We have a fifteen year old at home who eventually will move out and set up her own Christmas tree in her own home. My own tree has several ornaments I got on trips or as gifts from dear friends, and they're all part of my own heirloom Christmas tree ornaments. Even the plastic Santa selling ice cream cones that I got on a road trip to Florida is one of my heirlooms, not because of the quality, but because of the memories surrounding it.

When my kiddo was a teeny baby, I knew she would need some of her own ornaments when she set up her very first Christmas tree (she can't have my plastic ice cream selling Santa, it's MINE), and so we started a cherished family tradition that she loves.

Here's a fun Frugal Nesting tip you can use to start a family tradition with any little ones in your family: start a collection of future Christmas or holiday heirlooms for your children to have when they set up their own homes.

GOLDEN AGE CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS, originally uploaded by David Zellaby.

On our daughter's first Christmas, she was a 2 month old preemie, only about 4 pounds, and still dwarfed by her preemie jammies. One of this tiny baby's gifts was an ornament that showed a teeny tiny baby teddy bear and the words "Baby's First Christmas."

Every year since, Santa has given her one or more ornaments that represent something significant from that year. By the time she sets up her first Christmas tree in her own place, she'll have a collection of heirloom ornaments to place on the tree. Each one will have a story that she can eventually tell to her kids and grandkids.

Christmas Ornaments 3, originally uploaded by Randy Son Of Robert.

The pictures in this post are borrowed from flickr users, but Rachel's ornaments include:

A pelican - from when her dad lived and worked 90 miles from home (boy did we miss him!) right on the beach at a restaurant called The Pelican Pub. We loved visiting him and climbing the big 300 foot tall sand dune just yards from the pub.

A sewing machine - when she was in third grade, her class sewed aprons as a class project. She was especially proud of hers and I still wear it when making cookies.

A truck - a few summers ago she visited G-ma and G-pa on the farm in Wisconsin. She was only 10 but that summer she learned how to drive the old farm truck. (In the field.) Later, when she returned home, she offered to drive my car for me, since she already knew how to drive. Thank goodness logic prevailed and she understood "no license-no driving."

When she started playing the cello in orchestra my sister Tina came to the rescue with a cello ornament. G-ma Donna also sent a music stand ornament the same year.

The past few years things have changed a little with Christmas. She approaches me and asks, "Are you giving me another ornament this year?"

I told her, "Yes, of course Santa will give you another one."

She raised one eyebrow. (I wish I could do that!) "Yeah, whatever."

Before she could stick her ipod headphones back into her ears I quickly asked, "Do you want to pick one out or be surprised?"

She smiled. "I want to be surprised. I love the ornaments."

Pyramid Pillows Tutorial

Blue Flame Pillow, originally uploaded by passitonplates.

I made a pair of pyramid pillows for Rachel a couple years ago. (This is one of the pair.)
It was so easy to do.

Materials:
One piece of fabric, twice as long as it is wide
Polyfoam pillow stuffing
Coordinating thread

Instructions:
1. Fold the fabric in half, right sides together , and matching the short ends. (It should look like a square.)
2. Sew along the short ends to make a tube.
3. Sew along one of the other open ends so the square is open on only one of the four sides.
4. Lay out the square with the open side at the top, the folded side on your right, and the side seam on your left.
5. Measure along the raw edge of the open side and mark the center point.
6. Flip the square over and repeat step 5.
7. Pinch one of your marks between the fingers on your right hand, pinch the other mark between the fingers on your left hand, and pull taut. The side seam should now be at the center point on the open end. Pin.
8. Sew along this edge to close, leaving about 6" open.
9. Turn right side out, stuff to desired softness, tuck in the raw edges, and topstitch to close.

This morning I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at the computer to browse on The Find when I came across this Celebration Platter:

The description from Exposures says, Our Celebration Platter is the perfect gift for any occasion that's cause for celebration. New baby. Graduation. Job promotion. Commemorate the moment with this high-gloss white ceramic platter. It's large enough for all of your friends and loved ones to chime in with a special message. Just sign the plate with pen (one pen included; additional available for quicker signing), and bake in the oven for warm wishes that last a lifetime.

Their platter is on sale today for $46.99 and the pen is $11.99. Exposures charges $6.50 shipping for up to two pens. Yep, both of our plates use the same kind of food safe ceramic paint pen!

If you're like me - too thrifty and crafty to spend that much money on something that you could create yourself, you're probably thinking about how to make your own. And with all due respect to Exposures, our paint pens sell for less.

I sell them occasionally on Etsy for $10 each and shipping is free for up to 6 pens.

Here's how to make your own:

1. Get some of our pens in a couple of different colors. You could buy your own plate or platter at Target or another store for about $15-20. Just make sure it's ceramic or stoneware. Plastic will melt in the oven when you make the paint permanent.

2. Make sure your platter is clean - the paint pen is water based and surface oils on the plate will resist the paint. Make sure all your party guests have clean hands, too, so oily fingerprints don't cause the same problem.

3. Ask everyone at the party to use the pen to write something on the ceramic plate or platter.

4. When everyone has signed the platter, bake it in an oven for 30 minutes to make it permanent. (Instructions are written on the pen.) And it's dishwasher safe after you bake it, although I recommend hand washing all handmade items.

5. You could have everyone sign the platter at the beginning of the party and bake it during the party. If you're sneaky, you could get away with this without the guest of honor knowing what you're up to. The plate will be cooled and completely finished before the party's over and your gift will be the hit of the party and the guest of honor keeps your platter as a memento of the occasion.

This is a very personal, sentimental gift idea. Got a wedding or wedding shower, anniversary, or birthday coming up?

Wow, what a perfect gift!






PS: Pass It On Plates are a little different from the Celebration Platter shown at the top. Pass It On Plates have a tracking number on the back and they're intended to travel from person to person. You can get a pen with yours, if you want, so each person can write something on the plate as it travels - just to add to the fun.

Salem area Photographer needed:

• We are working on a fundraiser and need 8x10 quality pictures taken of food and/or portraits. 

• Number of proofs needed is unknown, but end result is approximately 20 photographs.

• Photos go to the printer in mid-Nov 2010.

If you can help, please comment here. 

If you know of someone who may be able to help, please pass this along. Thanks!

Thrifty Nesting Index

Every morning my friend M greets me with a sparkle in her eye. "What Frugal Nesting blog post is coming up next? I can't wait!"

Since there are a lot of older posts here that fall into my concept of Frugal Nesting, I'm going to index them here, just to give M and everyone else some ideas to get you started on your own frugal nesting projects at home.

Bargain Decorating
The Cubes
Foggy Lens
The Red Poppy
My Goodwill Purchases which leads to The Shelves
Cheap Bargain Decorating and here's more about The Red Basket

Crafty Stuff
Bottlecap Magnets
Calorie-free Brownies
Cord Keepers
Cushion Cover Re-cover
Dressing up a pre-wrapped gift box
Spiffied up CD Jewel Case Liners
Stamp Picture Frames - The existing post shows them off. I'll write a tutorial on how to make them.
Tote Bag - I'll make another bag and include a tutorial on how to make one.
Wordle part I and part II (part I is the story and part II is the crafty part)


Handmade Christmas Gifts
Chicken Packages
Xmas BBQ Basket gift

Holidays

Note: The holiday posts all involve doing traditional holiday activities without spending a buttload of money, but instead using a little imagination and/or craft supplies.  

Dual Halloween Costume

Fruitcake in a Jar

Valentine Greetings 2008 

Kitchen Tips

Buttering a Baking Sheet

Vanilla Bottle

Organization

Note: Organization is important when you have a tight budget. Two huge benefits are you don't buy duplicates of stuff you already have and you save time because you never have to tear the house apart looking for something you think you have. 

Computer Paper Organization

Organize your Baking Supplies

Recipes
Bacon Biscuits
Chai Date Bread
How NOT to make Orange Iced Tea
Meatballs (with variations)
Microwave Peanut Brittle
Mini Meatloaf
Navy Bean Hummus
Pork Shoulder, Ignored
Roasted Chicken Thighs

Roasted Potatoes with Chicken (aka "Blasted" Chicken)

note: Don't let the word "Blasted" scare you. Blasted refers to the cooking method but this chicken is so incredibly good you won't want to cook it any other way. Trust me. 

Salad Rolls

Taco Joes
Tiramisu
The most dangerous cake in the world
Tortellini Ham Salad


Reused-Renewed-Recycled 
Scrabble Time, Literally
Spooning in the Garden
Where old vinyl LPs go when they die

Time for a change...

Three years ago today I started my first blog.

It was a way to share all the jokes emailed to me without bombarding my friends with zillions of nonsense email. I just put the word out and if they wanted to see that day's joke, they could. I also started to save fun websites that were accessible from my day job du jour in a call center. My co-workers visited my blog to find an interesting site to help pass the time during lag times between calls.

Since then, this simple blog turned into a portfolio of 18. Not all are public - in fact most are not - and I use them as my own sandbox to experiment, learn HTML, park future blog posts, etc. I keep them separate so I can work on the HTML of one while experimenting with some gadget in another. It's been a lot of fun and I have learned tons.

This blog, "The Adventures of Pam & Frank" is an extension of a series of emails I sent out in the late 1990's to keep friends informed on our hilarious adventures as DIY home-fixer-uppers. (They really were hilarious.) "The Adventures" emails later evolved to share funny parenting stories and to let everyone in our lives know what was happening with a job search which started in 2001, eventually landed us out here in Oregon in late 2002.

Since then, "The Adventures" has been an exploration, and often travelogue, of life in Oregon written for the folks back home. There have been posts in here about crafty and business stuff, social experiments (giveaways and blog parties) and lots of food.

But no real focus.

And other than my mom, no regular readers. Which doesn't really bother me, but why am I blogging when I can email her? Maybe on the off chance that my real life friends will read this? Maybe a few of my foodie friends in the call center.

I guess it's time to change the focus of this blog. It's been fun, and I don't want to kill it, but like my most hated cliche "Something for Everyone" my blog was all over the place and lacked focus. (I really do hate that cliche. Nobody has something for everyone. It's impossible.)

With the events of this past summer, I also have been struggling to find something to do. I'm not quitting my day job, but I am looking for something that I really enjoy doing that could lead to a new career. So I started contemplating what I am really good at, what I like doing, and what I have a lot of experience with.

Here's a rough list of random things that I like to do or have a lot of experience with:

Being funny
Write stuff
City driving
Baking cookies and desserts
Folding laundry
Eating ice cream
Living frugally
Blogging
Marketing (as in business and advertising stuff, not shopping at the grocery store. Although I have a lot of experience with that, too.)
Photography
Crafty stuff
Sewing
Managing curly hair
Watching tv
Salem & Portland

I decided to start with the thing I like the most and the thing I think the most about: Marketing.
Oh wait, I've already got a blog about that.

Next on the list - what do I have the most experience with? I hate to say it, but Living Frugally is at the top of the list. I wish I didn't need to know how to do it, but I do.

(This is the part where the little lightbulb goes off. Can you see the glow?)

I have already decided to change the focus of this blog from random stuff to... something, so why not blog about frugal-ness for a while and see how that works out? If I don't like it, I give myself permission to change once again.

You're already asking, why not blog about food? Eh, I read more about food in blogs than I write about here. If you want to read a food blog, you can start with Frank's blog. It's pretty good.

Oh - last thing. I know this is "The Adventures of Pam & Frank," and it will still be, even though I'm the only one writing the darn thing. As long as we are still alive it will continue to be an adventure.

So onward. From today forward, this will be a blog about Frugal Nesting. (Do you like that? Nesting is a joke on our last name.)  I think Frugal Nesting fits so much better than simply "frugal living." Frugal Living to me makes me think of something like a bowl of plain oatmeal that was bought in the bulk section of the grocery store but Frugal Nesting makes me think of a bowl of oatmeal topped with a little bit of leftover yogurt, some sliced apples from the tree in the back yard, drizzled with honey that you got from a neighbor for watching their cats while they were out of town, and eaten for brunch with the family while playing a game of cards.

Good?
Good.

Our Latest Adventure: 29 days in the hospital

It's been a long time since our last post. Did you think we died?

Not to be dramatic, but one of us came close. 

I've been quiet about what's going on here until things settled down, but now I'm able to talk about it. Here's our latest adventure in a nutshell. In April Frank was diagnosed with cancer in his large intestine. (Colon cancer is not just in the butt but can also be in the gut.) He finished his radiation and chemo this summer and did very well. He still has all his hair, which is nice, because I think he looks silly without a moustache. 

Yes, if chemo makes your hair fall out, ALL of your hair falls out. Frank was lucky.

He had the tumor removed in August and that's when the adventure took a rocky turn and turned our lives upside down. He developed a nasty infection, got terribly sick, had an ambulance ride to the hospital, 3 more surgeries, kidney failure, antibiotics, etc etc... It was touch and go and for the first two weeks his doctors wouldn't say if he would make it or not. They would just say, "Well, he's very sick. We have to wait and see."

Very scary. I cried a lot and spent a week by his side in the hospital. Poor Rachel was stressed out and worried about her dad while trying to get ready to start high school. She just had to wait her turn for my attention. 

When it was all done, we counted up how many days Frank was hospitalized: 29.

At this point he he healing very well. Due to the 3 surgeries to clean up the infection, he was left with a large open wound. At the beginning it was 6" long (his belly button is gone forever) and 3" wide and about 2 1/2" deep. Something this large can only heal from the inside out, and so he has been wearing a wound vac since he was finally discharged from the hospital a few weeks ago. Yesterday when his nurses changed the dressing they told him it has healed to the point where he may only need to wear the wound vac for maybe one more week. Yay! Wearing it means he has a tube from his abdomen to the vacuum unit and cannister that he has to wear like a fanny pack or purse. It's a hassle and he hates it. I don't blame him.

Now that he's healing, the other side effect of his illness is starting to kick in: the financial side. We've got health insurance but with the deductibles (his own insurance ended during this ordeal and so I switched him over to mine, which means we have to meet two deductibles this year) the medical bills we're responsible for are whopping big. On top of that, he hasn't been working, of course, but I've been taking time off work to take care of him, so our income is ... wait. What income? 

Meanwhile, we have set up a page on Facebook for Frank called Support Team Brown. Yes, you are correct. It is a poo joke. Please visit Support Team Brown - And please Like the page to spread the word about Salem Oregon's very own Deaf Chef and help him as he recovers from cancer.

Our goal is to have 10,000 likes by the end of October. Thanks!

Salad Rolls

One of our favorite restaurants serves Vietnamese salad rolls. Have you ever had one before? They are light and delicious, and fun to make.

Your local grocery may or may not have all the ingredients available. We had to go to a specialty Asian market to get the wrappers. If you have one in your town, this would be a good excuse to venture inside. The staff in all of our local Asian markets are very friendly and helpful, so don’t be shy about asking for what you need.

Here are the ingredients:

Spring roll wrappers (also called Rice wrappers) – read below about soaking them and make sure you get a size small enough for your largest shallow bowl.
Rice stick noodles (there are many varieties; you need the one that is cooked by soaking in hot water. When cooked, they are milky white.)

You will also need:
Cooked shrimp – size about 40-60 and peeled, deveined, tail removed
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh mint leaves
Salad lettuce, chopped (use a soft variety such as leaf or spring greens)

To cook the noodles, boil water in a teakettle. Place one bundle of rice noodles in a large bowl. When the water boils, pour enough over the noodles to cover. Let the noodles soak for 2-3 minutes. We’d recommend letting them sit in the water until you’re ready to use them or they will stick together in an un-useable blob.

While you wait for the water to boil, get the wrappers ready. In the package, the wrappers are brittle and thin, and you’ll need to soak them so they’re soft. To soak them, set out a shallow dish of lukewarm water. You will need to be able to completely submerge one wrapper in the water. We bought the smaller wrappers and soaked them in a large skillet.

When the noodles are soaked and you have the water ready for your wrappers, set up an assembly line of the rest of your ingredients. We placed all of our ingredients around a plastic cutting board.

Start by soaking your wrappers, one at a time. Here is one wrapper straight from the package.

After soaking it in the lukewarm water for about 60 seconds, it became soft and ready for the next step. Yes, it will be like a wet clingy piece of saran wrap. 

Spread the soaked wrapper on your cutting board and lay a little bundle (about a small handful) of noodles on the bottom 1/3. Arrange a little of the salad, basil, mint, and shrimp on the noodles. This sounds silly, but you’ll want to make it look nice because the wrapper is translucent.

When everything is arranged on the wrapper, start rolling it up from the bottom. Roll it as tightly as you can. Flip it over and fold the sides in. Finish rolling it up.

   

Your first few might look a little messy, but keep at it. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll find that as soon as you take a softened wrapper out of the water you can slide another hard wrapper into the soaking water. It’ll be ready when you are.

Our restaurant serves their salad rolls with peanut sauce that is so delicious that we ask for extra sauce to go with the rest of our meal. You can make this at the beginning of your salad roll project, while you wait for the noodle water to boil.

Peanut Sauce
1/4 c peanut butter
1 Tbs fish sauce (you can substitute soy sauce)
1 Tbs lime juice
1 tsp sugar
crushed peanuts, optional

Blend together all ingredients, adjusting the fish/soy sauce and lime juice to taste. Serve with crushed peanuts on top. Use as a dip for your salad rolls.

Just one tomato plant... planted last year

Forget Best Boy or Early Girl or any heirloom tomato. I have named this variety of cherry tomatoes Rasputins.

The owner of our house planted this tomato last year and we just didn't have time or energy to put in any plants this spring. Tonight I decided to spend some me time outside and wanted to clean up the jumble of weeds between the patio and back porch.

Lo and behold, there was a flash of orange and I spied this cluster of beautiful tomatoes in the jumble of weeds.

This is too good to ignore and the poor tomatoes won't be happy laying on the ground. I poked around in the carriage house and found a small section of left over iron fence that goes around the back yard. A little green ribbon, some bird feeder hooks over the pergola, a little vine coaxing, and voila! My Rasputins have a mock espalier.

Would you believe this mess is just one plant?

Mmmm, next year I'll get serious about gardening and make some time to put in more plants.

Monty Python goes to school

Yesterday was Rachel's first day of school (FDOS). She's starting high school (Do I feel old? Yes.) at a new school and does not know a single person in her class. Yes, she was nervous, but I reassured her that many of the other 500+ freshmen in her school feel the same way.

On the eve of the FDOS, our dear friend Marcy gave Rachel some excellent advice: Quote Monty Python movies.

If Rachel declares "Your mother was a hamster..." and another kid chimes in with "And your father smelt of elderberries!" then she knows she has found a kindred soul to hang out with.

You can give this wise advice to your kid as well. Of course, if your kid is not a fan of Monty Python, they probably won't be able to correctly answer to "What is your favorite color?"

"Blue. No! Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!"

Your kid will have to fill in the blank with their own personal weirdness.