Tuesday, February 21, 2012

My recipe for Potato Soup


6-8 medium sized potatoes (peeled and diced)
2 cups heavy whipping cream*
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon black pepper

Cheddar Cheese (grated for serving on top of soup)
Bacon (cooked and crumbled)

DIRECTIONS

Dissolve bouillon cubes in 5 cups of water. Add potatoes, heavy whipping cream, and salt to water. Cook for 10 minutes at a rolling boil or until potatoes have just started to soften. Remove potatoes from the water/cream mixture and set aside. Add cream cheese, onion powder and black pepper. Whisk until cream cheese is completely melted and blended in smoothly. Add potatoes back to the water/cream base. Stir occasionally. Cook until potatoes are soft.

Garnish with cheese and bacon, if desired.

* Half & Half, Whole Milk or even 2% Milk can be substituted for the heavy whipping cream to reduce the calories. You may find you need to thicken the soup, depending on your preference.

** If you like your soup a little thicker, you can stir together a half cup of water and about 2 tablespoons of flour and add that mixture to the soup to thicken when you add the cream cheese.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Make your own Laundry Detergent

After researching (and testing) several homemade laundry detergent recipes - I went to tweaking away at the recipe until I was happy with the final results. It's inexpensive to make and only takes a few minutes to put together. Not to mention I think our clothes are actually cleaner.

So here goes:
1 bar of soap finely grated (I use Ivory)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (On the laundry soap isle)
1 Cup Baking Soda

Mix it all together and store in an air tight container. Use 2 Tablespoons per load. (More is not better) This is a non sudsing recipe so you won't see bubbles when you wash but you will see lots of dirt and grime in the water. :)

I use the bounce dryer bar in my dryer since this recipe will basically leave your clothes totally unscented. :) If you need to brighten your whites just add white vinegar to your clothes in the wash cycle. ~Enjoy!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Some times you need to stand still and hear the silence...

It's been a mad, crazy week here - trying to complete all orders in house. The candle shop looks like a war zone, I have laundry stacked to the ceiling in my house, I have run out of clean clothes & will be sporting the scrubs today, my cats are out of their favorite food and I must go to the grocery store at some point. I still need to do about half of my Christmas shopping but at some point I have to figure out who I am buying what for. I think my stress level is through the roof but the end is in sight. Just a typical busy season for me.


As crazy as everything is for me this time of year, I would not trade this madness for anything. God is good, I am blessed, yes, I know it. I have decided to "pay it forward" and see if I can help raise some money for a group of local photographers who are raising money to build wells all around the world. Build wells so people can have clean water to drink  - a simple thing I take for granted and I suspect you do too. I have listed a Rain candle in my Etsy store and will donate it's proceeds to  Charity Water  - Buggy Town Lenses.  I realize the donation my few candle sales will not change the world by itself, but if I put my little bit with your little bit - soon our little bits will become a lot of bit and eventually we will make a change and make the world a little brighter for someone. To find our more visit their website:
http://mycharitywater.org/p/campaign?campaign_id=2347 


I think it's a win win situation for all involved - you get a great candle and remember "BuggyTown Candles make great gifts!". Charity Water will get a donation. We will all have taken a moment to pause in the crazy madness of this holiday season and do a little good for some one else. 




Hi ho Hi ho it's back to the candle shop I go. The last of the 2009 fundraisers go out today (YAY!) and we should be caught up on all in house orders by Monday (after we have a soap & lotion party this weekend - woohooo fun!) I hope you have a fabulous day and remember to smile - it makes people wonder what you are up to!!!


Monday, December 7, 2009

It sure is Monday...

Sorting thru the stacks of paperwork, trying to get organized, trying to plan this day, this week, trying to figure out how to once again pull the rabbit out of the hat. This is the ugly part of the busy season where every day is a constant rush to beat the mailman, have the boxes ready for the UPS man, and get out of stock items poured for orders that will ship tomorrow. I have just come from the candle shoppe, the heaters and wax melters are all on. I did make a mental note as I left that 2 fundraisers have to be completed today - both will be delivered tomorrow. Yehaw!!!

I had a great weekend with my cowboy! We went to his folks on Sunday afternoon to have my birthday lunch and they gave me four beautiful sweet william plants. ( I LOVE flowers!!!). The food was scrumptious and the company was good. Yes, my actual birthday is in the middle of July and yes, they celebrated it with me yesterday... long story. I appreciate them doing it and it did brighten my weekend. Gordon and I were able to get some Christmas shopping done while we were down in Macon. The stores were crowded and most shoppers seemed in good spirits - thank goodness!  I hate rude grumpy people!

My daughter comes home from Georgia Southern this week, to stay for a while. She plans to transfer to a local college. Having her here for the Thanksgiving made me realize just how much I miss having her around. I am excited to have her closer to me for a while and but pray for her often in hopes she will find her wings and figure out what it is she wants to do in life.

I still need to decorate the house for Christmas and becoming more frustrated by the day. I decided to have a live tree this year (hubby prefers them) which meant we had to buy new lights for the tree. Four stores later we are still struggling to find enough boxes of the LED lights that "match". We just discovered LED lights this year, supposedly them are much more energy efficient. We have also discovered that folks in our area prefer the "Warm" colored clear lights. So we now have 3 boxes of "warm" and 4 boxes of "cool" lights... SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?! What happened to the choice of just clear or colored??? I guess we will make yet another trip to the big city in the next few days to try to get all cool or all warm... so not what I need to spending time doing right now.

Off to the candle shop I am headed. Supposedly I have several elves who will be helping today. (YAY!) I do love this time of year! Sugar Plum Fairies here I come!!!!!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Why is there never anything good on TV on friday night?

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Why is it that you can never find anything "good" to watch on TV on Friday nights? Is there some unwritten rule I don't know about that states if you are stuck at home on Friday you shall be punished with "nothing good" to watch on TV? Is this so we are reminded that we are growing older and that we have no social life? Or remind us that we are just too tired to have a social life?

What ever the reason it stinks - so I guess I watch yet another episode of "Say Yes to The Dress"! Yep, women buying dresses which most can not afford and trying to get their groups of slightly dysfunctional family members & friends to all agree on "one perfect wedding dress" - mind you these are the same group of "family members & friends" that have never agreed on anything else - EVER! Yet some how in the span of just a mere 30 minutes of magical TV time they do. Mildly entertaining at best.. but what can you do.. it's Friday night and you got nothing else to do! :)

Today I join the ranks of the "bloggers of the internet"

Is a good thing? Well, that is yet to be determined. All my internet marketing articles tell me I MUST have a blog if I am to be successful on the internet. They assure that even though I think what I have to say 99.9% of the population doesn't care about... they assure me I am wrong... so here goes nothing. LOL

If nothing else I hope I can entertain you with my pointless ramblings and insane thoughts... as the candle burns...