Like Something From Your Worst Nightmares...

It's the end of the day. You finally give up on getting anything else done and decide you will allow yourself a mere 15-20 minutes of personal time to just relax before bed. Mmm....a bowl of popcorn sounds good. You pop a nice big bowl of fluffy popcorn and grab a glass of ice water and head to bed. (Hey, if you're careful there won't be any popcorn in the bed!) You plan on reading a new book while munching away and tuning out the rest of life.

You saunter over to the bed and stop dead in your tracks.

What..

On earth...

Is THAT?!?!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I swear thing was just about to jump onto my pillow and I caught in in the act! It just sat there trying to pretend it wasn't there until we pounced on it.

Needless to say, it was NOT a relaxing evening. Instead of cozying up with my bowl of popcorn and a book, The Professor and I chased a monster sized cockroach around the room and finally got it flushed. Then I dumped bleach down the toilet just to be safe.

It's one of those days when I really want to move back to my old house. Sigh...

No cockroaches here!

And grass...oh how I miss grass and flowers. Sniff. Sniff.

Oh well. Here in the Mojave desert we have lots of...uh...dirt. And uh, interesting dust/wind storms! That's very exciting.

Actually, if you ever want to come visit the desert out here you can go to a very interesting geological feature we have. I mean, there's Death Valley of course, but what you really ought to see is

The Trona Pinnacles!

We recently visited this area and it's really neat. You can read lots more about it HERE.

So, all in all, I guess we'll just have to put up with overly-friendly cockroaches and be happy with where we're at.

How to Make Washing Soda- Redux

So, I wrote a while back about how to make your own washing soda, and that post has gotten quite a few hits thanks to Pinterest I suppose. It was kind of a dorky post written very late at night. I know it was a bit confusing, so I'm re-writing it to make it more clear for anyone who wants to try it.

WHY make your own washing soda?

• Generally people want it for a homemade laundry detergent recipe. 

• Because many people, like me, have a hard time finding it at the store.

• Because you can make it with plain old baking soda which pretty much everyone has access to, possibly even in bulk, and for cheap!

• Because it may be cheaper for you to buy baking soda and change it than to buy washing soda. (Do the math! Don't forget the cost of running your oven.)

• Because it helps clean your laundry in a slightly different way than baking soda does. Baking soda is  an odor neutralizer and fabric softener. Washing soda softens your water so the hard water agents don't interfere with your detergent's effectiveness. It also removes grease and other tough stains.

• Because you are geeky like me and like to see science in action!

 HOW do I make my own?

I had heard rumor of this but didn't really know if you could do it. I asked my husband "The Professor" who has a PhD in chemical engineering and he helped me figure it out. The science lesson is at the end of the post if you are interested.

STEP 1 
Gather your supplies. Thankfully all you need is BAKING SODA, a PAN and an OVEN. Perhaps a heat-proof stirring utensil as well. You can often find large bags of baking soda on the pool aisle of your local hardware store or even at the grocery store. Not to mention Amazon...

STEP 2

Simply pour out the amount of baking soda you'd like onto an oven-safe pan of some kind and spread it out. I'd suggest a thin layer if possible- maybe use 2 pans if you need a lot. That way the heat can penetrate all of it more quickly and you won't have to keep your oven on for so long. I've had comments from people who weren't seeing the change and I suspect it was the large amount they were trying to do all at once. I'd guess that you wouldn't want to do more than 2-3 cups of baking soda on a large cookie sheet like this:

That brings us to the question of how much baking soda you would need to get the right amount of washing soda in the end. The Professor spent some time calculating and he came up with the following:

You would need about 1 and a heaping 1/3 cup of baking soda to end up with 1 cup of washing soda. You need to start out with more baking soda because you are creating a chemical reaction in which you lose mass to the carbon dioxide that dissipates. Also, washing soda is slightly more dense.

STEP 3

Heat your oven to 400-450° F (about 200-230° C). See the science lesson below for more detail, but basically you need all the baking soda to reach 400° F (200° C) for the change to be complete. 

Place the pan(s) of baking soda into your heated oven and allow them to heat for about 1 hour. Ovens, pans and the amount you are doing can vary quite a bit, so that's just a general guideline. It may take more or less time. I seriously doubt you could get the change in less than 30 min. or that you would need more than 2 hours. 

I stirred mine around once just to be sure everything would be heated evenly. 

How do you know it's done?

This can be kind of tricky, so look carefully for the following:

Baking soda is: Fluffy, powdery, and slightly shiny

Washing soda is: Grainy, dull, and not fluffy

Baking soda on the left, washing soda on the right.

 You might need to pull out some baking soda that you haven't baked to compare.


STEP 4

Remove your pan of  what is now washing soda from the oven and allow it to cool completely. Then use it to make your laundry detergent or just store it in a clearly labeled container.

Voilà! 

You've just successfully completed a kitchen science experiment! Pat yourself on the back. ( :

 

Science Lesson

 Baking Soda is Sodium Bicarbonate or NaHCO3

Washing Soda is Sodium Carbonate or Na2Co3

If you heat the baking soda you cause a chemical reaction or in this case you essentially begin its decomposition.  It would look like this:  2NaHCO3 --->Heat---> Na2CO3+H2O+CO2

All of that means that the baking soda you heated changed into 3 new things: sodium carbonate, water and carbon dioxide. The water and carbon dioxide are gases at this temperature so they just float away or evaporate and you are left with the sodium carbonate sitting there.

Sodium Bicarbonate beings to decompose at about 100° C and you'll have complete conversion to Sodium Carbonate at about 200° C.  (Which is about 400° F.) 

 So, we "bake" the baking soda at a high enough temperature for a long enough period of the time that it causes all of the water and carbon dioxide gases to dissipate and you are left with your sodium carbonate- which we call washing soda. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. (Sorry. I've got that on the brain now because my kids say it all the time.)

 Good luck!

  

How To Clean A Nursery Closet

Oh yes I did.

Laugh all you want!

But I truly did spend about 6 hours cleaning out the closets in my church building's nursery.

And you know what?

IT WAS THE MOST FUN I'VE HAD IN MONTHS!!!

Seriously, I was absolutely losing my mind last week. A little too much newborn, homeschool, Primary President stuff, and just plain life! In the middle of the week while at the church for something the idea came to me to do this and I was looking forward to it for several days. I had my husband take the kids for half a day on his Friday off so I could have several consecutive hours to do what I love to do. ORGANIZE! It was absolutely quiet and peaceful in the empty church building while I worked away. Although I feel like I can't get my life together right now, I could at least make one little closet become what I wanted. Ha! Take that!

OK. So, now that you've all decided I'm completely insane, I'll show you what I did. Feel free to click away at any moment as this may prove to be too disturbing for some.

STEP #1- Assess the Situation

I started out by looking around in the large wall closet and rolling cabinet our nursery has to see what was in there. I've not actually worked in the nursery before, so I was not familiar with what they had. (I am the Primary President though, which is why I felt like I had any authority to mess with things!)

I took down a few notes of what I might need to bring with me and what kind of a mess I was going to be dealing with.

STEP # 2- Gather Your Supplies

I brought the following:

•  Step ladder- to reach the highest shelves.
• Small box- for misc. parts I found that didn't belong to anything. I left it for the other ward in our building to look over in case anything belonged to them.
• Large box- for anything I needed to remove from the closet and maybe take to the thrift store.
• Cleaning Supplies- such as basic dish soap, a washrag, towels and a bucket to wash down the closet shelves and any grody toys.
• Air pump- with a small needle nozzle for pumping up the balls.
• Paper and pen- for taking an inventory of the closet. I hope to type it up and post it on the closet for easy reference, and maybe make it available for the Sunbeam teachers who sometimes need a few puzzles or something to intersperse with their lesson. Our Sunbeams are SO YOUNG this year!
• Tape and marker- for making labels for shelves and bins.
• Trash Bag- obviously for trash!

 Step #3- Take Everything Out

 Wow, we have so much stuff in there. And this isn't even what was in the rolling cupboard!

 Look at all that lovely space to work with!

Step #4- Scrub

Our closet had the misfortune of coming into contact with a bunch of bubble solution though a basket with holes.

 Not the best choice of container for bubble storage. Especially when many of the individual bubble containers did NOT have tight lids. 

Gross.

 Whether or not you've had a bubble mess, there's likely dust and grime, so get crackin' with the soapy water!

 

I actually ended up using plain water because of the bubbles on half the shelves. Ick! It was a sticky, yucky mess. And yes, wooden shelves aren't exactly meant to be scrubbed with lots of water. I just did what I could to do a damp wipe down and clean up the bubbles. 

If you have a closet anything like this- consider putting shelf paper down. I didn't have any on hand and not enough time to do it, but it would have been very nice.

Step # 5- Sort 

Make a TRASH pile, a DONATE pile, and a KEEP pile.

I don't have pictures of mine. But I filled up a medium sized garbage can with junk and a box with items to donate to our local thrift store. Oh, and don't forget a little box with spare parts that you want to find mates to- or ask another ward about!

What to toss? Bubble containers that won't close tight, dried-up play-dough, broken parts, old papers that aren't relevant anymore, etc.

The keep pile was pretty much just everything left that needed to go back into the closet. I looked over each bin or item as I put it in and I wrote everything down on my inventory.

When sorting things to go back in I made sure to gather everything of a similar type in one spot so I could see exactly what we had. I realized we had at least 30 puzzles if not more! Sheesh. And most of them were goofy character ones that I really wish weren't in there anyway. I decided to donate a "Rugrats" one immediately. Blech. I also pulled puzzles with missing pieces. Nothing like a puzzle with missing pieces to irritate a 2 year old.

I think over the years people donate things to the nursery and it piles up until someone like me comes along and culls a few things. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!

A disturbing amount of puzzles.

Step #6- Fix, Clean, and Rearrange

Fix things like flat balls:

I went through the dress-ups and fixed a necklace that had come apart and chucked some broken ones.

I re-arranged what bins the various toys went in so everything would fit better. I even had a left-over bin or two!

Step #6B- Enjoy the creativity of those who have come before you.

I found this gem in the closet which I'd never seen used before when I've come by the nursery:

 It's a little playhouse/tent that fits exactly over a standard LDS classroom table.

 Complete with window, door, mailbox, flowers and a tree!

So cute. Someone really put a lot of effort into that. I just want to hug whoever came up with it!

Anyway....

Step #7- Fit Everything Back In

I spent some time arranging things in different ways on the shelves to see how everything would fit the best. I wanted everything to be accessible and I needed to put the least used items at the top-back as well as put the adults only items up top. (Scissors, etc.) Speaking of scissors, I found some really deadly lookin' ones!

On the left you see normal scissors. On the right you see ancient, rusty and looong scary scissors. Yikes. Seriously, do NOT run with those wicked lookin' things!

Another funny thing I found was a chalkboard eraser with a note written on the top that said something like,

"This eraser belongs to the Lord. Please do not remove it from the building."

Yes Ma'am!

Step #8- Label the Bins and Shelves

OK, so most people these days feel compelled to make totally darling little crafty tags for everything in life. Meh. Masking tape and a marker work for me! Cheap, quick, easy, and simple to change. 

 I think the labels help so all the nursery workers or subs know where things go. If the items only fit back into the closet nicely when you do it a certain way, it's good to have labels so things get put back right.

(Next, I want to get some brown paint and go over the graffiti on the doors!)

Step #9- Make an Inventory and Post It

OK, this is totally optional of course.

OK, OK, so cleaning the nursery closet at ALL is totally optional! ( :

But I thought it might be helpful for current and future nursery workers and Sunbeam teachers (3-4 yr. olds) as well as the Primary Presidency to know what was in there. I have had several people offer to donate things to the nursery already and I had no idea if we needed anything or not. Now I know exactly what we have and can easily say yea or nay.

Step #10- Enjoy

Aww, come on. Admit it.  You know you just love a clean and organized closet. Doesn't it just give you warm fuzzies?

Well, it does for me. That was super fun. Anyone have a dreadful closet I can come and organize? Just watch out, I'm the queen of purging.

So, now you know what to do if you ever feel inclined to clean a church nursery closet. This guideline probably applies to any closet though. Have fun!
 

The Bunny Book Winner

And the winner of The Bunny Book is my lovely sister Angie! I don't mean to play favorites here with family, but she DID go and write me a whole post to help me out and put a lot of thought into it. She totally deserves a book for that. ( :

I'll have to do another give away one of these days where I actually choose randomly...

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my post the other day.

Tip of the Week: When Changing Your Routine, Think Twice!

So on Saturday we were at a ward party and I happened to see a sweet gal who my kids adore. The kids begged to have her over, so on the spur of the moment I asked her if she'd babysit that night so The Professor and could go on a date. It all worked out and we were set.

I thought to myself, "Wow! I'm so awesome! I'm doing better at spending quality time with The Professor, this will be a fun date. And I'm such a great mom- the kids will be thrilled to have their favorite babysitter over. I'm so on top of things today!"

Despite being a little slow getting the kids settled in so we could leave, we finally got out the door. The kids were happy, here we were having a nice date, life was so good.

We sit down in the restaurant, order our meals, and then I try to force some conversation. (Ok, so we struggle with having conversations, but hey, we were sitting there working at it!) I assigned The Professor the job of picking a topic he'd like to talk about. He decided on Neuschwanstein Castle.You know, this place:



Why you ask? 'Cuz we had just finished watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a family the night before and this castle is used in the movie. Also, he is a history buff and knows all kinds of things about this castle besides reading up on it after the movie.

So, he goes into telling me about this place and who built it, etc. I'm trying to pay attention to this while ignoring all the stupid TV screens every direction I turn in the restaurant. (I swear I'm NEVER going to another restaurant with TVs in it. It's AWFUL!) We're chatting along and we've been in there for about 15-20 minutes maybe.

Suddenly a thought struck me which I believe the Lord put into my mind. My eyes got huge and I leaped out of my chair while saying,

"We left the baby in the car!"

And now I'm crying while trying to write this. 

I just hope none of you EVER EVER EVER have to say those words. 

I bolted out the door and ran into a poor lady with barely a word of apology. I dashed to the exit and ran across the parking lot to our car. I could see our barely 3 month old son screaming and writhing in his car seat. I realized I didn't even have the keys to open the car and thankfully my husband had run after me quickly to open it up. I grabbed poor little Z out of there as fast as I could and he was just covered in sweat and tears from his screaming fit. 

I instantly started sobbing as I held my poor little baby close. I was shaking so bad! 

"Mommy how could you do that to me!"

 No, that's not actually from Saturday night, but a good sad face anyway.

It was too windy to stay outside so I had to march my shaking, sobbing self back in there. Some ladies that were sitting near us said how cute he was but as I'm sure I looked like a nutter I explained what I'd just done. They were very nice and sympathetic. The waitress came over and said how cute he was and that she hadn't noticed we'd come in with a baby. That set me off with fresh tears explaining again what just happened. Thankfully she was very nice about it and repeatedly told me it wasn't my fault. Then I noticed at a table behind us the woman I'd run into in my haste. I went over to apologize to her and she and her whole family were very sympathetic and assured me it was OK. They said from the look on my face they knew something was horribly wrong. 

When we were about to leave the restaurant one of the ladies sitting near us in the restaurant came over and told me how she could tell I was a good mother and it could happen to anyone. She was so kind and asked the baby's name and was excited to find it was almost the same as her sons name. So reassuring and friendly. 

Well...*SNIFF*...it's all over now. And I want you to know how eternally grateful I am that my Father in Heaven struck my mind with the realization of what we'd done. I'm also grateful for the friendly, compassionate people we met there who were totally non judgmental about what happened. I'm also grateful that someone didn't park next to us and see him in there and call the police or we'd have spent the evening trying to explain to a social worker that we were fit parents. (Though I'd have been grateful for their concern and if it had been in the summer and he was in danger of heatstroke I'd have been in their debt for my son's life!)

Wow. So. Glad. That's OVER.

Aren't we as parents always worried about something like that happening? I know the Lord protected little Z and put the thought into my mind to remember he was there. He answered my prayers that my children would be safe and protected despite my imperfections as a parent. 

I'm so blessed to have this sweet guy.

The reason this happened at all was the usual one- change of routine. I've read many stories like this, some with tragic endings and it's the change of routine that does it. 

We'd never gone anywhere with just the baby before. We were also in date mode thinking we were off to relax and get a break and forgot we still had one little responsibility in the back seat. He was perfectly quiet on the ride to the restaurant so we didn't hear a peep. I usually get the kids out of the car when I'm driving, but as my husband was driving I would have expected him to get the car seat and carry it inside. I'm usually in high-stress-think-about-everyone's-needs mode, but since we were on a date with the other kids taken care of I had given myself an hour or two to just "check-out." I don't know why The Professor didn't think of it either. Again- the routine. He's almost never in charge of remembering the baby and has never gone anywhere with just Little Z. 

Anyway, I'm grateful everything turned out OK and I'll leave you with the lesson I learned- 

When you change your routine with your children, think twice!

How Do You Measure Yourself?

Lately I've been thinking that I'm really too hard on myself. I know I'm trying so hard to do the things I believe are right and lead to happiness for myself and my family. The reason I feel like I'm failing (note that I "feel" like I'm failing although I "know" I'm not actually failing) is that it's hard to know how I measure up.

Now I'm not talking measuring myself against others. 'Cuz wow, that usually doesn't go well. Spend a few minutes comparing yourself to people around you, or other bloggers and you'll quickly find yourself wanting to dig a hole and hide in it! So, no, I don't want to measure myself against others.

But we must take a self-assessment somehow. If I never tried to assess how well I was following the commandments, or teaching my children, how would I ever improve?

Shouldn't we be assessing ourselves the way our Father in Heaven would? Of course!  So, what is the Lord's unit of measurement? I'm still figuring that out...

The other question on my mind is:

Is it really possible to do everything the Lord has asked us to do in this life, or are we just supposed to work at it and do our best, though we may never attain that perfection? I have this list of things I'm supposed to be doing and it gives me grief that I can't seem to do even most of these things no matter how hard I try. I give up all my free time, I work late into the night and still I can't do it. Here's a partial list

• Fix inexpensive, healthy meals and teach my children how to cook.
• Exercise several times a week.
• Study the scriptures daily.
• Do some sort of journal weekly.
• Have food storage and 72 hour kits.
• Keep our home and yard to a reasonable level of cleanliness.
• Enjoy my children and spend quality time with them every week/day.
• Love and serve my husband and go on some sort of dates a few times a month.
• Attend the temple once a month or so.
• Fulfill my calling as Primary President.
• Work to further my own education throughout my life.
• Provide my children with a good education in the gospel and in the "three R's." 
• Spend some time doing family history work.

Those are all totally normal, basic things we are asked to do and there are many many more. I'm trying really hard to understand how or if it is possible to do all of these. Or is this just part of the test of life? Perhaps we can't possibly be perfect at everything the Lord asks us to do, but the test is to see how hard we try despite our limited capacity. 

I keep thinking that if I just organized my time better or something, that surely I could do all these things. Slowly it's sinking in that it just may not be possible when you are spending at least half of your day just feeding a newborn!                


I came across something Elder D. Todd Christofferson said in the April 2011 General Conference:

 "All of us can meet God’s high expectations, however great or small our capacity and talent may be. Moroni affirms, “If ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is [God’s] grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:32). It is a diligent, devoted effort on our part that calls forth this empowering and enabling grace, an effort that certainly includes submission to God’s chastening hand and sincere, unqualified repentance. Let us pray for His love-inspired correction."

                                                             
 I think I have this running commentary going on in my head saying things like:

 "Oh that math lesson I just did with the kids left something to be desired. I've got to find some good curriculum and make sure they know their math or they will be awful at math like me." 

 "Oh, how could I feed my family 3 unhealthy meals in one day! Sugary cereal for breakfast, a piece of bread for lunch and hot dogs for dinner. I've GOT to plan out something healthy for every meal." 

"Sigh. Another day that I didn't write in my journal, study the scriptures, exercise or say very meaningful prayers. I've GOT to do better at all of those!" 

From just a few small examples you can see that I'm constantly assessing how I'm doing and considering what I need to do better at. But that can lead to NEVER being satisfied with how well I'm doing, so I get stressed out and upset that I'm "failing" everything.

From some of the comment that you nice readers left me the other day and some blogs I've read lately I've come to realize that if I had a better understanding of the Atonement I'd probably hit upon a more accurate self-assessment.

Thankfully the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is coming up this next Saturday and Sunday! YAY! I know what I need to be praying to understand better and listening to conference is a great way to get answers.

 

I plan on listening carefully to each session in hopes of better understanding how the Lord measures my progress and worth. I also hope to gain a better understanding of the Atonement and how it can work in my life and make up for what I lack. 

I hope you will think through what questions you need answers to and be praying this week that you will find those answers by listening to the upcoming General Conference.

Five for Friday: Some Recommendations

Today I wanted to share a few things we've enjoyed lately at our house in case any of my readers might be interested. Yesterday's post ended up kind of negative I think, so here I am trying to be positive. Smiley smiley smiley...


1. Barbie Clothes from Etsy

I kinda hate Barbie dolls (see here) and wish we could do away with them at our house, but my girls play with them for HOURS and play such cute little games that I've let them each keep one Barbie, one Ken and a younger doll like the "Stacie" dolls. We don't have much clothing for the dolls because we donated anything that didn't jive with our modesty standards. Tabs wanted a new dress for her doll and we've had a terrible time finding anything modest! But thankfully Etsy came to the rescue!

We've now bought two Barbie things from Karen Richardson of Handmade Fabric Crafts. They are so cute!

Pioneer Dress and Bonnet

 Pajama Set with Matching Quilt and Pillow

 We also bought 2 dresses like the one below from The Designing Rose's Shop. So cute!

2. Simple Birthday Cakes

I've written about simple, cheap birthday cakes before here. I found two more cake ideas this year that worked really well. There are totally NOT healthy, but I force my family to eat all kinds of healthy food the rest of the time, so for birthdays it's gonna be a tasty treat!

Dump Truck "Dirt" Cake

 Bake a basic chocolate cake and cut it into chunks. Crush up some chocolate cookie crumbs. Clean out any old dump truck from the yard toys and put a layer of plastic wrap in the truck bed. Put the cake chunks and crumbs in the truck and falling onto a plate. When serving the cake put a dollop of chocolate pudding "mud" on top in place of frosting. So easy and perfect for the little boy in your life.

Present Cake

This is actually "Chocolate Wonder" (what many people call 4 layer pudding or something) and not a cake. The top layer is Cool Whip. I just laid down some fruit by the foot for a bow and m&ms for the polka dots. The color from the candy bleeds into the cool whip pretty quickly and the bow gets soggy and gross just so you know. I'm sure in regular frosting you'd have no problem. This was super easy to put together and my daughter loved it!

3. Oral-B Professional Healthy Clean + Sensitive Gum Care Precision 3000 Rechargeable Electric Toothbrush

The other day I went to the dentist and discovered that I need 1 filling, 2 crowns, 2 root canals- which may also mean more crowns, and I may lose one of my teeth entirely. Ummmm...yeah. Not the best day of my life. So, although I do regularly brush my teeth of course, I decided it was time for something a little more serious before I end up with dentures! My dentist recommended this toothbrush and I have LOVED it! I used to scrub and scrub and still feel like my teeth were kinda icky. This thing makes your teeth feel like you've just had them cleaned and polished every time. I have horrendously sensitive teeth and awful receded gums and this brush doesn't hurt them at all like I thought it might. We have different heads so my husband and I can both use it. I'm thinking of getting one for the kids too as they aren't coordinated enough to brush well.

My mom told me they have a similar kind of brush at Costco that comes in a 2-pack and it was only $60-70 for both I think. I believe it's a Sonicare brand one and I know people who absolutely love that one as well and feel like it does just what this one does. If you have a Costco membership that one is probably the best deal.

4. Pencil Grip Correctors and Lefty Scissors

 

I noticed one day during our school work time that Tabs was gripping her pencil wrong and I wanted to nip that in the bud. I found these neat little grip correctors HERE on Amazon. They are comfortable to hold, they come in fun colors, and they work for left handed kids too! Mimi is left handed so this was important to me. 

I finally realized I ought to get Mimi some true left-handed scissors. Do you know there's a difference? The blades are switched for lefties. If you think it doesn't matter, try cutting something using regular scissors in your left hand. You can't just buy scissors that have handles which are comfortable for left or right hands. The blades must be switched! We found the ones pictured below HERE on Amazon.

 5. 2-in-1 Silicone Whisk

Again, I found this on Amazon. (Gotta love Amazon Prime!)

This is really cool because it can be a flat whisk for scraping the bottom of a pan like when making a roux, but you can also flip the tines to make it a balloon whisk. It's nice and sturdy and it comes apart completely for cleaning. My kids think it's really fun to play with, so it's often missing because they were using it as a helicopter. ( :

Well, that was kinda random, but hopefully that was helpful for someone. And by the way, nobody is paying me anything to write this. I've just tried all these things and liked them. Happy Friday!

P.S.- I'll announce a winner from my last post by Monday I think.