RECIPE: Easy Baked Potato Dip

Recently I was lucky enough to be invited to watch a hockey game in a suite.  It was awesome: free food, free drinks, private bathroom and even a desert cart.  They had a dip there that was essentially a baked potato in dip form.  I've heard of similar dip called "crack dip" but mine is slightly different.

A. Who needs potatoes in it?  They're more work because you have to boil them and cut them up, they don't have very much flavor AND you're putting it on a cracker so why would you need another starch to the dip?

B.  Although Ranch Dip Mix and Sour Cream are not the same as Ranch Dressing, I have a major aversion to Ranch Dressing and I don't want to be involved with Ranch in any way.

So here is my super easy Baked Potato Dip Recipe.

Ingredients:

• 12oz Whipped Philadelphia Cream Cheese
• 3 1/2oz Bacon Pieces
• 3/4 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• 1/4 cup Diced Green Onion
• 1/2tsp Garlic Powder

Mix all of these ingredients in a medium sized Tupperware container until everything is evenly distributed throughout the cream cheese.

After that, all you have to do is spread the dip on a club cracker and enjoy! :)

Cleaning Tennis Shoes

Yes! Another post about cleaning.  So I'm one of those weirdos who is planning on wearing Converse Chuck Taylors to her wedding.  I've had the Chucks I'm going to wear for a while now so, of course, they've gotten a little scuffed over the years.  Also, my fiance likes to have a pair of nice while K-Swiss type tennis shoes, but he started wearing them to cut the grass and they have now been put through the ringer.  They were disgusting and they had to be cleaned.

At first, I was going to get an old toothbrush wet and dip it in baking soda and use the mixture to scrub the shoes.  THEN I realized that toothpaste is primarily baking soda and I had a bunch of little trial sized toothpastes from the dentist's office.  I got a plastic cup and filled it half way with water, I put some newspaper on the coffee table and I got to work.

Dirty shoes

Supplies

At first I put the toothpaste on the toothbrush and scrubbed it, but then I just started putting the toothpaste directly on the shoe and scrubbing.  It helps if you wet the toothbrush a couple of times without reapplying the toothpaste -- that way you get a lot of bubbles.The bottom edges of the shoes were really bad so I put toothpaste all over them and let it sit for a while.  You'll also need a wet wipe or some wet paper towel to clean off the excess toothpaste and you'll need to wash the dirt off of your toothbrush when you're done.

The shoes were cleaner, but they will never look new again.  I'm still pretty happy with the results.

Clean shoe on the left, dirty shoe on the right

Dirty on the top, clean on the bottom

As an added bonus, your shoes will smell minty fresh. :-)

Cleaning Your Hairbrush and Keeping It Clean

So lately I've been playing around with hair chalk.  The problem with hair chalk is when you brush it out of your hair, your hairbrush is filled with chalk residue.  Also, even when you comb hair out of your brush, there are still some left over and after a while, you need to clean your brush or buy a new one.

This is how I clean my brush:

You'll need a deep Tupperware container, dish soap and an old tooth brush.  I used about 2 tablespoons of dish soap and then filled the Tupperware dish with hot water.  I placed my brushes into the water.  I have 3 brushes: one for clean hair, one for brushing my hair when it has dry shampoo in it and brush that I keep with my duffel-bag for when I travel.  I went out of town over Memorial Day weekend with blue hair chalk in my hair-- it definitely needed to be cleaned.

Soak the brushes for about 10 minutes.

Once they've soaked for a little while, lay out some paper towel on the table and use the toothbrush to scrub between all the little tines.  You've going to pull out wet hair and it's going to be kind of gross, but it's to be expected.  

Once you're done scrubbing, run the brushes under some warm water.  Then dump the water out of the Tupperware container and rinse it out.  Then fill it with clean, warm water and let the brush soak again.  There are little holes in your brush and you don't want to have soapy water trapped in it and half a brush filled with mildew.

I soaked the toothbrush too

Again, soak the brush for about 10 minutes and then rinse it again.  Afterwards, lay out a towel and let your brush air dry face down.

Once they're dry, we move on to keeping your brush clean for the future.  I saw a life hack on Pinterest that said to cut a swatch of fabric the size of your brush and place it over the tines then every time you need to clean your bush, you just lift up the fabric and it pulls up all of the hair and lint in the brush.  This is a good idea in theory but what kind of fabric fits over these brushes?

A brush after it has been cleaned

First I tried some ribbed tank tops that were old and had gotten some tiny holes in them.  Didn't work.

Then I tried socks.  The ankle part of a sock actually does fit over the brush decently, but there's so much elastic in them that all of the little tines clump together and it's not going to brush properly.  I had some socks that had never been worn that I tried but they did not work.

My fiance's mom bought him socks for Christmas but they were for kids and  they barely fit me

Finally I found an old knit hoodie that was meant to have holes in it.  It was originally while but about 10 years old and yellowing.

I cut off the hood and started covering my brushes.  It sounds weird but I used the toothbrush to smash down the fabric over the tines and it worked really well.

The finished product.  Tada!

I also think that fabric from a sweater that's loosely knit would also work.  Next time I have to clean my brush, it'll be much much easier to clean.

DIY Frosted Windows

So we have a large bay window that spans the entire living room.  The center picture window has blinds but the windows on either side are very narrow and don't have blinds or any other window treatments.This means that anyone who walks by can see into our living room.  Although we don't have really nice, expensive things, I don't want people to know what we do and don't have.  I also just don't like the thought of people being about to walk down the street and look into my house.

 I went on the Home Depot website and looked up adhesive window covers.  I found some frosted window covers and then I realized "Hey, I have some transparent contact paper from the dollar store left over from a craft project.

Dollar Tree Contact Paper

I tested a piece of it on a window and I couldn't see through it and the light was still shining through.  I then proceeded to cut contact paper the size of the window and apply it to the glass.  I put it on similar to the way that you put a screen protector on a phone.  I peeled the backing off of the top edge and placed it on the top edge of the window then I used my hand to run the contact paper on smoothly.  I tried using a piece of cardboard instead of my hand, but it just didn't work as well.

This is the final result:

Can't see anything from the outside

Lets sun in from the outside

One added bonus to this is that my dogs can't see outside so they can't bark at other dogs as they're walking by or the neighbor's kids drawing with sidewalk chalk in the driveway.

It was super quick and easy and it's been a lot nicer not having to worry about people looking in through my windows when I'm not home.  Maybe I'm paranoid, but I feel better now.