Valentine's Purse Box....repost

I am only copying this here because I could not read it on the original website.
I really liked this idea for my daughter's school valentine's box. I really like that it would be easy for her to carry. I haven't made this yet, but want to keep track of how to do it.

All of the credit for this goes to this website: http://k12homeschoolfamily.blogspot.com/2009/02/b-bops-valentines-box.html

Sorry, I couldn't read who the author was...too much going on int the background.

B-Bops Valentine's Box
We have a K12 Valentine's Party on Wednesday at the local skating rink. They said each kid could bring a decorated Valentine's box or bag and Valentine's to pass out. We are really excited to go! We decided to make a "purse" for B-Bop and we are still trying to come up with ideas for Buddy's box....

We started with a cereal box and cut a slit in the side... Then we found some metallic tissue paper left over from Christmas and wrapped the box... Then we re-cut the slit and reinforced it with tape. We found some pink ribbon (left over from our hair bow making days) and stapled it to each side of the slit (later we covered the staples Then we took strips of crepe paper (left over from birthday parties) and cut slits to make fringe and rolled the fringe with a pencil.... We taped three rows of fringe across the bottom and added our crepe paper heart that we had made earlier in the day for our house decorations AND Wa-La we have our "purse"....
Our original idea was to cover the entire box with pink construction paper and then cover it completely with rows and rows of our fringe to make a "shaggy purse", but then when we saw how cute it looked with the silver tissue paper we decided to just add a few accents!
Happy Valentine's Box making and if you have any ideas for Buddy send them our way (so far we just have the idea of Sponge Bob Square Pants)!!

Hidden Figures

Ever since I heard Sen. King ask "What have subgroups done for society?", I have been red hot mad anyone would ever ask a condescending, ignorant, and arrogant question like that. Obviously there are many people that feel they are "Superior" still to these "subgroups". I'm tired of people trying to make minorities seem like lazy, good for nothing, useless sycophant pariah's on society. It's so engrained in society, that people of all backgrounds believe it to. It reminded me when I was growing up as the only black child in my grade level most of the time at school. I always felt uncomfortable when it came time for history. I only read about black people being slaves. The book might mention Harriet Tubman and W.E.B. DuBois as an abolitionist. George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. I had to do my own research to find out that black people made a whole lot more contributions to society. It makes me feel proud and encourages me to keep striving to do better and try to come up with ideas to pull people of all backgrounds up too. I'm collecting some of the interesting people I continue to come across that have made huge contributions to society...they just happen to be members of subgroups. Percy Julian created over 130 chemical patents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Lavon_Julian I remember being in awe and proud of Mae Jamison when I was in elementary school https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/jemison-mc.html This is the author that brought us the brilliant Hidden Figures http://margotleeshetterly.com/ Christine Darden, NASA engineer https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_CDarden.html https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/cagle.html Hidden Figures - personal inspirations in as a technology worker https://www.nasa.gov/content/dorothy-vaughan-biography https://www.nasa.gov/content/mary-jackson-biography https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

Sweet Potato Cornbread muffins

One of my favorite restaurants here in Kansas City is Peachtree Soul Food Buffet.  They have some of the best southern comfort food selections in the city.  One of those comfort foods they offer are Sweet Potato Cornbread muffins.  Holy moly are these things good.  I am one of those weird people that only likes Jiffy cornbread mix.  I have yet to have some homemade cornbread that I loved until I had one of their muffins.  Their muffins are sweeter than Jiffy mix, but they kind of have a similar consistency...although they must put 4 tablespoons of butter in their batter and I love it.  Seriously, if you ever come to Kansas City, you have to try some of these muffins along with some greens, fried chicken and fried fish.  Smack yo mama good.

I tried another sweet potato cornbread recipe using ground whole grain corn meal. It turned out wayyyy to grainy for my taste.  I basically want my favorite Jiffy Mix cornbread with sweet potato in it and hope it turns out like Peachtree’s muffins.

Recently I had been looking for a homemade "Jiffy" cornbread mix recipe.  I came across this one that looked pretty promising:  http://www.food.com/recipe/jiffy-corn-muffin-mix-copycat-345502

I read through the comments and saw the recipe can be a little dry.  I thought adding another egg and a little plain greek yogurt should remedy that.   

I modified the recipe a bit and added some ingredients for the sweet potato muffins.  All in all these muffins turned out light and fluffy and quite similar to Jiffy mix with a nice balance of sweet potato.  I highly recommend that you try this out.  Here's the recipe:

Sweet Potato Cornbread Muffins

INGREDIENTS

YIELD6 muffinsUNITSUS

Corn Muffin Mix

2⁄3 cup all-purpose flour

1⁄2 cup yellow cornmeal

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons plain greek yogurt

To make muffins add

2 eggs

1⁄3 - ½  cup milk

Optional Ingredients

1⁄2 cup grated cheddar cheese(optional)

2 ounces canned chilies (optional)

1⁄4 cup drained chopped pimiento(optional)

1⁄2 cup chopped onion (optional)

For sweet potato cornbread

• ½-1 cup mashed sweet potato
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 2 dashes of nutmeg

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl, mix well.
3. Whisk in vegetable oil and mix until dry mixture is smooth and lumps are gone.
4. To make Corn Muffins, spray muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray.
5. Combine mix with egg, yogurt and ⅓ cup of milk, mixing well. If mixture is still dry, add more milk.
6. To make Sweet Potato Corn muffins, add mashed sweet potato,  brown sugar (optional), cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla.
7. Fill muffin pan cups 1/2 full, bake for 15-20 minutes.  My crappy oven took a while longer. The edges of the muffins will turn a nice golden brown and you can smell the wonderful waft of the muffins in the kitchen.
8. 
   

Mini Apple Crisp pies

Mini Apple Crisp pies

Ingredients:

1 pie crust (pre-made)

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 stick butter

2 fresh diced up apples  (I like mine chunky)

3  tbsp white sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

1/8 tsp vanilla

Optional 1/2 c chopped pecans (add to topping)

Tools:

non-stick muffin/cupcake pan

4 -inch diameter cup

1 large bowl

large spoons

Directions

• Preheat oven to 425.
• Unroll the pie crust (if store bought).  Use a cup to cut out pie crust.  Put a cut-out crust in muffin tin (needs no crimping).
• In bowl, combine brown sugar, dash of cinnamon and flour well.  Mix in melted butter and set to the side.  
• Microwave fresh cut apples for 5 minutes to soften apples.   Remove from microwave.  Add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and mix well.   
• OR In pan over medium heat, melt 1 tblsp butter.
• Add apples, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg. Coat apples well and simmer about 4-5 minutes.
• Spoon apple mixture into crusts just to the top of tin.

• Spoon the crumb topping on top of each pie generously.  Put in oven for 15 minutes.
• Take out of oven and let cool for 5 minutes.  Run a knife around the top of the pie to loosen and it should just pop out.

Makes 6 mini pies.  You can wrap them up and put them in freezer for up to 4 months.

Saw this on Teen Kids News on April 18, 2015 in the episode discussing E-cigarettes; Wikipedia; test stress; baseball's 7th inning stretch; bottled water; using a toothbrush; baking tiny pies.

https://archive.org/details/KRON_20150418_213000_Teen_Kids_News#start/1380/end/1440

Elizabeth Jeans Apple Pie Crisp kit

I saw this adorable Recycled container piggy bank on Babble.  I think I'll use a Downy container since it already has a pink cap.  It should be easy to paint or spray paint the blue part.  And I'll add some googly eyes and use some small cardboard circles for the legs.

Teach your kids how to save money and the earth by transforming an old softener bottle into this adorable piggy bank! Just add embellishments for the ears and eyes, cut a slit in the back, and your kids will be saving in no time! Plus, the built-in handle makes it easy to tote your riches around.

There are some other cute piggy bank ideas on Babble: http://www.babble.com/crafts-activities/8-fun-diy-piggy-banks-get-saving/

HP Printer Update popup won't go away

I get an HP Update popup box that won't go away no matter what I do. The message in the box is: "An update is available. Would you like to download and install this update now?"

Clicking on the box doesn't do anything and it is somehow set to stay on top of all other open applications. I can turn off the computer and turn the computer back on and the box goes away, but then it pops up again and won't go away, again.  Everytime I have this problem, I fix it and forget it.

After this google session, I found the answer here:
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Home-PCs-Pavilion-Presario/Update-notice-box-won-t-go-away/td-p/977349#.VBBvM2MXNYU


The following worked for me. Drag the "HP UPdate" box up the screen. Then press the 'Enter' key. A dialogue box then pops up asking you to confirm the update.  There's a "Settings" button that I set to Never notify me when there's an update.    Everything should work from there.

Dell Latitude E6530 touchpad not working

Short short answer:  Press Fn + F5
Wow, it's been a looong time since I last posted.  I'm only posting now so I can search for this next time it happens.  So my touchpad stopped working all the sudden, I tried rebooting my laptop but still no dice.  Since I work from home, this was a huuuuge problem.  I went digging around for a wired mouse I used to have for my old PC.  Blasted thing had a serial port connector,  my laptop only has USB ports.  I dug around some more for a wireless mouse I bought a while ago that I know had a wireless USB dongle.  Found it.  Even though this was working, I decided to find out what the heck could have happened.  I was assuming I needed to reinstall  the driver.  I found the answer here:

http://www.helpowl.com/q/Dell/LatitudeE6530/Troubleshooting/touchpad-working-dell-latitude-e6530/334847

They have you try several things, but I'll summarize what worked for me.
I went to the Dell support link from the above post.  I found the link to Disable/enable the touchpad.
Honestly, I don't hardly use my Fn button and my keyboard doesn't look anything like the pictures on that support page.   But I did start hunting around my keyboard and found the icon under the F5 button:

 Somehow I must have hit the Fn button while I was refreshing my browser with the F5 button.  As a web application developer, I should have known this....but now I know.