I am not the greatest at spot removal. My efforts in removing spots from my son’s silk ties have, so far, been unsuccessful. Today I had a bright idea to revive those silk ties. It all goes back to my Surface Ornamentation class in college. Since oil is the typical stain medium…why not ‘oil paint’ a pattern on the tie? Here is the process and the results. James just thinks it looks like he’s a messy eater. I think it has a nice texture to it.

Stained Silk Tie

I used my husband’s shoe leather oil for this because it’s primarily beeswax, which won’t turn rancid. 

I used a plastic produce bag crumpled up to apply the oil. (I brushed oil onto the bag with the applicator from the jar and then dabbed some off on a paper towel (offload!!).

I blotted the tie with a paper towel to remove excess oil (it soaked up pretty quickly so there wasn’t much excess). I hung the tie to let it dry for a while and then had my son try it out. He didn’t like the look at all.  *I* think it looks pretty darn cool.  I’m not sure how ‘dry’ the oil will get, so I am wondering if it will transfer to his suit or shirt. It doesn’t seem to when it’s on shoes. We’ll see about that part. Or, maybe not because he probably won’t wear it.  He WILL wear an ugly snowflake/snowman tie, though. Go figure. 

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I got to test out some new cookies from Kroger…the Truly Awesome Homestyle Chocolate Chip cookies and they were pretty darn good. I don’t buy a lot of cookies, but if I needed a quick fix, these would work nicely!! I shared them with friends at playgroup and passed out some coupons (thanks to bzzagent for those!). Now, if they came out with a soft version, I’d be in trouble!!

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I spent a little time in Barnes & Noble yesterday (a place I avoid for the sake of my budget) thanks to my brother, Ryan and his company mistletoe.com.  The company made the Simple List in December’s issue of Real Simple magazine and I had to go snag a copy! 

Ryan has been selling mistletoe since he was about 12. Maybe even younger. Just old enough to shoot it out of the trees. He and my brother John would gather bunches of the stuff and sell it in front of grocery stores during the holidays. They made a bit of pocket change. Then…Ryan went to school and with the support of his awesome wife, Lisa, got an little thing called an MBA and a bunch of useful knowledge to go with it.  Combine that with his entrepreneurial spirit, tech geekness and a pretty parasite and mistletoe.com was born. (OK, there were MANY steps and FOUR children in between, but you get the idea!)

Today, mistletoe.com is one of the only sites online where you can buy fresh Oregon mistletoe and have it shipped anywhere in the country. This sounds like and ad, but it’s just a sister who is amazed and impressed with her little brother and his kills and  determination.  Not to mention his little family’s adorableness!! So, if you’re in the market for some mistletoe this year, you know where to get it. Yep! Mistletoe.com.

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Another SHESPEAKS product to try out and tell about! The last one was a toilet bowl cleaner that I wasn’t impressed with. This one…SO MUCH BETTER! I was sent two TORANI syrup ‘authentic coffee house’ flavors.  One Peppermint and one Sugar Free Brown Sugar & Cinnamon flavor. Now, I don’t drink coffee, but I do love my hot chocolate. My recipe today was Stephen’s Dark Chocolate, a touch of cream and a shot of Torani Brown Sugar & Cinnamon. Peppermint is cool, but how can you resist Brown Sugar & Cinnamon??? It is better than my favorite Dulce De Leche from Stephen’s. It tasted like I dunked some french toast in my hot chocolate. A dream, I tell ya!!  YUMMY LOVE!  Sugar free, even.  I might just have to have a little hot cocoa party some time soon. I *might* share. 

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I love a nice fruit bowl on my counter with a few seasonal items to spice it up. BUT, sometimes my fruit bowl runneth over with old fruit. Not grossly old, just neglected beyond edible. This week some limes intended for salsa never got squeezed, a pomegranate and a pear were casualties as well.

Instead of throwing them out or freshening my garbage disposal with them, I decided to freshen my whole house with some aromatherapy. I cut the fruit in half, put it on an older pot to avoid stains on newer ones and added a bit of cinnamon and cloves.

I put it on the stove on medium heat for 15 minutes and my whole house smells YUMMY and I am refreshed! Old fruit, new house smell.

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FYI, I received this book at no cost as a part of a bzzagent campaign.

The Litigators by John Grisham arrived in the mail about a week before its official release date of October 24th. It came with a letter from the publisher indicating that The Litigators was not the typical John Grisham novel and, in their opinion, it was rather comedic.  I thought of the last couple of book I’d read that made me laugh. I had to think back a bit because it’s not my typical genre. The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale made me laugh. Out loud. As cheesy as it was, I loved it. So, I opened The Litigators expecting a couple of laughs. 

I didn’t laugh. Not unreserved, anyway. The Litigators starts off by introducing some pretty interesting characters. They have richly spun back stories that barely need telling by the time you get to know them. You just “know” their history because you’ve probably known someone like them.  While they are interesting and and have depth, they are not funny unless you enjoy laughing at sad, broken people. 

The story is that of struggling street lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, prescription drug deaths, unhealthy (i.e. fat) people, alcoholics, unemployment, and incompetence. Not funny. BUT…not a bad book. I wish that letter from the publisher would have stayed stuck in the book between the last two pages. THEN I would have laughed. Out loud. 

Comedy claims aside, the book was a typical John Grisham book to me. It was full of characters I came to care about, moral and legal issues I have heard and read about and bit of personal triumph thrown in for the win.  {Spoiler alert} The ‘law firm’ of Finley and Figg consists of two mis-matched, underachieving, over 40 lawyers handling divorce and injury cases just to survive.  Along comes a chance at striking it rich by riding on the coattails of a Big Pharma lawsuit.  Finley and Figg, along with recently acquired associate/big law firm drop-out(another mis-match), David Zinc, throw all they have into the case and hope for a big payday. Through a series of misfortunes and betrayals, the case never pans out and they lose everything. Lucky for the firm, David has another big case going on the side and saves the day. Happy ending, right? Well, not exactly. The last few pages of the book are an epilogue. A Short one. Basically, everyone goes their separate ways. Because you know these people, you’re not surprised. You figured it was coming eventually and would have written the epilogue in your mind anyway.  You know, the Breakfast Club ‘different social circles, thrown together for a time’ scenario. But in a law firm. And over a longer period of time. 

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Litigators and would recommend it to fans of John Grisham and legal fiction. And the Breakfast Club.

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The City of Provo (and our neighbors, I’m sure) would like us to finish our landscaping, like, two weeks ago. We’re working on it. Mostly by hand. Ken likes to do things a certain way and he’s doing them. It might take a while, but it will be close to perfect so the neighbors and the city can just sit tight and watch as amazing-ness happens. Until then, they can look at ‘the plan’. It changes as we go along, but it has GRASS and NO DIRT! YAY!

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* Trying something here. Anything over two sentences or so I’m going to try posting here and importing/sharing on fb and g+. That way some of my family that doesn’t use either can still know what’s going on with us. (If they care). AND I won’t have to post in a bunch of places. We’ll see how it goes. **

I’ve heard of extreme couponing and getting money BACK for an item using double coupons and sales and price matching etc. But RiteAid has a little issue they need to correct! This morning I went to return a box of hair color that I bought at RiteAid because I decided to ‘go in a different direction’. I bought the box last week with a coupon in their store ad. When I returned it, the refund was regular price and I told the cashier I had used a coupon and my refund should be $2 less. He said the computer won’t let him override the price so I would get the full price back. I asked if I could just give the $2 back and he said no. I was a bit surprised and suggested that someone could make some money doing that and he said they do. Apparently people come in every week, buy items with in-store coupons and return them the next week for full price. He said they also come in and use coupons to get items free and bring them back for a refund, pocketing the full price of the item. That is pretty shady. That said, RITEAID…FIX YOUR COMPUTERS and let the cashiers adjust for coupon returns!! How hard could that be?

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