Works for me Wednesday - easy warm sandwiches

I make regular sandwiches with cheese, turkey and ham. Then I put them under the broiler (on the middle shelf) until they are crispy (but not burnt). Ta-da! An easy alternative to a cold sandwich.

I ate so many cold sandwiches when I was pregnant with Emma that I don't really like them anymore. Unless we are eating out. So I like to make my sandwiches either on the griddle grilled-cheese-style or under the broiler. It adds a little spice to my life!

For more good ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer.

Works for me Wednesday - grilling veggies

Just checked the calendar and yes, it is Wednesday. Today I have a wonderfully wise tip for you grilling people out there. I just recently figured this out. You may already know this, but those 8 x 8 aluminum pans work wonderfully for grilling potatoes or whatever other veggies you may want to grill. I was wrapping my potatoes in aluminum foil and then they would lose all the butter and stick really bad. Now I just spray the pan, fill it up with potatoes, put some seasoned salt, pepper and butter on them and grill them for 1/2 hour. Yum!

And I wash and reuse the pan. I was throwing the dirty aluminum foil away, but this way I'm helping the environment by reusing the pan!

For more great ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer!

Works for me Wednesday - Kitchen cleaning/organization

When we went to St. Louis and left Emma here with my parents, I wasn't going to leave them with a dirty house, too. So I cleaned a lot of stuff that hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Or ever. That included the kitchen cabinets. I had not cleaned them since we moved in 6 years ago. The house was new, so I think that they were clean when we moved in.

This involved taking everything out of the cupboard and wiping out the cupboard with a rag and some cleaning stuff. It was great for organizing my kitchen. I got rid of quite a bit of stuff that I never use anymore. And I organized my cupboards. The moral of this post is: empty everything out, then clean your cupboards. Or move. That works for me to get rid of lots of stuff, too.

For more kitchen organizing ideas go to Rocks in my Dryer.

Works for me Wednesday - air purifier

Well, sorry I'm kinda late in posting this, but I thought I'd get my 2 cents in this week.

We have an air purifier in Emma's room. We just put it in there about a month ago. I have noticed since then that the diaper smell has gotten much better. It used to be that when I'd open the door after a nap or something I'd get a big old whiff of stale diapers. But now it's only a small whiff of stale diapers. Much better. Not perfect, but I guess the smell will be there until we potty train. Which isn't looking to be quite yet. We put the potty chair in the bathroom, but she doesn't seem to know how to use it. She loves to sit on it, but that's it. Anyway, so the air purifier works for us. And the white noise that it makes is nice to sleep to.

For more great ideas, visit Rocks in my Dryer!

Works for me Wednesday - baby wipes

When Emma was small, a friend of mine gave me a great hint - tear your baby wipes in half. That way they last twice as long. It works great for me because I wouldn't use the whole wipe anyway because I would rather waste a corner of a wipe than take a chance of getting poop on my hands. And the smaller size wipe is easier for me to use. And...how many times in a row am I allowed to start a sentence with and? And if the diaper is just wet, you only use half a wipe. Cool, huh?!

Works for me Wednesday - Freebies 4 Mom

Do you like free samples? Do you like entering sweepstakes to win fun free stuff? If you answered yes to either of those questions, check out Freebies 4 Mom. Heather, who runs the site, sorts through many freebies out there and posts on the ones that us moms might like! I've gotten quite a few free samples myself. I love getting free stuff in the mail! On a side note, I haven't gotten too many spam email or mail (or I just haven't noticed) from entering sweepstakes and getting free samples. But you can't be too careful these days!

For more Works for me Wednesday posts, check out Rocks in my Dryer!

Works for me Wednesday - cheap movies

We've been going to the local Hy-Vee to rent movies lately. Not from Hy-Vee - from Redbox. I know this isn't a new thing, but why pay more than $1.00 to rent a movie? At least for us. We don't watch too many movies...maybe 2 a month. You can even look up online what movies a particular Redbox location has so you don't have to stand there looking through the different screens while a long line forms behind you. And you can even reserve the movie so it's ready for you when you get there! That's what works for us.

For more great ideas, go visit Rocks in my Dryer!

Works for me Wednesday - Orange salad and Chocolate!

Today's Works for me Wednesday is celebrating recipes with 5 ingredients or less. Hooray for easy recipes! I did find a few recipes that I wanted to share that technically had 6 ingredients. Maybe some other time. I have two recipes to share - here they are:

Orange Sherbet Gelatin

1 (3 oz.) package orange flavored gelatin
1 cup warm water
2 cups orange sherbet
1 (11 oz.) can mandarin oranges, drained

Combine the gelatin and water, stir until dissolved. Add the sherbet and mandarin oranges, mix well. Pour into a gelatin mold (or regular bowl) and chill until firm.

Death by Chocolate (don't be scared, it's yummy)

1 (9x13 pan size) pkg. brownie mix (and the ingredients to make the brownies - oops!)
1 pkg. instant chocolate pudding mix (and 2 cups milk)
1 8 oz. pkg. whipped topping (like Cool Whip)
1 8 oz. bag English toffee bits

Make the brownies in 9x13 pan. Make the chocolate pudding and refrigerate it. Take a large (huge!) bowl and crumble 1/2 the brownies in it (in medium sized pieces). Spread 1/2 the pudding over this. Spread 1/2 the whipped topping over the pudding. Layer the brownies, pudding and whipped topping again. Sprinkle English toffee bits on top. Yummmmmmy!

Works for Me Wednesday - easy grilled chicken recipe

It's really starting to feel like summer now in Nebraska. Which means I don't want to be using the oven to heat the house when the air conditioner is trying to cool the house! So we grill a lot in the summer.

I'm going to share a recipe passed on to me by a friend of my sister-in-law's. (If you're reading this, Sarah, thank you!) We make this recipe many times during the summer! Now that I think of it, I don't even know what it's called so I'll call it...

Grilled Chicken with Noodles (so original!)

4 chicken breasts
1 bottle roasted red pepper Italian with Parmesan dressing (if you can't find this particular dressing, Zesty Italian works well, too)
Rotini or penne pasta
Balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Parmesan cheese

Marinate the chicken breasts with the dressing in a plastic bag for a while. A few hours is fine or a whole day. Whatever works best for your schedule.

Okay, then you fire up the grill and grill the chickens. While you are grilling the chicken, boil some noodles. I use rotini, but you could use penne pasta. Drain the cooked noodles. Slice up the cooked chicken into pieces (not necessary, but easier to eat). Eat the pasta with the chicken with the balsamic vinaigrette dressing poured over the top of both and the parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Easy! Yummy! Enjoy!

For more ideas head over to Rocks in my Dryer!

Works for me Wednesday - de-stink your dishcloths *updated*

I had stinky dishcloths. After reading about the different uses for vinegar and baking soda, I thought I'd try them on my yucky dishcloths. And it worked! I put a bunch of water in a bucket and added some vinegar mixed with baking soda. (Sorry, I didn't measure anything out) I put the stinky dishcloths in and let them soak for awhile. Then I washed them with the rest of my towels and they don't stink any more! Please share if you have another way to de-stink your dishcloths. I'm up for more ideas! Thanks!

For more ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer's Works for me Wednesday.

*Updated: Jill at The Diaper Diaries has posted a similar way to de-stink towels and dishcloths. Check it out!

Works for me Wednesday - hooded towels

Emma has 3 hooded bath towels that are "toddler-sized". I love them because they fit her perfectly. Two of them are from Kohl's and one is homemade. Not by me. My hat's off to you if you can sew a hooded towel (somehow it was made/sewn from a regular-sized towel). The hooded towels from Kohl's are animal themed. For example:



There is a duck, bunny, frog, monkey and probably a few more, but I can't remember what they are right now. These towels are regularly priced at $25.00. Yikes! I wouldn't buy them at that price. However, they are usually on sale the day after Thanksgiving for around $8.00 each. They are great to give as baby gifts! And they work great for us!

Check out some more Works for me Wednesday ideas at Rocks in my Dryer.

Works for me Wednesday - What to do

Okay, I only have a 16-month-old, so I can give her a piece of junk mail and she's entertained for a while. I'm trying to remember what I did for fun in the summer months while I was growing up. I honestly don't remember being bored! We had neighbors with kids our ages so that definitely helped. We played outside with them all the time. I grew up in a small town, so there was no zoo or children's museum to go to. But we did frequent the Ben Franklin for candy on the way home from the town's swimming pool.

Here are some ideas for summer fun (solely based on my childhood : ) )
-Ride bikes to the grocery store and buy candy and eat it all in one sitting without feeling guilty about eating so much candy in one sitting (who would do that?!)
-Ride bikes to the nearest pool and swim, repeat every day (for younger kids, use a back yard pool) or run through the sprinkler in the back yard
-Make a fort under the neighbors' super huge pine tree and play house
-Play with Barbies or dolls on the front porch (but spend the entire time fixing their hair and getting them dressed up - maybe that's how you're supposed to play with Barbies?)
-Eat supper as fast as possible so that there's plenty of time for 7 Steps Around the House
-Have a picnic on the front porch or just eat lunch outside (this was always a fun treat for us growing up)

Kinda makes me want to go live at my parent's house for one more summer, but it probably wouldn't be very fun playing 7 Steps Around the House by myself. Have a great summer!

WFMW - thawing beef and nap cover noise

This week I have two tips passed on to me by my wise sister-in-law. The first one is for thawing ground beef fast. Put the ground beef in a (1 gallon) plastic bag and put it in the sink. Fill (& plug) the sink until the ground beef floats. Put the bag of ground beef in the water. That's it! It only takes about 3 hours to thaw. I do flip it over every once in a while, too. I thawed some beef this morning so we can have burgers for supper.

Another tip that I picked up on the last time we were there is using the house fan for cover noise during naps! I don't have a noise maker of any kind in Emma's room (except the annoying ticking clock), so I've been turning the fan on the air conditioning/furnace unit from "Auto" to "On" while she's sleeping. Now I don't feel like I have to be super quiet or be downstairs (on the computer, of course) when she is napping.

Works for me Wednesday - Homemade trail mix

Here's a little post on homemade trail mix, because why buy it when you can make a delicious trail mix for less? I even enjoy some gorp (good old raisins and peanuts) every once in a while. My latest favorite trail mix is: generous amounts of milk chocolate chips and white chocolate chips mixed with peanuts and raisins. I'm addicted to it. Whenever I start eating it I can't put it down. Help! I think I'll go have some right now.

I'm sure it would be great with other dried fruit, M & Ms or sunflower seeds. Do you have a favorite trail mix? What's in it?

What Doesn't Work for Me - Trying to get too much done

Sometimes I find myself in a "get it done" mode and I end up ignoring my 15-month-old. She ends up getting very whiny and wants me to pick her up. Which makes me frustrated because I'm not getting (whatever) done and then I try to work faster which we all know means I make more mistakes. This whole scenario can be avoided if I just take a few minutes to pay attention and play with Emma. Or if it's really something I need to get done, I can always stall her with a snack!

Works for me Wednesday - Picasa

Picasa works for us. We use Picasa to edit our pictures and we post pictures of Emma on Picasa web albums every month and that way long distance relatives can see her. Picasa is free, too. I'm sure there are other things you can do with Picasa, but we mainly use it to edit and share pictures.

We're off to Colorado tonight so say a prayer for safe travel...as one fellow traveler put it...driving with 3 kids in the middle of the night in the mountains into a snow storm. Hopefully the snow holds off! Anyway, I probably won't update this blog until Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!