Neat and orderly

Can anyone else identify with a silverware drawer that looks like this?  Kid's silverware taking over everything... Sorted silverware overflowing the compartments...

So I came across a pin the other day, and said, "I can do that!"  To see the original post, check it out on http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/house-and-home/diy-kitchen-utensil-drawer-organizer-easy-and-cheap.html.  I happened to be somewhere I had a homecenter nearby, so I headed over and picked up some wood and Loctite PowerGrabber. All it took was a few measurements to figure out how to. Best use the space, a few cuts with a miter saw, and voila!

A couple of the blocks are in the lowest compartment just as spacers and to hold pressure to bond the wood and glue. I'll take at least the one out in a few days. I also didn't bond all of the pieces. Here is what I made. 

If I decide to, later, I can reconfigure it somewhat to meet changing needs (someday we may not need all this kiddie silverware-what a sad day). 

I wish I could have built a whole new drawer (this one is no longer square, and the bottom has a big sag to it) with better slides (These don't work so smoothly), but this project was so easy and cheap, I'll gladly do it again if I ever do get around to taking care of those other issues. 

No egg noodles, no problem!

The cold weather made my family crave some good old fashioned chicken and noodle soup... But I didn't realize until we were already home from church that we didn't have any egg noodles. What's a mom to do, but throw together some eggs, flour, and salt and make her own!

I can say wih all certainty that these have no artificial ingredients or preservatives. Hope you are staying warm, wherever you are. 

Arctic front moving in....

Here are some fun pictures I took this afternoon as I was helping the hubby look for his lost phone. When I left, the temperature was 80 F (about 4:30), and when I got home at 5:30 it had dropped to 48F. By 7:00 PM, I believe it was down to 42F.

View looking to West. 

View looking to the East. 

Just before I drove into the front. Suddenly, visibility dropped significantly. 

Can you see the windmills?  At least part of them. 

This was a couple of hours later, but it made for a beautiful sky. 

Lost and damaged phones

How many ways can you destroy a phone?  Too many. My husband has run over phones with a vehicle. Dropped them in toilets, water tanks, etc. He has had horses step on them. He once out one in his pocket with a can of WD-40. It is not good for your phone. Once it was in his pocket and after some manure was "deposited" in his pocket as well (while combing out the horses tail - it was pretty loose), he forgot it was in there and ran a garden hose in the pocket to rinse everything. You know how that ended. We tried buying the toughest, most durable military grade phones - hoping they might survive him. He even destroyed a couple of those. 

We've always carried insurance on his phone, for obvious reasons.  It did lapse once, because they actually cancel you after your second claim in less than 12 months. We know that from experience.       

I'm sure you can understand my reluctance when he decided he wanted an iPhone. He managed to take great care of it for 8-9 months. I had tried to get him to let me install one of the apps to find his phone, but he didn't like the idea of me being able to see where he is every moment of the day (like I have time to worry about him that often). 

So in the spring of 2013, he was dragging calves in the "middle of nowhere" in the OK panhandle, when his phone went missing. We paced the ground, raked, and called the phone for hours looking for it in 3 different sets of pens, hoping he didn't lose it when they were gathering the cattle. When we didn't find it, I insisted he let me install and set up the find my iPhone and find friends apps. 

We found it in a pasture of cornstalks where he was tagging calves last spring. I found it for him from OK this summer when he lost it in a pen of calves. So you can imagine how excited I was when I got the message this afternoon, that my husband has lost his phone and I need to drop everything and run 

20 miles north of town to help him find it.  Luckily, I only had one appointment left and got another veterinarian to take care of it for me. Unfortunately, he was in an area with poor cell phone service, and it seemed that it wouldn't find it. It told me it was offline, location unavailable!  I suppose it somehow did finally post its whereabouts, because like 30 minutes later, it showed up and we were able to find it, but there were some tense moments in there. How often do you have to use irrigation circles and power poles as your landmarks.