Purge

The bookshelves are overflowing again, so I've been seeing what we could bear to part with. There's a stack of kids books that we are done reading, but we still need more room. I'm not sure where I'd put another bookcase if I could scrounge one up, so I had to expand my purge to a book case in another room. I started to go through my collection of Family Fun magazines. I used to look through these old magazines several times a year for ideas of fun things to do with the kids for their birthdays or whatever. With the kiddos getting older, I haven't done this as often. So, I'm looking through them again to see if there are enough ideas to keep them around. There are several ideas or recipes I'm saving and other things I look at and think that might be useful someday, but I doubt I would find the idea if and when it became useful.

The most entertaining part of the process has been the ads from 1999! Back then Playstation was supreme, Mulan was being released on VIDEO (not DVD), printers were boxy, and Pentium II was the latest in computer technology. But my favorite ads were for the cutting edge digital cameras! The cheapest one on the market was Epson's Photo PC 550 for only $200! I do believe the 550 referred to the number of pixels. This camera could hold up to 24 pictures! Whew! Hold on Betsy!!! If you wanted to go all out, you could get the Kodak DC220. It had a whole megapixel. The price tag was $699. Good Times!

I'll continue purging old magazines and craft books I doubt I'll ever use. Hopefully by next week, I'll be able to shift things around and fit all the books on shelves again!

Time in the Pantry

I like a neat, well-stocked pantry and for the most part, I succeed. No matter what, every few months, my pantry needs a little tidy up. Food doesn't always get put back where it belongs. Things need to be shifted and sometimes food even needs to be tossed (not my favorite). Today I spent an hour tiding up my pantry. I filled in gaps from my overflow food storage in my closet. It looks pretty again, not as full as I'd like - but I can't get the family to give up eating!

For me this is the first step to start working on getting my food storage growing again. I know the logical first step would be to figure out what I need, and then take an inventory of what I have to figure out what I need. Cleaning out my pantry is a mental thing for me. I don't feel so overwhelmed by the job of acquiring food storage when I can look at a tidy pantry and see I have a year's supply of salad dressing, BBQ sauce, ketchup, mustard, oatmeal, spaghetti sauce and so on. Granted its a pretty random list and we wouldn't be eating that great if that's all we had to live on, but its a start. Now I'm ready for the next step, to look through my food storage meals and update my list of what my food storage needs. There's next week's goal!

How are you doing on your food storage? Could you live off you pantry and freezer for 3 months? This week figure out the next step in your food storage plan.

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies and Other Goals

It's a new month, time to turn another page on the calendars! I like to evaluate how I did on my goals for the previous month. I did pretty good. I didn't meet them all, but I exceeded a couple of others - so I guess it all balances out.


For my scrapbooking challenge, I not only completed the 10 remaining layouts for 2007, I also finished 3 layouts from 2008! Those of you who joined in the fun, how did you do?



Yesterday, I made my Chocolate Thumbprint cookies. They got a bunch of thumbs up from the gang here, too bad you missed out Monica. Everyone will enjoy eating yours! Here's the recipe for those of you who are interested.


Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies


1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 Tbsp. milk


In one bowl, combine flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and baking powder; set aside. In another bowl, beat sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract; add the dry ingredients, mix well. Preheat oven to 350. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place the balls 2-inches apart (the cookies do spread a little) on an ungreased cookie sheet. Push in the center of each ball with your thumb to make an indentation, dip your thumb in flour as needed to get a nice deep impression. Heat chips and milk in saucepan until the chocolate is melted. Stir this mixture until smooth. Spoon the chocolate into each indentation. You’ll have enough chocolate sauce to “overfill” each indention. Bake 10-12 minutes, until cookies look "dry". Cool on racks. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.


So what new recipes are you trying? My family would be grateful for something new!