the brown eyed bookie ,

Re: Stimulus plan brings tax breaks to homeowners

The H&G blogs are abuzz about an article that appeared in last Saturday's St. Petersburg (FLA) Times: Stimulus plan brings tax breaks to homeowners.

The article details the new government incentives available to homeowners who upgrade their homes to cut energy consumption; or add high quality energy saving systems to their new homes.

It doesn't have much to do with kitchens or baths. But money in your pocket to do something most people are planning anyway makes a lot of sense.

Read it over and compute how much money you can save by saving energy. Below are the product categories covered.

Peggy

Windows and doors
Roofing
Insulation
Heating and cooling systems
Central air conditioning
Air-source heat pumps
Geothermal heat pump
Water heaters
Gas, oil and propane water heaters
Electric heat pump water heater
Solar water heater
Solar energy: Photovoltaic systems

Navaratna Kurma

Why is my Navaratna kurma healthy?

* No potatoes
* No heavy cream
* No butter
* No cashews
* No coconut

Ingredients:
Chopped veggies(carrot, beans, capsicum, cauliflower)-2 cups
Chopped Onion-3/4 cup
Tomato-1
Finely chopped garlic-3 pods
Green chilli-1
Oil-2 tbsp
Jeera-1/2 tsp
Cloves-4
Cinnamon-2 inch piece
Cardamom-3
Bay leaf-1
Garam masala powder-1/2 tsp
Salt
Turmeric powder-1/2 tsp
Chilli powder-1/4 tsp
Coriander powder-1 tsp
Pineapple pieces-1/4 cup
Raisins-2 tsp
Milk-1/2 cup
Yogurt-1/4 cup
Coriander leaves to garnish

To grind to a paste with little water:
Cashews-soak in warm water for 15 minutes-about 20
or almonds-soak in hot water for 30 minutes and peel the skin-20
Coconut-2 tbsp(optional. I did not use it)

Method:
Heat oil in a pan. Add jeera, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaf. Saute for 10 seconds. Add onion, garlic and green chilli. Fry till onions turn golden brown. Add tomato and other veggies(except capsicum), turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala powder and some salt. Saute for a couple of minutes. Add 1/4 cup of water. Close the pan with a lid and simmer for 5-7 minutes or until the veggies are cooked. Add capsicum and saute for 2 minutes. Add milk, yogurt, ground nuts paste, pineapple, raisins and salt(if needed) and cook for 5 minutes. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with roits or rice.

I used almonds in this recipe. So I am sending this entry to JZ's Lets Go Nuts: Almonds - March 31st event started by Aquadaze of Served with Love

As I won the first place in Santa's holiday Challenge for sending my guilt free oats and dates cookies, JZ(the host) sent me a Target gift card which I felt was a very useful gift! I went to shop the next day and bought this cute handbag :) Thank you so much for your gesture JZ. That was very sweet of you. I was so excited when I received the gift card!!

How is it? :) I have a fetish for handbags. I go for a walk everyday and stop by a couple of shops on the way and gaze at the handbags. ha ha....some day I am going to be thrown out of the shop :P

backsplash - kitchen and wet bar

The backsplash is finally installed. It looks fantastic. If these walls could talk, I'm sure they'd say, "Mama just got some new bling and she's ready to tear up this town - outta my way."

This was an easy job, I didn't need need too many special tools and was finished over the course of a few days.

We want to give some big credit to Modwalls. In addition to being a completely friendly and helpful vendor, they have a beautiful selection of high quality tiles in a variety of colors. If you like the mosaic look and they don't have a color mix that works, you can mix up your own batch for a custom blend. As I mentioned before, we chose the Marrakesh blend for the kitchen - AND - we went ahead and got the Windy City mix for the wet bar in the basement.

There are some official installation guides here, but our process is described below.

1 - Adhering the tile to the walls - we did not use a concrete backerboard, but adhered the tile directly to the drywall. I used a V-Notched trowel with 3/8" grooves along with premixed, unsanded Mastic. When you are spreading the mastic on the wall, be sure that you're applying a thorough, yet thin and even coat. If it's too thick, when you press the tile flat against the wall it will seep up through the individual tiles. This went unnoticed in a few areas during my installation. It can be cleaned up after the mastic is dry, although this means more work. This picture from the wet bar shows some seeping mastic.

We were fortunate in that we did not have to cut any of the individual tiles to make them fit around outlets, etc. Because each tile is small, we merely cut sections out of the pattern and left the rest of the sheet intact - this worked well.

When you buy this tile, it comes in sheets that are about 12"x12". You may have sheets that have a netting on the back that sits right in the mastic - or they may have paper holding them together from the front of the tile. We had both types - see below:

If you have paper fronted tile, you need to remove the paper after you fix it to the wall, but before everything is set firmly in place. I waited about 20-30 minutes and then started wetting the paper (sorry no picture). I found that a spray bottle worked best. When it's soaked through, the paper will easily peel away. At this point the tile fronts are exposed along with errors and crookedness. Because nothing is completely firm, you can straighten the lines. Now the mastic needs to firm up for at least 24 hours.

We had a few different edge types. I used blue painters tape which made for nice even grout lines.

2 - Grouting - after everything is dry I suggest a good cleaning. The sooner you clean up, the easier the clean-up. Remember the seeping mastic? This needs to be completely fixed prior to grouting so the lines are all even and smooth.

With glass tile you'll want to get a non-sanded grout. There are many colors to choose from. I'm not a big fan of grout lines that pull attention from the tile itself, so we went with similar colors to the tile.

When the grout is mixed and ready to apply, I suggest having a few putty knives around and a good float. Slather the grout on the tile and start spreading it forcefully and evenly with the float in a diagonal direction to the tile.

After everything was grouted, I waited about a half hour before wiping down with a damp [often-rinsed] sponge. As the remaining residue dries a haze will develop over the surface.