Odds and Ends

I'm making roman shades for the windows at the office, but I haven't been able to find one key component -- the cord lock. You know, the little thingy that keeps the cords locked in place when you raise the shade. I've checked several DIY stores and have even asked at a couple of location and have had no luck. Does anyone know if you can find these easily in the U.S.?

I made banana bread today and it turned out pretty dry because I was short a banana. What should you do when you don't have enough bananas? I thought about adding yogurt, but didn't try it. An extra egg? Milk?

Yesterday I bought a small food processor/chopper thingy. Today I tested it out by chopping nuts, pureeing bananas and making a peanut butter shake. Now I wouldn't normally use the chopper for shakes, but I was curious how it would fare. It fared well.

The Angry Chicken has been making butter. I remember doing this when I was a kid by shaking cream in a jar until it became butter. The results were delicious. I may give it a try sometime soon, but I think I'll use the stand mixer this time. I don't know, the shaking method may be fun, but it seems like a lot of work.

More water

A couple of people have reminded me of another non-profit group that is building wells in Africa -- Wishing Well. This is a student-led organization with roots at Pepperdine and Oklahoma Christian. Their goal is to bring attention to the water crisis and be a catalyst for action through art, photography and film. Definitely an organization worth supporting.

Today is World Water Day

From Charity: Water:

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.

From Living Water International:

The United Nations Development Programme estimates the cost of meeting the MGD [Millennium Development Goal, to “reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.”] to be about $10 billion a year. Again, that is for water and sanitation for half of those lacking. They add that the figure “…represents less than five days’ worth of global military spending and less than half what rich countries spend each year on mineral water.”

I always check out charities on Charity Navigator and the BBB website prior to supporting an organization. I was unable to find any information about Charity:Water on either site. However I decided to include the link because there seems to be enough evidence of the good work that they do. They partner with many organizations, including Living Water International, and have received a lot of positive press. You can also view their completed projects in Google Earth. My guess is that they do not have a report with Charity Navigator or the BBB because they are such a young organization.

Photohunt: Yellow

I haven't participated in Photohunt lately because I haven't been snapping as many photos as in the past. (You may have noticed that my Almost Daily Vienna Photo blog has been sorely neglected until recently.) But when I saw this week's theme one of my old photos instantly popped into my mind.


I took this photo in May of last year. Brian and I were on a train traveling from Vienna to Zagreb, Croatia. It was such beautiful weather and there was so much gorgeous scenery. We passed several fields full of this yellow flower, but I had no idea what it was. I found out later that it was rapeseed (canola).

I'm really looking forward to the flowers blooming soon. Happy spring!

P.S. Check out more photos at PhotoHunt.

Then again, maybe not

Yesterday while I was out and about in the city I decided to snap a few photos of the signs of spring that are starting to appear. Trees are starting to bud. Flowers are poking through the dirt. And it was actually sunny, if only for a short time. I was sure that things would be warming up soon.


So these were planted in a pot and not sprouting from the ground, but they are still a welcome sight.


And here's some flowers poking through the ground.
And then this morning, I woke up to this:


Yep, that's snow. Guess the cold weather isn't quite over yet.

And we're back

Well, I've been here all along. Just not here. My schedule has been a little more busy than normal, but surprisingly I don't have much to write about. The highlight of today was getting my health insurance coverage worked out. I registered for the social health insurance a little over six months ago and thought I would receive my insurance card a few weeks ago when the six-month waiting period ended. But when the card didn't arrive and I received no response to my email inquiry, I knew I was going to have to visit the office. It's a real pain because it takes an hour to get there and I knew I was going to have to wait a long time. And then finally after the waiting, I was going to have to talk to someone in German. I wasn't as worried about the talking part as I was worried about the understanding the response part.

When I arrived I pulled a number and started the long wait. I was number 57 and they were helping number 25. Since it was lunch time and a lot of offices are closed from noon to 2:00, I spent the first half hour wondering whether they would close for lunch. They didn't close and I only had to wait a little over an hour before it was my turn. I explained the situation, and except for the part when I asked the woman to repeat the information faster rather than to repeat it slower, it went off without a hitch. I received a temporary card and was told that the official card would arrive in the mail soon.

I suppose that eventually I'll stop marveling at the fact that I can get important stuff accomplished in German, but for now, I'm still pretty impressed with myself.

I'm entering another contest

I've considered creating a new blog just so I'll have a place to post about giveaways I'm entering. But I figure that if I'm interested in a giveaway enough to want the extra entries that posting about it earns me, the people who read this blog may also be interested in it. (Man, that was a confusing sentence to write. I hope it makes sense to someone other than me.)

So here's the latest. Tiffany over at The R Family Diaries is giving away two $100 gift cards to Target. See, I knew you'd be interested. Check out the details here:The R Family Diaries: My Big News and a $100. And make sure and check out the Fishful Thinking page linked from Tiffany's blog post to see what Pepperidge Farms is up to that has her so excited.

What's the Greek word for "yum"?

Have you tried fat free Greek yogurt yet? I actually haven't found it in the fat free variety in Vienna, but the low fat I found has less than half a gram for the whole container, so I'm calling it good. It's so much richer and creamier than normal yogurt. And when I read that you can substitute it in baking for butter, I knew I had to give it a try.



I tried this recipe from Finny Knits (warning, she uses naughty words, so scroll down to the recipe if you want to spare your eyes) and was really pleased with the results. Brian and I like gooey brownies and it was obvious from the batter that these brownies would be more cakey. So I only cooked them for about 18 minutes and they came out with a "melting cake" consistency. I know my family will know what I mean by that because we went on a cruise years ago and every night we ordered the chocolate melting cake for dessert. But in case "melting cake" doesn't mean anything to you, I imagine this recipe for baked fudge from the Pioneer Woman would be similar in texture. So not really brownies, but very good. When Brian tried them he said, "Yep, these can kill a man." And he meant it in the best possible way. I left the house shortly after taking them out of the oven and the pan was almost half way empty when I returned home a few hours later.

I think I will try the fat-free-greek-yogurt-for-butter substitution in something other than brownies -- maybe a coffee cake or pound cake. I'd love to hear if you give it a try in your recipes.

Featured on Tip Junkie

My post on the magnet toy I made my niece for Christmas is featured on Tip Junkie today! My sister Christy got me hooked on Tip Junkie a while back and I've found a lot of inspiration on the site. If you're not familiar with the site, head on over there.

And while you're there, make sure to check out the current giveaway. Laurie is giving away two gifts from the Mom-preneur shops. If you're looking for handmade goodness, this is a good place to look.

He's got legs

Have you seen BabyLegs before? I think they're adorable and probably pretty functional. I ran across a tutorial for turning women's knee socks into BabyLegs knock-offs and knew I had to give it a try -- especially considering the number of expecting mothers I know. I bought a pair of inexpensive knee socks and then let them sit around for weeks. I finally got around to trying the tutorial a few days ago and it in less than 15 minutes I had made these cuties.


You're supposed to use women's knee socks, but when I bought the socks I thought I was supposed to get toddler knee socks. So these are a little small. But that's ok since this was just for practice and the socks were only 50 cents.

I don't have a cute little baby laying around to show them off, but Sharkdog was happy to model them for me.


Ok, maybe "happy" isn't exactly the right word. But doesn't he look cute.


Work it, Sharkdog! Work it!

I used this tutorial, but there are several others out there. Now I just need to find some cute knee socks so I can start making gifts. :)