Kitchen odor tip

Good Morning!  Here is a quick tip to get rid of smelly kitchen odors.                   

                    

Fish or Other Spoiled Food Odor: Place a bowl of white vinegar on the counter for a few hours. The odor will disappear for good.

Good thing that I have a doctor appointment today.  Rylie started running a fever yesterday.  She was awake most of the night...(((yawn)))...it's probably another ear infection.  I have one of those ear thermometers, when I would check her temp in one ear she would make me check it in the other one too.  Ironically, her ears were nearly a full degree off.  Thankfully the nurse said they would fit her in with me today. 

Hopefully they give us ear drops this time around.  Usually they give us a prescription for amoxicillian and Rylie refuses to take it.  She is such an independent little soul.  She wouldn't take the Tylenol either.  I kept trying to sneak it into her juice, which didn't help since she didn't really want to eat or drink or anything.

Her fever finally came down to 100 around 5:30 this morning.  Thank God.  At one point during the night she pressed her little foot against my leg and it was burning the heck out of me. 

Well, I've got to go and get some chores done.  I hope todays tip comes in handy.

Have a great day!
Hugs!

Portobello burgers

Mmm, this sounds so good.  I love mushrooms, they just hate me.  I used to eat them all the time with no problems.  Then about 10 years ago, everytime I ate them I ended up getting terrible stomach pains.  Alot like when I eat eggs now.  My tummy must be getting more and more sensitive the older I get.

                 

Portobello Burgers
Serves: 4
Serve in place of a steak or with lettuce and tomato on toasted whole-grain buns.

INGREDIENTS
4 large Portobello mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, sliced into very thin slivers
1 tsp. fresh rosemary or 1/2 tsp. dried, (optional)
1 tsp. fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp. dried, (optional)
1-1/2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat broiler or grill.
2. Wipe mushrooms with damp cloth. Remove stems.
3. With paring knife, make slits in tops of caps. Stuff slivers of garlic and herbs (if using) into slits.
4. In small bowl, whisk together oil and vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. Brush mushrooms with oil mixture.
5. Place mushrooms, cap-side down, on pan and broil or grill until soft and brown, about 3 to 5 minutes per side.

NUTRITION INFO (per serving)
Calories: 71.6
Fat: 5.5 g
Carbohydrates: 4.5 g
Protein: 3.2 g

Wow!  Just take a look at that nutrition information...Low calories, low fat and lowcarb!  The perfect meal.  Just figures that it's something I love and it's good for you and I CAN'T eat it.  LOL

I've been down working on the house for Stephanie and Joe almost every day this past week.  It looks so nice.  The front bedroom now has 2 coats of paint on it and the front bath has one coat, I think.  The only thing left to paint is the back bathroom and that isn't so bad that it couldn't wait to be done until after they move in.

Steph's aunt and uncle got a new washer, so they are giving her their old one!  YEA!  Now we just have to find them a dryer and they will be all set.  They found a sofa and loveseat in pretty good condition and got the both of them for $30.  We just have to get some new legs for the loveseat because they were broken.  But it is Lazyboy stuff and the fabric is still nice and the cushions comfy.

The only thing that they really need now is a bed.  Not that they don't have one right now, but the people who gave it to them want it back since they are moving to Toledo.  Same people who borrowed money from Ray and still haven't paid it back.  Hm, I guess we should call him and tell him that when he goes to pick up the bedroom set that he should bring the $200 that his wife borrowed to pay their car insurance in December.  Because we sure could use that money right now.

Of course, the kids still need other things...odds and ends type stuff.  End tables, curtains, blinds, etc.  But that is all the kind of stuff they can probably pick up at garage sales and that family members can give to them.  We should have a house warming party for them once it is all done and they are moved in. 

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow, so I should just go and prepare my entry now.  I called the doctors office and told them about my little trip to the ER and they want me to come in.  I said it probably wasn't really necessary, but they still wanted to see me.  Ugh, I hate going to the doctor.  However, I know that there are some things that I probably shouldn't take a chance with.  I just hope that he doesn't tell me that he wants me to have a stress test too.  I don't have the time or money for that kind of thing. 

I know, I know...but we've got the kids moving down here and fixing up the house.  Samantha is about to graduate high school and I'd like to do something for her.  Rylie...well, she's three...she keeps me busy every day.  David is doing well, but sometimes I feel like I don't spend enough time with him.  Chris is...well, he's 15...do I need to say more?  He is busy with his friends and I don't see much of him, but I worry about him and what he is doing.  Aimee's baby is due in October and we've had a hard time getting hold of her.  I hope she is okay.  We've tried to call her but can never reach her.

I'm just too busy to do a bunch of tests just to find out that the initial diagnosis of angina was correct.  Too poor for it too, lol.  The pains aren't quite as bad as they were that night.  I've still got to get the nitro script filled, but that is going to have to wait until next week when we can afford it.  This week I have to go and get my blood pressure medications. 

Well, I need to stop rambling and get on with my day.  I'm sitting here talking about nothing...trying to avoid getting started with the chores I've been neglected all week while I was down working on the house for the kids.

Have a beautiful day.
Hugs!

Thursday home remedy-hair care

Good morning!  It's Thursday which means it is time for another home remedy and better yet...just one more day until the weekend!

         

Condition Hair

• Use a can of beer to condition hair.
• Cool whip will condition your hair in 15 minutes.
• Mayonnaise will condition your hair; it will also KILL LICE.
• Separate the white of an egg from the yolk, whip it to a peak. Add 1 Tbls. water to the yolk and blend until the mixture is creamy. Then mix the white and yolk together. Wet your hair with warm water, remove the excess moisture, and apply the mixture to your scalp with your fingertips. Massage gently until the froth is worked into your scalp, then rinse the hair with cool water. Keep applying the mixture until it is used up and then rinsed until all of the egg is washed away.
• Olive oil is a great way to condition your hair.  Put about 1 tablespoon (depending on hair length) of light olive oil into palm. Rub first into ends of dry hair (before shampooing) and then, run fingers through hair to get remaining off hands. Comb hair to distribute, then shampoo well. No need for an after shampoo conditioner. It makes your hair healthy and shiny!

Shiny hair

1) Mix the following in a jug (or anything else convenient for pouring contents over head)

• Lemon juice from ½ a lemon*
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 cup brewed Lipton tea

2) After shampooing (but before conditioning), pour mixture on hair and massage into scalp and through the hair.

3) Rinse thoroughly with cool water.

* As lemon juice tends to lighten hair color, you may choose to omit it.

Well, I have to get moving here.  Ray found a single wide mobile home in the area that was for sale.  Originally the guy wanted $1500 or $2000 for it.  The fella had gotten divorced and was moving to New York for a new job.  He had to leave this past Saturday, and Ray found out he had dropped the price down to $500 on Friday to try to get it sold before he left. 

So Ray told him that he only had $400 if the guy wanted to sell it.  He did and we bought it.  He got it for his daughter Stephanie, her boyfriend and their baby.  They are really excited to be moving back to Toledo.  It will mean a bit of a commute for Joe to go to work, but they really wanted to move back.  Stephanies job was recently sent oversea's so she is going to be staying home with the baby for awhile until she can find a new job.

The place needs a wee bit of work.  There are a couple of really nice ameneties on this place though.  It had a "tip out", making the living room really big.  A covered driveway on the one side and a deck the full length of the house on the other side.  A very nice little yard and a small Koi pond (which needs a little work). 

So, I've been over there doing a lot of painting.  The walls are covered with that dark ugly panelling.  Which means they have to be primed and stain sealed first and then painted.  But it is so worth it.  The clean paint makes such a huge difference!

So far the living room is done.  I've almost got the living room and hallway done, and I should be finishing up in the kitchen today.  That only leaves that 1 and 1/2 baths and the front bedroom.  Ray put new tiles on the kitchen floor, fixed some sub-flooring issues, fixed the back door, and replaced a wall that had gotten wet and nasty.  The carpet isn't the prettiest stuff, but it is in pretty good condition.  Eventually some windows will need to be replaced, but that is something that can be done one or two at a time.

The kids will need to get a washer and dryer, but in the meantime they can come over and do laundry at our house.  Thats better than spending $15 or $20 a week at the laundromat.  David doesn't have a washer and dryer either, so maybe I'll need to give the kids each a day they can come over so we're not all trying to get it done on the same day, lol.

I've sat here and babbled on long enough.  Time to get some housework done around here and get my bum in the shower. 

Have a great day!
Hugs!

Tags: hair care, home remedy, hair conditioning, shiny hair

Cleaning tip-childrens artwork on walls

Good Morning!  Time for another cleaning tip and if you have a toddler or young child in the house this one is really going to come in handy!                   

                    

Crayon on Walls or Washable Wallpaper: Spray with WD-40®, then gently wipe, using a paper towel or clean cloth. If the mark is stubborn, sprinkle a little baking soda on a damp sponge and gently rub in a circular motion. If the WD-40® leaves a residue, gently wipe off with a sponge soaked in soapy water; rinse clean; blot dry. Another method is to use a hair dryer - it heats the wax and wipes away instantly. If the color remains, like red usually does, wet a cloth with bleach and wipe.

Now Rylie Jo prefers ink artwork, and for that I use rubbing alcohol to remove it.  It works pretty good, or you can use bleach.  Once I was out of rubbing alcohol so I sprayed it with some hairspray and wiped it off.  I always use the alcohol method to remove ink from clothes, it works great!

This is my Daily OM for today...

May 1, 2007
Cause, Effect, And Transformation
Feeling Depleted

There are times in our lives when it seems our bodies are running on empty. We are not sick, nor are we necessarily pushing ourselves to the limit-rather, the energy we typical enjoy has mysteriously dissipated, leaving only fatigue. Many people grow accustomed to feeling this way because they do not know that it is possible to exist in any other state. The body's natural state, however, is one of energy, clarity, and balance. Cultivating these virtues in our own bodies so that we can combat feelings of depletion is a matter of developing a refined awareness of the self and then making changes based on our observations.

A few scant moments of focused self-examination in which you assess your recent schedule, diet, and general health may help you zero in on the factors causing your depletion. If you are struggling to cope with an overfull agenda, prioritization can provide you with more time to sleep and otherwise refresh yourself. Switching to a diet containing plenty of nutritious foods may serve to restore your vigor, especially when augmented by supplements like B vitamins or ginseng. Consider, too, that a visit to a healer or homeopath will likely provide you with wonderful insights into your tiredness. But identifying the source of your exhaustion will occasionally be more complicated than spotting a void in your lifestyle and filling it with some form of literal nourishment. Since your earthly and ethereal forms are so intimately entwined, matters of the mind and heart can take their toll on your physical self. Intense emotions such as anger, sadness, jealousy, and regret need fuel to! manifest in your consciousness, and this fuel is more often than not corporeal energy. Conversely, a lack of mental and emotional stimulation may leave you feeling listless and lethargic.

Coping with and healing physical depletion will be easier when you accept that the underlying cause might be more complex than you at first imagined. A harried lifestyle or a diet low in vital nutrients can represent only one part of a larger issue affecting your mood, stamina, and energy levels. When you believe that you are ultimately in control of how you feel, you will be empowered to transform yourself and your day-to-day life so that lasting fatigue can no longer gain a foothold in your existence.

I really need to take a look at what is going on in my life, health-wise, right now.  For the past month I've been real fatigued and often feel quite nauseated.  NO!  It is not that...I am NOT...I repeat, NOT pregnant!  Then Sunday night I began to get chest pains, when it started down my arm I called and had my son, David, take me to the ER.

The EKG reading was fine, my blood work was fine, and the nitro helped quite a bit with the pain.  The doctor said I probably have angina...I guess that is not enough oxygen getting to my heart.  He wanted me to stay overnight and have a stress test in the morning. 

"But I'm not having a heart attack right?"  Right.  "Okay, so I don't really need to stay and the stress test could be done later, right?"  Do you have insurance?  "No."  No, you don't have to stay overnight and you could do the stress test later.  "Okey-dokey!"

LMAO!  Yeah, tell them you don't have insurance and all of a sudden all those tests really aren't all that necessary.  I still have to contact my doctor and let him know whats been going on and probably make an appointment. 

But I did some research online about angina and it doesn't seem too serious, so I am relieved about that.  The ER doctor also gave me a prescription for nitro pills for the pain.  Which is good, the next time I can take those and if the pain doesn't stop then I'll know that it might be something more serious.  I guess that is how it works, lol.  Yeah, you can see I'm real informed about this, lol.

Well, have a wonderful day and best of luck to Lauren, whom I met this morning and is 39 weeks along!  Let me know when that baby decides to make it's entry into the world.  I'll have to go through my things and see what baby tips I have for you.

Take care y'all!
Hugs!

Tags: crayon marks, removing ink stains, cleaning tip

Honey Mustard Roasted Chicken

This chicken recipe just sounded really good to me.  It is from the Spark People web site.

                   

Honey Mustard Roasted Chicken
Serves: 4
Rich, flavorful honey mustard chicken with carrots and potatoes.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb. potatoes cut into wedges
2 lbs. chicken
6 medium carrots, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-1/2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons mustard
1 teaspoon rosemary
2 heads garlic
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 425° F. In a shallow pan, toss potatoes and carrots with oil, salt and pepper. Peel the garlic heads and remove the cloves, and nestle the garlic amongst the vegetables and scatter the rosemary on top. Arrange the chicken pieces among the vegetables and bake uncovered for 30 minutes.

2. Stir together the mustard and honey, and spread over chicken. Stir vegetables, return chicken to pan, place back into the oven and bake 10-20 minutes, until chicken is cooked and vegetables are tender. Scatter the remaining garlic (or to taste) over the remaining contents of the pan.

NUTRITION INFO
Calories: 357
Fat: 9 g
Carbohydrates: 39.4 g
Protein: 30.5 g

Have a great Monday.
Hugs!

Home remedy

Hello and good morning!  It's Thursday and time for another home remedy.  I don't know if this one works, but when it comes to a stubborn cold anything is worth a try, huh?

I personally haven't found the cure for the common cold or flu.  However, from what I have seen (mostly from men) it's best to lie around, whine like a wee child and have someone wait on you hand and foot.  LOL

             

These are home health remedies that have been emailed to me or that I found on the Internet.  I have not tried them all and do NOT guarantee the effectiveness of them.  If you try one and it works, or if you have one that works for you, please email me.  Thanks!

Colds & Flu

• Here is a delicious recipe for a cold and flu soup: Sauté 6 crushed cloves of garlic in 1 tsp. vegetable oil until golden. Pour in a quart of beef or chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and whisk in 2 egg whites. Beat together 2 egg yolks and 2 Tbls. distilled white vinegar; pour this mixture into the soup. Season with salt and pepper and top with croutons, if desired.

Have a good day. 
Hugs!

Jo Dee Messina song

This is one of my favorite Jo Dee Messina songs and decided to do a graphic for it.  I hope you like it.  It fits my mood lately.