When Life Gives You Lemons....Make it a Happy Thing

There's something about the smell of lemons! That clean and refreshing citrus zing.  Sweet Melissa and Lemon Thyme are two of my favorite herbs with that wonderful lemony scent.   And I love to roast my chicken with sliced lemon and Rosemary under the skin and usually toss some halved lemons in the cavity also.   Yikes, I'm making myself hungry.  

Well, I had to have this new SU set A Happy Thing that contains this lovely lemon image (there's a bird in the set too which makes it an even more alluring purchase).   I paired the lemon up with some new Painted Blooms dsp (also SU), the new Spring Flowers embossing folder, and some sweet Crushed Curry polyester ribbon.  

I colored the image with my Blendabilities and added some Crystal Effects to give it sheen.

And then I did another card another way.  

I take my tea in the morning and evening with lemon and to make sure that I have enough on hand, HWNSNBP will pick up a whole bag of them at Costco.  

What I'll usually do with the whole bag is wash them, dry them, and then, using my kitchen planer, I'll zest them all.  I keep the zest in a container in the refrigerator and have lately been adding it to my tiny crockpot that I have simmering with some spices and orange slices to naturally scent the kitchen.

Then I use this juicer that I got many moons ago when I was a teenager believe it or not.  It was a promotion in a woman's magazine at that time and came with a citrus peeler and a mini grater that I think I also still have.  All of them yellow of course.  I think I had to send in a dollar for it.  I'm dating myself, but does anyone remember also being able to collect Oneida spoons for 25 cents with a coupon from a ladies magazine in the late 60's early 70's?  I remember picking the pattern and then taping a quarter to an index card and sending it in.  That was a real "Happy Thing" to receive in the mail.  This is why I have a bunch of single different-patterned spoons in the drawer.  But I digress........I juice all the lemons and put the juice in.........

a dedicated "lemon" cube tray.  Once they're frozen, I put them in a zip lock bag in the freezer and I can pop one out for my tea or to use in a recipe when needed.  Each cube is about the juice of 1/2 a lemon.  (You don't want to do this if you have a paper cut or any kind of cut on your hands!!!)

There's nothing like fresh lemon, but frozen lemon is pretty good too!