My 5-Minute Decluttering Trick

A couple papers from the mail that need to be dealt with.  A broken toy on the kitchen counter.  A wall hanging that just hasn't found the perfect spot yet.  We all have these little bits of life that clutter our homes.

I don't know about you, but cluttered surfaces drive me crazy!  After looking around my home and seeing all of these little bits of things that didn't belong, I came up with a solution to clear the clutter: a "deal with it" box.

I grab an empty box from the recycling and take five minutes to walk around and grab everything that doesn't belong.  I'm not worried about finding a home for things, or taking care of them.  I am simply removing them from all the spaces they hide in plain sight.

And a crazy thing happens.  As I'm gathering things, I find a few to put away.  I end up taking care of some of those loose ends that have been sitting out "until I get to them".

Yes, some things are still in the box at the end of the day.  But by clearing off the extra clutter from the surfaces in my home, I'm greeted with a calmer, less stressful house, and I'm motivated to keep it that way.

Iron Craft Challenge #8: For The Home

That's an 8x10 frame, in case you can't tell the size from the picture.

I'm cheating a little bit, because this isn't for my home, but it is for someone's home, and I made it within these two weeks, so I figure that counts.  For Iron Craft Challenge #7, I did the design for this cross stitch, but as usual, I changed it up once I actually started making it.

I really like how it turned out, although for future wedding gifts (because I'll be using this one again), hopefully I'll start with more time so that I can add some little flowers or embellishments of some sort to the empty spaces.  Still, with such a short time frame, I think it looks nice!

Weekly Goals: April 26-May 2

Can you believe that before this week, I had never rolled out a pie crust?  I made this chocolate-chip-filled hand pie with the scraps.  It was delicious!

Last Week's Goals:

• Get things organized for our garage sale.  Does adding more stuff to the pile count?  I only have a few days to price everything!
• Make a list of kid clothes to purchase at garage sales this summer. Done!
• Finish my wedding cross stitch. Done!

This Week's Goals:

• Price everything for the garage sale.
• Figure out May birthday presents, especially Hannah's and our niece Jenna's.  Living in a small town is forcing me to be on a stricter schedule for figuring these things out so I have time to get what I need if it's not available here.
• Do the May church newsletter.

So I have a few big things to work on this week.  Here's hoping for a productive week!

Books I've Read: April 2015

Did anyone notice that I didn't have a post about books in March?  No?  Well, that's because I didn't actually finish any books in March.  April was not much better.  I'm just in one of those busy seasons of life, I guess.  I do need to be more intentional with my free time, though.  I find myself wasting bits of my day on the Internet far more frequently than I need to.

Anyways...here's the book I read most of in March, and finally finished this week.

This Is What You Just Put In Your Mouth? by Patrick Di Justo.  (Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books)  I've been on a real food kick for a few years now, so I'm always interested to read what's actually in some of the things that are called food nowadays.  The author says that he's trying to present an unbiased neutral explanation of ingredients, and I think for the most part, he actually succeeds, although some of the things he makes jokes about could be seen as negative if people chose to take it that way.    I liked the breakdown though.

There were two sections to the book: This is what you put in your mouth, and this is what you don't put in your mouth (skin care, make up, cleaners, play doh, etc.).  For each product, there's a list of ingredients and what their purpose is, whether it's flavor, preservative, color, smell, or whatever.  Some of them also have a little anecdote about why he chose to find out about that specific product, or something fun/cool/frustrating that happened while he was trying to find out about it.

Overall, I liked this book.  It was fun to read what was in some of this stuff, and the author has an easy, conversational way of writing.  But.  It obviously didn't hold my interest very well, because even though it would have been easy to pick it up and read the couple pages about the next product, I just didn't.  I got through most of the book in two days, and then finally got around to the rest a month and a half later.

Total books read this month: 1. Total books read this year: 4.

A Quick Ninja Turtles Birthday Card...

I made this quick Ninja Turtle card for our nephew's birthday (which was last week, but better late than never, right?).

I did a Google search for "Ninja Turtles face black and white" and found a few options.  I printed them off, colored them in , and cut them out.  A bit of glue later, and bam! Birthday card!  It's always a winning project when you raid the kids' craft cupboard for supplies.

This was a really simple card, which you could replicate with pretty much any character you can find on the Internet.

How Freezer Cooking Makes For A Relaxing Return From Vacation

When you get back from vacation, the last thing you want to do is spend a ton of time in the kitchen prepping for a meal, am I right?  I know that's the case for me.  So before we headed to my parents' house for a few days this week, I made sure I had a few things ready in the freezer.

First up, I made pizza crusts.  We had chicken bacon ranch pizza planned for dinner yesterday, the day we were driving back, and I wasn't sure if we would get home around lunch time or right before dinner.  By having the pizza crusts ready to go and the chicken already cooked from last week, I was able to pull out the ingredients and have dinner on the table in about half an hour (and that includes cooking time!)

By the way, look for a frozen pizza tutorial from me sometime soon!  I'm pretty excited about that one...

I had some extra muffins in the freezer from the last batch that didn't get eaten.  I've also started making a double batch of oatmeal pancakes each time we have them, because they're so handy to pull out of the freezer in place of bread for Hannah!  So we had a mixture of those items for breakfast this morning.  Easy!

And finally, for lunch today we had bean burgers from the freezer (are you sensing a pattern here?) and sweet potato fries.  Because the burgers were already made up, this meal came together quickly too.

All this left me time yesterday and this morning to unpack, throw a load of laundry in, and get everything back to normal.  That's a relaxing return from a vacation!

Menu Plan April 16-30

I'm a few days behind posting this, but I figured I would do it anyways.  I always think it's helpful to see other people's, so hopefully mine helps someone else!

Thursday, April 16
Breakfast: Eggs, Bacon, and Sweet Potatoes
Lunch: Hot Dogs, Macaroni and Cheese
Dinner: Sausage Spinach Skillet
Snack #1: Apples
Snack #2: Energy Bites

Friday, April 17
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chips
Lunch: BLTs, Apples
Dinner: Pinto Bean and Ground Turkey Taco Salads
Snack #1: Pears
Snack #2: Yogurt and Granola

Saturday, April 18
Breakfast: Gluten Free Chocolate Banana Muffins
Lunch: Homemade Lunchables for the kids, Leftovers
Dinner: Leftover Taco Salads
Snack #1: Apples
Snack #2: Bananas

Sunday, April 19
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Sandwiches
Dinner: At my parents' house
Snack #1: Applesauce
Snack #2: At my parents' house

Monday, April 20
All day at my parents' house

Tuesday, April 21
Breakfast: At my parents' house
Lunch: At my parents' house
Dinner: Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizzas
Snack #1: At my parents' house
Snack #2: Canned mixed fruit

Wednesday, April 22
Breakfast: Muffins from the freezer
Lunch: Black Bean Burgers from the freezer
Dinner: Chicken Fajita Soup
Snack #1: Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows
Snack #2: Apples

Thursday, April 23
Breakfast: Eggs and Toast
Lunch: Leftover Soup/Soups from the freezer
Dinner: Chicken Quesadillas
Snack #1: Canned Peaches
Snack #2: Popcorn

Friday, April 24
Breakfast: Yogurt and Homemade Granola
Lunch: Cobb Salads
Dinner: Stuffed Peppers
Snack #1: Mom's Lazy Trail Mix
Snack #2: Grapes/Berries

Saturday, April 25
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Pears
Lunch: Cobb Salads
Dinner: Wedding Reception for church members
Snack #1: Grapes/Berries
Snack #2: Popcorn

Sunday, April 26
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Dinner: Salad with Steak, Yellow Peppers, Mushrooms, and Onions
Snack #1: Mom's Lazy Trail Mix
Snack #2: Apples

Monday, April 27
Breakfast: Eggs, Sweet Potatoes, and Bacon
Lunch: Mini Pepper Nachos with Pinto Beans
Dinner: Chicken Pepper Bake
Snack #1: Yogurt
Snack #2: 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

Tuesday, April 28
Breakfast: Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Lunch: Pinto Bean and Ground Turkey Chili
Dinner: Grill Out Hot Dogs and Brats, Fruit
Snack #1: Apples
Snack #2: Energy Bites

Wednesday, April 29
Breakfast: Eggs and Toast
Lunch: Leftover Chili
Dinner: Oatmeal Pancakes, Cinnamon Apples
Snack #1: Popcorn
Snack #2: Bananas

Thursday, April 30
Breakfast: Yogurt and Granola 
Lunch: Sandwiches, Fruit
Dinner: Chicken Fried Rice
Snack #1: Energy Bites
Snack #2: Canned Pears