I think this is now my third weekend in a row enjoying a Great Harvest Blueberry Oat Bran muffin but goshdarnit, they are just so good! Plus, I think they’re fairly healthy. I had mine with a fried cage-free egg and half an organic navel orange.

I went shopping with my friend Megan for some fun stuff. Can’t spoil the surprise but these bags may give an indication – new photos to be shared tomorrow!

We also hit up McAllister’s for lunch.

Megan got a yummy looking Chicken Caesar wrap and macaroni and cheese (didn’t even know that was an option!).

I had a half turkey melt and Mediterranean salad.

Plus a giant sweet tea.

Back home, I worked on organizing my files.

Organizing files: I have hanging folders for various items (bills, taxes, etc) and in the hanging folders I put tabbed folders with the item name plus the year. This way, I can remove the tabbed folders but leave the hanging folders, only replacing the tabbed folders with new ones for the current year. As you can see the year is almost halfway over and I’m just now getting to this, but heeeey, better late than never, right?

I tried out a new BBQ sauce tonight for dinner – Annie’s Naturals Organic BBQ in Original Recipe. It’s gluten free and vegan!

Ingredients – too long for M Pollan but pretty good ingredients on there.

Nutrition.

Boneless BBQ Baked Chicken Breasts: I marinated boneless, skinless chicken breasts in some of the sauce for about an hour. I put them in a prepped baking dish and added a little bit of water to the dish. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and garlic powder on the chicken. I baked the dish covered with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes, then brushed more sauce on the tops, then baked uncovered for about 30, till the chicken was cooked through.

I had the chicken with some vegetarian Bush’s baked beans and TJ’s soycuttash. Plus a yummy Virginia roll heated in the oven so it tasted fresh-baked…yum!

Hubby and I watched the latest Flash Forward over dinner. I cant believe there’s only one episode left and then they’re canceling it! Booooooo! I can’t wait to see how it ends! I mean, they ended the episode and everyone seemed to be in all the wrong places. And how will Demetri fit into the picture???

I had an Earthfare WW vegan chocolate chip cookie on the side.

I’ve been eating so much dessert lately! I know I’m a big sweet tooth and all, but I think I’m desserted out. If that’s even possible! Think I may be laying off the sweets for a bit…well, maybe with an exception of tomorrow.

You’ll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

How was your weekend? And what do you think is in the shopping bags!?

Note space for new bowls and plates!

I’ve decided that though I like my kitchen tools lazy susan, it’s really not that attractive, so I’m going to try hiding it inside our cabinets.

After our hard work in the kitchen, Hubby and I took Bailey out for a walk to get some fresh air.

I must say, the day is beautiful outside! Gorgeous blue-blue skies!

Bailey, of course, loved being outside and getting some exercise.

We came home and heated up some of my Mom’s Get Well soup for lunch, which I had with a bit of OJ.

I saved some room after the soup for a snack.

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I think I’ve come up with my best oatmeal invention yet – tea-infused oats! I’ll be doing a how-to next.

I give you – Earl Gray Infused Oatmeal!

I cooked my oats stovetop and super low and let some loose Earl Grey Creme tea leaves infuse in the milk/water mixture as I went.

Such a light and simple flavor but sooo good!

Since the flavor of tea is subtle, I kept the toppings easy:

• sliced almonds
• hemp seeds
• tea leaves

I’m going to try green tea next! Which tea would you like to see me try after that?

The BASEMENT! Dum dum dum! The basement is where most of our stuff remains unpacked and where we left them on move-in day.

I haven’t taken much time tackling these boxes since we don’t really have any furniture for me to unpack stuff into. But, today, I decided that the best idea for us would be to unpack our stuff, group like items, and then take a look at what we have. Once we know what we have by group, we’ll be able to better figure out what furniture we need to store our stuff.

I got some good work done in the basement which was good, but by the time I was ready for a break, I wasn’t really feeling like cooking. We couldn’t eat out since we’re doing Eat in Month, so I decided to find an easy recipe that would cook up quickly. Hubby was sweet and went to the grocery store for us while I researched recipes for the rest of the week. I was looking for recipes to use up the mascarpone and parmesan I opened yesterday. I found a few potentials. So many good ones!

I decided to make an old favorite – Ina Garten’s Linguine with Shrimp Scampi. I usually think of this dish more as a summer dish, but I thought was perfect for tonight since it’s so easy, uses few ingredients, and cooks up quickly.

I was craving fresh pasta, so hubby picked up some fresh egg linguine pasta from a local shop that specializes in fresh pasta.

From the same shop, he picked up some rosemary foccacia. This stuff is heaven!

I refreshed the bread by drizzling it with EVOO, topping with a sprinkle of sea salt, and baking at 350 degrees F for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, I cooked the main attraction.

Vibrant lemons and pretty green parsley from my mom’s potted plant.

This dish took about 6-7 minutes of cooking time and 2 pans. Nice, no?!

Hubby and I enjoyed dinner whilst watching The Proposal. There were some really funny scenes. Overall, it was pretty cute!

Yum yum! Round #1.

Seconds.

You know…I may have been hoping for take-out tonight but I need to remember how easy a delicious and nutritious home-cooked meal can be! I felt very satisfied for staying in for dinner tonight. Thank you Eat in Month!

Speaking of Eat in Month, I updated the page and we have 12 fabulous participants! It’s not too late to join in on the festivities if you’re interested!

The last of our cinnamon rolls for dessert. Hubby and I shared it.

Even Bailey got in on the deliciousness with a Bowser (Dog) Beer (it’s beef broth basically).

Nom nom nom!

Omg, just realizing that my staycation is almost over…so sad! I have so much more I still want to do! Back to work on Monday!

Anyone have any interesting eats tonight?

I made a fried egg to go along with my roll. Dee-lish! 1/2 Christmas Blend + 1/2 Peppermint Creme to drink.

Hubby noticed someone had gotten quite comfy on our bed while we were busy eating breakfast.

I took a moment to start reading Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. I only read one chapter. I know they’re basically only a page or two long, but what I’d really like to do is take the time to understand the chapter and really think about it for a day or more before moving on to the next.

I enjoyed the book with some hot tea. I combined Teavana Mate Vana with Rooibos Caramel and organic cane sugar…mmm. Isn’t the amber color of the tea in sunlight beautiful?

Besides making resolutions and setting goals, I also like to take advantage of the fresh start of the new year to motivate myself to get organized. I decided to try to downsize my clothes since hubby and I are in the process of picking out wardrobe/clothing storage furniture. The less clothes I have, the less/smaller furniture I need (which means saving $).

I started by tackling my “sweater bins.” I have 3 – 2 for normal sweaters and 1 for casual/work-out sweatshirts/fleeces. As you can see, my bins no longer actually contain all my sweaters/sweat-shirts.

After carefully going through each bin and trying to pick out the items I truly haven’t worn in the last year, I created a pile of items to remove. I also pulled items that don’t fit me well or styles that I’ve outgrown.

The single white sweater will be donated. The rest will go to my parents house. See, I have a terrible time parting with my clothes, so as a compromise to get the clothes OUT of my house, I’ve decided to move them to my parent’s house. This way, I will have emergency clothes when we visit, in the event I forget to pack something AND it will buy me some time to think about my decision. If I miss the clothes, I can always get them back. If I don’t miss them at all, then after a year, it’s probably time to donate them.

Bins AFTER. Muuuuuch better!

After my success with the sweaters, I tackled my closets (yes, our house has no WICs so I have to use more than one).

I followed the same guidelines (not worn in a year, outgrown, doesn’t fit well) and selected several items to move to my parents house, donate, or try to consign.

Sadly, my closets don’t look much emptier for all my hard work but I do feel good about the work I got done today.

I’m considering selling some of my clothes in the best condition online. Anyone interested?

Lunch was leftovers. I ate the rest of the collards, black eyed peas, and tossed in some pretzels (not literally) because I was craving something salty.

Honestly, I also kept lunch light so I could indulge in another cinnamon roll. I mean, I don’t want them to go bad so they MUST be eaten!

Now we only have one left! Gasp!

Perhaps I should make more sooner than later, eh?

Does anyone else have any Northface fleeces? They are so darn bulky! I’m wondering how to store mine. How do you store your fleeces?

This may be an abbreviated version of what was an awesome post.

Woke up at 1am to nausea and had to yak. Not sure why, but hoping it was just something not sitting right on my tummy. Woke up again at 9a to dog walking all over me trying to wake me up without being loud. Silly guy.

Made fried eggs for me and hubs for bfast.

I had mine candlelit with some GReat Harvest Honey Whole Wheat toast with Earthfare organic pomegranate jelly and coffee.

Post breakfast, I worked on my other bathroom to give it a mini makeover.

I washed out the cabinets and applied more of that pretty decorate paper.

Bailey inspected my work and gave me the A-ok. Not sure what to do about that stain in the back of the cabinet, though. I couldn’t scrub it away!

With my cabinets ready to use, I decided to organize my beauty products.

I got all my beauty products out and was SHOCKED at how much I have. Granted some were free samples from when I wrote reviews for a popular online review web site, but still!

I’d really like to work on simplifying my life overall and I see a lot of room for improvement here.

I sorted out products that were expired or almost empty and tossed them.

I grouped what was left, organized them into caddies and placed them in my newly made over cabinets.

AFter the bathroom/beauty product prjoect, I broke for lunch: toasted turkey sammie and edamame with water and OJ.

I met our new neighbors during lunch:

Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel! Aren’t they cute?

Not as cute as this guy, though!

Since I had today off, I wanted to spend the ENTIRE day cleaning and organizing but hubby had other plans, so after lunch, hubby and I headed out for some more shopping for the house.

On the way to the stores, we stopped by a local bakery to pick up a snack – I had 6 donut holes and a bite of hubby’s cinnamon swirl roll. They were delish, but didn’t sit quite well on my stomach.

We hit up the Habitat ReStore, but didn’t find anything. While we shopped around, I started feeling dizzy and icky, so decided hot tea sounded good. Luckily there was a coffee shop next door.

Check out their mug chandelier.

I got some lovely Moroccan Mint with honey. yum!

Next up, we hit up Bed Bath and Beyond.

We liked these curtains but weren’t ready to buy them.

I thought this candle had a great message: “Everyday holds the possibility of a miracle.”

Hubby and I found some stuff we liked but decided to get them when we were ready to make a big trip of it (we have a 20% off our entire purchase coupon – not easy to find).

Since it was almost 9 pm by the time we were done shopping, we had to do another dinner out. Man, all this shopping is taking all my organizing and cooking time away! Grr…

It seems we’re doing more window shopping and less buying, but I’m starting to get tired of all the window shopping! lol

Ok, guys, ecto is really not playing nice with me tonight, so I’m going to complete this post with a separate post momentarily. Hopefully, my posts don’t get deleted this time!

…and was sipping on nice, hot mug of Fresh Market Breakfast Blend when I remembered today is Bagel Day Friday! Starbucks Monday I almost never miss or skip, but Bagel Day Friday hasn’t been seeing as much love. I skipped eating at home to save room for bagels.

On the way to work, I made a pit stop to pick up my new love – Pumpkin Bagels! Not only does Einstein Brothers Bagels make Pumpkin bagels, but they make a Pumpkin Schmear, too!

I tried my first Pumpkin Bagel, toasted, with Pumpkin Schmear earlier this week and couldn’t resist getting another today.

If you like pumpkin oatmeal or pumpkin pie, you will LOVE this pumpkin bagel/schmear combo. When I first tried this breakfast, I didn’t notice a lot of pumpkin flavor in the bagel. That was probably because the pumpkin schmear was so flavorful. It reminded me of pumpkin pie filling…yum! I loved the fall-spice flavor. Not sure what they used, but I definitely got some cinnamon.

I enjoyed my bagel with a nice, hot cup of Autumn Roast (chestnut) coffee. Mmm…breakfast put me in a GREAT mood today!

I was hoping to go to zumba after work, but my leg is…not hurting, but kind of bothering me still. After waiting several weeks before being able to go back to class, I’m not going to risk re-injury for ANYTHING! I figure better safe than sorry, right? I am still dying to show my potential choreography to my instructors for Te Aviso, Te Anuncio!

Have you seen Kath’s Nerd KERF Gmail Tutorial? It’s pretty sweet! I was totally inspired by Kath’s tutorial. Stuck at home with no zumba, I decided to tackle my horrible gmail inbox. See, I spend almost every day in front of the computer for my day job, so the last thing I want to do is read the hundreds of emails that have poured into my inbox (except for the comments…I can’t get enough of those! ). I haven’t been keeping my email box organized at all, which has been driving me CRAZY. A lot of things around me related to organization are driving me crazy at the moment, so I’ve decided to tackle these things, 1 small win at a time.

I also multi-tasked by working on clearing out my DVR list. I have more Food Network DVR’ed than I could possibly watch, so I figured rather than delete all my old episodes, I’ll just play them in the background when I’m blogging, etc so I can catch snippets at least. I had an Everyday Italian marathon and drooled over Giada’s kitchen. I hope I can channel her kitchen while we’re remodeling ours.

Besides re-organizing my email and clearing out my DVR list today, I also managed to take my starred emails down from 180 to 20 and I’ve sorted and archived hundreds of emails. I feel so productive…yay! I had a shocking 1500 unread emails in my inbox, and most of those emails were read but marked unread since I use unread emails like a “to-do” list sometimes. I’ve decided to use my starred emails as my to-do as far as my email goes. I think my newly organized system will keep me productive!

Now if I could only managed to get the 1,261 emails sorted with a snap of my fingers. Oi!

Hubby and I are going to a wedding tomorrow night, so between packing, gmail organizing, and other errands, we decided to do something simple, easy, and affordable.

We decided to make Breakfast for Dinner. We had eggs, cheese, spinach, and bread, but hubby wanted to pick up a couple things for the weekend and grabbed a red bell pepper while he was out.

I was already hungry when I left work and knew I didn’t want to wait till hubby was home to eat. So, I decided to have an itty-bitty yogurt parfait using Stonyfield Organic Oikos Greek Yogurt in vanilla with Bear Naked Fruit + Nut Granola with a sprinkling of chia seeds.

This was the cutest parfait – check out how small it was compared to my hand!

Hubby picked out a great red bell pepper with a nice, tight skin. I actually got all the pepper I needed for our Egg Scramble just using the ring around the top, sans the stem.

I sliced the rest of the bell pepper up – this will make a great snack tomorrow.

Dinner came together quite quickly, which I was pretty happy about since I have only 1000 unread emails calling my name.

We had an egg scramble with: cage-free eggs, red bell pepper, organic baby spinach, and TJ’s shredded cheddar cheese. We also had some Great Harvest Bread Company Dakota toast. I had 1/2 with real butter and 1/2 with Dark Chocolate Dreams PB.

Hubby turned his eggs and toast into a sandwich. I swear, the mean will put anything and everything on bread! lol

We ended up watching a re-run of last night’s Flash Forward. Does anyone else watch this show? It’s pretty good so far. I’m curious to see if their visions are their true futures and if they are, if they’ll be able to change them.

Phew, well, I have some more emails to tackle and then I’m off to bed.

What are you guys up to this weekend? Any one headed to the Farmers Market?

Yesterday, as I enjoyed some leftover Smoky Tomato soup and a smoked gouda panini, I was remarking to hubby about how I wished we could take all those bags of stuff to my parent’s house (a day trip away). He said, “Let’s go now.”

So we did.

I took a couple bags of craft supplies and randomness that I thought my crafty sister may enjoy.

I also took several bags of clothes, which are the clothes that I wasn’t quite ready to donate but didn’t really LOVE. I purge my closet (and apartment) on a regular basis, and I’ve donated a ton of stuff so far this year. My goal is to have a smaller closet of clothes I LOVE instead of a larger closet of clothes I just like.

Thoughts of the clothing I dropped off:

• The clothes I dropped off I just “liked”
• They will help me out in the event I go to my parents’ house and forget to pack something
• If within a year, I haven’t worn these clothes, haven’t missed them, and haven’t thought about them, I will consider consigning or donating them.

As usual at my rents’ house, we ate a ton of food. Here are some photos of our weekend eating adventure:

Dinner

Breakfast

Lunch

So nice to clear out some stuff from our apt…so nice to have such good eats…so nice to see my family. The next time we see them, we will, hopefully, be HOMEOWNERS!!!

Exhibit A – Junk Craft Room

Some days, I don’t even know how this room got to this point. When I graduated from college, I had almost nothing. Now, I have stuff busting out of the seams of my tiny 2-bedroom apartment. When hubby and I first started out house-hunting, we wanted a “big” house to fit all our my stuff. But, these days, I’m starting to think that a big house isn’t the solution. Is the problem that our space is too small or is the problem that I have too much stuff? I used to lean towards the first answer. Now, I’m leaning towards the latter.

I think the real issue is that I simply have too much.

Hubby and I spent a couple hours today sorting through the craft room.

We managed to pull out a huge pile of stuff to donate. I like to think that donating my stuff allows people who really need it (there’s some useful stuff in there!) to have it rather than me just hoarding it away in storage.

One thing I learned awhile back on neat is that sometimes, you have to learn when your inspiration is blocking your creativity.

One prime example of this is my collection of Martha Stewart magazines. I love Martha’s ideas, but keeping so many magazines is taking up a lot of prime real estate in my apartment and quite frankly, my apartment is so clutter-y, I’m too busy de-cluttering to even look through these! I think they need to go. In their place, I hope to buy the Martha Stewart Best of books that compile the best ideas from her magazines into small and neat books. I actually already have a couple and love them. She also does compilation magazines once in awhile, too!

In general, I think I have so much stuff in the way everywhere that I can’t function efficiently. My goal for this year is to simplify my life and my stuff. I’m taking big strides to down size this year. I’m hoping this will make my life healthier and happier and allow me to have more time to just live.

Hubby and I were so happy with our progress today, we celebrated with Ben & Jerry’s (my current summer treat obsession). He got a smoothie and I got the Half-Baked Froyo…yum!

Does any one out there have a “simple life”? What are your tips and tools you use to keep your life in order?

I fiiiiiinally remembered to pick up some honey when I went to the store today on my lunch break.  It will be so nice to be able to add honey to my teas at work now.  I read in my 150 Healthiest Foods book that there is a big difference between regular-ole honey and the natural, unprocessed stuff, but since I couldn't remember exactly what to look for, I just defaulted to my tried and true honey bear.  It's probably still better than granulated sugar, at least.  I figured the bear would get along just fine with my Happy Bunny.

Does any one else like the Happy Bunny?  I think they are hilarious!  The e-cards on this site are awesome.  I wish they had more than 10-ish options for card sayings, though.  I just sent one to a friend…haha.

I had a few minutes of down-time today, so I quickly sorted my purse.  Can you believe this pile of stuff was in 1 pocket of my purse?  Only 1!

I tossed a TON of useless receipts and kept a few other things, including some gift certificates I forgot I even had.  How sad?  I did keep a couple recepts that I'd like to check against my bank account.  I don't usually do that, but I hear it's a good habit since stores do make mistakes.  Not to mention there was the one time I found out some chick in FL wrote in a $1 tip for a coffee that I never gave.  B!

The one-pocket quick organizing break was so successful that I went through the rest of my purse, which (happily) was relatively neat.  As simple as this exercise was, I feel a lot better that my purse is uncluttered…like a breath of fresh air.  If only I could get my apartment done this quickly/easily.  

I am left wondering, though, how so many lip glosses got in my purse.  Hmm…

So, in addition to having a small apartment, we have a small pantry.  A small pantry is a bit of a challenge for someone who likes to cook/bake as much as me.  I decided that we need a little extra storage room, so I tried to get creative to find a solution.  Take this cluttered looking door here.  This is our coat closet.  The items hanging on the door should probably be placed elsewhere anyways, so I figured I'd move them and make room for some extra pantry storage here.

I went to the organization store today and was torn between two over the door pantry solutions.  One was a solution in a box – it had the hangers, the wall pieces, and even the baskets and it was pretty affordable, too.  The other solution was a completely customizable set.  you bought the wall piece, the hangers, and even the baskets separately.  It was more expensive, but I chose the latter when I figured out I could add more baskets and had 2 inches more width space per basket, too.

I installed the door piece first and then the baskets.  I can fit a few more on here, but I figured I'd start with 4 and see which ones seemed most useful for my pantry items.

The new pantry space will greatly improve not only our pantry area, but our countertops, as well.  I've been storing my oat-goodies in this fruit basket, but it's not really the best place for it and it doesn't look very attractive.  I also had a couple other items that needed to be moved to proper places.

I moved some items out of my pantry and moved ALL those oat goodies to my new pantry addition.  It helped a bit…mostly to give me a better visual grasp on what I have on stock.  I need to get a couple more baskets, though…maybe I'll get 3 next time?

With all the oat goodies out of the way, I was able to pick up more around the area and it looks sooo much better!  Now, I have somewhere to put my fruit!