flowerheads

Not everysingle time but, a lot of the times I buy flowers and arrange them I am left with the odd flower heads that fell off or can't be used in the arrangement for some reason or another. I can never bring myself to toss the beauties out with the stems and scrappy leaves! The last batch I floated the flowerheads in bowls of water. Floating flowers are so enjoyable to have around. Win win. I've also strung flowerheads and used them for some tipico photos in the background.

Meg Allan Cole Crafts

This is not Meg's first appearence here. Because she's more than all that! Girlfriend was just on the news giving direction on Halloween costumery. She is one crafty lady that I just adore. Love you Meg!!!

Meg bringing some crafty goodness to Fox News!

You can find her with all her amazingness on fb here and on her own YouTube channel here! You have to see her eggs & bacon costume for couples...it's a riot!

oat milk.

Finally I will no longer be dependent on buying processed Soy Milk*. I mean, I've felt lucky enough as is, just being able to find organic soy milk here! I can't believe I've waited this long to try making my own non-dairy milk.
So, naturally, ever since I decided that I wanted to make my own milk I've been reading every recipe I can find on it. I've considered making rice milk and soy milk but, then I found the simplest recipe ever for oat milk. Oat milk! I hadn't even thought of it! Sounds good, right? I made it and it's delicious!!! We are enjoying it in our tea and coffee and with granola cereal.

Here's what you do:

soak 1 cup of rolled oats in 5 cups of water for 24 hours

blend & strain

>>Shake well before each use<<

THAT'S IT!!! Oh, and keep it in the fridge.

On top of oat milk being easy to make and tasting great...it's on the cheap, big time. What would have cost me over $2 in purchased soy milk, I spent about 25 cents making my own oat milk = happy me.

*We buy very few processed/packaged items here in Guatemala and we love it. The two main things that we are dependent upon that are not only packaged but, are processed and imported to add insult to injury are: olive oil and soy  milk.

It's so nice to eliminate at least one of those. I don't see us not buying or using olive oil any time soon. At least not until I own that olive grove of my dreams! Do they have olive groves in Spain? South America any where?

platform bed: conquered for free!

When we moved into the warehouse we tossed the makeshift bed base I had. I thought we would simply leave mattress on the floor...that didn't last. I've been on the hunt for a solution to get the mattress off the floor for weeks. We live a few blocks from Ikea so, naturally I went in search of a reasonably priced one there. I found a few but there was always something about them that did not jive!

Driving around Tampa on an errand Zach and I were driving through little weird back neighbourhood and found this little production shoppe that had a stacks of pallets outside of different sizes and woods. We asked if we could take some and we picked these cute small pallets that are 19" x 26" and incredibly, 9 of them together in a grid, are the exact size of a queen size mattress!!!! They are perfect in everyway & they were free!!!

In wrapping this up, I realized not only did we accomplish this for free. We also recycled something and didn't partake in consumerism, yay!

And they maintained the extreme simplicity that we were both striving for.

On the road w/out a bottle opener!

Here we are! Erin & Alison stuck in a hotel room in Rapid City, South Dakota with beer & no bottle opener! We figured it out and thought we'd share it with the world! Check it!


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