Easy caprese salad

Caprese salad is such a summer delight...fresh tomatoes and basil, olive oil, mozzarella.  Delish!  And with only five ingredients, it's a cinch to make.  Here's the official TMI-Amanda-Grant way to do it:

1. Realize that BUNCO is that very evening, and you need a quick dish.  Bonus points if there is a TON of ripe tomatoes sitting on the counter at home.  Decide on Caprese salad and buy a block of mozzarella cheese on the way home from work.

2.   Upon arriving home, try to ignore the complaints and complexities of any small people in the house.  This might be the only chance for a Girls Night Out--no need to blow it by pandering to the children.

3.   Don't worry about making a clean work space; instead, just shove things off to the side.

4. Dice up several ripe tomatoes, and then dice up a few more.  Let everyone share in the bounty of the garden.  Bonus! This increases bragging rights later on.

5. Dice up the block of mozzarella cheese.  Ruminate over why the block was purchased instead of the cheese balls in juice. Remember that the Big Guy still needs to be picked up at the train station and stop pondering the merits of different forms of mozzarella cheese.  Throw the cheese in with the tomatoes.

6. Liberally sprinkle extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes and cheese.

7.  Add some fresh basil leaves.  Bonus! More bragging rights since the basil is from the indoor herb garden.  Consider taking a photography class so pictures turn out better than this.

8. Stir everything together so the olive oil and vinegar are coating everything.

9. Realize that OMG THE TRAIN IS ARRIVING IN 5 MINUTES AND IT TAKES 15 MINUTES TO GET TO THE TRAIN STATION, so stop taking close-up pictures of this amazing concoction.

10. Put the caprese salad in the fridge for a bit, and then take it to BUNCO and bask in all the compliments.

Of course, that's just how I make my caprese salad.  You can leave out the frantic pace, unruly children, messy kitchen and racing to the train station if you like. It's just a matter of preference.

Painting the master bathroom

Over Labor Day, the Big Guy and I got a HUGE task crossed off the household to-do list: we painted the master bathroom. I've wanted to do this ever since we moved in.  It was painted an ugly brown-green-baby poop color (including the ceiling) and it made the room incredibly dark. More importantly, it was making me a bit nauseous.  It had to go!

Before:

During:

After:

Isn't that a huge improvement?  The main bathroom is Softer Tan and the water closet is Shagreen. Both colors are from Sherwin Williams.  Softer Tan was not my first choice for this room, but I had to stick with a neutral color to coordinate with all the tile work and counter tops.   I hope to have artwork up by the end of the week, which will bring in some brighter colors.

Phew! One room down, and only four more to go by October 8.  

Martha Monday--September To Do's

Martha has a planning calender tool on her website (I've mentioned this before), but did you know you can also see her To Do list for the month?

Go ahead and take a look at that calendar. It's blissfully empty--Martha has a few things going on, but not much. I can only assume that this is not her actual calender. We all know that she's busy working, managing her farm and other properties, gearing up for a new season of The Martha Stewart Show, travelling and more. Quite frankly, I feel a little cheated.  I want to know Martha is busy running around like a madwoman, because that's exactly what I've been doing lately.   Knowing she is busy with life, work, family, etc. and making it all work would give me encouragement and motivation I need to keep pace with my own life, work, family and more.

Fall is a busy time filled with lots of birthdays and fun activities.  The Little Guy's birthday is next month, and there's A LOT of work I want to get done around the house before then.  Basically, we've lived here for almost three years and there are many rooms I don't consider to be finished--master bedroom, guest room, family room, living room, etc.  In fact, until September, only three rooms have been finished: Little Guy's room (see here and here), Little Miss's room and their bathroom.  I'm really sick of living in rooms I'm not happy with, and that has to change.  And I want it all done before Little Guy's fourth birthday.

Because there is nothing like a huge looming deadline to make me kick it into gear.

Here's what I have planned for September 1--October 8:

Paint the master bathroom (The Big Guy and I actually did this over Labor Day weekend--I'll be posting pictures soon!)
Hang artwork in the bathroom
Paint master bedroom and hang artwork
Paint guest room, hang artwork and display shelves/hooks
Get storm door for front entry
Paint the front door
Paint the half bathroom and hang artwork
Paint the family room
Finish art display project for living room

And those are just my "home improvement" to-do's.  I'm not including other stuff, like putting the garden to bed for the winter and basic household maintenance.  It's going to be a busy few weeks, but I am looking forward to it. The happiness I get from a finished task and great-looking room far outweighs the struggle it took to get the job done.  I'm already looking forward to enjoying these made-over rooms.

What do you have planned for this fall?  If you have nothing going on, feel free to come hang out at the TMI household. I might have something you can do. ;)

Summer FAIL

Summer is officially over and part of me is really sad. I had lots of goals this summer; the biggest and best goal--having fun with my kids--was definitely accomplished. Goal #2--become a real gardener--can also be checked off my list.  But Goal #3--get caught up on the kids' scrapbooks and photo albums--completely and totally fell by the wayside.  Thus the sadness.  TMI GOAL FAIL.

For a while, I really almost totally was ready to tackle this project. I had ordered a bunch of pictures through Snapfish at the beginning of the summer with the best of intentions to work on the photo albums. Then, as tends to happen with small children around, Little Miss got into the envelopes of pictures and mixed them all up.  Pictures were everyone and disorganization reigned.  LITTLE MISS FAIL.

Obviously, that quasi-disaster set me back a little bit.  By mid-summer, the picture jumble was driving me mad and I couldn't take it anymore.  I spread everything out on the office floor and spent an entire morning sorting through 200+ pictures.  I organized them by month, but to get the months right, I had to compare groups of pictures with the digital versions on my computer. 

It was a long and tedious process, though I did enjoy the stroll down memory lane.

Now, all pictures are sorted by month and tucked inside a storage bin drawer.  Where they sit.  And wait. As you can see from the month labels, I am exactly two years behind on the photo albums.  AMANDA FAIL.

Summer was a busy time, and all things considered, I am choosing to be happy about what I did accomplish rather than be unhappy about what I didn't.  After all, making happy memories with your kids trumps getting caught up on photo albums and scrapbooks any time.  But, the anal-retentive Martha Stewart wanna-be in me is hanging her head in shame over this fail.  PERSPECTIVE FAIL.

Now that we're in fall, I know there's no way I'll be touching these pictures anytime soon--the Little Guy's birthday and Halloween are just around the corner, and I have a ton of home improvements planned between now and then.  Still, if I just try a bit harder to channel my inner Martha, buckle down and learn to live on three hours of sleep each night, I might be able to get this done by working on bits here and there.  That's a good strategy, right?

REALITY FAIL.

Weekend plans

Everyone knows I love a good resale...sale, and there are several good ones coming up in the Fox Valley. Woohoo!

This weekend, I'll be at the John Shields and McDole Elementary PTO Sale in Sugar Grove. I stumbled upon this sale by accident in the spring, and I was really impressed! Lots of kids clothes, equipment and toys, and everything was nicely organized.  The sale is Friday, September 9 from 6-9pm and Saturday, September 10 from 8am to 1pm at the Sugar Grove Community House. 

Next weekend, I'm giving the St. Peter Barn Sale a try. I first learned about this sale from a participant in my most recent Live Well, Spend Less! class at Waubonsee.  The St. Peter Barn Sale is held Saturday, September 17 from 8am to 3pm and Sunday, September 18 from 9am to 2pm at the Kane County Fairgrounds.  Based on the pictures at their facebook page, this sale looks huge!

Finally, in October I'll stop at the resale event hosted by the Tri-Cities Mothers of Twins and Triplets Club.  Held at the Mooseheart Field House, this sale is on Saturday, October 1 from 8am to 1pm. It costs $1.00 per person to enter, and you'll need to bring a stroller, wagon or large tote bag to haul around your purchases. 

At each sale, I'll be on the lookout for winter clothes for the Little Guy and Little Miss as well as Halloween costumes and dress-up outfits.  If you see a crazy woman frantically digging through the 5T and 2T sizes looking for footed pajamas, it's just me. Come on over and say Hello!