Home Maid Simple

Category: Uncategorized

  • Ultimate Blog Party 2011

    Ultimate Blog Party 2011

    Ultimate Blog Party 2011
     Head over to 5 Minutes for Mom to join in the fun, and win some prizes!!!
    A little about me – I’m a stay at home mom to 3 adorable little Princess’ (you can read about our adventures HERE).  
    I am married to handsome, wonderful, amazing High School Band Director
    I started Home Maid Simple as a way to get my personal life and home in order.  I felt I was living in chaos and couldn’t enjoy my family or my home (apartment living here) if I didn’t get it organized. I also thought if I had people reading about and seeing my messy home I’d have more motivation (it worked!).  Little did I know I would make some great friends through blogging.  
    So what exactly do I blog about? Just about anything and everything around the home.  If I do something that makes my home feel more like a Home, I post about it.  Topics range from cleaning, organizing, cooking, exercise, and soon gardening!  In just a short time I’ve ventured out to also include reviews and giveaways.  Although they are periodic and just a side to the blog, it’s been a lot of fun.  I’ve got to “meet” a lot of great people with home owned businesses, and work with some larger companies.  In fact, make sure you stop by later today to enter our first giveaway for The Big Moving Event! (you can find the first giveaway HERE!)
    The Big Moving Event is a month long event you do not want to miss!  I’ll have featured etsy shops, giveaways, and pictures as we move into our first home! Which by the way, we closed on Tuesday and are very proud first time home owners!
    I love comments and followers, but I only want you here, if YOU want to be here (and I hope you do). 
    And I guess I’ll leave you with a picture of me…so you feel like you know me too, and not just my family : P
    Sorry you just can’t get a picture of me without some family!

  • Whole Wheat Banana Mango Bread

    Originally this would’ve been my Tuesday tip, but it’s now thursday. Life gets busy when you’re trying to move!  
    I went late night shopping with my neighbor yesterday.  She shops sales, and pretty much has prices memorized. So she KNOWS what a good deal is.  We left the kids at home with the dads, which really made for a peaceful shopping trip.  Whoa, little ramble there. Back to the point!
    There was a basket of overripe bananas on sale (ok apparently ripe bananas are cheaper elsewhere, but that didn’t stop me).  I love buying overripe bananas! It means instant banana bread, no waiting and hoping no one eats the ripe bananas before I can make the bread.  Now I purposely bought one less banana, because I wanted to experiment! 
    Here is the recipe I created, with my mom’s recipe as a base. See if you can find my cooking tip!

    Whole Wheat Banana Mango Bread
    Ingredients
    – 1 cup shortening
    – 2 cups sugar
    – 4 overripe bananas
    -4 eggs
    – 3.5oz banana mango baby food
    – 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
    – not quite 2 tsp baking soda
    -1 tsp salt
    Directions
    1. Mix the first 5 ingredients together.
    2. In a separate bowl mix the last 3 ingredients.
    3. Add the dry to the wet, and mix well
    4. Grease 2 loaf pans. Pour batter in. Bake at 350 F for 75 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean
    Did you find the tip? It was an ingredient in the wet mixture.  That’s right, baby food!  We have an 11 month old who has decided to stop eating most baby foods.  She much prefers “real” food.  Last fall we stocked up, and I mean stocked up on baby food.  So what in the world was I going to do with all this baby food? Cook with it of course.  It will add some extra nutrients to our food, and works great when missing a simple ingredient (like one banana).  The plus side, I couldn’t taste the mango, but the banana flavor popped out more. 
  • Wordless Wednesday: Moving with a Climber

    Wordless Wednesday: Moving with a Climber

    Enough said
  • We’re Moving!!!

    We’re Moving!!!

    I really had doubts that this would ever happen!  But it is!  We are moving into our first official home this week!  We’ve got lots to do, and not a lot of time, but I believe it will all go smoothly.  Here’s my checklist – 
    Tuesday – sign papers, officially close
    Wednesday – get keys between 3-5pm.  Start moving the storage unit. 7pm Dad’s coming to help move large items from the storage unit.
    Thursday – Finish off storage unit (really, why pay another month if we don’t have to?)
    Friday – Start painting the kids rooms.  We’ll paint the rest of the house as we live there and figure out our style
    Saturday – Finish painting, start removing mice infested shelving in cold storage room
    First full week in April is Spring Break (Mark is a school teacher, so yay!). We will move the rest of our stuff, and spend time unpacking and enjoying the new home.  I’ll get out in the garden that week if the weather is nice, and see what kind of good stuff is growing, and what I want to plant.  I’m open to suggestions for a first time gardener!


    Here’s a teaser of what will be Princess V’s room

    Way too much color for me.  It will probably end up all pink, or all purple. We’re letting Princess V choose.


    And just a reminder, Friday is April 1st.  That means our Big Moving Event will be kicking off.  We’ve got at least 5 giveaways (may end up with 1 or 2 more).  So make sure you come back for your chance to win!
  • Pepper(s)

    Pepper(s)

    As I was cooking dinner last night, I found this.  I’ve never seen a pepper growing inside a pepper before, and it looked pretty cool!  After taking the picture I decided to examine it closer (I was curious). I found another smaller pepper growing on the other side as well.  All these peppers started to get me excited for gardening!  We close on our home in 5 days!! It’s already landscaped and has some great garden space.  This pepper inspired me last night.  I’m going to plant some peppers.  I may even just plant the seeds from the pepper.  I’ve always bought the seed packets, so I have no idea how it will turn out.  What is the difference?
  • Wordless Wednesday: Perspective of a 4year old

    Wordless Wednesday: Perspective of a 4year old

  • Shopping Trip

    Shopping Trip

    Whoo, I was a little worried about this mornings shopping trip.  I had all 3 kids, and I wanted to go to a couple different stores.  I’ve never done the multiple stores shopping before.  My kids barely can make it through one store without a meltdown from either them or me. I spent naptime yesterday going through Sunday coupons and ads, and making a meal plan for the week.  
    Here is what we got!
    I spent $35 on all this plus some produce (onion, pepper, and broccoli).
    That still seems like a lot to me, looking at all this (compared to what I’ve seen some get). But then I looked at my savings.  Normally, all this would’ve cost me about $50.  I’d say that’s a pretty good savings.  And just to add more perspective, last week I spent $58 and didn’t use any coupons.  
    Now I have a question for you.  I keep getting these coupons for Farmland Deli Meats.  But I can’t seem to find who sells them.  If I could’ve used that coupon, I would’ve saved even more, and been able to get more than just one package of meat.  So who sells Farmland Deli Meats? Anyone know?
  • Flowers!

    Flowers!

    There’s not much that can top fresh flower in the home.  All I can think of is happy kids and husband, and a clean home.  Flowers really pull things together and just beautify the home, don’t you think so?
    I felt so especially lucky yesterday when I won Heavenly Savings 1-800-Flowers Giveaway.  They arrived today, and I am loving them!!!
  • Cleaning up the Dumping grounds

    Cleaning up the Dumping grounds

    Everyone has one in their home.  If you don’t, please tell me the secret!  Our dumping ground takes flight and moves around a lot.  I’ll get one cleaned, and the next day it has just moved.  I need a war strategy to fight this!  But in the meantime, we’ll keep taking it one battle at a time.
    awww, that looks so much better!  The best part is, it really only took me about 10minutes.  Walking past it though, it felt daunting and like it would be a day long task.  I need to remember that things look worse than they really are.  Any bets on how long it will stay this way?
  • Wordless Wenesday: Meet the Girls

    Wordless Wenesday: Meet the Girls

    Princess C, Princess V, Princess R and myself.  Love these kids!  you can link up your WW at Dear Crissy