Nutella Breakfast Shake

I got this idea from a recipe on Pinterest.  It was a breakfast shake with peanut butter.  I do like peanut butter, but not for breakfast.  I had been seeing lots of things on Pinterest with Nutella, so I made my own recipe for a Nutella breakfast shake.  I love it!

1 frozen banana

1 cup rice milk (maybe a little more)

1 T. wheat germ (for added fiber and vitamins)

2 T. Nutella

1 T. ground flax seed (can be done in blender)

1 handful fresh spinach

Blend all ingredients together in a blender, pour into a cup and enjoy!

Update:

I just started adding flax seed and spinach. Lots of added nutrition and still yummy! The color is a little unsettling, kind of greenish brown, but tastes so good! And so good for you!

Squeaky Hinges

I love to read!  I read all sorts of things.  I am a member of 2 different book clubs.

Last year in July, I read the same book for both book clubs.

We read The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  

I loved the book and I was able to see the movie with one of my book clubs too!

I thought it was done very well.

I love that you can read fictional books and learn helpful things.  At one point in the book it lists a variety of uses for Crisco, one of which was to grease squeaky door hinges. 

Minny says,  “I reckon’ if there’s anythin’ that you ought to know about cookin’ it’s this (pointing to Crisco). The most important invention since they put mayonnaise in a jar. Got gum in your hair, got a squeaky door hinge, Crisco. Got bags under your eyes, wanna soften your husband’s scaly feet, Crisco. But it’s best for frying chicken.”

 I filed this away in the back of my mind hoping to try it out some day.  

A couple of years ago, I used graphite to try to get rid of the squeak in our garage door hinges (the small door to the house) and our front door hinges.  This is what you are supposed to use.  It only worked for a couple of days and it made a big mess!

A few days ago, I decided to try this Crisco tip on our garage door.  I used generic Crisco, because that's what I had.  My son, Ryan, helped me to get some of the pins out.  The bottom pin was especially difficult to remove.  It was really stuck in there.  We had to remove the entire hinge from the door and the jamb to get enough room to pound the pin out.  It took way longer than I expected it to take, but we got it out, greased it up and put it back.

Now the hinges in the garage door are like a dream!  No obnoxious squeaking any more!

Today, we did the same thing on the front door.  Luckily, this time was a lot easier!  It only took about 5 minutes to get the tools and supplies ready and finish the project.

Another door that is now like a dream!

Now when I open these doors, I open it, close my eyes and say ahhhhhh!!!

I used to cringe almost every time I opened either one of these doors before.

So far, the garage door is still squeak-free.

Who says you can't get anything out of reading fiction?

Free ebooks!

I recently found out from a post on Facebook by one of my friends how you can get free and inexpensive ebooks from Amazon for Kindle.  I do not have a Kindle, but I do have an iPad 2. Amazon provides a free Kindle app for use on the iPad, Android tablet, iphone, ipod touch, Windows phone 7, and Blackberry.  You can also download the free Kindle app to your computer, Mac or PC. I personally prefer to read while on the couch or in bed or while waiting for an appointment, so portable is better for me.

Here is the link to Amazon's free Kindle apps.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sv_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

Here is the link to the website where you can subscribe to the daily emails from Pixel of Ink that show the newest free and bargain Kindle ebooks.

http://www.pixelofink.com/

You can browse by genre, i.e. business, Christian fiction, cookbooks, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, nonfiction, romance, and science fiction, or by age, i.e. children's books and young adult.  They have different e-mail subscriptions for some of the different categories.

You need to visit the different websites to subscribe to the different e-mails.  I am currently subscribed the the regular Pixel of Ink and the Pixel of Ink-Young Edition daily e-mails.  I won't be running out of reading material for the rest of my life, between these free ebooks and the library!  You do have to be careful though.  Make sure that the title you want to download is still free before you click the "Purchase" button.

Happy Reading!!

Melinda's Baby Shower

This is Melinda's 4th baby boy, so she doesn't really need anything other than diapers and wipes.

I made these invitations to hand out. I made them with Stampin' Up! My Digital Studio. My sister, Melinda, is a demonstrator. (different Melinda) 
Then I had them printed at Walgreen's using a coupon code for a discount.

Melinda supplied the beautiful picture of her beautiful baby.

Here is a link to my sister's Stampin' Up! website.  http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/melindas/ 

Kristin and Terra helped me A LOT with decorating and food!

Look at them working hard while I'm taking pictures...

Then Terra got to hold baby Samuel.  What a sweet baby!

I think the guests had a lot of fun chatting and eating and holding the baby.

This is a picture of me with Melinda (and baby Samuel), Kristin and Terra.

The baby shower turned out very well and Melinda felt very loved!  

That is the important thing!

I couldn't have done it without Kristin and Terra!

Our New Couch

This is our new couch! We bought it at Costco.

We love it!

It is so comfy and it looks great in our family room!

It really helps to open up the room.

It feels so much more inviting!

No Soliciting!

In our neighborhood, we have A LOT of solicitors! It really gets annoying after a while.  

No, I don't want to remodel my kitchen that is 4 years old!

No, I don't want a $5000 fence in my backyard!

No, I don't want them to inspect my roof!

No, I definitely DO NOT want a new Kirby vacuum!

If I do want any of these things, I will call them!

So, I had a great idea one day.  I made a No Soliciting sign to put in my window next to my front door.

I love it!!

It is so simple.

I really do want to support Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and 

I have A LOT fewer unnecessary doorbell rings!

I have had a smelly bathroom for a long time.  I didn't know what to do about it.  I would clean the entire bathroom and it would still smell bad. Then I realized the smell was probably coming from the shower drain.  I would clean the cover to the drain with a toothbrush (an old one for cleaning!) and clean out as much hair and gunk as I could, but it just wasn't enough!
Last night I decided to google "how to deodorize a shower drain."  Man, I just love the internet!!
Who knew there were that many stinky shower drains?

These are the links that I found:

www.sheknows.com/living/articles/808474/clean-out-your-shower-drain-without-chemicals

www.ehow.com/how_5616661_deodorize-smelly-shower-drain.html

I used the process from the first website and the amounts of baking soda and vinegar from the second website.

It has really made a huge difference already!!

I still had to clean the inside of the pipe with the old toothbrush to get the rest of the crud down the drain, but after using the baking soda, vinegar and boiling water, it came right off.

Now maybe when I clean my bathroom, it will actually smell clean! I will make myself a note to do this at least every 6 months. (Clean the drain...I plan on cleaning the bathroom a lot more often than that!)

Happy cleaning!!

Here is a picture of my clean shower drain.  I had to crop the picture, though, because now I need to google how to get stains off of your shower floor.  I scrub and scrub and scrub and it still shows grime.  Oh, well, another day, at least it smells better!