Run With The Fishes

Happy Halloween!

This year, Allison wanted to be Shakira, then Spidergirl, then an angel, then a cowgirl, then…. well, you get the idea. Because she wanted to be Shakira the most, and for the longest amount of time, that’s what she is. She insisted that she have an outfit like the white one in the “Hips Don’t Lie” video. While I was making it, she decided she needed a few modifications to the top. No belly showing and princess sleeves. So, I had my first experience making pants and a t-shirt like top (I traced a pattern from one of her t-shirts). It went fairly easy.

Zoey decided to be a Zombie Princess. She thought that her dress needed some crazy stitches in black thread to make it look like it had been ripped and torn, then pieced back together. She cracked herself up by putting a Z on the front (Look Mom, “Zorro attacked the Zoey Zombie”.)

I guess that Nathan is nearing the too-cool-to-dress-up for Halloween age. He dressed up as a skater who had a really bad accident on Saturday, but doesn’t want to dress up as anything tonight. Yes, even with the, “No dressing up means no trick-or-treating”, threat. He’s standing off to the right in this picture.

Are you dressing up as anything this year? I hope you have more treats than tricks.

A few weeks ago, Nathan had a school project that involved making some messy flour based modeling clay and building a topographic representation of geographic shapes. Allison and Zoey insisted on helping Nathan and building their own sculptures. In the course of doing this, the fabric on my kitchen chairs quickly became covered in a floury paste. Heck, not just the chairs, but they are the only part that I couldn’t get clean. Because I knew how to recover the seats, I began deciding how I wanted the chairs to look this time.

I decided to take some pictures and write up some steps on how to do it. If you decide to recover a chair, you’ll need a few things.

Staple gun with staples, or upholstery tacks if you don’t have a staple gun. without them you will never get the job done.
New fabric – picking this out is the best part for me.
Pencil to trace old fabric pattern onto new
large screw driver and pliers to remove old staples
Phillips screw driver to unscrew seat cushion

Pick out some fabric that is both functional and suits your style. Mine will be used on our kitchen chairs. I wanted to use something that would be sturdy and easy to clean. Plus, my kids aren’t exactly the neatest eaters. There is hardly anything easier to clean than vinyl. One click wipe and the mess is gone. When I think of vinyl though, I also think of those old retro diner chairs. Not really a look that matches my kitchen. I was lucky to find some that wasn’t bright blue or red and sparkly. It seemed like a good choice for now. Later, when my children are a little neater, I can always recover the chairs again.

Since they helped make the mess, I gathered up some child laborers to help clean it up. It’s a little like Tom Sawyer, I made it look like so much fun that they insisted on helping me. I usually use a chain assembly method, remove all of the seat cushions, clean all of the frames, take off the old fabric, measure and cut the new clean, shiny fabric, staple the new fabric onto the cushions, reassemble the chair and enjoy how it looks.

Remove the seat cushion from the frame.

Clean the frames

Remove Staples

Easiest way to remove staples, slide screw driver under staple or tack and twist, if the staple doesn’t come all the way out, just use a pair of pliers to pull it out the rest of the way. The first time I tried recovering chairs for some reason, I thought I could only use a screw driver to get the staples out. It took me hours to get the whole set of seats done. Then someone suggested that I use a wrench along with the screw driver and it shortened the time to about 5 minutes a seat.

Pay attention to how the fabric comes off of the seat because this is how it is going to be put it back on. Sometimes the corners can be a little tricky if you don’t know how they should go back.

Use the old fabric as a template for how to cut the new fabric. Trace it onto the back of the new fabric, then cut it out. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you do have to make sure it is not too small. It has to be able to cover the top, with room enough to staple into the wooden seat bottom. It’s a good idea to measure your seats before you buy the fabric. Especially if you don’t want to end up like me and only have enough fabric for four seats instead of six.

After the fabric is cut, it’s time to staple it back on. I start at one side, then do the other side so that I can make sure the fabric is pretty tight across the top. It sucks to have finished and have loose fabric on the seats. After the four sides are done, I do the corners since this is where adjustments can be hidden.

Really after that, it’s just reassembling the chairs. Pretty easy if you remember how you took them apart. Now I have new looking chairs that are super easy to clean, all for about 20 dollars and 2 hours worth of time.

“Mom, you know I still like you, but you are being the meanest-mom-ever”

After I would not let our almost four year old eat marshmallows for dinner.

You know that pop up that opens when you hover over a link on my site? I used to think it was pretty cool to get a glimpse of other people’s sites (or whatever the link was for). Now, I’m not so sure.

What do you think, neat or annoying? I’m taking a vote.

Also, the kids computer is up and running and they have a few new posts on their blog. They would be thrilled to have visitors and comments (as mentioned before, comments are heavily moderated).

When I was in college, I used to have this nightmare, that because I did so poorly in some of my classes, they were going to make me go back to high school and prove that I really earned the grades I made there. Or they needed me to get a hard copy of my high school transcript for some reason. I would go to the principle’s office and request my transcript only to find that I had missed a key class required for graduation.

Ridiculous, right? I mean, I was IN college. Why would I need to go back to high school? Truth be told, it might not have been such a horrible idea. School work was easy for me, so I kind of drifted through, never really learning how to study, which completely hurt in college. It’s something I’m trying to make up for with my brainiac children. I want to make sure that even though stuff is super easy for them, they still have good study habits which will hopefully help them later in life.

Beth has had some pretty interesting posts the past couple of days. I didn’t comment on them, because, Hello! she already has about 100 for each post. Instead I thought I would talk about it over here. Where it would be read by less than 100 people. Beth challenged everyone to “define your 16 year old self in the most superficial terms possible“.

Superficial terms – Band Geek, Honor Roll, member of lots of random clubs, knew almost everyone (we had a small graduating class), on the fringe of most groups but not really the center of any. Spanish was the only foreign language offered, so that’s what I took.

My 16 year old self a little deeper – I was completely naive. I don’t really think I fit into any of the standard cliques throughout any of high school. I was in band, took all of the hard classes. Did some of my tests on the edge of my desk to “assist” others, so I guess I was nerdy. Not nerdy enough to realize that I could take college classes while still in high school, but I probably would have.

I was pretty independent. I had a job and tried to pay for almost all of my own expenses, which for a high schooler equals car and all of it’s related costs, clothes, some food, and extra-curricular activities.

Of course there were boys. Oh younger self, how I wish I could tell you not to date people and stay with them, just because you belong to the same group of friends and you would feel bad about breaking up with them.

I got along with just about everyone, but always felt like I was just on the edge of most groups peeking over other peoples’ shoulders to try and find out what was happening. I had fun with the people I worked with, most were still in high school, a few in college. I had my heart broken and learned how to drink and that drinking would be a terrible waste of my potential, better to wait to do that when I was in college.

This is how I saw myself at 16, my sophomore year of high school. I went through many changes that year. I think I was a completely different person my junior and senior years. Stories for another day, maybe.

Perspective also plays a huge roll. I may have been the only person who saw myself this way. Others may have thought I was a big loser, or a key part of their groups. Although, the loser part would explain why I didn’t get invited to my ten year reunion. *

How about you guys? How did you see yourselves when you were sixteen?

*I don’t think I was a loser, maybe just not memorable. Kidding.

I’m not sure what is going on at our house. Over the weekend we cleaned almost the entire house The only things left were straightening up a few things and folding an putting away the laundry. Somehow, we never manage to fold and put away all of the laundry. Maybe because we never manage to wash all of the laundry. With five of us, it never ends. Where is the robot that does the house cleaning and laundry for us? This is the 21st century, right?

For us the answer has been Zoey. Somehow I convinced her that if she tidied every room in the house every day for the whole week, I would pay her. She thought about it for maybe one second and decided I had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. She started cleaning like crazy. The whole house has stayed relatively neat and tidy all week.

For the low price of two dollars a week you might be able to convince her to straighten up your house also.

Allie has been on a Green Eggs and Ham kick. We thought it would be fun to cook some for dinner last week. The thing is, she really wanted them to look like the ones Sam I Am serves the other guy.

It is very hard to turn just the yolk of an egg green without messing up the whites. I tried a few different things. Like separating the whites from the yolk. While they started to cook in the skillet, rolling the yolk around with some green food coloring and then trying not to break the yolk while putting it on top of the whites to cook. I always broke the yolk. I got the best results from just putting a few drops of food coloring on the yolk while the egg was cooking.

For the ham, I used a pre-sliced, precooked ham chunk. I took a few tablespoons of bar-b-que sauce, a teaspoon or two of water, and several drops of green food coloring. Then I poured it over the top of the ham, covered it with aluminum foil, and baked according to the instructions on the ham. It was nice and green on the outside.

They may not have looked super delicious, but she was incredibly happy with the results. She thought it was one of the best dinners we had ever eaten.

This has been a staple for a few years. Ever since Amy sent it too me. I also use her suggestion and in a can of cream of mushroom soup with the rice. It really does make for better leftovers.

From Food Network

1 (3-pound) chicken, quartered (to skip a step of deboning I use 5 boneless skinless chicken breasts)
1 pound smoked link sausage
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 teaspoons Seasoned Salt (recommended: Lawry’s)
2 teaspoons House Seasoning, recipe follows
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 bay leaves
8 cups water
3 cups raw white rice

Slice the sausage into 1/2-inch pieces. In a stockpot, combine the chicken, sausage, onion, butter, seasonings and bay leaves. Add the water, bring to a boil, cover, and cook at a low boil for 40 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot and let cool slightly. Pick the meat from the bones, discarding the bones and skin. Add the rice to the pot and bring to a boil, stirring well. Boil for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat, cover the pot, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the rice is done. Remove the bay leaves, and return the chicken to the pot.

House Seasoning:
1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

For some reason the boys in our house thought they did not like Fettuccine Alfredo. Maybe because I usually take the short cut and just buy ready made sauce. I’m not really sure why, it’s not difficult to make and the results of homemade are so much better. I made enough thinking to have leftovers for lunches. It looks like I will be having pb&j instead.

Box of Fettuccine – cooked according to package directions

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts

3 tbls butter
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic (crushed)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
salt & pepper

For Chicken:
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in skillet, lightly salt and pepper chicken, then cook on medium heat until sides are browned and chicken is cooked through (no pink). Remove from skillet.*

For Alfredo Sauce:
On Medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter in sauce pan. Add in garlic clove and cook for 1 minute. Stir in heavy cream, cheese and nutmeg. Simmer until sauce is heated through and cheese is melted.

To Serve:
Mix sauce with noodles. Slice chicken diagonally along the width of the breast (will end up with about 6 slices per breast). Place chicken on top of plated noodles. Garnish with lemon wedges.

*I use this skillet with drippings to stir fry frozen peas.

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with Peas & Caesar Salad
Spaghetti
Potato Soup
Chicken Bog
Pizza
Goulash
Beef Tips with Red Wine Sauce
Chicken & Noodles
Pork Chops, Stuffing, Apple Sauce
Omelettes