Fair to middlin' piddlin' considering the oranges . . .

Piddling.  I did a lot of that today.   Wandered around the house looking for something to do that I actually wanted to do.  I am not blessed, as some are, with a love for house cleaning, so when I have time on my hands, that's not where my mind wanders.  

Bill and I ran some errands in town, I had a nice trip to Wendy's farm store with friend Kathy and picked up some frozen peaches and blueberries, did a load of laundry, made us all fruity smoothies and made supper, but other than that . . . I wasted a good bit of time. 

I don't enjoy wasting time.   It's just not fun for me.  I'm working on working that out during this season of my life. It's a wonderful and weird decade for me.  My children need me less, I have far more freedom than I've ever had, and am getting to spread my artistic wings, but I have a need to use my time well and purposefully, to bless my family and help my sweet husband who has worked his little butt off for 37 years for his loves. I'm praying and looking for opportunities to do that, but . . . I digress.  (I ALWAYS DIGRESS!  And will you look at that!  I just digressed in the middle of my digressing :-(  )

One of my "piddles" was not actually a waste.  It was creative and fun and useful.  Smallish sort of oranges have been 6 for $1 for a couple of weeks at Newman's Country Mart, and we have availed ourselves of dozens of them.  Today Eli and I washed and peeled several, splitting the fruit into segments and freezing them in a single layer on a baking sheet.  When they were frozen, I put them in an airtight container in the freezer for smoothies.  

I tore the peelings into small pieces and created a lot of zest, which was spread into a thin layer on parchment paper and frozen, then poured into an airtight container and returned to the freezer.  This will make extracts, add spice to tea and coffee, and be available for recipes calling for zest as long as the flavor is fresh.

You may have seen recipes for making your own orange cleaner.  I found a very simple one -- just peels and white vinegar.  I filled a pretty little jelly jar with fresh zest and poured white vinegar over it,
There it is, all pretty and capped and waiting for me to strain out the zest in a couple of weeks.  I'll pour the resulting orange vinegar back in the jar and top it off with water to dilute it. Then it will be ready for use.  I have never made it before, so I don't know how well it works, but I'm excited to find out!

I suspect the orange flavored vinegar might be really good in homemade salad dressing.  I hope I remember to try it!

Middle, piddle, fiddle a little -- there's an opportunity for some Ogden Nash or Shel Silversten style verse right there!  What you got?

Grand glittering pinecones!

Glitter for the girls . . . glitter for the boys

My favorite pants are corduroys . . .

I don't love glitter messiness, and neither does Miss Warna Solari, my co-teacher in preschool, but these darling grands helped me test out glitter cones for a preschool Christmas craft, and I do love the results. Terah Gregg came up with a less-mess method, so it's a go.

The cones were free, which is my favorite dollar amount, and my glitter is a garage sale or thrift store purchase at $1.50 for several little containers (Too long ago to remember where I got it! It could have been last month and that would be too long ago . . . )

We will need more glitter for preschool, and will purchase what we need, but seriously, if you have some sitting around you aren't going to use, send it my way, if you are so inclined.  I will give you the preschool address!

I love to use up materials that are gathering dust more than I love to buy new things. I think second-hand purchases count for the using up. 

It's not just thriftiness, though that's part of the "love". Raising seven on one lower income bolstered frugality fo' sho'! It's more the challenge of Not Wasting Things; Making Do With What You Have that I love.


Back to the cones.  While the waxed paper did a good job of catching excess sprinkled glitter for reuse and mess control, Terah's idea is better.  We need containers small enough to not use tons of glitter, and large enough to roll the glue tipped pine cones in.  And I've heard from friends that putting the glitter in a zip-lock type bag and shaking it up is fairly safe in terms of keeping glitter contained.

We used Tacky Glue, but school glue is fine.  I watered down the Tacky glue just a tiny bit -- a few drops of water to a couple tsp. glue stirred together in a small bowl.  We took the cones in hand and painted glue mostly just down the tips of the cones, and after sprinkling glitter on the cones (or rolling the cones in the tubs of glitter) laid them to dry on waxed paper.

Finis!