I'm such a sucker!

Happy Belated Valentines Day!  I have been busy trying to get caught up on laundry, dishes, managing my children, and the repairs on the roof/interior of the house! 

I've been depressed about the state of our roof - it's been leaking like a sieve 

and has caused a lot of damage to the interior drywall. The restoration/water abatement company had to come back with the fans and dehumidifier to dry us out again yesterday. After our friend, Shelby Clontz who owns his own company called Bruce Roofing, came and repaired the roof last Wednesday, it leaked again this weekend; this is not a bad review of his very capable services, it is a bad review of our rotten roof! What we have learned is that this summer we need to replace all the paper on our roof. The builder used crappy roof paper on our roof and after a while it will wear out. So, we get to spend $6-8,000 to replace the paper and tiles and fix our roof to make it water tight so we can avoid further leaks. 

Last week's creative venture:

I have so little time lately to be creative that I use every opportunity to do so. So, for Valentine's Day I made the kids homemade suckers to take to school and share with their friends. I have had all the supplies for almost 10 years now and that creative bug just took over and I did it! I'm so glad I did. The last time, almost 6 years ago, I got those supplies out, my results were not as tasty and cute! Of course, I didn't own a marvelous Silpat! Silpat is a silicone mat that is virtually non-stickable. You can bake on it, make candy on it, etc. I enjoyed myself. I made watermelon, green apple and bubble gum flavored suckers. The hardest thing about it is that you are working with liquid that is 300 degrees. My kids were in bed, thankfully. But, this is not one of those projects that you can let your kids help with unless they help put the wrappers on or remove the candy from the molds. It was fun to just be able to focus on that one activity for a while. And, it is so inexpensive to make the suckers in comparison with all the store bought candies you purchase. The ingredients are sugar, corn syrup and water. Then you add flavoring and coloring if you want it. That's it. I have these cute large and small heart shaped molds along with cars and flowers and child shaped molds. They were a hit with the kids. I'm thinking of making them again for Easter!