ith 5 bodies wearing clothing in this house and 3 of 4 bathrooms being ‘tinkled in’ by boys, laundry can be an every day event. The good news is I am not the live-in laundress! Two words…FRONT LOADERS. We got our first front loading washer when James was about 5 and it was such a fascination for him, he INSISTED on helping with laundry. After a week or two of helping, he was doing his own laundry from start to finish with minimal help from me. I very much enjoyed the help and made this new ‘trend’ into a tradition. As soon as Kelsey was old enough to lug her laundry basket to the washer, she was enlisted. Joshua is already helping with his own laundry. Ken does his own because he doesn’t like the perfumes in the detergent and fabric softener I use for mine. Now everyone has a laundry day – scheduled on gmail, of course (I have two so I can do household stuff like bathroom mats) and it all gets done magically! The older kids have Laundry#1 (wash/dry) one day and Laundry #2 (fold/put away/hang-up) the next day. They also help Joshua with his. If they don’t get it done, they have no clean clothes and there’s no one else to blame.

I firmly believe that the boys’ wives will LOVE LOVE LOVE me for this ‘tradition’ and Kelsey will too when she implements it in her own home. I’m not shirking a motherly duty…in fact, I’m nurturing self reliance and instilling a healthy appreciation for work! Hmmm…I wonder how well it would go over if I had them start doing MY laundry…JUST KIDDING!!!

Found a fun site that links a ton of Monday Meal Planners. Kind of fun to see what other people are having! This week we’re trying a new soup from Molly’s blog (CHILI MAC SOUP) and I planned this week as a ‘pantry’ week. I pretty much have everything needed for dinners and may just need to pick up milk and make some bread. It’s a busy week! I have an email reminder set for tomorrow so I don’t forget to put the beans on early. Here’s a visual of this week’s dinner menu on my gmail calendar for the Menu Plan Monday group.

Hmmm…I just noticed we have a lot of bean dishes on there this week. We’ll see how that goes.

P.S. If you’re wondering what enchiladasagna is…it’s just a fun way of saying enchiladas layered instead of rolled. I layer the tortillas, cheese, meat or beans and sauce in a baking dish like a lasagna and it takes about 10 minutes to prepare instead of an hour if I roll them (Yeah, I’m slow).

I bought a big bag of pears at Sam’s last week because every time I buy two or three at the store the kids fight over them. I *thought* if I bought more they’d go fast, but at the end of the week, there are still plenty around. So, I made a pear torte. According to the Culinary Institute of America this is not an official torte, but whatever…it’s a pear pastry desserty thingy, OK? And it’s pretty.

I used pre-packaged pastry sheets because I’m not THAT ambitious and altered the recipe quite a bit because of my husband’s aversion to sugar. Basically I layered the sliced pears onto the pastry sheet (diagonally) and poured the altered creamed mixture(below) onto it. I cut strips and folded the ends over the top and baked at 350 for 20 min. Then I decided I wanted a bit more brown and put it in the broiler for a couple minutes and it got TOO crispy. I should know better.

2 tbsp organic turbinado sugar
3oz cream cheese softened
1/2 egg (yeah, that was tricky)
Vanilla, Cinamon and Nutmeg(I didn’t measure any of them)

Can’t wait to try it tonight and see if it’s still too sugary for Ken. Of course, he’ll probably call the pastry dough poison anyway. More for me!

I love reminding Ken that he let me wait around all day on Valentine’s Day in 1998 *thinking* I was going to get a ring that day, only to go home empty handed and thoroughly confused. The next day he proposed. Who proposes on the day AFTER? My husband. Good thing he’s cute!

Obviously we aren’t big on frilly fluff for Valentine’s day – or any other holiday, for that matter. But I did happen to have a big chunk of dark chocolate in the cupboard and strawberries in the fridge. Kelsey and I made a bunch of chocolate covered goodness to show our love (maybe just of chocolate). We covered Ken’s with whipped cream (who doesn’t like chocolate? My husband.) and we all had a yummy after church snack. I grabbed my phone and snapped a few bad shots for a layout. Some high contrast adjustments and creative cropping made for a half way decent page!

And…in case you have some sweet shots that need a great digital collection to match, I’m adding my kits back into the shop slowly! The Viva Valentino Collection is up and it’s only $2 for the rest of the month of LOVE!

I know I’m not the only one who has this issue because I googled it and lots of people are asking the same question…how do you get hard boiled eggs to peel nicely? Some do and then others look like they’ve been run through the garbage disposal once the shell is completely off. SO, I did a little testing and I think I found the way that works for me.

First, I cooked the eggs like THIS: http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/005251how_to_make_perfect_hard_boiled_eggs.php

I peeled the first one warm and it was perfect! YAY! I thought I was home free! BUT… then I put the remaining 11 eggs in the fridge and I was back to scraping it off when I peeled one the next morning (two, actually because of all the white I lost on the shells). So, I thought, what was the difference? Temperature.

I ran another egg under warm water before cracking it and continued running it under warm water while peeling it and the shell came off quickly and nicely! A fluke? An older egg? If so, the next 4 were just as old and flukey(so not a word!!)! This morning, in a hurry, I used cold water thinking maybe it didn’t need to be warm, just wet. Nope…ripped up egg. Conclusion…hard boiled eggs cooked with the above technique peel best when run under warm water!

Google announced it’s new BUZZ social networking features today and I’m looking forward to seeing how these will work with my current google favorites. Facebook just made some very unpopular changes and I can see this announcement resulting in a rise in gmail registrations through the week. Right now, only gmail users will be included in the network, so I’m not sure where that leaves the rest of my friends and family. I use gmail for everything but so far, only my mom has joined because I asked her to.

I’ve had a few questions lately on just HOW I use gmail for everything so here’s a little rundown. It’s not JUST gmail, it’s a whole suite of useful gadgets I can access from pretty much anywhere. I have a google Android based phone (T-Mobile g1) so that makes my data even more accessible to me.

The feature I use the most is google calendar. I used to use Outlook, but in order to use my calendar on my phone, too, I had to sync my phone and desktop often. And I’m not good at ‘often’. With gmail and my G1, wherever I enter an event, it is entered online and instantly available anywhere I have an internet connection or cell service. Even the library public computers. No software to install, no user account to create on other machines. Just send it to the ‘cloud’ and it’s there.

I use google calendar to schedule everything. I can create new calendars for anything and turn them on and off as I please. My kids each have their chores on google calendar in different colors. They come home from school, have a snack and check their gmail/google calendar. If I forgot to add a chore, I can enter it on my computer or phone seconds before they finish loggin on(happens all the time ). I can be as detailed as I need to be in the event details section (i.e. Chore: Clean Room, Details:UNDER YOUR BED, too!) I can have chores repeat, such as garbage every Monday. I can set reminders for them as well.

I also use the calendar to do my meal planning. I can drag and drop meals we have often to the next week. If I have beans or a roast on the schedule I set an email reminder for 4 or 5 hours before so I remember to get them on early. I keep some of my recipes in google docs and link to them in the calendar event details so I can pull it up when I’m ready to cook. If I’m cooking one of Molly’s Soups I include the link in the event details and it takes me right to the web page when I’m ready. (I put my phone in a plastic ziplock bag when I use it for recipes while cooking!)

From my meal plan, I create a grocery list using the tasks feature. I think it should be called lists, but that’s just a name. It works like lists. I create one for groceries and fill out the list before I go to the store. While at the store, I pull out my phone and pull my list from out of the ‘cloud’ and check off each item as I get it.

This is just the beginning of the google home management possibilities. My google home page has all the blogs I keep track of, current TV listings, movie showtimes, news. I’m still exploring google voice, picasa, youtube and google books…and more. I really am a google/Android girl and I hope they keep coming up with tons of features for me! I’m a tech mom and it makes me happy to organize and run my home with fun programs and features. My next step is to get a touch screen netbook to hang on the wall like a calendar where we can go to check everything, enter events, pull up recipes, add items to a list etc. WITHOUT SITTING DOWN at a computer! Quick and efficient! GO, GOOGLE!

So, before we moved in here, the master bathroom looked like it quite possibly had never been cleaned. An exaggeration? Maybe, but see photo below as possible proof. Yes, there is a tub in there somewhere and a shower and a sink or two.

I had some awesome cleaning ladies come and get the whole house all sparkly so we could move in. They did a great job on the shower. It sparkled, seriously! And it’s matte tile.

Since that time I’ve cleaned it a bazillion times and when it dries, the hard water stains laugh at me from their original strongholds. Scrubbing Bubbles, Tilex, CLR, The Works, and white vinegar haven’t worked (except on the glass door).

My new plan of attack: Call Lily and Claudia back to come clean it again and ask them to teach me how to clean my dumb shower. How sad is that? At least the rest of the room looks better than it did before we moved in!

There’s a whole lotta frilly fru-fru stuff going on out there in scrap/craft land right now and I’m just not in that mood, pretty much ever. So, in antithesis of that, I decided to do some super clean, non-frilly Christmas card templates for this blog train freebie. These templates are so super simple that all you have to do is choose two photos and insert them where the grey photo spots are, enter your text and you’re done. Example:

If you don’t use Photoshop, I’ve included jpg versions you can chop up in whatever photo editor you use. These are OK for commercial use. (See terms of use document in zip file).

DOWNLOAD CARD TEMPLATES HERE

After you’ve downloaded these super simple templates…
VISIT THESE OTHER BLOGS FOR CHRISTMAS COMMERCIAL USE FREEBIES!!

Penni Taylor – GallimaufryUK – www.gallimaufryuk.blogspot.com (here)
Christine Mortimer – Digilicious http://digilicious.typepad.com/
Angel Hartline – Angel Town http://angeltown.typepad.com/
Angela – Scrappin Mommy http://www.scrappinmommydesigns.blogspot.com
Studio RA Designs – http://royanna.blogspot.com
Janice Ward – JW-DigiScraps http://www.jwdigiscraps.com
Chili – Chilidesigns – http://chilidesignzz.blogspot.com
hetty hoo – http://heatherhilldesigns.blogspot.com
Amy Rigby – Dizzy Scraps Designs – http://dizzyscraps.blogspot.com
Victoria Spain – MaitriScraps – http://www.maitriscraps.blogspot.com
Leigh @ http://heartfeltperfections.blogspot.com/