Oh, friends. Thanks for all the support with the judgey stuff. I really wasn’t looking for all that, but it’s nice nonetheless. Really, I was talking to the turkeys with the judgey comments. Wanna know what’s really funny? The one additional judgey comment that came from that last post? The nice, dear lady sent her e-mail directy to me so it could be “private”.
I was so tempted to copy and paste the e-mail here and really piss her off, but it’s not worth the effort. Count yourself lucky, Marguerite.
Instead, I’m going to follow up with a perfect example of how what y’all see on the blog is less than the whole story.
That hateful old biddy from next door totally earned her title. I shared the story here on the blog when it happened, and I’m too lazy to dig through old posts and give you a link, but if you’re really curious you can go find it. She stood in *my* yard while I was holding my mixed-race baby and told me how wrong mixed-race marriages are. That, and that alone is plenty of a reason for me to never want to speak to her again. Just for kickers, I’ll share that every conversation I ever had with her involved her criticizing everyone else she comes in contact with, then smiling at me and pumping me for information. And because I’m close with all our other neighbors, I know that she took that information and ran around the neighborhood trying to dish dirt on me. I’ll call her a hateful old biddy on my blog if I damned well please. And the fact that she is so bitter and mean? Just makes it easier for me to laugh at her lawn ornament collection, which actually I kind of find amusing, tacky as it is.
Let’s move on to some other minutia from my oh-so-exciting life.
We’ve had a little ant problem every spring since we moved into this house. Every spring, the ants wake up, rediscover some crack in the outside wall of our kitchen, and swarm in to enjoy the buffet under our kitchen table. Considering that we’ve had small children since day one, there is always a nice buffet going on down there. Fighting the ant invasion has become an annual sport around here. Every other year, I’ve done my best to wipe down the floor after meals, and I’ve used a non-toxic orange-based spray to help confuse their sense of smells and keep them away. It worked fairly well, but I also ended up squashing a lot of the tiny little pests.
Now that the kids are old enough to fully understand the concept of hey-I’m-putting-some-dangerous-chemicals-over-here-on-the-floor-don’t-eat-them. I decided to try a trick I read about a long time ago and was afraid to try. A line of Borax powder along the wall where they crawled in.
Works like a charm! I’ve seen hardly a single ant since I laid it down a month ago. And I’ve been less than perfect about cleaning up the breakfast crumbs.
Moving on, look what I found for dinner at the co-op the other day.
I’d never had morel mushrooms before, and there was a swarm of customers oohing and ahhing over them, so I decided to grab a few for myself. Everyone there said to slice them up and sautee them in butter, so that’s what I did. They were incredibly tasty, but unfortunately a bit gritty – I’d wiped them down with damp paper towels like all the gourmet chefs suggest instead of washing them under water the way I normally do all my mushrooms. I was right, they are wrong. I’d rather have a tiny bit less flavor and no grit. The asparagus was good too.
On to the next item – something I definitely didn’t find at the co-op. This is totally an anti-co-op type product. In the beauty aisle at the co-op you find all kinds of natural products with no petro-chemicals, instead containing things like beeswax and shea butter and tea tree oil. I love the idea of all that.
However, my face likes this stuff. I’ve been using this brand of moisturizer since I had that horrible face rash a while back. I’ve always had trouble with sunscreen on my face because pretty much every sunscreen I’ve tried either gave me a rash or burned. This stuff is crazy hypo-allergenic, and 60 SPF is exactly what my insanely pale skin needs. I’m going to finally get in the habit of wearing sunscreen on a daily basis.
I know you’re sick of hearing me brag about my awesome neighbors, but I saw this scene the other night and melted a bit.
The kids were playing with this airplane toy that one of the neighbor boys was sharing. The hill across the street was perfect for gliding it off.
And finally, a yummy yummy dinner from another night last week. My neighbor M shared her recipe for chicken satays and peanut sauce. This was easy, kid-friendly and delicious.
I thought I was going to find a very-similar recipe online and just link to it, but all the ones on my usual favorite sites were more complicated, and this one is so perfect you really need it. I’ll take a picture of the recipe and post it soon, I promise! Yum Yum Yum!
Tomorrow, a knitting post about scarves. It’s already written and scheduled to post. Pinkie swear.
Vanicream is the best! I have severe eczema and vanicream is one of the only things that really moisturizes and doesn’t have anything in it that causes irritation. I get the huge tub and use it as my general moisturizer. Also, they have a cleansing bar that is great for washing your face.
Meredith
You have a lot longer fuse than I have. I would have sewn lovely little white hoods and robes for her plastic geese after she tackled me with that mixed-race crap. As far as most of us are concerned: I’m human – you’re human – same race.
Can’t wait for the recipe. My granddaughter will love it.
K
Thanks for sharing the idea about the Borax. I haven’t tried that. I did run around my place with chalk and drew lines on the ground. I think it might be working. Gotta love ants.
my stir fry (and all around useful) sauce is a blend of peanut butter, honey and soy sauce. I tried various combos of these ingredients and we like half a cup peanut butter, half a cup honey and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce all blended together till smooth. YUM. Now I want some chicken kabobs too!!!!
My husband and I adopted our daughter 2 years ago from China. Seeing as we live in a small town in TN (moved here because of job), with few Asians (minorities are mostly Mexican and A.A.), we were naturally concerned how she would be accepted. To our happiness, things couldn’t be better. It’s hard dealing with ignorance.
Oh, feel you pain with the ants. We get them every Spring, but this year the has been an invasion. Bug guy has sprayed 2 times in the last 2 weeks and I see the creatures have returned to my kitchen. I’ll have to try to Borax powder.
In my previous life as a weight loss group leader, I spent over 30 min with a quirky old lady explaining in great detail about the program. When we were done, she thanked me and asked my name. (Now this was back during the height of the OJ trial) When I said my last name was SIMPSON, she turned and stomped out, saying “I have an AVERSION to the name of Simpson….” I was left in stunned silence….
Alton Brown is on your side when it comes to washing mushrooms. He even did a side by side test on his show and the ones he dunked in water only absorbed a tiny bit of water instead of the huge amount that the gourmets say will get soaked up by the shrooms.
As for your bitch neighbor, why does every block have one lousy neighbor? Though, I suppose, if they all lived on the same block, then the crazy would really kick in and hostilities would break out, complete with bunkers built from plastic lawn geese.
Per the folks we buy morels from at the farmer’s market, they should be soaked, at least for a little bit. If they’re really big, you should also cut them in half before soaking (lengthwise) to help the inner cavity be flushed. I soak them for 5 minutes and then rinse until clear and don’t have any issues with grit.
Also, the best bet I’ve had with borax is to use Terro liquid. It’s borax in a thick glucose syrup (you can make your own with any sweet syrup, like maple syrup or a thick simple syrup). I use old sour cream containers to make a pet-safe trap (since borax is poisonous to cats and dogs as well as ants.) I use the upside-down container, punch holes around the edge with a hole punch and then put the bait in the lid. So, the ants can get in (and they want to because of the sugar syrup) and will carry the borax back to the nest which will kill the ants BEFORE they get in.
ants will not cross chalk…….so get some of the kids chalk, and mark all around the place they come into the house…….hopefully that will help.
I had dogs I fed outside and fireants would swarm their food dishes.
I started drawing squares from chalk around the bowls…..and guess what? NO ANTS!
Plus it’s not toxic
I wish I could lay down Borax or anything else that would kill ants, but I have an 11 month old and a 2 and a half year old so that’s not an option. Plus, the cat wouldn’t know to stay away from it either. And this year, on top of the crack in our den (or the cable wire hole to the outside for our internet/tv) they’re managing to squeeze their way into the house through there too. And this year, I found a new entry point into our dinning room, which is not on ground level, so I can’t figure out how they decided to come in through there (or how there’s a crack there too). Ants! Why are they on this earth? What purpose do they serve besides finding every goldfish crumb my son leaves around the house as much as I try to keep it clean? I hope your Borax solution works for you and it’s the end of the ends in your home. I’m totally noting to do that one day after the kids are older (and after our old cat is no longer with us, don’t want to harm him). I am curious though about commenter Taelixev’s chalk thing. I’m going to go google what Chalk does to prevent ants?
Now, I’m curious about the vanicream, as your first commenter Meredith states it’s great for her eczema, my 11 month old has really bad eczema and I’m curious if this vanicream is only in the USA. I can’t find anything that works on his skin.
we pick morel mushrooms wild up here in Idaho, we actually named one of our dogs morel
you do need to soak them in water, forget what they told you… they are the richest most wonderful mushroom in all the world (right up there with shaggy manes and oysters) YUM
loved this post!
Heidi
Borax? You’re kidding. I too have been having the ant problem, which makes me feel like I’m not taking good enough care of the house, with 3 boys, you can imagine what’s under our dining room table. I’ll try the borax though; it sure beats getting out the vacuum after every meal!