Kitty Litter–Freshness With Every Step

Our front and back door entrances are like one long sheet of ice.  I didn’t want anyone coming to our home and taking the chance of falling………and…….at my age, I look at that ice and think hips…. broken hips.  I couldn’t think of any way to melt the ice so my next option was kitty litter for traction.  I went to the store and purchased the cheapest sack I could find.

When I got home, I sprinkled it all along the path leading up to our back door.

Today, however, I used the front door to go out to the mailbox and that path is literally ice…..a nice thick layer of ice.  You guessed it, out came the kitty litter.

It works really well for traction but every time I step out the door I’m reminded of this commercial.  Just click on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-zm5sdQ99k&feature=youtu.be

Yep….freshens with every step.  Although the kitty litter I purchased isn’t the same brand as the one in the video, it definitely has a real flowery smell.  When I scatter it along the paths, the flowery scent is pretty strong.  Thank goodness the smell dissipates after time. 

Grayson’s (Not So) Happy Birthday

OhMyGoodness…………..what a weekend it was.  My husband and I headed across the dessert on Friday because he had a dental appointment in Rexburg and it was mine and my grandsons birthdays.  My grandson was born on the 24th, I was born on the 23rd, and his late grandmother was born on the 22nd.  After my husbands dental appointment, we headed to our daughters home where we were planning on going out to dinner, staying the night and then celebrating Grayson’s 1st birthday the following day. 
Grayson had the stomach flu on Wednesday but had not thrown up for two days.  He was acting fine but he would not eat or drink anything and he went approximately 12 hours without wetting a diaper.  On Saturday morning a little before 8am, Grayson drank a few ounces from his bottle but threw it up.  My daughter and her husband decided to take him to emergency care to see if he was dehydrated and to see what else might be going on.  The emergency care place tried to get an I.V. in him but was unable to do so, so they called the hospital to let them know that my daughter and her husband would be bringing him there.  They had a difficult time getting an I.V. in him at the hospital too, but eventually they got one in.  I had a very difficult time being in the room so I left and roamed the halls for awhile.  Wow……I’m thinking this was as hard on me as it was my daughter.  After getting the I.V. in, my son-in-law was sitting by Grayson and playing “White Noise” on his phone to calm him.

To protect the I.V. line, they put a temporary thing on his arm to hold it in place and to keep him from bending his arm.  His blood sugar was also low so per doctor request, my daughter gave him a bottle to see if we could get it up.  Yeah, he did take his bottle….

Each time they took a test for his blood sugar, they had to prick his little fingers……poor little guy, he was not happy with his hospital experiences.  He was so exhausted, that he was finally able to fall asleep for approximately an hour or so.


The doctor must have been reading his charts because when he came in the room, he said, “Ah, I didn’t know it was his birthday”, and he left.  He came back a few minutes later with a cowboy blanket, a yellow bear, and a little wooden car.  He said to give them to Grayson for his birthday and told us that some women made the blanket and some other man had made the car.  What a sweet gesture!

In the following picture, Grayson’s daddy was holding him while his little cousins from Texas sang Happy Birthday to him.  They were so cute.

After what seemed like hours…it actually was, they decided to keep Grayson overnight to monitor him because he had lots of diarrhea diapers and they wanted to get his blood sugar up.  They just kept him on the bed he had been using and wheeled him up to the infant/children's floor.  He liked the ride there and did not cry at all during his ride.


When he got to his room, it was a different story….he cried a lot, even with his binky in.

After they were through getting him all set up, my daughter gave him another bottle.

After he finished his bottle, he looked right over at grandma…that would be ME…and gave me the biggest smile.  Ahhh-h-h-h, melt my HEART……..!!!

A little after 3pm, my husband and I decided we’d better leave so we could get home before dark.  To reach our home area in the evening is taking chances of hitting deer on the road.  Been there, done that a few times.  Just the week before, just before dark, a deer came running on the highway, running along side our car for a ways before darting in front of us.  We don’t know how we missed hitting him, but we did………..Yeah!
It was hard, very hard, leaving our little grandson but he was in great hands and our daughter and her husband were spending the night in his room.
The doctor released him Sunday evening to go home.  He cried most of the day yesterday but today, January 28th, he has been the best little boy.  But, as luck would have it, my daughter now has the flu.  She said that Grayson has been so good today that she was able to lay on the couch while he played in the living room.  Tender Mercies, for sure.

Choo, Choo, Choose the Right - Train

I found a wonderful blog HERE that has free handouts for Primary and Seminary lessons. 
I was asked to substitute for a CTR class this past Sunday.  I was called Friday night and I didn’t have the manual so I got on line at LDS.org to print off the lesson.  With doing this, I did not have the pictures or handouts that are in the regular manual so I hit the internet.  That is where I came across “fashionsbylynda.com/blog” that contained the cutest train.  It was a free download and I just loved the train idea but it didn’t quite fit the theme of the lesson I was giving.  I used what she had and changed it up a bit (hope this was OK since it was a free download) to fit the lesson topic I was teaching.  I got the CTR (Choose The Right) graphic for the train smoke stack from Free LDS Printables, Handouts, and Clip Art. 
The little ones loved their CTR trains.  We made a game out of it by saying….Choo, Choo, Choose The Right, repeatedly, as we chugged our way around the classroom.  After we were chugged out, I gave them crayons and had them draw a picture on the bottom of their papers depicting something that made them happy when they obeyed the commandments to choose the right. 
Once again, I love it when talented people share their ideas that help in bringing joy to others.

Here is the train I got off of her blog….So Cute:

And here is the train I doctored up to fit the topic of my Sunday lesson:

Brown Sugar Burns

I didn’t see that one coming.  For years I have kept my brown sugar in the freezer….It keeps it from going hard (other than freezer hard).  When I need it for a recipe, I zap it in the microwave for a few seconds till it gets soft enough to scoop out enough for the recipe I am using. 
A few days ago I was making some brown sugar oatmeal pancakes (see bottom of blog for recipe) for breakfast and as usual, I zapped the brown sugar but it wasn’t quite soft enough so I zapped it again.  I wasn’t paying attention and  when I reached in the microwave and gave it a squeeze………OUCH!  My fingers plunged into the bag and browned sugar gushed out.  It felt live a flowing river of lava running over my fingers.  By the time I’d gotten over to the sink, the brown sugar had hardened on my finger and I had to peel it off.  Ooey, Wooey, Ouch, Ouch, Ouch.  After peeling off the hardened sugar, I quickly turned on some cold water and let it run over my fingers for quite awhile trying to get the heat out of my finger.




You can see in the picture below how much my pointer finger had swollen and blistered compared to the pointer finger on my left hand.  My other finger, next to my pointer finger only blistered a little.

These pictures were taken later in the afternoon.

Other than the immediate pain and shortly after, I haven’t had any pain.  I’m giving credit to the fact that after running my fingers under cold water, I put some miracle gel, peppermint & lavender essential oils on my fingers and have continued to do so for the past couple of days.  Two days later and my fingers are looking pretty good. 

I just wanted to post about this in case there are others out there that do what I do with their brown sugar.  I will continue to keep my brown sugar in the freezer but I’ll be a bit more wise in the thawing process.

These Brown Sugar Oatmeal Pancakes are so delicious.  They are a family special that everyone likes.

Banana Bread & Only 3 Ingredients

I found a recipe (HERE) for a delicious banana bread containing only 3 ingredients.  That’s right, only 3 ingredients.  I made it using 4 bananas and put all the batter in one loaf pan.  It was super good and because I cooked all the batter in one loaf pan, it took approximately 50-55 minutes to bake.  I think the only thing that would have made it better was if I would have added some chopped nut.  Chopped walnuts added to any recipe is OK in my book (if you can afford the little jewels).

It was so good that the following week I bought more bananas so I could make another loaf.  This time, I added 1 cup coconut to the batter….mmmmm, love coconut.  I cut off a few slices when it was hot because I wanted to get pictures so I could blog about it……. Ok…….because I couldn’t wait and I wanted to eat a piece.  You can even see all the tender bits of coconut in the pictures I took.

I don’t know what happened, maybe the bananas were a lot bigger (making the batter too moist) than the first loaf I made, or the coconut, or I didn’t cook it long enough, or what, but when the loaf had cooled and I tried to slice it, it fell all to pieces, literally.  I could not even get one slice that looked descent.  Maybe I should have tried slicing it with my electric knife (just thought of that).  Anyways, the bits of blob are super moist and the flavor is great.  I’m not giving up on this one.  Next time maybe I’ll just try using 3 bananas, but I need to keep the coconut in the recipe.  And….maybe I’ll throw in a few nuts.

Bathroom Mirror Minus The Fog

I read on a blog somewhere that if you take a bar of soap and rub it on your bathroom mirror it will keep it from fogging up.  You don’t even need to cover the entire mirror…..just swirl that soap around a bit and your good to go.  If the soap bar is too dry, just get it a little damp then try again.  Now, get a clean cloth and buff your mirror off really good so none of the soap streaks show. 

Yesterday after taking my shower I was excited when I stepped out and realized that the one (I only did one first to see if it would work) mirror I had soaped was clear and the others (our medicine cabinet has 4 mirrors) were totally fogged up.  Wahoo……I ran to get my camera so I could show how neat this was and that it really works. 
As I was standing in front of the mirror snapping photos and then went to preview my photos, what a shocker.  I was so excited about the clear mirror verses the foggy mirror that I hadn’t even thought about or even noticed my body reflection in the mirror.  Mind you, since one side was clear and the other side was totally foggy the pictures only reflected 1/2 a naked body, but still, not a worthy picture to post – Ha! 
Anyways, this morning I had a plan and I stood in different places around the bathroom to see if I could get some photos without standing directly in front of the mirror.  I could see that this was possible so once again after getting out of the shower, the one mirror was still clear with a little moisture, but not too bad.  Snap, snap…..I had my photos.  I don’t know how long the soap will last but I know it lasts for at least two showers.

The photo below, showing all four mirrors really lets you see the difference. 

It’s a CLEAR choice for me……….I will be soaping my mirrors more often.

Heavy Frost

Yesterday around 4:30pm, the fog started rolling in.  It didn’t come in slowly but it came very quickly.  And this morning, we woke up to this.  It was still pretty foggy and everything was covered in frost.  It early (around 8am) when I took these pictures so they aren’t the best but just in the short time I was outside, my hands got really cold.  Burr-r-r-r-rrr! Foggy, frosty, 4 degree weather is not what I call… have a nice day.

Icy Mail Trail

Our back door is hard packed snow/ice and very slick. I cleared a portion of the mat off using a hammer.  I put some ice-melt on it but all it did was make little holes in the ice exactly where it was sprinkled.

Since our front door that I normally use to go to the mailbox has been blocked off because of regular snow and all the snow sliding off the roof, I’ve been taking the long route around (using back door) to get our mail.  I decided today that I enjoy my hips (did I just say that) and decided I didn’t want to fall so I set to work clearing a path to our mailbox using the front door.  The hardest part was trying to clear away the snow just off the porch area where all the snow had slid off the roof, compacting it and making it crusty and hard. After finally getting through that part, the rest was fairly easy going.

I was not able to get the ice/snow off of the first step and the ground next to the first step but at least it is easy to get over.  Better than trying to go around from the back on the hard, slick snow/ice.

Yep, just went out and got the mail and it was much easier walking on the snowy, grass path than using the back door and walking around on the hard-packed snow/ice.

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Well, the touch of OCD in me just couldn’t let me leave it the way it was so I just went back out the front door and poured some very hot water over the snow/ice hump.  It melted off quite a bit of it and got me close enough to the step that I could use the hammer to chisel off and break away a lot more.  It was still tough going and I didn’t want to crack or break the cement step with the hammer.  I thought about pouring more hot water on the rest but it was making more ice.  It is also getting late in the afternoon so I decided to leave what was left for another day.

I am happy, however, that we are getting the snow.  Moisture, we really need the moisture/snow/rain.  Things have been getting a bit dry in our little valley these past few years.