Wordless Wednesday 15

The third, and final, installment in my Laundry Room series. This series has been one year in the making but is finally complete and proudly displayed in its intended location to serve as a reminder to all. Needs no words of explanation.

Well, not many anyway.

Wordless Wednesday 14

So when your snowmen melt, that means it's spring, right?

Wordless Wednesday 13

We don't have a garden. Not that we don't want a garden, but with less than a quarter of an acre, and most of that under large shade trees, it just doesn't work. So, other than a raspberry patch and maybe a tomato plant or two, we don't even try anymore.

We compensate for our lack of home-grown vegetables by joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and have done so for about five years. We have a compost bin where most of our food waste is thrown but occasionally I will just throw something in the back flowerbeds. Pumpkins always find their favorite resting place out there. So it's not surprising that we typically have a volunteer pumpkin plant or two, sometimes even a few volunteer tomato plants. But this year we got some type of mutant volunteer pumpkin plant. It has completely taken over the area in front of my laundry room door so that I can't use it.

From there it goes past the compost bin, over a bush...

...around the corner of the house...

...and is heading toward the road out front.

On the other side of the laundry room door, it goes past the hot tub...

...and is well on its way to the neighbor's fence.

So far we've harvested this beast and we look forward to many more pumpkins which have just started to grow.

Maybe I have a green thumb after all.

Wordless Wednesday 12

Wordless Wednesday 11

Wordless Wednesday 10

Even more priceless would have been photos of the faces of each family member as he/she entered the dining room and found one of these Valentine hearts resting on each dinner plate. Just imagine:

The preschool girls with deep admiration and shrieks of delight for their wonderful mother and her excellent ideas.

The 10-year old boy looking a bit indecisive but definitely believing his mother is the sweetest person he's ever met.

The tween-age girl with an outward look of disbelief that her imperfect mother would even attempt such a feat, but inwardly cheering for such a great and perfect mom.

Two teen-age boys who couldn't have been any more extreme in their responses. One with a look that meant, "Seriously, Mom? Did you really have to do THIS? Have you not even considered what my friends would say if they saw this? Of course they will never see this because I'm going to eat it before there is any proof that I actually ate a hot dog cupid's heart for Valentine's Day dinner, but what IF?" (Please don't tell him that this idea was titled "Puppy Love" in the magazine) And another boy, who with a small smile wordlessly said, "I just love to see him get so upset about the little things. Thank you, my dear, loving mother, for antagonizing him so. You make my job of embarrassing him so much easier by the loving things you do."

And my love-struck husband who carved a small portion in his day to remember the holiday and to take me to breakfast, finishing the picture by emitting small chuckles every few minutes and with a look that said, "You are always so predictably unpredictable."

Or maybe he did actually say that.

Gotta love Family Fun magazine and their great holiday ideas.

And we finished the meal with Sweetheart Cupcakes from allrecipes.com. I'm not into buying boxed cake mixes but they had these creative red and pink surprise centers. And I just happened to find a box of yellow cake mix on the bent-and-dent discount table at Giant that morning. I did, however, make the icing from scratch. Wanting to give them a strawberry flavor I considered putting strawberry puree in the icing but since that would mean that I couldn't eat one due to allergies, I opted instead for Nesquick Strawberry powder. An experiment that worked quite well! It definitely helped to cover the boxed-mix taste of the dessert.

King Family Icing

Cream together:
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. shortening
1 c. butter or margarine
1 lb. powdered sugar

For strawberry flavored icing, add Nestle's Quick, Strawberry flavor. Don't ask me how much since I just dumped til it was tasty. Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday 9

Print #2 in the Laundry Room Rules Series, Because it's better to be safe than sorry

Wordless Wednesday 8

Wordless Wednesday 7

Let's just say that I am no good at this wordless business and call it a day.

Or not.


Since this is my latest household project, I thought I would share it with you. Management is very tired of partner-less socks and has tried for years (approximately 15 to be exact) to find a solution. If you have been witness to the lonely sock pile in my house, you know what I mean. Think of the number of misplaced socks you have with 2 people, then multiply that a few times and you'll be close. It got so bad that the little bin I was using had to be replaced so I bought one of those collapsible hampers. Yep. A collapsible hamper. And it was almost completely full. Sad, I know.

But thanks to my friends at Allenberry, we have a new system at the King household. One day when I was child wrangling in the green room, I overheard this conversation:
"Peter, where are my socks?"
"Where did you put them?"
"In my lingerie bag."

Aha! Lightbulb. There's an idea. One of those, "Why didn't I think of that?" ideas.

Now each family member has his/her own lingerie bag (don't tell my boys that this is it's intended purpose) marked with the appropriate child's name. Any socks that you want sorted and returned to you must be placed in this bag before bringing it to the laundry room. Any socks not in a bag will be placed in the sock bin-of-rejects and you are on your own to look through and sort your own socks. So far, so good.

This sign, which will be hanging in my laundry room soon, is just a reminder of days gone past and of what life could be like for those who do not follow the system.

Next I'm going to make a pre-sort reminder. And yes, it is going to include pink underwear. First I need to "borrow" (no, I don't plan to wear it) some unsuspecting child's whitie tighties, soak them in some pink dye, then hang them from the line next to a bunch of red clothes. Brilliant.

I love visuals.

Wordless Wednesday 6

Okay, I'm not going to follow the rules. This will not be completely wordless. I apologize in advance but I really don't like it when people tell me what to do. And because some faceless person decided that as a blogger I need to use no words on Wednesday, I will therefore want to go against the flow. My first Wordless Wednesday was filled with needless chatter. My second attempt was actually published on Tuesday rather than Wednesday. But then I ran out of rebellious ideas. Until today.

Our venture into the snow (before breakfast of course, because everyone was too excited to wait), was followed by a few rather interesting conversations:

Eden: You know what I don't like about snow?

Me: What?

Eden: (as she is playing and I am shoveling) I don't like having to shovel all the snow when we go outside.

Go figure. Good thing for her I do like to shovel when I go outside.

HopeAnne: (after all the layers have been applied and she has been turned into a Pink Marshmallow, as Jesse has called her) What are we supposed to do when we are outside in the snow?

I don't know. Why don't you just make a few more snow angels, throw a few more snowballs, and crawl around a bit more in the snow. Then let me know what you think you should do outside in the snow.

Wordless Wednesday 5

Wordless Wednesday 4

Wordless Wednesday 3

Wordless Wednesday 2

Wordless Wednesday

First, my apologies. I have been told by my friend, Kym, that I have been doing this whole blog thing all wrong. She should know. She's an expert in such matters. She herself has her own blog. A much more intellectual blog than I will ever write. But anyway, she informed me that all good bloggers know that Wednesdays are known as Wordless Wednesdays. Apparently I am supposed to just give you a picture on Wednesdays; no words. I should be able to find a picture that speaks for itself; something that needs no words. This should be interesting enough to catch and keep your attention but I am not allowed to add any words. This could be difficult. Or maybe not. Who knows? I guess time will tell.

So now the difficulty is finding the picture to use. I have been having a little trouble with this one. I just need to find a picture that speaks for itself. One that doesn't need any explanation. Or added thoughts.

I think that I could get into this wordless thing. It could save me a lot of time. Yeah, all the time it normally takes me to think of a subject, write it out, edit it, etc. I could spend that time eating bon-bons and catching up on my soaps. Yes, I think this is a pretty good thing.

So you'll have to let me know what you think about this wordless business. I think I'm liking it. I don't have to write as much this way. That will definitely be nice.



Oh, and one more thing: Welcome to the world, Julia Rayanne! It was nice visiting you today. And holding you. I got my baby fix for a while. You are definitely a beautiful baby.

That's it. No more words. I'm not talking anymore. Because it's Wordless Wednesday. I know. Kym told me. Til tomorrow, then. That's all for now.