Binkies and Briefcases

SUBSCRIBE

Crab Art

By: Stephanie1 Comment

Today I was hoping to refinish some chairs that were listed on Craigslist for $10 a pair, but hubby didn’t think we needed anymore chairs, so sadly I didn’t get them. I still wanted to create something amazing while he was off helping some friends move furniture & I was here with the kids during nap time.

So I went shopping in the basement. And I found this cabinet door that I bought for $1 last week at the re-use center, some acrylic paint in green, red, yellow & gold left over from a Christmas project from 2 years ago, and some modge podge which I think was from that same project. hmmm…

I needed inspiration. Where else to turn but my new favorite plates? : )

First I sanded the door then I pulled some newspaper out of the recycling bin & modge-podged it to the middle. I tinted the modge podge with gold paint to make it look aged.

Then I took some of my green paint and used newspaper to apply it around the outside “frame.” When the green was almost dry I used more newspaper to remove some of the paint & give it a distressed look.

Then Abby woke up, so I had a little helper for the rest of my project. 🙂

I free-handed the shape of a crab, and later a starfish and some seaweed.

Then I ran into a little problem because I didn’t have black paint. What to do, what to do? hmm…use a Sharpie!

I outlined the shapes of the crab & starfish in the same sketchy style as my plate and also traced the edges of my “frame” in black.

Ta-da! Recycled art work. I actually think it turned out pretty well, except for the starfish. If I was going to do it over again I would have skipped him. Unfortunately it doesn’t go with my decor at all, so I have no where to put it. I think I might give it to my 14-year-old brother who was with me when I bought it & was teasing me about what I was going to do with an old cabinet door. Merry Christmas, Trey! (Maybe)

Free Gift Idea

By: Stephaniecomment

Who doesn’t love to receive gifts with a lot of meaning? As I was changing my daughter’s diaper this morning, one of the meaningful gift’s I’ve received was peeking out at me & I decided to share the idea in case someone else wanted to use it.

When I was pregnant with me daughter, my aunt gave me these as a shower gift:

(Try to ignore the fact that the walls photograph as mustard, in real life they are much lighter.)

These are pictures that I had drawn as a child and she saved them 20+ years! She framed them with picture frames that she no doubt got from one of her famous yard sale outings or maybe already had and gave them to me to hang in the nursery.

Is it a little strange that there is a picture of Abraham Lincoln hanging in my daughter’s room? Maybe, but less strange if you know that I chose Abby’s name after Abigail Adams, my favorite first lady. Then it’s actually pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, I just thought it was a pretty cool gift idea to give framed children’s art as a gift to an expecting mom. 🙂

Pottery Barn Knock-off Pillow

By: Stephanie4 Comments

I’m also posting this one on the other blog, but here goes…Aren’t you lucky? You get three blog posts from me today!

Pottery Barn Sweater Pillow

These sweater pillows from Pottery Barn are super cute.

What is not cute is the fact that they charge $39.00 for the cover. Just the cover. Then you have to pay an additional $24 if you want the pillow insert, which you probably do seeing as how that’s the actual pillow part & all. Then there is a $6 shipping fee for the insert. The cover they are kind enough to ship for free.

Oh, Pottery Barn, why must you torture me so? I love you & your design style and your awesome ideas like making something as comfy as a pillow even more comfy by wrapping it in a cozy sweater. That being said, there is just no way I’m paying $69 for one pillow. With tax that’s more than $70 FOR ONE PILLOW!

I can’t swing that. But I can swing $3.50, and that’s exactly what I paid for the knock-off I made today. 🙂

You see, I bought this sweater at Goodwill yesterday with this project in mind. Then I washed it, because, well, you know.

Then I cut one big square out of the front and another big square out of the back & sewed them together on 3 sides.

Then I took one of these hideous pillows that came with the love seat we have in our basement, stuck it inside & sewed up the last end. If you wanted to get creative you could make some kind of button closure, but I’m cheap, excuse me, frugal, and impatient, so I did it the easy way.

And I got the pillow on the left, pictured here with the adorable starfish pillows I got super cheap a few weeks ago. Remember them? He he, feeling super proud today of the fact that I paid a grand total of $11 for these two pillows while someone else could have ordered them from PB for over $90.

Please do yourself a favor and do not buy things from the PB that you can make yourself. Save your money in case something amazing comes along that you just can’t duplicate, like those crab melamine plates. Sigh. I’m still excited about those! (which I did buy, at their full retail price, and it was worth it.)

Cooking on a Budget

By: Stephaniecomment

Do you know what makes me laugh? When magazines, Rachel Ray comes to mind, but there are others as well, try to show us how to cook on a budget by showing us different options for $10 dinners. It’s a nice concept, but I find it a little ridiculous. Usually these meals will be some type of sandwich (often disguised with a fancy name like “panini”) or soup. Maybe it’s just me, but I personally have never had a hard time making a meal for my family of four for under $10. Also, soup doesn’t go over so well as a meal in my house. I like it, but the Hubs is never full afterward & Little Man just likes to pick out the noodles. Sandwiches might be ok for lunch, but I’m thinking they wouldn’t go over so well as dinner in my house either. Plus, paninis (think grilled cheese on steroids with really hard bread) are hard for kids to eat.

Here is my problem: I try to stick to a budget of $100/week for groceries. I know that’s a realistic budget because I’ve been doing it for years and I know many families that have a similar one. You totally can feed your family for about $25 a person per week. And you can do it well. In fact, I bet most people do. If you make $10 dinners, like the magazines suggest (and generally in the magazine articles they are talking about $10 entrees, you’re on your own if you want some kind of side dish or -Heaven forbid- dessert) that would eat up $70 of your $100 for the week just on dinner. Um..in my house there are two other meals to think about each day. If my calculations are correct, that would leave less than $3 for each other meal. No thanks.

I’ve also been disturbed that people seem to think that eating unhealthy, processed food is somehow cheaper than eating well. It’s not.

I love to cook, but I sure as you-know-what am not spending any $10 a day on dinner. (Disclaimer: We do go out to eat more than we probably should, which offsets the benefits of my self-righteous, budget-friendly cooking) Anyway, here’s what we’re doing tonight:

Yesterday I bought my produce at the farmers market. This included green beans for $1.95 per quart. The heaping quart they gave me will be enough to stretch between 2 meals. So tonight we will eat half our green beans: $1.00

Today I went to the regular grocery store & bought a box of pasta for roughly $1.50.

Clams were on sale for $1.59/dozen. Granted, that’s a ridiculous price, but you could also use a handful of frozen shrimp or just eat the pasta in the garlic butter sauce I’m about to tell you about sans seafood.

Tonight I plan to cook the clams in a garlic butter sauce I’ll make out of butter, garlic, and water & maybe some lemon juice, all of which I already have. (Usually I make this using white wine, not water, but we don’t have any & I’m not about to drive across town & take two toddlers into a liquor store to go get some. Also, last time I got fancy and added some grated shallots.)

Ooh, guess what? I can even throw in a $2 dessert my Mommom used to make. She called it chocolate snowball. It’s pretty much a chocolate sorbet. The $2 is for about 8 servings, so it’s really about a dollar per meal for a family of four. Recipe: Take a can of chocolate syrup (I get mine at Target for less than $2) and pour it in a 9×9 cake pan. I’m going to assume you have milk. Add two cans of milk (use the syrup can). Stir. Freeze overnight. Cut into small pieces with a knife & scoop into small dessert glasses.

Tally:
Green beans: $1
Pasta: $1.50
Clams: $1.59
Dessert: $1

Total: $5.09 for Linguine with clam sauce, fresh green beans, and chocolate sorbet. Even if you bought 2 dozen clams (which I didn’t because my kids are too little to eat them; I’m uber paranoid about food allergies, which run in my family, so I don’t give my 1 & 3 year olds seafood very often), the total would still only be about 6.50. I’m pretty sure that everyone has butter, but you could even throw in the head of garlic & still be under $8. Try getting that a restaurant for $2 a person. And it’s even relatively healthy.

By the time you bought a box of hamburger helper, the meat to cook it with, and some nasty canned vegetables you would have spent more money and consumed a ridiculous amount of sodium in the process.

So there, I can make an entree, a side dish, and a dessert for my family for about $5. It might cost you more if your pantry is less stocked, but seriously, the idea that a $10 dinner is some kind of bargain is ridiculous.

I’ll stop ranting now and go cook.

Later….

Proof that I cooked this in my very own kitchen…
.

And it can indeed serve a family of 4…

One serving of this meal costs $1.27, including dessert. Can’t do that in a restaurant, now can you? 🙂

10 Day Challenge

By: Stephanie2 Comments

The Shabby Chic Cottage, one of the blogs I follow, is doing a 10 Tasks in 10 Days challenge to help gets its readers motivated to finish some tasks they have been putting off. I have a LOT of tasks I’ve been putting off, so I’m participating this time.

Here’s my list day-by-day:

1) Finish pillows
2) Clear out under Abby’s crib
3) Finish bathroom window treatment
4) Submit 2nd quarter tax forms
5) Clean refrigerator
6) Organize pantry
7) Cut wood for Knock-Off Wood bench
8) List some things on Craigslist
9) Wash windows
10)Assemble and/or paint bench

I can’t promise any of that will actually get done, but I’ll try.

Treasures

By: Stephaniecomment

Today we went back to the Market. (Yes, I took two books like I promised.) We got some produce, bread, a lemonade, and a ceramic pain-it-yourself train night light cover for me to make with Nicholas later this week. That trip, which only lasted about 15 minutes, went fairly smoothly, so I decided to stop at the thrift store on the way home.

I was looking for glassware to add to my expanding collection of apothecary jars. (I made 4 more last week with jars & dessert glasses I got at our church yard sale for a grand total of $2.50) I struck out with the glassware, but I did score a lamp, drop leaf table, and a sweater that I plan to re-purpose & I managed to stay under my unofficial $20 weekly budget. I’ll tell you more about those later when my projects are finished, but I had to share a cute story…

While we were in Goodwill I was pushing the cart full of my finds, carrying the baby, and Nicholas was walking “like a big boy.”- His words. Naturally, being a three-year-old, he was drawn to the shelf full of toddler toys. I was trying to coax him across the store to see if I could find the kind of white sweater I wanted for my next Pottery Barn knock-off project. (I did find it after 20 minutes of searching, saying “Nick? Come stand with Mommy, please.” and a trip to the bathroom.)

Anyway, his response to my nagging was “Mommy, I have to stay right here. I’m looking for my treasures.” Then we would walk past something like a plaid hat & he would say “Oh, there’s a treasure.” It was quite adorable. The funny thing is that I don’t think he picked this up from me, I don’t remember using that word to refer to my flea market finds. I still didn’t let him buy anything, since we had just gotten the night light at the Market, but it’s nice to have a little guy who can see “treasures” at the Goodwill.

Alright, I’m Doing It

By: Stephaniecomment

I need to lose 20 pounds. Actually, I really need to lose 45 pounds to get to my “ideal” weight according to the BMI charts, but 120 lbs seems unrealistic for me to maintain with my current high-stress life style, so I’m setting the goal at 20 for now. 145 was my pre-baby weight and I was content in a size 8. Besides, I weighed more than 120 in high school when I was the teeny-tiny captain of the cheerleading squad. (10 lifetimes ago) Sorry, BMI people, but I have boobs. Big ones. They weigh a lot.

I’ve known for a while, like since I was recovering from a c-section this time last year, that I was going to need to get around to losing weight, but I haven’t really been taking it seriously. I have done some things. I’ve sporadically counted Weight Watcher’s points, done a few Pilates & Richard Simons DVD’s at home, gone to the gym w/ my friend Rebecca a few times, and gone to a Zumba class. Plus, I do lug around a 20 pound baby, a 35 pound toddler, and all the diaper bag/stroller equipment that goes with them every day. WARNING: MOM DON’T READ THE NEXT SENTENCE. I’ve also been telling myself that sex counts as exercise and thus getting more “exercise” than I normally would, which makes for a happy husband, but a smaller waistline? Not so much. I still say that the fact that I’ve done these things should count for something, but the scale hasn’t budged at all this year, so I guess I haven’t been trying hard enough. All year at 165. (Although I think I lost 3 pounds doing Weight Watcher for a few weeks, but our scale at the time was broken, so there’s no way to know for sure.) Well, at least I haven’t gained any weight in the past year.

Still, I’m really tired of not being happy with the way I look in pictures and not feeling attractive in anything I wear. Luckily, I have a very supportive husband who truly doesn’t care how much I weigh, but I care. Now that my dad is remarried, I have 6 brothers & sisters. I don’t want to be the fat one! Plus, I have a daughter now. She needs to see a good example of a well-balanced life style and a confident role model, and both my kids need to see an example of a woman who is happy with her body image. I can’t be that role model unless I actually believe that I look good.

Until now, I’ve been trying to give myself a break. After all, it’s been a really high-stress year & a half. In the past 18 months, we’ve adopted a child, moved, I stopped working & transitioned to being a stay-at-home mom (which is probably the most difficult transition, but that’s another blog post), I gave birth, started a business, our son was diagnosed with a bunch of special needs & since I’m the one home with him I organize all of his testing/therapy appointments, I closed my business, served on the steering committee for the Mom-n-Me program, got a new part-time job, not to mention had some health issues….I mean sheesh. So I can’t lose the last of my baby weight. That should be at the bottom of the list, right? No, not really. If I felt better about the way I looked & had more energy, I could be doing all of those things a lot better.

So I’m doing it. For real. I’m losing 20 pounds, and all of my readers (all 4 of you) can hold me accountable. I got a double jogging stroller (surprisingly hard to come by) at the Tomato Tamato [let’s all pause to reflect on how cute that name is] consignment shop yesterday. I also signed up to lose 20 pounds for the Pound For Pound Challenge so they would donate 20 pounds of food to our local food bank. I figured that would hold me accountable too, since I was doing it for someone else.

I’m going to try Weight Watchers again, since that seems to be the easiest for me, being able to eat whatever I want. So here goes…

To Market, To Market

By: Stephaniecomment

Ok, as far as I can tell, they didn’t sell fat pigs at the York Central Market, but I did take the kids there this morning. My friend Satoko, who is an artist/mom & shares her amazing creations over on her blog Sunshine Smile, goes to Central Market every week. I’ve been curious since we moved here, but since the market’s in the middle of downtown with only street parking, I’ve been hesitant to drive down there, try to parallel park the mini-van & juggle the kids and the double stroller in the middle of the street.

Well, today the cupboards were bare (how many nursery rhyme references will fit in one blog post?) so I decided to suck it up and lug everything down there since I was going to have to go grocery shopping one way or another. Lucky for me, I found a spot right in front of the market where two meters in a row were open, so the parking wasn’t too big of an issue. Yeah!

It was your general farmer’s market with a few vendors selling other stuff, like antique furniture, candy, & candles. I think next time we need to try a different time, because at 9:30 less than half the booths were open & those that were looked thoroughly picked through. They open at 6am and stay open through early afternoon. I am thinking that the farmers get there early, so if you want produce early is better, but some of the other booths were just starting to open as we were leaving around 10.

The furniture dealer had a really awesome old, long, narrow suitcase-looking thing that I am assuming is a gun case. It would have been the perfect piece for our downstairs mantle. I was envisioning the apothecary jars I made last week grouped on top of it. Plus it was only $17. I waited for about 10 minutes, but the vendor was nowhere to be found & the kids were getting antsy, so I passed it up. Still kicking myself over that one.

The kids & I shared a huge soft pretzel & lemonade and we bought some produce from two very sweet elderly ladies who reminded me of the women who used to collect my Mommom’s newspapers & sell eggs.

There was also a really cool free book exchange shelf where you could drop off a book & take one from the shelf. I didn’t know about the shelf, so I didn’t bring a book to exchange, but guess what was staring at me on that shelf? A book called Play Therapy! How could I pass that up given Nicholas’ issues & the fact that I am paying a play therapist every week? Ok, I confess, I took it. I promise to bring two books with me next time to make up for the transgression.

Overall, it was a cute way to spend a cloudy Tuesday morning and we’ll go back. I do wish it was a little larger, though, or that there were more vendors. It sort of paled in comparison to the farmer’s markets that we had in Tampa or that I’ve gone to with my aunt who lives in rural VA, but I guess that’s what I get for comparing it to markets in the south. Like I said, it was cute and it’s a good way to support local farmers. Plus, I want my kids to have a good understanding of where food comes from, hence the home gardens & last week’s trip to Barefoot Farm to pick our own strawberries. Sheesh, there’s a lot I didn’t realize I was going to have to think about as a parent. As long as my kids don’t wind up like those kids on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution show who couldn’t identify a single vegetable, we’ll be ok.

Ok, I changed my mind

By: Stephaniecomment

I like having all my stuff in one place, so I’ll probably just stick with this blog. That should be no big surprise to anyone, I change my mind a lot.

Anyway, I am SUPER excited because I found a new blog last week. It’s written by a stay-at-home mom/carpenter named Ana who builds her own furniture to look like expensive stuff because she lives in Alaska far away from all those stores & it’s really expensive to have stuff shipped to Alaska, I guess. Her site is called Knock-Off Wood. (Get it, like “knock on wood”, except it’s knock-off furniture?)

To say that I have become obsessed with this website would probably be an understatement. Yesterday I convinced Eddie to go with me to buy the wood to build one of the beginner level projects. He was reluctant, seeing as how he had just gotten back from the ER after cutting himself on a saw and everything, but we have the materials now & I am super excited to get started!!!

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Woo-Hoo! I’m a Farmer! (Sort of)

By: Stephaniecomment

Gardening and I have a love/hate relationship. I would love to be able to have a nice, pretty garden, preferably a vegetable or herb garden because I love to cook, but nothing I ever plant does very well. I resent my lack of success in this area and resolve to try again every year. For eight years in a row nothing has grown. Eddie has better luck, so our gardens have historically looked very nice. Except now that he has a longer commute and we have two tiny children, he doesn’t have as much time to do yard work.

So our gardens this year are a mess! I ordered some roses & my aunt, who is an amazing gardener, gave us some hyacinth beans to grow a vine up our lamp post. So far both are growing, but not flowering. They are also amidst a ridiculous pile of weeds that has overtaken the front garden that poor Eddie worked so hard to clear out, edge & hire someone to come grind our 14 stumps from old bushes that died in this year’s record snowstorm.

I also planted a small vegetable garden with Nicholas, but so far everything is just tiny & green so I can’t tell the difference between the weeds & the vegetables.

But today Eddie was mowing the lawn and came in with amazing news! My raspberry bush had berries! 9 of them! Granted, some had rotted. Granted some of its leaves are dead. But it had berries! I’m calling this a success!

Also, I have managed to successfully grow basil & parsley in my kitchen window sill. I also planted rosemary, but that hasn’t done so well.

But still, 3 plants that have survived to produce something is better than none, right?

Does this mean that after years and years of trying my black thumb is turning green? I hope so!

What You’re Saying

Latest Posts

ALL I Never Knowed: The Book Is Here!

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my Email Newsletter. Thanks for visiting!Welcome back! Be sure to check out my Email Newsletter. Thanks for visiting!It’s finally here, in my hands. It has been a loooong time in the making, but our book, All I Never Knowed: Mental Illness, a Mother’s Love, and […]

Save Money with Fetch

Hey everyone! This is Chelsea, Steph’s asistant, back with the simplest app for getting cash back on things you’re already buying! We’ve covered Ibotta, Shopkick, Coupons.com, Swagbucks and we’re all saving hundreds of dollars by now, right? RIGHT!? I’m really hoping you guys have jumped on the rebate app savings train because it’s just so […]

Splendid Spoon Review

I was excited to receive a box of products to try from Splendid Spoon this summer! They invited me to try their line of plant-based, ready-to-eat foods and delivered them right to my door. Check one in the pro column for convenience. I did receive these products free of charge in order to rate them […]

My Networks