Basement Update

After taking a couple of weeks off because of my back, I hit the basement hard today.  One of these days I'm going to actually have to relax on my 'vacation day'.  While I still have a lot to do I am pretty pleased with everything I've accomplished today.  Here's a reminder of what my laundry/storage room looked like when I started.

And here is what it looks like today as I enter the home stretch.  Can you believe the table in the picture below was underneath that mess?  Now, in the interest of 'keeping it real' I should tell you that that I moved a lot of stuff to another room.  Some of these items will be donated or will be moved back into the laundry/storage room when I get it all situated.

Here was my donation pile that I got rid of today.  After I went through, straightened and re-folded everything in this pile I ended up with 15 grocery bags for Goodwill, 4 bags for my nieces and about 10 outfits for Dress for Success .  The TV will go on the curb for the local 'man in a truck' to collect.

I've gotten a couple of items to pick up to finish the room

• Can of black spray paint.  If you notice in the above pictures I have some bright yellow storage shelves.  I'm planning on painting those black so they are a little more subdued.
• Shelf to hang next to the washing machine for laundry detergent
• Hanger to hang my ironing board and iron
• Two clothes racks with canvas sacks

I'm hoping by the time I go back to work next Tuesday to have the laundry room put together.  I'll keep you updated!

I'll be linking this up over at A Slob Comes Clean, I'm an Organizing Junkie and Organizing with Sandy
You might also like:

The Basement Plan
Basement - Sort
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Vacation Goals

As you may or may not know, I'm on vacation this week.  We had hoped to go camping with the family but didn't get our act together to do that.  I'm actually using this week to get the family in prime back to school mode.  There wasn't a lot of time to do school shopping earlier so we did that yesterday.  We've also scheduled some orthodontist appointments as it's FINALLY time to get braces on.  My daughter's first orthodontist appointment was about eight years ago, she's ready to actually get the braces on.

When I'm on vacation I always have a huge to do list.  Quite frankly the list is never doable but I always say if you shoot for the stars you may hit the moon.  Shoot for the moon and you won't even leave the atmosphere.  Here's my list, I've crossed off some of the items I've already accomplished.

Go through Belle's clothes
Make a list and shop for school clothes
Go through Belle's dance stuff, make list and pick up anything she needs
Go through Belle's shopes, make list and pick up whatever she needs
Take Belle to orthodontist
Get Belle's tooth pulled (this is a new one from her ortho appointment yesterday)
Call flexible spending account to verify availability of funds (this is also a new one from her ortho appt)
Go to concert
Go to baseball game (this was suppose to be a water park but plans changed)
Buy a freezer
Finish basement cleaning project
Switch purses
Organize Goodwill pile and take to Goodwill
Write some guest posts
Write ahead my own posts
Get my custom domain name working
Buy new blinds for living room
Look at paint for living room
Fix sewing machine
Plan mom's 60th party barbecue
Buy new picture frames and switch out pictures on living room shelf
Thoroughly clean my bedroom
Start new couch cushions
Organize kitchen drawers and cabinets
Pick up birthday presents for two of my nieces' birthdays
Lose one pound
Exercise 2X this week

That's it for now, I'm sure I'll think of things to add to it.  What do you hope to accomplish this week?

Menu Planning - w/o 8-28

Why should we menu plan and take inventory BEFORE grocery shopping?  I can give you 210 reasons why it's a good idea.  Yesterday I accomplished a ton of stuff, unfortunately menu planning and inventory before shopping wasn't one of them and we completely blew our budget and it doesn't feel like I got a lot of actual meals.  However, I did snag a killer deal on my Lipton bottled tea.  Usually six bottles go for $5.99, today they were on sale 3/$12 which was like buying two getting one free.  I stopped buying these a while ago because they were so expensive but as I try to beat my McDonald's addiction I've found that these help so I limit myself to one every morning on my way to work.

Since we're on vacation this week I'm planning our meals a little loosely because we may not always be home.  Tuesday we're hoping to go to a water park and Wednesday I'm hoping to go to a concert with some friends.  Turkey is a favorite meal of ours, due to the fact that we'll have more time we did pick one up at the grocery store.  Of course that purchase didn't help our bill either.

Here's what is on the menu this week.

Breakfast
Banana Bread
Blueberry waffles (we're taking advantage of our vacation and having a home cooked breakfast)
Blueberry muffins (from a mix)
Cereal
Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich
Blueberry bagels (can you tell I have a blueberry loving family?)

Lunch
Hot Dogs
Bagel Sandwiches
Quesadillas
Leftovers
Frozen Meals

Dinner
Turkey (with all the fixings)
Brats
Tacos
Pizza on the grill
Barbecue at friends house
Barbecue at our house (my mom is turning 60 this week so we're having a surprise party)
Dinner out

What are you planning?  Feel free to leave a link to your post in comments.

I'll be linking this up over at Life as Mom and I'm an Organizing Junkie

You might also like:

Freezing Tomatoes
July Financial Update
Bathroom Organization

Banana Bread Recipe

Today is the first day of having the next 10 days off.  I got up early, but didn't do much except play Gardens of Time  work on the computer.  Determined not to let the day get away from me I did call my mom to see if she wanted to go to the Farmer's Market, which she did not want to do.  We met at Starbucks for coffee instead.  Since I still had a gift card from Christmas I was able to treat her which was nice.  Since then I've taken my daughter to work and made banana bread, which is the whole basis for this post!

I hate seeing things go to waste.  Every week my son asks me to buy bananas but we always seem to have one or two left over.  Instead of throwing them away I let them get brown and then throw them in the freezer with the peels on.  When the mood strikes me, like it did today, I make banana bread.  I found a wonderful recipe on Food Network that I use so I thought I would share it with you.



Emeril Lagasse's Banana Bread

Ingredients
10 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon butter
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large bananas)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toasted, chopped walnuts

DirectionsPreheat the oven to 350 degrees F.


Lightly grease a 9 1/4 by 5 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan with 1 teaspoon of the butter.

Puree the bananas, sour cream, eggs and vanilla in a food processor.

Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fixed with a whisk attachment. Add the remaining 10 tablespoons butter and mix on medium-low speed until blended, about 30 seconds. Add the banana mixture in 3 batches, scraping the sides of the bowl and mixing on medium speed between each addition. Fold in the nuts.

Pour into the loaf pan. Bake until lightly browned and bread bounces back to the touch, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.

If you don't like nuts just leave them out, that's what I do.  This is some of the best banana bread that I have ever tasted.  A little trick that I've found is when peeling the banana, pull down a strip of the peel but them take it off from the side.  Because it's a little mushy it doesn't really peel very nice like a normal banana.  Taking the peeling off from the side allows me to do it in one piece.  I let the bananas sit on the counter for about five minutes, at that point they're generally soft enough to break into pieces and throw into the food processor.  You don't need to wait until they're completely thawed.

Hope you enjoy it!  I'd love to hear how the recipe turns out for you.

I'll be linking this up at Day & Age Design and We are THAT Family

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Tuscan Chicken Stew
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Frugal Friday - Christmas Shopping

As I've shared with you, my plan for this year is to try and get my Christmas shopping done before our Christmas Club is released.  This will enable me to use the Christmas funds I've saved for our vacation and keep my eyes open for killer sales since I'm shopping so early.

This week's purchase wasn't exactly a frugal buy but since it falls into my frugal Christmas shopping plan I thought I'd share it.  Kristen at We are THAT Family had posted about some new products that were available at the Mercy House store.  I faithfully followed her journey to Africa earlier this summer and loved the beaded necklaces that the girls were making in one of the pictures she posted.  I have to share that I have a soft spot in my heart for young, single, pregnant girls so when I saw her post go up that those products were available I headed right over there to purchase one of them.

For $20 (plus a couple of bucks shipping and handling) I got a really cool necklace, handmade by young women in Africa.  If that necklace was in a retail shop here it would cost more than $20 so I thought it was a pretty good deal.  My plan is to give this necklace to my sister-in-law for Christmas,  but I don't know that I can honestly do that since I really want it for myself :)  I'm thinking about heading over there next paycheck and buying a couple more for my daughter and nieces for Christmas (and maybe one for myself).  Hopefully she'll still have some in stock!

That's four presents down, I don't even want to think about how many more I have to go!

Are you planning on doing your shopping early or are you going to wait until after Thanksgiving?

I'll be linking this up over at Life as Mom

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Preparing for Christmas
Saving Money Eating Out
Time Management - Preparing for the Week

Organizing the Pot and Pan Drawer

Our house has a pretty small kitchen.  To optimize the space, there is a cabinet underneath the breakfast bar that we use to store our pots and pans.  When we remodeled our kitchen a few years ago my husband insisted that I spend the extra money to have pull out shelves put in, I'm so glad I listened to him :)

Unfortunately it's still a pain to get into the cabinet and I tend to keep it overstuffed with items I don't use regularly.  As I've been thinking about my basement organization (I haven't forgotten it, I'll get to it next week.  I PROMISE!) one of the spaces I wanted to create was a kitchen storage space.  My kitchen drawers and cabinets are packed with items I don't use regularly but I use often enough that I don't want to get rid of the them.  My thought was to create an easy to get to space in the basement where I can grab the cookware that I use infrequently rather easy.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit but I'm quite a slackard.  I decided to start in my pot and pan drawer since it's one of my most frequent go-to places and quite frankly the easiest to deal with!  I wasn't feeling overly ambitious this week (I started my yoga classes and have been nursing some sore muscles) but didn't want to lose my momentum.  By accomplishing something, even such a small task, it keeps me accountable. 

To start with I forced myself to honestly answer what items were used regularly.  This was fairly easy and didn't require a lot of sacrifice.  I choose to send the griddle, steamer, double boiler and waffle iron downstairs.  I kept my pots & pans, my That's a Bowl from Tupperware, the quesadilla maker, a mixing bowl and my wooden salad bowl in the cabinet.  Assuming the pots get put away correctly, this should enable me to keep a fairly organized cabinet and get at my pots a little easier. 

I'm having problems with my camera so hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures up shortly.

What did you get accomplished this week?

I'll be posting this at I'm an Organizing Junkie

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Planning our 2012 Family Vacation

As I shared in our financial update, we’ve booked a family trip for Q1 2012. A couple of times a year the kids and I may take a mini-vacation to see relatives and as a family we try to take time off to do day trips but it’s been fairly rare for us to take a big vacation like the one we’re planning.


The last big vacation that we took was about four years ago, we took a cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Sea. Everyone had an absolute blast; it was the best vacation all four of us ever took together. I will admit, the trip to Hawaii that we took when I had to “work” at a trade show was probably on par but that didn’t include the kids so I’m not counting it.

Since we had so much fun visiting the ports of calls, the wonderful meals and the awesome kids’ activities we’ve decided to do it again. We’ve book our cabin and are starting to look at excursion options. The husband and kids think they are going to get me on a zip-line, we’ll see about that! I’m still getting grief for not climbing Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica so I may need to show them what I’m made of.

Obviously a trip like this requires some financial planning. One of the things that I like about booking with Royal Caribbean is that you can book the cruise with a small down payment and then pay off the balance within so many months of your trip. Since we don’t ever seem to be able to get a vacation fund going this is a good way for our family to take a trip but still pay cash for our vacation. I try to make a payment every check, even if it’s a small one so that I don’t lose momentum. I’m always afraid of a big Uh Oh moment when the final payment is due.

My plan is to start a feature called Travel Thursdays where most weeks (not all) I’ll share my thoughts on various vacations spots, recommendations as to what worked well for my family, business travel with kids, my tips on traveling, etc. If there are any topics you would be interesting in reading about or if you have an idea for a guest post I’d love to hear it.

Do you have any exciting trips coming up?

You may also like:

Vacationing with Friends
Weeds in the Garden
Cleaning out the Pantry