Great Idea For Christmas Gifts - Bartering!

I barterz for Chrishmush?

Here is a wonderful idea for Christmas brought to us by Deborah at her blog Antiquity Oaks.

It involves bartering your skills, crafts, baked goodies or your stuff with other bloggers to use as Christmas gifts.

I love this concept. You can read all about it over at this link:

Antiquity Oaks: Planning for Christmas

If anyone would be interested I could barter any of the following:

I make the following:
- Goat's milk soap
- Dead sea salt balt salts or scrubs
- Lip Balms
- Laundry Soap Starter kits [just add water! instructions incl.]
- Candles
- Mini quilts [wall hangings]


- I also have "stuff", mostly from my craft stash:

-Fabric - lots of fabric - mostly quilting fabric
-Buttons
-Thread [new, unused spools]

Plus other miscellaneous stuff I can't think of right now, but may add in the future. Or just ask - I may have it!

Go ahead and take a look at the link.

A Wonderful Story and a Beautiful Quilt Giveaway

Sometimes you just can't help but know that there is great heart in this world.

A lovely woman and quilter named Abbie, who lives right next door to me [statewise-Hi! West Virginia!] has posted a story about her friend Beth who donated her bone marrow to a stranger. As a gift to Beth, Abbie was asked to make Beth a quilt. It is lovely and a beautiful way, I think, to say thank you.

In honor of Beth and the quilt Abbie has decided to give away a similar quilt and ask that you visit her blog to enter.

The link is here. You may leave a comment for one entry. If you would like two entries then please post about it on your blog.

I think this is an excellent way to not only introduce Abbie and her blog, but to honor Beth's gift and to advance the need for Bone Marrow Registration and Donation.

Too Good To Be True

Aren't they lovely? They are three sets of three nesting baskets [for a total of nine] that Skippyhusband found for me at JoAnn's Fabrics this weekend. I love these baskets for all sorts of storage from my amoire, to the pantry or even sitting on the counter holding bread and chips. When he mentioned he paid $20.99 per set I gulped [a bit] I will admit, but I needed them and I REALLY wanted them, so $7.00 a basket with liner didn't seem so bad.

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Imagine my surprise when I was filing the receipt and noticed that he hadn't paid $20.99 per set. They were on sale! The receipt listed the price of each set $9.99 with $1.00 off each set. [Still following? Because it is going to become even weirder and more mathy!] That is a total of $27.00 for 9 baskets. Holy bargain shopping Batman!! - that is $3.00 per basket! I was walking on air all day Sunday over my husband's crazy shopping skills. What a deal! Now I would have a place for all this paperwork and bento. How wonderful. Squee!

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Alas, it is not to be.

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While taking the photo to illustrate this post I took them apart to give a better view of their size. Surprise! Each individual basket has a price tag, which is not noticeable if you do not separate them. Obviously Skippyhusband and the cashier did not. In defense of my husband we have bought sets like these before [at Target] and they are charged as a set, not individually. Also, to be kind to the cashier our local JoAnn's is a madhouse on Sundays and I am sure the poor woman just wanted to be home. Besides, that store has about a gazillion products, so the cashier probably didn't know to pull them apart. They look like a set to me anyway.

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Instead of 9 baskets for $27.00 I will have to return them and pay the other price which if I figure correctly goes like this: 3 small baskets, marked at $9.99 - 1/2 off sale makes them $5.00 minus the additional $1.00 off is $4.00 per basket or $12.00 for the small. 3 medium baskets, marked at $14.99 - 1/2 off sale makes them $7.50 minus the additonal $1.00 off is $6.50 per basket or $19.50 for the 3 medium. The large are charged at the original $27.00 because that was the outside basket price tag used.

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In summary: $12.00+$19.50+27.00 = $58.50. Sigh. Not a bad price, all in all, for nine baskets. It works out to $6.50 per basket which is even less then I originally thought, but still more then I wanted to pay, especially after I saw the "bargain" Skippyhusband and I thought he received. Spoiled lil' me. hee!

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Since they are a want - as in I want them to make the house prettier while organizing - as opposed to a need - I don't need them, neccessarily, to organize my home - sniffle, I will be returning some of them to JoAnn's.

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Well, aren't I allowed a few to prettify my space a little? I mean this paperwork isn't going to organize itself, right?

Hide & Go Seek

This is a picture of our youngest playing hide and go seek with SkippyDad.

She had no idea he was right behind her with the camera. I love how intent she is on the front of the wagon, thinking he is out there in front, somewhere. The poor child must have a slight hearing problem because her Daddy is not the lightest of foot and he was that close to her. Hee!

Saturday Seven

Seven things I would like to see accomplished today:

1. Clean off my dining room table.
I have the most awesome dining room table. Unfortunately it is huge - great for Thanksgiving, bad for our daily life as we set everything on it and it simply piles up. Schoolwork, paperwork, bills, banking stuff, 2 computers, a printer, the phone, the camera, a gift basket I haven't sent yet. You get the idea. Drives me batty, but it has to be done.


2. Clean off my kitchen table.
Okay, before you judge, there is no junk, paperwork or misc. on my kitchen table. I am a better housekeeper than that. It just has a bunch of food I need to put in the pantry. But that requires that I......

3. Clean out the pantry.
To make room for the food on the kitchen table. [vicious cycle isn't it?]

4. Laundry
I will collect it and sort it today, but I am out of laundry soap. So I need to.....

5. Make more laundry soap.
It takes one day to thicken, so we will do laundry during the football games tomorrow. I think I may make lavendar laundry soap for us girls. The boys can suffer or if I am feeling industrious I will make either regular [non scent] or sandalwood.


6. Dust and vacuum my bedroom.
I love our cherrywood bedroom set which Skippyhusband picked out, but it shows dust the minute you finish dusting. Any suggestions about this one? I do dust this room after I vacuum, but am I using the wrong product? Cloth?


7. Clean out a large cabinet and a drawer in the kitchen.
I went shopping online for bento goodies yesterday [thanks Yvo!] and now that I have 40 pieces arriving on Monday I think I need a dedicated spot for it. It will be the cabinet/drawer next to the refrigerator. [If you want to bento - please, please go to that site - the stuff is so neat and cheap! woot!]

Feel free to nominate this post for the "Most Mundane Suburban Housewife Blog Ever Award".

Seriously, I think I just bored myself to tears, sniff.

I will add, after I finish it all, Before and After pics.
Do you think that might spice it up a bit and actually force me to do it?
Although, if you get a gander of my dining room table you might never want to visit me.

And that would be sad. sniff

Does Anyone Know Who This Little Guy Is?

He showed up on our doorstep and would not fly away. Skippyhusband managed to have him hop on his finger and place him in the tree. As it was Halloween night we didn't want him to be trampled by all the trick o' treaters we [thought] we were going to get. Yeah, right! He was probably safer on the porch come to think of it.

Still, he did not want to fly away. He is a wee little baby bird. He fell, quite a distance, from the roof of our neighbor's home onto our porch. At first my husband wanted to put him inside with our bird, a cockatiel, in her cage. This was quickly vetoed by Mom who cannot stomach the carnage that she knew would've ensued.

No worries, he is gone now. I was just wondering if anyone knew what kind of birdie he is?

Wednesday's Recipe

CHICKEN POT PIE
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 tsp pepper
1 3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup milk
2 cups cooked chicken, cut up
1 1/2 cups frozen mixed veggies, thawed
1 package pillsbury pie crusts

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Remove pie crusts from refrigerator, set aside.

3. Melt butter in a non-stick skillet.

4. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until smooth and creamy.

5. Stir in milk. Keep stirring until thickened.

6. Remove from heat and gently stir in chicken and veggies.

7. Prepare pie crusts according to package directions.

8. Pour mixture into pie crust and top with second crust. Crimp edges and cut vents on top.

9. Bake at 425 degrees for approximately 30-40 minutes or until crust is brown and filling is bubbly.

Serves 5

HINTS:

A. If you have the skills [which apparently I lack] by all means use your own, homemade pie crusts. Then come to my house and teach me how to make it, please?

B. You don't have to have a whole two cups of chicken - sometimes I cheat and use less. It just depends on how much I have on hand. Same for the vegetables. The other ingredients are exact. Please don't scrimp.

C. This can be made ahead, covered and placed in the refrigerator until dinner. It also freezes well. I defrost it in the refrigerator before cooking.

D. You can use canned vegetables in place of frozen. Bonus, you can also use 1 can of chunk chicken in place of cooked chicken, which makes it really easy and very white meaty.

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I usually make this during "Chicken Week" when I roast a chicken for dinner on Sunday, then use the remainder for stock and dinners for the rest of the week. I love being able to make 4 or 5 dinners out of one chicken. So economical!