Simplifying our Home: The First Great Purge

The older I get it seems like life just gets more complicated. Yep fairly certain that statement just made me sound like I am an old lady, but think about the stages of life. As a baby you just eat, sleep, cry and poop. As a toddler you are learning to walk and talk. Then you hit preschool and you start learning the alphabet, counting, and imaginative play. You are now in school and comes reading, writing, math, and science. And on and on it goes in life learning more and more complicated tasks, facts, and theories.

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Now, don't get me wrong, I love to learn new things and I love seeing Ashlyn learn something new everyday, but sometimes all of that learning can cause us to over complicate the things that should be simple. Right now at my phase in life I am feeling like my home is over complicated. I am on a mission to simplify my life by simplifying my home. 

No, I do not have a complicated automated home with a robot maid named Rosie and son named Elroy. Now, I really wouldn't mind having a robot maid named Rosie, maybe then my dishes would be done all of the time. A robot maid would be nice, but then I would always worry about it going all terminator on my ass and trying to destroy the human race and all that jazz. Yep totally think about robots taking over the world, or even zombies for that matter.

See Rosie the robot totally look like she could turn into a terminator at any moment.
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What I am talking about is the complication of having too much stuff. Yes, I know it is a total first person problem talking about having too much when there are people in the world that don't have anything, but this is what is going on in our home right now. I am on a mission to simplify our home. I am tired of having stuff that has no meaning or does not serve a purpose to our family. I am tired of having boxes in my closets full of stuff that just sits there taking up space. I am tired of my cupboards being full of gadgets and items that I have not used in years. I am tired of having stuff in my home just to have stuff.

I have started the Great Purge in my home and it feels so refreshing. I have started cleaning out closets, sorting through boxes that haven't been opened since we moved 1 1/2 years ago, going through my kitchen cupboards, etc. I made a rule that if the item has not served a purpose in the last 6 months and if it has no sentimental meaning to our family then it has to go.

I now have this huge pile in our basement ready for a garage sale when the weather warms up. I have also decided that whatever does not sell is not coming back in the house, but will be donated. Maybe someone else can find a purpose for these items in their home.

This is just my first pass, so I am sure I will have more to come, but I cannot tell you how freeing this feels. I don't know why but cleaned off spaces and empty shelves just feel comforting. Maybe it is because I have no attachment to these items, or maybe because the emptiness is giving me inspiration for creating meaningful purpose to that place previously filled with stuff. I am not sure, but whatever the reason it feels good.

Crispy Whole Wheat Waffles

It has been a long time since I have posted a recipe and there is a reason. Last year when I started this blog I had these great dreams of making up recipes and whipping up fantastic meals effortlessly and without spending a lot of money. I had been stalking food blogs for awhile and thought, hey if they can do it, I can do it.

I now look back and realize that at that time I must have unexpectedly been whisked away to OZ and then made my way back home without even realizing I was there. I totally wish I would have known I was there because I so would have joined the lollipop guild and floated around in a bubble with Glinda. OK, so off topic. Anyway I realized that right now I am not great at developing my own recipes, and if I want to write here more often and include recipes on a consistent basis then I need to take a different approach. On my way back from OZ I realized that I am way better at taking someone else's recipe and adjusting it to fit our tastes and health goals. So that is the direction I am going to take for right now.

These crispy whole wheat waffles came about from this recipe Classic Waffles. Waffles are our Sunday morning go to breakfast. When I ask Ashlyn what she wants for breakfast her answer is always waffles. These are vegan, whole wheat, and freeze fantastically. Instead buying frozen waffles from the grocery store I keep a bag of these in the freezer for a quick breakfast option during the week. I have tested and retested this recipe and I recommend that if you try this you make it just as written otherwise they may not come out crispy and may stick to your waffle iron. I promise I have tried this recipe for at least 6 months now with different ingredients and this is the only one that comes out perfect every time. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Crispy Whole Wheat Waffles
Makes 6 waffles

2 Tbs chia seeds
6 Tbs hot water
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
2 cups almond milk
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a small container stir together the chia seeds and hot water. Let this sit while you put the other ingredients together. It will get all thick and gel like, don't worry that is normal.

2. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

3. In a measuring cup or small bowl whisk together the milk, oil, and vanilla. Add the chia/water mixture and whisk the wet ingredients one more time.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk just until mixed. Let the batter sit for 15 minutes.

5. While the batter is sitting warm up your waffle iron. *I use a regular waffle iron, not Belgian, so there may be a difference if using a Belgian waffle iron.*

6. Once the batter has rested and the waffle iron is hot spray your waffle iron with non stick spray. Ladle 1/2 cup of batter into the iron and close the lid. Cook the waffles until golden and crispy.

7. Enjoy with your favorite toppings. Some of ours are real maple syrup, peanut butter, fruit (those are warmed up frozen cherries in the pictures), or chocolate chips. Ashlyn highly recommends a waffle face with chocolate chip eyes and nose and a syrup mouth.

DIY No Sew Shag Rug

I have caught the DIY bug and this is my first project that I am going to share with you. I don't know how many of you have looked for area rugs lately, but I got tired of it really quickly. I found a lot of rugs that I liked alright, but did not love and I REALLY did not love the price tags of $200 to $500 on up.  So, I decided to start searching online to find DIY rugs. Now, a huge stipulation was that it could not involve a sewing machine because as of right now sewing is on my to learn list. My sewing machine just sits there wondering why I don't use it and I glace it's way and then run away in fear. I am not sure why I do this, but I will be conquering my fear soon.

Anyway after a lot of searching I found a tutorial for a DIY Shag Rug which once I saw I fell in love with and knew that was what I had been searching for. My way differed from the tutorial I found and actually ended up being cheaper than my inspiration, so YEA! If you are not bored with my rambling yet go ahead and scroll down to get a tutorial of how you can make your own DIY No Sew Shag Rug.

Materials:
Your material amounts are going to differ based upon how big you want your rug. I made a 4 1/2 ft by 7 ft rug for my dining room, so that is the size I am going by. If you want a smaller rug you won't need as many materials.

3 yds utility fabric rug liner (This is what I used) I highly recommend this as it is extremely soft!
18 yds of non-fraying fabric (This is what I used) I did 9 yds each of two different colors
Scissors or better yet rotary cutter and mat
A lot of time!

Cost: I paid $150 for all of my materials. I was able to get everything at least 40% off.

I will warn you first that this took me about 3 weeks to complete, but I am so happy with the outcome that I would definitely do it again.

1. Measure your rug liner to the size that you want your rug. I ended up cutting off about a 1/2 yard from my liner to get my size. Then trim up the edges to make sure you end up with a row of full squares on each side.

Now start cutting your fabric. You need to cut it into 1/2 in by 4 in strips. My fabric was 59 in wide, so I was able to get 1080 strips out of one yard. Yep you need to get that many strips 17 more times for a total of 19,234 strips. Told ya you needed a lot of time. I found that cutting the strips was the worst part of this project so that is why I would cut about a yard at a time of each color and then move on to the next step.

How to cut your strips

*I started doing it this way and then half way I wised up and got a rotary cutter and mat. Highly recommend going with the rotary cutter. Completely worth the money because it will save you time on this project.*

Lay your fabric out and measure 4 inches from the end.

I always have a little helper hiding in the background

Cut through both layers.

Take the ends of your strip and line them up.

Cut it in half.

You should now have two 30 inch strips. Lay out your strips.

Every half inch cut a slit. I did this all the way down the strip.

Once your slits are cut finish cutting all the way across.

This is how big they should be.

Now you may get some odd shaped ones, but don't discriminate they all go to the same cause. Oh, and once it is done you can't even tell there are some odd shaped ones in there.

Now for the fun part! Making 19,234 knots!

Slip the fabric through one hole and into another.

Tie it on up. If using more than one color alternate your colors.

Now, when you start the second row skip a row. You will not thread two pieces of fabric through the same hole.

See, can't tell you even skipped that row.

Two rows down, forever to go!

And 3 weeks later we are finally done!

Now the little one hiding in the above picture is asking for a purple rug for her room, which I will be starting on now.

Never too late (a Procrastinator's Christmas post)

Yep, I admit it I am a procrastinator. That is why I am sharing our Christmas decorations with you on January 24th. Hey, if there is some rule about posting Christmas stuff no later than a month after Christmas, then I at least beat it by one day. This Christmas I decided that I wanted to redo our Christmas decor, but I wanted to do it without spending a lot of money. I got started this year and can just add more as I go. Here are the pictures I took (right before taking everything down). Oh, and no I didn't just take my Christmas decorations down, I just procrastinated on writing about it. A large chunk of my decorations were either handmade this year, or had a handmade element to them. I didn't put together any tutorials about how to do any of these, but if you would like I can put something together for next Christmas. So, without further ado, here is our handmade Christmas.

The tree, and don't worry, I know it is a bad picture.

Some of my tree ornaments

My homemade tree skirt

A couple shots of my favorite part, my railing. Yes, you are seeing the mess of toys on the other side because our house is overrun by a 3 year old and keeping a room clean for more than 5 seconds if just about impossible.

I just had to share the cutest little deer that I found at Pier One this year. I just could not resist these cuties! Neither could Ashlyn since somehow they kept getting moved quite often. 

So, those were our mostly homemade Christmas decorations. There were more, but for some reason I didn't get pictures of them. Oh well life goes on and welcome back to Christmas one month later (or eleven months early) however you want to look at it.

A Big 3rd Birthday Party!

Yep, I know, you don't have to tell me. I disappeared for what is it, 3 months now? It was just one of those times when life gets away from you. Now, don't think I have just been sitting around for 3 months not doing anything because that is far from the truth. At the beginning of September I asked Ashlyn what theme she wanted for her birthday party this year (at the end of October). Her response, Jake and the Neverland Pirates! I was thrilled, because how much fun is a pirate party! Except of course 2 weeks before the actually party she told me she now wanted a princess party. Well, she got a pirate party and enjoyed it anyway. This year I told myself I would concentrate more on the decorations and not so much on the food. Yeah, didn't really work out that way since I eventually decided to go big on both. What can I say I was having fun!
We did do something a little different this year by doing an open house birthday party since our house is not very big, but we have lots of family and friends. So, we had it from 11 to 4 and let people come and go as they pleased. Ashlyn opened her present right away when someone showed up. This actually worked out perfectly (since we are doing family parties right now) that I think until she starts having friend parties we will continue this. Now instead of boring you with me describing everything I will just show a picture montage (insert your own montage music here). Just a warning, when I took these pictures the light in our house was just right to cast shadows on everything, so the pictures are definately over edited to get rid of as many shadows as possible.

 

This is the whole spread. Obviously the picture is way over edited!

 

Different Angle and yes we did make all of the decorations.

The Dessert Table. We did make that sail.

Main Food Table

How do Neverland Pirates get their light? By trapping fairies in jars of course!

Oh how the cake pops flowed! 5 different flavors!

Yummy fall inspired fruit salad!

 

I think this is how I will serve veggie dip from now on.

Chickpea, Tomato, and Spinach Salad. Yum Yum!

 

 

So, as you can see I have been busy. But what about the last month you say? Well, I have been busy with other things as well, but that post will come very soon. I promise it won't be 3 months!

 

I hope you enjoyed your peak into Ashlyn's 3rd Birthday party! If you have any questions about how we did some of the decorations, or if you want me to post any of the recipes please leave a comment below.

 

 

 



Philly Cheeze Fakes

 

Have you ever had time go by and then soon realize that it is almost the end of the month when it seems like just yesterday it was the beginning on the month? That has been my August. I swear that yesterday was August 1st! It has been such a busy month that I forgot to post for almost the whole month. I guess between numerous out of town trips, an unexpected hospitalization of a family member, Internet outages, and Mark running his first triathlon (good job babe!) time has just gotten away from me. I even have recipes waiting in the wings ready to be posted! I guess this month I am just thankful that Ashlyn is far from starting school yet and I didn't have to add first day of school to that list.

OK, so on to what I am sure you have been waiting for. Now, as cute as the name Philly Cheeze Fakes is I can't take credit for the name. I ran across this recipe on Taste of Home and I just had to try it based on the name alone. Here is the original recipe Philly-Cheese-Fakes which I tweaked to fit our tastes. The original recipe calls for shiitake mushrooms which I am not a huge fan of, but more importantly are fairly expensive. So, I changed the shiitakes to cremini or button (depending on what you have available) and also changed the spices up a bit. I actually didn't even try the original recipe as written and just used it as inspiration to make my own version of the sandwich. Let me tell you though that my version is definitely worth making. We all love this recipe including Ashlyn! This is a for sure winner if you like the taste of a cheese steak sandwich, but would like to make it a little healthier. Hey, you can also make it for the reason I did, the name! How can you resist making something with such a cute name!

Philly Cheeze Fakes

Sandwiches:
24 oz of cremini or button mushrooms sliced thick
1/4 c worcheshire sauce
1/4 c water
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp pepper
4 split whole wheat hot dog buns

Toppings:
Cheeze Sauce
Caramelized Onions (optional)
Sauteed Green or Red Peppers (optional)

Directions:

1. Saute the mushrooms in a little olive oil on medium heat until brown about 10 minutes.

2. While the mushrooms are cooking in a measuring cup or bowl whisk together the rest of the sandwich ingredients (except the buns).

3. Once the mushrooms are brown add the contents of the measuring cup and cook until the liquid is absorbed.

4. While the mushrooms are being glazed toast your hot dog buns.

5. Once the liquid is cooked out of the mushrooms and they are coated in the glaze place the mushrooms into your hot dog buns and top with Cheeze Sauce or cheese of your choice if you eat cheese.

6. If choosing to do so top the Cheeze Sauce with caramelized onions and sauteed peppers.

*Notes: We choose to use hot dog buns instead of hoagie buns to decrease the portion size, but feel free to use whole wheat hoagie buns.

The night I took the pictures I was out of peppers, so these pictures just contain caramelized onions. I also served the sandwiches with roasted potato wedges and steamed green beans.

If you choose to use the optional toppings you can still make this an easy one pan meal (minus making the Cheeze Sauce) by caramelizing your onions, removing them from the pan, sauteing the peppers in the same pan, removing them, and then doing your mushrooms.

This is one of my family's favorite recipes so I hope your family enjoys it just as much as we do.

Where have all of the stickers gone?

*Warning: I am getting on my soap box for this one.*

 

 

When I was younger I remember being so excited to go to the bank with my mom. The reason? I was going to get stickers! The bank that we went to gave the kids that came in stickers. I had a notebook with my sticker collection and every time we would come home from the bank I would sit down with my notebook and put my stickers in it. I was so proud of my sticker notebook. So, when did it change from giving kids stickers to giving them candy?

 

Growing up I really don't remember a lot of candy in the house. We got candy on Halloween, in our school Valentine's, and in our Easter baskets. We may have gotten a candy bar at the store maybe twice a year if even that. That was about it for the candy. I remember candy being a special treat that we got on certain holidays, but we never expected to get it on a weekly or even monthly basis.

 

Now that I am a mom I am mortified at the amount of candy that is being shoved in my toddler's face. We go to the grocery store they offer a sucker. We go to another store, here is another sucker. She goes to daycare and has a good week, here we go with another sucker (this was actually worse because she was getting candy every day until I stopped that one). We go and visit people here is a candy bar and more suckers. And this is just in the last week! Where have all of the stickers gone?

 

I really want to start acting like a two year old, stomping on the floor and screaming NO NO NO! Being the mom I have to deal with the consequences of other's actions. Weather that be the temper tantrum that will probably occur when I take the candy away or the 2:30 am tummy ache and diarrhea that occur if she eats more than her little system can handle (which is maybe one sucker). Where have all of the stickers gone?

 

When did candy change from a special treat that kids get a couple of times a year to an every day occurrence? Should my toddler get candy just because we went to the store? NO! Should she get candy just because we went to visit people? NO! Should she get candy because she had a good day at daycare? NO! Should she get praise and hugs and high fives from people instead of candy? YES! We are getting to the point where she knows who gives her candy and she is expecting it. It is now not a treat, but an expectation and I am NOT OK with that. Where have all of the stickers gone?

 

Now, I am not saying that my toddler needs anything, she doesn't, but if you feel the need to give her candy instead BRING BACK THE STICKERS! I am urging everyone who thinks that kids need treats just for being kids to BRING BACK THE STICKERS! One very small way to fight childhood obesity in this country is to BRING BACK THE STICKERS! Please, from one mom trying to do what is best for her child's health and well being PLEASE BRING BACK THE STICKERS!

 

 

*OK I have now stepped off of my soap box*