Connecting UK's women at every stage of their lives PLEASANT HOME How to Build a Custom Banquette for your Kitchen If you have been thinking about constructing a banquette in your kitchen I can tell you that it is the best home improvement project I ever did.It not only adds architectural detail to the room, but it creates more seating without the need for a lot of chairs, plus since the seating is right against the wall, the table can be pushed towards the wall making the room feel more spacious.There is no space allowance needed for chairs to be pulled back. I originally saw a professional carpenter make a banquette with a slanted back that my friend had made for her kitchen.I loved how it looked, but knew I couldn’t afford a carpenter and would never be able to construct the back.After looking at it for awhile and seeing how it was made, I decided I didn’t need a back. Here is the finished banquette without anything on it. View of the top. Side view – I added crown molding, baseboard, and quarter round as finishing trim. I can sit a lot of people around the table now. Underside view of the top.
Teacher Christmas Gifts For teacher gifts this year I wanted to do something quick and easy. Between school teachers, aides, and primary teachers we had 6 to buy for. So I headed out to Bath & Body Works and picked up some cute Christmas apple-scented soap. I wanted to do a little something more for Cailyn's 3rd grade teacher. I got some lined scrapbook paper and ran it through the printer to put her teacher's name on. I put them all together, added some ribbon and a few festive pencils and it was good to go! Linked to:
The Crafting Chicks — Friends Sharing Crafty Ideas 366 Random Acts of Kindness: February 2012 Being able to see first hand due to my wife being a teacher, I know the importance of education. I know the impact that it has on someone's life and their future. Unfortunately, I also know that not all education is equal (and in some instances, even existent). Socioeconomic status should never determine the quality or availability of education for anyone...even in one of the most remote places on Earth. In late 2009, Brooke Laura took a trip to Kathmandu to work at a children's' home and trek throughout Nepal. During her trip, she became close friends with her tour guide, Sudan, and through many discussions learned that educational opportunities in Nepal were few and far between. I never expected 366 Random Acts to spread as far and wide as it has. The reason why I want to do this is because Sudan, who so selflessly gave up his home and has been acting as principal of Shining Star, has recently been struck with devastating news.
How a Hen Makes an Egg & Egg Oddities. Egg irregularities are common. Backyard chicken-keepers need not worry unnecessarily about the occasional strange-looking egg. Take a picture of it, discuss it at the water cooler next day and get a good chuckle out of it. They happen fairly often and the vast majority of the time they do not indicate any cause for alarm. In order to understand why irregular eggs occur, it’s important to understand how a hen’s reproductive system is supposed to work when firing on all cylinders. Here's the deal with a hen's reproductive system: a female chick's ovary contains all of the ova it will ever have when it's hatched. *A hen's reproductive system consists of an ovary and oviduct (a long tube with several parts that have different jobs) This is an actual hen's reproductive tract*. A hen must mate with a rooster in order for her egg to contain both the male and female genetic material necessary to create an embryo inside the egg. This double yolked egg was laid by my Easter Egger, Esther. Flat Side
Buckets of Burlap Dirty Little Secrets - How To Get Your Dirty Whites Clean Again! Like most moms we want our families to look their best. We feel a sense of pride when our boys leave the house each morning freshly scrubbed, neat and tidy. By the time they come home after school they are usually sloppy, dirty and stained. The worst offenders are their white socks, or should we say their once white socks. Horrifying! No matter what we did they never seemed to come clean again. Here is what we found: Wash the really dirty whites, like socks, separately from your other whites to keep them from graying the cleaner whites. Soak the socks in dishwasher detergent for at least 2 hours before washing and bleaching socks. Wash the socks and then re wash and bleach them. We were so pleased with how good the boys socks looked! But, the best and easiest new trick we learned... ...just buy black socks!