Calling All English Geeks- Just for Fun!

The word 'set' has the most definitions among all the English language words in existence.

The one-syllable word in the English language which is the longest is 'screeched'.

R, S, T, L, N and E are the most common letters in the English language used.

E is the most used letter while Q is the least used of all the letters in the English alphabet.

'Town' is the oldest word in the English language.

'Uncopyrightable' is the only word in the English language that doesn't repeat any letter and is 15 letters long.

'Angry' and 'hungry' are the only two meaningful words that end with 'gry'

'Bookkeeper' is the only word which has 3 consecutive double letters.

There are 6 words in the English language which have the letter combination 'uu':

1. 'muumuu' (which means a long loose-fitting dress)
2. 'vacuum'
3. 'continuum'
4. duumvirate' (which is an alliance between 2 equally powerful political or military leaders)
5. 'duumvir' (which is a rule by two people)
6. 'residuum' (which means remainder).

Popcorn in a Brown Paper Bag

$22.65 for 12 boxes with 3 packets per box (source Amazon) — that’s an eye-popping $3.53 per pound!
Sure, you may think you’re paying all that delicious cash for a magic metal-lined bag that pops better kernels and cooks your corn more evenly. But think again. I can do the same popping magic trick with a cheapo plain brown paper bag. And at a tasty 50 cents per pound, plain popcorn kernels bought in bulk cost FAR less than the packaged stuff.
Now let me pop the big question: have you ever recycled your leftover microwave popcorn bags? I cringe to think how much of this product graces our landfills, all in the name of snack food. But no fear, by switching your home movie snacking habit using this frugal trick, you can compost or recycle your used brown paper bags and create no waste.
Speaking of waist, do you know how many calories are contained in those popcorn flavor packets? What about the ingredients? Here’s the ingredient list from the Act II popcorn page on Amazon. Note: I couldn’t find this information on the company’s website.

Act II Popcorn Ingredients: Popcorn, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Annatto Color. Contains: Fish, Milk

Fish? Milk? In my popcorn? Um, no thanks. I’ll skip the hydrogenated oil, fish, and milk additives in my snacks by sticking to my homemade popcorn version. Here’s how to make Microwave Popcorn in a Brown Paper Bag:

Step One: Get a brown paper bag

This is ridiculously easy, internet people. Just head on over to your local grocery store and pickup a package of no name flat-bottomed brown paper lunch bags.
I nabbed a package of 100 brown bags for around $2, on sale.

Step Two: Bag your popcorn

Add a 1/2 cup scoop of bulk popcorn kernels to your brown paper bag.
Fold the bag over twice. Don’t use staples to secure the bag — this might spark in your microwave.
This is so exciting. I’m popping with excitement.

Step Three: Pop in microwave

Stick the popcorn bag into your microwave. I set mine for 3 minutes on high.

Popping Tip: Stop the microwave when the popping slows to one to two pops per second. You don’t want to burn your tasty snack.

Now THAT'S Hand Dancing!

Children’s Emotions Stabilized by Simple Dietary Changes

By Mary Lynch, Kindergarten Teacher

I am writing to share with you a few of the amazing changes we have seen in our family since we started changing our diets and learning the truth about what is and is not healthy.

We made little changes at first; adding coconut oil, fermented cod liver oil, and raw milk and butter to our diets.  Within a week and after many hours of research, we decided to eliminate refined sugar and processed foods and to reduce grain consumption as well.

We noticed immediate and dramatic changes in our daughters’ mood and behavior!

My eldest has always struggled with fear and anxiety issues.  For years we have worked with prayer and behavior modification and we have certainly seen improvement.  But one week into our diet changes we saw the largest jump in confidence that we have ever seen.  All of a sudden, she approaches challenges calmly and logically, rather than immediately shutting down or freaking out.  She has attempted – and enjoyed – activities she would not even consider in the past.  She is embracing life rather than hiding from it!

My youngest daughter is not afraid of anything.  We call her our “adventure girl.”  However, this passion for life sometimes leads to what I like to call an “excess of emotion.”  She’s nine years-old and was having all-out temper tantrums at least once a month.  Small discouragements became huge problems.  Her emotions were controlling her, rather than her controlling her emotions.  Sarah, as soon as we changed our diet she became a calm, content child.  She now takes disappointments in stride and can control her emotions, actions and words easily.  Yes, she cries sometimes.  But she no longer screams and throws things while she does it.  She even noticed right away, saying, “If I don’t want to be angry I can just take a deep breath!”  She even surprised herself!

It was my husband who noticed the change first.  He came home from work at 5:30, as usual, but was not met with the usual homecoming chaos.  He expected me to be stressed about preparing dinner, tidying the dining room and overseeing homework.  He expected the girls to be whining about homework and dinner and chores.  (I’m embarrassed to admit this was typical at our house.)  Instead, he found silence.  We were still getting things done – cooking and chores and homework – but instead of coming into an atmosphere of tension, he came home to a house filled with peace.

Thank you, Sarah, for your passion for healthful eating and for sharing what you have learned on your blog.  I just had to let you know how it has changed not just our diets, but our attitudes and relationships, too.



Mary Lynch is a Kindergarten teacher in Tampa, FL.   
She has been following the principles of Traditional Cooking and Eating for only a couple of months and has already experienced life changing results in her home.    She is one of the few teachers I have met who knows how to throw a truly heathy party that is still fun and delicious for the children in her class.



Picture Credit

reported by Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist on January 30, 2011

in Healthy Living,Healthy Pregnancy, Baby & Child

 

How to Stitch . . .

THE BASICS

* casting on with two needlescasting on with two needles
* knit stitchknit stitch
* purl stitchpurl stitch
* stocking stitchstocking stitch
* starting a new ballstarting a new ball
* casting offcasting off
* weaving in endsweaving in ends
* dropped a stitch?dropped a stitch?

MORE KNITTING STITCHES

* casting on with one needlecasting on with one needle
* cable cast oncable cast on
* decreasingdecreasing
* increasingincreasing
* rib stitchrib stitch
* loop stichloop stich
* ladder stitchladder stitch
* moss stitchmoss stitch
* bobble stitchbobble stitch
* intarsiaintarsia
* fair-isle/carry the yarn overfair-isle/carry the yarn over
* triple yarn overtriple yarn over
* neckline and strapsneckline and straps
* fringues fringues
* buttonholebuttonhole
* joining your workjoining your work
* customisationcustomisation
* make a braidmake a braid
* circular knittingcircular knitting
* make one ball of yarn with 2 + ballsmake one ball of yarn with 2 + balls



http://woolandthegang.com/en/videos/index

The 100 Up

Peanut Butter Cup & Candy Corn Turkeys (plus a Cookie Pilgrim Hat)

This is a fun and yummy Thanksgving project from Our Best Bites. 

I have copied and pasted in case the post is no longer available. Today is actually June 8, 2011 so I am post dating for Thanksgiving 2011.  I also plan to PIN IT @ Pinterest  :-)

Between now and then I want to kitchen test these and take my own pictures.

 

If you are reading this post it is most probably because of one of he following reasons:

1) I died (I really hope thatis not the case. If it is, please pray hard for me!!)

2) I moved far, far away and do not have Internet access.

3) OR - Sara's post is no longer available and I did not kitchen test so I am using this as a fall-back.  :-)

 These little turkeys are perfect for school parties, family nights, and Thanksgiving place holders.  At the end there’s an easy pilgrim hat as well.  I don’t really know where this idea originated -- I made the turkeys as a kid as I’m sure many of you have and I’ve seen the little hats all over the internet.  Both are Turkey Day classics, so go have some fun!

Ingredients/Supplies

Double Stuff Oreo Cookies
Candy Corn
Whoppers
Peanut butter Cups
Chocolate frosting
Yellow Frosting
Optional: Red frosting
Optional: black sprinkles for eyes

*For these kinds of things I love to use the little pre-filled tubes of colored frosting you can buy in the baking isle.  The chocolate is easy to make, and homemade actually works a little better because you can make it stiff.  However for the colored details like yellow and red, these little tubes are great.  It doesn’t really matter what they taste like and they last forever (which is both cool and disturbing at the same time.) I’m using store-bought tubes for everything here purely for convenience- works great!

First step:  Grab a cookie.  You don’t have to put frosting in there, but I like to because it holds in the candy corn a little better. Just give it a little squeeze of chocolate.

Then stuff in your candy-corn.  If you’re in some sort of candy corn shortage, you can cut off the white tips to use later for your beaks.  I think the candy corn sticks in better with the tip so I leave it on.  Go ahead and do all of the cookies through this step.

Next put a dab of frosting on the opposite end of the cookie and secure it to the “base” cookie.  It helps to place them next to a wall as they dry so they stay put.

While those are drying, unwrap your PB cups.  Take a sharp knife and cut a sliver off of one end.  (I don’t need to tell you what to do with the sliver, do I?)  It helps to gently cut in a sawing motion so you don’t break the PB cup.  (Although I wouldn’t have to tell you what to do with a broken one either, would I?)  Cut it from the bottom like I show here:

Once those are ready, flip your cookies over, but you may find it’s easy to keep them next to the wall.  My frosting was a bit soft, so they needed the extra support.
Place a dab of frosting on the pb cup, and place it on the cookie like so:

Now those little guys will need heads, so glue a whopper on there with frosting as well. I put frosting on the side of the whopper that hits both the cookie and the PB cup.  Wouldn’t want a turkey running around with its head cut off, would we??

While they’re still laying there, use a dab of frosting (I use yellow) and glue on the white tip of a candy corn for a beak.  Put two yellow dots on for eyes, and for the black spots in the eyes you can use a dab of chocolate frosting, or a mini chocolate chip, or a little sprinkle like I’ve used.  A sprinkle is really the perfect size if you have them.

Once the beak stays put you can flip them over and draw on some little yellow feet.  If you have red frosting too (usually comes in a set with the tube of yellow) you can add a little wattle.

And there you go, cute as can be!

These make really cute place card holders too, for either a kid, or adult table!  I just made little name tags with Sara's Silhouette and then I popped them in there on toothpicks.
How cute is my little turkey family?

Stick one on each plate and everyone will say “Awwwwwwe….” If you have kids old enough to handle making them, it’s a fun project for them to be in charge of.

They’re also darling combined with pilgrim hats.

Those are just marshmallows dipped in chocolate and placed on a fudge strip cookie.  Use yellow frosting to make the buckle.  (Pretty much the Thanksgiving version of the Halloween witch hats seen in this post!)