I’ve DIY’d some pretty nice stuff. For instance, the twins’ potato-stamped toy chest.
Our distressed kitchen table.
And—my favorite—my antique wooden crate shelf.
Sometimes DIY goes brilliantly and other times it simply does not. Did I ever tell you about DIY sunblock? The only thing you need to know about DIY sunblock is NEVER MAKE DIY SUNBLOCK. Even if you have cross-referenced a dozen recipes, throughly researched and sourced out the best ingredients, painstakingly executed the recipe to the letter, been initially very satisfied with your results and you find that it’s too late to follow my advice to NEVER MAKE DIY SUNBLOCK, I implore you to follow this advice: NEVER USE DIY SUNBLOCK. This is what will happen if you do: you will burn. I have nicely olive-toned, Portuguese-y skin and I burned. My sister, whose skin is less Portuguese-y and more Irish-y, burned worse. We burned more than we would have if we hadn’t used any (effective or noneffective) sunblock at all. What happened was we actually got somewhat cooked. So, the moral of the story: neither make nor use DIY sunblock. Even if you can make it in your slow cooker. Which I did. It seemed like such a good idea. Total efficiency, right? Yes, and yet so wrong.
But I let neither abject failure nor second degree burns thwart my DIY ambitions! I carry on and make more stuff!
This week, however, in spite of my unwavering DIY optimism, my efforts did not turn out so well. Wait—I should amend that: my DIY efforts this week turned out very well, but what I did with the results, not good. Not good AT ALL. Okay, is it time to dispense with all the vagueness and just tell you what I did? Fine.
I made my own almond milk!
So pretty!
Yes, I did and it is really good. The kids even like it. And instead of the 47 ingredients in the store-bought stuff, mine has 3! Almonds, water, vanilla. It was very easy. I used this recipe, but next time I will tweak it a bit until I get the creaminess/water ratio just right. Also I will add a few dates for sweetness. It really came out great. Totally delicious.
I even made homemade almond meal with the leftover ... almond shards? No idea what the right term is.
Here’s the tragedy: I made my green tea latté with it and it was awful. AWFUL. A-W-F-U-L. There are not enough ways to say awful that can fully express how awful it was. I did not think it was possible that my beloved green tea latté could be awful. It was utter betrayal. UT. TER. It tasted terrible. The flavors did not compliment each other whatsoever. WHATSOEVER. (That is a great word.) There was some nasty bitterness and the honey flavor did not shine through as usual so it was merely cloying. CLOYING. (Another great word.) Oh, it was unspeakably awful. I am still reeling. In a bad way. And I was at a party to which I’d brought my green tea latté (What.) so I was unable to make an emergency quick green tea latté (Yes, I have a method.) and I was unable to enjoy my beloved green tea latté for one entire day. Which is one entire day too many. What was I thinking? Do not ever do this, people. It was worse than second degree burns from DIY sunblock. Once again, don’t ever do that, either. Neither make your green tea latté with homemade almond milk nor make or use DIY sunblock. I encourage you, however, to tackle a potato-stamped toy chest, a distressed kitchen table or—my favorite—an antique wooden crate shelf.
I made an emergency quick green tea latté to enjoy after the kids were in bed. I salvaged the day and went to bed happy. You can always make it work, people. You can always make it work.
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