Loving Our Home | Home Tips, Advice, and Easy Recipes

Simple Home Tips and Solutions

Keeping Kids Busy During Summer Months

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Parents, as we all know, find it challenging when children are on summer break to keep them entertained. My main problem with my own children was the lack of physical and mental activity. I did not want their health to suffer due to boredom. I was forced to think of affordable ideas to keep them active.

First, I telephoned my local YMCA to learn of any age appropriate camps offered. Realizing that I have a tight budget, I inquired if they were any programs to assist me financially with paying for the camp. Thankfully, there was! Then, I talked to my children to find out which day camp they wanted to attend and signed them up.

My second idea, was to research any local public swimming pools, that had weekend hours in my area. I felt that giving them a dose of vitamin D from the sun and providing proper sun screen protection would be healthy for them. With their youthful energy, they enjoyed playing and swimming for hours. To keep them energized, I brought a cooler that contained ice, bottled water, fruit, and homemade sandwiches to nourish them on my tight budget.

My third idea was to not only exercise their body but their mind as well. So, I decided to take them to the public library to choose a book of their choice. I gave them a task of reading at least two chapters a day. We would later discuss in detail the chapters that they read at dinner. By doing this, it insured me that they comprehended and could verbalize what they had read.

Summer months can be extremely difficult. With a little thought and research, I found fun and affordable activities to keep them entertained. I was happy that, they were not sitting around the house for months, miserable. A nice plus at the end of the day, was that they were so exhausted, they went to sleep by 8:30. Yeah!! More time for mommy!!

 

Quick Recipe: Italian Spinach & Sausage Bake

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At my house we absolutely love spinach. Spinach is jam-packed with healthy vitamins and nutrients for the body. Eating lots of spinach has a number of health benefits for diabetics, people with high blood pressure and even bone conditions.

It also goes very well with many Italian dishes. One of my favorite spinach dishes to make is a spinach and sausage bake. It is so delicious, flavorful and healthy.

The ingredients all blend together so nicely to give you a flavorful Italian style vegetable-based dish. It doesn’t take long to make but you really have to stay close to the pot and do some work. Here’s the recipe:

5 Italian Chicken Sausages (I like Premio)
1 1/2 large 20 oz bags of fresh spinach
1/2 cup of peeled garlic cloves (chopped into large chunks)
1/2 box of mushrooms (sliced and chopped)
1 large broccoli crown (optional – chopped)
8 oz bag of shredded low-fat mozzarella cheese
2 pinches of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon of salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon of black pepper (to taste)
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
Olive oil

Boil the sausage in a large non-stick skillet. Drain the water and then chop the sausage up into bite sized pieces. Fry the pieces in olive oil until a little browned. Add chopped garlic chunks and cook for a few minutes. Add mushrooms next and cook a few more minutes. Mix in broccoli, seasonings and as much of the spinach as will fit in your lot. Add a little more olive oil. This is where you have to be quick because you don’t want the spinach to reduce too much. Scoop the sausage mixture from the bottom on top of the fresh spinach until it cooks down some then add more spinach until it’s all in there (don’t overcook!)

Scoop the spinach mixture in a square foil baking pan and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake on 350 for 5 minutes then turn it on broil for about 2-3 minutes until it’s browned. Salt to taste.

This recipe serves about 4 people.

Posted by: Jasmine

4 Tips to Wake Yourself Up in the Morning

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Little Teddy
© Ng | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Everyone has those mornings when they just don’t feel like getting up out of the bed. Maybe it’s because you had a hard night of partying the night before. Maybe it’s because you only fell asleep two hours before the alarm clock went off. In my case it’s usually because I’m stuck in a really good dream that I just don’t want to end.

But you do have to get up at some point to get things done. So here are a few tips for how to inspire yourself out of the bed on these tough mornings. Up and at em!

Wake Up to an Audiobook
I adore audiobooks. I am listening to an audiobook now while writing this blog post. Audiobooks can inspire educate and motivate you which is why it’s a great way to wake yourself up in the morning. When your alarm clock goes off, press snooze once and immediately turn on your favorite audiobook. Loud.

Check Your Email
The great thing about smart phones is that you receive your emails all day long even while you’re sleeping. One way that I get alert enough to wake up on a tough morning is to wrap my smart phone and start browsing the emails that I’ve received thus far. You may see in email that is urgent or important enough to make you sit up and started doing some work.

Talk to God / The Universe
Another great way to wake yourself up in the morning is to have a conversation with a higher power, which I call God. Even if you’re not a “religious” person, you can still have a conversation with the Universe or yourself about what you want to accomplish that day. Say positive affirmations out loud about how great everything will be — you might be surprised when it comes true.

Call or Text Someone You Love
One of the best ways to get inspired to get up out of bed in the morning — even when you’ve just had a tough night — is to call or text someone you love (who is likely to respond of course) and start a conversation. A laugh, joke or news from a loved one is just what you need to break free from the dream world and start your day.

Try out these tips to wake yourself up in the morning. Sleep is awesome, but when you wake up bright and early to start your day you feel encouraged, motivated and energized.

Pinterest Question – Why Do You Pin?

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Pinterest has quickly become one of the top social media sites in the world. That’s certainly no surprise since humans are designed to be very visual creatures. So have you ever thought about why do you pin?

For Business?
A lot of Pinterest users pin for business reasons — smart idea. If your company sells a lot of products like clothes and crafts, using this social media site is a must. Pinning stuff from your Etsy shop, blog or online store directs interested users to a place where they can learn more about your company. Then it’s pretty much sell, sell, sell from there,

For Yourself?
By Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsPinterest is an awesome place to create vision boards. A vision board used to be a physical thing that you would have to create from poster board and magazine clippings, but now you can pretty much pull “clippings” from all over the World Wide Web to your virtual vision board. Looking at these boards regularly can help you move closer to reaching that ideal for your life, home or career.

To Contribute to the World?
Everyone has their own chosen method of contributing, and some people like to share nice things with the world via Pinterest. You can pretty much start a board on any topic from. Motivating girls to cooking a delicious dinner to make your family happy. Pinning as a contribution to the world is indeed a noble reason for using Pinterest.

Whatever your reason for using Pinterest, this is a dynamic and useful social media tool that helps so many households every year. Have fun and be sure to take some time out to grab your own bit of “Pinspiration” along the way.

 

Follow Loving Our Home on Pinterest for some Pinspiration, happy thoughts and motivation for a great home life.

 

Quick Plum Tomato, Mozzarella & Farfalle Salad

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I’m the type of person… if I see something I want it. Well somehow I saw a picture of tomatoes and mozzarella/feta and I wanted it. I decided to make it my mission to create a quick tomato and mozzarella salad. I added some pasta to the mix to make it a real lunch.

It took all of 10 minutes to make. Here’s the simple recipe:

– 4 plum tomatoes
– about 6 ounces of mozzarella cheese (cut into medium sized chunks)
– About a half a cup of Farfalle
– Balsamic vinaigrette (I like Ken’s)
– Italian seasoning or basil seasoning
– Salt & pepper

Boil the pasta with a bit of salt and olive oil until it’s al dente. Drain pasta and put it in the freezer to get it cold. In the meantime, cut the tomatoes and mozzarella into bite-sized chunks. Put them together in a bowl and season with basil/italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Add the now-cold pasta and about a 1/4 cup of balsamic vinaigrette and fold everything together with a spoon.

Mmmm, it was so tasty.

Adjust seasoning and dressing according to taste, enjoy!

Posted by: Jasmine

Tomato Farfalle Photo

Photo credit: Flickr/rooey202

Direct Mail Marketing “Tricks” — Coupons Linked to Your Information

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I received a mailing from a new supermarket in the area offering $10 off of a $20 purchase for four weeks in a row. Nice deal huh? The only catch is that you have to use your rewards card (and the scannable coupon of course).

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But here’s what you need to be aware of — as soon as you use that coupon and your rewards card it will likely be automatically linked to your physical address. So now the retailer knows:

– that you are the resident at that mailing address
– that you like/answer direct mail ads (get prepared to get a whole lot more)
– what the people at your house shop for so that they’ll know who to sell your information to / how to set prices

Basically, you’re giving up a whole lot of information for $10!

You might be perfectly fine with all of that, but it’s still good to understand the complexities of marketing in this digital age. Once you open up a door for direct mail marketing offers it’s hard to get it back closed.

Happy and smart shopping!

Posted by: Kristina