November Madness 2: Potatoes

Mashed, baked, fried, roasted, sweet...how do you make your Thanksgiving potatoes?

November Madness

March is a crazy time of year for basketball players/fans...and November is too often a crazy time of year for wives and mothers.  Why?  Year after year, we know it's coming...year after year we promise ourselves that this year we'll be more organized and better prepared.  Year after year we battle grandmas, mother in laws and other forces of familial nature that threaten our integrity and self confidence as chef extraordinaire.  Why?  Is their turkey really that perfect?  Is their stuffing so fragrant and flavorful?  Do their mashed potatoes really make the world go round?  Or maybe it's not the cooking that gives you November nightmares...maybe it's the table...or worse, your entire harvest-time motif!

Whatever the case may be, there may be a solution yet.  Join with me in a month-long Thanksgiving discussion...all the way from planning and preparation to Black Friday sales.  What are your fears?  What are you looking forward to?  Any great menu ideas?  What are your horror stories? 

In the comment section below share, share, share away!  Perhaps if we battle the beast together, we'll be better off...live together, die alone...right?

Let's Talk About Soap, Baby...

Soap powders, that is. 

I must also begin with apologizing for the use of a terrible early-mid nineties song.  Let us never speak of this again. Yikes.

 I have a great recipe for liquid detergent (thanks to my dear friend, Hannah Tate) the only downfall is that it can be a little messy and it takes a good bit of time to gel properly.  So if you're in a pinch for detergent and you don't want to use/can't get a hold of store-bought, what do you do?  Whip up a quick batch of powdered detergent, of course!  On the "For the Laundry" tab of this blog there is a good recipe for powdered detergent, however, I have found a simpler and less time consuming way of making it.  Do you have a food processor?  Great.  Then we're in business. 

Easier Powdered Laundry Detergent:
1 bar soap (Ivory/Dove/Fels-Naptha...)
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup Washing Soda (or Ph Plus, as long as it is Sodium Carbonate, it will work!)

-Cut the bar of soap into a few manageable chunks.  Put in food processor until pretty well ground up. 
-Add other ingredients to the ground soap in the processor and let it run for 30 seconds or so. 

Really, you can let your processor run as long as you like...it just depends how fine you want your detergent to be.  (The finer it is, the easier it will dissolve in cold water washes!)  I tend to use somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 cup for large loads.  Hope this works well for you!

**Question:  Does anyone have any good homemade fabric softener ideas that smell good?  I know white vinegar works (and the smell rinses out), but I really like having the extra fresh scent.  Any tips or ideas??

A Toddler-Inspired Idea

My son, Nicholas, loves everything we say "no" to.  Loves.  Passionately.  (He will be two in December, need I say more?)  Unfortunately, our DVD collection started to take the brunt of this passionate, explorative "love"...and we have a sizeable collection.  After two broken in half VeggieTales, several scratched and marred discs of the Simpsons, and countless chewed up cases, my husband decided something had to change.  What course of action did he follow?  Well, of course, he began by looking for a new DVD shelf...something a little more Nicholas-proof.  This was to no avail, though, due to poor selection and a tight budget.

We were walking through Lowe's when it struck- he had the perfect solution!  I must admit, I was very skeptical when he explained his idea to me, it just seemed a little... rigged, to put it simply.  He purchased the supplies he needed that day, and began the work shortly thereafter.
Here was his idea.  Our DVD shelf was actually a moderately sized, wood bookshelf.  He used a piece of wood that was approximately 6 inches larger than the base of the shelf as a base.  On that base, he attached the working parts of a lazy susan- thereby giving the shelf the ability to turn a full circle.  He then put a small sliding bolt lock on the bottom of the shelf and, after drilling holes in either side of the base, gave the shelf the ability to lock in either the rear-facing or front-facing position. 

Voila!  Problem solved!  Now the only problem that remains is, how do I want to paint it?

My Quest, My Welcome

Welcome to my Quest!
I am a married, 27 year old mother of two...who desperately needs a piece of the pie for herself.  So I turn to personal reflection.  Like most other homemakers, I am absolutely devoted to serving my family (and absolutely happy in so doing), but former hobbies/interests didn't really coincide with that.  So I have begun to explore new horizons; and this exploration has brought me here.  I am on a quest to become a me-gan.  What is a me-gan?  It's a made up word, of course!  I want to learn to do as much on my own as possible...to rely not on commercial products/commercial services alone.  I want to become a do-it-yourselfer- a me-gan.  So I start this blog to both learn and instruct.  When I find new recipes or learn how to do household/family related things, I will post them so you can try them and let me know what you think.  Likewise, I would really love to learn more and more and more- so lend me your expertise!  If there is anything you enjoy making/doing on your own around the house or for the kids...post it in the comment section or email me. 
This is my little piece of the pie.