Monday, May 16, 2011

I did it...

After hearing about them for awhile on a few different blogs, I finally decided to buckle down and make a Home Management Binder.  I have the basic sections selected and a basic binder put together, but I am far from finished.  I have decided to start with the basics and build from there with what I need/use and what will work out the best for our home.  Here is what I did:

I started with my computer and created some custom check lists and basic meal planner that would work for our family.  I printed all of them out to put in a very nice hot pink binder (sorry sweetie you can deal).



Then I put some pocket and some regular tabs that I had around to make the sections.

I have the following sections (so far, I know I need more/different ones as I continue to figure this thing out)

Calander
Menu Planing
Future planing
Housekeeping
TO Do
Ahha's
Contacts
Finances
To File
Life Group
Blog
Max
Important

The last few have pockets so that I can slip things in and out of them like unpaid bills and them move the bills to the to file section after I pay them, with my confirmation number or what have you.

My filing system needs help, but that is another post for another day.  I am still not back 100% from literally being down for the count the whole last week.  Hopefully I will be back all the way soon and able to actually get several of my projects done.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!  :)

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Sorry guys!

Sorry everyone for my not posting the past few days.  I have a nasty bug (inner ear viral infection), and it makes me super dizzy so that I can't sit up for very long.  Hopefully I will be back soon!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Pizza rolls and pockets

My husband LOVES pizza.  I would have to say that this was my one big craving during my pregnancy.  Thankfully pizza hut was offering ANY pizza ANY way you wanted it for $10, or we may just have gone broke! I honestly can only handle pizza once a week tops (unless I am pregnant apparently).  Here is a fun "pizza like" dinner that we enjoy having on occasion.  It really is easy, and if you have kids I'm sure they would love it!

Simply preheat your oven to 350 and gather the following supplies:
A baking sheet
Non stick spray
Crescent rolls
Pizza Sauce (I recommend the squeeze kind shown below it makes it SOOO easy!)
Mozzarella Cheese
Pepperoni's

Spray your baking sheet with the non stick spray and separate out the crescent triangles.  For the rolls put  a row of sauce down the middle, if you are making pockets only put sauce on half of them.  We are making both here; 4 rolls and 2 pockets.
Then you add the toppings, ohh the toppings, aren't they the best part of pizzas?


Cheese and pepperonis, yum!  Then for the rolls, start at the fat end of the triangle and roll towards the small pointy end, like so.



For the pockets, place the non-topping triangle on top of the topping filled one, and press the sides down.


Your baking sheet should look like this:


Also, scrape as much of the extra cheese off the sheet as possible.  It makes for less burnt smell and more delicious pizza-like smell from your oven.  Then simply place the sheet into your oven for 15 minutes and you are done!

ENJOY!!!

I originally got these recipes from the Pillsbury website, they are slightly modified for our families preferences. pockets are here and rolls here.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Baby stuff everywhere!

Having a 5 month old child means having tons of small baby toys constantly all over your home.  Mostly ours find their way all over our living room floor.  I am not even going to show you a picture of it, because it is so embarrassing.  So, my hubby started throwing all of it in a random box that we had from Costco.  I really wanted a pretty basket or something so that it wasn't a cardboard box.

My husband likes functional I like cute.  So I set out to find a good deal on a basket or something to contain the baby stuff in the living room.  Oh and yes, that is a wii mote jacket.  Our wonderful son who is fairly mobile and almost crawling discovered it, and likes to chew on it, please don't judge me.  Anyways, while out and about we decided to stop by TJ Max to see if we could find any baskets for cheap.  I was so excited, I couldn't believe it when I found this beauty.


A basket that is labeled "Baby things" and is brown (so matches my living room).  PERFECT!  Then I slowly looked at the price tag, and I was pleasantly surprised so see a little red tag on the price tag.



Not too shabby!  I would have NEVER paid $16 for a basket like this.  $10 is way more reasonable but a little steep.  $7.50 wasn't the best deal ever, but I was totally willing to pay that much for the perfect basket.  It now happily lives on the bottom of my bookshelf, fully of things my son likes to play with.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Labeling containers

Saturday afternoon my wonderful hubby came home early from work, allowing me to get going on the many projects I have wanted to do.  I haven't had an afternoon to work on projects in SOOO long, I forgot that I have project ADD.   I start on one, and then another, and then another.  So I currently have 2 projects that are "in progress" and only mostly completed one.

Here is the project I mostly finished:


I say mostly because my intention was to label more things.  Except I hit a snag, which I will share with you later on.

I decided to take my "indefinitely loaned"circuit cutter for a spin.  I'm holding on to it for a friend of mine due to their housing situation.  I have had it almost a year, and only tested it out once, so I figured it was time to get something going on it.  I loaded some vinyl into the machine, typed out some letters and hit cut.  I did this a few times.


Then I peeled back the extra and it looked like this:
My plan was to do a few different things, but if you are a pro at this, or have done a similar project before, you will already see my mistake above.  If not, you won't figure it out until I get into the project a bit more.  The next step was to take out all the little pieces that are inside the letters.
My mistake is now glaring at me, even more pronounced, but little nieve me doesn't see it.  I cut out the word "rice" and a pice of transfer paper the same size.  (By the way, you need transfer paper, the vinyl doesn't come with it.  And if you don't know that, or what transfer paper is, you may or may not read the directions 5 times then ask your hubby to ready them because you are still confused).
This is super easy right?  All you have to do now, is put the transfer paper on the word and stick it good.
Then peel off the backing of the vinyl

Then simply place your letters where you want them on the desired surface, pressing well with a popsicle stick (included with the vinyl), or like object.

You now have your finished project.


I was SOOO excited, look how great this looks!  And it was SOOOOO easy, now I'm going to label the rest of my containers.  This is where I realized my mistake.  After I had finished cutting the word "rice"I saw a cool button on my machine that said "Paper saver".  In my head I had a simple conversation with myself that went simply like this:  I like saving paper, especially expensive vinyl paper.  That is a genius button, I'm going to push it.  So I did, which now was the cause of my head ache.  Notice how my letters are no longer spaced for simply just cutting and placing.  I now have to cut, measure, arrange and then place.  

 The words "Medina" and "love" are for another project, but the word "flour" I needed to place on my flour container.  Notice how above the "F" and "L" are not aligned with the "our" properly?  Ya, stupid paper saver button.  Still I foraged on.
I made it work, using a ruler, but the "o" was still slightly crooked.  Oh well, i will just place it on my container.  So, here is my flower container.  It was like 2 or 3 bucks at walmart.

I then went to place the vinyl onto it and I realized my even more deadly mistake.  I forgot to measure them to make sure that the words would fit...

OOPPS! (see this is why I am so homemaking challenged).  So as not to be defeated I placed the word vertically instead.


I think it turned out alright.
Except now I'm stuck because I now that my longer words (such as powdered sugar) wont fit on the similar, but even smaller container.   Oh well, you live and learn.  I hopefully will be a bit more successful in my next endeavor.  Thanks for stopping by!

I will be linking up here, so join the fun!








Sunday, May 1, 2011

Garage sale finds

This weekend I went garage sale shopping with a friend.  Here is a picture of my hull.  Not to bad for $15 total.  All of the boy clothes are NAME BRAND and in REALLY good condition.  I'm really excited, plus I have big plans (that have already started) for that candle stick and the picture frames!
Supper great morning with a friend and a few good finds.  It was a very successful Saturday morning.