Feeling a little springish

Hurray!! My windows are open. The sun is shining. The skies are blue. There is a warm(ish) breeze making my curtains float and catch some air. I can hear the birds chirping and my neighbour's wind chimes. 
  
Ahhh...I love spring. The coming of the warm weather, the flowers poking through the ground, the ability to wear a light jacket, kick off my socks and pull out my ballet flats. 

 To celebrate this warm, gorgeous day, I decided to update my mantle with some spring details. 

I grabbed the owl out of my son's bedroom (he won't miss it). I took some burlap that I had leftover from another project and put it into a tall glass vase. Rocks filled the bottom of my favorite apothecary vase with fake grass in a little pot. 

I raided my scrapbooking scraps and found this colourful paper and put it into a frame. I love decorating with books. I don't know if it's because I worked in a bookstore for so long, but there is something homey about books. They are great to bring some height to an object. 

There you have it. A little bit of spring on a gorgeous day. Now I need to do some cleaning. That is part of spring that I don't necessarily love. :) 

Hope you have a beautiful spring day! 

Cleaning The Microwave

Warning: This blog post contains pictures of a dirty microwave. Images may cause vomiting, judging my ability to "keep house", and embarrassment to my mother. Do not read if you have a weak stomach, or currently do not own a microwave. Subject matter is not suitable for younger viewers. 


I am glad we got that out of the way, and yes I am embarrassed of these pictures you are about to see. That is why quickly after taking them, I proceeded to CLEAN my microwave. Thank goodness too, it was a wreck!

Using an idea I saw from Pinterest here, I filled a glass measuring cup with 2 cups water, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Then I microwaved it on high for 5 minutes. 

After the 5 minutes were up, I opened up the microwave to find it smelling sweet, and the crud loosened up on the sides of the microwave. I then took a damp cloth and wiped the microwave down with ease. No scrubbing was necessary! 


And voila! A squeaky clean microwave that I am not longer embarrassed of! 

I love simple ideas like this that take barely any time at all to tackle, and the results are wonderful! 

10 Healthy Tips

Since I got so much feedback from my post about healthy grocery shopping (you can read it here!), I thought I'd do another post on 10 different cheap(er) things you can do for your health:

1. This one is pretty easy but surprisingly, not a lot of people do it. Drink 8 glasses of water a day. That is 64 oz of pure water. Juice, coffee, tea or milk do not count and are not a substitute. Drink water! By the time you are feeling thirsty, your body is actually already starting to become dehydrated. So do your body a favour and drink more water!
2. Eat 6-10 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. An apple or an orange would be considered one serving. Another way to tell if it's a serving is if it equals 1/2 cup. An easy way to add more fruits and vegetables is to have a salad with supper, add vegetables to your omelet, or fruit to your baked goods.
3. This one is nice and cheap. It actually doesn't cost anything more than time. Chew your food. Ideally, you should chew every bite 25-50 times before swallowing for optimal digestion. It will help with portion control, digestion, blood sugar levels, and nutrient absorption. Obviously, if it's something like yogurt or soup, you don't need to chew it very much, but the point is to make it almost a liquid in your mouth before swallowing. 
4. Exercise for 30 minutes every day. This one is a hard one for me. It's not that I never move around but, it's not so easy to take time to go for a run anymore when I barely have enough time to finish my cup of coffee. My solution is to do pilates every day with a DVD. I roll out my yoga mat, pop in my DVD, and make my husband promise not to laugh at me. I'm looking forward to the weather being a bit warmer so I can go out more and garden!
5. Don't drink pop or soda drinks. When I worked at a summer camp as a teenager, the best thing for a dirty toilet was to pour 2 litres of pop down the toilet and let it sit overnight. In the morning when we got back, the toilet would be clean. Imagine what that does to your stomach! It's full of preservatives, sugar and garbage. Don't do it. Especially don't do diet or 0 calorie drinks. They are actually much worse for your health than the normal soda. Every once in a while they are okay as an indulgence, but not on a regular basis!
6. One of the questions I get asked the most is if you should be buying organic or not. Organic tends to be more expensive and we all like to save money. There are actually many fruits and vegetables that you can get away with not buying organic, but there are twelve called the "Dirty Dozen" that you should make an effort to buy organic. They tend to have more pesticides and garbage on them than other fruits and veggies. I put a printable for you at the bottom of the page which you can stick in your wallet and refer to when you go to the grocery store. 
7. Drink tea and coffee every day. They have many different health benefits including preventing colds and flu and providing your body with many beneficial phytochemicals. Try not to add sugar since that will diminish some of the health benefits. (Ice tea and lattes don't count, but nice try!)
8.  Eat an ounce of dark chocolate every day. Chocolate is good for you! At least dark chocolate is. Try to get at least 70% cocoa and eat an ounce a day. It's great for your skin, preventing mentstrual problems, and full of antioxidants. 
9. Throw out your table salt. It is bad for you and contributes to a whole whack load of health problems. Use sea salt instead!
10. Eat breakfast every morning. They used to say that eating breakfast would help you lose weight. Now they're finding that it's not true in every case, but there are plenty of other good reasons your should eat breakfast including the fact that it helps your brain function better. We could all use a little more of that!

So I hope that helps encourage you for the start of this week. If you're interested in getting even healthier for the spring, try some of these detoxes (Just remember to consult your doctor or health care professional before starting anything!)

                                                                                      Source: naturallysavvy.com via Melody on Pinterest

Please feel free to print off this list but please only use it for personal use and link back to this website. Thanks!

               

A burst of mirror

Once again I'm bringing you something from our gallery wall that travels up the stairs. Hopefully you don't mind. It's just that it is so easy to switch up and add new little treasures (like this hoop of memories). 

If you have been traveling through the blog world for a while now, you know that DIY starburst mirrors are a hot commodity. Even Melody made one for her living room.

I had seen this one that peaked my interest again in trying my hand at making one. 

{IHeart Organizing}

 (Please remember that if you would like to pin anything, go to the original source. We want to give the original websites all the credit.)

I had a little mirror from Dollarama (a pack of three for $2), an almost full package of barbeque skewers, black paint and a hot glue gun. 

I'm not going to give you the play by play on how I made it, because there are millions of tutorials out there, but it was easy. Really easy.

I said that I had almost a full pack of barbeque skewers. Notice that I didn't say full. Hence the reason why the mirror looks a little sparse in some places. I didn't want to get out of my sweatpants and go to the dollar store for more, but I probably will get more later if I feel it needs it.

It's exactly what that little landing at the top of the stairs needed. 

Happy weekend! 

 

 

Broccoli & Cheddar Soup

For lunch today I decided to make something different. I wanted to make something other than my normal grilled cheese sandwich or leftovers that I usually have. So I made Broccoli & Cheddar Soup! It was delicious, and I felt like I was eating something healthy since the recipe calls for lots of broccoli... even though there was also a bunch of cheese in the soup... oh well! 

I always love trying out new recipes, and usually have great success with them, and this soup turned out to be awesome. The only thing I did differently from the recipe was use a hand blender to make the broccoli smooth. Hope you can try out this recipe sometime soon, it's delicious! 

Ingredients:
- 6 Cups Broccoli
- 1/2 Cup Flour
- 6 Cups Chicken Broth
- 2 1/2 Cups Grated Cheddar Cheese
- Bacon, Crumbled (Optional)
- 1 1/2 Cups Milk

Instructions:
1. Chop broccoli finely and cook until tender. Set aside.
2. In a large pot, combine broth and milk. Slowly whisk in the flour and then cook over medium-high heat until it starts to boil.
3. Add chopped broccoli and reduce heat to medium.
4. Cook 4-5 minutes and then add cheese. Once cheese has melted, you’re done!
5. Serve, topped with bacon if you wish.

Makes 3 servings.

Boredom Busters

Apparently March is coming in like a lion. I woke up this morning to see snow and ice rain coming down hard. On top of everything, both of my girls seem to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and I have only had one cup of coffee so far today. So while drinking my first cup, I put together a list of things to do today that wouldn't involve me trying to entertain my two year old while trying to pacify my other little girly for the whole day. Here are some of my favourite pins that are great boredom busters for kids (not just toddlers!):

(Please remember that if you would like to pin anything, go to the original source. We want to give the original websites all the credit.)

1) Recipe for homemade "Moon Dough" 2) Animal Finger Puppets 3) Farm Printables 

4) Tangled Activity Kit 5) Activities to go with popular children's books 6) Mess-Free Finger Painting 

7) ABC Index Card Book 8) Monster Feet 9) Crafty ABCs

Hope everyone is having a wonderful March 1st! 

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