesitant, thinking that perhaps I might be imposing on a near stranger's personal space -- one's mobile sanctum. As a representational artist I constantly look for character … What are the distinguishing characteristics of people … plants and animals… skies or, landscapes?"

She now has an Etsy store and besides selling her beautiful artwork, she will create a watercolor profile picture for you to use on Facebook.  She did my profile and I love it. Better yet my husband loves it.  He thinks she captured my friendliness in the painting.  That was sweet of him to say, I’ll have to bake him some brownies.  Anyway, I want to share my picture with you.

I love it!  The picture I sent her was one of me with no make-up, wearing the John Deere sweatshirt my father-in-law gave me.  I think she captured my spirit wonderfully.

Please stop by her Etsy store or her website to look at her work.  I’m already thinking of some Christmas gifts and maybe a few profile surprises for a couple of friends.

Thanks Kathleen!

Would You Dress Up Like A Cow For A Free Meal?

YES! The answer is yes.  Now would you? If the answer is yes then head over to your local Chick-Fil-A for free meal this Friday.

Check out the Chick-Fil-A website to get more details.

Last year my oldest opted out of the dress-up. Something about her mother being totally embarrassing and what wouldn’t you do for some free food comments.  But at the restaurant she realized she was among cows. Big cows, medium sized cows, and little bitty cows.  This year she says she will participate. So maybe it is cool to dress like a cow, if you get a yummy Chick-Fil-A meal.

Here’s my herd.  Hubby and I wore some cow signs we printed off their website, but I guess I didn’t get pics of that.

So don’t be a chicken, dress up as a cow and then eat some chicken!

“Decluttering” Our Lives

My family has embarked on a journey to declutter and simplify our lives.  You hear a lot about organizing your house from experts. They even have television shows that help families to get rid of their junk.  Well, I wouldn’t mind someone coming in and clearing out all my stuff for me and giving me a lesson on organization.  Better yet, I don’t need the lesson, but if they’d give me all those neat organizational containers I’d be very happy.

So far no one has called to take care of cleaning up my house so we decided to go it on our own.  I just look around and begin to feel claustrophobic with all the stuff closing in on me.  Anyway, this is all part of our family’s plan to “declutter” and “simplify” our lives.

We started with our little barn.  We built it before we even moved into our house.  The plan was to have a place to store boxes as we began moving things.  Well, it filled up with boxes, bikes, tools, lawn equipment, furniture and it all stayed there.All of this was in our barn, along with a riding lawn mower and push mower.  Where did this all come from?

WB decided to build a workbench and some shelves.  Probably should have done that in the beginning, but I’m sure we were a little busy moving into our new house and he was dealing with a hormonal pregnant woman to boot.

It took all day in scorching heat.  I got a few breaks as we found boxes of photos that needed sorting and organizing.  But WB is no stranger to hard work and he kept going.  He’s my little Energizer bunny.  Wait, I don’t think he’d like that comparison. He’s a Gladiator, yes that’s better, my mighty Gladiator.

At the end of the day we had several piles of items for our Boy Scout church garage sale, a full dumpster and this

a clean barn.  I can see the floor.  WB and I can practice our ballroom dancing in here.  Well, we don’t ballroom dance, but we can turn a mean two-step. 

Honestly, we’re sleeping better at night now.  Something about having clutter in your life, it takes over.  Not just your house, but your attitude and really, your well being.  All these material things begin to weigh a person down.

As of today we have “decluttered” four rooms in our house.  We have five more and the attics. It’s a cleansing process and it feels so good when I can look at each room that has been “simplified”.  I’ll keep you posted!

Patriotic Poppies For Memorial Day

A fun way to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Memorial Day is by making crepe paper poppies, or Patriotic Poppies.  This tradition began after World War I when the American Legion began making these poppies to sell to raise money for veterans.

A Canadian physician and soldier wrote this poem during WWI referring to the battlefield of Flanders.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
  In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

So this Memorial Day my family has decided to help celebrate by making these Patriotic Poppies to help us to remember all the soldiers that have given their lives for our freedoms.  You can wear them in your hair or lapel or you can use them to decorate with, it’s up to you.

First start with several layers of red crepe paper. You will need a round template( we used different size bowls) and a pencil:

Trace around the bowl onto the crepe paper.

Once you have your circle cut out you need to make two small holes in the center through all the layers.

Next you take a green chenille pipe cleaner and insert through first hole.

Then feed through second hole like this. You can twist the pipe cleaner behind the flower to make it stay. This will be your stem.

Next separate    each layer and swirl forward to make the petals.

 

Aren’t they pretty?  And so simple to do!  We had great fun with these.  If you’d like you could add leaves to the stems with names of family or friends who were killed in battle.  We are going to wear our Patriotic Poppies with pride on Memorial Day!

Kids Getting Creative In The Kitchen

So the other night my oldest daughter made Bibimbap, a Korean dish. She got the recipe from Sara Moulton’s new cookbook Everyday Family Dinners.

First she made some Kim chi, which is basically a pickled cabbage mixture. Next she made a Sesame Miso sauce, sautéed some carrots and spinach, and browned some tofu. The dish also contained shitake mushrooms, scallions and brown rice. It was topped with a fried egg and chili sauce.

I was really proud of Em for picking this dish to make. She’s more a meat and potatoes gal. But, one thing about my kids is that they are willing to try new things. They love to experience new tastes and learn about other cultures. We had fun discovering what Miso was, a type of fermented soybean paste, and that it comes in white or red.

I enjoyed all the different flavors that fused together to make this dish. Em was a little disappointed. It was a little too much different for her. But that is okay, because they would never know if they liked it if they didn’t try it. This is a favorite saying of Soph’s.

And speaking of Soph she contributed to the meal as well. She created these fruit bites as appetizers or dessert.

They were strawberries, blackberries, lemon and mint. Each one of us got a spoon and we slurped them down!

I love being at home and in the kitchen with my girls. It is always an adventure.

Pulled And Stretched Pork Recipe

Well, Smockity Frocks is holding another "What's In Your CrockPot?" carnival and I'm so glad. We use our crockpot more and more around here. It makes dinner time so much easier on everyone! We've discovered pulled pork and how just a little goes a long way. So I like to refer to it as pulled and stretched pork! Not to mention it is super easy and so yummy!

Pulled And Stretched Pork

Piece of pork loin or boneless pork chops (thick cut)

-the amount of pork is up to you and the size of your family. I have served my family of 5 with an inch cut of whole pork loin.

onions

favorite BBQ sauce

water

vinegar

black beans (optional)

Place pork in crock pot with sliced onions. I usually use one whole onion, but you can use less or more depending on your amount of pork. Pour BBQ sauce over pork and onions, enough to cover bottom of crock pot. Add about 1/2 cup of water and I like to add 1 TB of vinegar. I was raised mostly on the East coast and vinegar and pork BBQ go hand and hand.

Cook on low for 6 hours. In the last 30 minutes you can add a couple cans of black beans. This is a wonderful way to stretch the meal if you don't have that much meat.

We like to serve on tortillas with grated cheese and some sour cream. We've also had it on yeast rolls.

Enjoy!

Head over to Smockity's for more great recipes!

Frugal Master Bath Makeover- Update Knobs

So we've hit a little snag with our granite counter tops. They are in, but there has been some quality issues so we are awaiting the owners phone call to straighten things out. In the meantime I thought I'd share a frugal way to update your knobs.

In a post on my main blog awhile back I shared my tips on spray painting your knobs to avoid the expense of buying new hardware. They can be very expensive.


I have found that spray paint is your friend. They have spray paint that is shiny or even leaves a hammered effect. We were sure what color to go with in this project so we tested several different colors to see what would work best.

When we decided on a color we used a very scientifically exact method of making sure the paint was evenly distributed on the knobs...

Bamboo skewers in the dirt.

They turned out really nice and have held up well. There are a few worn spots on the ones we did in the bathroom, but a lot of grimy and wet hands touch those:)

We've got the tiles for the floor in the master bath so hopefully this weekend that will get finished and I will have pictures to show you. We saved some money with the tiles, almost half, for basically the same look. I'll share that whole story with you soon!