How to iron a shirt

Unlike many things having to do with taking care of a family and home, there is a "best way" to iron a shirt. We learned this from Mom, who learned it from Twila Rogers at Relief Society in the late 1970s. Mom said Sis. Rogers had a teenage son who was left-handed and she saw how he ironed when the ironing board was set up for a right-handed person. With all of these steps, I use heavy starch and have the iron on the "very hot" setting with steam. First I iron the front of the collar.
Then I iron the back of the collar. If you use enough starch, you can usually get an old collar to look pretty good.
Using the wide, square end of the ironing board, I iron the yoke.
Next I iron one of the front sides of the shirt.
Then I iron the back.
I iron the other front side of the shirt.
Finally I iron the sleeves.
Then I hang up the shirt and it is all done.
Even though I know how to quickly and effectively iron shirts, I still look for 100% cotton "non-iron" shirts and buy them when possible. A good white or off-white non-iron shirt will actually last for almost a year before you have to start ironing it. I have some patterned non-iron shirts from a few years ago that I still have yet to iron. I just take them out of the dryer immediately or when they are slightly damp and hang them up.

Creative Play, or what to do when the kids are bored

Andrew received a gift for his birthday from a friend. It was an electronic drum set with pop music stuff. It lasted one day and then disappeared. What's funny is that he hasn't asked for it. I've avoided electronic stuff as much as possible, mainly to preserve a bit of my sanity, and instead have looked for toys that encourage creative play. Here are a few things that are inexpensive, but fun for the children.

One thing the boys enjoy is the roads we make with tape on the floor. I take a roll of wide masking tape, usually the blue painter's tape, and slap it down on the carpet in various road patterns. After the first few times, Andrew got the idea and created his own road system as shown below. He put in a helicopter landing pad, the road you drive around at the airport, and the sidewalk where Daddy waits.

The boys will drive their cars all over the roads. They use cardboard tubes to create tunnels and paper and tape to make buildings. I usually show them how to do something and then let them create their own things.

We leave the roads down for a few days and then I rip them up. You can vacuum over them, though.

I use any large pieces of paper, such as the one shown here that came as packing material, and tape them to the floor for drawing spaces. You can trace outlines of the children and let them color themselves.

The children also like tents, made with old sheets, a card table and chairs, and a few clothespins to hold things together. They really like eating snacks inside the tent; we just have to run the vacuum after everything is done.

And, finally, remember cardboard boxes. I almost never toss a cardboard box into recycling until it has been well used by the children. You can make trains, cars, carts, boats, wagons, and more with a box, a marker, and some tape.

One of the beauties of these activities is that late at night, after the kids are in bed, you can clean up the house and throw it all away. If it was something you, or they, really liked, you can take a picture first.

Do you have any favorite creative play ideas?

Breakfast ideas?

In order for me to have time to exercise (from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m.), Kirk has been fixing breakfasts most days. So, here's the typical breakfasts for Monday through Friday: cold cereal, oatmeal, cold cereal, oatmeal, cold cereal. Then, if we are busy on Saturday and have early morning meetings and church on Sunday, it might be cold cereal two more days. I should note that the cereal is Shredded Wheat, Chex, or Cheerios, so it is pretty healthy considering everything. Occasionally, Kirk might do French toast or cinnamon toast. The problem is that none of the children like or will eat cold cereal, so I usually have yogurt or toast as an option when they get up. If I have time or don't have my exercise class then, of course, we get more variety with muffins, pancakes, or waffles. I was wondering if you have any ideas for "instant" breakfasts that I could bring into the mix.

Two tips

These were two tips that Mom probably told everyone. She read them on another blog.

1. Make all the sandwiches for sack lunches for a week or two and then freeze them. Becky says this works when they do it. PB&J works fine, as does some meat and cheese, if you aren't too fussy about frozen/thawed cheese.
2. Take all the clothes from one child and wash them in one load. You can use a cold water wash if there is anything that will bleed. Then you don't have to sort and wash and then sort again. I've sort of tried this with some children's clothing and it does make it easier. I remember this used to be called a "throw up load" when we were growing up (as in, after the kid throws up, you take everything and wash it all together).

Smelly dishes from the dishwasher--no more

Two years or so ago we still had our ancient dishwasher. It appeared to clean the dishes, but when we took them out of the cupboards afterward, the glass dishes would smell like rotten fish or bad eggs or stale milk. So we would wash them by hand. Finally the dishwasher broke and after six months we got a new one. This one also cleaned the dishes, but after a while the dishes started to smell. I did research but found no help, even on the helpful Internet. I had several repair guys come out since the washer was under warranty. Nothing seemed to work and their suggestions didn't solve the problem ("clean the dishwasher" "clean the filter"). Finally the plumber replaced the pipes under the sink--after I put my finger through one of them and the duck tape over that hole started to leak. The smell vanished. Aha! The smell in dishwashers seems to come from disposals and plumbing. When the smell started to come back (probably from the old disposal), I began to clean my disposal at least once a month with the Wal-Mart disposal cleaner. No more smells. Since Wal-Mart didn't have cleaner the last time I went, I started dumping 1/4 cup of Comet down the drain and running the disposal with some water going. I would also pour in a bit of dishwashing liquid to make sure I got lots of suds. The smells haven't come back so far. I think when I get a new disposal, that will also help. Have you discovered how to clean something that seems impossible to clean?

Just a thought

What I really would like with this blog would be to have at least eight authors (women I know and trust). We could make it a useful place for us to swap ideas, recipes, and advice. We could even rename the blog. Anyway, think about it and let me know if you want to participate in a project where you would post something once a month, or more often, or less often depending on stress and life things, so we could maybe help each other. In the meantime, I'll keep posting a few things here as I find them.

Perfect Cookies

I recently started to read a book on the search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I saw two suggestions that were interesting: (1) if you want to have a cooked, but soft, cookie, substitute about 2 Tb. of corn syrup for 2 Tb. of the sugar; (2) you can reduce the amount of shortening by 1/5. I tried this in a chocolate chip cookie and didn't notice too much of a change, probably because I used a recipe that included oat flour and that always does different things to cookies. Then I tried it with a standard peanut butter cookie. For the 1 cup of fat, I used 1/2 cup butter and 1/3 cup shortening. I substituted the corn syrup for part of the white sugar. I baked the cookies for 11 minutes and could have gone a bit longer. Now, even a day later, the cookies are still crisp around the edges and soft inside. These cookies always went hard on me by the time they cooled. If you try these techniques, what happens to your cookies? Is is different close to sea level versus a high altitude?