Monday, March 19, 2012

Country Can Do

iron 
Borrowing just a bit from an old Hank Williams, Jr. song, A Country Girl Can Survive!  And I really enjoy going beyond survival.  Recently, I saw a post online that I simply HAD to try.  I made a small ironing station to sit beside my sewing machine, repurposed an old wooden TV snack tray that I picked up for a song.  First, I covered the tray top with and inexpensive Ironing Board Cover and Pad set which I had cut in half and made to fit.  Next, I used my handy-dandy staple gun to  attach to the underside of the tray and woo hoo!  Now I can press as I sew with more ease. Pressing-as-you-go is essential to sewing, but takes a lot of time when the ironing board is in one room and the sewing machine is in another. 
You can see my new project at the CAT LITTER page. Just click at the top of this page on Cat Litter. You're welcome to "scoop out" any of my ideas! (yes, I know, bad pun)!
This mini pressing station folds up and will fit in the car when I go away from home to sewing events.  Wish I could give credit to the one I saw, but I've seen several. This little item works for all but the largest of clothing pieces, and gets me through what ever my current project is.

© 2012 Cat Brennan

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Country News

There's no need to reinvent the wheel, when someone else has already done it so well. Therefore, let me share with you a really great website: Still Tasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide Guide. This site breaks down your questions into food groups and has some wonderful answers to questions such as, "Is it okay to put hot food directly in the fridge?" or "Are eggs still safe after the expiration date?"  These and many more questions can be found at this user-friendly site. Just click RIGHT HERE to find a plethora of food stability facts.
thanks giving autumn on the farmI regularly surf the net and love it when I find useful information like the above.  I grew up with no less than three sets of encyclopedias and several dictionaries in our home.  It was so much fun to open an encyclopedia to look up information on some subject and then get lost, sometimes for hours, in that one book that held a world of knowledge within its covers, and that was only one book of fifteen or more in just one set. I often went down that same path in the dictionary; look up one word only to wander among so many others that were new to me!  What wonderful fun that was! So, is it any wonder that I "get lost" on the Internet just as easily?
What has this to do with Country living?  Country life is, at least in part, about self sufficiency!  I believe that if I can make "it", not only cheaper, but as good or better and with the resources at hand, that is the way to go.  This helps to preserve my resources and be a good steward of the the things He has provided for me. That is self-sufficiency and that is Country living.
I have found so many answers to questions on the 'net.  I use Bing for my search engine - that's not a sales pitch, just my preference - and I can type in a question with as many or as few words that describe the information I'm seeking and voila!  my answer cometh! And it arrives with lightening speed!  ("google" has become a universal word meaning "to search the 'net", and I expect that one day it will be included in our dictionaries as such). 
If you're still wondering, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?", google it! 
And finally, just for fun, I've been told: BING = Because It's Not Google, and GOOGLE = Go Ogle. Who knows?
© 2012 Cat Brennan