This is a very simple and fairly healthy dish, very easy to make in large quantities or single portions. The ingredients are few and the recipe flexible; the basic sauce only requires soy sauce, water & sugar, but can also be enhanced with ginger and rice wine if desired. Our recipe only includes vegetables, but [...]
February 20th, 2010 | Posted in Frugality, Recipes | 1 Comment
For the lucky few who have extra leisure time this summer, I thought I’d put together some suggestions for productive and fun activities that will help enhance your personal, academic and/or professional life. Some of these suggestions are addressed as if to young people (students, adolescents, etc.) but can also apply to grown-ups. My suggestions [...]
February 13th, 2010 | Posted in Books, Cleaning, Crafts, Family, Frugality, Hobbies, Home, Home Decor, Music Study, Pets, Sewing & Knitting, Shopping | 3 Comments
With Christmas almost upon us, here are some last minute gift bag templates for the eleventh hour shoppers and gift wrappers. The Small carrier bags measure approximately 4 1/2″ tall, and the Mini carrier bags 3 1/2″ if printed on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of paper. The images are large enough to be [...]
February 10th, 2010 | Posted in Freebies, Gifts, Holidays | 3 Comments
Fabric scraps are the natural by-product of a sewing project. Bags and Bags of fabric scraps are the natural result of many sewing projects and the frugal impulse to keep every potential resource. While these collections of small and irregular pieces tend to be a nuisance, they are usually of beautiful or expensive materials that [...]
February 5th, 2010 | Posted in Frugality, Hobbies, Home, Sewing & Knitting | 1 Comment
Semiannually, I take a pair of scissors and work my way through box after box and bag after bag of yarns which seem to have the ability to form tangles without human assistance. I untangle what I can, cut loose impossible knots, and roll up dozens of tidy yarn balls which will somehow unravel themselves [...]
January 30th, 2010 | Posted in Crafts, Frugality, Home, Sewing & Knitting | No Comments
Most people inevitably own an innumerable rank of items which are both frequently and infrequently necessary. These miscellaneous items are often all too visible in the form of clutter and frustratingly invisible when they are wanted. The obvious solution is to place things near the location where they are most likely to be wanted and [...]
January 26th, 2010 | Posted in Crafts, Frugality, Furniture, Home | No Comments
As of this writing, “No-Air Conditioning Summer” is over for us (thank goodness!), but before I talk about how and why it ended, I thought I’d offer some tips on staying cool for those who either choose to or have to live without A/C for frugality’s sake or due to power outages, etc. Before we [...]
August 6th, 2009 | Posted in Frugality, Health, Heating & Cooling, Home | 4 Comments