BCD Tofu House

While shopping for groceries at the Ranch 99 Market recently, we decided to be adventurous and do something new for lunch.

BCD Tofu House is in the same complex so we tried eating lunch there, knowing nothing about Korean food.

I'm not a very open-minded eater, so I was pretty horrified when the menu had hardly any English. I do not like eating sea creatures, organs, or odd animal parts.

We settled on sharing beef teriyaki and chicken something. They sounded safe enough. Plus all meals come with sampler dishes of house specialties.

Here's what came to the table first.


I was ready to leave at that point. Lucy kept whispering to me and asking me if the fish was dead. I assured her it was. Then she surprised me by heartily digging into its fried little body and chowing down.

Some other dishes. I have no idea what they are.



Hot pot soup. The broth in this was spicy good and the tofu chunks melted in your mouth. But it also contained weird bits like clam shells and I swear I saw a tentacle.


Beef teriyaki


Colin is always happy to eat a plate of meat, and that Lucy tried every weird looking thing on the table. So all in all, it wasn't a bad place for lunch. Sometimes it's fun to venture out of your comfort zone.

Baby Shower

I recently co-hosted a gender neutral baby shower. The color theme was green and brown. (After I made Mom choose a color theme)

I handmade the invitations:

Print out party info onto 4x6 paper
Hole punch two small holes into top paper and bottom 5x7 paper


Thread ribbon through holes
Tie in a bow



For an added touch, punch a shape out at the bottom


Finished product (lighting in pic is dark, actual colors were vibrant)


The best way to provide beautiful, delicious cupcakes for a baby shower is to buy them at Trophy.


With the green and brown theme, it was a good occasion to use my shamrock and chocolate Fiestaware. Note that the decorative invitation hole punch also doubles as a table top confetti maker.



I got the crazy idea to carve a watermelon baby carriage with little fruit balls inside. There are a lot of examples of this online. Here's the one I was using as inspiration.



And here's the one I made. Turns out it's really hard to use a melon baller. Plus I was in a hurry and I forgot the carriage handle. Plus my orange slices wouldn't stay on the toothpicks. My ugly carriage was filled with melon shavings. It was pretty pathetic.



If any of my friends have more babies, I'm just getting the Costco fruit platter.

Ranch 99 Market

A craving for stir fry last week led us to take a shopping trip at the Ranch 99 Market on Highway 99 in Edmonds. They have the absolute best, freshest, and least expensive vegetables in town.

Not only is it a great place to buy your veggies, oils, and noodles, it's a fun place to take your kids. They have a huge seafood counter filled with all kinds of live and not-so-live sea creatures that kids love to look at. Plus their meat section is chock full of weird and yucky animal parts that young boys enjoy eeewwwing over.

Sea Urchins


Live Blue Crabs



Mmmmm...pork uterus!


Assorted Fish Heads


Probably the only bad part about shopping here is that the customer service isn't too great. I always thought the cashiers were so unfriendly because we were white. But I noticed on this visit that the cashiers all have signs stuck to their cash registers reminding them of the basics "Smiling, Greeting, Eye Contact", so I guess they are surly to lots of people.

Best Dill Pickle Recipe for Canning, hopefully

I canned pickles last summer and they turned out fairly well. They tasted great, but weren't crispy enough. And I have to have crisp, so I needed a better recipe.
After researching tons of online pickle recipes, here's what I came up with:

10 pounds pickles (fresh batches at the farmers market all month!)

Soak your pickles in ice for at least two hours before processing. Icing them this way is supposed to make them crispier. Another crispy technique is to cut off the heads where they came off they stem, so I cut all those off, too.



These suckers were so big, I had to quarter them into spears in order to fit them into the jars. I wasn't planning on canning spears, so I have no idea if cutting them will affect the crispness and/or taste.

Just to be safe I iced the cut spears for an hour after that.



I always soak my jars in the boiling canning water to sterilize them. My canning pot is so huge it takes a long time to come to a boil so this is a good time saver as well. After you've sterilized your jars, add 2 cloves garlic and several fresh dill sprigs to the jar. In half of mine I also added two slices of jalapeno because I wanted to try making some of this batch spicy.

Then you need to cram as many pickle spears into each jar as you can. 10 pounds worth is a good approximate fit for a 12-pack of jars.

For the brine, bring to a boil:

9 cups water
6 cups white vinegar
3/4 cup pickling/canning salt

Once your brine boils you can ladle it into your pickle jars. Seal with rings and lids (I keep mine in a small, simmering pot on the stove top for sanitary reasons and for an easy location). Process jars for 12-15 minutes. You want at least 12 minutes to ensure the seal gives you a good storage life. The trouble with pickles is that processing them longer is what zaps out the crunchiness. But I'll take sterile over crunchy.


The jar on the right has been processed for 15 minutes.

Ideally you should let your pickles sit for about eight weeks before eating them. I'm going to make two more batches of pickles this month, and then I'm moving on to jam as the berry season matures. Blueberry picking should be primo in a few weeks!

See you in Hell, Spongebob Squarepants!

My Chirp themed bathroom redo was such a success, I knew I had to makeover our other bathroom. I've never paid too much attention to this room, since it's mostly used by the kids. Several years ago I bought a Spongebob shower curtain, and ever since this room has been the depository of all things Spongebob.

How would you like this staring at you as you shower?



Spongebob toys, accessories, and stickers were everywhere.



You couldn't escape him in the shower stall, either.


These pictures were so old, they started to wrinkle from all the moisture.


I was browsing for an inspiring shower curtain, and ran into one with the periodic table of elements printed on it at thinkgeek.com. That shower curtain snowballed into an entire science themed bathroom.

I started with the walls. In the above photo you can see the wall that was still covered with 30 year old wall paper. I spent a lovely afternoon scraping all that off. Then, I applied two coats of "grassy green" paint.




Next was floors. I am now a vinyl tile installation expert.

Old floor


New floor


Periodic Table shower curtain


It wasn't totally easy to find more sciency things to go in the bathroom, but with a little creativity and a lot of shopping footwork, I found some pretty good items. I focused on bright primary colors and shades that matched well with the periodic table.

Beaker toothbrush holders


Science posters


Inside the shower stall I put planetary decals. The wall and ceiling have glow in the dark stars. The glass bottles are filled with bubble bath and shampoo.


Frog in a jar plus science toys and flasks full of colored water beads went on top of the toilet.


I printed out pictures of famous scientists online, and then found these mini masterpiece frames at Michaels to hang over the mirror.


This is as full-view of a shot as I can get of the whole room from the angle in the hallway.


I love my science bathroom so much, I'm almost wishing I had a third bathroom to transform!

How to make an Outdoor Movie Theater Screen

I got the idea stuck in my head that having movie night in the backyard this summer would be the perfect way to spend time on our nice weather Saturday nights. If you google "backyard movies" or "outdoor theatre" you get a lot of info from people out there that have already had this idea.

The trickiest part of showing movies outside is the screen. I read several do-it-yourself sites, but nothing really appealed to me. I wanted something easy, and most importantly, cheap. Some DIY sites had materials that cost upwards of $100 or more, plus elaborate building plans. This was not what I wanted to get into.

I used a mix-up of different ideas, went shopping, and came up with my own easy plan.

Step 1: Measure
You must measure the space you plan on projecting your movie onto. I had about 100 inches by 70 inches to work with. You want your screen to be wider than longer in order to best match the aspect ratio of the movie. There's precise formulas you can use to measure this, but I was way too lazy and "close enough" was good for me.

Step 2: Fabric
Lots of sites say to use drapery black out fabric. I went to inspect this at JoAnn's and it would have been perfect. And at only 2.99 a yard it would have been cheap. But the bolts at my store were only 45 inches wide, way too short. I perused some other fabric and found something called duck cloth in with the canvas section. It was a perfect 60 inches wide. It was pricier at 10.99 per yard, but when you go to JoAnn's never forget your 40% off coupon. 96 inches of this fabric cost about $17.

Step 3: Hardware
A trip to Lowe's netted me two 10 foot PVC pipes. Just ring the bell for service and someone will come and custom cut those for you. I whittled mine down to 100 inches. Light-weight pipe was only $1.99, heavier pipe was $2.99. You'll also need a length of rope and some duct or gorilla tape. I already had these on hand at home, so I didn't factor them into my total cost.

Stet 4: Construction

Move your living room furniture around and lay out your materials flat.


You want your light pipe to be the top, heavy pipe on the bottom.



Bind your fabric to the pipes using your tape. Make sure to line up your tape strips or you'll have a choppy edge.


Thread rope through top pipe and knot. Bind side edges of fabric to get a border, and to prevent fabric from unraveling.


Step 5: Hanging
I simply tacked a couple nails on the underside of our awning and hung up the screen.

The middle sagged a little, so I jimmied a loop with my gorilla tape, stuck it to the center of the pole, and hung it on another nail.

The fabric is cotton so it got a little wrinkly, I attempted to iron it, but that was more trouble than it was worth. The heavier pole at the bottom weighs the screen down, and left to hang for the afternoon, the wrinkles got better. The wrinkles ended up having no effect whatsoever on the movie, so all in all, they don't matter.



Then it was movie time. We watched "Back to the Future". It's hard to take a good nighttime shot, but the screen looked great. Total cost was only about $22. And putting it together only took about a half hour. Easy! It also rolls up for easy storage in the garage. Backyard movies might be my best idea ever.

Bird is the Word

I love my Chirp inspired bathroom so much, I was tempted to get the Chirp line of bedding, too.



But the set only comes with a comforter and we have a duvet. It just wasn't a practical purchase.

And then when I was cruising Marshalls a few weeks ago, I chanced upon a most beautiful duvet set. With different birds. I liked the colors so much, I bought the set and even a few matchy throw pillows.









Since I don't have the same duvet on the bed everyday, I don't feel like I'm on bird overload just yet. Of course, if you've ever watched the show Portlandia, then you know the height of fashion is to "Put A Bird on it".

Fiestaware Shelf

I am knocking out my summer projects, one by one.

Here's the thrift store corner shelf I picked up at Value Village for $8 last month:


Here it is painted purple:


And here it is housing a few pieces of my Fiestaware collection:


I even stuck earthquake tape under the Fiestaware. Just in case. It also protects against thundering children racing around the dining table.

This shelf is the perfect addition to the house. It brightens up the dining room, and most importantly, shows off some of my favorite Fiesta pieces. Spiffing up thrift store items can be a great way to jazz up your home for very little money!