Going Domestic

Va-Va Vanilla

Seeing as we go through a lot of vanilla extract in this house (Chris made the vanilla chicken dish from Chef at Home recently), we've decided to try making our own. We're hoping that there is something economical about having 250 ml of vanilla on hand :) We used this recipe from Martha Stewart for our batch, but there are other variations, like this one here that recommends experimenting with various types of hard liquor.   Bourbon could be an interesting choice, no? Anyway, the concoction is brewing away in a mason jar in a dark cupboard, and after only three weeks, it smells divine already. 

A-B-C D-I-Y

I came across this link for home-made chalkboard paint today - wonder if it will work?  I think that it would be kind of fun to put something like this on the back of M's door, when she's old enough to hold a piece of chalk :)

The Carnivore in the Laundry Room

One day a few weeks ago, I noticed that the shirt that Chris was wearing was really chewed up around hem.  Neither of us knew where on earth the holes came from, but it certainly looked like more than regular wear-and-tear. Then a few days ago, one of our flannel sheets came out of the washing machine with similar wounds, and I began to put two and two together.  The sheet had gotten caught underneath the agitator in the washer, and now I suspect that it was trapped there for much of the wash cycle, perhaps being twisted over a bolt or some other protusion repeatly, creating the holes.

This expedited our plans to replace the washing machine - it's an ancient Kenmore that came with the house.  I'm kind of excited about *maybe* upgrading to a front-load washer, but rather uncomfortable with how much more expensive they are!

Non-linear Regression

My new nephew arrived into this world a little earlier than was expected, so I've been spending the last few evenings putting the finishing touches on the sleepsack that I wanted to sew.  I ended up taking out the cover stitching around the crooked neckline, and adjusting the seam allowance to create a more even look.  Is there anything more tedious than taking out stitching that's been done on a serger? I also stitched on a giraffe applique, only it was the stick-on kind that I was stitching.  Thus, my needle soon became a sticky mess covered in lint fibres from the sleepsack material.  Blah. I am used to having my sewing projects improve with practice, but I honestly think that my skills have regressed with this one!  But hopefully the little guy still likes it!

Facelift

Sometimes I think that homeownership would be really boring if Chris and I had built a brand-new house, like we were going to in 2002/03.  We would have missed out on a lot of the fun things that this thirty-six year-old model has to offer, like having the basement re-wired because every single electrical outlet exhibited reverse polarity ... not to mention the maze of television cable wire that lives in more heating ducts than I care to mention.

The lastest discovery I made this very morning.  I was wiping off the ancient dishwasher with a magic eraser when I noticed a bit of plastic on one of the sides.  Curious of course, I pulled on it, and it turned out to be a bit of the plastic that many appliances are covered with before they're sold and installed. Then I noticed a little bit more, and all of sudden, plastic is peeling away from the entire front of the ancient dishwasher.  Oh my goodness - the previous homeowners had this appliance for fifteen-odd years, and never took the plastic off?  Now I have an ancient dishwasher that looks like was just shipped from the factory ...

Sweet Tooth

One of the songs that I remember from my youth had a particulary catchy refrain that went "she ain't pretty - she just looks that way" (Northern Pikes) and that's what comes to mind when I think of the cupcakes that Chris, Madeline, and I bought two Saturdays ago.  They look incredibily yummy, but they were so sweet that I defy anyone to eat more than one at a sitting!  Are cupcake bakeries the new thing these days?  I thought it was awhile ago that the Magnolia Bakery in NYC was news-worthy after much publicity on Sex and the City and the countless blogs I read about it in ...

Anyway, I think that I shall invest in my own set of sprinkles ... when it comes down to it, these cupcakes are just regular cupcakes, with buttercreme icing and sprinkles.