Other than the pure clensing effect of blogging and the numerous friendships I've made out here in the blogosphere over the years, I occasionally run into opportunities that have only come up because I blog. This week, I was lucky enough to receive an email from CSN Stores to asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing one of their products. It was an easy YES once I saw how many fabulous products there are out there to review! CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find anything you need whether it be a snuggly new bedding, a chic bar stool or even gorgeous dinnerware!
*sigh*
I love kitchen stuff.
And there are scads and scads of kitchen stuff available.
So I am gonna go browsing :-) I'll let you know what I pick!

Labels: shopping, stuff I like

I usually buy my chicken at Sam's Club.
You can get a ten pound bag of boneless-skinless frozen chicken breasts for $22.00.
Yesterday when I went grocery shopping though, I was really hoping I wouldn't have to go to Sam's.... I was really hoping I'd find a good deal on chicken at HEB (our local grocery chain).
And you know what?
I totally did.
First of all, regular boneless skinless chicken breasts were on sale for $1.99 a pound. PERFECT I thought. That is going to save me a trip to Sam's for today.
But then, my little school skipping daughter says, "hey Mom, look at these, they are marked down."

The "this" she was referring to was the all natural chicken breasts that sit next to the processed, additives added chicken I was buying.


Here's the thing, dear reader, I love organic. I love all natural. I buy it whenever I can possibly manage to because I know it's better for us. But most of the time, it is twice the price and I just can't afford all that.
This time it wasn't twice the price, it was less than the regular chicken I had been about to buy. Why? Because it's sell by date was two days away.
I care not for sell by dates because I freeze everything in my trusty stand alone freezer in the laundry room.
When I started loading up, I almost chickened out (pun so totally intended) because I saw that about half of them were bone in, skin on. Now, I can debone a chicken breast pronto, and I will if I need to. But mostly, I am all about convenience. I don't want to have to mess with it all.
I hesitated.
And then I had the shocking realization that by buying these, I would not only save money on the chicken, but I could also cross the organic, four dollars a quart chicken stock I had on my list off. Why? Because I could make my own.

Here is the break down of the cash:
I bought 19.57lbs of chicken for $28.67, roughly $1.50 a pound!
(That is almost twice the amount of chicken I would have got at Sam's for only six bucks more!)
Additionally I was able to make almost a gallon of all natural chicken stock using the bones and all of my veggie scraps. A gallon of all natural chicken stock would have cost me about $16.00 at the store.

So, as you can see - I SAVED.

BUT what did I do with all of it?
Well, first I took it all off the bone and removed the skin. I had three large bowls. One for the skin (which I don't use or keep), one for the bones (for the stock) and one for the chicken.

Once I had it all separated, I threw away the skins and put the bones on to cook in a big pot of water.


Then I had to figure out what to do with the chicken.

In a few quart sized bags, I put about six cloves of minced garlic...


and a half a cup of buttermilk and about eight chicken breasts cut into two inch chunks. This will be for me to fry chicken nuggets with later. Labeled and into the freezer it goes.


I then cut the whole breasts in half, length-wise, creating two smaller but still whole chicken breasts. (I find that the girls and I can very rarely eat a whole chicken breast by ourselves.) Then I grabbed the bottle of Italian dressing I had bought just for this very purpose...


And put about six to eight of them into a labeled bag headed to the freezer....


Then I put the remaining chicken, six to eight breasts at a time, into quart sized bags unseasoned (I don't know what I might want to do with them later)...
By the time I was done, I had EIGHT bags of chicken in the freezer and three breasts left out for the dinner I was making that night.

I went through my veggie drawer and grabbed anything that was about to get bad and chunked it into the pot, I also started cleaning all of the vegetables I had bought, throwing their stems and extra parts into the stock. Additionally, I cleaned up the kale I was using for my two experiment dinner/snack items I was making that night and threw the kale stems in.
This is what it all looked like when I turned it off to cool.


It smelled amazing. The girls kept coming in to tell me as much. I let it cool for about an hour and then strained it and poured it into a gallon pitcher. I wanted it to cool completely before I put it into bags and into the freezer.

In the midst of all of this I cooked two different recipes which I will be posting later and I also prepared beef in a marinade for something I will make later this week and froze it as well as a meatloaf which I also made and froze.
Pictures got scarce about four hours in ;-)

Labels: Being Mommy, cooking, shopping

After a spattering of dreams I struggled to remember every time they woke me up, I got up to let the four legged beasties outside to do their respective things and made myself a cup of coffee using my new french press. Let me tell ya, having a tendency to break all things glass, including coffee carafe.. is it called a carafe? Anyway, it does make it to where I get to try a new coffee maker roughly once a year. And as tempted as I am to buy one of those new fangled coffee makers where in all you do is add a little creamer-from-the-gas-station looking container and water and voi-effing-la you have a dang latte, I have a fear that I will run out of the little container thingies and there won't be a back up place in which I can just put regular coffee grounds and the world as I know it will cease to exist because I can't have any coffee and I live in the country, a million miles away from a Starbucks.
Holy run-on sentence, Batman.
I had good dreams last night which is why every time I woke up, I wanted to get back into them or pick them apart and dissect them for the purposes of either 1. my enjoyment or 2. my novel. However, neither ended up being the case because I shopped for FIVE HOURS yesterday people and my ass was tired.
[An aside - I want to be a bone fide writer so. very. badly. One of the things I am putting into place after Christmas is getting my room rearranged.. ok... OKAY! and CLEANED. And getting a desk in there. I have a bulletin board already in there that I can use for my note cards and whatever else I feel like I need to have physically in front of me. I already have the software I was planning to use to map everything out. And most importantly, MOST. IMPORTANTLY. I have this fabulous idea that I have been chewing on for a couple of months now and I have finally figured out the general beginning to end and now I just need to discover my characters and decide whether their story wants to be a book or a screenplay because it could go either way in my head.] note to self - work on using less run-on sentences.
I woke up this morning at seven forty-five, even though I swore all week I would be sleeping until at least ten on Saturday. But the combination of the doggies needin' to pee and my being a little excited about my new french press had me headed to the kitchen instead of my room once I released the critters.
So, now for why you are all here... I have a date tonight. Most likely.
Co-Worker boy called one of his friends, his name is Tim, and asked him if he wanted to go to our regional company Christmas party with yours truly and Tim, apparently being a gambling man, said sure.
I know very little about him except that he lives about an hour from me (even more in the country than I do), he owns his own construction company, is in his mid to late twenties, is roughly five foot ten and is apparently pretty good looking. My co-worker also said he was kind of a hermit, not a guy who goes out often as he'd rather be home.
The fantasy/conclusion I have drawn from that last little tidbit of information is that the dude is much like me in that regard. In my mind, he works hard and when he isn't working he likes to be able to enjoy what he has worked hard for. I am a hermit in exactly the same way.
If my assumption about him is correct.
Given that he opted to join us for an evening out in San Antonio shows that he isn't a total hermit but again, like me, doesn't often have plans on a Saturday night.
OMG-I am having a flashback to another party where I went with a blind date. Scratch that, where I met a blind date at the party. It was when I worked at Fantasy Disco Ford and it was awful. So awful in fact, that the guy I was supposed to hang with bailed because I kept blowing him and his friend off. Oh Universe, please do not make tonight suck. Thank you.
So, I am a little excited.
I am excited in a reserved way.
I am trying not to get my hopes up because it could be a total flop.
I have already fantasized that he is the perfect man.
I bought the cutest new boots and top.

That is the thing about dating. It's much like gambling. You throw a quarter into the machine and either it spits out more quarters, all the quarters or nothing. And I have been on one hell of a losing streak lately and while I am trying to have a positive outlook about the whole thing, I am also trying to stay grounded so I don't get upset if it is nothing more than a night out with a dude who I can cross of my Potential List.

Labels: At work, My pathetic excuse for a love life, shopping, The Universe

There are two websites that I have fallen in love with:

My Savings
Coupons.com

I have made it my goal to use as MANY coupons as possible when shopping. This makes shopping, which is already a mind numbingly ridiculous task, take even longer BUT the results are there.

Here's how I roll ya'll - I shop every other week. Why? Because I get paid every other week. On the Friday that I get paid on, I load up all of my reusable bags and Emilee and we go to our friendly neighborhood HEB and spend two FREAKING hours shopping.
Only four good things come from this trip:
1. Groceries. As much as I hate acquiring them, we have to have them.
2. Emilee. I get to spend quality time with my daughter.
3. Sushi. Emilee and I splurge on sushi as our little reward for the time and brain pain we've just used our Friday night up on.
4. Savings. The money we save by using coupons.

Coupons.
Ugh. Don't you just HATE the thought of cutting, organizing, searching for and then having to be THAT LADY in line that hands over forty-five coupons thereby making ALL of the people in line behind you want to egg your car?
Yeah, me too.
Except when I save almost fifty dollars.
Then I love coupons.

Here is my dilemma with coupon shopping, I am a list person.
I make FAB-U-LOUS lists. I organize by aisle and product type and I break down all of the items needed for each meal I plan to make and then I organize it so that the fresh produce gets used in the early meals and the frozen produce can be used last so nothing goes bad.
I am a list making queen.
But with coupons? It is hard to make a list because you don't know which items you are going to want to try out, which savings will be best or which items will be a waste of time and money. Shopping with coupons should be a sport.
Or an act of faith.
Because sometimes I leave the store and I am not sure if I have enough meals for ten days or if I have things the kids are going to like. The only thing I AM sure of is that I've usually exhausted my budget and I am going to have to hope like hell that I have pulled it off.

Labels: Being Mommy, shopping

For my generation, I don't think there is anything more obsolete and "retro" than the cassette tape. Do you remember rewinding?? It makes me smile to myself when I see one of my daughters, who will undoubtedly think of cds & dvds the same way we think of cassettes and video tapes, complaining about their ipods.
Ipods!
Are you kidding me?
What I would have GIVEN for an ipod loaded with everything I wanted to listen to when I was thirteen. I'd have given just about anything... including all of my posters of Johnny Depp and River Phoenix and the Corey's...
*Sigh*
Of course, now when I run across a cassette tape or a VHS video, I am unsure of what the hell to do with it. I think I still have a VCR somewhere... but I know for a fact that there isn't a cassette player anywhere in my house. But I can't just toss Marky-Mark and The Funky Bunch in the trash can I? I mean, besides being a memento of my childhood and the first concert I ever went to, I have issues with throwing perfectly good (albeit perfectly useless) things away.
Some people who have less hoarding issues than I apparently do pull the tape out of their cassettes and VHS tapes and use it in the garden to freak the birds out. There is actually a metallic tape product which one can buy to hang from trees and confuse the pesky birds.
I guess it is a lot less work than building a scarecrow huh?
And since the tape itself is the only part of a cassette or video which isn't recyclable, it seems like a good alternate use which leaves the other parts of the tape ready for your recycling bin.
Over on My Recycled Bags (you remember them from the Plarn post a few days ago right?), she is doing what she does best and crocheting bags from the tape.

Just want to unload them?
I don't blame you... I have two or three boxes of VHS tapes just sitting in my shed, most of which have recorded tv shows on them.
You can freecyle them. Bound to me some people out there still rockin' the old school VCR.
Or you can send them off to be recycled. There was an article in Woman's Day about how.
"To keep them out of landfills, drop them in the mail to Alternative Community Training, a nonprofit Missouri company that provides jobs to people with disabilities.
Workers erase the tapes, reselling the ones that are in good shape and recycling the plastic parts of the rest. They’ve recycled more than 1 million tapes so far. Mail the tapes (at the cheaper USPS media mail rate) to:
ACT
2200 Burlington
Columbia, MO 65202"

Want to buy something made from recycled tapes? The options are endless... you can get coin purses and belt buckles and pretty much anything else that's crossed someone's mind...

Now if you have an ipod nano and dig rocking the retro look, you could get (or make?) yourself one of these little bad-asses.



Do you know about something bad-ass and recycled? Shoot me an email, link's on the right.

Labels: being Earth Friendly, RBATOTD, recycling, shopping

These bags are no exception.
As with all cool things in the world, these too are found on Etsy.

Do you know about something bad-ass and recycled? Shoot me an email. Link's on the right.

Labels: RBATOTD, recycling, shopping, stuff I like

I have a green house.
But I do not have a green thumb unfortunately.
Sometimes if I rub my thumb, I can see a little teeny, tiny amount of green but it fades away before I can take a picture of it so I don't have any proof...
Right now, in my green house, I have a passion fruit vine which has the most gorgeous purple flowers, several tomato plants, a few herbs which smell great, an "irish clover" bush which constantly blooms white flowers, a hibiscus, a crown of thorns, two banana trees and sseveral sunflowers.
I have no idea how they manage to stay alive.
But I think that they would be extremely happy to have these decorating their pots...
It's no secret how much I love things made from recycled silverware. This seller is no exception to that rule.





Need I say more?

Labels: RBATOTD, recycling, shopping, stuff I like

This is totally something I would buy for Amanda.


Made from recycled perspex from a sign makers factory, these super cute bracelets would be the perfect gift for any animal lovin' preteen :)
Don't have a preteen?
You can send it to mine ;)

Do you knwo about something bad-ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email, link's on the right.

Labels: Amanda, being Earth Friendly, Being Mommy, RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

Labels: RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

There is a guy who I work with that LOVES puzzles and brain teasers.
The first week I worked here he righted my rubix cube. The rubix cube that had been messed up since I had gotten it months, maybe even years before I started working here.
In one afternoon, he righted it.
Which left me without anything to do when I was on hold...
Since then I've brought in a few metal brain teasers, I didn't realize that they were called "Tavern Puzzles" until I saw these though...

"Whether you trying your hand at Twenty-One, taking your revenge out on Captain Blackbeard or testing your Patience, these rustic tavern puzzles will put your jigsaw to shame. Traditionally forged by blacksmiths to amuse friends and sailors at taverns, these wrought-iron brainteasers require a sharp mind and determination. But don't worry; if you can't solve it on the first try, we won't make you walk the plank. Handmade in the USA of recycled steel."
Get a couple, they are super fun.

Do you know about something bad ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email, link's on the right.

Labels: At work, RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

With my brother moving into his new place, I have been paying attention to the types of things one needs when moving and not really having the basic things you need for a new place.
One of those things that you don't really have that you need is shower curtains.
I bought one when we moved into my new place without even giving so much as a second thought to whether they sold them recycled.
They do.
So today, two very different recycled shower curtains.
The first shower curtain is made from recycled billboard signs. The shower curtain is made from two different billboards and sewn together. Silver grommet rings. Hooks not included. Handmade in Tucson, Arizona by Iraqi and Afghani refugees.

Truthfully, I think the recycled billboard sign shower curtain is my favorite. A lot of color and character.

The second is a shower curtain made from recycled sails... as in sail boats.

This would be so perfect for someone's beach house!

Either way, you are recycling. AND I bet these last considerably longer than the ten dollar shower curtains you get at Walmart.

Do you know about something bad-ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email, link's on the right.
Peace.

Labels: being a Home Owner, Noah, RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

I truly, truly believe that one of the coolest things that I've found since I started this whole recycled thing of the day column is the plantable paper. I love that stuff, you guys seem to have loved it since it solicited the most emails and I just LOVE the idea of being able to plant your birthday card after you receive it.
So how does it get any better than that?

Planting your wrapping paper!
I have made a major effort in my house to no longer use wrapping paper. We use reusable gift bags here now in order to cut down on the amount of trees being... well, cut down. But with this stuff? I could start wrapping gifts again!
Do you know about something bad ass and recycled? Shoot me an email, link is on the right.

Labels: birthday, Christmas, RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

One of the things I mentally battle with on a regular basis is my use of paper towels. They are so necessary in all of my cleaning up that I buy them pretty frequently and every time I do, I feel bad. But when you have kids and spills and you weigh the amount of stuff you'd have to wash if you cleaned up every spill with a small towel... I mean, would the amount of laundry you'd have to do waste more energy and resources than the paper towels?
I've never been great at math.

But these seem like a pretty decent alternative to the paper towel for most cleaning up problems that I would usually use a paper towel for.
And when they are rendered no longer useful, I can throw them in my compost pile.
And the price? $15 is the same price as two packages of Bounty and these cloths would surely outlast them.

Do you know about something bad ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email, link's on the right.

Labels: being a Home Owner, Being Mommy, RBATOTD, recycling, shopping

I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday due to a combination of housework, cleaning out my car and my laptop charger thingy being broken and making using the computer less convenient. So today, you get a two-fer.
After minutes of internet scouring, I found the following two items, both of which I could totally buy for Amanda and she would love.
The first of the two are these "Nerd Flashcards". They are printed on recycled paper with vegetable inks so they pass the RBATOTD test, no problemo. Granted Amanda is a little old for alphabet flashcards BUT they could be framed and used around her room and I know she would love them because they are science based and she is a science nerd.


The second item I found that I know Amanda would love is the Panda Poo Paper! Yes, remember the other day? With the elephant poo paper? Evidentally elephants aren't the only mammals contributing to the Save The Trees cause.


There you go. You can now go back to your regularly scheduled weekend.
Of course, you should still send me recycled bad-ass stuff you've found, link's on the right.

Labels: Amanda, RBATOTD, recycling, shopping, stuff I like

In the next week or two, my house will consist of the following inhabitants:
Myself, Amanda Panda, Emo, Trin-Trin, Madame Chicita Puppy, Crush the Turtle, Woodstock the very vane cockatiel, and Peanut the World's Grumpiest Parrot.
At which point, my intentions are to go through every room in my house one by one, all the closets, all the cabinets, under the beds, the shelves... you name it. I want to know exactly where everything is and get rid of a bunch of stuff we don't need.
It's no weekend project people.
It's a SEVERAL weekends project.
And that's cool. Because, in case you haven't noticed, I don't have much of a social life :) And once I'm done going through my house, I will be going through my shed and seeing what the hell lives in my carport.
Now that it is finally going to just be me and my girls and gang of pets we've managed to accumulate, I want to make it our house again. And I want to enjoy all of the hard work that is going to go into not just restructuring the things in our home, but also in restructuring the way we take care of our home as a family (read: chores hehehehe).
So what am I going to want at the end of a long day of cleaning and organizing and restructuring?
Something that could go into one of these recycled newsprint wine bags.

Right?
I'm already dreaming of sangria.
Jiffinner? Fairy? The Cake Lady?
You know you want to come drinks sangria _{and maybe help me reorganize my house on your weekends off} right?
Hehehehe...
Do you know about something bad ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email. Link's on the right.

Labels: Amanda, being a Home Owner, being Earth Friendly, Being Mommy, Emilee, family drama, RBATOTD, recycling, shopping, soul sisters, stuff I like, Triniti

Sometimes I wish I were in my Forever House.
I wish I'd found the house I wanted to keep forever and leave to my girls.
I'm not.
I'm in a house that I can hopefully build up enough equity in so when I sell it when property value is at an all time high, I can make a decent chunk of change and use that to make a big life and/or location change.
I hope I will be a published author when that time comes so I can work for me and live the dream and all that jazz.
When I try to envision that house, my Forever House, I can't just barely get a fuzzy picture in my head... I know, as much as I say otherwise, I want a big house... two stories, three or more bedrooms, lots of wood (says the environmentalist)... cabin-y, home-y... I HAVE to be near water, I know that... my soul needs water. Whether it is a lake or an ocean or a river, I need to have water near me.
And it would have to be filled with comfy furniture and walls of books.
*sigh*
In the meantime, while I am in my just for now house, I have to resist the urge to redo stuff. My floors were a neccesity. I CAN'T deal with carpet. And in the next year, all of my floors will be redone.
But other stuff? Like my cabinets? And painting? Not necessary and really just a waste of money. Plus, the biggest thing for me is not to put too much of myself in the house. Because it should be a neautral pallet for someone else when I sell it.
But if I could?
If I wanted to take all my cabinets out and replace them and redo the tiles and the backsplashes? I would so totally use recycled glass tiles.

I just think they are so pretty. And if I were making long term changes that reflected MY taste, I would so totally use recycled glass tiles...
Do you know about something bad ass and recycled? Shoot me an email. Link's on the right.

Labels: being a Home Owner, RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

Labels: Matchbox Twenty, music, shopping

Yup.
You read right.
Elephant. Dung. Paper.
How could you be ANY MORE Earth Friendly than buying paper made from poop?
I say you can't.
In fact, I challenge you to find a more Earth friendly product...
No, seriously, go ahead and try.
I'll wait here.
And how can you bitch about the price? Someone takes poop and turns it into paper. Can you really say, "Hmmm, I think that's a little pricey for dung paper..."
Yet another cool find from a link sent to me by WAHS.

Did you find something bad-ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email yo, link's on the right.

Labels: RBATOTD, shopping

I love this.
Especially right now when I am in make-over-the-girls-rooms mode.
I really love cork boards and magnetic boards - pretty much anything I can stick stuff to :)

We owe our thanks to WAHS again since this is also off of the site that she sent me the other day with the tire tube wallet.

Do YOU know about something bad-ass and recycled?
Shoot me an email!

Labels: Amanda, being a Home Owner, Being Mommy, RBATOTD, shopping, stuff I like

It's rare that I see a commercial. I have this wonderful thing called a DVR and almost never watch live tv. However, since the summer season has started on TV, there has been less and less for my DVR to do so this past weekend while I was working on a little project, I had the tv on something on The Food Network and saw a commercial for recycled aluminum foil.
Aluminum.
Aluminum.
Doesn't matter how many times I type that, it still looks like I am spelling it wrong.
Anyway, as the picture says, the foil itself is 100% recycled AS IS the packaging! Yay for you Reynolds Wrap. Way to be green!

Do you know about something bad-ass and recycled... maybe you saw it on a commercial because you were watching crap on tv... shoot me an email, link's on the right.

Labels: RBATOTD, shopping, what you should be watching