Food Saver Vacuum

I have a new toy.

My practical side is telling me that getting a food vacuum seems a bit silly considering how little I cook these days but my non-practical side has a louder voice ;-)

I justified this purchase by telling myself that:
(1) I buy in bulk - this is true!
(2) Sometimes, our meat does get freezer burns - true rin!
(3) I've wanted this for the longest time but refrained myself from getting it because the vacuum rolls are expensive.
(4) I've been packing both raw and cooked food portions in ziploc freezer bags and then vacuuming the air out before sealing. We through a lot of these and the vacuuming and the seals aren't even that good.


Imagine my delight, while browsing through the wonder that is Amazon, when I came across these generic food vacuum rolls - affordable na lang and they have good reviews that seem legit.

Having decided to take the plunge, I did some research and decided to get the GameSaver model for the following reasons:

(1) It's compact enough to fit in a kitchen drawer, my house is cluttered enough and I didn't want to add more clutter on the counters
(2) It's a simple model, less moving parts
(3) It can do up to 40 consecutive seals - the other models, I hear, need to be cooled (or let cool ?) in between seals.

My ever-supportive husband and I had fun vacuuming stuff last night. We cut up pieces from the roll and made custom-sized bags for single-servings of pistachios, I brought them to the office for emergency snacks.

This came at the right time because I'm due for a Costco run this weekend.

Ayos.

Why ?

On my way to work, I passed by several trash cans which all have garbage strewn right beside it.

And this is not a one-time thing. I see this often. Probably every other week or so and when I do see this, it doesn't only involve 1 trash can... it's ALL trashcans in a 2 block radius.

Why and how does this happen ?

Spring cleanup - Patio

We decided to take advantage of the good weather today (temps in the 80s F) and declared a spring cleaning-day for our patio. It was a good day overall. We managed to get our backyard - well, the patio area - ready for spring, the only thing left to tackle is the grill.

We gave the walls a good scrubbing - vinyl siding is so easy to clean.

The most dramatic before & after shots are of the ceiling fans - we spent a couple of hours scrubbing the dirt and grime off of them.

Here are some before and after shots:
 
 

Hopefully, spring really does come so we can enjoy more time out here.

Legos

So we brought out the Lego sets recently in the hopes of enticing Swe-cha into playing with them and boy, were we surprised!

So first up was the Blue Classic Creativity box which came with pieces and instructions for 3 pieces - a train, a whale and a house. Swe-cha tackled that all by himself in no time - Daddy helped a little by holding the instruction booklet up and flipping the pages.

Amazed, we brought out the Green Classic Creativity box and again, he immediately made short work of the pieces.

We didn't know that he could play with and follow (classic) Lego instructions correctly.  Classic Legos, compared to Duplos, are smaller and take some effort to snap together.

Interestingly, he's been mixing up the pieces and combining them and letting his imagination run wild. For example, pictured here is a train, a tractor and a whale. His train engine is missing a coal tender and a caboose so he is using the tractor and the whale to fill the need.

Notice also that the front wheels of the tractor is really a set of wheels from the train and that the front tractor wheels have been moved to the whale, completing the last pair of wheels on the whale are ones that are borrowed from a race car.

His Daddy, a self-proclaimed Lego afficionado, burst with pride as he nodded approvingly and declared, "that's what Lego is all about". The daddy now has a reason [translation: excuse] to shop for more Lego.