Worlds best pencil

Hannah and I were shopping for some school supplies.  She needed a few things for college and I buy those types of supplies this time of year because of the sales. 

 

I had heard about these pencils but had never tried them.  While we were shopping Hannah pointed them out to me because pencils were already on my list.  So I bought a package.  I got 30 pencils for $4.99.  Its pricey but if they really are the best pencils it will be worth it in the long run.

 

Ive already tried these pencils and I have to say I am impressed.  They seem to hold the point and they write quite nicely.  Have you ever used these pencils?  What is your feeling about them?

First Mema camp for Elijah

Yesterday we brought our grandson Elijah home with us for his first Mema camp by himself.  He has come to stay before with one of his siblings but we decided he was old enough at 5 to come by himself.  He had been wanting to.  We had hesitated only because his folks live 4 hours away and if he was unhappy here it would be a chore to take him home.

He was a good boy on the trip home sleeping most of the way, and chattering the rest of the way.

Last night he soaked up the attention.  I think he really enjoyed having Mema, Papa and Hannah plus the two dogs all to himself.  I know it gave us a chance to enjoy him more.

He only gets to stay two nights this time but I am sure we will be doing this again.

I gave him a hair cut before his bath last night.  He looks so cute.

Today we will be playing games and working in his workbook.  I made a few learning activities for him to do.  As a reward, Hannah downloaded a few learning games for him on my tablet.  At home he plays a lot of Mario Brothers but we don't have that here thankfully.  We seldom even turn on the TV.

I will post more pictures to this post later as we do things together.

Dinner Tonight

Last evening, Hannah, Kaitlyn and I went to a cooking show called Dinner tonight.

 They featured a local chef from a fish restaurant and a food blogger.

 The chef, Jeremy Lee from Redfish Willie's Waterfront Grill made fish tacos, a sour cream avocado sauce, a mango salsa, rice and a watermelon pizza.  He was not very entertaining because he had made everything but the fish up ahead of time.  We thought he would demonstrate how each dish was made.  That's what they do at most cooking shows.  They chose from the audience 4 people to be taste testers.  We thought oh well until they brought out samples.  Our first sample dish was a fish taco with the mango salsa and sour cream avocado sauce on it and some rice.  It was a good size sample.

Next up was a local food blogger who did an excellent job showing how to make Cilantro-lime grilled shrimp, and Mexican street corn salad.  Her name is Vianney Rodriguez and her blog is sweetlifebake.com.

Our second sample plate was the watermelon pizza and the street corn salad.  Everything was so very good.  I had never had a fish taco but I sure will eat them now. 

Between demonstrations they had drawing for  items the venders had donated and I won a book by Vianney and a jar of Picklesmith watermelon-jalapeno jelly.  That's what we are making today.  It was so much fun.

The room was decorated very nice with cloth table cloths and beautiful table decorations.

We were also given a tote bag with recipes, a cutting board, measuring spoon, another tote bag, a silicone oven mitt among other things.

 

There were several venders there.  We had a great time and they said this was the first annual Dinner tonight event so we are hoping that they continue this.  It was great.

Weavers rapid warp loom

I have been saving my money for quite a while so that I could purchase the Weavers rapid warp loom.  June and July they have a sale going where shipping is free.  I finally had enough money saved and took the plunge.  My loom is being handmade right now.  I am very excited to begin my weaving journey.  I plan to take pictures and make videos once I get my loom and begin to learn to use it.  I want to make rugs for sure and who knows what else I will learn to make.

If you want to see the loom I am referring to here is a link.
http://www.weaversrapidwarploom.com/
Watch the video and see how easy it is to warp the loom.  That is the reason I bought this particular loom.  I knew I would not have the patience to warp a loom the regular way.

I will keep you all updated on my weaving progress.

Source for Amish supper plates

A commenter asked if I had found a source for the Amish plates and YES I sure have.

I was able to get a dozen more Amish supper plates from my Amish friend Simon.  He has a botanical company.  I know he ordered a few dozen more than the ones I bought.  You can write to him and ask him about the supper plates and or ask for his bulk herb and spices catalog here:


South Texas Botanicals
4156 Gaitan Lane
Beeville, Texas  78102

Being Amish he does not have internet or a phone.  I buy my bulk herbs from him because his prices beat anywhere else that I can buy certified organic that I have found.  Plus he is local to me and I can pick up my order.

Making Jelly

Today my granddaughter Kaitlyn and I will be making jelly.  I hope to make two kinds of jelly, peach pit and watermelon.  Jeff bought two huge watermelons and then left to work out west.  There is no way we can eat that much watermelon so I will make jelly.  He loves his jelly so he will love this.  This is the recipe I will be using.
http://www.pickyourown.org/watermelonjelly.htm
 

A couple of weeks ago I bought two cases of peaches from bountiful baskets.  The peaches looked great but about a third of them were bad.  I canned up as much as I could and saved the peels and pits from them to make jelly.  I saved two gallon zip lock bags of peels and pits.  I did not save anything from the peaches that were bad.  I just threw them away.
This is the recipe I will be using for the peach pit jelly.
http://raisinghomemakers.com/2011/peach-jelly-the-easy-way/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+RaisingHomemakers+(Raising+Homemakers)&utm_content=Google+Reader
 
I will try to remember to post pictures once we get the jelly made.  I wanted to save these recipes so I can easily find them after bit.

RFID blocking wallet

I used this tutorial to make an RFID blocking wallet for my credit cards today.  Instead of using heavy duty aluminum foil I used Mylar.  I didn't have any pretty duct tape so my wallet is zebra striped.

As soon as I find some pretty duct tape I can make another one now that I know how to do it.  I used to carry my credit cards in an ugly mylar pouch in my billfold so this at least is an improvement.

Only God can judge me

It seems that everyone thinks that if they throw out the words don't judge me or only God can judge me that they can continue in what ever behavior they think they are being judged for.  I saw this on Facebook today and thought it was fitting.

Tinctures and infused oils

I've been making tinctures and infused oils for our own use.  From these I have made a few salves.  They are helpful to us. 

New table napkins

In my forever quest to save a few pennies and do things for myself, and avoid store bought I have made new table napkins.  The ones we were using had poinsettias on them.  I think it was time for some fresh new ones.  The last ones I had sewn, turned and topstitched.  They ended up being on the small size but we used them anyway.  This time I decided to just serge the edges and use only one layer of fabric hoping it wont hold in moisture.  And I wanted them a little bigger.  The first set I cut out ended up being more of a rectangle and made it harder to fold uniformly to fit in the napkin holder.  Finally I cut out 13 inch squares and serged them.  Ah, just right.  Now we have some bright colored new table napkins.