Sorry, guys! Some stuff came up and before I knew it, a week has gone by. I’m having a little trouble with time management, and I’m afraid this site is suffering for it.
I’m going to take a few more days to figure out how I can best serve my various writing commitments; I’ll be back soon.
One of my plans from the moment I offered to take over the site for Sarah was to bring in other bloggers to make the site as well-rounded as possible; if you think you might be interested, leave a comment or send me an email (todayshomemaker at noirbettie dot com) with a little bit about yourself.
And don’t forget the Flickr group! Your photos are so inspiring to me.
(This week’s challenge is coming! Sorry for the lateness. I spent all day yesterday wondering how it was possible that Monday had come so soon, and didn’t get anything done at all!)
Maggie Mason, aka Mighty Girl, is one of my favorite bloggers. She runs two great shopping sites, Mighty Goods and Mighty Junior, and today announced the launch of Mighty Haus, a shopping site for housewares. If the other two sites are any indication, Mighty Haus will feature beautiful, functional pieces with a modern flare — perfect for most Today’s Homemaker readers, I think.
I’m seeing these sweet bandanna pants all over the internet! You can get instructions from Martha Stewart, Sew Mama Sew, or Make Something Now. (Or do as I plan to do and read all the instructions, then wing it.)
With my new (well, renewed) interest in growing my own food, I am looking for gardening inspiration pretty much constantly. My friend Mike’s blog is a great source! In fact, he inspired me to grow tomatoes in the first place. Check out his latest post for loads of great photos.
More gardening: Check out this tin can wall garden! What a way to use available space.
If you sew, you may be familiar with the back-ache that often accompanies it. This wonderful article on sewing room ergonomics may help! Oh, how I wish I had the space to set up a sewing room.
Over at kaboodle I found these great solar-powered paper lanterns. I love them!
Summer colds abound. Instead of roughing up your nose and filling your trash with Kleenex, why not whip up some of Stefani’s flour sack hankies?
My husband has done a little reading on growing hot peppers, and he tells me that this one is ready to pluck (and the longer we wait, the hotter it will get).
I was not expecting it to be ripe yet, because it is so small — about the size of a store-bought Serrano pepper.
But my tomatoes are a little small too, so I am just going to assume that’s normal.
Almost ready! And the one next to it (behind the leaves) is starting to turn yellow.
Last week’s challenge: Success! I only had to throw out those potatoes, which were just too far gone to eat. We used everything else except a few mushrooms which I believe are still good.
Next up: clean the car.
Oh boy, do I ever need to do this! My car is just a mess. The outside is practically black (it’s a red car), the dashboard is dusty, there’s food and dirt on the floors and stuff everywhere.
(If your car is spotless, don’t tell me! I know I am way too lax about cleaning mine, and I like to pretend everyone else is too.)
We’re not really beach people, but if you are there’s probably sand everywhere! And if you have kids, you too must need to clean up the cheerios and crackers and lollipop sticks. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to only lug around my grocery bags, the umbrella stroller, and the first aid kit. All this other stuff has to go!
I’m so glad I decided to do these challenges weekly, rather than daily. I may have to do this in stages, for my own sanity. It’s hard to clean anything with my toddler helping (but SO worth it because he really is learning to help!) and if we go to the car he wants to GO! But having all week to do it makes it seem much less daunting.
Tiffany at Natural Family Living reviews my favorite sewing book, Bend-the-Rules Sewing (which I gushed about a little bit here).
Cheryl experiments with making her own soy milk, and shares tips. Yum!
Sappmama at Purly Victorious shares a tip on preserving sewing patterns, and a new favorite tool as well.
Amanda of Soulemama shares a sweet little sewing project for organizing her thank yous, with a lovely quote on gratitude. I am terrible about thank you notes, so this one is especially inspiring for me!
This beautiful and drool-inducing shot is courtesy of Cinediva, aka Cheryl Katz. At flickr, you can see her whole bagel-making set, and you can check out her blog here.
This morning when I went out to water and fertilize my little garden, I was shocked to discover that the soil in my planter was disturbed, causing one of my jalapeno plants to lean dangerously, and my second-largest jalapeno was GONE (just the pepper, not the whole plant). Some predator has gotten into my food! I can only think of squirrels or rats, since I think a bird would have caused much more damage. Has anyone ever heard of or seen anything like this? I am really new to gardening but my hot peppers are the last thing I expected to have filched.
I picked this idea up from Martha sometime in the mid-90s, and recently updated it a bit: decant your dish soap into a pretty glass bottle and cap it with a quick pour top (available with bar ware at kitchen stores).
For at least ten years I’ve kept mine in a lovely cobalt blue bottle. Last week I bought purple (!) soap and wanted to display it, so I dug this old-fashioned soda bottle out of my recycling. Combining form and function, this is an easy way to prettify your kitchen and reuse instead of recycle.
Did you use this tip? Share photos at the flickr group.
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