laundry list.

i am a slave to my lists and i create lists for everything. in two hours, the mister and i are departing on a month-long trip to lesotho. in order to prepare for the trip i wrote endless lists of things that needed to be done, purchased, packed, etc. i wrote lists for my lists. at some point in the last week i was trying to accomplish the tasks on no less than five lists. the hardest part is distractions. i never fail to come up with forty-three unlisted activities. some of the distractions are play and some of them are essentials that i somehow neglected to add to the list. yesterday i discovered that laundry was not on the list, so i did three loads of laundry. then comes the important question. do i add "laundry" to the list just so that i can experience the satisfaction of crossing it out, or is that just nonsense? on a normal day i would probably add it to the list, because that's what i do. but yesterday i seem to have gotten distracted from my distraction and never actually accomplished the inane task of writing something on my list just to cross it out.

speaking of laundry..egads. it wouldn't be so bad if you just had to do it sometimes. but if you wait too long, the job becomes exponentially more painful. i dream of the day when the mister and i will have a laundry machine inside our home. that would be swell. but for now i have to save up quarters and trudge down the hallway to the communal laundry rooms. although i did buy some fun new laundry baskets that just happen to be my favorite shade of avocado green. scrumptious. seeing my pretty baskets makes the job a little less yucky. the funny thing is that five years ago, when i was in the peace corps and had to wash all of my laundry by HAND, i swore that i would never ever again whine about washing laundry in a machine. i guess i have to eat my words, because i sure am whining! i am guessing that after this trip and a month of doing laundry by hand, i am gonna be thanking my lucky stars that when i return to the u.s.a. i will get to use a machine and i will not be so picky about that machine's location. perhaps i just need a trip to the village every couple years to remind me how luxurious my life truly is.

on that note, i wish thee well. the mister and i will be spending the next month in his childhood home..a little village in lesotho. we'll be living in a hut with no electricity or running water, and bathing in a bucket. yup, that's right...bathing in a bucket. a month off the grid. no iphone, facebook, blog, internet, computer, television, etc. i will be listening to lesotho radio and having good ol' fashioned face-to-face conversations. happy july to you!!!!!

luggage tag tutorial.

as you might remember, back in december i was trying to figure out how to label my luggage when i had a breakthrough...fabric luggage tags. the mister and i are in need of more luggage tags, so today i got busy sewing. i decided to document the process and create a tutorial for those of you who like to sew. if you are not into sewing, fear not...i also sell these luggage tags in my etsy shop lerato designs.

materials: scraps of colorful fabric, light-colored fabric (i use unbleached cotton), interfacing, thread, and string (i use cotton twine).

sew together lots of bits or keep it simple with just one or two fabrics.

step 1. cut out a 3.5"x4.5" piece from your light-colored fabric (we'll call this the white piece from now on). cut out a 3"x4" piece of interfacing. sew together a collection of scraps and cut a 3.5"x4.5" piece from the assembled pieces (for an easier luggage tag, you can skip the assemblage and cut a 3.5"x4.5" piece from a single colorful fabric).

step 2. iron your interfacing onto the back of the assembled piece.

step 3. place the colorful piece with the white piece, right sides together.

step 4. sew around the edges with a 1/4" seam, leaving a 2" gap on one side.

step 5. trim the corners, to make it easier to the turn the tag right-side out.

step 6. turn the tag right-side out through the gap. use a bone creaser, chopstick, or some other pointy tool to push the corners all the way out. tuck the open edges in, pin, and press flat.

step 7. top-stitch around the edge of the tag (no more than 1/8" from the edge).

step 8. sew a tiny buttonhole on one end of the tag. open the buttonhole with your seam ripper or scissors.

step 9. cut a 13" piece of string. thread the string through the buttonhole and tie it off.

step 10. use a fine point permanent marker to write your contact information on the light side of your tag. enjoy traveling in style!!!

world cup fever.

i grew up in a house where soccer reigned supreme. my brother plays, at one time my mom coached, and my dad is a referee. somehow or another i was never bitten by the soccer bug. i was content with gymnastics and volleyball. to be fair, my mums only coached for one year when my brother was a wee little guy mesmerized by the bugs climbing up the side of the goal post that he was supposed to be defending. after her brief stint as a coach my mums returned to her first love...tennis. but to this day, soccer has maintained its grip on the males of my family. little did i know that i would one day marry a man who lives and breathes soccer.

needless to say, i was prepared for this world cup to be a big event in my life. this the first world cup the mister and i are experiencing together. this is also the first world cup to take place in africa, so my african husband's enthusiasm can certainly be described as fanatical. you are probably wondering why this affects me. well, we live in a small house and we only have one television. to make matters worse, the mister works 8am-4pm and the soccer matches all take place between those hours.

since i love the mister lots and lots, i went to goodwill and purchased a vcr. yup. everyone is getting rid of their vcrs and we are purchasing. go figure. sadly, while our remote is happy to control the basic functions of our "new" vcr, it is unwilling to delve into the wonderful world of timed recording. great. but who needs to set a timed recording when you have a wife at home to press "record." that's right kids. every morning i wake up at 9:55am to go to the vcr and press record. i go about my business and then at 2:25pm i change tapes and press record again.

oh and did i mention that i spend all day avoiding all mention of scores and soccer? you see, when he gets home, i love to discuss anything and everything with my husband. if i know the scores of the games he is about to watch, it is torturous to keep mum, so i do everything in my power to avoid knowing the scores. i was watching tennis today and they did a quick "sports rundown," which included discussion of the day's world cup matches...i turned into psycho lady standing in my living room yelling "nananananananananaannaana" so that i would avoid hearing the scores. that was the moment that i realized i was bitten by the soccer bug. i might not actually like soccer, but apparently i am stuck with it.

receipts running wild.

as a child growing up i quickly learned that credit card receipts must be saved, put in order, and matched up with the monthly statement. my parents use this system to check for mistakes on the statement and to keep things organized in case they need to return a purchase. there was a special box for my pops to put his receipts (a yellow cardboard box that is still in use) and every month i watched my mums painstakingly take care of putting everything in order. once all was checked and the bill was paid, the receipts were wrapped up inside the statement and filed away. this probably sounds a bit neurotic, but in my parent's house it just seemed like fabulous organization.

is it any wonder that i feel the need to save every receipt that comes into my life? it took a little bit of training (and begging), but i managed to convince the mister that he too should partake in this persnickety ritual. sure thing. if i am gonna be a crazy loon, i might as well ensure that those nearest and dearest also lose their mind. 

 

the mister likes to haul around his receipts until the ink rubs off. i unwaveringly file these "blank" pieces of paper.

and then i realized that the process of organizing this mass of paper fell to me and i hate to admit it, but in my house it has never happened smoothly the way that it does in my parent's house. the sheer volume of receipts is daunting and the statements arrive at awkward times, so i fall behind and the next thing i know, the mister and i have a receipt drawer that is stuffed so full that it will not shut properly.

clearly the mister and i need a new method. first thing i had to give up the notion of putting the receipts in chronological order and matching them to the credit card statement. seems easy, right? except that in my book this is akin to total chaos and my brain is not so easily convinced that this is a good idea. but then i looked at the receipt drawer. seven months of receipts. eek. okay fine. no more chronology. once i made it past that hurdle, we quickly slid down the slippery slope towards anarchy. the mister and i now have a shoebox and sandwich baggy sorting system. snazzy? nope. effective? maybe. 

organizing the madness.

we are hopeful that using an all-stars shoebox means we are on a path to greatness.

clearly there are still signs of my hyperactive organizational tendencies, but maybe the mister and i will manage to retain both our receipts and our sanity. if you hear of a couple drowning in receipts, please throw us a rope.

ikea mi amor.

i went to ikea today. i needed cheapo bleapo blankets, which as it happens are readily available in ikea, but secretly i wanted to visit with their minuscule, yet delectable, stash of fabric. i wandered around the place for at least an hour. what is it about this place? i often leave there with a whole lot of nothing and yet the prospect of a visit is enough to leave me giddy with excitement. in homage to this swedish treasure, i have made a list of the top ten reasons why i adore ikea...

10. they make simplicity cool and take the blah out of the ordinary.
 9. there are lots of bright colors, stripes, and polka dots.
 8. the prices are pleasant.
 7. they encourage excessive amounts of organization.
 6. everything has a swedish name, which makes it all seem more interesting, despite the fact that the names are incomprehensible (to me).
 5. there is a restaurant inside the store, just in case you are famished in the middle of your visit.
 4. there is a little nook where i can buy stupendous fabrics at spectacular prices.
 3. they banished disposable plastic shopping bags in favor of gargantuan and indestructible blue totes.
 2. environmentally friendly is not just a punchline.

and the number one reason that i love ikea...

1. i am certain that they give good hugs.

movin' on down to the west side.

oopsy poopsy, i seem to have once again wandered off on an unannounced hiatus. sorry about that. i am back and with an updated dandelion design. i have been hibernating...alternating my time between the couch and the sewing machine. ain't life grand?

today the mister and i went on a "quick" shopping trip, which turned into a seven hour adventure. only us. we leave the house and something inside our brains (okay fine, my brain) snaps and we enter some sort of time warp reserved for shopping. now i am still semi-banned from shopping, but we were on a mission to find gifts to give to our friends and family when we visit lesotho. the mister has already taken care of buying the "big" gifts, but today was the day to find all the filler stuff. my territory. to stay on budget we decided to visit dollar stores, but my favorite one closed last year. my attempts to find a replacement store have been greatly hindered by my instinct for self-preservation which has prevented me from entering the seedier neighborhoods which are home to the best discount shopping experiences. so i dragged along the hubby and we found not one, but two fabulous stores.

the first one was almost too much for me. i was not sure if it was a good idea to get out of the car, but i did. once we got inside i was thrilled, because the place was a gold mine. i even found a hot pink house dress. yay! and then the announcements started. some sort of live video and audio surveillance. the voice on the loudspeaker kept saying that we were being watched live and police would respond to any suspicious behavior. and then she asked the clerk a question to which the clerk was required to respond. all of this over the loudspeakers! the mister and i were kind of dumbfounded and wondering what we had stumbled into. we took it in stride and then the announcements started again. and again. and again. we got a little paranoid that maybe we were the suspicious characters, but we persevered. and we emerged unscathed.

the next store was a doozy. a GIGANTIC store with the world's most random collection of stuff. which i suppose explains the name of the store...."stuff." no joke. once we got over the name of the store we entered and discovered that two large and noisy fans are responsible for the climate control. result...sweltering. we wandered the aisles with sweat dripping off our brows. by the end the mister was ready to melt. but we found.......MSG! whaaat? don't get me wrong, i have seen this stuff on ingredient labels my whole life..my mums is allergic to it, so naturally the name is seared in my memory...but i have never actually realized that i could purchase a bottle of monosodium glutamate. never a dull moment in a dollar store.

seven hours, three dollar stores, two kmarts, and costco = nail polish, lip gloss, perfume, pencils, socks, radios, and shoes. might not seem like much, but finding the perfect bargains is a lot of work. today's trip was glorious. total success.

just call me grannie.

for some reason that i cannot explain, i have a lot of little old lady tendencies. i generally carry candy in my purse. i drive ridiculously cautiously and often rather slowly. i make quilts. i have a basket on my bicycle. and i have a weird obsession for muumuus.

 vintage muumuus. my dream.

my muumuu infatuation has recently taken over my life. in college i owned a mustard yellow muumuu, but upon graduation i gave it back to the thrift store whence it came. clearly these days i am pining over my loss. i actually experienced a serious case of envy when i crossed paths with my 80-something neighbor and she was wearing a classic muumuu. how come she has one and i don't? not fair. it should come as no surprise that i added "housedress" to my list of sewing projects.  i spent a while searching the internet looking for a muumuu pattern. only problem being that i thought muumuu was spelled "mumu" so all i managed to find was this website that provides information about finding modest clothes. for those of you in the market for pettipants,  culottes, and caftans, this is the site for you!

orange pettipants. yahoo!!

since my pattern quest was unsuccessful i changed direction and decided instead to make a cute drawstring dress, as if a housedress has the potential to be cute. whatever. i can dream. that plan seemed great until i tried it on and realized that i somehow managed to make a hot pink tent. oops. so i made some alterations and the tent now resembles a housedress. sort of. and then i discovered the correct spelling for "muumuu" and found some directions for sewing a proper muumuu. it's back on my "to do" list.

the joy of the flush.

the mister and i live in a cozy one bedroom apartment. well, technically it is a condominium, but using that term makes me feel like i should dye my hair purple, sit in the sun until i am crisp like bacon, and develop an i-used-to-live-in-new-york accent. i am not yet that florida. maybe someday. 

back to our munchkin house. despite its wee size, our home actually has two bathrooms. the master bath and the half bath. as a child i was always suspicious of those half bathrooms, assuming that they only had a half of a toilet. okay, so that childhood assumption was a bit off, but our wee water closet does sometimes feel so teeny that one has to wonder if it was designed to only fit half a person.

seems silly to get all worked up about a little bathroom, but then the toilet started leaking. for three days every five or six weeks. whaaat?! what is this nonsense? either we have a leak or we do not. this is pure craziness, but cross my heart, our toilet only leaked at its discretion. great. kind of hard to diagnose a leak that is not always present. grrrrr. to make matters worse, the stupid porcelain contraption stopped working. is it a coincidence that the mister lost a nail brush around the same time? nope. ummm...super. so now our finicky toilet is choking on a nail brush. i gave up. we turned off the water, closed the lid, attached a sign that said "me no worky" and turned the bathroom into a storage closet. problem solved. and then visitors arrived. suddenly our bathroom turned into the only bathroom. egads. this is so uncool.

clearly we needed a solution fast! so we waited two years. actually, we would still be waiting except that mommy rolled into town. mommy is the world's greatest handywoman, so she can do random plumbing in her sleep. lucky us. she informed me that we were going to remove the toilet and hopefully find the nail brush, solve the problem, and fix the leak all in one fell swoop. uhhh...oooookay? i guess. how do you remove a toilet? you need a toilet ring? what's a toilet ring? uh huh. sure. sure. yup. right-o. we're good. needless to say i was sort of baffled when we were in home depot looking for toilet rings and i found out they are made of WAX, but i am trying to roll with it.

 for those of you who are not in the know...this is a toilet ring.

when we got home we removed the toilet. oh. my. god. the used wax is positively disgusting. gross. yellow beeswax everywhere. gag. glug. yuck. i could not bear to take a picture of the filth that was under our toilet, so instead i am sharing this picture. it does not do justice to the horror we discovered, but at least it gives you an idea of the goo factor.

we found the nail brush. yay. and mommy discovered that our previous ring was not properly installed. we got everything cleaned up and put it all back together. yay yay yay. and it worked. even more yay.

you know that's not the end, right? i mean that would seriously be way to easy. obviously. so naturally when the mums goes to check on the toilet there is water everywhere. arrrrrrrrg. now i am typically an upbeat person, but i was instantly catapulted into a dark and dreary depression. mommy told me all would be well, but i was not to be convinced. the next day i replaced half of the moving parts in a last-ditch effort to make the sun once again shine in my world. shockingly, amazingly, and wondrously, it worked. and it is still working. yes folks...our half bathroom is once again functional and i use it every chance i get.

now that i am constantly visiting our little bathroom, i have officially concluded that it needs to be revamped. i have always known that the lavender is sadly lacking in saturation. i mean seriously, it is practically white, which is the color of the toilet. and the sink. and the cabinet. and the hardware. and the frame of the mirror. blah blah blah. but not to worry....my current plan is to reinvent my grandma's hot pink powder room.

a$$-kicking hot pink.

of course painting the entire bathroom hot pink might be a little much for the mister. do not fret. the lovely miss K wrote about fancy pants stenciling, so before she has a chance to boss me into stenciling the bathroom, i am going to choose to stencil the bathroom. clearly this will be a small nightmare with lots of misery, but i am sure there will be plenty of joyful cursing.

 a dizzying design that might just be perfect.

anyhow, i am thinking i will paint the walls hot pink and then stencil a design in either silver, dark gray, or black all over. or maybe i will paint the walls white and stencil hot pink over them. that might look better with the bah humbug white accessories. obviously now that the toilet is working the bathroom project has entered a new phase, which means a new saga. just what i needed, because you know, i don't already have enough projects planned. obviously this will not be the last you hear of these 7.2 square feet of our home.

the quilting saga.

i am not exactly sure what originally caused my quilt obsession, but some time in my childhood i came up with the notion that i wanted to make a quilt and that idea never left me. i started many a quilt during the years, but at some point in the process i always stopped. it was not until i joined the peace corps that i actually managed to piece together enough little bits of fabric to get past the inevitable hump that tries to block you from finishing a quilt. i have always been fascinated by crazy quilts. "crazy" meaning that instead of a structured repeating design, every square is a mish-mash of fabric. sounds simple. no problem. i thought "crazy" was just the design. oh no. crazy is how you feel when you are putting one of these together. every single little piece of fabric is stitched onto a backing fabric and then every edge of these itty-bitty pieces is embroidered, so it will not unravel. and that is just making the squares. right.

anyhow, my stint in the peace corps exposed me to lots of gorgeous fabric. i sewed and sewed and resewed. and i saved every single scrap, no matter how small. being enamored with quilts, i of course was once again planning a quilt. i started the quilt in 2004, sewing by hand in my little hut. then in 2005 i moved to a "modern" house with electricity for a few months and used an electric sewing machine. wahoo! after relentless periods of sewing like mad, i returned from africa with one hundred pieced together squares. although these still needed a LOT of work, somehow that hurdle of creating 100 squares was enough motivation to get me through the entire quilting process. and it was a HUGE process. holy bananas.  after i moved back to the states, i settled in seattle, where i diligently embroidered edges with a hand-me-down sewing machine. the sewing machine did not fit in my little car when i moved across the country, so i bought a new machine in 2006 and continued the mammoth task of embroidering edges. 2007 was the year of cutting all the squares to size and piecing them together. finally in 2008 i put together all the layers, quilted them together, and finished off the quilt. 4 homes, 3 sewing machines, 2 continents, 1 quilt. the finished product is large enough to comfortably cover a queen-size mattress. 

 the african crazy quilt.

so, having cut my quilting teeth on such a massive project, i have since found smaller quilts to be a "simple" process. okay fine, they are not exactly simple, but they are sure a whole bunch easier than monster-sized bedspreads. plus i now know what i am doing, which helps.

wowsa, wowsa, wedding quilts.

after the peace corps quilt, i came up with the brilliant plan to create a quilt for each of my best friends' wedding gifts. three quilts. fantastic. and then they all got married within 12 months of each other. gasp. let us just say that i did a whole bunch of quilting in a short amount of time. naturally when my brother informed me that he was going to be a daddy, my brain went into instant hyper-drive planning the perfect baby quilt.

the baby quilt bonanza.

and then i opened an etsy shop and realized that maybe, just maybe, i could convince people to BUY my quilts. this added a whole new dimension to my quilting, because i discovered that perhaps i could feed my quilting habit without sending the mister and i into financial ruin. fancy. i have not actually yet sold one to someone outside of my family, but i am hopeful. the only thing i did not calculate was how much this quilting obsession would take over my life. let us just say that i am putting together fabric combinations in my sleep. two years ago i had never before finished a quilt and now i have completed seven and have more in production. egads!!!

the truth is in the napkin.

last night the mister and i went out for a little din-din. we went to the ale house, our favorite neighborhood pub. we ate. we drank. we paid our check. and then i glanced at the table where our used napkins were sitting side-by-side. mine was smoothed out and neatly folded. the mister's was crumpled into a ball and tossed on the table. i started laughing, because although i don't particularly want to be defined by a napkin,  this is our relationship in a nutshell. i like things "just so" and the mister exists within a bubble of chaos. i guess there is truth in the old adage "opposites attract."

a little nutty.

just in case you were not entirely convinced that i have lost my marbles... i created a "store." personally i think it is charming. the mister snagged this display case before his store threw it in the dumpster. it has been sitting  idle for four months waiting for creative inspiration. it came sans shelves, but i got crafty with cardboard. maybe one day i will even paint the cardboard. now this store will likely only ever see one customer (yes pumpky, that's you!), but did that stop me from creating a sign? nope. like i said...etsy and i are tight. just like two peas in a pod
.

happy april fool's day!!

i heart etsy.

sewing has taken over my life. actually more to the point, etsy has taken over my life. with some prompting from the delightfully bossy k.h. and lots and lots and lots of support from everyone i know, i opened a shop on etsy. sound simple? well then, you are not me. me does not do simple. ever. i take on one itty bitty little project and i find a way to stretch it into an all consuming life-sucking machine.

it began on saturday. i decided to start putting together my little project. first i had to setup my etsy store. definitely more involved that just giving them my name. they want descriptions about me and my store and they want to know my policies about everything from shipping to nose-picking (okay not really, but it felt like it). i mean geez. i just wanna sell a bag. i finally get all of the nitty gritty figured out and then, because i am me i had to create a brand for myself. i used a heart to create my logo. yes logo. i know i know. everyone else who does these things just writes the name of their store and moves on. not me. i need a logo. and a font. and thank you cards. and package design. if i am gonna do this, i am gonna do it right. do you see how this becomes a time sucker??

once i had the online part figured out and designed all of the pieces of my brand i had to create some products to fill my store. not knowing what my adoring fans would like to see i just started sewing. and sewing. and sewing. i have forgotten to eat, cook, and sleep. i havent even been to the grocery store. in fact this morning i woke up and discovered that breakfast was a no-go. we had no food. i have no idea what the mister consumed before heading off to work, but lucky for me he is amazingly accepting of these periods of time when i completely neglect our pantry. otherwise things would be getting ugly.

clearly i am losing my mind. but etsy and i were meant to be together. i have been sewing or playing on etsy or talking about etsy or thinking about sewing nonstop since saturday morning.  i look at my etsy page every 27 seconds. and i created an etsy tab on my facebook profile. and i created a fan page for my etsy store. and i created an etsy widget for my blog. it's like we are soul mates. i feel the same as i did when i was in middle school and wrote my name and a boy's name in a heart and then giggled about it with my friends. pickel+etsy=love.

visit my shop. please. it will make me happy. and you know what? it might just make you happy too!

leratodesigns.etsy.com

snack baggie tutorial.

are you still motivated to be green? no? then make yourself a snack baggie and you will want to be the greenest kid in your neighborhood!! this here is a tutorial to make as many snack baggies as your heart desires. these are fabric snack baggies, perfect for all dry snack-ums....pretzels, cheerios, jelly beans, etc. these baggies are not for storing snacks, because they have no ability to maintain freshness over extended lengths of time; however, they are perfect-O for packing yummy delights into lunches.

for those of you thinking that you could make these with a plastic lining, be warned...food-grade plastic is not readily available in fabric stores, so unless you want your snacks rubbing up against weird chemicals, stay away from random sewable plastic. you can certainly use food-ready plastic (large chip bags are a great option), but that is a tutorial in and of itself, so for this go-round i decided to keep things simple and stick to cotton fabric for both the outside and the lining.

now if you are like my mumsy you are thinking that this these baggies will be the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of bizarre bacteria. you might even try to refer me to dr. emory, as my mother did, to discover the number of pathogens that will inhabit my creations. no offense to all of you germ-a-phobes, but i think this is plain silly. you can make yourself lots of snack baggies and then wash them after EVERY use. personally i am planning to wash mine weekly. at the end of the week i will either drop the little guys into the laundry or wash them by hand and let them air-dry over the weekend. by the time monday morning rolls around the baggies will be dry. so if you're with me, then read-on!!

materials: two 12" squares of material (1 for the outside and 1 for the lining), a 6" piece of thin width elastic, and thread.

note: click on images to see them larger.

step 1. choose a light-weight cotton fabric. you can use the same fabric for both the outside and the lining or you can use different fabrics. i opted to use unbleached 100% cotton for the lining and a pretty 100% cotton fabric for the outside. these instructions will make a snack baggie that is about 7"x5". if you want to make your baggie a different size decide what size you want and then use the template [the template will be posted soon...i promise] to calculate the dimensions that you need to cut. the example calculations shown in the template are the calculations for the baggie i made.

step 2. cut out two 7.5" x 11.5" rectangles. one will act as the outside and one will be the lining. cut a 6" piece of elastic (i used 1/4" elastic). i will refer to the 7.5" sides as the "short sides" and the 11.5" side as the "long side."

step 3. find the center of one of the short sides and mark with a pin. with the right-side facing up, make a loop with the elastic and pin it in the center of the edge of the rectangles. place the lining fabric on top of the outside fabric, with right-sides together. (this step sounds confusing, but look at the picture - it should make sense).

step 4. sew down the short sides using a 1/4" seam allowance. as you cross the elastic, go back and forth a few times to reinforce the stitching.

step 5. pull the layers apart and reposition so that the seams you just sewed are lined up together. pin. sew the long sides, but make sure to leave a 1.5" gap on one side (this should be on the lining half of the bag). you will use this gap to turn the bag right-side out. you can see my gap on the bottom right corner of the third picture.

step 6. turn the bag right-side out through the gap/hole you left in one corner.

step 7. pin the gap. sew the gap closed. sew as close to the edge as possible.

step 8. tuck the lining inside the bag. press the top edge with your fingers and pin. then carefully stitch around the top edge. sew as close to the edge as possible.

step 9. fill with yummies. fold the top edge down and secure with the elastic wrapped around the bag. drop in your lunchbox and off you go!!

go greeeeeeen!

p.s. i got the idea to create reusable snack bags from here, but i created a different style bag to fulfill my dream.

killing the cat.

curiosity killed the cat. therefore i am blessed to not be a cat. i would be dead. i am too curious by far. about what you ask? everything. the latest was brought about by my previous post about kosher soda. out of deference to keri (who prefers pepsi, for reasons i am not taking the liberties to disclose) we will hereby refer to pepsi. she mentioned that HFCS (high fructose corn syrup for those of us who are not in the know) is not included in the kosher production of pepsi. which caused emory to ponder why HFCS is not  kosher. which caused me to go and figure it out. and i solved the riddle!! yay me.

a picture of our grape jelly, because it seemed inappropriate to include a picture of "that which is not pepsi"

are you ready? okay. let's start with the fact that as it turns out, high fructose corn syrup IS kosher. at least according to the OU kosher organization, who call themselves "the world's most recognized and trusted kosher trademark." okay. apparently they are also interested in world domination. and it is working, because they are the trademark from my earlier kosher post. so, why is HFCS kosher? well OU kosher starts with a commentary about the production of HFCS explaining that it is made by changing the molecular structure of corn syrup. uh huh. sure. and then somewhere near the end of the following snippet, we can deduce that it is kosher, because they admit to the fact that they cannot find any reason why HFCS is not kosher.

"The agent responsible for this dramatic change is called glucose isomerase. Although the production of glucose isomerase could theoretically involve kosher concerns (the raw materials may be derived from non-kosher material) the only producers of this sophisticated ingredient are, to the best of our knowledge, kosher-certified. It is thus unlikely that any nonkosher high-fructose corn syrup is on the market" (http://www.oukosher.org/index.php/common/article/good_sweet_year/).

so if HFCS is kosher then why the big hullabaloo creating kosher pepsi for passover? because folks who observe passover traditions are forbidden from ingesting fermented grains or grains which have been in contact with water for longer than 18 minutes. corn is a grain. high fructose corn syrup is derived from corn. pepsi is a liquid, so at some level it contains water. clearly the corn derivative is in contact with water for much longer than 18 minutes. put all or some (i am NOT a scientist people...bear with me) of that argument together and obviously HFCS cannot be consumed during passover.

"Any food or food product containing fermented grain products (Chametz) may not be used or remain in a Jew's possession on Passover. Even foods with minute amounts of Chametz ingredients, or foods processed on utensils which are used for other Chametz-containing foods, are not permissible for Passover use" (http://www.ou.org/chagim/pesach/pesachguide/maze/basic3.htm).

not surprisingly, pepsi is eager to play nice with customers, so they found a way for folks to observe passover AND still gulp down their beverages. long story short...the hubbub is entirely related to passover NOT to the consumption of HFCS the rest of the year. interestingly the throwback varieties of pepsi, which are made with real sugar instead of HFCS are kosher, but not kosher for passover. i have not yet found anything that answers why these are not kosher for passover. i have a feeling it has something to do with a non-kosher preservative.

"During Passover, Jewish law forbids the consumption or possession by Jews of all edible fermented grain products (Chametz) or related foods. Therefore, even foods and household products which meet the strict, year-round dietary regulations, and are considered Kosher, are nevertheless, often unacceptable, or require special preparation for Passover use in the Jewish home in order to be Kosher for Passover"  (http://www.ou.org/chagim/pesach/pesachguide/maze/basic7.htm).

i feel better now. i hope you do too. and i would like to thank the folks at OU kosher for providing such a wealth of information.

kosher coke.

i have never tried to keep kosher, which is probably a good thing, because it never ever ever ever ever would have dawned on me that i need to check my soda to see if it is kosher. but as declared by the orthodox union, certain parts of coke and diet coke meet kosher standards. good to know. but how many different parts of coke are there?

this letter was hanging from the coke shelf at the grocery store.

my question. the rabbi has certified coke for passover 2010. does that mean that after passover coke is no longer kosher? this is so confusing.

 and the coke marketing department gets in on the action. sweet.