Cleaning and cussing!

I absolutely HATE cleaning this area of my house! It catches every dust bunny in a 50 mile radius and my vacuum won't reach. The attachment will but I'm too afraid of sucking up a cord and electrocuting myself to actually use it! So what happens is when one day I drop something and I have to go fish it out of this little awful area I have to get a rag and paper towel and bottle of cleaner and pretty much a hazmat suit to go get whatever unlucky item fell into this pit of tangled dirty mess, then I cuss and throw wires and end up having to take a bath and repent. Maybe not that bad but today I decided to fix this crap once and for all. Here you go in case you have a corner of you house that makes you cuss.
I got Velcro from work for another project and remembered I had it stuck in a craft bag. Here is what I used but you could find some at a craft store. I like these because they come in perfect cut little squares.



Get out two sets, you may need more if they are light weight Velcro but this stuff is pretty good. If you use something else like strips then just judge for yourself based on the weight of the items plugged into you extension cord.



I used chalk to mark my spots on the wall where I wanted to stick my Velcro like this:





It kinda transfers if you can tell. Then I just stick on the Velcro to the wall and the extension cord strip and press them to together.






Now talk all the loose cords and tie wrap them together.



And then I cleaned up that little corner and made sure no wires were touching the ground so I can get my vacuum right up in there every time. I'm so glad I took the time to actually DO this....finally!!

The "Don't Talk To Me Right Now I'm Eating Awesomeness" Recipe

Ok this one is simple and I must admit I took horrible pictures because I was in such a hurry to just get it in my mouth.  Sorry, but its so good that if you DO try it, and I suggest you do, then you will forgive my poor pictures and thank me over and over again for just posting it.

All you need is:

INGREDIENTS:

Sweet Potato - already cooked

Cinnamon

Salt

Coconut Oil - You can use regular oil if its all you have on hand but I cant say enough about using Coconut Oil.  I have been cooking with it for awhile now and LOVE it! Here is a link to a long list of reasons why, but the main thing for me is that it seems that stuff cooks better and doesn't have that film on it that regular oil leaves.

HOW TO DO IT:

Take about tablespoon full of oil and put it in a frying pan on medium high. Slice a 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick piece of already cooked sweet potato and lay it in the pan until it starts to sizzle just a bit.  Sprinkle the side up with cinnamon and a pinch of salt then flip.  Your grease will be getting pretty hot at this point and you may want to turn it down to medium.  Now sprinkle the up side with cinnamon and pinch of salt and flip once more so that you can get that side golden brown.  Its up to you how much you fry it but a nice golden brown is what I have found pleases my taste buds.  The thinner the slice the faster it cooks so keep that in mind.  Now pull it off and allow it to cool and then if your brave and no one is looking add a scoop of ice cream to the top and dig in! Oh and if your boyfriend attempts to talk to you while your enjoying this amazing flavor filled moment tell him: "Don't talk to me right now because I'm eating awesomeness!!!" I'm sure he'll understand and wont make you run bleachers for it later.

A BOO-rific Treat!

I know, you never know what your going to get on this little scatterbrained space of mine.  Kinda reminds me of a big bag of  trick -r-treat candy, oh this brain of mine.  So in honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday I thought I would add this post to show you how I did these two skulls so that I could write whatever I wanted on them. I hung the black one on my door and put the red one in the candy bucket!!!

I planned on posting a recipe today but got side tracked and look what ended up happening!  Gee wiz.  Ok so onto the first order of business. SKULLS!  I happen to have a real skull to work with cause I'm skit-so like that.  No really it was from a beaver that died of natural causes and I wanted to do Art with it.  I planned on etching a design into the skull and then using ink to fill it in.   It never happened so I thought why not chalkboard paint it and write on it for Halloween!  So much less artsy and romantic but what the heck.  So if you don't happen to have any animal skulls laying around don't panic.  I found these two at my local craft store for less than a dollar.

So its pretty much the easiest project ever!

Buy some chalkboard paint from Lowe's or Home Depot or make your own with any funky color you want.

Next get a spongy brush and paint it on

.....wait for it to dry and re-apply another coat.
Then just use some chalk and spice it up.

And ..... that's it!

Functional flooring, for CHEAP!

This idea occurred to me out of necessity. We built an add on to our shed to keep our dirt bikes and riding lawn mower. It's functional but had a dirt floor that made everything a mess and was always being drug indoors or getting caked up on our shoes. I priced garage type flooring online and from sears and it ridiculously expensive. Obviously I'm not spending 250 -500 dollars on an outdoor lean to that cost 100.00 to build. So I bought a roll of cheap roofing - 40.00 at Lowes and covered the area. It took 20min to put down and it's perfect. I even have left over. It worked so well I pulled our my left over shingles from my house and painted them and layed them out to make an area for my BBQ pit. I love it!

Drawing out ourself

We are different with different people, some people draw out different things in us because there are different things in them. They mix with us like a chemical reaction in a lab. We become different things together. We are dirt and science and soil and most of all soul. We are who we touch and who touches us.
-beth

Three Ingredients and 5 min

Why am I always the last one to find out about the recipes with three ingredients that are awesome? If your some poor unfortunate soul like me, then here it is. I'm posting it for the two other people on the planet that didn't know recipes could be this easy. And it's good.

Ingredients:
Onion
2 lbs ground beef or turkey
2 bottles of marinara (15.5 oz)

Brown meat with chopped onion then add marinara
That's it! Eat it over garlic bread or pasta.

Cook time: as fast as you can get the meat done!

Extension cord organization (for free)

We are doing a barn make over slowly but surely. When I was cleaning out the clutter today I found all my extension cords and was so thankful that was one task I didn't have to mess with cleaning up. Awhile back when we organized the inside of the barn we came up with this clever little idea to keep our cords neat and functional. Best part. Free. I took empty plant buckets and rolled the cords up in them. Start by taking the part you plug into the wall and sticking it through one of the water release holes in the bottom of your empty plant container. They are plastic so you can stretch the hole as needed and push it thru. Pull out enough so it will wrap around the base of the bucket on the outside about twice and tuck into itself. Then just start laying the other end of the cord in circles in the bottom of the bucket. Once you get started it will just kinda fall into place. Do this until your buckets full then cut a little slit on the top lip and put the other end that you will plug into you equipment through the little slit. It works like a charm, keeps things organized, makes using extension cords easy and ... It's freeeee!