New on DVD and FF Rec

The newest Transformer movie, Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, is being released this Friday, Sept. 30th.  I have to say, when I saw this movie in the theater I was really impressed.  I know it is not very girly to say but the effects were stellar and the new female lead is much better than the old one.  Here is a list of places and prices where you can get the movie on Friday:

                          Amazon.com:   2-Disc B-ray+DVD = $19.99

                                                                        DVD = $16.99

                                    Target:   2-Disc B-ray+DVD = $20.00

                                                                        DVD = $16.00

                                Walmart:    2-Disc B-ray+DVD = $19.96

                                                                        DVD = $16.96

                                Safeway:    2 Disc B-ray+DVD = $23.99

                                                                        DVD = $16.99

                   Safeway is offering (1) 2-liter of Pepsi

                   when you buy the movie between 9/30/11-10/7/11

Fan-Fiction Rec of the Week:     Work in Progress by araeo

This is a Twilight fic and is all-human, alternate universe.  Bella, Edward and the usual suspects are adults living in Seattle.  They hit it off after a klutzy accident and E awakens B's ovaries, who never hesitate to voice their pervy opinion in B's head.  Rated M for language and lemons.

This story is hilarious as Bella is in constant conversation with her ovaries in regards to the sexy, Dr. Edward.    

Read this one for a good laugh and some sexy times remember lemons = sex so if you are not 18 or into that sort of thing please do not read!      

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!  Do something nice for yourself :)                                          

Household Uses For Lemons

Lemons are common place in my household especially when the tree in our backyard is ready to be picked.   While there are many uses for lemons in cooking and baking there are also many ways to use lemons to help keep your kitchen clean and smelling fresh.  So the next time you use a lemon to flavor your favorite dish don't throw the rind away try these lemony fresh tips.

Tea Kettle: fill your teakettle with water and add a handful of lemon rinds.  Bring to a boil then turn of the heat.  Let it sit for about an hour, drain, and rinse well.  This will get rid of those mineral deposits.

Coffee Pot:  (not the machine but the carafe)  add ice, salt, and lemon rinds to the empty pot.  Swirl the carafe for a minute or two, then drain and rinse well.  This will leave your pot nice and sparkly.

Garbage Disposal:  when I am done with a lemon whether I have used it for cooking or cleaning I never throw them in the trash can.  I chop them up and throw them in the garbage disposal.  This cleans the disposal and makes the kitchen smell great.  I also do this with orange peels.

Microwave:  I always feel really weird about using chemical cleaners for the inside of the microwave...it just doesn't seem right.  Try this instead;  fill a microwave safe bowl half full with water and add  some lemon rinds. Heat on high for about 5 minutes until the water is boiling and condensation has accumulated on the side, top, and bottom of the microwave.  Very carefully remove the hot bowl and use a cloth to wipe away the splatters.

I hope these tips are useful to you, let me know how they worked!  Have a HAPPY TUESDAY!

Great Deals and Coupon Tip

There are some great deals happening this week on groceries.  Safeway is having a huge stock up sale.  If you purchase at least 8 of the 3,000 items included in the sale you will receive an additional $.50 off each item.  Some of those items have coupons available for additional savings.  Here are some of the deals I took advantage of (only valid through 9/27):

Philidelphia Cream Cheese (2 sm. tubs):   Reg. price: 6.98

                                                               Card Svgs:   .40 -

                                                               J4U eCpn: 3.29 -

                                                               Store Cpn: 3.29 -

                                                               Mfg. Cpn : 1.00 -

So, I ended up making $1.00 on this but I am not sure I was suppose to. I am not all that knowledgeable on the J4U eCoupons and how they interact with other coupons but I was watching when the cashier scanned all of my coupons and he did not have to manually enter anything.  Essentially I had 2 B1G1F coupons and a $1/2 coupon. 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grahams (1box ea.):   Reg. price:    $12.57

                                                                                                         Card Svgs:        6.90 -

                                                                                                         Mfg. Cpn :        1.00 -

That is three boxes of cereal for $4.67 or $1.55 each!

Kleenex Tissues (2 boxes):   Reg. Price: $3.98

                                            Store Cpn:  2.00 -

                                            Mfg. Cpn :    .50-

Two boxes of Kleenex for $1.48 or $.75 each!

Here is my coupon tip of the week:  When sitting down to clip your coupons make it easier by making the double paged inserts into single paged ones.  The pages will separate easily if you tear down the center fold. This gives you a small piece of paper to deal with while cutting.

HAPPY MONDAY!

Fall is in the air...why is it still in the 90s?

The kids are back in school and all is quiet on the home-front...for a couple of hours at least.  Fall is my favorite time of year for a number of reasons.  I LOVE fall decorations, baking cookies and other treats, the generosity that tends to flow in people during this time of year, trips to the pumpkin patch, the fall leaves, the cooling weather, I could go on and on. Right now though I am a bit frustrated...do you want to know why? I am frustrated because I am fully ready to bake, decorate, collect fall leaves and right about now it is 95 degrees outside!  If fall is my favorite season Indian summer is my least favorite! It is that time of year when mother nature teases us into a week's worth of cooler weather and then BAM! it is hotter than Hades again.  So since the weather is warm and the growing season for summer vegetables is coming to an end, my family and I will be clearing the garden from the deteriorating cucumber, tomato, and green bean plants to prepare it for some fall spinach, lettuce, and snap peas this weekend. 

Our back yard garden has been the source of much family bonding.  Gardening provides so many learning opportunities including learning about the environment, sustainability, growth cycles, good bugs/bad bugs, health and nutrition, working together and so much more.  We have a small back yard so we use the square foot gardening method.  If you have not heard of this you need to check it out!  We have been able to grow so many fruits and veggies in a VERY small area.  You can learn more about square foot gardening in Mel Bartholomew's book All New Square Foot Gardening or on the SFG website .  Square foot gardening can be used year round (yes, even in a snowy winter!) so go take a look! 

What to do with those berries?

When I was at the grocery store the other day they had raspberries on sale buy 1 get 2 free.  I bought them of course but I knew I wouldn't be able to use them all before they went bad.  Then my amazing sister reminded me that I could freeze them!  This will work with most berries, peaches, grapes, melons, and more.  All you have to do is cut up your fruit to the desired size,  line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap, arrange the fruit in a single layer, and put in the freezer.  Once the fruit is frozen you can transfer it to freezer bags for later use.  This method ensures you don't end up with a giant blob of frozen fruit!

This is my favorite buttermilk raspberry muffin recipe from AllRecipes.com :

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries*

Directions

1. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add egg and buttermilk; mix just until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in berries. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes or until browned.

Footnotes

• *Editor's Note: Frozen berries may be used if thawed and well drained.
  
  
  This recipe is super easy to make and you can substitute other fruit and berries for the raspberries and add small chunks of cream cheese for a different flavor.  I also like to add a crumb topping before baking by mixing 1/3 cup packed brown sugar and 1 tablespoon flour, then add 1 tablespoon of cold butter and mix with a fork or you hands until crumbly.
  
  
  Give it a try!!  HAPPY THURSDAY!

Nail Polish and Reading

I don't go and get pedicures very often...usually only in the late spring when I start wearing sandals and flip flops again, but I do like to keep my toes polished.  Every season the cosmetic companies come out with new colors so I like to pick up a couple.  This weekend at Walgreen's I picked up a few new shades of Revlon's Top Speed nail polish and got a pretty good deal.  They have Revlon on sale 40% off and if you spend $10 or more you get $3 back in register rewards.  There are also some $1 off coupons available out there (my Wags had a tear pad in the store at the cosmetics counter) so after sale price, coupons and register rewards you could potentially pay $1.89 each when you buy three.  That is a pretty good deal for some good quality polish yeah? At the very least go and check out the new shades for Fall!

Fan-fiction has become an obsession of mine in the last two years and while I wish I had a knack for creative writing I really don't so I stick to reading. There is fan-fiction for everything from books to movies to TV shows.  I am particular to Twilight fan-fiction myself and would like to use this venue to recommend/review whatever I happen to be reading.  While there are fics available for every age group I tend to gravitate towards the more "mature" selections.  Saying that, most of my rec's and reviews will be in that category. Right now I am currently reading A Simple Twist of Fate by WellMadeMistake over at Fanfiction.net .  It is a short and sweet, all-human, love story between college-age Edward and Bella. Here is the summary from the website:

AU, All Human Edward has moved cross country from Washington to Florida to attend school after ending a nasty relationship, only to find himself instantly attracted to a beautiful brunette he sees in traffic. Rated M for language and lemons.

FYI: AU=alternate universe; lemons=sex scenes

Check out A Simple Twist of Fate here.

Have a HAPPY WEDNESDAY and do at least one thing to indulge yourself!

Shiny Sinks?

Ahhhh.....cleaning my favorite task.  Yeah, not really.  As I've said before cleaning is not my favorite thing.  I try to avoid it at all cost.  The problem is that I can't stand to live in a dirty house.  I came across a website one day that kinda changed my life: www.flylady.net .  This woman has amazing ideas on how to keep your home clean and clutter free without spending all of your time cleaning.  Her method is based in the concept of spending 15-30 minutes at a time on a task whether it is cleaning the kitchen, organizing your bills, or scrubbing your toilets.  I found that if I set a timer and know that I am only going to spend 20 minutes going through my sons' room, it doesn't seem like such an overwhelming task.  The Flylady has a daily email you can subscribe to that presents a task for the day which is great to get you started.  After several weeks of doing this I learned a lot and was able to create a schedule that fit my family's needs.  Flylady also has a section called baby steps that really helped to get the ball rolling for me and I would like to share the first baby-step with you.  This is something I now do once a month....here is an excerpt from FlyLady.net :

Shiny Sink 101

Note: Follow this procedure the first time you shine your sink. You do NOT need to follow this method everyday. Just keep up the shine with a little window cleaner.
Dear Friends,
I want you to smile from ear to ear when you gaze upon your shiny sink.
I have heard every excuse in the world. Even old sinks can look new again with a little elbow grease.
Here is how you do it:
BE SURE AND RINSE WELL BETWEEN EACH STEP OF THE WAY!

1. Take all the dishes out of the sink.
2. Run some very hot water into the sink. Fill to the rim. Only do one side at a time. Then, pour a cup of household bleach into the hot water. Let it sit for 1 hour. Now, pull the plug with a pair of tongs. If you don't have tongs, then scoop some of the water out of the sink into the other sink and use your hand to pull the plug (wear gloves and don't get the bleach-water on your clothes).
3. Rinse your sink well.
4. Use some cleanser (Comet, Ajax, or Baking Soda) and scrub your sink. Ensure you rinse ALL of the cleanser from the sink.
5. Take a sharp edge and clean around the rim of the sink, just like you would clean dirt out from under your fingernails.
6. Clean around the faucets too. You may need an old toothbrush or dental floss.
7. Now, get out your window cleaner, I use Windex, and give it a good shine.
8. If you still don't like the way it looks, then you could try some car wax. Just know in your heart that you have cleaned it very well now and it doesn't have to be perfect. Our perfectionism is what got us in this situation in the first place.
9. Every time you run water in your sink, take your clean dishtowel and dry it out (I lay out a clean one, every night with my before bedtime routine). Before you know it, you will be doing this everytime you leave your kitchen. The rest of the family will too. No more water spots. You will have a clean and shiny sink.
10. Don't have a fit if someone doesn't take as much pride in your sink as you do. It is very easy to fix. You have already done the hard part. You will never have to go through this process again. Daily maintenance will keep it looking this way all the time. Nasty hurtful word are not as easy to repair. Just be sure and tell your family what you are trying to do. They will think you have gone crazy.
11. If you don't have a dishwasher, don't worry. A dishwasher is just a dirty dish disposal. Clean out a place under your sink and put a dishpan in there. Teach your family, that instead of putting their dirty dishes and glasses in the sink, place them into the dish pan. Get into the habit of putting your dishes away as soon as they have been washed and are dry. No more leaving the dish drying rack on the counter or in the sink. Put it away under the sink when you have finished. If your old one is nasty, you may want to soak it in the sink full of bleach water at the same time you soak the sink or go buy a new set.
12. To insure that your family remembers this, put a note in the sink. It will get their attention and remind them where to put the dishes. Be patient! They have never been taught either. It is going to take some practice.

Now if you have a stainless steel sink, I recommend all of the above directions with one extra instruction added: after you soak your sink, rinse well, and use SOS pads to scrub it. This will buff the finish. It will look like new.
If you still can't get it to shine after the Windex, put a light coat of lemon oil or olive oil on it. I mean just a tiny bit on a cloth and rub it. This will make you smile. Some people have had very good results from Bar Keepers Friend.
Go Shine Your Sink!
FlyLadyLast note: ensure you don't mix cleansers like Comet, etc. with Windex (or other ammonia based cleaners), you can create dangerous gases! It is worth repeating: rinse well between each step.

  Give it a shot, you won't be disappointed!  The FlyLady also has a book called Sink Reflections that can be purchased HERE.  Next week:  homemade household cleaners....do they work?  HAPPY TUESDAY!