Rug Doctor Catastrophe

I marked this one under health and wellness because I can't decide if my clean carpets are a health hazard- I seem to be growing mold in the wetter areas...

But the carpet looks amazing! ( in certain places.... in others it looks like a kindergartner had free reign with a bleach pen)

 These are the before pictures:

As you can see its dirty. Obviously or I wouldn't need a rug doctor. We had a $10 off coupon and our foster care home visit was the next day so I wanted to spruce up the carpet.

 

As a side note, the above carpet had big dark stains the night before and I treated them with my usual hydrogen peroxide and dawn dish soap. I also thought it would be a good idea to soak up the water with baking soda. I normally just scrub the carpet with a wet rag until it stops foaming, but there were lots of spots and I didn't want to scrub like crazy all night long, and baking soda works on dog pee so why not on a cleaning solution? This is important stuff so don't disregard it, you'll see why in a minute.

 

So the carpet was still gross even though I got the small dark stains out, which is when I chose to go for the rug doctor.

 As you can see I needed to wear appropriate attire to clean my house. I tried sneakers but my feet were soaking, the machine spits our a bit of water from the back. and on the left is a shot of where you fill it up.


I had the wonderful idea that you just fill it up once and you can do your entire house and it's the easiest thing ever to do. WRONG! I had to dump out hte gunky water and refill every 4 passes of the carpet. Do you know how heavy that thing is to dump? well while I'm dumping what looking like clean foamy water i decided to clean the tub at the same time and dump it there.

 

Later Ken came home and asked what I had done to make the tub completely filthy and clog the drain. It was worse than when I give Ruby a bath inside!

So after my first pouring out I decided to use hte toilet. Like the picture shows on the machine. nice.

I found its easier to flush then dump it out into the bowl, that way it doesn't overflow.

 

Here is a shot of it getting a bit foamy. It says that if this happens you have to stop and buy anti foam stuff. fat chance, I just dumped out the water and the foam had dripped down and the machine was ready for action!

 

If the Dr runs out of water/soap, you will see these 2 white soapy lines. that means refill.

Remember when I said I thought I could use the 1 full tank for the whole house? well of course I over soaped the tank to get the most clean. after I realized it runs out in 4 passes, I held back a little with the suds.

Here is my recipe:

squirt blue dawn dish soap into the mesh for 5 seconds, then squirt hydrogen peroxide for 7-10 seconds.

I didn't want to waste time with measuring spoons when I was so busy running back and forth to pour out and refill. I also found refilling in the sink or tub closest to the machine was much better than running back to the kitchen sink. Obvious yes but it took me a while to figure that out...

 

Yes, this just happened.

 I got a little proud of my system and got careless.

 

So, after hours of labor here is what I got.

 

Yes, those are the kindergarten bleach pen works of art.

 

To sum up:

It took forever, places that got extra wet( I had to go over some serious dirt stains multiple times) are now moldy, and yes my house smells weird, I have huge white stains where I had used my brilliant baking soda trick ( not so brilliant with cleaning solution) and the rest of my floor looks amazing!

Would I rent one again? NO, I will call a professional. It took way too many hours and I ruined my carpet in some places( as shown above, and now the smell is getting to us).

 

But on a happy note: Here we are at the beautiful Mesa Temple!!!

 

I love Arizona weather and the amazing temple!

My own recipe!!

So, today I decided to be daring like the great cooks of old and make up... my own banana bread recipe! Ken had his doubts, which he lovingly expressed over his chedderwurst siracha tortilla wrapped hot mess I made him. So if he likes that, it's definitely a bit concerning for him to be worried about my bread.

I am desperately trying to use up my half and half and I thought it would be delicious in bread, and since our bananas were past the delicious stage and on to speckled, I figured I should use those too.

so here is what I came up with:
5 speckled bananas
1/2 cup half and half
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder( it says baking on it so I figured I couldn't go wrong adding it to my bread)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour

mix it all together. pop in a 350 oven for 40 minutes. It actually turned out really good. It's super sweet and really "mushy" as the handsome one puts it. Definitely a bread for kids! So I'm going to give it to my young woman tomorrow during my lesson! I'm pleased with it, it doesn't look very pretty in slices though... oh well, excellent I'd say for a first time made up baked bread!










UPDATE: it tates like fudge and has the consistency of fudge, so if you add 1 and 1/2 more flour and 1/2 cup white sugar it will come out more like traditional banana bread!

Homemade Chocolate

This was a HUGE hit with everyone at church. I made them for my young womens class, mostly because I love chocolate and I had to give them away or I'd become a fatty. THis amazing lady named Eileen took lots of time with me when I was in high school to teach me how to host parties, bake delicious goodies, cook amazing food, and most importantly make chocolate. I can't seem to get ahold of her so I had to make do with this recipe I found online, but they turned out wicked sweet. I'm going to call Mrs Eileen and sell my left arm if that's what it takes to get her recipe, but for now here you go-

Chocolate filling-
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsps softened butter
2 tsp extract (I broke up the batch then put in the extract and some food coloring)
2 tbsps cream ( I used half and half)

Mix ingredients together. roll in powdered sugar to make a log, then wrap in plastic wrap and chill.
Then you take out the logs and pull pieces apart and roll them to the shape and size you want, I'm way far from a perfectionist when it comes to making food look pretty, so here are mine. Then pop back in the fridge so they firm up for dipping!

I melted 2 bags of ghiradelli dark chocolate chips and 1 bad milk chocolate chips. I used a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water. the water should not touch the base of the bowl or you could burn the chocolate.


Then I dipped, popped them back in the fridge for 10 minutes and they were ready to go! I made butter-rum, lemon and orange

No picture of the finished product because they were all eaten up!!

MOre fOOd

 

Hello lovelies! Today I'm going to show you some of my cooking sucesses and my stumblings along the way!

 

First I will start off with a main course. This is cilantro pork. I don't cupon because our paper has really bad sunday supons for some reason... so I jsut shop whats on super sale and use my rewards card like for frys or bashas and get really good deals. Like this pork, buy one get on free! sweet! so as you can see there is a bit of a mess, this bag happens to have a whole in it, a very big whole, which I did not realize until it was too late. no matter, the food tasted good anyway.

 

I mixed in a bag-

4 pork chops

a bunch of cilantro, I picked the leaves off half the stems because I don't like stems

some steak seasoning from frys

garlic powder

onion powder

half and half- because I have some in my fridge and need to get rid of it

 

then I mised that up really good then put crushed saltines in( i don't have breadcrumbs) and shook it all about, probably doing some awesome dance moves around my kitchen to give it more of a rachel flair! and then I dumped it all out on an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet. Our brand new meat thermometer is broken, so I had no idea when the pork was fully cooked so I didn't take a final picture because we had to eat the side dishes of dinner and dessert before ken said it must be done since i had it in the oven so long. so there you have it, cilantro pork. I served it with appleauce and cooked squash.

 

 

and now for a bit of dessert.

I made this chocolate cake out of a box because i tried to make chocolate cupcakes from scratch and something went horribly wrong and they sunk all the way down in the middle with super hard crunchy edges. yes those went to the trash. so I decided to make a fool proof dessert and make a cake. super easy out of a boc. walmart or frys usually has them the cheapest.
Icing- 1 stick butter
1/2 package powdered sugar
dash of vanilla
maybe some half and half- still trying to use it all up

So there you have it, a delicious entre with fool proof dessert.

Easter Pageant

My handsome man and I went to the Easter pageant Thursday night. we got there around 5:30 which was prime for excellent seating. we were about the 10th row back and on the aisle, which happened to be a HUGE necessity as I was about to throw up and actually tried with no success. ( I had eaten one of those just-put-the-cup-in-the-machine-and-it-makes-a-shake-for-you shake. bad idea) so after that uncomfortable two hours of keeping it down the show was about to start.

 

 and then.... the characters came out! It was so AWESOME!! There was this super cute little family with their little kids all dressed up like shepherds, except very wealthy shepherds with really nice head dresses. And lots of the other actors had REALLY nice outfits. I always assumed that the Jew's during Christ's time were poor because the scriptures talk about him helping the poor and the sick, but the pageant definitely reminded me that not all of them were poor, and that's why some of them had pride issues, because they were wealthy and didn't want to listen to a lowly carpenter from an outskirt city. So I learned something very amazing!

 

And there were live baby lambs and they were sooooooo cute, and smaller than Ruby! Probably because the Rubster is a huge tank and i over feed her  because I just love to hear her crunch her kibbles. off topic I know but you really should hear here, its soooo cute.

 

 

 

Anyway back to the point, the baby lambs were awesome. And probably the best thing happened to me about 30 minutes before the pageant started. The little old lady who was sitting next to me finally got back from dairy queen and was asking one of the chaperons, hmmm that;s not hte right word..... USHERS! yes, she was asking him how many church buildings were in the valley. I of course said there were at least a 1000 and he said 2-3 hundred, and I later learned that all my estimates are off because I only thought there were 1,500 people there and ken repeatedly told me until i looked it up that there were actually 15,000 people there. yes my estimates are way off.

 

But this sweet lady I discovered was not a member! How great is that?! and she came because her friend recommended it to her. So then I got to explain why the temple is so important and how families get sealed for time and all eternity so basically you are married even after you die. and I talked to her about her life and where she was from and her dairy farm she and her husband kept and gardening and what we are going to plant and what her favorite thing to plant it. it was so special for me to talk with her. she had such great experiences and was so excited to see the pageant.

After the pageant it was so wonderful tpohear what she thought and she said she knew all her bible stories and it was so wonderful to see it all put together. Hopefully she is happy back in her home state of Iowa and will always remember the wonderful time she had at the Mormon Easter pageant and the wonderful spirit she felt there!

 

The costumes for the 10 virgins were amazing, and the dancing was just wonderful. My favorites were when Mary had just had the baby and she was dancing. Obviously the woman playing her had not just had a baby because no one after labor can even pop up and get to the bathroom at their normal pace, let alone dance. but it was soooo wonderful and I felt hte spirit so strongly. The other part that was my favorite was the song Mary Magdalene sang when she saw the risen Christ. it was so beautiful! and then the whole entire cast came out and sang for the finale. It was still so spiritually moving and amazing, that I think it was perfect.

The Easter Pageant still has another week, so if you would like to go, I highly recommend it!

I was too nervous to ask this roman soldier to turn and pose :)

RA

Today I found out I have RA which is Rheumatoid arthritis. I have bone spurs and nodules that are all over my spine. It's genetic. I have been in severe pain for 10 years and it has been getting worse with each day, now we know why. Now I know why I could never do my arabesques as high as the other ballerinas, or bend my back as far back, now I know why my back is always hurting, and why the normal treatments for endometriosis did not work for the pain.

on the bright side I don't need narcotics! yay! I am soooo happy about that. and I will get to go to physical therapy, hopefully starting in the next few days! They did a bunch of blood tests on me to see how bad my ra really is, and to make sure my other connective tissues are doing ok. We also get to have a baby, and since the lupron killed off the endometriosis that I did have, we are all set in that department! All I have to take is an antiinflammatory that is super safe and hopefully effective! I will begin seeing a rheumatologist this week or next. Apparently they can give me shots in my back to stop the growth of the nodules and spurs and to reduce the inflammation.

This is all amazing news because I get to be a mom and a foster mom! and I am so looking forward to helping those special needs children because I understand what it's like to have a body that is a bit grumpy at times, ok all the time but ken and I are so happy to be able to give back and help! and I can still tend children just fine, I can lift them and play and go on walks and cook and do all my normal stuff. in fact its better if I move around and keep all my range of motion so that my body doesn't allow the RA to spread. isn't that sooooo exciting? we are sooooooooooo thrilled and can't wait to get our little lovies with special needs.

I am a little bit scared, I have a dinosaur back so I'm not sure if thats wicked awesome or frightening. I will have this for forever, but my grandmother also has it and she is 70 so I don't have to worry about a short life span from it:) It is not in my hands or feet as far as I can feel so I'm going to make sure to do exercises to keep them feeling great! It's a blessing we caught it to keep it from spreading, its just unfortunate it took 10 years. I've just begun my research and I know I have a ton more to learn about it, but it is manageable, I will not only live but I will thrive which is such a blessing! Thank you to everyone for your prayers and fasting and love and support! We know what it is and can face it head on!!

our food storage/ emergency preparedness!!!

What I did and how I spend so little!!!

What I bought...... at WINCO!!! it's amazing!!

4 bags pasta
4 boxes baking soda
1 large can baking powder
1 large can cornstarch
1 large can oats
4 cans black beans
4 cans chick peas
12 cans peas
12 cans green beans
12 cans tuna
2 boxes cake
2 large 5 gallon food safe buckets with gasket lids
30 lbs rice
3 10 lb bags flour
oil- large
2 jars of chicken bullion
5 lbs sugar
and some cereal and bread and other things for food for right now
and I only spent.... $89.00

Then at the dollar store I got:
aspirin, tylenol, ibuprofen
bandaids
gauze pads
a thermometer
10 razors
2 deodorant
1 50ft poly rope
50 alchohol prep pads
hydrogen peroxide
rubbing alchohol
1 4 pkg toilet paper
creams for wounds
2 ace bandages

I am putting all of these plus some other supplies I already had in my backpack
We are storing everything under the bunk beds so there is easy access and not everything is in the kitchen- 2 reasons, there isn't enough space and what if there was a fire in the kitchen? or the room? that way we can have a back up system
we also have a first aid kit in each car

I had a dream a few nights ago that there was a major disaster and we had no food and no emergency supplies, it was awful! I woke up all afraid! so then I went and got prepared!

My goal is to spend $100 each month to add to our food storage/ emergency preparedness-
each trip to the store I buy 2 water jugs, and 4 more cans of food
next month I need to buy 2 tarps and 2 emergency blankets

when we have foster children my goal is to have enough food and supplies to tend to their needs in an event of an emergency! if you have any one you know who would like a service project, we an always use childrens blankets, books and clothes for them!