I Figured it Out!

I don't know WHY I didn't figure this out sooner!!!

It's the shampoo I use in the shower!


When I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body, and (duh!) printed very clearly on the shampoo label is this warning...

"FOR EXTRA VOLUME AND BODY."



No WONDER I have been gaining weight!!!

Well!

I have gotten rid of that shampoo and I am going to start using Dawn dish soap instead.



Their label reads, "DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE."



Problem solved!


Ha! Ha!  Thought that was too funny not to share!

Easy Lemon Cake

Now that things are somewhat back to normal, I have been cooking and baking again. My Mom gave me this recipe for an Easy Lemon Cake and it really is easy (and delicious).

Here is the recipe:

Easy Lemon Cake

1 boxed lemon cake mix
4 eggs
1 21 oz. can of lemon pie filling (make sure it is lemon pie filling)

Mix all and put in a greased 9 X 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 30 minutes or until cake is done.

For the frosting:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup softened butter
1 box powdered sugar
3 tsp. vanilla

Mix all and frost the cake after it has cooled.

You could add anything to the top of this cake. I put grated nuts on mine and when my Mom made it, she put shredded coconut; both were delicious! Let me know if you give this a try.

We're Home

After a week of evacuation from the fire, we are finally home, safe and sound. All of the grass, trees and bushes were destroyed by fire, and we have some smoke damage on our fence, but other than that, everything is intact. The house smelled of smoke, but I put bowls of white vinegar around and it absorbed the odor. We have found 2 rattlesnakes, one near the garage and the other in the backyard. There are tons of lizards, beetles and other insects all around. Guess the critters are trying to find places to go too.

Our whole area looks like a wasteland; it is so sad. Sadder still to think that all of this was caused by human hands. It is amazing how our community pulled together through this, though. It makes me very proud to be a resident here.

Here is our backyard as it looked a week ago (see the smoke/fire in the mountains behind us):

And here it is now:

Front of our house:

How close it came:

A green agave in the midst of the black:

Here is what it looked like out my kitchen window last Tuesday:

The fire did not even reach our neighborhood that day; that happened on Thursday. I can only imagine what it looked like then.

I am so thankful to be back in our home. We are very lucky and blessed, as there are people who literally lost everything they owned. Now it's time to help our new community as best we can. It's the least we can do.

Evacuated due to Monument Fire

Hello all... just wanted to post while I had the chance to tell you that we have been evacuated from our new home due to the Monument Fire here in Arizona. Today is Day 6 of evacuation... we left Tuesday afternoon and came back briefly on Wednesday, only to be told to evacuate again. We are now at our old house in Tucson sleeping on an air mattress that we fortunately remembered to grab on our way out. Thank goodness our renters are not moving in until July so we had a place to go to; many others not as fortunate.

Mr. S. and the cats and I are all okay. By far this has been the most stressful week of our lives.


The fire went through our neighborhood on Thursday and did some damage, but thankfully our house is still standing. We don't know when we will be allowed to return.

I will post photos once we are back in the house and things settle down. Please pray  that they get this fire more contained soon.

I Survived the Move!!

Hello everyone. We are in the new house now, and I just got my Internet hooked up yesterday. I am still surrounded by boxes, and will be for a while longer, as Mr. S. still has several rooms to finish painting (including my craft room).

This morning as I sat outside on our back patio with my coffee, I watched the birds come to our feeder and enjoyed the mountain view and realized how lucky and blessed we are to live here.

It is a big change from where we lived before ... so far we have seen coyotes, roadrunners, hawks, quail, bunnies and many different bird species, and we haven't even been here a full week yet!

Once I get more organized, I will post some pictures so you can see the house. Hope everyone is doing well.

This and That

Hello everyone. Hope you are having a great week so far. As you can imagine, mine has been quite busy already. Saturday I drove to the new house to help Mr. S. paint (still a lot to be done); then Sunday I drove up to Phoenix to help my sister move. I ended up cleaning the tile floors in her new condo with my Hoover Floormate (LOVE that thing). She had already scrubbed them 5 times and they still wouldn't come clean... Floormate to the rescue. You wouldn't have believed the gross, dirty water that was left in the tank when I was finished. Whoever lived there before her must have never cleaned the floors; it was disgusting!

Thanks for all your suggestions for my laundry area. I was at Target last week and they have a whole section of Closetmaid storage items back in the Home Storage section. I ended up purchasing 2 small cabinets that I can put next to the washer and dryer, and a five-tier shelf for the area across from it. I decided I needed the storage more than I needed a place to fold clothes. I may change my mind later, but that is the plan for now.

My next decorating dilemma is plant shelves. They are all over the new house. There is one in the foyer, one in every bedroom and one in the family room. The one in our master bedroom spans the length of one entire wall, and it's a long wall:

I don't want to put too much stuff up there and make it look really crowded and junky, but I also don't want to just leave it empty either.  Any suggestions for this area would be much appreciated!

The big move is scheduled for the 28th, but I have another important day coming up next week. Monday the 23rd is the day I turn the big FIVE OH!! That's right, I am turning 50! I can hardly believe it, it just does not seem possible. In honor of that auspicious occasion, I will be doing a giveaway. Stay tuned for details to come.

The rest of this week will be another busy week. I've got more packing to do, and I may drive over to the new house for a couple of days to help Mr. S. with more painting. The poor guy has been at the new house for over a week sleeping on an air mattress, and when he isn't at work, he is painting! He really wants to get it all done before the furniture gets moved in, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that he makes it.

Have a great week everyone.

Help Wanted

I need your help/suggestions with an area in our new home. My laundry room (if you can even call it that) is a very strange area. It is between the kitchen and the garage, and instead of having a long space with shelves above it (what you typically see) it is two small spaces on either side of the door.

Here is what it looks like:

As you come in from the garage, this is the space to your right. Washer and dryer go here (obviously they have to stack on top of one another). To your left is this space:

That's it.. that's all I have! Hence my dilemma. Each space measures 46 1/2 inches in width and has about 30-32 inches in depth.

My new washer/dryer are about 27 inches wide, so I will have some space to the right of them for storage.

I need some help figuring out what to do with this space to make maximum use out of it. I was thinking that next to the washer/dryer Mr. S. could make me some shelves that could go on that side wall so at least I would have a place for laundry soap, etc.

My first thought for the space to the left of the door was to get something like this:

That would give me plenty of storage, but where am I going to fold my clothes at?
Any suggestions or ideas you might have for this space would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much!