September 26, 2020 – Essential Recipes

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Hello! What have you been up to lately? What have I been up to lately?

You: I hope GREAT things that leave you fulfilled! Reading, watching great movies, visiting with good friends, eating delicious food!

Me: Cooking. Baking. Cleaning. Sorting. All of the crap work I can not get done with my sweet child around.

The baking part led me to a cooking web site I visit frequently: Allrecipes.com. Today, I was looking for a MYO cake mix recipe. I don’t usually buy/use cake mixes, but I was making a super easy chocolate chip cookie bar recipe that calls for a cake mix. I picked one up at Aldi the other day. While making the cookie bars today I found a hole in the bag of cake mix. I decided not to chance it. I know there are recipes on the internet, so I found one on Allrecipes.com.

What I didn’t know is you can join Allrecipes.com and set up a whole profile and Pinterest-type account to save your recipes and share them. I don’t take time to look into this type of thing. It’s usually, get my recipe and go! But, today I joined. I don’t have anything pinned yet, but I thought I would stop by and share my profile anyway. If you decide to visit the site, (maybe you’ve been there many times like me) take a look at some of the MANY recipes that make your life easier and let you DIY (do it yourself). I save a lot of money by not buying mixes, premade, etc.

Click here to visit Missie Jane’s Profile.

This is the recipe I looked up today: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/8063/cake-mixes-from-scratch-and-variations/

I used it to help make this:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Have a wonderful weekend!

Missie S.

September 6, 2020 – Sunflower!!

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I did not do a great job on my garden (again) this year. I planted a little too late, but told myself it would be alright. It’s not too bad, but I get impatient watching my neighbors enjoy healthy, punctual gardens while I wait. I am waiting on some ugly tomatoes to turn red and I keep picking humongous cucumbers. We also waited and waited for our sunflowers to bloom. It finally happened!! Yesterday we looked out our window at breakfast and saw our first sunflower had opened up wide!

Sunflower – by giggleFritz

I’ve decided next year we will plant our garden using a Fall theme. We will plant sunflowers, pumpkins, garden mums, marigolds, and zinnias. We can enjoy the zinnias and marigolds during most of the summer. In Fall we will have a nice harvest theme going on. All the other stuff is getting to be too much work, and I don’t have a very big area to work with. I will be happy with some Fall produce.

With DD back in school, I have been working on sock monkeys and Note to Self Mini books. We are off for Labor Day weekend and afterward I will add more items to the online shop. I won’t be participating in any craft fairs for the rest of the year. It seems everything is cancelled for the year, or will be soon. I will keep working on getting all my ducks in a row until the next fair.

I hope your Fall is starting off healthy and happy!

Have wonderful Monday!

Missie S.

August 28, 2020 – Back to School, Back to Work!

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Our DD went back to school this week. So far, things have gone smoothly at school. At home is a slightly different matter. School has been out for 5+ months instead of the normal three month summer break. Yesterday, and today, getting our sweet six year old out of bed was a chore. We have been met with a few, “I want to do what I want!” Things will be better when we establish a routine.

It was difficult to prepare for “Back to School” time. We made sure we got outside every day that we could. We checked our garden every day and picked pole beans and zinnias. (The rest of our garden is late or not showing up to the party.) I gave DD lots of free time to play dollhouse and Minecraft, her latest obsession. (Don’t worry. We have designated screen times so our brains don’t rot out of our heads.) We slowly gathered our school supplies from around the house, the store, and online. I also have been prepping food for freezer meals and lunches. I may write more about this later. In the end, we are back to school. So, now I am back to work.

Monarch in Zinnias – by giggleFritz and Co.

Time to get busy. Have a Fantastic Friday!

Missie S.

July 3, 2020 – Fresh-cut Hay

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Yesterday, was grocery shopping day. I usually shop in the evening after DH is done with work. However, the weather has been hot and humid and I wanted to get done early so I could hibernate for the rest of the day. I drove to a store nearby armed with my grocery shopping list and the truck windows rolled down. I left the radio off. It was nice to have some freaking peace for a change!

As I drove through the country it felt like GOOD summer. What is GOOD summer? I hate summer. 95% of summer is summer I suffer through. It is hot, humid, mosquito summer. Everything I do in summer is to distract myself to get through summer and embrace fall. But, yesterday morning was that 5% I actually like about summer. It was sunny and cool, and a wonderful smell filled my truck cab. It was the smell of fresh-cut hay!

Fresh Cut Hay

Smelling that hay field was the highlight of my day!

Grocery shopping was fine. I only had time to go to one store. Some of the people were wearing masks, but most were not. Wisconsin is not a state that mandates mask wearing. We are pretty spread out in the country and do not have a high infection rate. Milwaukee and Madison’s infection rates have increased. Pretty soon they will mandate masks, I think.

We spent the rest of the day keeping cool inside. I made homemade pizza/calzones for dinner. I used up some sourdough discard for the crust, and made crust dough for two pizzas that went in the freezer. It was a productive, hot summer day.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. It seems like half of the country hates our country, and the other half is looking forward to fireworks. Then again, that is what the media wants us to think. I wonder how it will pan out.

Keep cool on this hot, humid 3rd of July!

Missie S.