Life in general

Today I am starting up my last Pinterest challenge pin (besides finishing up the blanket---which turns out, I probably won't have to mail. More about that later.)

As far as the happiness project of this year goes, I am still working on it but haven't written most of it down. A dear longtime friend of ours has his last week or two left with his wife. She had breast cancer that she beat, but also has a brain tumor that is taking a turn for the worst. It has caused me serious reflection on what my relationships are with those who are closest to me(Tom, the kids, my family, and the in-laws). I have a lot of work to do if I hope to be even half of what our friend's relationships with his spouse & children are.

I am actively working on being more present with the kids, to not tune them out, working on marriage--with all the overtime, issues at work, and roadshow practice I have been so tired by the time Tom is home that I've had to save most of my conversations with him to emailing during the day--to let him know he is truly my #1. I have been actively trying to pull more of my share that I admit I haven't. I am actively working on meeting my daily personal needs of exercise(I have gained 1 clothing size back from what I lost last year, but seriously need it for the mental benefits/stress relief too) and remembering not to put myself last on the list for hygiene(teeth brushing is the only one I'm consistent at). I have also started up regular individual scripture study after realizing I was over 50% behind on a 12 week read-along the whole RS in our ward is doing(there is a follow-up RS night and I am sure they will call on me for my thoughts and insights). I really can't tell you when the last time I had individual scripture time was. Way too long.

Pinterest Challenge: Pin #4

DIY foot treatment for dry/callused skin on feet.

Directions are here:

"First, soften the calluses: blend 2 Tbsp baking soda in a basin of warm water and add a few drops of lavender oil. After a nice long soak, scrub them away using 3 parts baking soda, 1 part water, and 1 part brown sugar. Follow with an application of a rick moisturizer and a warm towel foot wrap. Let sit for 5-10 minutes."

I let my feet soak a good 30 minutes. I wasn't in any hurry, as 3 of the 4 kids were already in bed. The lavender oil smell is still bothering me a little--not too surprised, I've got issues with another flower and it's pollen. It can probably be modified to without the oil.

For the scrub I did 1 part=2 tablespoons, since my feet sure needed a lot of help, in my opinion. I could've used half that and would've been fine. I ended up rinsing the scrub off, which the directions were vague on whether to do or not. My feet ended up about as well as with one of those egg-shaped foot things Target sells by their "as seen on tv" gadgets. The only difference was, this way leaves my feet smoother (as opposed to rough and dry).

Didn't get everything but just about--disclaimer: I walk barefoot whenever I can get away with it, and hardly wear socks unless I'm wearing shoes or my feet are cold so the feet on my skin gets rough and torn up a bit.

I used "Dr. Scholl's Ultra Overnight Foot Cream for her" after I was done and put socks on my feet  overnight.

Still got a few rough spots on the ball of my foot(left) and on the right edge, but I think if I'm consistent with this and not be barefoot so much it'll go away.

Pinterest Challenge: Pin #6

March 12: A little out of order. So, after a trip to JoAnn's, I had to settle for a black fabric marker because there were no lowercase iron-on letters I liked and only 1 skull iron-on(with a pink bow--that wouldn't be so hot for a nephew). The plan is to print something out and put it under the onesie, and hopefully I'll be able to trace with the fabric marker.

March 19: Done! So, what I ended up doing was save the image to my computer, open in Photoshop and print to fit an 8.5"x11" piece of paper. Then, after cutting the page down to fit under the onesie, I traced over with a fine tip black fabric marker while holding it up to the window.

You can kind of see the image through the onesie in this picture.

Finished product.

Pinterest Challenge: Pin #2 Update

Not quite as far as I wanted, but I'm almost there. Got the cars ironed on in the midst of a migraine. Those are homemade iron-ons traced from the pattern book I'm using. Today is do my stitching around the cars(to make sure over time the iron-ons won't come off. That'd be sad). I will also be adding the red border. There are 2 brown squares to add to the border where the track starts and ends. My goal is have this done by this next Thursday, since it's currently week 4 of the challenge. 

I'm confident the onesie can be busted out in a single day. I picked up a fabric marker and will be freehanding it or if I'm feeling fancy, maybe I'll make it into an iron-on and reverse the image before I print it out. 

I plan on doing the car pocket holder this weekend. I will likely be shortening it down to only 4 car pockets. I may go a little crazy if he takes the full 6 anywhere.  I suppose that means before the weekend I should pick out fabric from stuff I already have and see what has to be bought.

Today I'm also pulling out my instructions on the foot stuff. Also to see what needs to be bought and how long my feet will be up. This morning the kids are fighting, so maybe during the school day today would be a nice time to that.

Pinterest Challenge: Pin #3

March 12:

DIY oatmeal packets.

So, the directions I got were simple. But, it does not take 10 minutes as she states, unless you have some serious help. Each bag took me about 30 seconds. I made 57 bags--put 10 bags into old instant oatmeal boxes we went thru the past week and a half--in just under 30 minutes. I think it would've been an even 60 bags, but I used a little of the oatmeal for something else (can't think of what off the top of my head) awhile ago.

As a heads' up if anyone is interested in trying it, I used 42 oz Quaker quick oatmeal and between 2-3 lbs of brown sugar.

Each bag gets 1/4 cup of the oatmeal and 2 Tbsp of brown sugar. It should be microwaveable like instant oatmeal. We tested tonight, and it does microwave in the same time. Tastes good too. :)

One packet put together--I used the regular snack size ziplock bags. The snack size probably would've worked better

10 packets fit in an old instant oatmeal box

All the leftover boxes I used for my 57 packets

Pinterest Challenge: Pin #2

So, we're to almost 3 weeks since the start of the Pinterest challenge. I dropped the ball for about a week and a half with some stuff with the kids and helping get ready for an upcoming blood drive.

I did make some recipes I had pinned on Pinterest during that time, but they didn't make my original list of 6.

This past week, I got temporarily sidetracked with the kidney donation testing process for an out-of-state uncle. I had 4 tubes I filled with blood in under 3 minutes on Monday. Needless to say, my arm has been very bruised since Tuesday. On my dominant arm. Because I didn't think to say left arm. I guess the Red Cross gets that arm later this week. I couldn't bend my arm relatively pain-free till Friday morning.

This is actually better looking/more condensed than earlier Tuesday.

Anyway back to the Pinterest challenge. Arm was pretty darn sore(still is a little) and I didn't get started on pin #2 until the last couple days. However I'm making fast progress on it. Thank goodness I had everything cut out from earlier than this challenge. I have to iron & sew around a couple car appliqués, sew my columns together, add a border & it's ready for binding.

This was my progress by Saturday afternoon. Everything had been cut previously and sorted by which pieces went in which row, so it was just piecing & sewing & ironing.  I didn't have enough for multiple colored squares,  so I stuck with cars and trains that I had enough of to just use the two fabrics.

This is what the sample looks like in my pattern book--I bought the pattern here or can be bought here.
And yes, I bought the pattern book mainly for the one pattern.

This is just to show all 4 columns. I've already tested lining them up & the track will match up :)

Tomorrow I'll be working on more of that. I probably will be done by Thursday--I have a special spray adhesive to stick the top, batting, and backing together so it doesn't shift around. During Monday's lunch, I'll be making pin #3 of the oatmeal--the pin says only takes 10 minutes. We shall see.

Tuesday will be a trip to Jo Ann's to look for iron-on letters and possibly a skull iron-on for pin #6, or I'm gonna have to bust out some fabric markers for a couple tricks I have up my sleeves.

It's looking like Thursday will be my pin #4, the foot pampering. I'm getting my hair cut that morning kid free, so it'll fit nicely into the pampering theme after I'm done with that & the Red Cross blood drive. So my arms can be twins. Which is why I'm trying to bust out so many pins this week.

Pinterest challenge: Pin #1

February 19:

This was the batch of ninja gingerbread cookies I decided to make.

Ingredients:

1 box gingerbread mix
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup hot water

Mix gingerbread with the flour. Add butter & water. Mix until there's nothing dry left. Roll the mix into a ball. Cut in half. Roll one of the halves on parchment paper--ideally, the same size as your cookie sheet so you don't have to transfer dough--to about 1/4" thick. Use the ninja cookie cutters(I got ours on Amazon). Each half of dough will yield about 6 cookies, so a dozen from 1 box mix. Put the parchment paper on the cookie sheet. Goes in the oven 375 degrees, 6-9 minutes. Let it cool on a cooling rack(on top of the oven takes longer).

Doesn't look like a lot, but this makes 1 dozen of the ninjas. 

The top left got a little deformed when I tried to transfer to the parchment paper

For the decorating, I used cream cheese frosting mixed with red food coloring. It takes a lot to make red, so I made 2 of the 6 cookies pink.

I just followed the designs given on the ninja cookie cutter box.
Also used some red "writing gel" they  have  in the baking aisle.