Wife Points Wednesday: My Kind of Fishing

As you may know, I ran away this past weekend for a girls shopping trip. I wanted to do something special for the Hubs... we'll call it a bribe to behave while I was gone. Fortunately, I had the perfect idea pinned on my WPW Pinterest board:

Fun Fishing Cupcakes from Nothing but Country

How cute are those?!? Now that's the kind of fishing I wanna do!


Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute, but delicious none-the-less. I used Swedish Fish, which my husband likes, but were a bit too big for cupcakes. I think they would work well if you made one big cake & put the tiny fishing poles around the edges.

One of these days I will get a camera that takes a decent photograph- I promise!

Wife Points Wednesday: Guest Post from My Life: Planned in Pencil

Hello fans of The (always awesome) 2010's Housewife.

I'm so excited to be here for Wife Points Wednesday.

I'm PJ from My Life: Planned in Pencil where I share a little bit of everything!  I'm kind of like the crazy guy from the corner of my favorite flea market.  He sells pictures, mostly of Al Pacino in Scarface and Sponge Bob Square Pants, he calls out to the people passing by, "A Little Bit Of Everything For A Little Bit Of Everybody!"

That's me.

When Tracy invited people to guest post for Wife Points Wednesday I jumped at the chance.  I've been married for almost 9 years and maintaining a strong relationship is something that I'm pro-active and passionate about.  Fairy Tales lead us to believe that once our Prince Charming shows up then we live happily ever after... they don't show us that Prince Charming might have a drinking problem, or that Rapunzel might end up being a hoarder!

Most of the crafts that I do are NOT geared towards my husband.

He could care less about the cool cork balls I made....

Or the crazy red mirror I remade for our bathroom....

He couldn't care, but he is SUPER supportive!

So... sure I could remake something for him, right?

That's harder than you think since most of my projects are either sewing or thrift store redos.

Sunday at the flea market I found something that I knew he was going to love.

I'm not a fan of smoking, and don't condone it at all, but from time to time Mr. T enjoys to smoke a cigar or pipe.  Usually when fishing.   

$5 for this!

A pipe and tobacco holder.

Fun, right?

I figured I could make it a little better with my favorite thing.

Spray Paint!

Krylon's Navy Blue for my Navy Boy

When I showed it to him his response was "whoa cool!" so I guess he liked it!

Wife Points Wednesday: 1337 magnets

My husband is a geek <cough>....  IT guy. (Love you honey!) Our cat's name is Techie. We have 8 computers in our home. I don't know how to work the living room TV remote, probably because it cost $300 and has more buttons than my laptop. Sometimes, right when my husband gets home from work & he's still in work mode, he speaks to me like we are in a programming meeting.

To give him an outlet for his "leet" speak (did I get that right??) I made him some fun little keyboard magnets.

Find a dirty keyboard at the flea market for $1.

Pull it apart.

Make a pile of all the keyboard guts. My husband said it looked like I murdered a keyboard.... and then he got scared that it was his keyboard.

Soak the keys in warm soapy water and give them a good scrub down.

Bust out the E6000 and glue the keys to small magnets.

Stick them to something magnetic and then try to decipher the words & numbers your husband puts together.

Wa-La! Hours of husband entertainment!

Linking Up @ Today's Creative Blog & The Thrifty Home & Savvy Southern Style

Wife Points Wednesday: I've Got Your Back!

Today's WPW post isn't exciting or fun & there aren't any photos- sorry kids. It is however, really really awesome for my husband... and his back.

See, we are moving onto Phase 2 of our new deck project which is building a small landing above the old broken down concrete slab that connects our deck and the breezeway. Last weekend the Hubs put in the two cement footers needed for the foundation of the landing- and digging the two post holes just about killed him!

The Hubs has an old back injury from high school days that I can't imagine is fun to live with. He still, somehow, manages to do everything... if not more... than a husband without a back injury would do around the house. What else can I say? He's AMAZING!

Well, Phase 3 of the deck will require at least 9 post holes for the extension we plan to add on. I know my husband is dreading it and I just can't bring myself to let him dig them himself again. So, I rearranged the project budget a bit and am calling in a professional contractor friend to dig the holes. I know my husband can do it but why should he break his back just to save a couple bucks? (Or maybe a little more than a couple.)

I am focused on frugal living and pride myself on how much money we do manage to save but when it comes to our health and safety- it's non negotiable! Sometimes you have to step back and put decisions into perspective when making choices like these.

Hubs- I got your back!

Wife Points Wednesday: THIS Much!

Today's WPW is a silly little craft that can be made in minutes, but is still very cute. I found this inspiration photo over at Tiffkeetch:

I'm sure it was designed for kids as a Father's Day card but who says big kids can't play too?? Here are the steps:

#1 Cut a piece of paper about 1" x 12" long and fold at every inch in opposite directions (to make accordion) or do like I did and crease w/ a paper cutter.

#2 Using colored card stock, or scrapbook paper glued to card stock, trace around each of your hands and cut out.

* For bonus Wife Points DO NOT use your husband's new Cabela's catalog for your glue stick mat.

#3 Glue the two ends of your zig-zag piece inside the two hands and attach alphabet stickers or write the letters to spell out "THIS MUCH"

#4 Decorate the outside of the front hand with "I Love You...". I also signed & dated the right hand so it had something on it too. You could use that as the "message" part of the card.

I am totally going to be the mom that embarrasses her kids with notes in their lunch box!

Happy Wife Points Wednesday!

Wife Points Wednesday: Mending

It's hard to tell from the photo, but we've had quite a tall stack of holey clothing piling up. Right there on top is one of my husband's most frequently worn shirts, which so happened to have 4 holes in it. All along the seams, thankfully!

For WPW this week I decided to bite the bullet and get all the mending done. When my husband came home from work last night he went into our bedroom to change out of his work clothes and came out wearing that Nike shirt. He looked really happy so I said, "That's a nice shirt." To which he said, "Yea, this is one of my favorite shirts. I haven't seen it in awhile."

He didn't even notice that a) it had a hole in it, let alone 4, b) it's been sitting in a pile on top of my sewing machine for about 2 months, or c) that the holes were now gone. But, I know he appreciated that I mended it... after I told him I did.

Wife Points Wednesday: Guest Post- Boudoir Cookies!

Boudoir Cookies... are your interests peaked yet?? I am so excited to present another guest post today for Wife Points Wednesday. A special, special thank you to Lisa from The Enchanted Oven!

When Tracy asked me to do a tutorial on some of my "boudoir" cookies, I was excited to show how easy it is to make a thong cookie.  Hey, not all of us want to put one on our bodies,  but  you can certainly put one on a plate :)

I chose the thong because it takes a simple heart shaped cookie cutter which is something if you don't already have, is easy to purchase.  With your favorite sugar cookie dough, cut out a heart shape, turn it upside down and cut off the pointed tip.

Now bake and cool.  With royal icing (I used a Wilton #4 tip), draw one line straight across.

The second line goes from the top left down to the indentation of the bottom.

Now just bring the final line up to meet the top.  Here is what they look like when they are outlined.

Now, thin your icing down with either water or milk.  Let it sit for a few minutes for the air bubbles to rise to the surface.  Gently stir, and put into squeeze bottles.  Fill in the open area of the thong.

I use a toothpick to guide the icing into the corners.  Let the icing dry for a couple of hours or overnight.  You can call it a day at this point, or you can add details like bows, ruffles, polka dots, hearts, or dragees. 


Here they are finished.

And here is another group that I did a while back.

If you are a woman of color, can you imagine how adorable these would be using a chocolate sugar cookie dough?  If you want a smoother "cheek" (no cookie wrinkle cellulite), outline and fill the skin with a flesh colored icing.  To see my entire post of boudoir cookies, click here.


I hope you have fun with these (I certainly did!).  They are a great for any day you want to give your guy a little surprise in his lunch.  I hope you will come and visit me at The Enchanted Oven because I do lots of family friendly and fun projects.  Happy baking!

Wife Points Wednesday: My Husband's Babies

No... my husband doesn't have children, but he does have babies. At least that's what we call his little pepper seedlings.

As I've mentioned before, my brother-in-law produces and sells hot sauces and bbq sauces. He started first growing peppers at home, varieties of chilies he couldn't get in the store. That resulted in his own company and now his ghost pepper sauce is award winning.  There is apparently no such thing as too hot for these guys!

(Side note, his ghost pepper sauce does have ghost peppers in it- the hottest pepper known to man- but it's sooo good, even I can eat it! Granted, in small quantities, but that's all you need anyway. It's not a traditional hot sauce. It's chunkier and very, very flavorful! I can't stand hot sauces that are so hot they have no flavor. Or rather, the producer was more concerned with making it hot than giving it a good flavor. This hot sauce is a blend of hot and sweet peppers and I promise you won't be disappointed if you give it a try! It's the one hot sauce in the fridge that both my husband and I like.)

My husband is all fired up about growing peppers too (har, har... pun intended), but just for our personal use. He thinks there isn't a good cayenne pepper spice blend out on the market so he's determined to make his own.

He attempted growing peppers last year, but started too late in the season and they didn't last. Thanks to his brother's tutorial on pepper growing, this years seedlings are taking off! My husband transferred them into pots, now that the temperature outside is consistent at night, and he needed a way to mark which plants were which type of pepper. I caught him outside thinking intently about this and came up with an awesome solution for him!

I bought these stickers from The Vinyl Chalkboard for a project for my husband's 30th birthday party this past spring and had a few leftover. I used a paint marker instead of chalk since they will be outside in the elements, though they won't be reusable now.

I'm not really all that interested in growing peppers, especially since I have a reputation for not being able to keep anything alive. (I just buried love fern #4 outside... it was a slow, miserable death.) But my husband has that sort of childlike excitement about them that we adults unfortunately don't get too often anymore and I love that! This was just one little way of encouraging and supporting my husband in a hobby that he enjoys. He does, after all, read my blog... which is a hobby I enjoy.

Happy Wife Points Wednesday! I hope you can find a little way to show support for your partners interests this week!

Wife Points Wednesday: Turn a Nag into a Joke

(Wife Points Wednesday is a series of posts contain tips for little things you can do to earn wife points. We can all use extra points some days!) 


I didn't think coming up with a Wife Points Wednesday topic would get so hard so soon! Everything I think of involves food or buying something, so to avoid setting the precedent that men only speak the language of food and toys I really wanted to come up with something different to do for my man this week.

While cleaning up around the house I discovered my husband's stash of socks. He watches TV in his man cave every night and it never fails... his socks come off and land in the same spot on the floor. There they stay, and accumulate, until I find them and nag, nag, nag him to stop leaving his socks piled up on the floor. 

While working on an organization project over the weekend I emptied a storage bin that was previous in use so I decided to make a funny:

In case you can't see, the label on the bin says "SOCKS." It's a sock bin! A bin... for his socks! So when he takes them off they will land in a storage bin and therefore he bypasses my complaint of them piling up on the floor. Get it?!? 

I figured since the nagging wasn't really working I'd take another route. He hasn't found it yet... fingers crossed he finds it funny too!


Happy Wife Points Wednesday!

PS: I tried making my husband his own version of Krista's Husband 6-Pack (from While He Was Napping) but I had a little set back: He came home & caught me! :( 

Here is as far as I got:

I used a 4 pack of Starbuck's Frappuccinos that I bought at Target last week and filled them with sunflower seeds, sweet tarts, hot tamales and sour patch kids. I remembered to spray paint the lids and was getting ready to cover the box when he came home. It's not a 6 pack of beer so I was going to make it a work-appropriate 4 pack so he can have his pick after lunch of what sweet treat he wants.  

Oh well, I'll surprise him next time. He liked it and wouldn't let me waste the paper to finish it off. Mission accomplished I guess! :)

Wife Points Wednesday Guest Post: Krista from While He Was Napping

Hello, all you 2010 Housewife readers!  I’m Krista from While He Was Napping.

I posted a Father’s Day edition of this project on my blog.  Tracy saw it, liked it and asked me if I would do a similar project for sweethearts.  I had thought of the idea, but now had a reason to act on it.  So, here it is:

We don’t drink alcohol, but we do love us some good sparkling juice.  Costco sells the IZZE brand in a twelve pack during the summer months.  Sometimes it’s hard to find during the winter though, so you may want to plan accordingly.  But you can always buy root beer or other soda at the grocery store or Wal-Mart.  It’s sold year-round.

This is a great date night kit.  Sweets, Snuggling and Smooches.  The perfect trifecta.  Here’s the how:

1)  Obtain 6 (you could do more or less, as you desire) empty, clean glass bottles.  I used the IZZE brand from Costco, as mentioned above.  We had to empty the bottles (a horrible sacrifice… lol) before I could do anything with them.  Make sure you wash them thoroughly and let them dry completely before you try to fill them.  There’s nothing worse than gross candy.

2)  Gather your fillers.  My Mr. Right LOVES Whoppers, so he got a bottle of those.  Popcorn for the movie, Peanut M&M’s, heart-shaped Sweet Tarts, and soft Worther’s caramels rounded out my fillers.  I also used a “fun filler” for my last bottle… Some lingerie.  If you decide on that, you’ll want your piece to be small and made of mostly lace or another thin fabric.

3)  Fill your empty bottles with the candy or whatever else you want to fill them with.  Put the lids back on.  The IZZE brand bottles are twist top.  The easy part is done.

4)  Now, this part takes some time, but it makes the gift.  If you’re rushed you can stop here, but I promise this next part is totally worth it.

5) Create a label for your bottles.  I included an ingredients list, manufactured information, the big label and a nutrition label.  I created my label in PhotoShop.  Measure your bottle for the correct dimensions. Print and trim to the correct size.  I used the hot glue gun to secure them, as it was quick and easy.

6)  If I’d had a few more hours to cross off all the things on my to-do list that day, I would have covered the box and made it all cute too.  But, I ran out of time.  So, if you’ve got some extra time decorate your box all cute!

Now, you can’t tell me this wouldn’t be a hit for the Sweetheart in your life.  So, start saving those glass bottles!  =]

Thanks for having me, Tracy!  I hope you all enjoyed this and will come visit all the fun going on over at While He Was Napping.

Krista

Wife Points Wednesday: Shout Out for Guest Posts!

Next week I am going to feature a special Guest Post for Wife Points Wednesday. I'm really excited about this so I thought I would put a Shout Out to see who might be interested in writing a Wife Points Wednesday post in the future.

If you are interested, just send me an email at 2010housewife@gmail.com.

You do not have to have a blog in order to write a Guest Post but it would be great cross-promoting if you do! :)

Wife Points Wednesday: Sweet Treats

(Wife Points Wednesday is a series of posts contain tips for little things you can do to earn wife points. We can all use extra points some days!) 

I'm starting to sense a trend- I guess the way to a man's heart is through my husbands stomach! Today's Wife Points Wednesday is once again about showing someone you care through food. BUT, on a deeper level, it's also about showing someone you care by showing them you are always thinking of them. 


The other night when I made my dad a batch of chocolate covered cherry cookies I saved the leftover chocolate topping. My husband LOVES chocolate covered pretzels. I personally always crave something sweet after eating a meal. It's a bad habit but I don't see myself kicking it anytime soon. I also got my husband hooked on following up salty with sweet so when I pack his lunch every morning I always put a little treat in it for him. 

We've had a seemingly never ending supply of Reese's peanut butter eggs since my mother bought my husband 6 bags for his birthday. Well.... I We managed to eat them all up. I sent the last one in his lunch today so I was scrambling to find something to put in his lunch for the rest of the week. 

My grocery store sells bags of chocolate covered pretzels for $2.50 a bag. This is, I think, the sale price- 2/$5.00. I couldn't tell you what they are regularly priced because I will probably never pay regular price for them. Last week my grocery store had Rold Gold pretzels on sale 2/$5 also... a MUCH bigger bag. I also had a $2/2 coupon for Rold Gold, making each bag $1.50- wooo! 

I'm really glad I saved that leftover chocolate! Put the two together and ta-da... cheap homemade chocolate covered pretzels! 

So, now my husband has a sweet snack for his daily lunch but he also knows that I'm always thinking about him... and apparently ways to fatten him up!


Stay tuned next week for a special guest post on Wife Points Wednesday!

Wife Points Wednesday: Love Letters

(Wife Points Wednesday is a series of posts contain tips for little things you can do to earn wife points. We can all use extra points some days!)

For our first Christmas together (2008), I tried to find as many freebies online as I could to use for stocking stuffers. I love stockings- they are my favorite part of Christmas. I love reaching down into the huge Dollar Tree stockings we have and pulling little thing after little thing out. It’s like getting dozens of presents at once! So, I always go overboard on stocking stuffers for my family, although 2008 marked my first year of living on my own after graduate school and I was broke. That year I got into reading websites & blogs that listed free samples & products companies were giving away if you signed up online. I started signing up for freebies a couple months before Christmas and stocked all of them away for my parents' and (now) husband's stockings.

One of my favorite companies that gives out free or significantly reduced stuff all the time is Vistaprint. All you have to do is sign up on their website for email offers and every week you will receive an email containing all sorts of cool deals. One common promotion they send is a box of 250 free business cards. (You will need to pay shipping; we’re talking a couple bucks and sometimes you can stack a couple different free or half-off product offers in one transaction to save on shipping charges.) Well, I wasn’t in the market for business cards at the time, but wanted to find a way to turn them into something creative for my husband's stocking. So, I made love letter cards!



Vistaprint

 
All you have to do is pick a design they offer and remove all of the standard contact information found on a business card and then put a special message at the top or bottom. I used “I love you because...” and left the rest of the card blank for my husband and I to fill in our own message. We leave these for each other around the house, stick them in lunch bags or hide them in suitcases when one of us is traveling alone. It’s a sweet, simple and inexpensive way to remind your partner often how you feel about him/her.

Wife Points Wednesday: Baked Beans

Wife Points Wednesday will contain tips for little things you can do to earn wife points. We can all use extra points some days!

It’s Wife Points Wednesday and today I am trying to earn points with the Hub by speaking his language: Food. What does my husband love almost as much as me? Anything that contains bacon. So, this morning I looked up a slow cooker baked beans recipe before work and hopefully I’ll be able to report that they were awesome and my husband now thinks I’m the most wonderful chef in all the lands.

The recipe I used (loosely) is from http://southernfood.about.com/od/crockpotbeans/r/bl64c14.htm:

This is my kind of cooking!

Step #1 Dump ingredients in pot
Step #2 Stir
Step #3 Eat

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of dried white navy beans, soaked and simmered until tender, following package directions
• 1 1/2 c ketchup
• 1 1/2 c water
• 1/4 c molasses
• 1 large onion chopped
• 1 tablespoon dry mustard
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 6 slices of uncooked salt pork or bacon, diced
• 1 c brown sugar

Preparation:
Place all ingredients in slow cooker; cover and cook for 8 to 10 hours on low. Stir a few times.
 

Update: The beans were good. My husband liked them. I wish I had chopped the onions & bacon up into smaller bits but I did throw everything together in time I didn’t really have before work. I learned an important lesson though: After dinner I went into the kitchen to refill my water glass and asked the Hubs if he needed a beer. As I handed it to him he said “Point.” (I explained the “Wife Point Wednesday” concept to him today.) So, you use your precious time whipping up a special dish for your husband... or give him a beer.