Friday, August 30, 2013

Potluck Palooza

The company I work for had a potluck today for memorial day. I brought a side dish and a dessert. Side dishes can be tricky for potlucks I've come to realize, because cold food is easier to keep at work when you only have a microwave at your disposal for heating things up. But I decided to crockpot my side dish, so we'd have something warm. I also brought pie. I tend to like to bring cookies to things because I just love baking cookies, but with all the lemons gracing our tree in the backyard, a lemon meringue pie was hard to resist. I like to use a Martha Stewart recipe from her food magazine for my pie. It always turns out delicious!

Her recipe calls to follow part of a lemon curd recipe so here are links to both: Martha's Lemon Meringue Pie and Martha's Lemon Curd. For pie crust, I cheat and buy Marie Calendars already made crusts, because after all, I am a busy woman, and they come in two packs, and it's great reason to make another pie!

So here it is before the meringue
lemon meringue pie
 And, of course, the final product!
lemon meringue pie

Back to the side dish! It was just a calico beans recipe. If you've never made them, and you like baked beans, this is a great dish. A lot of the recipes online call for ground beef also, but the recipe I used did not. The beans are a great easy side dish for this potluck, but also great for when you're making something on the grill, whether it's hot dogs and burgers, or just some chicken breasts, and it's really easy, and clean up is a breeze when you use a crockpot liner (best invention ever).

Calico Beans



We don't have any special Memorial Day plans, so it was nice to have a little work gathering to celebrate the three day weekend!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Sometimes I bake cakes

When I started this blog, it was the idea that everything was open for discussion. So today, I am talking about cakes! Sort of a side hobby/interest I have is baking and decorating cakes. My husband asked me to make our son a cake for the completion of his first day of school. So I did, and like any overachiever, I tried to go "all out." Here are the results:

The Cake
cake

 The Kid and the Cake :)
cake and micah

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Broom Closet Project

 Every time I reorganize a space, I like to think about what needs to fit in the space, and how can I make it the most accessible and easy to use. I recently re-organized our broom closet (2 months ago). Originally we just had brooms/mops thrown in a corner, a trashcan with dog food sitting on the floor that we'd scoop out of, and a key rack, and miscellaneous pet supplies on a tiny shelf that is inside. It didn't really utilize the height of the space. As a result, we had to keep all our recyclables on a bag hanging on our side door. It was not a nice look. When I re-did the space, I decided I not only wanted to keep the dog food in there, but also add our cat food, and recyclables, and I needed our brooms to be easier to get to because they were constantly falling over and getting stuck.

This was our end result, and the top bin isn't even filled (we were using it for empty cans, but we decided to stop drinking soda):

The products:  
 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Always a project!

Well, school started about a week ago for my little guy. And of course, his desk is still unfinished! My husband and son both came down with a cold, and there was no way I could build it alone. ;)

Tonight my husband is taking our son to go shopping for a tool set and then together they will build the desk. It's such a cute idea, and I am going to have take pictures. I wish I could say that I came up with it, but I didn't! It was all my husband. Such a good daddy!


We still need to install shelving in the closet, and redo some wall decor, but I am happy to see that after four weeks, this project will be closer to being finished.

My next organization project will be my kitchen cabinets. I finally found some spice racks that will fit in our tiny spice cabinet. I am so excited to get started on that, but I am trying to discipline myself to finish one thing at a time or at least know what steps must be taken for it to be completed.


Monday, August 19, 2013

School is near!

I can't believe school is near, and basically, here. My stepson (who I will probably refer to as my son in most blog posts) starts on Wednesday! This summer has just flown by! He is our only child, and with our small house, I have been coming up with better ways to stay organized and help him store his things. I notice accessibility is key when it comes to putting toys in bins, and if I expect something to be cleaned, it's got to be easy enough for him to clean it up and put it away.

This summer I reorganized his entire room and closet, and I will have pictures to share later. For his backpack and jacket (we have a designated school jacket, since sometimes he likes to forget them at school, never to be found or heard of again), they hang up behind his door.


 Having them up off the floor helps them from becoming dust collectors, and we like not having them sit out in our dining room each night, which is where they previously sat. He's also finally tall enough to use a real desk, so we bought him one over the summer to begin using this school year. He's really excited to have it, and I am excited to have a space for all his crayons, papers, markers, coloring books, etc. Again, he hardly was able to use them before because it was so hard and made such a mess just to access!

We actually have to build the desk this week and get it all organized, which I am actually looking forward to!

The Everything Woman Blog

First posts are generally introductory, as is this one. When thinking of a blog name, my first inclination was to call it, "not just another mom blog," but given more thought, I decided I did not want to limit myself to the mom title, because every woman, even if a mother, is always more than a mother. She always started out as a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a friend, a lover, sometimes a wife, and sometimes a mother, and sometimes in there there's an occupation, there's being a student. Every person wears a lot of hats in their lifetime, so why limit myself to claiming to be not just another mom blog? I am a woman first and many different things come after that and because of that. So this is for moms, for students, for grandmas, for friends. This is for any woman and every woman. These are my life hacks and my experiences for anyone who wants to know. :)