May Recipes

I try very hard to not cook the same things over and over.  Of course we have our family favorites, but I also enjoy cooking new things.  I try to cook something new each week.  In the past, I have subscribed to many cooking magazines to get new ideas.  I would tear out recipes that interested me.  Just recently I create a new organized way to store and save these recipes.  You can read about that here - Recipe Binder.  Now I have Pinterest :) The nice thing about Pinterest is I don't have to print off the recipes.  I can pin them to my boards and quickly access them on my iPad when I am meal planning and cooking.  Here are my recipe boards if you want to take a look:
                               Yummy Snacks                                   Slow Cooker
                               Delicious Desserts                                Soups
                               Drinks                                                  Daily Dinners

                               Good Morning Breakfast                       Lunches

Here are some amazing recipes that I tried this past month.  I found all of these on Pinterest.

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken
This sandwich was amazing.  My husband and I love buffalo wings so we are always willing to try anything with the word 'buffalo' in it.  It was extremely easy to make and the fact that it is a weight watchers recipe is an added bonus.

Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake
I really try to make something special for breakfast on Sunday mornings.  I make the cinnamon rolls found in a can very often so I was excited to find some new way to cook with them.  Again, it was very easy and was a big hit with the family.

Peanut Butter Granola Wraps

I am trying to eat healthier and I hear over and over again how important it is to eat breakfast.  My mornings are very busy so I am on the lookout for quick breakfast meals that I can eat on the go while I am driving to work.  This one fit the bill and was delicious.  The cool thing is the recipe is very flexible.  You could switch out the fruit or use Nutella instead of peanut butter to get a total different flavor.

Skinny Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Scones
I could eat these all day long.  I have made these as a snack to have with a cup of coffee in the afternoon and I have made it as a breakfast on the go (what girl doesn't like chocolate for breakfast!)

Planting Flowers

Every year my mom and I go shopping for flowers to plant around the house.  Every year I have to guess at how many and what types of flowers I need.  Then I get home and have too many flowers to not enough.  I decided last year as I was planting, I need to break this cycle.

I made a list on my computer of everything that I bought and where I planted it.  This spring before my mom and I headed out to buy flowers, I put all my pots out around the yard so I knew exactly what I needed to plant.  I then opened up the flower list on my computer, made any adjustments needed, printed it off, and put it in my purse.  This list was a great help when my mom and I headed to the Amish and to Ebert's Greenhouse to get our flowers.  I bought exactly what was on my list and even jotted down some types of flowers I may want to purchase next year.

Today I planted my flowers and I was only 3 impatiens short!  What a huge difference from other years.  I did type the list as a Google Doc so instead of printing it, I could also view it on my Android phone.  This year I printed it because I wanted to be able to cross the items off as I purchased them, however I think next year I am going to try and just do it on my phone.

Master Closet Organization

After performing a one-day makeover on my master bedroom, I thought I better turn my attention to the closet.  I was also in the process of switching out my winter sweaters with my cooler spring tops so I figured no time was better than now.

We do not have very large closets in my house so we have to come creative with organization to get as much stuff in them as possible.  I started the process by completely emptying my closet and creating three piles - one pile of winter clothes that could be packed away in the basement for the season, one pile of items that needed to go back in the closet, and one pile of items that needed to find another home.

After putting all the winter clothes away and adding my spring clothes that we packed away to the pile of items that need to go back in the closet, I went through and grouped like colored clothing items together.  I then hung these up in my closet.

Then I looked at what I had left.  I have always kept my hooded sweatshirts on a shelf under the top rack of hanging tops or stacked on top of each other on the right and it has always been such a pain getting them out and keeping the pile from toppling over out of the closet.  I decided to try and put these in my dresser.  This meant that I needed to put my socks, under garments, and tank tops in the closet.  I found these rectangular bins in my basement and they fit perfectly on the shelf under the top rack of hanging tops.  I could easily slide them in and out.  I decided to put my socks in these, of course organized by color.

My undergarments and tank tops were then placed in the a couple of fabric bins that I also had in the basement.

The very top shelf of the closet used to be home to all of the bed sheet sets for our bed.  Again, I dreaded taking out the step stool each week to take down a new set (hoping it wouldn't fall down on me) and put the clean, folded set up on the shelf.  The looked at what we had stored under the bed and decided to but this stuff on the shelf and to put the sheets in a covered bin under the bed.  The stuff under the bed I look at maybe once a year so the top shelf of the closet was a much better home for these items.

Here is the final product...

So far the new organized closet has been wonderful.  I don't mind opening it and viewing inside, I have an easier time finding clothing, and it just makes getting dressed in the morning a better experience.