Slow-Cooker hot Cocoa

Alas, the holidays are over and we are back to school and routine again.  Although bittersweet, I'm ready to get back to some sort of normal!

On Christmas Eve we hosted a family gathering and ended the meal with a hot chocolate bar.  I found the recipe on All Recipes and was so happy with how it turned out, I had to share it with you!

Christmas may be over, but we are right in the midst of hot cocoa season!

 Combine 4 cups of 1/2 & 1/2,
4 cups of milk and 2 pieces of cinnamon
stick and cook on low for 5-6 hours.

Remove the cinnamon sticks and stir in a 12 oz package of bittersweet chocolate chips.  Whisk until smooth.  Stir in 1 Tablespoon of vanilla.

Now, you can't have hot chocolate without marshmallows.  In addition to a little bowl of mini marshmallows, I made a marshmallow whipped cream that was SOOOOO good!  I will admit to putting it on my coffee the next day...

To make the whipped cream, whip 1 cup of heavy whipping cream till stiff points form.  Blend in 1-2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Fold in 1-2 cups of mini marshmallows and refrigerate for a few hours.  This is when the magic happens!  The marshmallows will expand and make this light and fluffy deliciousness.  I repeat, SOOOO good!

To go along with our hot cocoa, I made some peppermint stir sticks (you can find a number of tutorials on these on Pinterest) and put out a variety of Christmas treats.  We had your usual sugar cookies, cheesecake, and some delicious chocolate dipped pretzels sticks my mother-in-law made.

To tell you the truth though, the hot cocoa was so satisfying to my sweet tooth I didn't have any other desserts until the next day!

So, do you have any occasion for a fun hot chocolate bar coming up?  Do you need an occasion!?  Celebrate the kids going back to school and surprise them when they get home this afternoon.  You'll win some major parent points...

XO,
  Sara

Guest Room/Office Update - A Little Window Dressing

For those of you who have been tuning in for awhile, you may remember the ongoing project that is my home office/guest room.

I started off as a sport's den for the Mister, then we had Little Man and things got all flip-flopped around upstairs.  Now, the smallest of our 5 bedrooms is where we pay the bills and house our guests.

The room was originally red (remember the sport's den?).  Then, I thought I was going for a mustardy yellow...and wound up with this:

YIKES!  I actually bought this paint about 5 years ago when the guest room was another room and never got around to painting.  This just goes to show that paint does have an expiration date.  It took 3-4 coats over a primer to get the paint on evenly and the color was, well, you can see.  Hor-rendous.

Time for a revamp.  Since this is a small room, I wanted white walls.  All of the walls are painted Behr Polar Bear up until the top of the window frame.  The plan is to create a photo ledge around the perimeter of the room and paint the top portion a soft gray.  Baby steps.

Here's what the checklist looks like so far:

paint the walls up to the window frame

paint the top of the walls

bedding

build the photo ledge

create a headboard

make curtains

rearrange the room

organize the closet

artwork (this one is half finished)

recover ottoman/chair

lamps

I promise to update you on the crossed items I haven't blogged about.  All will be revealed soon! :)

We're getting there!  Of course, the really hard stuff is left...

Today I'm sharing the DIY curtains I made.  Now, if I could put these together, I know you can.  I do have a circa 1978 sewing machine my grandma gave me.  However, I've never turned it on, nor do I know how.  This project was done with the awesomeness of iron on fusing.

Remember the clearance shower curtains I recovered my ottoman and desk chair with? 

Well, they made another appearance.

I split a shower curtain down the middle and used one half for each side of the window.  Since they weren't long enough, and I like a little puddle in my drapes, I used a drop cloth from Home Depot and iron fused the pieces together.  I thought a little stripe of the shower curtain patter would be cute, so I just measured, cut and ironed those together too.  It took my one preschool day (about 2 hours) to finish.

After I hung them back up, they still needed a little something, so I cut a piece of burlap from my giant roll and hung it over the curtain rod.  To give it some swag, I just tucked it up with my fingers and put a safety pin under the fold on each side.  This took about 3 minutes.

Really hard to photograph windows guys!  I love a sunny day, but geez!  These pics are crazy!

 I hope you can get a good enough feel for how it all turned out.  I'm pretty happy with the result and so glad to have checked that item off my list.

The room is starting to take shape.  I really have taken my time on this one and I'm glad.  I usually want to just get things finished, but I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to use what I have and most of all, how we want to use the space.

Are you ready to go fashion some curtains out of nothing?!  

Life Before Blogs?!

Happy Monday!  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  I spent mine running to birthday parties, playing tennis, baking cookies, and watching Tangled with my little family.  Such a cute movie.

I also got a few minutes at Goodwill this weekend and scored some great books for my new built-ins!!!  I will be sharing a little sneak-peek soon.

One treasure I came home with makes me smile every time I see it.  Even when I think about it, it makes me giggle.  :)

I didn't buy it for the content.  Just for how much it makes me laugh.

This, friends, is what we had before blogs.  Crafting around your home is not a new idea.  Women love adding their personal touch.  However, getting inspiration didn't used to be as easy as Pinterest and the blogosphere.

                                     Enter, The Woman's Day Book of Weekend Crafts.

How much does this make you smile?!  Is it just me?  First of all, it's a bright sunny yellow.  And, next, it has the most hilarious ideas in it!

Ha!  Not sure, I'll be knitting any dolls soon.

How about a "Mesh Back Tote"?  Anyone?

 This little gem made me laugh too hard to not buy for $2.  It looks cute on my shelf and is a terrific nod to another time (published in 1970).

So, did anyone attempt any ladies' "weekend crafts" at your house this weekend?  Hee hee!

Tomorrow I'll be sharing an update to our office/guest room.

XO!
   Sara

Tackling Paper - Day 3 - The Odds & Ends

Happy Friday!  Well, hopefully you've been following our war on paper this week and are ready to really finish it off with a bang!  If you're just popping in, start here.

We've talked about how to get your files looking pretty, but what about the other stuff?  What about all the creativity your kids come home with?  Or all the appliance manuals and warranties?  These are things you want to keep (some of), but you don't necessarily need ready access to them.

Enter, the file box.

I scooped up 2 of these from - can you guess? Target. One holds Little Man's masterpieces and the other holds papers we need to hang on to, but don't need to look at or have in the way.

For kiddie crafts, I save everything he brings home throughout the month and display away on his peg board in the playroom and on the fridge.  I'm a proud mama, after all.  Then, when the next month's cuteness starts rolling in, I gather the previous months things and save the things that really show his personality or growth.

This is hard.  I'm not going to lie.  If I'm on the fence, I hang on to it for another month.  The things we keep go in a file folder in the bin labeled with a picture of Little with his teachers and the year.

In the 2nd bin, I have a folder dedicated to:

  Education - transcripts from college and important things to hang on to from each of our Master's programs (aren't we smarties? ;)

  Computer - all those cd's that come with new computers, printer manuals, etc

  Manuals - things like the camera, the progammable thermostats, etc

  Appliances - things like the dishwasher, water heater, etc

I'm sure I will come up with other things to throw in this box, but for now, it is working!

Having these boxes has freed up my file drawer and put me in charge of where the "need to keep" things live.  I love that they fit easily on a shelf, but could be moved to another spot easy-peasy.

Well, there you have it.  We showed paper who's boss in 1 week!  No more exploding file drawers and scary stacks for you!

I hope everyone has a warm first weekend of the New Year!  I'll be trying to stick to my plan of healthy eating.  So far so good, but I have to make cookies and brownies for our tennis match this weekend...I can do it! :)

See you next week for our a fun Goodwill find, an update on our guest room/office, and some more organizing.  Next stop on our clean house mission, the kitchen.

XO,
  Sara

Tackling Paper - Day 2 - My File Drawer

Welcome back!  Are you ready to revisit those little stacks of paper you made?  If you're just joining us, be sure to go check out the first day of tackling paper here.

Today we're going to go through those piles. I want you to be ruthless.  Here is a list of things to keep and everything else needs to be shredded and/or pitched.  Just think about how good you will feel with all of that clutter out of your home.

I refer to this article from Real Simple when trying to decide what to keep.  In this article, there are two types of paper in your filing cabinet,  Can't Lose and Extended Knowledge.
Can't Lose
These are items that you need to keep indefinitely, signed legal contracts. Mortgage papers, birth certificates, passports, etc.
Extended Knowledge
These, are things that you hold onto because you can't keep everything in your head.  Car insurance plan details, insurance contact info, etc.  If you weren't around, what info would someone in your family need?

Ask yourself these questions from the article:

1. If I get rid of this, will I be in a serious bind, lose my job, get sued, lose an irreplaceable amount of money, or go to jail? If so, retain the document.
2. Do I want to have this knowledge at my fingertips and will I have a difficult time getting my hands on this information later if I don’t keeps this document? If so, retain the document.
3. Will keeping this document make it easier for someone else if I am unavailable? If so, retain the document.

In addition to the above, I have always gone by the rule of thumb that you keep tax paperwork for 7 years.  Everything else, utilities, credit card bills, I get electronically, or shred after I pay them because I can access them online if I need to.

I keep a file folder for the current year's tax info and stick W-2's, charitable donation receipts, and any other needed documents for the year in here.  After we file our taxes, we print a copy of our return and bundle it, and all the collected paperwork and file it with past returns.  More on that later.

Now let's break it down...

These are the files I keep in my desk, easy to access:

    - Labels (Avery printables, extra chalkboard labels, etc.)
    - Ideas (things I pull out of magazines, etc.)
    - Party (things I need for party planning, checklists, copies of my Super Bowl Bingo Board ;), etc)
    - Reference (things I need to hang on to to keep track of phone numbers, etc)
    - Current Year's Taxes (this is where I throw in all the stuff that comes in the mail for that year's return)
    - Health Insurance (dental visit invoices, etc)
    - Car (this has 2 folders in it, Insurance and Info)
    - Home (same as car, one for Insurance, one for Info)
    - The next 3 files are our retirement funds.  When a new statement comes, I stick it in the file.   Every once and a while (once a year??), I put them in a binder to clear out the drawer.
    - Baby Stuff (I still have all the hospital paperwork just in case.  I'm sure I will let this go eventually, but it seems like a good idea to keep all that for now)
    - Tax Archives (sometimes we need to access a tax file from the past.  I have all of the previous years (we've only been married 6 years) bundled by year and in the back of my file cabinet.  Eventually, these will go to "Deep Storage" in a fire and water safe box in the basement)

So, a quick B & A of my file drawer...

Before...

After...

Ahhh.  Much better.

I don't know why I waited so long to get my system back under control.  Now, if you have other things to store (kiddie artwork, mementos  photos, etc) don't despair.  I won't leave you hanging!  Tomorrow I'll show you how I store some of the other paper that tries to consume us.

Happy purging!

XO,

  Sara

Tackling Paper - Day 1

I'm going to start by saying I did not want to do this blog post.  Not because I don't love y'all and want to chat with you, but because I. AM. AFRAID.

I'm afraid of my filing drawer and the madness that it contains.  Actually it's all it shouldn't contain that really terrifies me.

Here's a startling confession.  I haven't cleaned out my filing drawer since 2008.  Yep.  Slightly OCD, over-achiever, neat-freak missy over here hasn't touched the filing drawer since before Little Man was cookin'.

I'm ashamed.  And that is why we are doing this first.

That's my drawer.  Don't let it fool you.  I poked it and this is what happened.

Now, I don't want to overwhelm you, so here's how it's going to go down.  Take today and just take everything out of you desk, drawer, box, cabinet.  Whatever it is you keep your papers in.  You know you have them stashed away somewhere...and you know they could look a whole lot prettier.

Take it all out and lay it all over the floor.  Preferably do this on a weekend morning when your significant other can mind the children for a bit.

Next, play my toddler's favorite game...matching.  Put the water bills together in a stack.  Take all the insurance paperwork and put it in a pile.  DO NOT clean them out as you go!  You will wind up with paper everywhere, a sore back, and no idea where you started or left off!


Here are a few ideas as to what types of piles you should have:

utilities

credit cards 

Insurance

Receipts

Tax Documents

Schoolwork 

Car

Home (break it down into each category you need, repairs, warranties...)

??? (this is the pile for things that don't really have a home yet)

Trash (put it all in a can or bag, but don't pitch it until later)

Now turn off the light, close the door and walk away.  That's it for today.

Really.

This is a big job and I promise you, it will be less scary tomorrow.  What started as a hunk of junk, will look somewhat recognizable when you walk in tomorrow to neat, categorized stacks.

Remember what we said about doing less and playing more?

Good work!  I'll see you tomorrow.

XO,
  Sara

Resolutions

I just love a new year.  A fresh start.  A new beginning.



I don't know why, but I just feel like 2013 is going to be spectacular.  Good things are coming.

What better way to welcome the New Year, than to make a few resolutions. I have some personal things on my list and a few I'm hoping you'll join me in.

1.     Get Organized!

Now, I consider myself a pretty organized person, but at the beginning of every year, I like to revisit

every area of my home and show it who's boss. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be taking one area

of the house at a time and whipping it into shape, starting with paper.  That's right.  We're going to

face the ugly behemoth that is the paper monster right off the bat. Open up those filing cabinets and

junk drawers.  In 2013 every bill has a home, every piece of mail knows its place.

2. Do Less.

This is a funny one considering what I just wrote above.  I don't mean, don't do anything.  I mean,

make what you do count.  I willingly admit I am a bit of an overachiever.  I'm that annoying mom that

makes homemade everything and always wants to lift the heaviest weights in my power pump class. 

I can't help it.  It's just how I'm wired.  However, this year, I'm making a conscious decision to select

a few things (projects, crafts, recipes) each season/holiday and really savor them.  Just because I

saw it on Pinterest does not mean I have to do it.  It's okay to do less.

          

This is going to be me, hanging out with my peeps.

3. Play More.

 This goes hand in hand with #2.  If I'm doing less and enjoying it more, I have more time to play. 

More time to enjoy the sweet childhood of my Little Man.  More time to sit on my Mister's lap and

beat him at Boggle.  Aren't these the memories I want for my family?  Little won't remember whether

or not we made reindeer pretzel cookies this year, but he will remember baking with me.  Even if it's

just a gooey mess of whatever we stir up.

So, you now know where my head is.  I couldn't be more excited about this fresh slate.  People always say "make 2013 awesome", "make this the best year ever".

Not me.

This year I'm going to let 2013 be amazing...by getting myself out of the way and seeing how truly awesome everything already is.



Can't wait to get started tackling that paper monster tomorrow!

XO,
  Sara

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