Friday DIY

New garbage disposal: $$
New wiring under sink: $$
Handyman♥Husband: PRICELESS!!!

Gecko under sink:
UNEXPECTED!!!

~ ~ ~
Good night, all!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
It’s chilly again in the Southland,
so y’all bundle up and stay warm!!
~ ~ ~

Mug Shots

Lately, I’ve been taking pictures of some of our favorite mugs for a series I’m calling “Mug Shots.”

Last Sunday night, our daughter and I both seemed to have “mugs” on the mind!
I started this post, but never finished it.
Today, I picked up a favorite magazine and saw an article called by the same name: “Mug Shots” –
so I decided it was time to get this ready to publish!
I’ll be sharing more mugs later.

While sitting at the supper table (as we Southerners call it) last Sunday evening,
I snapped an iPhone picture of the back of a favorite mug.

The picture wasn’t very clear in the low light, so I started playing around with “Filter Mania,”
one of the apps on my phone.
I tweaked the picture a little and then applied the “Brick Wall” filter.
For some reason, I really liked the way it turned out –
nothing spectacular — just pleasing to the eye –
like a friendly mural spray-painted on the side of an old building!

While I prefer to spend time editing photos on the computer,
I still think it’s fun every once in a while to play with these apps.
I’ve even noticed that some of the professional photographers I follow online
are also applying these little apps to their photos, just for fun!

To see another “Mug Shot,” I invite you to click over to my daughter’s blog
and check out something fun she discovered last Sunday night in her kitchen sink!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Now — I’m wondering if y’all have favorite mugs you’d like to show us on your blogs!
I’d really enjoy seeing them, and I’m sure other readers would, too.
♦
Meanwhile, thanks for stopping by Little Things.
I hope you take time in your everyday life to notice happy little things…
like hearts on coffee mugs…and smiley faces in unexpected places!
♦
Cold weather is settling into the Southland tonight;
won’t you join me in a mug of somethin’ warm to drink?!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What Is Home??

I have recently taken on the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge.
This week’s theme is “Spring.”
Last week’s theme was “Home.”

I didn’t get involved in the challenge in time to publish a photo for the “Home” theme,
but I decided to make a little graphic anyway, because I really like this verse:

I enjoyed looking at some of the other postings for last week.
Here are a few that were special to me:

http://ensummerfield84.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/weekly-photo-challenge-home/

http://romceg.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/weekly-photo-challenge-home/

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/weekly-photo-challenge-home/

There were interestingly different interpretations of the theme — not all were about human homes!
They included a spider web and bird houses, similar to these that I photographed in our back yard.

 

                         

Last week I shared a blog by the Bennetts, an American missionary family living in Tokyo.
They were instructed by their mission to travel 700 miles south to an area of Japan
that would be safer for their family.
This turned out to be a challenging trip,
due to a shortage of gasoline and earthquake damage to the crowded roadways.
I was thankful to read that they got safely to their destination,
although they miss their Japanese neighbors and hated to have to leave their home.
Hopefully, this will be only a temporary situation for them.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE BLOG

Many of us take our homes for granted.
The size and beauty and value of all of our homes are relative terms.

There will always be people who live in more stately and magnificent homes than we do –
and sadly there are millions of people who live in habitations we would hardly even consider to be a home(!)

Within a few miles of our home are houses with partially dirt floors
AND a house for sale for almost $20 million!!
All of them are “home” to somebody!

The link below is to a post from “We Are THAT Family.”
It fits right in with my thoughts today.
I’d like to share it and recommend that you take time out to read what Kristen has to say
about what’s really important in making a home.

“HOW TO REALLY MAKE A HOME”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Take Them a Meal

This week I learned about a very useful website that I’d like to share with you.  It is called TakeThemAMeal.com.   I have added it to my “Other Favorite Places” list, to make it easy for you to find, should you want to use it in the future.

I am pasting in below some general info about the website, which I have copied from their Facebook Fan Page.  This started as a tool for helping one family in need, and now the creators are sharing it so that others may be helped as well.  They also welcome donations and are seeking corporate advertisers, in case you know of someone who might be interested in supporting such a worthy cause.

TakeThemAMeal.com is a free online tool designed to coordinate the delivery of meals to someone who is in need.

A meal coordinator is able to set up a private TakeThemAMeal.com account to make it easy for friends and family to sign up to bring meals. A customized online sign-up sheet that includes phone numbers, driving directions, food allergies, and any other helpful details can be created in a just a few minutes.

TakeThemAMeal.com began when a community came together to meet real needs of a local family. Our desire is to share this tool so that others may be helped as well. 

http://takethemameal.com/

Coffee Filter Uses

 

 

 Who knew there were so many uses —

and you can buy 1,000 at the dollar store for almost nothing — even the large ones!

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  1.  Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave.  Coffee filters make excellent covers.

  2.  Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome.  Coffee filters are lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling.

  3.  Protect china by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter between each dish.

  4.  Use as a disposable “snack bowl” for popcorn, chips, etc.

  5.  Protect a cast-iron skillet.  Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.

  6.  Apply shoe polish.  Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.

  7.  Recycle frying oil.  After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.

  8.  Weigh chopped foods.  Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.

  9.  Hold tacos.  Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.

10.  Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot.  Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.

11.  Prevent a popsicle from dripping.  Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.

12.  Instead of using expensive strips to wax eyebrows,  use strips of coffee filters.

13.  Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc., on them.  They soak out all the grease.

14.  Keep in the bathroom.  They make great “razor nick fixers.”

15.  Apply as a sewing backing.  Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics.

16.  Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or put in a closet to absorb or prevent odors.

17.  Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews.

18.  Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to your car.

19.  Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and to clean up small counter spills.

20.  Use to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting fruits or veggies.  Saves on having extra bowls to wash.

21.  Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage.

22.  Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls.

23.  Use them to sprout seeds.  Simply dampen the coffee filter, place seeds inside, fold it and place it into a plastic baggie until the seeds sprout.

24.  Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers.  Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters in a phone book.

OH — THEY ARE GREAT TO USE IN YOUR COFFEE MAKER, TOO!