How to Unclog a Drain...Chemical Free and Less than $3

Hey, hey! Hope all you mommas had a great Mother's Day! It was a quiet one for me because my daughter wasn't feeling well so we stayed home and had a quiet day, just the two of us.

I have a nifty gadget to tell you about today. This isn't a post with pretty pictures...in fact, if you are easily grossed out, I wouldn't recommend reading this during lunch!

My daughter was complaining about her bathroom sink draining slowly. My husband's solution was to say, "Quit brushing your hair over the sink"...not exactly a fix to the current problem. One day I came across a solution while reading The Family Handyman magazine. Do you get that magazine? My mom and dad renew it for my husband every year and it has been very useful on more than one occasion. When it comes in the mail we always turn to the very back first to read the funny stories people send in about their DIY fails. The funniest one ever (at least to me!) was a guy who was putting a cat door in. He took the door off the hinges to cut the hole, thinking it would be the easiest way to tackle the project. Everything was going great until he was ready to hang the door again and realized unless the cat knew how to pole vault it wouldn't be able to use the door because he cut the hole in the top of the door...talk about a DIY fail!

My talented and very ca-ute little assistant will show you how to unclog a drain...so easy and safe even an 11 year old can do it!

This is the handy dandy Zip-It. I paid less than $3 for it at Lowe's.

All you need to do is remove the drain stopper from your sink and push the Zip-It down into the drain as far as possible.

We wiggled the Zip-It around in the drain a bit to try to grab as much of the hair and gunk as possible. Pull the Zip-It back out of the drain and voila...

you have a small rodent...not really...just a bunch of stinky, gross hair and gunk. Hmmm, no wonder her sink was draining slowly huh?!

The Zip-It says it is single use, but I used a paper towel to wipe it off and did two other drains with it. It is pretty sharp so if you choose to do this be careful. I kept the package and after I cleaned it I put it back in the package to use for the next clogged drain. I sometimes notice that my bathroom sink drain has a bad odor and everything I've tried before hasn't gotten completely rid of it. I bet de-gunking the drain will remedy it (fingers crossed).

Sorry for the yucky pictures, but isn't this a tip most of us can use? I'm used to my husband being the "fix-it" person around here so I am always proud of myself when I find something in the "fix-it" realm that I can do myself.

Have a wonderful day!

Take Care,

Amy

The Longest Remodel...Like Ever

Hey, hey! How have you been?  We have been just fine...wrapping up the school year and dealing with what I call "the Marshall death trap" (aka...the floor and kitchen remodel). We have recital pictures and dance recital coming up this month as well as Mother's Day, our 24th wedding anniversary, and my cutie pie little niece's 1st birthday party! Whoo...lots going on and all the while here is what we are living in...

The refrigerator will be moved to the opposite end of the kitchen to where the pantry was for better flow.

Our "kitchen" for a while!

Getting ready to move the refrigerator.

The wall pictured below didn't have any cabinets on it, but I decided it was a wasted opportunity for more storage. I can't wait for it to be finished and show it to you because it is looking great so far!

Since we took the pantry out of the other side of the kitchen, we are adding a built in hutch with pantry cabinets on either end so we are gaining quite a bit of storage space.

We have gotten quite a bit done on the floors. We opted to wait for cabinets before we installed the floors in the kitchen. We are waiting for a few cabinet parts that were missing, one damaged door, and an "oops" that they are making right. Then we will get cabinet hardware installed and the crown molding. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! We are hoping to get a lot done on the floors over this weekend and get the cabinets finished up in the next couple of weeks...fingers crossed!

Take Care,

Amy

Snow Storms, Back Aches, and Demo...Oh My!

Hi there! Did you think I got lost? Nooooo, I just took a break from blogging because of the disaster that is my house right now. To tell the truth, having the house in this much disarray has been a little overwhelming and I lost my blogging mojo so I have lots to tell you!

We have been in our house 2-1/2 years and from the moment we bought the place wanted to install hardwood floors and remodel the kitchen. We finally sold our house in Louisiana...thank goodness. We are no longer landlords nor do we have a 2nd mortgage to worry about. Soooo, we finally decided on engineered handscraped hardwood floors from Lumber Liquidators. We have gotten a small portion of the floors down and I LOVE them!  My husband had a 2-week work trip (to Florida...lucky duck!) so we didn't get very far but are working on them a little at a time around his work schedule.

This is what my lovely house looks like right now...

 This is my dining room at the moment...900 square feet of floors there.

 This is what our kitchen tile looked like before. It just isn't my style and it always looked dirty to me. Part of the problem was that the grout was never sealed so it was stained and dingy in certain areas. It looked dirty even when I cleaned it. We both knew we wanted to replace it from the day we bought this house so finally the demo began.

 Tearing out all the tile was backbreaking work...kinda literally. We had several hundred square feet of tile to remove between the kitchen and the foyer. I feel that there were a lot of shortcuts taken in the building of this house. Unfortunately for us, the tile guy was very thorough. The tile was nailed down AND thin set to the subfloor. We got an air hammer for $20 at Lowe's which made quick work of getting the tile up but the concrete backer board took two pry bars and lots of muscle. After a long evening of ripping up tile, my poor husband spent 2 or 3 days barely able to move...in bed one whole day...on muscle relaxers and still miserable. Oh, did I mention the HUGE mess this all made? I'm talking concrete dust everywhere! I even found concrete bits in my hair at night when I took a shower...ugh!

 

And to top it all off, this demo includes our half bath as well...yep, there was dingy tile in there too. I sold the pedestal sink on Craigslist (probably before I should have) so that bathroom isn't functional right now either.

Here is my husband laying flooring so fast he's a total blur...Ha! Actually it is just me needing to learn how to use my new camera...wink, wink.

So are you ready to see the little bit of floor we have gotten in? I can't wait to show it to you when it's all finished but here is a peek.

We worked late into the night the night before Lee left for Florida so we could at least get the couch and TV put back. I wanted to enjoy some semblance of normalcy while he was gone.

See the blue underlayment? I found Isabella (our calico cat) playing with a little piece of it. I asked her, "Where did you get that?" Of course, she just looked innocently at me and wouldn't fess up. Upon further inspection, I saw a little "bite" out of the edge of  it. I didn't trust her to not chew it up more through the night so I was stapling underlayment at 2 a.m. so she couldn't get the edge pulled up to chew on. I swear that cat thinks she is a dog! She chews on shoes and has chewed on my brand new purse strap too. The things we put up with out of our furry critters, huh?

During this time frame we also realized that pesky little groundhog played an evil trick on us when we got a foot of snow on the ground. It wasn't as bad as the blizzard of 2010 when we got almost two feet. That was our first winter back in this area after living in Louisiana for 4 years...talk about a shock to the system!

Here are a couple of pics of our lovely March snowstorm #1. I was too disgusted to take pictures of March snowstorm #2!

Well, I think that pretty much catches you up on what I've been doing the last month or so. I will keep you updated on our progress and let you know about our plans for the kitchen remodel.

So what have you been up to? Have you had snow in your neck of the woods?

Take care,

Amy

Happy Valentine's Day & Chocolate-Pecan Chess Pie

Happy Valentine's Day!!!  Do you have big plans? My hubby works evenings, so I think my daughter and I will catch up on American Idol and just chill...oh, and eat pie. I made two pies today, one for us and one for my husband to take to work. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks delish. I tore the recipe out of a magazine (I think Southern Living but it could have been Better Homes & Gardens) a while ago, and I thought I would share the recipe with you.

Chocolate-Pecan Chess Pie

Ingredients:

1 refrigerated (or frozen) pie crust

1/2 cup butter

2 (1-oz) unsweetened chocolate baking squares

2/3 cup evaporated milk

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract, divided

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp salt

1-1/2 cups pecan halves and pieces

2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 Tbsp light corn syrup

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll piecrust into a 13-inch circle on a lightly floured surface. Fit into a 9-inch pie plate. Fold edges under and crimp.

Microwave butter and chocolate squares in a large microwave-safe bowl at medium (50% power) 1-1/2 minutes or until melted and smooth, stir at 30-second intervals. Whisk in evaporate milk, eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla. 

Stir together granulated sugar and next 3 ingredients. Add sugar mixture to chocolate mixture, whisking until smooth. Pour mixture into prepared crust. 

Bake pie at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Stir together pecans, next 2 ingredients, and remaining 1 tsp vanilla.; sprinkle over pie.

 Bake 10 more minutes or until set. Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool completely, about 1 hour.

Looks yummy! We are saving it for tomorrow night, but I will let you know what we think! I'm going to try it warmed and with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but I bet it would be good with whipped cream too.


Have a sweet and wonderful Valentine's Day!

What's your most favorite ever Valentine's gift?

Amy