Happy New Year!

Well, as the title says, I want to wish you all a happy new year!

Here's my exciting announcement from my Christmas holiday:  I got a new camera!  Yay!  My fabulous parents were very generous this year.  Now I don't have to keep torturing you all with my terribly edited cell-phone pictures.  It's a Fujifilm S4000 Finepix.  I'm very new to the whole fancy-camera game, so I don't know much about it, but I'm very excited to start testing it out.

(This is me at 18 weeks, by the way)

See?  So much better.  And probably even better when I start learning how to use it.  In other news, we find out what gender the baby is in 5 days, so I'm sure you can expect a post soon after that.  Can't wait to see my little munchkin wiggling around on the screen!

I hope you all have a fun, safe, and glittery New Year's Eve!  Until 2012...Tucker out!

I'm Baaack!!!

Hello again, folks, and Happy Holidays!

First of all, I want to apologize for my very long absence.  Between school, work, and holiday prep, I haven't had a second of free time to dedicate to my blog.  As the semester at school has been winding down, I've also been immensely busy studying and prepping for finals.  Only 5 months left until I graduate!!  From now until Christmas I will be busy trying to squeeze in my gift shopping and crafts and any baking I may do.  I'll be sure to post about anything creative I manage to accomplish.

There has also been another reason for the silence on the blog.  I knew if I came here in the last few months, I would have spilled the beans on our little secret.  Fortunately, the cat's out of the bag to all of our family and friends now, so I'll share the news with my readers too:

Yep, that's right!  There's a baby in there!  T and I are so very excited to announce that we are expecting and everything is going swimmingly so far.  We can't wait to find out the gender (hopefully around New Year's), and start shopping and working on baby projects.  Naturally, I'll share plenty of the details of those things with you.  I look forward to any creative input or suggestions you folks may have too!

Quick Tip Tuesday!

I'm just popping in with a quick tip for you all today.  I'm not sure if I will make this a regular segment of the blog, but hopefully I will be able to find the time.

I'm not sure what it is like in other areas, but where I live, we have very hard water.  All of the mineral deposits can clog up our faucets, showerheads, and pipes.  I especially have trouble with the dishwasher.  It seems like it doesn't drain very well, and all of the dishes end up with foggy deposits all over them.  This is especially troublesome considering my recent switch to all glass food storage.  Solution?

One cup of distilled white vinegar tossed in with each load.  It magically makes my hard water troubles disappear!  I <3 vinegar.

Homemade Butter

Two posts in one day!    You can all tell that Thursdays are when I have the most free time now, huh?

Well, today I did a deep clean of my kitchen, and when I reached the fridge, I realized that I had a whole container of whipping cream that was nearing its expiration date.  I picked it up meaning to use it to make sugar cream pie for my husband's coworkers, but totally forgot (Don't worry guys!  I'll make up for it with tons of goodies this holiday season!).  So since I had to use it up quickly, and I had already promised my husband some banana bread, I set to work in the kitchen.

The muffins turned out just as scrumptious as always, and my mother-in-law showed up just as they were coming out of the oven.  We enjoyed some Starbucks and met up with my hubby during his dinner break at work.  When I came back, I finished whipping up the butter.  There was so much extra whipping cream that I decided to make whipped cream too.  I was inspired by our salted caramel frappuccinos and decided that I could use it to top my coffee drinks at home.  Unfortunately, I wasn't even thinking of this process as a possible blog post, so I didn't take any "in-process" pictures.

So yummy!  And such an easy, quick way to use up left over whipping cream.  I forsee yummy, buttery muffins and a frou-frou coffee drink for my breakfast tomorrow!

The binder post, as promised!

I'm going to give you forewarning...the pictures are even worse than usual in this post.  My birthday is coming up, maybe I'll finally go buy myself a camera as a present!

As promised, I took some pictures of my binder filing system that you saw in this post.  They are pretty simple.  I just like them wayyyyyy better than my junky old filing cabinet (which never actually closed since, in a moment of pure genius, I sat on it and the top caved in).  They hold all of my important papers but are small enough that they make a good reminder to purge my old documents after a while.

Obviously, I'm still looking for that "just-right" space for them to go, but for now, the top of my dresser is still the easiest place for me to reach them, along with my office supplies.

It's a little hard to read the labels, but my four categories are "Important Documents", "Finances", "Work Documents", and "Manuals & Warranties".  Inside of each binder, documents are further broken down into more specific categories such as "Utilities" or "Paystubs".  The labels and front covers I made with clearance scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby.

This way, if I ever get sick of the colors, they can easily be switched out for something different.

I used these dividers from Target to break down the smaller categories within each binder.  They are my absolute favorite.  I use them for everything from my school binder to my home management binder.  I know some people don't like when the tabs stick out beyond the edge of the binder, but I really like it.  That way, I can use plastic sleeves to hold loose documents and still be able to see the labels on my dividers.  The pockets also allow for an extra place to hold smaller loose documents.

So, as of right now, that's the binder system!  I typically keep my home management binder with these too, but I'll make that an entirely different post (I might even try a video post for that one!) on a different day.  I'll update when I find a better place to keep these.  

Even More Free Stuff!

Well, I'm back from another successful "non-shopping" trip to Kohl's!

We just had to buy some dress pants for my husband's new job, and we ended up getting $10 back in Kohl's cash.  I went back today and scored more free things!

This was definitely a shopping win.  The rug was on sale for $5.99, I think because they were changing over their summer stock to fall stock.  I think it was originally $20-30.  There were tons of colors to choose from, but I went with orange because my kitchen is orange and black.  The candles were actually $5.99 too, but someone had placed all of the square jar candles on a shelf marked at 60% off, so the sales assistant agreed to give them to me at that price.  I took the last sugar cookie scented ones that they had.  I'm burning one in our bedroom as I type this and it smells amazing.  Perfect for a blustery fall day like today.

Unlike last time, there was no lower limit to how much of my kohl's cash I had to spend to get the $10 off, so my total rang up to $9.97.  They still couldn't charge me sales tax, so I ended up with $.03 left.  I'm excited to have a new cozy mat to stand on while I do dishes and cook.  And cooking is definitely on the calendar for today, because I'm feeling like some banana bread would be delicious.

Lunch Station

This week I have been working on a project that I've noticed gaining a little popularity around the blogosphere lately.  Naturally, since all the little kiddos (and big kiddos like myself!) have been going back to school, ideas for streamlining lunch packing time in the morning abound.  I decided to set up our own little "lunch station" to make mornings easier on myself and my hubby.  This way, lunch packing will feel much more "grab-and-go" and much less "I'd-rather-hit-the-drive-thru".  I already had the bins (we used to use them to store DVD's) and they are a great fit for the space I chose.  We were already low on cabinet space as it is, so I set everything up on the bookshelves that divide our kitchen from our living room, right above where I keep our lunchboxes.

(As per usual...ignore the poor photo quality.  Someday I will get a real camera!)

The top shelf is for all things drink-related, the second shelf is for the baskets holding dry goods (crackers, granola bars, etc.), and the top of the microwave is where I set up the condiments and fruit. 

I drink a lot of coffee, so there is a whole basket for all of my coffee and tea needs.  It's spilling over into the other basket, which contains cocoa mix, protein shake mix, and lemonade mix.

Notice that stuff to the right of the baskets?  That's for all of the extras that we occasionally need in our lunches (wet wipes, medicine, juice cups, and a notepad and pen for writing each other sweet notes).

(Recognize those ceramic berry baskets?)

I always save our leftover condiment packets and napkins when we eat fast food, because they are great for tossing in lunches without having to mess with finding tiny containers and possible in-lunchbox-condiment-spillage.  I keep our lunchboxes themselves on and under the table where we have our microwave.  Yes...we have a lot of lunchboxes for two people.  I love lunchboxes almost as much as I love the storage containers I use to pack them. :)

Looks like I can check off one more thing on my long list of life-streamlining projects!

Reorganized Dresser

Well, due to innumerable technical difficulties, I have not posted in a long time!  I was really hoping to have more projects done that I could post about, but really, I'm not sure why I was expecting that much out of myself during  the first two weeks back to nursing school.  I must be crazy!  I've been lucky to get to the right places at the right time, so most of my project plans have fallen by the wayside.  Yesterday, however, I finally had a little bit of time to start on a small mission: reorganizing our dresser.

And by "start", I don't mean "finish"!  I merely cleaned and reorganized the top, because that was the most OMG-this-is-driving-me-nuts part of it.  Here is what it looked like at first (note the large empty space that until recently was where our printer sat.):

Not much going on, functionality-wise up there.  And yes, I do have plans to refinish this dresser when we get a house.  But while we are in this apartment, I'm leaving it the way it is...the better to match our Silent-Hill-Sanitarium walls.  Anyway, for the time being, I wanted this area to be a little more functional.  So I rearranged my office supplies in the wire sorter, and set up the binders beside it.  My file binders are one of my absolute favorite projects so far.  I will eventually do a post on them, as well as my home management binder.  

Notice how convenient this set up is for mail.  Next to the binders, I arranged my free bowls to hold some of my jewelry and hair items, subsequently making more room on our bathroom counters.  To spruce it up even further, I brought in my poor, neglected bamboo plant from the living room. 

The jewelry in the bowls will be yet another post. That's one area I have been productive in.  All in all, the dresser top turned out pretty well, I think.  Not as pretty as I would like, but the goal for now is functionality.  

Since this is organizing related, I'm going to link up to a few link parties:

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Ok, I know, I know...The title is overdone and cheesy.  But my husband would be proud.  Bowie fans, represent!  Anyhoo...As I'm sure is obvious from just the other day, I'm doing a complete design overhaul on here!  And while it is most definitely a work in progress, I can say with confidence that it is looking worlds better already.  Here is a little taste of what I've done so far, along with links to those who (however unknowingly!) helped me out:

First up, I made a new header up yonder.  More clean and simple, more my style.  I may still play around with the header design a bit in the coming weeks, but for now, it works.  Below that, I added tabs.  These will eventually actually link to what they claim to link to, but unfortunately, I haven't gotten that far!  To anyone who is interested in learning how to do this themselves, I used THIS tutorial.  Super simple and fast.  How did I get the text to turn pink?  Good question...and one I have no answer to.  Blogger just knew I wanted pink, I guess.

Next, I created title buttons for the categories in my sidebar, because the default title bars are just far too plain for my taste (sorry Blogger designers!).  I designed the title bars myself, using good old MS Paint.  I then shrunk them down to equal sizes, and used THIS tutorial to figure out how to add them to the sidebar.  Not as easy as the first tutorial, but still pretty simple.  It just takes a lot of copying and pasting if you have a lot of sidebar items like I do.  Below those, I decided to add a button, so folks can link back to my blog if they want to.  As with the tabs, this is a work in progress.  I can't quite figure out how to get the html correct to link back, but as for now, the button shows up, so that's what counts.  To get the button in my sidebar, I used THIS tutorial.  Just like the others, super-easy-peasy.

So that's the progress for now!  I really managed to get a lot done today, thanks to Google and a few generous Blogger geniuses.  Unfortunately, school starts Monday, so I don't forsee a lot of free time to finish all of my blog re-designing plans.  Maybe I will catch up on it over fall or Christmas break.  Let me know what you think of the changes!



ETA:  It has come to my attention that there is a single, years-old blog post under the same name as this blog, and it comes up when you try to subscribe to my blog through Google.  I'm not sure how to prevent this.  For now, just ignore it.  I'm not sure who this James guy is, but he's cramping my style.

Pizza Pockets

This post is actually a little old, but I've just now gotten around to sharing it.  Please forgive the dark pictures.  I only have my camera phone to use right now.

In the spirit of "back-to-school"  I've been trying to come up with yummy, portable lunch ideas.  Thom and I are both going to be extremely busy this fall/winter with three jobs and school between the two of us, so it will be really important to plan and make all of our lunches ahead of time.  This will (hopefully!) allow us to just "grab and go" on the way out the door.  A few weeks ago, I started experimenting with crescent rolls to see just what I could stuff them with that would work well for freezing.  This will be an ongoing experiment.  Here are some pictures of the first test: Pizza!

First, I assembled all of my ingredients.  These were very minimal, but you could really add whatever "toppings" you wanted to.

Then I laid out my dough:

Then I started with the cheese:

Then the peppers:

I chose to put the sauce in the middle to avoid the crescents getting soggy.

Then the meat (we had pepperoni):

I topped it off with more dough and sealed the edges (I know...it was a hack job.  Next time I will make them prettier!).

I baked them at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, but times will probably vary depending on the ingredients inside.

Voila!  Golden, flaky, ugly deliciousness!  We ate two for dinner and I froze the other two.  They reheated fine the next day, one in the oven and one in the microwave.  I plan to continue experimenting and I will update with any successes I have.  Lunches are always a struggle for us, and we don't even have kids yet!  For those who do, however, and may find this useful, I'm linking up with A Bowlfull of Lemons Tuesday Link Party!  Just in time for back-to-school.