Category Archives: Uncategorized

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THIS WEEK’S MENU

Breakfast

• Eggs Italiano
• Honeydew Melon
• English Tea

Lunch

• Shredded Chicken Burrito

Dinner

• Mixed Greens Salad with Roasted Potatoes and Heirloom Tomatoes
• Goat Cheese and Apricot Jam Crostini

Snack

• Yogurt with Crunch

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THIS WEEK’S MENU

Breakfast

• Scrambled Eggs with Ricotta on Toast
• Grapes
• English Tea

Lunch

• Vegetarian Chili

Dinner

• Almost Thai Lettuce Cups

Snack

• Homemade Chunky Applesauce

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Before

Tonight, I will post about groceries, but until then, I will shamelessly plug my apartment again.  We have 24 hours left of voting and I am sad to say that even with hundreds of Facebook friends, and many annoying emails, we were only able to get 176 votes.   This is shocking since I am sure that more people would come to, say, our wedding.  And this is way easier…but maybe you don’t understand why this is so important to us?   We don’t know either, but let me tell you, a little validation feels REALLY important right now, so we’re just going with that.

After

Take a moment and get everyone in your office to vote for us today! Then, I will stop bothering you and post more interesting things about food and craft.

Check out this deal on Your Daily Thread to get a 25% code for my store!  Start your holiday shopping early!

Check out the super sweet post about my store on the awesome style blog, Miles of Style!  Thanks Persis!

We’ve been away at a lovely wedding all weekend, and are heading to another on Friday, so “Buy Our Groceries” will have to wait until next week!  In the meantime, I thought I’d share some brilliant ideas I saw at the wedding on Sunday.

The bride and groom made a lot of the stuff themselves and I always recommend that people do this to save money.  They had some friends over for a craft day and stamped, cut, sorted and labeled.   If you host a few days like that and start planning early in your engagement, it won’t be stressful and most importantly it will be cheap!

Monopoly bar money was tucked sweetly into envelopes with each guests name and table assignment.

Another way they saved money was on the bar tab.  They couldn’t bring in their own alcohol, so they decided on their budget and created personalized monopoly style money in that amount.  They divided it into small envelopes and used those as the escort cards.  That way, they couldn’t go over their budget, but they wouldn’t have to stop the open bar at a specified hour.   It was fun to buy drinks and get change with the fake money, and you could always butter up the pregnant ladies in the room if you ran out!

Tall mason jars held casual arrangements and short jars were scattered about with floating tea lights.

Brown kraft paper was used throughout the wedding from the save the dates to the table numbers.

Casual flowers arranged by a bunch of pals is another great way to save.  If these arrangements seem even too casual for you, you could always start with something like this and spend a little more on some big, lush roses to add in yourself.   And remember, if used frequently and consistently, casual things, like the brown craft paper used at this wedding, seem elegant and formal.

Here are some of my favorite online resources for DIY parties,  invitations and decor:

• www.papermart.com
• www.retailpackaging.com
• www.papermojo.com
• www.vanessahand.com
• www.paperpresentation.com
• www.save-on-crafts.com
• www.onlinefabricstore.net
• Dancusa
• Kristina Marie
• Hey Yo Yo
• Mary Not Martha
• Layer Cake Shop
• Bake It Pretty
• Chocolate Letters
• Ay Muyer!

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THIS WEEK’S MENU

Breakfast

• Oatmeal with Nuts, Dried Fruit and Brown Sugar
• Fake (but tasty) Iced Soy Latte

Lunch

• BLTA
• Apple

Dinner

• Eggplant Polenta Parmesan

Snack

• Reduced Guilt Brownie

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Eliminate harsh chemicals, and use one cleaner for many purposes!

If there is one thing I know well, it’s house cleaning.  I grew up with an obsessive house cleaning mother who not only sanitized our home, she had a side job cleaning others as well.

This is a brief lesson in how to keep your home spic-and-span throughout the week so you never have to spend a whole day on your weekends scrubbing away.

1. All you really need:

• mop
• bucket
• broom/ dust pan
• old t-shirts or rags (my mother was a huge fan of cloth baby diapers)
• vacuum
• 2 empty spray bottles
• Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day All Purpose Cleaner
• Vinegar
• Lemon Juice
• Newspaper
• Pet Hair Sponge (if you have a little furry beast around)

2. Mix your own cleaners and save a ton of money!

• In one spray bottle, mix 1/8 cup of the Mrs. Meyers All Purpose Cleaner with water.  Use this for countertops, cupboard doors, etc.  Really anything but glass!
• In the other spray bottle, mix 2 tablespoons of white vinegar with 1/4 cup lemon juice, and fill up with water.  This is the BEST window and glass cleaner!  Spray it on and wipe down with newspaper to shine up your glass.

3. Break up your home into 4 areas (or as many or few nights that you want to clean)

The office plus the living room is one of our cleaning "areas". It works best to do rooms that are close together, connected, or alike (i.e. all bathrooms).

4. Clean one area a night, only mopping the floors every other week.

5. The best order for cleaning an area:

• Pick up and put away anything that isn’t supposed to be out
• If you have pets, use your pet hair sponge to pick up any hair on upholstered surfaces.
• Using the Mrs. Meyer’s spray you mixed, clean surfaces and quickly wipe down everything in the area.  You don’t always have to spray directly onto a surface. You can spray onto a rag and use it as you would a dusting cloth.
• Using your premixed glass spray, spritz any glass in the area and wipe down with newspaper.
• Put any chairs up on tables to clear the floors for you to sweep and vacuum.
• Vacuum any area rugs, and then roll them up.
• Sweep the floors
• Every other week, mop the floors with the same Mrs. Meyer’s All Purpose Cleaner.   I use 1/4 cup in a bucket of hot water.
• When the floors are dry, quickly unroll the rugs, put chairs back, etc.

If you keep up with this schedule every week, and you have a moderately sized home, this really shouldn’t take very long!  The better you are at keeping up with it, the faster it becomes.  Jeff and I clean for about 30 minutes at night and rarely have to spend full days cleaning the place.  We love having the weekends off for relaxing and cooking!

If you know us, you know we’ve had a rough year.  If you don’t, you can read this, this, this, this and this to get an idea.   Or you can just take my word for it…a tragic loss in the family, no heat, flooding apartment, leaking roof, a pet accident leading to major vet bills, more flooding and leaking, no A/C, buying A/C…being totally broke…etc, etc.  Every time we turn around, something is wrong and usually it’s something EXPENSIVE.

This is not a pity party, but we REALLY need this win right now for our souls!!!  Vote for our place so we can meet The Selby!!

For the scoop on this series of posts, click here!

THIS WEEK’S MENU

Breakfast

• Mushroom, Onion, Spinach Scramble with Toast and Fruit
• Fake (but tasty) Iced Soy Latte

Lunch

• Turkey Taco Salad

Dinner

• Peppers and Goat Cheese Sandwiches
• Butternut Squash Soup

Snack

• Spicy Pickled Carrots and Cauliflower

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