Saving a Blouse/Rotating a Collar, Healthier Eating/Spiralizer Review

Saving a Blouse/Rotating a Collar-
Well Spring is sure here! It's been in the 60s the last several days and that's been a really great relief from crazy weather in the last few weeks. Dave's started some early gardening, and we plan on planting the cold frame with cold veggie seeds nest weekend. The "sun room" has been taken down off the coop, hens are loving it!

I bought a springy-type blouse on eBay a while back, since but I loved the blue and green motif, perfect for spring. When it arrived I washed it like I usually do anything used. I noticed a light brown stain the outer part of the collar right in front where you can see it. So I treated the stain, but it didn't come out. Three more rounds with other types of stain removers and no luck. I really loved the blouse, which was like-new and scratched my head a while. I remembered seeing several years ago the idea of rotating a collar. Someone did a blog post about her husband's favorite shirt that was worn on the inside. The idea was that you remove the collar, flip it over and reattach the collar. Problem solved! So I thought what do I have to lose? I have a decent sewing machine, so I pulled out my favorite seam ripper-

I removed the collar completely and sat it aside-

Next I pinned the collar in place-

I tried to match the width of the stitching as close as I could so it would look the same. Reattaching the collar only took about 10 minutes. After it was flipped over the stain is now underneath, problem solved!

Healthier Eating/Spiralizer Review-
I've been working on doing healthier eating since last October, when I decided I needed to stop dieting and start getting healthier. I was on the border of pre-diabetes and wanted to nip it in the bud. Really happy to report I've lost about the size and a half, and some weight. My A1C is closer to normal now, happy dance. One of the things I did in general was smaller portions, a lot less wheat, and sugar. When Dave saw his doctor recently she encouraged him to start eating more veggies. She mentioned using a spiralizer instead of eating pasta. I had heard of them before but wasn't really sure what I could do with it? I did some research and reviewed quite a few different makes/models and prices to get an idea what was out there. I thought it would be great idea for both of us since we both love pastas. I found you can actually spiralize all kinds of different ingredients, fruits and veggies. After doing some research I came up with this model which I ordered on Amazon-

                                                         

 I chose this model as it was moderately priced, comes with three blades with built in storage for them. One blade is spaghetti, one fettuccine, and one large ribbons/curls. It takes up fairly minimal space-

I didn't want a little tiny handheld one is that looks really awkward, and I didn't want a really expensive electric one that was overpriced. I like the fact it doesn't take up a lot of storage after it's all put back together. I did one zucchini tonight cut in half, and used the fettuccine size spiral-

 I sauteed in a little bit of homemade pesto and olive oil. The fettuccine size came out nice and firm, I served with pesto flank steak

I got this library book to test drive, and I LOVE IT!

                                                           

I can see all kinds of applications now. One of the bladed does large curls, great for salads. I saw a  recipe where you make carrot noodles, roast with some a little olive oil and salt, top with smoked salmon, avocado slices and a herbal dressing. Looks great! Really enjoying it so far, hope to use more and try lots of other ideas. I have about three more books on hold at the library so I can play around and see what I can come up with, keep you posted! I also think I may be able to dry some foods using this, but will do more research.