Husband’s Homemade Orangina Recipe

We’re not big soda drinkers. It’s not that we dislike cola (especially with a shot of rum) or soda in general; we just don’t buy it much.





 However, on those rare occasions when I’m in the mood for a soda, I prefer to quench my thirst with a frosty Irn Bru which you can't get easily in America since it is a Scottish orange soda.

After running 9 miles a day, Husband likes to quench his deep down body thirst with an Orangina.

This can get pricey at the quantities Husband’s been sucking it down on a weekly basis. So he came up with a recipe for a not-so-pricey homemade Orangina equivalent.

Six Strange Things You Can and Cannot Compost

We have a new kooky little game we play here now that we know that the covert  composter works. We call it Will It Compost?

Six Weird Things That Will Compost

1. Dog fur tumbleweeds from Blitzkrieg’s hairbrush.

2. Dryer lint.


3. Dirt from the Roomba.


4. A 100% white cotton sock.


5. Corn-based plastic coffee lid from a paper take out cup of coffee. Husband and I threw it into the compost bin just to see if it would compost - it did!

6. Wine Corks. Obviously, I'm talking about composting wine corks made from real cork instead of the fake corks that are made from plastic.

Six Weird Things I Will Not Compost

Easy Tote Bag Revamp or, My Stab at Punch Needle Embroidery (Literally)

I like the mindless Zen of doing needlepoint. However, I’m not a counted cross-stitch kind of gal. Stitching, counting, and stitching never appealed to me. If you’re out and about in the craft world, most of the
not overly trite or Granny nicer needlepoint kits available are counted cross-stitch. When I came across this fun little punch needle embroidery kit, I thought it would make a nice gift for someone who is hard to by for. I hadn’t done punch needle embroidery but it looked easy to pick up (it was), so I thought I’d give it a stab.

I did. Several times, in fact.

Inherited Bathroom Décor That Works

One of the nice things about being the first buyer of our newly built Condo is that I didn’t inherit any wild and wacky or otherwise tacky decoration from the previous owner. ThatNanda of Craftster wasn’t so lucky. She writes:

When we bought our house, it had all the original decor from the late 50's -
awful shag carpeting, chandeliers, orange and brown appliances, the works. We
were able to fix all but one room - the horrible, pink, and black tile bathroom.
Since it's too expensive to redo at the moment, we decided that, rather than
fight it, we'd just go with it. So we painted the upper walls teal, a la retro
50's diner, and I made a pink, frou-frou poodle curtain.

I think going retro with her bathroom decoration is an excellent example of the Tim Gunn, “Make it work!” edict in action.

Personally, I’d be sorely tempted to keep the retro design as it since I’m going through a retro-modern-Bauhaus-contemporary-found and funkified-Da Da-Danish decorating phase of my own. What do you think?

Did you enjoy this post? Get more like it by subscribing to the Condo Blues RSS Feed or to Condo Blues by Email.