Teen Tile Style

Isn't it hard to keep your kids or teens organized?  It's hard enough keeping myself straight, but to be responsible for the plans and sanity of another human being is pretty crazy.  As Ashley gets older, we want her to be more aware and responsible, as well as in control, of her life.  That's why we did this...

There are a few spaces on Ash's walls of her lovely redecorated room that are bare.  I was trying to think of what to put in these spots that would be fun and practical for her.  She really loved the same systems that I love from Pottery Barn, but to buy it all would have cost me about $120!!!

They are cute, but I can't fathom spending that much money, when there are better options out there.  So, I went to JoAnn's, armed with a whole bunch of coupons (I had 3 different 40% off coupons, plus a 15% off an entire order, and they let me use them all!) and I found these.

Each piece was 7.99, plus I bought a set of colorful dry erase markers for her to use.  The total of them all was around $25, but then with all my coupons I spent more like $15.   I came home and got to work.  The cork boards could be attached to the walls with Command strips, while the magnetic calendar and white board {blue, actually} had to be attached with screws.  Overall it didn't take me that long to put it all up there, maybe 30 minutes?  With the one cork board, I wanted to make it pretty so I bought really sweet ribbon and crisscrossed it up on there.

The colors match her room, and her style, perfectly.  Now she can stick all her fun pictures up in there:)  I like using the white board to remind her of her chores and responsibilities.  I'm fairly certain she wipes it off as soon as she gets back to her room, lol.

I guess that one is more for me than her;)  She's already filled up her calendar with all the fun this she is doing this month {PS, it's her first high school homecoming!!  EEK!} so I think it's useful for her to see her month all planned out.  I'm always trying to encourage her to keep her plans and days straight.  She's a busy kid!

I'm happy that I found a similar system for her, but at a fraction of the cost.  It fills up some of the empty wall space in her room, too.

So now she has her own calendar to fill out and keep up with for her personal events, while we have our family one downstairs that Dave & I fill out and keep track of.  Everyone is going to be so organized around here when it comes to planning and remembering important things!  Yipee!!

Menu Planning 2013

Sometimes thinking about dinner and planning dinner every night drives me crazy.  I really do love to cook, but when I don't plan our meals, I fail our meals.  We go out to eat WAY too much, and I honestly spend WAY too much on groceries.  The result?  We spend a lot of money on food, when we really don't need to!

I try really hard to menu plan every weekend.  I have this cute thing on the wall in my kitchen...

It's just a frame, spray painted of course, with some pretty paper inside of it.  I write our meals right on the glass with a dry erase marker, and then wipe it clean every week and start again.

Having that helps a lot when planning our meals because I have a daily, visual reminder of what I am cooking each night.  But, it's not enough.  I usually plan around what I have, or what I buy, when really it should be the other way around.  I need to plan first, then buy.  I know this.  I know it saves money.  I know it saves time.  I know that it keeps me from buying pointless things that we don't need.  So why don't I do it?  I have no idea!!!

I've decided to try.  I've been meaning to try, and I never set aside time to figure it all out.  I've been reading some great blog posts about menu planning.  This one in particular over at Life{in}Grace.  She started a month of planning meals in October, and she links back to some really great posts she wrote earlier this year. Seriously, you should read them!  

I'm loving some of the recipes she posted for her October meals, and I am definitely going to try them!  Be looking for some pics and reviews of some yummy meals!!  I've printed about a dozen of them.  I also like her idea of using Google Calendar and syncing it to my iPhone, so I am going to try that.  I've already started...

It's going to take me a while to get this up and running, but I'll post more {and better} pictures when I do.  You can read all about it here, but basically the idea is you plan your meals on this calendar, you can set to repeat them as often as you like, and then sync with your phone and have all your meals AND the recipes right there in the palm of your hand every day.  It's also very cool because once you do this planning out for a month or two or three, you basically have a lifetime of dinners planned and only need to tweak it and add to it as necessary.  We have family favorites that I make at least once a month, sometimes twice, so that repeat option is very cool.  I'm excited to try this!

So, with the recipes I've printed out and some tried and true meals we love, I'm going to make a grocery list based off what we need for next week and only buy those items, plus the everyday things like milk and eggs, this weekend at the store.  I'm hoping it'll help my shopping ADHD!

Oh and on Monday I made something really yummy that I read about over at Young House Love {I really love to read blogs} They are called Savory Crescent Chicken Squares and they were a hit with my family.  I made them with a salad.  I like this recipe because you can jazz it up if you want!  Next time I am definitely adding mushrooms.  Oh and sidebar...I needed 2 tubes of the crescent rolls for this, it made a lot of filling?  You can keep it a little healthier by using low fat cream cheese, and the low fat rolls.

And while we are talking blogs and food, if you haven't been introduced to Pioneer Woman, you need to be!!  I absolutely love her blog and her cookbooks are without a doubt some of my favorites.  She makes seriously awesome food.  She's on Food Network now too, which is so cool!  You'll fall in love with her, I know it!

I'll keep you updated with the efforts and results of my menu planning research and experiments.  I'm looking forward to feeling more 'together' with this whole dinner thing.  There just something about know what's for dinner that makes me feel like I have my life together, know what I mean?

Cheers!

Book review

I just finished reading this series, Caster Chronicles {Beautiful Creatures} yesterday.  It took me maybe...a month to finish these books?  Not because I didn't enjoy them but with work and life and what not I just don't have the time to read like I did in the summer.  I would read when I got home, and before bed, and on the weekends, whenever I could steal some time.  These were all fairly long books too, so I guess that didn't help!

What to say about this series?  I liked it.  Not as much as Harry Potter {not one book will ever come close} or Twilight or any of my other favorites, but it was still a good series.  It did get a little weird for me towards the end, maybe a little too dark and witch-crafty, but not so much that I wanted to stop reading it.  The first book was my favorite, boy meets Caster girl and there are tons of supernatural events that try to keep them apart...spells, family, death, going "Dark", etc.  I love the first person voice of the main character, Ethan.  Lena got kind of annoying in books 2 and 3, and book 4 was just plain weird but at that point in a series you can't just give up!  I never saw it going the way it did, which I guess makes it a good story because it did totally surprise me.

I think if you enjoy Young Adult Lit with some Paranormal, as I do, then you will enjoy the story of this series.  I was eager to find out what happens and that is a telltale sign that I am enjoying myself.  If reading about witch craft and dealing with dark subjects upsets you, then I would stay away.  I can handle a lot of "dark" subjects, and this teetered on the edge of what I can tolerate.  The story was good enough to keep me interested, though, so I kept on reading.

Oh and by the way - the movie is terrible.  They change so much, and the ending isn't even the same {I'm guessing because they only are making one movie?} so pleeeeeease don't judge the book by the movie!  For the record I read the 1st book before I watched the movie.  Actually, the movie is what got me to read the book!  When I saw that it was coming out, I thought, "Oh wow, those books are good enough to be movies...I need to read them!" and so I did.  Bleh, what a stinky movie!

I am getting that "hangover" that us readers experience after reading a series.  I'm sort of lost and wondering what to read next.  I think I need a few days to think about the books and get over the experience.  Yes, I have book nerd problems;)  {Notice how I used a full sentence there?  Regular spaced language!?!  NOT #booknerdproblems.  I hate hashtags.  Hashtags are dead to me.  These guys agree}

Anyways, back to the series...I'm giving it 3 ears.

I guess I should introduce my new rating system.  My love for Disney and books is getting married by way of a rating system for what I read.  Here it is!

Isn't that cute?  Here is how I am using it:

1 ear= I did not like the book, I probably didn't finish it.
2 ears= I got through this book, but I wanted to give up most of the time.
3 ears= I liked this book, it was good & interesting, but I probably won't read it again.
4 ears= I really enjoyed this book and I may read it again.
5 ears= I loved this book so much that not only am I going to reread it but I am going to tell everyone I know they should read it and love it as much as I do!!!

Now I'm pondering on which book to read next.  I have about 20 here at the house that I need to read, the new Dan Brown, some Nicholas Sparks I haven't read, some Disney bios and books, etc.  I can't decided what I want to get into next.  What are you reading?!

Weekend update

It seems the more I want the weekends to slow down, the faster they go.  Sometimes, I feel that it's almost cruel that we have to work hard, really hard, 5 days a week for over 8 hours and then only have 2 days off.  If you are like me...the weekend feels like it's barely started and then it's over.

Friday night is always a bust because I am so darn tired.  Dave & I will go out to dinner early, like right after I get home.  He usually sleeps most of the day and doesn't eat when he wakes up so he is hungry, and I am tired and ready to relax for the night.  So we choose a place to enjoy dinner, and then veg on the couch the rest of the evening.  It is nice to relax together, but I am usually asleep by 10.  Wooooo, party animal!!!

Saturday is the best day of the whole weekend.  A whole day ahead of me, an evening where I don't have to worry about going to bed at any certain time, and plenty of energy to tackle all my to dos and spend time with fam.  Love it!

Sunday is just...mean.  I mean, besides the church-going, praising-the-Lord part, which I love...all I do is worry about Monday and all that I have to do.  I really try not to, but I can't keep work off my mind these days because it's so busy!

See what I mean?  It goes by fast, and really it only feels like one day off.  I really need to start looking at it a little better, be more positive.  What happened to that Tina?  I think I killed her!

Anyways, despite it's hurry to leave me, this weekend was really nice.  Friday Dave & I went to Havre de Grace, a little town on the Susquehanna that we love to visit.  We ate dinner at Laurrapin, a cute little bistro/grille in the middle of town that we enjoy now and then.  They have great food.  Right now they have an Octoberfest type menu going on, really fun!  I love that they do farm-to-table too.  That's just awesome!  After dinner we crashed, I fell asleep on the couch almost right away.  It was barely 9:00pm.  I'm so ashamed...

Saturday mornings are always reserved for my mom.  Let me tell you about my mom.  She is awesome.   She is totally my best friend.  I pick her up and head to the Bel Air Farmers market in town to buy fresh veggies, we go almost every week!  Then, we usually hit up Wegman's for a while.  We'll scoot around with our carts and fountain sodas, trying all the samples out and buying things we totally don't need but love to try.  Wegmans is the best, they have so many things that other stores don't have and I love them for it.  Sometimes after that, we'll go across the street to Lemon n' Ginger Asian Grille for sushi.  It's sort of funny that we drop money on groceries and then go out to eat.  We laugh about it over our miso soup;)  We may head to ShopRite or Safeway or HomeGoods or Target next, depending on our moods.  Yesterday, we mixed it up a bit and went to Arby's since mom had a coupon for 2 meals for $7.99.  I forgot how yummy Arby's is!  Then we head home, we are usually tired at this point because we've been shopping for hours (about 9-2 every Sat!)  It's a nice little tradition we've got going, and especially good for her since Dad & Jonathan are usually screaming or crying over this team on Saturdays.

Dave had to work last night so I busied myself with reading, organizing the house, cleaning our deck and 1st floor and watching some Friends.  Sometimes it's nice to stay home and get stuff done.  When I have the house to myself on these nights, I like to be productive!!  I also worked on my book a little bit.  I have about 60 pages so far!  It's totally not good at all, but I am writing it all out and will go back and fix the bad parts.  It'll take me 20 years, but I am going to write it!

Today we didn't go to church (Gasp!  Heathens!!) since Dave was sleeping and I usually take Sunday mornings after he works to force myself to rest, sleep, or read.  I'm very busy, so it takes a lot for me to sit still for a bit.  I have to pencil in that chill time.  I ran some errands, sort of watched the Ravens game (boo) and waited for the hubs to wake up.  Today was my parents 40th wedding anniversary which is just so sweet and wonderful.  Jonathan and I (and Dave and Krystal) took them out to dinner to their favorite, Liberatore's, and we had a nice family dinner.  I meant to snap a picture of them tonight.  Darn.  I'm getting terrible at remembering to document life!!!  Anyways, we surprised them with a gift card to use on their anniversary trip to NYC (my parents LOVE NYC, and go a few times a year.  Who doesn't love NYC?!?!)  Oh here, I found a great pic of them from last winter when we all went to NYC together...

Aren't they so sweet?  They are the best.  I know everyone thinks that about their parents, but I really mean it.  They are both retired now and I have never seen them so relaxed and happy about life.  It really is wonderful.  Now they've been married 40 years!!!  We came home after dinner and Dave watched football while I read and then watch Once Upon a Time.  Ash came home from youth, and we are getting ready for the long week ahead.  Whew!

So that was my weekend.  Not too crazy, but definitely not BLAND either;)  I enjoyed the time with my family, with Dave, on my own (what song am I singing right now?) with time to get stuff done.  What did you do this weekend?!?! {I ask even though I know no one will answer!}

DIY Whiteboard Calendar

Ok soooo...I wanted to invest in a family calendar.  You know, one big calendar where we could post all of our daily things like Dave's work schedule, Ashley's teenager stuff, TV shows we don't want to miss (yes, I need a calendar to remind me of this!!) important events and trips.  I looked on Pinterest and saw some great ideas.  None of them seemed big enough for what I wanted, hardly any space to write in.  Then I looked around at stores, I really love this system from Pottery Barn, but I don't need ALL that stuff, just the calendar...

I just don't want to pay $60 something for just the calendar.  No thank you!  I looked at JoAnn's while I was there the other day, everything looked too cheap or small.  I needed the perfect thing.  I have the perfect spot for it, but I didn't want to settle for just any ol' calendar.  Then, I found this...

A blogger over at The 36th Avenue made this out of self-adhesive vinyl paper and washi tape.  I LOVED IT!!!  AND!!!   It is definitely the most frugal of ideas that I have looked into, besides settling for a cheapo calendar that is NOT cute.  This one is TOTALLY cute!!  She mounted this to the side of her fridge, so hers is also magnetic (lucky) but I don't have that option because of how our kitchen is set up.  Boo...She's got a great little family station set up here!

Drool!

Anyways.  I got to work on making my own DIY whiteboard calendar.  I looked all over for high gloss vinyl, which she used for hers, but I couldn't find something that I knew for sure would work for my project.  Enter Amazon.  Gotta love them.  They had this!

Hello!!??  That is exactly what I am looking for!!!  It's self-adhesive White Board paper.  LOVE IT!  For $22 and some change, I hit 'buy' and waited for it to arrive.  In the mean time, I bought some decorative tape from JoAnn's to help spruce up the project.

Today, my paper arrived and after work, I got to...um...work on it.  Haha.  I made sure the spot on the wall was clean and dry...its the wall in the pic below, on the left as you head to our kitchen/basement/bathroom/pantry.  Big ol' empty space that I didn't want to put artwork in, it's too awkward with that big AC vent.  It is a perfect spot for a calendar, because you can't see it from the kitchen or dining or family room, it's sort of hidden away.  We like to put our Disney countdowns here, I guess they will have to go underneath!

I un-rolled the white board paper and cut off the end since it seemed a little dinged up.  I cut a piece that was roughly 24x24 inches.  A big square.  Then, I laid it out on the table and weighed it down with some random stuff to get the curl out of it.

After 30 minutes or so of waiting around, it was ready and less curlier.  I got to work putting it up on the wall.  I  thought I would need Dave to help me get it straight and lump-less, but I ended up doing OK on my own.

The edges I cut weren't perfectly straight, but I fixed that with the decorative tape.  That part I thought would be tricky too - but it wasn't bad either!

Here's my tape!  I wanted to do something fun and colorful, but then I realized I didn't want it to look too crazy.  So I picked the B/W polka dots because it was still fun, but more neutral then the others I liked.  

I grabbed my level for this part, just to make sure I was getting straight lines, and started taping away!  I love how it outlines the whole thing...makes it look fancy pantsy!

The paper was easy to put on without bubbles, so I can highly recommend this if you are interested in making one.  Super easy!

After the outline I got started on the calendar part of things.  Doesn't it look so fun?!  After eyeballing the weeks and days, I got to the fun part...filling it in!

Yeah, I started with October because there are only a few days left of September, and I didn't see the need to fill out the calendar just for a few measly days;)

I still have some filling in to do, but my arms were starting to get tired at this point.  It's been a long day, but I am really excited to have this calendar up and proud of myself because it only cost me $27 (paper + the decorative tape) to do the whole thing!  Now we can keep track of who goes where and when and how and all that good-to-know stuff.  I love being organized, don't you!?

Cheers!