Recipe Storage and Hair Gel

Today went better than yesterday. Thank goodness. I could do without drama for a few nights. April actually cleaned her room - after some major drama and tantrum throwing. Her reward (for cleaning, not for the tantrum!) was that she got to try on her Halloween costume. She always wants to be something pretty. For 2 years she was a ballerina and last year she was a bride. My husband is very disappointed by this. He tries to convince her to be something scary, like a witch or ghost, but she absolutely refuses. She wants to be pretty, not ugly. I can only imagine how many times I'll have to convince her that she cannot wear that to the store, school, or church.

Tomorrow April has school pictures. Of course this past weekend we put pink and blue streaks in her hair from a "Streak 'n Style" she got for Christmas. We still cannot get the pink out. I really hope it won't show in her pictures!

I have made a decision. I am going to sit down this weekend and plan the menu for the rest of the month. This is something I NEED to do. I'm tired of coming home from work to have the following conversation with my husband:

Me: So what do you want for supper?

Him: I don't know. What sounds good to you?

Me: I don't know. What are you hungry for?

Him: (shrugs) Idon'tknow. (He really says it like that - all ran together)

Me: Well, I can fix tuna and noodles, or a frozen pizza, or we could have eggs and toast....

Him: None of that sounds good. We could just have bologna.

Me: I am not eating bologna. You can, I'm refuse. (And then I start to fix something - which typically is whatever is the easiest and quickest out of the things I've named.)

So my theory is that if I plan for the rest of this month what we are having I will not have to have this conversation for at least another 30 days. Because after 8 years of having this conversation I am very tired of it and could probably choke someone if it occurs again. So to avoid jail time and a criminal record I will plan a menu this weekend.

Okay, so I promised 2 tips for tonight. The first tip is a simple one. I am a collector of recipes. I find a recipe in a magazine or newspaper and I cut it out and put it in a catch-all drawer in my kitchen. And there it sits. I had a the better part of a drawer full of recipes, some of them even duplicates! I purchased a 3 ring binder and trimmed the recipes down. Anything that I thought I probably wouldn't end up making I tossed. The other recipes were glued down onto some plain copy paper that I punched holes into so they would fit into the 3 ring binder. The binder I got free at Staples during their Back-to-School sales, the paper I had for probably 5 years sitting around (I don't print much cause our printer is a pile of junk). As I make the recipes I jot notes so I know if it was good or not, or if it was missing something or needed more seasoning. If something is horrible I will glue over it - or if other things on the page are horrible I will just toss the sheet of paper away.

For the second tip? Did you know that you can make your own hair gel? All you do is add 1/2-1 tsp of unflavored gelatin to 1 cup of warm water. Start with 1/2 tsp of the gelatin. Add it to the water till it dissolves. Continue to add gelatin slowly till it is thickened to the consistency that you like. You can also add a couple drops of essential oil (lavendar, vanilla, etc) if you want it to have a scent. It will last longest if store in the fridge. You can store it in an old, empty gel or shampoo dispenser if you have one.