SEND ME NO FLOURS

"Okay, I put 1 cup of flour on my face and the floor. Did you need any in the bowl?"

Paisli is the queen of making a mess on her face.

And Kiersa is the princess. This time she got into my makeup.

SAD NEWS

Today, Hyrum got his rejection letter from the nursing department. He had a 3.89 GPA, but the lowest they accepted for the fall semester was 3.90. Hyrum has all A's, except for two A-'s! Last semester, he had a 3.93, since he only had one A-, and that A- was a 93.5% (a 94% would be an A). He was half a percent away from having a 4.0 last semester, or one one-hundredth of a GPA point away from hitting the cut-off for the nursing program. Those tiny differences made a world of difference to us. So, Hyrum is discouraged, but is still continuing to try his best to get in next semester.

Life goes on.

Paisli is still wearing her food, since she refuses to be fed by anyone.

The ants are still taking over our entire yard.

And Hyrum is still a happy Daddy.

SPOT ON

I had heard about making your own laundry detergent to save money (and be eco-friendly), but I'd tried it a couple times and it always made my whites dingy, so I stuck with my fail-proof Tide. I ran out of dishwasher detergent, so I looked up online to see how to make it. There were many recipes, but I started with one that only required salt, borax, and baking soda.

Nothing to it! So I made a batch. I had all the ingredients at home already.

You can probably guess that it was a horrible failure. Everything had a filmy, powdery residue, and everything was spotty or foggy. Plus, it stunk like burning crud when the dishwasher was running. It was awful.

I hated to waste all the ingredients I'd used, so I dug deeper online. I found that using vinegar in the rinse-aid should help, and that citric acid should make the dishes shine, and essential oils make it smell good. So I added them to the mix. After several more loads and some trial and error, I came up with this equation:


Salt + Borax + Soda + Citric Acid + Vinegar (for rinse aid) + Vinegar (poured in at the start of each load) + 2 drops of essential oil = sparkly dishes! All the powdered ingredients were mixed in a container, so I just put a couple of drops of essential oil on it and snapped it shut, then poured some vinegar in the bottom while shutting the door and called it good. No big deal, right?

The glass on the left (shiny) is from my final formula. The glass on the right (spotted) is from the first formula.

I was so proud of myself! Here I was being resourceful, eco-friendly, and frugal. And, it actually worked! But then I read that borax is a "controversial" natural ingredient, and then out of the blue, my formula stopped working like a charm and started leaving spots and residue. I was really frustrated. (I also tried Lemi-shine to help with the hard water deposits, but that stuff worked like crud.)

So rather than posting about my fabulous new detergent and giving you the recipe, I'll just admit I've gone back to the simple SINGLE step of using a Cascade complete packet (ALWAYS sparkly clean) and vinegar as my rinse aid. Works great! And vinegar is a million times cheaper than Jet Dry.

Though my homemade dishwasher detergent didn't pan out, I did discover that just pouring a little vinegar in the bottom of my electric tea kettle and letting it sit for about 30 seconds, then swirling it around for about a minute took all the hard water deposits out of it. It looks brand new now! It's a fabulous tip I just had to share!

ALL TIED UP

I avoided teaching Talea to tie her shoes by never buying lace-up shoes. I just dreaded the frustration I knew she'd have since I had tried to teach her the "bunny ears" method a year or so ago, which failed miserably.

Then I saw in Hyrum's child development textbook that kids normally know how to tie their shoes when they're six. Well, Tilly turned six last month, so I figured it was time.

I pulled out a pair of her lace-up shoes that I'd been keeping out of easy access for a while and decided to finally bite the bullet and "just do it," but this time I was going to teach her to tie the way I tie.

With this method, I only had to show her once, help her twice, and then she was a pro, and went about tying her shoes and any others she could find.

So glad it turned out to be a painless experience! I probably won't have to teach the others, since Tilly is already trying to teach Hyatt. Just as well, since my cousin, Tome, taught me to tie mine.

B&G

Biscuits and gravy (Cluff-style, that is) is a Cluff family tradition. My dad, being the creative culinary aficionado that he is, couldn't possibly be satisfied with a boring plate of biscuits smothered in country gravy. He had to add his special flare to it.

Cluff-style biscuits are homemade biscuits (of varying varieties) smothered in homemade sausage country gravy, and then they are piled high with toppings! We top them with shredded cheese, shredded boiled eggs, sliced olives, diced onions, and chopped tomatoes.

This was always a special breakfast around my house growing up, reserved for when company came into town, friends spent the night, or family members came back home to visit after a long absence. Or sometimes when we begged hard enough. We usually left the begging up to Daisha, since she possesses a power of persuasion that is all but impossible to turn down.

Yeah, it's that good.

Hyrum, having tasted this culinary delight (the fabulous biscuits and gravy) on numerous occasions, has designated it as his favorite meal.

In fact, our entire little Johnson family of 6 LOVES it. We all lick our plates clean. Well, not usually literally, but we admit it's a temptation that is sometimes succumbed to.

The problem is, B&G takes quite a while to prepare. When my dad makes it, it seems like it takes hours to prepare from start to finish, while we all wander around the house like a pack of hungry dogs with our mouths watering and stomachs growling.

I never made it for my family, solely for fact that I couldn't bear to spend that much time preparing one meal. I don't like cooking THAT much. So, Hyrum, salivating at the memory of this breakfast of the Gods, decided we had to figure out a way to make it for ourselves, with less production time.

We've simplified the most time consuming parts of the routine: the actual making and baking of biscuits and cooking of gray. We've (shamefully) ditched the homemade aspect of this meal and started using the divinely tasty, and beautiful-once-baked, frozen Pillsbury biscuits (20 minutes baking time, zero prep time), and only use gravy from a mix (5 minutes or less cooking time).

We cook the onions in our sausage (to avoid the nasty onion burps after this meal) and we cook the sausage separate from the gravy (in order to better portion the meat on each plate and avoid gravy that's too thick or meaty).

So in about 22 minutes, we have hot, flaky biscuits being crumbled onto plates, hot gravy poured over the biscuit pieces, sausage, cheese, eggs, olives and tomatoes being topped over that, and then...silence! DON'T bug me.

I'm eating. 

Savoring. 

Devouring. 

Drooling. 

In heaven!

There's nothing better for breakfast...or lunch or dinner for that matter.

Even though we have tomatoes as an option for a topping, none of our kids like tomatoes. Neither do I, but I actually like them with this meal. Hyrum told the kids that tomatoes put hair on your chest, so just to prove her dad wrong, Talea mustered all her courage and ate one piece.

Hyrum checked her for chest hair, and while Talea wasn't looking, he pulled out one of his sideburn hairs and gave Talea's chest skin a little pinch, then showed her the hair. She inspected it, in total shock! Since she felt the pinch, she thought it was the hair being pulled out of her chest. Amazed, she exclaimed, "I never would have believed it! I actually DID grow a chest hair!"

Of course we were rolling with laughter. Hyrum never did confess though.

DASH IT ALL!

The best part of the drive-in for the kids is the field below the screen. They always play in it for a half hour or so until the movie starts. It's best when it isn't mowed so they can tunnel around in it.

Some of the kids make it through the first movie, but they all crash for the second. Talea, being the one with "creative" ideas, created her own sleeping spot in the van: the dash.

I guess the reclining front seat just wasn't good enough.

LITTLE MONKEY

Paisli is a stealth-climber. How are you supposed to keep a sneaky thing like her down? She WON'T be stopped!

(I know, I know. You're all madly jealous of how spotless my kitchen is. Yeah right! I just went shopping the night before and hadn't put everything away yet.)