Archive for January, 2010

Since I lived off of chocolate over the holidays, I am turning over a new leaf with some healthy snacks around the house.

The kids need them too… after school snacks.   Here’s a few we’ve all enjoyed lately:

• Edamame:  I love edamame when they serve it in a restaurant.  But I’d never thought about buying it to have at home.  A friend of mine told me about the box at Costco in the freezer case and we recently picked one up.  The box is divided into smaller bags, which are a perfect serving size for me and kids for after school.  One bag feeds us all.  I pop the bag in the microwave for 3 minutes, cut it open, and pour into a serving bowl.  Sprinkle on a little Kosher salt and it’s just about perfect.  Plus it’s full of fiber, protein and vitamins…. and the kids love it.

• Pomegranate seeds and Clementines too:  I’ve been keeping bowl of pomegranate seeds on the counter and loving them. Nedra over at Cactus Needle Quilts shows a quick and easy way to seed a pomegranate, I can’t wait to try.  I looks sooo much faster than my method.  I’ve also been keeping clementines around for those sweet tooth moments.

• Celery sticks “boats” filled with Light Laughing Cow Cheese:  They are quick to make and easily everyone’s favorite snack these days.  I cut off the top and bottom of the celery stick, wash it under cold water and dry it off, then spread one wedge of the cheese into the stick.  I usually cut them up into 3 inch sticks and watch them disappear.

What healthy snacks are you eating these days?  I’d love to hear.  I’ve got to keep things interesting or chocolate might start looking good again.

What is it about the new year that makes you want to deep clean?  I can’t wait to get the messiest and most frustrating parts of my house clean and organized.

I decided I needed to approach it like eating an elephant… one bite at time.  Ikks, that analogy is terrible, I love elephants… but you get the idea.  It’s a big job, not to be attempted in one sitting.  I need to take it in manageable projects.  So I’ve decided to clean one thing a day.  If I have time, it will be a closet.  If I don’t have time, it will just be a drawer or a shelf.

I really want to take advantage of the sales on organizers this month, but I am also using things I have on hand.  See that little blue topped lid in the picture above.  They are coming in handy.  I have those from when my girls where in the hospital as babies.  They are perfect for tacks, paper clips, and safety pins.

One of the biggest most frustrating messes, I couldn’t wait to tackle was my “junk” shelf.  In my old house this stuff was in a drawer… my junk drawer.  But at least in my old house it had a little organization with drawer dividers.

The home we live in now has very little drawer space, so all the things from the drawer went into a cupboard in their drawer dividers stacked on each other.  And as you can imagine, that didn’t work out too well.   Things really started piling up and getting mixed up, until the shelf was halfway full of a precarious mess.  More than once, I’ve had something fall out and crash.  I’m so mad that I didn’t take a “before” picture, which would have embarrassed me thoroughly.

For around $8 at Walmart, I was able to organize it as you see it now.  I threw a ton of stuff away and then grouped like things together.  Some of the things made their way to other spots in my home.  The rest of it went back onto the shelf, but now in the little drawers or containers that are labeled to make finding what I need easy.

And I have one thing to say.  Happiness is a clean shelf.

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(Yes Joyce, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree… actually, my mom would never have had a shelf as messy as mine was for all the gold in Fort Knox…)