Homemade Fish and Chips

Happened to be in Walmart when the need for fish and chips became irresistible.

Walmart is a great store, I am not among those who refuse to shop there, rather I APPROVE of Walmart because I find it easier to find Made in USA items there than in any other large store, because they refuse to sell the worst offensive, violent music, and they promote Christian material and gift items with verses.

That being said, it's not the place to find fish fillets with natural ingredients.
Reading the ingredients on Gorton's fish sticks is rather unappetizing, I must say!
But, I was at Walmart when the urge struck...

Walmart had a bag of tilapia loins pre-skinned and individually wrapped!  And they had taters. 

 

I did those properly, first dipped in flour with salt and pepper, then in egg, then in bread crumbs with seasoning.  

How to make chips?  Well, how hard can it be?  

Best fish 'n' chips EV AR.

And by the way, here's what I bought myself for my birthday this year.

Pears!

The quarry-- a big pear tree on sort-of public property. 

The pears are falling and the homeless are ignoring them. 

Admittedly the pears have been picked to the level that tall people can reach.  Let’s think.

Hangar, plastic bag, mailing tape, yardstick. 

I felt a little silly whipping out this contraption in public, up until the moment that it worked.  Pity I didn’t take a video!  The bag goes up around the pear, the end of the hangar snags the stem, a little yank and the pear drops into the bag. 

Yield: 

Now the pear tree is loaded with pears above the level of tall people and clever redneck chicks. 

For the second trip, a modified apparatus. 

One guy who stopped to watch me expressed doubt because, he said, those pears are HARD. Right. Who cares if they’re a little crunchy? They’re like hard CRUNCHY PEAR SUGAR BLASTERS, never tasted such excellence. I gave him a big fat pear and he went away eating it.

Most people who stopped to watch me at this activity (which with a stick this long harks to fishing) told me I was clever, so I gave them nice pears to eat. 

And still took home: 

Plastic Canvas Outgoing Mail Holder

I made one of these aeons ago and it was a cool, useful thing to have on the wall.  Recently someone admired it so I made a copy.  Here's the information in case you'd like to make one. 

As you can see, there is some lag time between photos and blogging  :-)

Front design

The back is reinforced with double layers of canvas to make it stronger.  
I was running out of that blue cord, so I switched from my usual favorite basketweave to half cross on the back to economize, then left the bottom part unstitched.  It's against the wall, so it doesn't show! 

Dimensions to cut the plastic canvas:

One New Painting

Karen decided it had been long enough since she painted  :-)

I'm Still a Housewife

I just had to write a summary of myself.  I really hate those.  Do they want my categories, my facts and statistics, or a list of my interests, talents, and skills, or a list of everything I've ever done?  

If I must be summed up in a word, housewife is the best one. 
I've had extra pleasure in using it ever since a feminist type saw me writing it into the "Occupation" box on a form and commanded me not to-- "For the sake of your self-respect!"


Since my self-respect is based more on the right to define myself than on my pride in how well I can follow others' instructions, here we are.  A housewife.

I recently looked up the word husband to be sure I could use it as a synonym for steward in the sense that I wanted, and found out something interesting.  Y'know how we joke about a house husband-- well, they're ALL that because "hus" means house!

hus·band late Old English (in the senses ‘male head of a household’ and ‘manager, steward’)
from Old Norse húsbóndi, from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil.’

The word wife just means a woman who is doing an occupation.  Like the old fishwife, a woman who sells fish, or still-used midwife, a woman who assists (another).
So a housewife is a woman whose primary occupation is the upkeep of a house, and husband is her male counterpart. 

That I haven't a husband is of no matter for my choice of self-descriptive terminology.
Why should a man's wrong choices deprive me of my calling?

Since I live in an apartment, I'll have do some more creative defining.  I'll go with "house" as a private establishment which shelters a family and supports the daily activities of all of its members, the good keeping of which makes it possible to live economically.

Haha, oh, I really came over here just to rejoice! I've been so happy lately! Quietly keeping my little place, peeling my little vegies, sweeping my floors, sewing and selling stuff. These are my favorite, most contented days.

Making CD Sleeves from Calendars

That's the level of craft I can handle these days  :-)

It's SOOO satisfying for a hoarder type to be able to think of a use for those calendar pages that were just too pretty to throw away!

Some time ago I opened up a CD sleeve and copied it onto thin cardboard for tracing. 
 

It took some trial and error (as you can see) to get a square just the right size, but once I have that, I can fold the flaps over it and they come out perfect every time. 

Pretty, yes?

Unlike my larger dreams and plans, a craft on this scale actually ends up being made  :-)

Homemade Pot Rack

I have some very nice stainless steel pans that came from a relative, but in this little apartment kitchen there's nowhere to store them.  I love my kitchen, LOVE, I'm just saying there isn't room for the pans!

Last year I got clever and harvested a vine maple branch from the woods behind us, crafted some hangers from hangers and there you go.
There's still that certain level of celebration because "there's nobody to stop me!" from dragging forest products indoors to use for stuff.

And yet.  Now we have a saggy branch with the bark still on hanging in my kitchen.

I won't spend money, but I... kind of... took... utilized... swiped... one of the long boards my older daughter had left in my garage.
They were for a project she was going to make and then didn't. 
When I had the idea I grabbed that long board and sawed it into the length I needed really quick before my conscience could kick in.

Hey, she had left it there a LONG time!
Yeah, okay, I'm gonna discuss it with her.  

Meanwhile.
There's the hand drill I got at a garage sale for $4 back when I had money :-)
I ALWAYS drill pilot holes, just because I love my non-electric drill so much.


Sawdust!
You mean man glitter?

Sudden sidetrip down memory lane, as I remember being fascinated by the piles of sawdust under my dad's table saw.  As a little kid I loved sweeping up that pleasant-smelling sawdust and vacuuming under the mats. 


It's not visible here, but of course I put the two legs on the wrong way the first time.
Just take 'em off and reverse 'em, no harm done. 







 








The pizza peel is a storage problem.
Really the only place for it is standing alongside the fridge, then it has to be washed before use, which isn't ideal.  

Large allen wrench through the handle, and it just hangs on top of the board.  It's not going anywhere.  The whole setup would have to scoot five inches away from the wall before it could fall down. 

Dave says, "That looks MUCH better." 

Apparently that piece of 1x2 oak cost twenty some bucks. Gulp.
DD graciously forgave me and converted the theft into a gift  :-)