Ode to MeckMom’s Refrigerator

So, after I re-organized my pantry ala MeckMom’s suggestions, I decided to try her idea for the refrigerator, too. As you can see from this ‘before’ picture, my refrigerator really needed some help! Everything was all crammed in with no real sense of rhyme or rhythm to it. And it always took forever to get to the pickles in the way back of the frig. (And you know how frustrating that is when you’re trying to make the perfect sandwich!) Continue reading…

On Being “Green”…

Why do I have that Kermit the Frog song in my head all of a sudden? “It’s not easy being green…” hmmm

Sorry, sometimes mommy brains get off track. What I wanted to write about was being green - as in “save the earth” kind of stuff.

Just recently I started recycling plastic and glass (I was already recycling paper - that was a hold over from my school teacher days). I figured if they were going to pick it up at my curb, how much easier could it get? So I invested $6 into 3 cute little milk crates from Target to put on the floor of my pantry to receive plastic, paper, and glass. Kate’s even gotten into it now and will even occasionally donate some of her ‘unwanted’ artwork (our house is LITTERED with her artwork, literally) to the recycle bin. Continue reading…

How to Clean Up Vaseline

If you’ve read my post, “It’s Too Quiet…” then you know why I’ve been on a quest to find the answer to the simple question of how to clean vaseline off of well… everything. (Amazing how much damage a 18 month old and 3 year old can do in just a few minutes time!)

So, after MUCH searching, I finally found a site that had directions on how to get vaseline off of clothes and fabrics. (FYI, “Vaseline” is just a brand name of petroleum jelly.) Check out this diy site’s suggestions…

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/petroleumjelly

And then, I had a friend forward this mom’s story about vaseline and how she got it out of her son’s HAIR!!!! So I decided I should include her experience, too… Continue reading…

Ode to MeckMom’s Pantry

If you don’t know who MeckMom is, I highly suggest that you check out my original post on this fantabulous lady! I told Shawn, “I want to be more like her when I grow up!”

So, after two of my beautiful friends followed her steps on organizing a pantry and sent me the pics to prove it, I decided I should probably get on the ball and get mine done, too. Continue reading…

Cleaning Up After a Bloody Nose

When I woke Kate up for school the other morning, she had a pretty good bloody nose going. It had gotten on her night gown, soaked into her pillow, and gone through her sheet and into her new mattress! I got her cleaned up, pulled all the sheets and pillow off her bed before she could see it all, and got her off to school.

When I got back home I started to google how to get blood out of a mattress. The last thing I wanted was for the stain to set and be there for the next 20 years! (BTW, yes, I do normally have a mattress protector on the bed, but the last time we changed sheets it was because she had peed, so I had to wash everything and of course, it wasn’t all dry in time for bed, so we just put on the extra set of linens without the mattress pad…) Continue reading…

MeckMom ROCKS!

I think I figured out one of the things that makes my heart sing… Apparently I’m in love with all things organizational. (I know. All of you who know me well are saying in unison and very loudly, ‘well, duh!’)

A few days ago, my sister sent me a link to a mom’s website that has all sorts of organizational tips. This is not the first link like it that she’s sent me and each one she’s sent has made me fall more and more in love. But this site… this site made me really happy. In fact, I made the mistake of clicking on the link only an hour before we needed to leave for church. I couldn’t stop reading. Continue reading…

Easy-to-Follow Picture-Instruction Recipes

I’m not really a great cook. In fact, when Shawn and I got married a dozen years ago, one of our agreements was that he didn’t mind cooking if I didn’t mind cleaning it all up. Of course, over the years, that’s changed. Since he’s still working a full-time job AND running a business “on the side”, and I’m just a stay-at-home mom, I’ve wound up taking over most of the cooking in the house.

The good news is that I’m enjoying it more. But, I still wouldn’t say that I’m great at it or anything. And I’m definitely NOT any kind of gourmet chef.

So, when my sister sent me a link to this website with cool, easy recipes, I had to give it a gander. I was VERY pleasantly surprised to see that not only were the recipes pretty straight-forward and easy to fix, but there are step-by-step directions with pictures for each step. So, even the harder recipes feel easy and attainable. Oh, and the author has a GREAT sense of humor, too!!!

Check out The Pioneer Woman Cooks and see what you think. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be trying out her recipes tonight for dinner!!

Great Household Tips

Here’s some great tips I just got from Tiffany. Be sure to read the last tip about cleaning the lint filter on your clothes dryer! Enjoy!!

1. Reheat Pizza - Heat up leftover pizza in a non stick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy.
   No soggy micro pizza. Saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.
2. Easy Deviled Eggs - Put cooked egg yolks in a ziploc bag. Seal ziploc, then mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly. Cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg whites. Just throw the bag away when you’re done for easy clean up.
3. Expanding Frosting - When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. This will double it in
   size/amount. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also
   eat less sugar and calories per serving.
4. Reheating Refrigerated Bread - To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place a cup of water in the microwave with them. The
   increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.
5. Newspaper Weeds Away - Start putting wet newspaper in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Put layers around the plants, overlapping as you go. Cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic, but they will not get through wet newspapers.
6. Broken Glass - Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can’t see easily.
7. No More Mosquitoes - Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.
8. Squirrel Away! - To keep squirrels from eating your plants sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn’t hurt the plant and
   the squirrels won’t come near it.
9. Flexible Vacuum - To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge, add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to the end of your vacuum hose. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.
10. Reducing Static Cling - Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks
    that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and — ta da! — static is gone.
11. Measuring Cups - Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup. Next,
    add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
12. Foggy Windshield? - Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car. When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!
13. Reopening Sealed Envelope - If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the
    freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.
14. Conditioner - Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It’s a lot cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It’s also a
    great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn’t like when you tried it in your hair…
15. Goodbye Fruit Flies - To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass fill it 1/2″ with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid, mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!
16. Get Rid of Ants - Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it “home”, can’t digest it, so it kills them. It may take a week or
    so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don’t have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!
17. Clothes Dryers - When the heating unit in our dryer went out, the gentleman that fixes things around our house told us that he wanted to show us the lint filter in our dryer. It was clean. But, when he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over the mesh material, the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn’t go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film to build up on the filter and that’s what burns out the heating unit. You can’t SEE the film , but it’s there. It comes from the dryer sheets that make your clothes soft and static free. You know how dryer sheets can feel waxy when you take them out of the box? Well, that’s the stuff that builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to catch fire and potentially burn your house down with it!He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush at least every six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!

Note: I went to MY dryer and tested my lint filter by running water over it. The
water ran through only slightly and mostly collected in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water and my dish scrubbing brush and was done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it, the water ran straight through the filter. No puddling at all! Apparently, that repairman knew what he was talking about!

Save Those Boxes!

A few weeks ago, My sister-in-law and I were talking about how to store baby gear between babies and she mentioned a great idea that she had read somewhere. We both thought it was great advice and that I should most definitely share it here…

Save your boxes.

You know - all those huge boxes that the car seat, the stroller, the high chair, and the swing came in. Put them in your attic while the items are in use. Then when baby #1 is done with them, put them back in their original boxes in the attic. It will keep them protected, clean, and easy to store until you’re ready to pull them back down for baby #2.

Of course, you could always just do like I did and have babies 1, 2, and 3 so close together that you never actually put all the baby gear completely away. I’m not necessarily recommending this method for you, I just know that it’s the way it happened for me.

Thanks for the great idea, Tiffany!

How One Stay-at-Home Mom Schedules Her Week

This post is from my sister - the proud mommy of a 9-month old baby boy! (Who’s one of the cutest boys around, by the way!

A little background on me: I am a new stay-at-home mom to my awesome baby boy, Andrew. I am also a bit of an organizational freak (it runs in the family) :). I am one of those people that needs lists and structure and order to my world in order for anything to actually get accomplished. As I know a lot of new moms do, I have really struggled to not only care for my baby (and my husband) but to also actually get something else done with my life. I had dreams of all the projects I would do around the house once I stopped working and stayed at home with my new baby. And dreams they have remained….

About 4 or 5 months ago I decided I needed some sort of weekly schedule set up as well as a running list of “to do’s” Continue reading…