Snow, Crafts and Food!

I just love snow days! This year we got a pretty good amount (about 8") on Valentines Day and a few more inches mixed with ice the week after. We've still got quite a few inches on the ground, with more snow on the way tonight & tomorrow (thankfully no more than just a few inches predicted).

Poor Zoey loves and hates the snow =( 

She use to like the snow a lot and would play in it. But I guess now that shes celebrated her 8th birthday, shes less inclined to play and just wants to snuggle under the warm blankets.
I guess I won't be making up the bed today!

Because Zoey is such a Miss Priss and doesn't like getting her feet wet or cold, and the fact the snow came up to her shoulders, this is what we came up with to help =) 

Underneath that blanket is clean, snow-free grass!

With it being so cold here lately staying indoors is ideal. SO.
I've been trying to catch up on my cleaning and sewing. 

Cleaning has been a little more difficult here lately, because one day when I was vacuuming the outlet I was plugged into decided it wanted to fry my vacuum and the outlet along with it.
Thankfully it didn't catch fire, but I am now without a vacuum temporarily =(
One thing I didn't realize? How DUSTY the house gets when just using a broom and dustpan.
My solution to the dust?

 

A homemade Swiffer duster! I made it out of fleece because of how much static fleece produces when you don't use softener. I plan on making a dust mop as well, to use in place of a broom.

Also awhile back we were in need of something store our everyday bathroom stuff in. If you've seen our bathroom, you'd understand the need for some extra storage. If you haven't seen our bathroom - imagine sitting on the toilet and being able to use the sink and tub (if needed) while doing your business. Lets just say that if you have stuff coming out both ends, you won't have to worry about having a bucket on hand =P SO. With such a small bathroom that you can barely turn around in without hitting your knees, I came up with this, by request from Hubby, to hang on the door.

Waste not, want not? From the seam scraps of jeans I also created coasters. I made a big one to use as a hotplate and some smaller ones for drinks. I can't put really hot stuff on them because of the hot glue, but it still works pretty well with semi-hot pots or pans.

I've also been doing a lot of baking. For Christmas, Hubby bought us a toaster oven that basically replaced my oven. No point in firing up the oven for something small that will fit in the toaster oven right? Right. It may take a little long for things to bake, but well worth the $$!

My toaster oven can fit a 9x13 dish. Awesome!
So it fits TWO loaves of bread quite easily.

Mozzarella cheese drop biscuits anyone?
Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuits with Homestead Creamery Milk, YUM!

 In Tech news (hopefully I won't loose you with the tech talk) but,
I've officially made the switch from Windows XP to Linux Ubuntu! 

There's a really good reason why I switched and not by my choice - kinda. Here's the story ...

Last year my CeleronD (equivalent to a Pentium 4) eMachine power button stopped working. We tried to rewire a new one in, but with no success. We really didn't have the $$$ to buy me a new or used computer, so until we could get me one, we've been sharing Hubby's computer (or I just used my Smartphone). Well late in December a friend at DH's work offered to give us his old computer. Only stipulation was - no hard drive (HD). "No problem!", or so we thought... After needing to buy an adapter to get my HD working in the computer (I have an IDE HD & the computer has SATA only ports and power) I put the restore disks with Windows 7 in the CD drive, all to find out that the CD's aren't compatible with my HD (the restore disks only work with the ORIGINAL HD). 'Oi! 

  So Hubby had the solution of trying to install Linux on my system. We tried installing Ubuntu on my eMachine a couple years ago, but it wouldn't work - for reasons I can't remember. Worth a try right? WELL worth it! Not only was the Ubuntu operating system FREE, but it doesn't bog the computer down, easy to use (it's a lot like Windows 7 but better) they have a HUGE community willing to help you with ANY and every issue you have and ... well ... it's FREE! No spending over $100 on an operating system that will work on only 1 computer. Awesome. 

Oh. And the specs on the computer that was given to us? It's a Dell Inspiron 580, Intel i3 (3.20Ghz), with 6 Gigs of ram. Yeah, it's quite the upgrade from my eMachine! No graphics card yet. I have to upgrade my power supply before I can add any other upgrades =( But we're working on that!

If you didn't already know? I LOVE working on computers - Hubby has been teaching me everything he knows and will hopefully be going to school soon so he can work on computers full-time. I also like gaming. Minecraft is my favorite. I love the ability craft and be creative. Here's a picture of something Hubby and I built together in-game. It took us about a week to build it, most of it was Hubby's design =)

That's going to be all for this update. 

Hope you enjoyed this post. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or message me =)

~E