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Hi all!  I created a new professional blog, so I won't be posting on here anymore.  Follow me at this lovely website.  And don't be afraid to leave comments! :)

Family Photo Project

Plans, plans, plans.  Who doesn't make plans?  I tend to make too many.  Like today for instance: I had a whole list of plans and guess what happened?  One item on the list ended up taking a lot more time than expected?  That mystery task, what was it you ask? It was that adorable family photo project I started.  Oh sure, it sounds adorable.  That is until you end up sitting on the ground sorting photos for over 4 hours, only to have finished 1 photo box.  Yes, you read right.  It took over 4 hours to sort through one photo box.  I may need to amp up my schedule if I plan to finish this in a year.  All of you know that I have many more boxes to sort through.  Some of them aren't even photo-box-sized, they're huge!  Anyway, that's enough of my rant.  So here a couple of pictures that demonstrate my progress.

The first family photo box
sorted.

  

Who doesn't love floral?

 

All of the duplicate photos in the box.

Sidenote: I spent all of this time between the years 1985-2002, the majority were in 1994-1997.  It's funny to look back on old fashion trends, I especially love the huge hair in the '80s, as well as the huge shirts and leggings in the '90s; but my favorite were scrunchies.  However, sometimes fashion can haunt you when you look back on old photos.  For example:  I think I saw one too many pictures of my father wearing '80s short shorts today.  Some fashions should just be buried and forgotten.

The mystery dish was: mashed purple cauliflower!
From: my local CSA 

Praise for Biscotti: The Twice-Baked Cookie

Chocolate biscotti.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't like biscotti.  How could you not?  It's just a cookie that's extra crispy and meant for dipping.  So, why don't more people make them?  I'm sure everyone reading this has made chocolate cookies at some point.  Why not chocolate chip biscotti?  You see these fancy looking biscotti at Starbucks or your local coffee shop and sometimes can't resist buying one.  But, the prices on biscotti at these stores are crazy!  I make biscotti from most of the same basic ingredients you need for cookies.  The only difference between biscotti and a regular old cookie?  Biscotti have to bake for much, much longer.  If you're having a nice long day at home, why not mix up a batch and pop it in the oven?  It's really only a short preparation time and a long waiting period in which your house smells heavenly.

Vanilla biscotti.

I have two favorite biscotti recipes.  One takes around 40 minutes of total baking time for chocolate biscotti with chocolate chips.  I picked up this recipe from searching through cookbooks at a friend's house.  My other favorite is a vanilla biscotti.  This recipe takes around 1 1/2 hours of total baking time.  I found this one in the Pure Vanilla cookbook by: Shauna Sever, where I also found my coffee creamer recipe.

So, the

next time you think about making cookies, choose biscotti instead!

The Perfect Strawberry Smoothie

I know, I know.  The title seems pretty dramatic: The Perfect Strawberry Smoothie.  You may ask yourself, how could she possibly know how to make the perfect strawberry smoothie?  Well, let me tell you.  I've been making smoothies on a regular basis for around 3 years now.  Of all the smoothies I've made (apple cinnamon, blueberry, pumpkin pie, etc.) strawberry is by far my favorite.  I've looked at many recipes on Pinterest with varying ingredient amounts and I've been playing around with the ratios of different ingredients ever since.  I usually just eyeball the amount I put in the smoothie, but today I measured it out so that everyone can enjoy the perfect fluffy strawberry smoothie that I've discovered.

The Perfect Strawberry Smoothie

makes ~3 servings

You'll need:
2 cups frozen strawberries
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 Tbsp. plain yogurt
1 Tbsp. huckleberry honey

These are the ingredients I use.

The Perfect Strawberry Smoothie.

Get out a food processor or high power blender.  Put all of the ingredients in, in the order they are listed.  (It's important to put the honey in last, if you don't it will stick to the bottom of the processor and not mix in.)  Cover the processor (if your lid doesn't seal tightly I highly suggest covering it with a small towel as the milk is sure to spray everywhere).  Blend on high for 1 minute.  You'll want to do the full minute so that it blends some air in and gives it that extra fluffiness.  Pour into a glass and enjoy immediately.

I usually make too much of this recipe, since only Ethan and I are around to have some, that leaves 1 extra serving.  I store mine in a jar in the fridge; it'll be good for 2-3 days.  Make sure you shake it up before you drink it though because the fruit juices tend to separate out into a bottom layer.

Note: If you like denser smoothies then use less milk; if you like liquid-ier smoothies then use more milk.  Just figure out what ratio is your favorite.

Who can guess what this is?

Couponing at King Soopers

Today is a glimpse into my weekly shopping at King Soopers. I love this store because of the sales they have such as 'Buy 5 Save $5' or 'Buy 6 Save $3.' King Soopers (and all other Kroger affiliates) have sales like this frequently and they always last for two weeks starting on a Wednesday. The sale consists of buying 5 or 6 (depending on the sale) participating items, mixing and matching however you wish, and saving $5 or $3 (depending on the sale) on these items instantly at checkout.  Combine this with a coupon (and a cashback app!) and just think of the possibilities...This is the best place for me to stock up on food deals. Another great thing about King Soopers is the 'manager's discount' you can find marked on several items throughout the store. Most of these locations have a clearance section that is full of these items. However, sometimes you can also find shopping carts of these items throughout the store. These clearance items can also be found on the shelves where they're normally stocked with these lovely little 'manager's discount' stickers. You will particularly find them in their normal spots if it's a cold food item that needs to remain frozen or refrigerated.

Clearance Bakery Items.

Clearance Floral Items.

Freebie with coupon and cashback app (Shopmium).

These are a few items I picked up on my weekly trip to King Soopers.  YMMV is something people in the coupon world use a lot.  It means: Your Miles May Vary.  This is very true.  At the King Soopers where I live you can find many bakery items on clearance as well as floral items.  However, at the Kroger back where I used to live in Ohio this was not the case.  Occasionally I found some  bakery items on clearance there; although, they almost never had any nice floral items on clearance.  However, there was almost always a great selection of makeup on clearance at that location.  This is not the case where I live in Colorado.  Now start searching for those stickers and keep an eye out for the next Buy 5 Save $5 sale!  Also, if you're interested in more extensive lists of Kroger (and affiliates) deals check out this blog: this woman does all Kroger deals all the time.

Family Photo Project

Today's post is about a project I have in the works.  I'm sure every one of you has multiple family photo albums and scrapbooks around your home.  Well, I happen to have 47.  That wasn't a typo, I really do have forty-seven photo albums, scrapbooks, and memory books in my home.  My grandmother was a huge packrat when it came to photographs, and she always had them printed in triplicate.  So, between my parents albums and hers I have accumulated 47.  I don't know if any of you have ever done this or your parents did.  But, my grandmother and mother had a tendency to not finish filling in the scrapbooks or photo albums once they started.  So, many of the ones I have are only halfway full or less.  I also accumulated 9 photo boxes full of pictures as well as 3 large moving boxes full of guess what?  Yes, more photographs.  Going through my loved one's belongings and finding all of these keepsakes made me come up with an idea.  I call it my 'Family Photo Project.'   I'm attempting to weed out the extra copies of all photos as well as finish the unfinished albums (or add them to other albums) and keep it all in chronological order.  The only way to fully illustrate this undertaking is for you to see it.  So, here are some photos to illustrate the largeness of this project.  You can't tell just by looking, but so far what I've done is organize the photo albums and scrapbooks in chronological order.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me.  I have a one year timeline to finish this project, I'll be posting updates every so often...Once I make visible progress that is.

Walgreens Couponing

Here is a continuation on extreme couponing.  Since moving to Colorado, I haven't been going on as many coupon trips.  However, this week I got a few things from Walgreens.  Walgreens is a great place for couponing because of their store rewards program.  Unfortunately, they have one of the slightly more complicated programs.  There are two types of money back rewards that you can get with your purchases.  First there are points that are basically stored on your account (just bring your Walgreens card or use your phone number to access in store) that you can use on a future purchase.  They have long expiration dates usually.  The other one is called 'register rewards.'  These print out like coupons when you buy the products that are part of the deal.  These do not last as long as the points.  They last between 1-2 weeks usually.  But, if you coupon every week then they're handy to have.  Also, you can't use more coupons than items you are buying.  For example: you can't use 1 register reward and 1 manufacturer coupon on one item.  You have to buy at least two items to do that.  See how it can get a little complicated?  Once you go on a few trips there, you'll get the hang of it though.  Something else I love about Walgreens is that they frequently have deals on printing 4 x 6 photos.  I like to scrapbook and make photo albums, so this is perfect for me.  And it's a good way to use up those extra points you have on your account!  This is by no means a complete explanation of the coupon policy at Walgreens, check out the website for more information on that.  Or, better yet just ask an employee that works at your local Walgreens. Here is a link to their points program.

Clearance, coupon, and register rewards deals.

Vanilla Coffee Creamer

In my post yesterday I mentioned a new recipe I tried for coffee creamer.  I found it in Pure Vanilla by: Shauna Sever.  This book is so amazing, I read it like a novel from cover to cover.  I highly recommend checking it out.  If you don't want to go out and buy it, you could probably borrow it from your local library.  That's where I found the copy that I read.  Now this book focuses on vanilla as the central flavor to each recipe.  But, the coffee creamer recipe is very versatile.  If you want a different flavor, just add any extracts or spices your heart desires from cinnamon to almond extract.  You only need 3 ingredients to make this: 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk, 1 1/2 cups milk, half-and-half, or heavy cream (I used 2% organic milk), and 1 whole vanilla bean, spit lengthwise.  You need to combine all of these simple ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat.  Take the pan off the burner when it starts steaming (don't let it start to simmer!) and then cover and let sit for 15 minutes.  Make sure you strain it, so you don't get vanilla bean chunks, when you put it in your storage container.  I put mine in an old honey jar!  It keeps for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator and the recipe makes about 2 cups of creamer.

Vanilla coffee creamer.

Now I don't drink coffee, but my husband has at least one cup every day.  I don't think I ever want to go back to buying coffee creamer.  Have you ever read the ingredient labels on one of those fancy flavored creamers?  There are WAYYY too many obscure things in there.  This recipe is short and sweet; it gets right to the point.  Who doesn't love that?

Interested in learning more about vanilla and all of the different varieties produced in the world?  Check out Pure Vanilla by: Shauna Sever.  It's part recipes, part personal experience, and part vanilla history.  It's a great read!

Vanilla biscotti recipe from the same cookbook.

Kale Krazy

So, one of the things I enjoy doing is cooking.  I like to try new recipes and see if I can make something tasty from a pile of assorted ingredients.  I love Pinterest because of this.  I have found probably 80% of the recipes I use on a regular basis on Pinterest.  Don't get me wrong, I have a whole shelf of cookbooks that I flip through and use occasionally as well.  But, Pinterest has my heart when I comes to finding just the perfect recipe.  So, this cooking extravaganza involved kale.  I recently bought a share in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and I've been getting kale for weeks.  I know this is horrible to say, but I threw out almost all of the kale the past two weeks.  What can I say?  I tried it once and thought it was too horrendous a vegetable to ever subject myself to that bitterness again.  But, I was determined not to waste any more of my locally grown produce.  Thus began yesterday with a search on Pinterest.  I found 4 recipes and things went haywire from there.  When I cook, I tend to not stop.  For hours.  Until I can't stand any longer.  Yesterday, I cooked for around 5 and a half hours nonstop.  So....this is how I came to make everything pictured as well as a couple of dishes not pictured.  Here is a list of everything I made with my kale and with ingredients I had left over from the kale recipe: sweet potato kale and quinoa fritters, kale and quinoa patties, quinoa and tofu stir fry, quinoa and cucumber salad (with grapes), kale and potato hash, kale one pot pasta, vanilla coffee creamer, and white chocolate chip cookies.  Okay, so the last two had nothing to do with kale.  But, I can only go so many days without cookies and I had to try the coffee creamer recipe (which I actually found in a cookbook!), tutorial to come at a later date if anyone is interested.

Sweet potato kale and quinoa fritters.

Vanilla coffee creamer.

Potato and kale hash.

Sweet potato kale and quinoa fritter mixture.

Kale and quinoa patty mixture.

Cucumber and quinoa salad (with grapes).

Verdict?

All of the dishes turned out as good as I could have hoped for.  I wasn't a huge fan of the hash (it had a lot of horseradish in it), it was a bit too strong for me.  The fritters and patties are my favorites.  The stir fry and salad are good too.  The stir fry is a bit better than the salad, just because I think the salad needed some salt or soy sauce to add a little flavor. The pasta dish is okay, but the kale is a bit too obvious when I eat it, so it's not my favorite.  My husband loves the coffee creamer and according to him this batch of cookies was "the best you've ever made."  So those both turned out great.  If anyone is interested in a link to any of these recipes that I got from Pinterest just leave a comment and I'll make sure to send you the link.  Happy kale cooking everyone! 

Birthday Revelations

It's the weekend!  I hope everyone gets a chance to do something fun.  Yesterday was my 23rd birthday and I have a few photos to share from it.  To start the day I went to an art museum exhibit with my husband and some of his family.  Then, my husband and I walked around town a bit and did some shopping.  While we were out I got a couple more birthday freebies (through store rewards programs).

My Starbucks freebie.                                                                                                                                                    My Panera Bread freebie.

I also got several presents from my family.  Not all of you know this about me, but I'm kind of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanatic.  So, almost all of my presents this year were Buffy related.

  

One set of reusable produce bags (also for my birthday).                               My lovely husband cooking my birthday dinner (tofu stir fry).

 A fantastic bookstore I found while walking around town.

 So, now you know that I'm a Buffy fan and I'm also crazy about books.  I also try to be as eco-friendly as I can (which is why I got the reusable produce bags), and I like crafting (which is why I got the laminator and refills).  If anyone is in the Fort Collins area you should totally check out Old Firehouse Books.  Have a great weekend everyone!!

In Loving Memory

This blog post is overdue.  Last Tuesday would have been my mom's 61st birthday.  Some of you out there who've known me for a while might have known my mom.  But, most of you have never met her.  The last time I celebrated her birthday with her was her 49th birthday back in 2003.  My mom passed away 11 years ago from medical complications.  Every year since then I've always mentioned planning some kind of party or way to remember her and bring people together.  And every year it never happened.  I spent nearly every year with my grandparents having a solemn day in their home.  This year was different though.  This was the first year I didn't go to my grandparents' house.  The isolation of spending this birthday in my new home in Colorado spurred me to finally take action.  I bought some plants and made a window herb garden.

The garden.

This was the beginning of a new tradition for me.  Every year from now on I will buy a plant in her memory to celebrate her birthday and her life (that ended too quickly).  My mom is the reason I love flowers, she taught me almost everything I know about them.  They were always her favorite presents.  

An Introduction to Extreme Couponing

Coupons.  This word brings a lot of images to mind, some good and some bad.  Who hasn't been in line behind some crazy person hunting for coupons in their purse?  I know that I have.  I think that coupons have gotten a bad rap.  When I tell people that I'm an extreme couponer, either they think that I'm a hoarder or am just totally crazy.  Well, I'm definitely not a hoarder, and I'm not that crazy.

A freebie from a store rewards program.

Let's be honest, who doesn't like getting things for free?  I can't think of a single person.  I have been extreme couponing for about a year and a half now and I can tell you that I have saved over $2,000 so far this year with couponing.  Last year I saved over $9,000.  I definitely put that money I saved to good use.  

One of my coupon hauls.

There are a few key things to couponing, store rewards programs, sales cycles, and finally the coupons themselves.  An extreme couponer uses all of these things to find the best deals and stock up enough to last until the next sale cycle (usually 3-6 months).

A smaller coupon haul.

Couponing isn't for everyone.  It takes some dedication to get started and you do have to update your coupon binder (folio or file) every week to keep up to date.  It's embarrassing to use an expired coupon, trust me on this.  But, if you like getting the best possible deal and don't mind taking the time to work at it, then maybe couponing is for you.

My husband enjoying a freebie meal.

Another aspect of my bargain-hunting lifestyle is signing up for free samples any way I can.  One way I do this is with a website called Bzzagent.  That's where the above pictured freebie meal came from.  In order to get these freebies I fill out surveys and post reviews of the products that they send me.  Some of you might think that's too much work for too little reward.  But, it doesn't take me much time and I like to get the most bang for my buck.  Who doesn't spend time just mindlessly browsing the internet, why not get a freebie out of it?

If you liked this post and want to hear more specifics about extreme couponing, comment below and I'll work on some more specific posts.  This is just an introduction into the idea of extreme couponing.  

Unpacking and Settling In

It's been a while.  Without further ado, this post has some before and after photos of my apartment.  Before you look below at them here are some things to remember.  I only started unpacking on Saturday afternoon (so 5 days ago).  Also, the overhead lighting in here is just about as fluorescent as it gets, so the picture quality really is not that great.  (Sorry about that).  Finally, we still have just a couple of things to do (put slip covers on furniture as well as hang up 3 more things).  Well I hope you enjoy!

Before:

After:

Yes, I am aware that I have quite a lot of belongings.  But, see how everything already has it's place here?  I have several project ideas started or in the making.  I will keep you posted on what I start next.  I'm thinking I might start my family history project, I'll tell you more about it in a future post.  My next post will detail my adventures with couponing in Colorado.  Stay tuned!