Archive for the ‘House & Home’ Category

The Ubiquitous ‘Bucks

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

I saw an advertisement in my latest Real Simple magazine for Starbucks. Lately, they’ve been spending a LOT of money in their marketing department, trying to stop the trend of bad sales. [Like here, and here.] They are even going as far to create non-branded locations like this one. Anyways, the ad basically said that there was only one place to get StarbucksStarbucks-quality coffee, and that was at Starbucks. The first thing that popped into my head was that you can buy Starbucks coffee just about anywhere these days. And I’m not even talking about their locations that are across the street from another Starbucks. I mean going to a random hotel and seeing a sign in their restaurant saying “We proudly brew Starbucks coffee.” Or for that matter, going into Barnes & Noble and getting it from them. There are bags and bags of the stuff at the grocery store, and you can buy it and brew it at home.

And if their coffee is so good because of the name (which is what the advertisement is implying, since they haven’t patented the production of good coffee – and many argue it’s terrible coffee anyways), then why are they opening non-branded locations?

I know I’m over-thinking it. I think that instead of focusing on their coffee (which isn’t so great), they should focus on what makes Starbucks successful. The atmosphere of the cafes themselves! I mean, really, if Starbucks was a crummy hole in the wall place or fast food-y dive like a Dunkin’ Donuts, they wouldn’t have become so successful. I feel that Starbucks has become a great Third Place, and they will lose whatever they have gained if they stop looking at that. In hard economic times, people don’t want to feel good or justified about purchasing a $4 cup of coffee.

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What’s For Dinner? Part 3

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

NOTE: I wrote this about a year ago, and found it saved in my drafts. It’s a pretty good post, so I’m sharing it with you now!

I hope you all have enjoyed the previous two installments of “What’s For Dinner?”! I may make these a more regular feature later on, but unfortunately I’m “plum” out of ideas for the time being. So for now, this one will be the last.

So I hope you’ve been able to successfully implement meal planning and the “heat and eat” mentality to your life. This will probably be a lot shorter than the others, but hopefully just as informative. I know some people prefer to just buy lunch everyday while at work, but this can really become expensive. A five dollar meal can total up to $100 a month! And that’s if you are lucky enough to be well fed for $5. Armed with some planning and some ideas about healthy snacks are all you need to be able to make it through the work day without feeling the 2pm crash or the tummy rumbles. (more…)

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House Warming

Monday, January 5th, 2009

So we’re settled into the new house! We still have boxes to unpack but we are getting closer to being completely settled in every day. Of course, we’ve been living here for the past month or more, and we still have junk to do, but that is mostly because with Christmas and everything we’ve been busy doing other things. Tomorrow is the day that I’ve decided to take all of the Christmas decorations down, so that’s what I’ll be doing once I get home from my volunteer stint at the Sagemont Library.

Mom came and went; we dropped her off at the airport this morning. It was really nice to have her here, we spent a lot of time just relaxing, talking over a cup of coffee and hanging out. Of course, we did our fair share of shopping too. This means I’m done shopping for the next few months! Christmas was great too, we had the family over for Christmas morning (more like noon, but you know…) and then we had dinner with the extended family that evening. Between work, Christmas functions and New Year’s Eve parties, I’m bushed. I’m actually quite looking forward to getting back to the regular routine of things. Classes don’t start up for me until Jan 20th, so I’ve got another 2 weeks to relax in between shifts at the bookstore.

Well, it’s a new year and you know what that means. Resolutions! To sum up last year, I did not lose 10 pounds but I did read a lot of books. I’m going to keep track of what books I read this year too, but I’m not doing my monthly updates anymore. You can keep track of my progress on my 2009 Books page (located on the sidebar). So that means I needed a new resolution. I think last year I was too ambitious. This year, I’m reading through the Bible in one year. I picked up a One Year Bible from work (yay employee discount!) and I’m trying to get into it every single day. It’s only 5 days in and I’ve already missed one day, but I did go to church that day so that counts for something, right? I’m blogging about the process, so if you are more interested in reading about my bible reading, lemme know and I’ll forward you the URL. The goal was to blog every single day, but considering how slack I am updating this one, you can imagine how the other is faring (re: not well). I think now that I’m getting back into my routine, though, I might be able to turn it around.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a great New Year! If there are any resolutions out there, let me know in the comments so I can pray for and encourage you.

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Posted in House & Home, Life |

L-Ike a Hurricane.

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

My goodness. Ever since Wednesday things have been in total chaos. I’m sure if anyone has been watching the news at all or not completely under a rock (that means you, Sarah) you probably have figured out that I’m either in hiding or I’ve been Hurricane’d. Today is my first day of unfettered internet access although I seem to have lost any semblance of cellular reception in the process. I’ve spent most of the past week either crying, panicking, or travelling somewhere to get away from the hurricane. We stayed Thursday through Monday at our friends’ place in Troup, TX (about 2.5 hours southwest from Dallas) and although we had no power Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, it was a pretty good time. We got to visit with them and relax. I actually felt pretty good about things until we got closer to Houston. The damage is really scary to see. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to be here when that storm hit.

I spent most of today trying to get my schoolwork under control but it’s difficult considering I can’t hook my own laptop up to the internet and have to use someone else’s computer. So my notes are on mine and I have to look things up on this one – very inefficient. I’d go somewhere to hook up to the internet but at this point I just don’t know where to go. I don’t even know if I have an appointment tomorrow with a doctor since I have no way to get ahold of anyone. Very frustrating.

I mostly just wish that Mike and I had our own place to go to since we’re staying with his grandmother and I just feel weird about the whole thing. It would be nice to have our own private space to be in. Of course this storm has probably made our house even farther from its completion date. We’ll be lucky to be in there by Christmas. I know I sound discouraged and mopey and I kind of am, although I do feel relieved and happy that the damage wasn’t worse and everyone I know made it through safely. Some more breathing room would be nice though.

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Posted in Dear Diary, House & Home |

Meags’ Pantry Dive; Or, Not a Hitch in the Kitch

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Since we are moving out of this apartment to who-knows-where in less than three weeks, I’ve had to be a little creative with dinner. I decided on Sunday that I would not do a traditional grocery shop (including for lunches) until after we were settled into our new digs, whether that be at the in-laws’ or the new house (I’m praying we’ll have a place to settle before mid-October). So that meant taking all of my frozen meat out of the freezer and searching for recipes by ingredient on Allrecipes.com. I searched for about 30 minutes and came up wanting (found some things I definitely want to try, though!), so I headed to the kitchen and started throwing things into a pan. Here’s what came out of it:

Meags’ Fly-by-the-Seat-of-My-Jeans Goulash

  • 1/2 lb ground beef (freezer burnt optional)
  • 1 tsp minced garlic (about 1-2 cloves)
  • 3/4 cup diced onion (or a handful)
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup diced sweet green and red pepper
  • all the elbow macaroni you have (about 3 cups)
  • 2 14.5oz cans diced tomatoes (don’t drain)
  • 6oz can tomato paste
  • 5oz can mushrooms (drained)
  • dash salt and pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese (grated by husband – trust me, it tastes better this way)

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Brown the beef in the oil at about medium-high heat, tossing in the garlic and onions at first, then add the sweet peppers when the meat is almost browned. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to directions. Once the beef is browned and the veggies sauteed, add the tomatoes and the paste. Stir around so that it becomes a thick sauce. Add the mushroom and the seasonings, then simmer for a few minutes, until heated through.

After the pasta is nice and al dente, drain it and put it in a casserole dish. I used my 2-1/2 quart corningware dish and it was brimming over – so maybe a lasagna pan. Then pour the sauce over top and stir it in so that noodles are all covered in the sauce. Top with mozzarella cheese and bake until the cheese melts (about 10 minutes). Serve!

I was actually quite surprised by how good it was considering how few ingredients I used (not to mention, I’m not really a recipe inventin’ kinda gal). I think in the future, I would add some oregano and basil to the recipe, and maybe some marjoram. Spinach would also taste pretty good in the sauce. We’ll see if I start inventing more recipes as the last few weeks here at Apt 7302 come along.

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Posted in Food, House & Home |

Plan To Say Farewell in 2080!

Monday, July 21st, 2008

I just took this quiz thing on The Living to 100 website, and apparently I’ll go when I’m 97 as long as my lifestyle persists. You answer 40 questions on your lifestyle, genetics, and medical history. The neat part is that you can ask for feedback on what would add longevity to your life. Things they recommended for me was better stress management, working fewer hours (amen to that), cutting out coffee (gasp!), taking aspirin once a day, flossing more, exercising more, and getting my blood sugar, blood pressure, and regular check-ups regularly. So, I can definitely work towards some of those things. But nixing the coffee? Forget it!

Source: Better Homes and Gardens, August 2008, p. 170

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Posted in Health, Life |

Coffee Lovers Rejoice!

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Browsing my Google reader this morning I came across this:

20. Coffee
The old cup-o-joe has been thrown on the stands for many a corporeal crime—heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis—but exonerated on all counts. In fact, coffee, which is derived from a bean, contains beneficial antioxidants that protect against free radicals and may actually help thwart heart disease and cancer. While it’s not going to fill you up like the other items on this list, it might make you a lot perkier. When made at home, coffee runs less than 50¢ cents a cup. Source

Huzzah! It’s always nice to have something that you enjoy every day to be actually healthful. Of course, caffeine isn’t always a good choice but it’s better in coffee than it is in soda.

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Posted in Food, Health |

Almost Slab-Pouring Time!

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

We got some good news on Thursday afternoon – the permit for our lot is in so they are going to start building our house before the end of the month. I still can’t believe this is all happening. It’s very exciting! We’re going to have a meeting with the builder before they start and we’ll hammer our all the fine details then. So it should be this coming Thursday or Friday and then pretty quickly they’ll start the house! We’re hoping it will be completed in November so we can move in before Thanksgiving and get the holidays going. We’re still waiting for some of the paperwork to be finalized but it’s pretty much just a formality at this point. Yay! I’m hoping to have pictures up on Flickr sometime soon, so keep an eye out for that on the sidebar.

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Posted in Dear Diary, House & Home |

What’s For Dinner? Part 2

Monday, June 30th, 2008

So you’ve tried the meal planning, the shopping ahead of time, and may have even forayed into using the calendar for weekly meal planning. But there’s still a problem. You get home from work and find yourself too tired to cook one of the dinners that you carefully planned. Welcome to the advanced class! (more…)

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What’s For Dinner? Part 1

Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Home organization and food are topics that I enjoy reading about and putting into action. Last week I had a stroke of genius in implementing the two together to solve a major problem that I face every weeknight when I arrive from work: What’s for dinner? As progressive as my husband and I are, the kitchen is still the woman’s castle in our place, so this means I’m generally saddled with the bulk of this problem. I’m also a person with a tight biological schedule, and my body needs food preferably before 7pm. So, to battle this problem, I came up with a plan that, on its second week of implementation, seems to function well and keep my tired body sated.

(more…)

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