Organizing Your Recipe Binder

I am in the process of moving all of my recipes into a new recipe binder.  My previous binder was a bit of a mess with newspaper and magazine clippings, crappy printed pages from the interwebs, and sloppily handwritten messes with crossed out ingredients and edited directions.  Apparently, recipe binders are all the rage now, too.  How fortunate for me!  When I first started putting mine together years ago, there wasn't much custom stuff to download or purchase for it.  I started out with some hokey little printouts I did on my home printer, but I just got sick of looking at them (and I got sick of running out of printer ink!).  So, I headed on over to Zazzle to get some custom pages printed in full color for a small fee.  Friends were asking me where I got them, so I made them available to purchase on Zazzle.  Now you can get them, too.  They come in TONS of colors, you can opt to have them lined (for handwriting) or unlined (for printing via computer), and they are FULLY customizable.  Love them so much!  To see all the styles available, head on over to this store!  You can also get recipe grading stickers, which are simply awesome for sticking to a recipe page of any kind and giving the recipe a quick grade (A-F) or rating (1-5).  The stickers are the perfect size to fit into the "Notes" section on the recipe pages.

Manage Your Household Bills with Manilla

This free service allows you to manage all of your online bill paying in one place.  It eliminates the need for remembering multiple passwords and makes it hard to miss deadlines.  Manilla supports the following types of accounts: cell phone carriers, cable/satellite/telecom providers, regional and national banks, 200 utility companies, airline/hotel/auto loyalty programs, major credit card companies (such as Citibank, Capital One, and American Express), coupons from Groupon and LivingSocial, magazine and Netflix subscriptions.  And if you're worried about online security (especially of a site you've never used) - worry no more!  Manilla uses bank level security.  Head on over to Manilla to hear more.

Another Way to Organize Your Bookmarks

A few days ago, we talked about organizing your internet bookmarks with Tidy Favorites.  But maybe you don't want to install additional software on your machine, maybe you run an Apple machine, maybe you're more comfortable with website titles (instead of the new thumbnails), or maybe you just don't like Tidy Favorites.  I was actually going through some of my own favorites (have to clean them out from time to time, you know) when I found LinkaGoGo.  LinkaGoGo is the site I used long before I found Tidy Favorites.  I think two of the coolest features of LinkaGoGo is being able to (1) password protect your favorites and (2) share them with friends.  The real reason I stopped using is it simply because your favorites are stored on their central hub.  I'm a bit of  a major control freak, and I like having my favorites on my own computer and backing them up as often as I deem necessary - which sadly, is all too often...

Organizing Your Cleaning Supplies

Last month I posted how to Organize Your Baby Bibs.  Since Emmy no longer uses bibs, I decided that I'd like to show you what I use the bib holder for lately:

As you may remember, this particular curtain rod is installed on the inside of a cupboard door.  The same curtain rod used to previously hold bibs, now conveniently holds all of my spray bottles.  This keeps the spray bottles up high (so little hands cannot reach), and it keeps them handy and at eye-level.

Some of you may be interested in the cleaning bottle holder inside the cupboard as well.  I wish I could take credit for that too, but the previous homeowner installed it.  It's actually rather neat, and in the future I'll try to post schematics for it.

Blueprint Cleanse Alternative: Kathleen's Cleanse

I have been needing a good fast or cleanse for some time now.  I wanted a way to clear up my skin, improve my sleeping, gain some energy, and drop some excess water weight.  So, when I found the Blueprint Cleanse, I got uber excited.  The juices are pressed, measured, and bottled for you already.  All you have to do is drink it, as their slogan suggests, "We think, you drink."  Then... I saw the pricetag.  This cleanse costs a whopping $65 per DAY, and that does not include shipping costs.  I would love to try it, but at that price, I simply cannot justify it.  So, I started out on a mission to create a similar plan, that offered the convenience of the BPC, but with a much more attractive pricetag.  Of course I know that fresh fruits and veggies are best, but juicing them just simply is not convenient for me.  I wanted something that I could more or less grab-and-go.  And thus, "Kathleen's Cleanse" was born.

Now, before I get into any specifics of my cleanse, let me first tell you what it did for me.  I went on this juice-fueled fast for 10 days.  Here's what happened in those 10 days time:

• Dropped 9 pounds of water weight
• Stayed asleep all night (may not sound like a big deal, but it is!)
• Started waking up (on average) an hour earlier, without as much grogginess
• Felt lighter and less "bloated" than usual
• Skin brightened, but acne did not clear up
• Increased enjoyment of healthier foods/flavors

So, how much did a 10-day fruit fast cost me?  Believe it or not, 10 days worth of ingredients only cost me $75.  If I had gone on the Blueprint Cleanse for 10 days, it would have cost me $650 (Yikes!).  That's quite a difference in price, and it's a price that I can certainly live with.  Keep in mind that I found the stores with the lowest prices for my ingredients.  I ended up buying supplies from 2 different stores, because it was more frugal to do so.  I suggest shopping around before you buy all of your ingredients.

Kathleen's Cleanse Daily "Meal" Plan:

16oz : V8 V-Fusion Smoothie (any flavor)
18oz : Spiced Lemonade (recipe below)
16oz : V8 V-Fusion + Green Tea (any flavor)
16oz : V8 V-Fusion Fruit/Veggie Juice (any flavor)
16oz : Cinnamon Almond Milk (recipe below)
32oz : V8 Original, Low Sodium
Water - as much as you want/need

Part of the beauty of this cleanse is that it can change to the taste preference of the person on it.  Or maybe you just want to switch things up from time to time and try new flavors... you can!  All of the juices come in a variety of flavors, to suit any taste.  The only stipulation is that you cannot drink any of the "light" versions of juices, because they use artificial sugars.  The full calorie content is necessary, as is the natural sugars.  The purpose of a cleanse is to get rid of some of the "junk" in your body, and the artificial sugars are junk.

I calculated my daily caloric intake to be around 800-900 calories.  This works for me because I am so short, and I only do very light physical activity while on a cleanse.  If you need more calories daily, simply increase the amount of juice(s) or almond milk you drink.  Only you can know how many calories your body needs.

 Spiced Lemonade Recipe (enough for one day):
14oz warm water
1/2 cup lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons light agave nectar (depending on taste)
Dash (or two) of cayenne pepper

Mix water and lemon juice well.  Put into a lidded container.  Add agave nectar and dash or two of cayenne pepper.  Close lid tightly and shake well.  Chill for at least 8 hours, shaking occasionally.  For reference, I used bottled lemon juice in lieu of fresh-squeezed.


 Cinnamon Almond Milk (enough for one day):
16oz chilled almond milk
few dashes of cinnamon

Pour almond milk into a lidded container.  Sprinkle with cinnamon; shake well.  Ready to drink.  For reference, I use "Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk."


***EDIT:
This cleanse did a number of good things for my body, but after going off of the cleanse, I did not have a menstrual cycle for 6 months after the fast ended.  It also increased my levels of insulin resistance.  While these issues may not affect everyone, it is important to note if you are trying to conceive or have diabetes and/or PCOS.  I have PCOS and according to my doctor, this cleanse probably aggravated it.  It should also be noted that the 9 pounds of water weight I lost, were gained back within a week.  But if you're doing a cleanse to lose weight, you should stop.  A cleanse should be done as a detox, and never with the intent to lose weight, because the weight will not stay off permanently.

Reduce Your Junk Mail (Postal)

I always thought that by tossing my junk mail into the recycle bin, that I was living greener.  But what would be greener than recycling your junk mail?  Not receiving it at all!  Sign up at DMAchoice and start reducing the amount of mail that you receive.  They sort mail into four main categories: credit offers, catalogs, magazine offers, and "other" mail offers (such as donations, banks, etc.).  You can choose which of the four categories you want to continue receiving mail from (if any), or you can choose not to receive mail from anyone that you haven't previously purchased from or supported.  All changes are effective for 5 years!  Which simply means that you can change them manually before 5 years is up, or you can let the timer run out and in 5 years just reapply your settings.

Organize Your Internet Favorites

My computer is and always has been my "hoarder zone."  I don't hoard things that are tangible, but I do hoard things that are digital.  I can't seem to find the strength to delete crappy graphics I've made, blog posts that were never finished, or internet favorites that I know I'll probably never visit again.  Now, just because I hoard these things, does not mean that I do not do so in an organized fashion.  Today I just wanted to share with you one of the many tools in my organizing belt: Tidy Favorites.

I'm not a huge fan of the "online" version, simply because sometimes I don't want to "sign in" just to add a site to my favorites.  That's why I went with their PC version (which can be downloaded here).  I prefer the free version because, well, it's free.  I believe the only difference between free and pro is the option to search through your favorites.  Because my favorites are all in seperate folders and already very organized, I don't really need this feature.

Let me tell you why I love this little jewel.  When you open it up, you see thumbnails of the websites (a skosh similar to Pinterest or Juxtapost) instead of just the websites' names.  The thumbnails can be resized if you need them larger or smaller.  You can rearrange your favorites within your folders by a simple drag/drop function.  It will consolidate all of your bookmarks from each of your browsers into one central location; it's very helpful if you use multiple browsers (which I sometimes do).  Links that you only need temporarily (such as an article to read or a page a friend sent to you) can be easily located and deleted.

How I Use Tidy Favorites:
When you add bookmarks to Tidy Favorites, it places them into a stack in the right section of the screen.  You can choose to view those bookmarks now, leave them for later, or you can organize them into folders (that you create) to hold onto permanently.  The orange tabs at the bottom of the screen are my folders: Recipes, Blog Crap, Fonts & Clipart, Craft Stuff, Bills, Tutorials, etc.  In each folder (or tab) you can create subfolders to further organize your favorites.  For example, you can see my "Recipes" folder above.  I have created subfolders to organize all of my recipes: Appetizers, Beverages, Breads & Pastries, Sandwiches, Slow Cooker, etc.  The images you see below the folders are recipes that have not yet been organized (don't they look delicious, by the way?).  

While my favorites were fairly organized before I ever had this little gadget, now they're "prettier" and easier for me to locate.  Thank you, Tidy Favorites!