Use All The White Boards!

So, if you know me, you know that I am one of the least organized people on the face of the earth. I'm forgetful and as a result over the years I have learned to cope with it by using white board, my trusty alarm clock and a date book. But these white boards I've realized are great little helpers! The nice hing is that I don't have to worry about losing little scraps of paper with notes scrawled on them (yea, that happens!) So I thought I would give you a nice little public service announcement by sharing with you the many white boards and their purpose that are in my home =)

To me this first board is the most important. As you can see it's a to-do list BUT, it's not for me. It's for God. Yea, that's right. I tell God what to do. OK, not really...I call it my "Prayer Board". On it I can write my prayers and praises. Once I write it down then it's something that I no longer allow myself to be worried about. I know if God wants to call on me he will. If a prayer is answered, I thank him for it. I can't tell you how many times I have prayed a prayer over and over and feel like I'm not getting any response from God (though deep down I KNOW that is not true). So I will write it down and it seems to me that when I physically write it down my soul is at rest and ease and I know that God will in HIS time answer me. It really, really helps. It hangs in my kitchen in a spot where it's seen multiple times a day. It's my constant reminder to not just be vigilant in my prayer, but to also be silent so that I may listen for an answer.

This is my basic shopping and meal ideas list (yes, I spelled ideas wrong on the board, not on purpose, just was likely to busy to notice when I wrote it on there!) It hangs on my fridge and I'm SLOWLY getting my daughter to remember that when she wants something, uses the last of something or sees we are running low on something to write it down. On the left side I keep a running list of meal ideas. One of the things that bug me is when I'm rooting around in my freezer or fridge and I see something that I had bought thinking, "Hey! This would make a great meal!" Sadly though because I forgot about it, that food went to waste and didn't get used. So I try and keep a running tally on what I have on hand and what it can be used for. That helps keep the waste down. That helps save money, saving money is GOOD! At the bottom you can see the food to make section, that way when I want to make snack foods, make ahead meals and the like I jot it down and make something when I have free time that week.

Here is my daily and on-going board. It hangs in my bedroom. As you can see I have a constant reminder on what I need to do everyday. Read my Bible, pray, find something I'm thankful for, make sure dinner gets made (I TOLD you, I'm forgetful!) Spend 10 minutes cleaning each of the rooms, spend 1 minute cleaning the bathroom and spend a few minutes working out. Yes, I know I have be thankful on there twice. Because it's important! The rest of the board I use for things that need to be done soon-usually that day, or within the week. If nothing else, it's once again a reminder of things to be done.

Here is a similar board that I have on the other side of the bedroom but it's for hubby. Since he's not forgetful like I am I just jot notes for him to do or leave him a love note.

This is the final board in the house. It's my daughters. Because she is older and more responsible she is allowed to do things after school or on the weekends but in case we aren't here or hadn't communicated plans already we use this. She lets us know where she is and if she has chores to do we write them here. She knows that it's her job to fill out the board and it works great in the summer or on non school days. It gives us the knowledge of knowing all the things parents should know and care about, it gives her the peace of mind that we trust her and doesn't make her feel like we're nagging on her.


So, those are the boards in my life. They help, they're cheap and I really like them. Now if I could only get a board to clean my house I think my life would be about as perfect as ever!!

Super Cheap & Easy Wrinkle Release/Fabric Freshener

This is something I've been doing for years and after being on Pinterest for a while I've noticed that one of the things that people love are super cheap and easy things that make life easier. Well, this is one of those things!

Have you ever bought a bottle of Febreze or Downy Wrinkle Release? Yea, they work, they smell great but what at the cost...yea, I don't like them that much!!! So years ago I came up with this easy solution that works GREAT!!!

What you need:
4 cups of water
5-10 dryer sheets (I use 5 Bounce sheets, if you like stronger scents use more!)
An empty spray bottle

OK, there are two ways to go about this and they both work just fine so it's really your preference. You can take a glass measuring cup and boil the water in the microwave or you can boil the water in a pan on the stove.

What you want to do is boil the water with the dryer sheets for a couple of minutes. Make sure you give it a few stirs along the way. Let it cool for at least 20 minutes giving it a stir every couple of minutes.

Once it's cool remove the dryer sheets and pour your happy little concoction into a spray bottle! Yes, it's kinda cloudy looking, depending on the type and strength of dryer sheets it may look really swirly but don't worry, it's gonna work the same! Now!! Got a wrinkle in something? Spray it down! Got a stinky couch? Spray it!

You're welcome!

Strawberry Cheesecake...sort of

So the hubby and daughter are out for the night on their "date" and after a good dinner of black beans and rice (see the post before this) mommy wants dessert! No problem, right? WRONG! For Lent I decided to give up junk food. Candy bars, ice cream, etc. I have always been a comfort junk food junkie eater but since I need to lose almost 100 pounds I knew that since I was feeling addicted if you will to junk food and relying less on God I knew it was something God was calling me to do. In doing that I knew that if I was going to be cooking or baking to be very careful of the amount of sugar and fat that I used. So I knew if I was going to have something I had to be good! I'm not going to break my promise to myself, let alone God and I knew that God gave me the gift of figuring out what goes with what when it came to food so I decided to trust that. The result? A healthy HEAVENLY dessert that I am so happy about!!!

6 large strawberries hulled
1 ounce cream cheese (I buy the once ounce single serving packets in bulk so I didn't have to worry about measuring)
1 tsp sugar

Whip the cream cheese and sugar together with a fork until light (just a couple of minutes since it's such a small amount but you will see it get a bit fluffier). With your fork gently cram (don't ask me how you gently cram, just do it!) the cream cheese mixture into each strawberry. You should have just enough for all 6. If you don't want to try and stuff them you can slice your berries in half and spread the mixture on it.

Result? Yummines!
Calories: 135
Fat: 7g
Cholesterol: 20mg
Sodium: 117mg
Total Carbs: 16-17g (varies on the actual size of the berries)
Fiber: 3g
Sugars: 12.4
Protein: 2g

EASY Black Beans and Rice

I LOVE black beans and rice. To make them however, well, it can be a pain. After seeing Cooks Country do a version today (it looked wonderful but again, to time consuming for me) so I had an idea to transform it, change it around, make it my own...and what do ya know! It worked! (Can you hear the angels singing?)

So what do you need?
1/2 Bell Pepper
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 onion
(mince the above in a food processor until 1/4" or smaller but not paste like)
1 19-ish ounce can of black beans (drain but reserve the liquid, you will need it! You should have about 1 cup of the reserved liquid. If you don't then you will need to add enough water to get to that and if you have more use it and decrease your water if need be.)
2 cups rice (Thai Jasmine is my favorite but any long grain rice will work fine)
2 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 strip pre-cooked bacon finely chopped
2 tsp hickory bacon salt (if you do not have bacon salt, first of all SHAME SHAME SHAME! Go to http://www.jdfoods.net/ and buy some!! If you can't do it then use 2 strips of pre-cooked bacon instead of one and add in 1 tsp salt. But seriously, go get yourself some Bacon Salt...that stuff is AWESOME in a jar!)

OK, you can do this in a pan or in your rice cooker. I have a good rice maker so I chose to do that. Once your veggies are minced heat your pan on medium (or turn on your rice cooker) and cook them for a few minutes in the olive oil until they are starting to soften. Add in your bacon and bacon salt and cook for a few more minutes until they look like this:

Yea, my rice pan is sadly beaten up...still cooks good though!

OK, now I want you to put in the beans, the reserved bean liquid and rice. Stir it up and let the rice soak up the bean liquid for a minute. This will add more flavor to the rice. After a minute go ahead and add in the water and cook away! If you have a rice cooker just tell it to cook, on the stove I would bring everything up to a simmer, cover and then cook on low. Either way, to prevent everything from burning stir it two or three times during the cooking process, likely 20 to 30 minutes. Once it's done remove the lid and give it one final stir. Let it rest for a couple of minutes before stirring.

The finished product!

Good stuff!

Dinner, NOW with bacon!

So it's not any secret that I like carbs and bacon. The two go well together. The other night I was hungry, the family was hungry and I was tired. I boiled some bow tie pasta, tossed it with about 1/2 pound of cooked and chopped bacon and about a pound of cooked and chopped chicken breast...oh yea. It was good. Hubby thought it needed pasta sauce...yea, it would be good with that but it was fine just plain too. (And yea, I know, the picture isn't great...it's a cell phone camera for pete's sake!)

Stromboli...sort of

OK, so maybe it's not Stromboli but what else would you call it?? And yea, it's cheating...so what. It's still yummy so bite me. Wait, no, bite the food, not me.

OK, so step one, go buy your favorite take and bake pizza (Papa Murphy's is mine!) I recommend going light on the sauce but if you don't, so what. No biggie. See, pizza. This one was a chicken, with a bit of bacon and some other stuff...I forgot and the kids were whining. (Oh, tip, get a pizza that comes on a baking tray, so much easier!!)

So that was easy right? OK, stay with me now! You'll want to lightly "scrape", move or somehow relocate the toppings from the sides towards the center all the way down. So what you'll want is two semi-bare sides and the toppings going from top to bottom in the center. Kind of like this:

It doesn't have to be perfect just so that the majority of stuff is in the center. 

After that take a pizza cutter or other sharp cutting device and make around 10-12 slits on each side towards the center. Basically act like you would be cutting completely through but don't! You'll want to leave the middle uncut where all the toppings are. 

Once you have made all the cuts you will make a small fold at the top to help hold in everything...OK, I think it's more to make things look pretty. Either way, just fold the dough down a bit...sort of like this...

If nothing else it will make pizza, er, Stromboli, er, sandwich...it will make the FOOD easier to move when it's all done baking. Then begin cris-crossing them almost like you're braiding them. 

Finish "braiding" it all the way down and pop it in the oven. I baked mine at 375 for about 25 or 30 minutes. Once it looked like this, I took it out, let it rest for a few minutes and ate it up. 

So, give it a try, it's good stuff. And I promise I won't tell anyone your secret. It's safe with me...for now anyway. 

Jo's Homemade Mac & Cheese

*NOT heart healthy BUT OH SO GOOD!* 

8 ounces pasta, 

1 cube butter, 

1 cup milk, 

3 eggs, 

2-3 cups shredded cheese (mexi-blend is my favorite), 

3 slices bread dried/toasted and pulverized into crumbs, 

1Tbsp salt. 

Boil pasta with salt in water for one minute less than package directions. Drain well and mix in 1/2 of the butter. Mix in all of the cheese. Stir the eggs into the milk and then add that into the pasta. Pour everything into a deep dish pie pan greased with 1 Tbsp of the butter. Mix the bread crumbs with the last of the butter and lay evenly over the mac and cheese. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes until golden brown on top and bubbly. Let rest for 10 minutes before dishing up. (Please note, I am not responsible for your drool damaging your keyboard).