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Thursday, June 23, 2016

Strawberry Smoothie


What do you do with all those strawberries? Even if you don't grow them, they are in season and often on sale. They are delicious and easy to use.

Strawberry Smoothie

2-3 people
  • 1 cup strawberries
  • 1 cup milk
  • 14 cup sugar, or stevia
  • 1 banana
  • 8 -10 ice cubes
Directions
  1. Put all ingredients in blender.
  2. Blend until smooth.


This recipe is adapted from Americangirl.com and it's amazing.

Recipes for Eggplant


Though I've loved eggplant for years, we've never grown it. However, each year we try one new thing in the garden, and this year Eggplant was it! Here's our first flower! Proud moment for me.

Thanks for visiting us to get some great ideas on how to use veggies from your garden! From Greenhouse to Kitchen is a great resource for garden tips, tricks and ideas! Here are some great recipes on how to use EGGPLANT.

Armenian Eggplant Casserole

Emeril's Eggplant 

Sausage and Eggplant Casserole

Eggplant Parmesan (our favorite!)

Enjoy eating from the garden every night!

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Meals for Others

So yeah, my blog is on life support. At one time, this filled a much needed void, and now life is changing. I am preparing for some big life changes, and although I love writing and sharing, the blog isn't going to be what it used to be. Don't worry, I'm not shutting it down, and you'll still have access to all my great ideas and recipes. One of the new things we are working on is starting a Greenhouse growing business. If you haven't already, PLEASE go like our Facebook page "From Greenhouse to Kitchen" --Click Here to Like our Page

And every once in awhile, I'll even post something that has inspired me...like today. I've had the opportunity to help a lot of my friends and neighbors out recently, and I've gained so much from the experience. This week I get to bring dinner to a wonderful friend who has been blessed with twins--yeah!

When I had my twins cooking was the last thing on my to-do list, and lots of neighbors and family helped us out. It feels good to pay it forward and help out others. I enjoy a challenge and am always looking for new meal ideas--so when presented with the opportunity to bring a meal into someone who is sick, or a new parent, or whatever, I am often stumped on what to bring. My family eats a lot of spicy and "grown up" dishes that may toddlers don't eat, so what to bring is sometimes challenging.

Here are a few home-run ideas that may help you out when you get the chance to serve, or if you just want to try something new for your family. Enjoy!

Mac N Cheese
Swedish Meatballs
Katie's French Dip (at bottom of post)
Martha's Ideas
Fixings for easy sandwiches the kids can do themselves

And if none of that helps....Little Caesar's, KFC, Subway, and Carl's Jr. can help you out in a pinch.

Until next time....  

Friday, July 3, 2015

Online Sale

UPDATE:  It's that time of year again! The time where we celebrate freedom, family, friendship. It's also the time of year when the voices in my head (yep,  I was Inside Out before it was cool) start screaming that it's time to purge, sort, and redecorate my entire house. So, I cleaned out the basement...and I found lots of treasures. Everything is FOR SALE and open to offers. Seriously...make me an offer! Thanks to everyone who has purchased new treasures from us. We appreciate you!! Here's a few last gems that are waiting for new homes.

 New stand, in plastic, for 55 inch TV $10


Panasonic tv WITH remote. Works great, just too big for our small room. 54 inch big screen tv; 27 inches deep. Has a great picture and sound. S-Video / Composite cables, can be converted to HDMI with cables (not included). Needs a new home. $25 OBO

 Aeropostale Polos size Small $2 each

 U of U 3T jersey-does have small mark on bottom $2

 Size XL girls, D-signed by Disney $2

Both Juniors size M- Left is Anchorblue brand; right is Hollister. $2 each
 Children's Place size 10-12; $2 each

$5 Black velvet, size 7-8 girls, great condition
Franklin Mint 1980 Christmas plate $10
SHOES! My daughter is earning money for dance company and needs to offload some of her shoe collection. From left to right in pics: Pic 1: Nine west peep toe heels, size 8.5, heel height 4 inches, $5; Fioni Night, silver sparkle strapy sandal, size 9, heel height 3 inches, $5; Unlisted brand, striped open toe heels, size 8, heel height 3 inches, $5: Pic 2 in middle: Sofft brand round black pump, size 7.5, $3; Madden Girls, size 8, brown with silver buckle on toe, kitten heel, $5;GAP strappy brown sandal, size 8, $5; Pic 3: Breckelle’s black and white open toe, size 8, $2; Naturalizer black strapy heel, size 8, heel height 3 inches, $3; Steve Madden white open toe backless heel, size 7.5, heel height 3 inches, $3; American Eagle, red and white polka dot wedge, size 7.5, $2





 Set of 3 stainless steel canisters, used, but in good shape $3 for all

Vintage Beaded purse- some of the beads are coming off in the lower corner. $10, obo

 set of 3 connected 4x6 frames and set of 2 connected 5x7 frames $2 for all

 Cute spring basket $1




Monday, June 8, 2015

What are You Doing?

It's been awhile since my last post. I'm back to helping out a new nonprofit called Women of the World. We help refugee women achieve self reliance, economic empowerment and a voice in the community. I love my work! Check out www.womenofworld.org for more info.

So since I've been educating a lot of people on what Women of the World does, I've been thinking about What I Am Doing. We have a "Family Mantra"-- a series of thoughts or mottoes or missions, to help keep us focused. After a year of working on these I thought I should put it down on the everlasting internet for all to consider.
Think Before You Speak - Gossip - Young Women's Lesson Handout - YW


Motto 1: Think Before you Speak. If I had a nickel for every time I heard this as a child..... This above reminder can be found on Pinterest, and was particularly aimed at squelching gossip. However, I use it to help my kids choose their words more carefully during disagreements with each other. This is a good reminder for all of us to make sure we are truthful, helpful, inspiring and kind.

Motto 2:  There is a Good-Better-Best scenario for all things. Now, I am not one to throw religion around. I like to keep those thoughts to myself, however this is from a talk from an LDS (Mormon) apostle Dallin H. Oaks.  Here's the link to his talk. Basically the idea is that we have to skip over "good things" some times to make room for the "best things." No matter what your religious views, this is just good logic. We teach our kids this perspective in an effort to help them make the best choices possible. It's important for all of us to realize things are rarely black & white; there's a lot of grey.


Motto 3: Know what you are doing and WHY you are doing it. This stems from the long-used parental argument of "If your friends jumped off a bridge (skyscraper, building, out of a plane, etc.) would you?" Back in the day I guess that parent logic worked for some kids. My point of view is that if my child (or I, for that matter) wanted to jump off of the proverbial bridge, they (I) should understand the motivations for jumping before hand. Mass-thinking, everyone following the leader, can lead to a lot of negative outcomes. Our decisions to do, or not to do, something should be our own. Peer pressure is a hard thing to overcome, even as adults. What a great tool to do what you want because YOU want to--own the decision. This can be dangerous because you will have no one to blame when those negative decisions are made. However, without failures, how do we learn?

Motto 4: Stay out of "the box." If you haven't read any of the Arbinger Institute books, you should. They teach great tools to dealing with conflict in work situations, family situations, positive spousal communication and simple ways to parent children, especially those who need extra love. Click Here for their webpage. To really water it down, the Arbinger books talk about being "in the box" and ways to get out of "the box." It's all about perspective. When struggles occur, all parties need to step back and consider all the perspectives involved--it's often more than "your" perspective and "my" perspective. Once our perspectives are enlightened, problem solving becomes possible. We've taken several months to learn how to recognize our triggers that cause us to "get into the box" and how to best approach others when they are "in the box." It's a work in progress, and more than just telling someone they are "boxed in." However, I have seen changes in our family that have at the very least, resulted in a productive form of voicing differences. At least they listen to each other before they speak--so progress, right?


Motto 5: You can only control 2 things in Life- your actions and your reactions to others' actions. This is a lesson I learned very early in life. Crap happens. It happens to everyone, and you can only decide to sink or swim. In our world where everyone competes on Social Media (yes, we are all doing it at some point) and fears of the unknown abound, let your mind take refuge in the fact that most of the time the things coming at you are out of your control. What can you do? Not a damn thing, except to look at the situation with an honest perspective and choose your course of action. In respect to our children--we can't truly control their actions, even when they're little. Anyone with a toddler knows this. You can lead, guide, maybe bribe and cajole them, but ultimately if they are going to do something, good or bad, it's up to them. I strongly believe having honest, open communication with family members, friends, co-workers, spouses, etc. often (daily) will allow us to get to know each other and build a foundation of trust. And isn't that where avoiding conflict starts--trust? I trust you because I know you, and your character. We can work this out because I trust we can make a good decision/solve a problem together.When trust is broken, well the game changes. It can take years to "fix" that situation, and everyone has to be willing to take responsibility and action to fix it. "Do your best, forget the rest."

This is not a perfect road map on successfully navigating life. These are the tools I use every day as a spouse, parent, daughter and friend to steer myself in a direction where I can more easily choose to be happy. Life will never be perfect--and how boring would it be if it were? When life is rocking and rolling against us, we will need people, not things, to make it through. Hopefully these ideas will steer us in the right direction.
But don't sit on your tail end and do nothing while waiting.... Go out there and SHOW people why you are waiting.
Twitter / CosmopolitanUK: Life lessons from Disney ...
Powerful analogy of an apology. This is brilliant, never read something so true! Good lesson why an apology may not be enough to set things right.
Woman Pictures, Photos, and Images for Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter
Too bad I had to educate myself in this, and it's been a hard road...but my future kids will know the difference.
Marci Coombs: Young Women stuff. Tons of lesson handouts and other YW ideas

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

New Adventures in the Garden

Thanks to all of you who've stuck with me so far....

We are off on a new adventure! We have started a new hobby of growing plants and veggies for our own yard. Since we've had a lot of success this year, we've sold the extras. This has been great as it provides our neighbors and friends with great plants at a great price and it helps support our growing habit...hahahaha.

I am busy setting up Instagram and Facebook accounts, and hopefully in the future a new website. If you're on Facebook, please LIKE and SHARE our page From Greenhouse to Kitchen. I am putting not only what inventory we have to share and sell (right now we're all sold out!!) BUT also recipes, gardening tips that I actually use, and organic gardening ideas to help us all produce the best possible fruits, flowers and veggies.

We are so excited about this process and hope you'll all help spread the word so we can grow in this adventure together.

We will have Anaheim peppers and Red Peppers available around the first part of June, so if you're interested shoot me a text, email, phone call, FB post, Instagram post, etc, etc.

Thanks all and have a productive summer!

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Easiest Meal Planning Ever

My pal Carrie introduced me to Pepperplate.com. They have a huge database of recipes that you can use to literally print out menus, meal ideas, shopping lists, and nutritional info. You can also manually input your own recipes. AND they have a free app (the website is also free!)

Please check it out! You will love it--and no, no one paid me to endorse this. It truly is that amazing.

One of the other awesome things I found was in Real Simple magazine. They ave 10-15-20-and 30 minute meals.

Here are the links for your viewing pleasure.
10 minute meals
15 minute meals
20 minute meals
30 minute meals

There's lot of other cool ideas on there too- like Make Ahead, One Pot, Quick & Easy!

Enjoy!