do you know what tomorrow is?

Well, of course, I know it's May 1st. But around here, garage sale time is officially beginning. Our neighborhood is having a multi-family garage sale. 14 homes participating and I'm excited for tomorrow morning to come, get those boys on the bus, and sweet girl and I will walk the neighborhood searching for treasures. She is so excited. I think the boys are a bit disappointed they have to go to school. We actually shopped a bit already at a friend's house .. those darn early bird shoppers. So for $34 we got a 17' flat screen LCD monitor [for Bear], a brand new baseball mitt [for me], several almost new kitchen utensils [for me again], a leather and khaki catch-all [I don't know where but I'll find somewhere], some neat glass dishes which I can picture small banana splits filling up, a new in the box power strip [Big N], a new fiskar paper cutter [me, again cause the kids keep stealing mine] and a few other things. I took a photo and will post it tomorrow ... hopefully along with my other finds. Yippee.

do you CRAIGSLIST?

We love Craigslist. Have you ever used it? When we were finishing our basement last fall and had to move everything from our basement up into our garage for storage, we realized we just didn't want to haul everything back down. We posted several things on craigslist and made some nice pocket money. We sold everything from a toilet to a desk to a sandbox. I sold my kids' kettler tricycle, a jogger stroller, a trampoline and a box of rescue heroes. The best part of craigslist is it is local and free. yes, free. You have to be smart about it though. I never had anyone come by our house when my husband wasn't home.

You can find a job on craiglist. You can list your upcoming garage sale too.

Got some things to sell, well then check it out. There is usually at least one person out there who will want it.

Apple Enchiladas - YUMMY !!

I am always asked to bring this dessert to a Mexican themed party. It is so very easy to make and always a hit.

1 (21 ounce) can apple pie filling
6 (8 inch) flour tortillas
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray Pam in 9x13 dish. Spoon about one heaping quarter cup [or I use a soup spoon full] of pie filling evenly down the center of each tortilla. Place seam down in dish. I usually cut off a little bit of each side of the tortillas just so it fits better in the dish. After you have the dish packed full of rolled tortillas, sprinkle with cinnamon. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar and water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes. Pour sauce over enchiladas and let stand 30 minutes.
Bake in preheated oven 20 minutes, or until golden.

Before baking, I actually cut my tortillas in half with kitchen scissors. It's easier to cut when it's still cold. Cutting it after it has baked is a bit tricky.

Fantastic Mexican Dip

We went to a cook-out last Friday and it was a Mexican theme and I wanted to bring an appetizer and dessert. I liked refried beans in mexican dips, but I also like ground beef, so I combine them together and it makes for a nice blend.

1 pound lean ground beef
1 can refried beans
1 (16 ounce) jar taco sauce
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
1 (16 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 tomato, cubed (or canned diced tomatoes, drained)
2 green onions, sliced
1 (2 ounce) can sliced black olives, drained (optional)

Crumble ground beef in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, mix in the refried beans and taco sauce, stir together and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix the sour cream, cream cheese and taco seasoning mix. Spread the mixture into a medium serving dish.
Layer the sour cream mixture with beef mixture, Cheddar cheese and lettuce. Top with tomato, green onions and black olives (if desired).

Be still my heart .... organization .... little girl style

So the other day I was sitting in the den and I kept hearing these strange little noises. I had left sweet girl coloring in the kitchen, I knew the sound was coming from her, but I just couldn't figure out what she was doing. All at once I hear her hop down off the stool and comes to show me this box below. She said: "Look Mama, I took everything out and put everything back in it's right place. See I organize just like you." Ah, how sweet is she?

And then she said, "Are you going to put this on the blog?" How could I say no.

Decorators' Show House

I once again have the honor of participating in the Columbus Museum of Art's Decorators' Show House. This is an event which occurs every other year. I participated in this event in 2007 and they asked me again. If you're in town .....

Organization :-: The Pantry

This makes me smile, makes me giddy with delight. I actually have left the door open just to admire it. Am I a goof or what? I love organization. My pantry is usually fairly organized, but once in a while it needs spruced up. I wrote about it last week here. This is where it all started. I had to go through and throw out old or expired items, make sure all my cans were aligned right and the labels facing forward. I never knew how to store my onions and potatoes, so I got a basket and put in a pretty cloth napkin. I liked the look so much I did one for our bread too.

I try to keep things off the floor. I think it makes it look cluttered. I didn't know what to do with my jell-o/pudding boxes, so in my basement I found an old wire napkin holder. The jell-o boxes fit perfectly. I didn't want to take up precious space with the holder laying flat, so I put it up on its side. Now I can easily read the labels and it takes up a third of the room. Think outside the box when organizing your pantry or cabinets.

the B E S T stain remover by far

One thing I love about blogs is passing along tidbits of information to other moms. So today I share with you the BEST stain remover I have ever found. As some of you know, I have three kids ages 6, 8 and 9. That's a lot of laundry over the years and you can imagine, how many types of stains I've encountered. I've tried everything, I mean everything. You name it, I've tried it. Nothing works like the product below * Dawn Direct Foam * and a hard nail brush.

I threw away all those other bottles of stain removers and this is all I use. It takes out grease and oil stains, ketchup, chocolate, grass stains, everything. And I like the foaming action because you can use just one or two squirts on the fabric and it stays there, it doesn't run. Sometimes I use my fingernail and just scratch the stain back and forth, other times bigger stains call for a hard bristle nail brush. I swear, it's the best. Now, I haven't tried it on baby stains, formula and baby foods, because I remember nothing stains like carrots and bananas. Really though when you think about it, food stains our hands and we use soap to get it off, shouldn't that work for our clothes too?

I just keep going in circles

I'm on a roll, but yet I feel like I keep walking in circles in my house. I have about five things going at one time, but yet here I am basically starting another project, blogging. I started cleaning out the pantry (project 1) while my boys were eating breakfast before catching the bus for school. I got sidetracked, knowing I wanted to put all the boxes of jell-o in a small bin which is in the basement. Meanwhile, walk the boys out the garage door, I grabbed all the snow boots to take downstairs to storage bins (project 2), I realize I must sweep that area where the boots were stored (project 3). While sweeping I think I might as well wash all the snowpants, hats, gloves, etc. and get them all put away with the boots (project 4 and now two loads of laundry later). Take a small break to take sweet girl to a playdate. The snowpants freed up a shelf in my mudroom which created a new project for me (project 5) which was to organize three cupboards above my washer/dryer/utility sink and I decided to put all the school supplies and crafts in those cupboards, which freed up an entire big cupboard in my kitchen. ..... which I'm getting ready to sweep out and start filling with big platters and party bowls, things which have been stored in my pantry. So really project 6 is coming full circle for me. It all started in the pantry. And it's only noon!!