Jennifer St. Clair's Blog, page 25

Living Simply in a Large House

That's my house, there above. And although this is the August Break, I thought this post was important enough to post (and it contains a photo anyway, however old.)
Some of you might know about my fascination with tiny houses. I don't live in a tiny house, however. And... while I'd love to live in a tiny house, I'm actually starting to love the space I have. 
Eventually, I'd like to have a gypsy wagon style tiny house, but I'm not sure I'd really want to live there permanently. I have too...

August 1

Elsa coloring at her desk. 

The August Break

I'll be participating in the August Break this year... It's an incentive for me to take more pictures! Here is the link if you'd like to join: http://www.susannahconway.com/the-august-break-2013/

Time

It's amazing what I get done around here, both writing and cleaning and suchlike when I am not sitting in front of my computer all day mostly chatting on Ravelry. 
In fact, it's been over a week and a half since I've posted there. And... I've found I don't really miss it. I like the results of having time to write and clean and suchlike much, much better.

Drying Clothes... And other things

So my dryer has been out of commission since February. I finally got it working (for the most part) today. 
I've been hanging my clothes, blankets, quilts, etc. up to dry. It's worked pretty well except for a few notable exceptions--my black clothes invariably end up covered in lint, and without a dryer, the cat hair just will not come off my wool blankets and quilts. And, with all of the rain lately, it's been impossible to even consider hanging anything out on the line to dry. 
I th...

Garlic, Garlic

I discovered that some of the garlic from last year was still alive the other day when one brave (and hardy, since there's no source of water where I'd put the leftover cloves) Elephant Garlic decided to send up a shoot. So instead of wasting it, I decided to plant it to see what would happen. There were eighteen cloves showing signs of life, or, at least, not showing signs they were dead. 
So I planted them tonight in an empty flat, empty because the basil got eaten by slugs. What sprout...

Tomato-Basil Rice soup

Growing up, tomato rice soup was my favorite soup to eat. In fact, after I left home, sometimes I'd add more rice to it, because that was the best part. 
I don't buy that brand of soup anymore due to the salt content (among other things), so with the super simple cream soup recipe I found, I decided to experiment with tomato rice soup. 
I've had bad luck with tomato cream soup, at least up until now. Not only did it work, it worked perfectly. And it's tasty, too!

Tuna Noodle & Updates

I made tuna noodle casserole for supper tonight, with a from-scratch cream of mushroom soup substitute (I tend not to buy cream of whatever soup because of the salt content.) Used very wide homemade noodles (not mine), a pinch or two of dill, some lemon pepper, and Parmesan cheese on top. 
I am so going to make the cream soup base with ricotta cheese and make lasagna with this. It tasted so good, and there's enough left for two lunches, too.
The Silence has grown quite a bit this weekend....

Monday

Microwave?

I barely use my microwave. In fact, I usually use it to melt butter and nothing else. So, while cleaning the kitchen and the shelves in the laundry room, I decided to take the microwave into the laundry room and only plug it in when I need it. That freed up the top of a cabinet, but I also wanted a clock over there, because I'm so used to looking at the microwave's clock.
Doesn't this look so much better than a microwave?