Things I'm Going to Do When School Starts

I know this is weird to say but in less than a month school will start. The Anchorage School District gets out in mid-May and the kids will be back at the books starting August 20th. For goodness sake, I'm still enjoying sun and summer but registration and school shopping are right around the corner.

We've had a great summer so far and while I'll kind of miss them when they go back to school there is an up side to all this: more time to do fun things. I'm a list maker and I've always got a list of things I want to try so I'm sharing some things I'll be doing once the house is quiet once again.

Can you see a hint of posts to come?

1. Trying some wood burning.
Several years ago I fell in love with the wood burned boxes at Sixth and Elm which are really spectacular little pieces of art and while I know I couldn't possibly pull off a box like Tellie's beauties I really, really want to try. Not this super-cool Hogwarts box (that would be too crazy to contemplate) but maybe one of the beautiful script boxes.

I bought a plain wooden box for $5 and it's sat in my craft closet for months now, waiting for me to get up the guts to put pen to paper (or whatever). I'm kind of afraid I'm going to mess it up badly and I've had a hard time finding a copy of the script I need but get those kids back in school and I'm ready to take a stab at it.

2. Cooking a Chinese buffet.
I saw this post at Blog Chef about cooking your own Chinese buffet and thought it would be so fun, given the way my kids love Chinese food (and it's really, really expensive to do take out with six mouths to feed). Kung Pao Chicken, Orange Chicken, Egg Rolls--it's all there in a seven-course meal that takes (you guessed it) approximately seven hours to cook but for a fun family treat I think it would be great. I was thinking it might even be fun to have the meal picnic-style on the living room rug.

The menu is a little heavy on the chicken, I think I'd replace a couple of the items with things like Sweet and Sour Pork or Mongolian Beef (a favorite) and I'd also probably try these baked egg rolls to see if they're a good substitute.

3. Making fried cheese.
And if that baked egg roll recipe works well maybe I'd try it on this fried cheese recipe that has had me drooling for half a year. Of course you realize the inherent danger of waiting until my kids are back in school to make this?

I'd eat every one all by myself. So maybe I shouldn't do this one alone.

4. Sewing some clothes.
I'm not normally someone who likes to sew but I do *ahem* like to have clothes. But, being a cheapo, I find that I can sew clothes for much less than I can buy them (usually).

I hit a $1 sale at Walmart and collected a couple cute floral prints and dug out an old skirt pattern that is still in style (if you can adjust the hem it'll never go out of style) and have cut out three skirt patterns and one dress pattern. All for under $10.

Now, of course, they sit and wait for me to get to the process of actually sewing them. I'll get them sewn and then be so burned out I won't touch my machine again for a year.

5. Brewing up some root beer.
Now this one is kind of funny and you'll see my odd side but a couple months ago I made homemade root beer using some dry ice. After it was finished I did some research and found that you can also make root beer by adding yeast which creates carbon dioxide, resulting in carbonation.

Fair enough right? Sounds like lots of fun to make and bottle except the only hangup is that the process is the same used to make real beer and just as when you make regular beer, the yeast gives off alcohol as a byproduct of the fermentation process. With the root beer the amount of alcohol you get is really small--something like .03%--but in our house we don't drink alcohol (it's a religious thing) and while I recognize that someone would have to drink over a gallon of root beer made this way in order equal the alcoholic content of one glass of regular beer it's the principle of the thing.

Yes I'm aware that other products also have alcohol: vanilla extract, Nyquil, whatever--but somehow that seems a little bit different. If I'm telling my kids that we don't drink alcohol then I'm suddenly brewing up a batch in my basement and telling the kids not to get piggish because they might get drunk (I'm kidding here) then I'm wondering if this really is the project for me.

The thing is, it sounds really fun. Am I being odd here?

6. Canning and making fruit leather.
Several years ago, in a burst of domestic euphoria, I canned a whole bunch of fruit. Peaches, cherries and applesauce to be specific. They were so pretty and so sweet, sitting like jewels on the shelves that I hesitated to eat them. You see where this is going, right?

Well the applesauce got eaten--it's popular enough around here that the kids are always pulling jars out of the pantry--but the peaches and cherries (which my husband doesn't like) weren't as popular and I kind of forgot for a year or two that I had them. So now I'm out of applesauce and stuck with jars of cherries and peaches that are past their prime which means I'm due for a big ol' canning party. I've learned my lesson and will be canning applesauce but I recently found an article describing how to make fruit leather from older canned fruit such as I have in abundance.

We have a dehydrator and we have the fruit so pretty soon I'm going to be whipping out the fruit leather. It ought to be good for a post at least, right?

7. Making fruit cordials.
Another thing I might try is making fruit cordials. I had always somehow thought that cordials were an alcoholic drink (again, with the alcohol thing!) like liqueurs but when I read that they're really just a fruit drink and saw the pictures of these pretty little bottles I thought maybe I ought to give it a try.

And with the peaches and cherries I've got I think it is just about the perfect timing. I also suspect I can puree some of the fruit and add it to things like muffins and pancakes and breads or sauces. Without pits.

8. Planting garlic.
I LOVE garlic. I pretty much add it to everything I cook, even if the recipe may not call for it so when I saw a video about how to plant your own garlic the portion of my brain that controls obsessions kicked in and thought it might be time to give that a try.

And just to clarify, I don't add garlic to things that might cause horrifying mutations--like garlic cinnamon rolls or garlic orange juice. I stick with the savory.

I'm wondering if I can get them to grow well with sunlamps on them because once the winter comes on we'll never have enough light to keep them alive.

9. Growing mushrooms.
Another gardening adventure. I've bought a box of morel spores and I have yet to plant them. They're supposed to go out in my garden but I've sat around, enjoying myself and being rather lazy so that they're still out on the back porch waiting for me to get around to sowing them.

Alaska has plenty of morels but they're rather tricky to find so I thought I'd give mother nature some help by trying my own hand at things. I'm not going to tell Andrew because if he even knew I was planting mushrooms he'd be instantly suspicious of any dish I put in front of him. What he doesn't know won't hurt him.

10. Building an outdoor fire pit.
My parents did this where they ran a gas line out to their back deck and put in a fire pit on the porch but I've seen several less-expensive, less-invasive alternatives that really sounded fun. If this video on Wonder How To for building a fire pit doesn't work then I've also seen a pit that incorporates a propane tank in its base that was going for $50 at Walmart (a sweet deal).

11. Making some beaded bracelets.
I've done a bit of beading--nothing huge you understand--but these sweet little pink bracelets look quite doable. I've seen them being sold for $50 but I bet I could make one for under $10. If I get around to it . . .

12. Knitting.
When I finally finish the seagreen sweater I'm working on then it'll be about time for warmer clothing and I'll be knitting up this pretty little scarf. Or maybe this crocheted castle (dang I wish my boys weren't too old for that kind of thing, it's really cute!)

13. Making dandelion syrup.
This is odd, I know, but then the only excuse I have is because it sounded so wild and out there that I couldn't help but be interested. Anyone ever tasted dandelions? Me neither. But syrup? That's never a bad thing and I've heard birch syrup is really good so maybe dandelion syrup wouldn't be too bad either. It will freak out the kids if nothing else. The link is here.

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And congratulations to Krista of O'Fallon, Illinois for winning last weekend's Blush giveaway. What a handy little clothing gadget to have around.