The Superawesome Jeans Rescue, or: Not Your Grandma's Pull-on Jeans

Oh. My. Gosh. I did it. I can't believe it worked. It worked!!
Ok, you know that pair of jeans that you have at the bottom of the pile? The ones that you have to constantly tug back up in back, that has the half rolled-over waistband in front because your mama flab keeps trying to escape because the rise is just a bit too low? The ones that fit ok 3 years ago, until something happened and your bulges inexplicably shifted? THOSE jeans.
Know what you can do with the dang things? You can, my dear reader, execute a Superawesome Jeans Rescue. Not only will you be able to wear them again, but you won't have to hitch them up EVER, there will be no muffin-top at all, and you can wear those form fitting tops that go down over your hips without the stupid waistband button making a big old lump in the middle. For serious.

Magic Mayonnaise

What's so magic about this mayonnaise? In a nutshell, it's so fast and easy, it practically makes itself. No joke. All you need is a pint mason jar and a stick blender, and you'll be able to astound yourself with how magically you can make mayonnaise with good oils, good eggs, and lacto-fermentation to naturally preserve it.

"Heavenly" Soaked Granola

"Mom! Did you make this yourself?! This is HEAVENLY!" - Bobby, age 8

First, the recipe.

Dolls Are Making Me Crabby

So I have these dolls. I've been making them for years, slowly perfecting my construction methods, making sure that they go together smoothly, look decently proportional, heads don't pop off, etc. I started with smaller ones, then worked my way up to larger, dollhouse-adult sizes, expanded their clothing pattern options. And if I do say so my self, I think they're pretty great.

So, my brilliant idea is to write a book on how to make these pretty great dollhouse dolls. I kept putting off working on it, by allowing myself to get distracted by food, or dagorhir projects, or errands, or Candy Crush, or, well, anything other than sitting down to get a book outline and master patterns hammered out.

Now I know why I'm avoiding it.

Making Butter

Butter-making was one of those things that I knew was supposed to be pretty easy, but I never bothered trying it, because, well....why should I?

But then I started getting raw milk and cream directly from the farm I bought herd-shares from. All of a sudden, I actually had a REASON to learn this supposedly simple process, because whatever I made was going to be better than whatever I could buy.

So, I learned. I looked stuff up online, got the general idea, then dove in. And by golly, it WAS simple. I'm not saying it's not work, because it is. And I'm not saying that I didn't have difficulties, because I did. But I figured it out, and I'll pass on what I learned to you.

Those Darned Socks!

I wear wool socks. That's pretty much all I have. If you have wool socks, you know as well as I do that they tend to wear out on the pressure points - the ball of the foot, and the back of the heel - pretty quickly.

With the price of good wool socks, though, it's not very cost-effective to just toss them once they get thin or get holes worn in them. That's why it's a good idea to learn the age-old practice of sock darning!

Fruit-on-the-Bottom Yogurt Cups

Making yogurt at home is easy. Most of us know this. However, getting your family (and sometimes even yourself!) to actually EAT your homemade yogurt can be a trick, because the flavor and consistency is rarely like what we're used to buying in the store.

This is how you make like-store-bought yogurt cups, with your own pastured milk, no GMOs, and no refined sugar.