On menu planning

Generally the best way I have found to follow our budget and eat real foods is menu planning. While I have been faithful to following weight watchers recently, I admit I have let this fall by the wayside. I haven't been inspired in the kitchen and so we have been eating out more than I care to admit or just eating boring foods. I'm going to try to break this rut by at least making one new recipe a week and menu planning. This week we did go over budget by about $20 but our menu also includes a special fathers day meal of grass fed steaks.

I have been pretty disgusted with what I am learning about much of our food supply, so in general we buy organic; and our beef must be grass fed. I want to incorporate at least one fish meal as well a week and that must be ocean caught. Its so important to me right now that I would rather eat vegetarian rather than conventional beef or farm raised fish, it really just doesn't seem safe to eat any more. I have been called a food snob before because of this but honestly I feel it's a question of safety. We eat like this at home knowing that while we are out we can't employ the same practices but at least we know the vast majority of our diet is safe.

This has been a challenge as far as the grocery budget so I will be working on following our budget strictly and incorporating vegetarian meals to offset. The fish cost has been offset by buying wild alaskan salmon in a can.

This weeks Menu:

Sunday-Father's Day! Grass Fed Steak, asparagus, roasted potatoes, salad and for dessert Cherry Pie (from the 50 lbs of cherries my friends and I picked and processed). All favorites for Schmoops first father's day.

Monday-honey lime enchiladas made with homemade tortillas (I will be subbing coconut oil for the shortening).

Tuesday-Pizza- store bought crust, store bought sauce. Easy peasy

Wednesday-.Crock Pot Black Bean Soup-served with Greek Yougurt instead of sour cream and flavored with fresh cilantro from our garden

Thursday-Quiche with sausage, onions and peppers

Friday-Alaskan Salmon Chick Pea and Mint Patties served with cous cous

I'm hoping that Wednesday can be a beach day and we can bring leftover pizza for lunch and then come home to some wonderful crockpot soup. Also, did you notice the two low cost vegetarian meals that I snuck in there?

Are you menu-planning? What helps you?

This Moment

Sitting here with my sleeping babe
Sun streaming in the window
Diapers drying on the rack
Breakfast dishes on the table (Irish Oats)
French Press coffee freshly made

I never knew my life could be so wonderful. This moment of peace fills me for the rest of the day.

Nursery

So we're in our 37th week here and anxiously anticipating the birth of this little guy. I'm totally loving watching him moving around my belly though, I will miss having him inside of me. Things are definitely getting real; we have the nursery together, bags packed and carseat installed. When we left church on Sunday I realized that there are only a couple more times that we'll be leaving church and its just me and the hubs. The nursery is done, clothes are washed and put away, diapers are washed and put away. There are a few things left to do; like scrub the house and bake an insane amount of dinners and snacks.
Without further ado, here is a look at the nursery.
This is a look at the corner of the room; I love the crate that holds the books you can't see it but it the fabric has awesome numbers and letters in different fonts. The books were the wishing well at the shower, we really got some amazing books that I've been enjoying reading to Baby B already. I have some handmade things from when I was little the Strawberry Shortcake figures were made for me by my sister and there is a little duck finger puppet that my cousin made me. We've been calling this baby our lobster because thats how he looked in the ultrasound and there is a cute lobster hat from his Auntie and Uncle. I also love his Piggy Bank gifted from Eminstiches. Our quilt is also hung here, the theme of the nursery is birds and trees but its really just a loose theme.
I love this crazy mobile. Last Christmas I used some money I received to purchase some things for our nursery. This was before we found out we were pregnant and I was so happy to find out a few weeks later that we were expecting. The birdies are Christmas ornaments from Anthropologie, and I just really liked all the colors, a few of them have little shiny bits as well. Baby B will have a good amount to look at there!!
This is a pic of the shelf above the crib. The garland was decoration from my shower made by Mama K, the cute birdie print is from Mama K as well (you can't tell here but the birds totally match the ribbon from the mobile!). The cross is St. Brigids cross, if Baby B was a girl his name was going to be Brigid after this saint. The cross is made by weaving reeds from the River Shannon, to me its just a beautiful way of using God's creation to tell the story of redemption. The angel is hope, because we hoped and prayed for this little boy.
We received some really beautiful homemade goodies for Baby B; the Froggie was made for me by Eminstitches, this blanket was made by Granny Dirkey for Baby B. When he's born I'm going to be posting some more of the handmade goodies we received, I really do treasure the hard work that goes into those types of gifts.
I love this present that we received; its Baby B's name, meaning and a scripture (2nd Chronicles 16:9 "The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. "). My friend did the calligraphy herself and I love that its the first thing that we see when coming into the nursery.
here's a look into the room with the little toy basket and hamper at the base of the bed. I really like how the room turned out. We purposefully wanted it to be pretty gender neutral (in hopes of future little ones) and think we accomplished this. Every time I look around I see all the love that surrounds our family and Baby Ben; he is so blessed to have so many wonderful people in his life.

Nursery Update

We bought a crib today! Yay, well more specifically my parents bought a crib for us! Woot Woot thanks Mom and Dad!
Its this one

Which can be found here
I'm surprised it took this long for me to find one I like but apparently I decided to become ridiculously picky about this which is pretty out of character for me. The hubs might be rubbing off on me, as he once spent 2 YEARS looking for brown dress shoes (side note when we found the "right" shoes I wanted to buy like 15 pairs). Anyway I ended up going through Babys R Us shaking all the cribs and this one was the nicest one that endured my shaking test. This reminds me of my parents story of buying their kitchen table, they were VERY rough in the store as they had six kids and wanted to make sure that it would last (to the point where I believe one of them was standing on it or something but I could just be making that part up who knows). That kitchen table is just as strong as it was when I was little though so I guess its good to do things a little goofy when buying furniture.

We aren't doing the whole traditional nursery thing where we're redoing the whole room. Our guest room was painted a nice pale green color when we moved in (with future babies in mind) and we'll keep the current furniture in there. The furniture that is there is from my great grandparents and matches the crib. My idea is to still keep this as a spare room/baby's room. The baby will most likely sleep with us for the foreseeable future and just use the crib sporadically for naps and such for awhile. When he's sleeping a bit more we'll move him over to the crib and then when he is old enough we'll transition him into the big bed that is already there and keep the crib in there for future kidlets. With that in mind we got a pretty gender neutral bedding set that looks like this

Actually the walls in our room are a similar color and I got a dark blue comforter for the bed to "boy" up the room a bit.

I am excited to set up the crib and do some rearranging in the room. We might have to move one of the dressers out for space issues but we'll see. Mostly I just need to sell some stuff before this baby comes so we have room for him. The hubs and I have collected some crazy stuff that we don't use but could bring in a pretty penny on Craigslist.

Viability and a sigh of relief

So this week I hit a milestone, I'm 24 weeks. Which now is when the baby has a fighting chance of surviving out of the womb. Don't get me wrong I want our little Bam Bam to cook a bit more get some fat on his little body but this really does make me breathe a sigh of relief. I'm also coming pretty close to my 3rd trimester, it seems like its going pretty quickly. I do find myself pretty freaking grumpy when I'm stuck in the heat, thats pretty much the symptom that is most apparent right now. I love feeling little Bam Bam moving and kicking and generally can't keep myself from talking to him when he does, which makes me look pretty "interesting" (read: crazy) when it happens in public. It is such a magical time, having this little boy inside of me growing and sharing everything with me. Its so hard to believe that pretty soon he'll be on his own and on the outside. I can't wait to get to know him, to see who he'll look like, to watch him grow.
I decided we're going to do some childbirth classes. I wasn't sure if I wanted to or not because I am so familiar with birth through my doula work but I figure the refresher is probably good and it will be good for the hubs to have a little more confidence going into it. We are using the Bradley Method because it emphasizes the husbands role as the coach and I've seen great success with clients who use it. It amazes me the difference it makes in labor when you are prepared rather than just "going for the ride". I'm going to do the best I can to prepare both me and the hubs for the events coming up.
I'm going to start researching cribs and deciding what we want. One of the girls from my birth board just posted pictures of her nursery and its soo cute so now I have the itch to get ours going. Right now its filled with so much baby stuff and furniture. I need to reorganize and get rid of some stuff then work on decorating. Conveniently this can be done in air conditioning so maybe that will help with the general grumpiness when its hot outside.

Office Makeover

I was asked to show you the pictures of our famous Office Makeover and have been seriously neglectful. To be an effective before and after I would have before pictures. I was ashamed, soo ashamed, too ashamed to take pictures of the before. It was bad. This is the only thing I can find and it really doesn't do it justice.

So I'm going to need you to use your imagination. First the desk is empty, it was never empty imagine it filled with paperwork and computer parts that if you moved anything something would fall off like those games at the shore where you drop a quarter trying to get piles of quarters to fall (anyone know what I'm talking about? no.. just me..) You see in the corner of the picture there you can see a lime green futon. Now if you can imagine a huge futon with a ridiculous amount of stuff piled on it to the extent you can barely see that its LIME GREEN and there is no way you could possibly sit on it. Now the floor, you can kind of see the floor, well now imagine that being completely covered in papers, and the closet just jam packed. Wherever there wasn't a pile imagine some type of musical equipment. There, now you have a mental picture of before we reorganized our office.

Now for the after
This is our new desk, the hubs and I are sharing the office so we do have two printers. The walls are all him though. He loves Blues Brothers so theres a good amount of Blues Brothers paraphernalia. There's a painting that I painted for him for his birthday inspired by The Flight of the Conchords. The hubs has a good amount of equipment in here for work to enable him to work from home, so its hard to pare down too much, but it seems workable.
You can see his video conference setup, our printers, a stool and our bookcase (all technical books). What you can't see is even better, no piles on the floor. Also you can see our filing cabinet which we're now using.
We moved a corner piece from our couch up here and its perfect for me to come and sit and talk or for him to play guitar on.

This is a view from the door, we have guitars hung from the one wall, with the closet near the window (which is organized but don't have pictures of). And of course kitten cat snuggle fluffle pants had to get in on the action as he's NEVER allowed in this room.

No TV?!?!

Yeah we're thinking about it. Thats right taking the plunge and getting rid of our cable and possibly our tv. Its just a thought right now but one we're giving serious attention.

Our current contract is up on Jan 14th and as it looks now we'll be getting rid of the cable. I found a high speed internet and phone bundle thats $55 a month, currently we're paying $125 for our Phone, Internet and Cable (plus a DVR). So just by cutting the cable we'd be able to put $70 more a month towards our mortgage which adds up to a whopping $840 for the year. We do have our laptops so we'd be able to catch some shows on Hulu and we do have Netflix (for now) so I don't think it would hurt too badly. The main thing would be that the hubs wouldn't be able to watch sports.

As far as the tv, we have one of the flat screen wall mount jobs and I think its just too much for us. If we don't have high definition channels I don't think its worth it to have the tv either. If we sell it now I think we'd be able to get a good amount of money for it to also put on the mortgage. I have a very romantic idea of not having a tv in the house and how much I would get done in a day. I have crazy notions about a good amount of things though so we'll see if it comes to fruition or not. The hubs is still on the fence so I guess I'll let you know what we decide. We're going to have to figure it out soon!

Anybody gone and rid your house of the tv? cable? What are your thoughts

Happy New Year to Ya!

Hope you guys all had a great and safe new year! The hubs and I did, we were able to spend it with good friends. We made some goals for ourselves as a couple and as individuals this year and posted them by the bathroom mirror where we see them twice a day. I don't want to call them New Year's Resolutions because people never follow through with them but they are our goals and where we'd like to see ourselves by the end of the year.
Our goals as a couple are:
1. We'd like to walk together at least 5 nights a week.

We want to be more physically fit as a couple and regularly walking would be a good
start. It also gives us a chance to talk without getting to distracted by tv or the computer.

2. We want to pay off 50% of the remaining debt in our second mortage

I've been reading so much about setting up a financial plan. Generally, the hubs and I
are pretty good with money and budgets. I tend to be the spendier one in the family but neither of us is a fan of debt. Our only debt right now is our mortgage but we have two of them. I'm praying that we are able to pay off our second mortage within this year but the goal is just for 50% of our remaining debt in our second mortgage to be paid off. Once we have it completely paid off we're going to go aggressive on our first. If I had to do again, I think I would have rented and saved up to flat out buy our first home no matter how long it took. Live and Learn right...

3. We want to read through the Bible as a couple.

With this we both want to grow as Christians and as a couple. This will be a great way to grow and challenge each other. I'm so excited to do it!! It is a pretty aggressive reading to me but I'm excited for the challenge.

Anyone else setting some goals for this year??

O...M...G... Soo good

So yesterday I got inspired and I made Mozzarella Cheese. It was alot easier than I thought, once I found the ingredients. I used a gallon of organic milk from an Amish Farm, about a teaspoon of sea salt, citric acid and some Junket Rennet. Lacy from Razor Family Farms has some fantastic directions, the only thing I found was that when I was finished and put it in the salt water mixture the edges were a little mushy. Also maybe I mixed it a little too much because the inside was harder than regular mozzarella. That being said the taste was fantastic and when shredded the texture and consistency were spot on.

Today I used the homemade mozzarella in a homemade pizza. My default pizza dough recipe is soo stinking easy.
I use:
1 cup of warm water
2.25 tsps of yeast
Mix together than add:
2 Tbsp of oil
1 Tbsp of honey
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1.5 cups of white flour
a shake of dried onions
dashes of oregano, garlic pepper, parsley, and sea salt.
Let rise for 10 minutes and bake at 450 degrees for 10-14 min.

Then I take one can of Crushed Tomatoes and open it and add about a teaspoon of sugar, then doctor it up with my spices. I use the can to mix up the spices so I'm not dirtying any other dishes.

(go ahead I know you want to click to enlarge the goodness)
I also carmelized some onions and picked basil from my garden and also some roasted red pepper.

One Word:

DELISH!!

Fun with substitutions

So we had my whole family over for St. Patricks Day to eat some corned beef and cabbage, YUM! Of course I decked the house out to celebrate my favorite holiday.

It was so great having my family over as we usually have the hubs family over just cause they are so close. For my bridal shower the wishing well was decorations for my house which was the best idea since I love decorating for every holiday. So we have a ton of St. Patty's decorations

Well the kids asked for some juice with dinner and since we generally stick to water at home we didn't have any. This auntie felt so bad so we improvised and I taught them how to make lemonade.

Let me just say they loved "squishing" the lemons and tasting to make sure that it was just right. They probably drank 5 glasses each and had a blast. This no-spend month will probably be filled with substitutions and creativity, I've been really taking inventory of what I do have so that I can make the substitutions when the time comes. Hopefully they will be as fun (and as cute) as my lemonade sub :)

I just had to get one of her shirt, says Irish Temper and Italian Attitude, lol, what a pair!

Big Day

Sunset from the other day

Sorry that I've been quiet around the bloggy world this week. There is just so much going on. I'm trying to tie up any loose strings at work and get some projects done around the house. My last day at the office is today, AHHHH! I am looking forward to being home and to having the twins when they come (Wednesday!), its just such a strange thing to think that tomorrow I won't have a leave the house type of job. Although I would have loved to not leave the house this morning when I was cleaning SNOW off of my car and driving to work. The hubs and I have been cleaning (actually mostly laundry), winterizing the house and reorganizing to make room for the two little ones.
As far as the twins go, things are moving along. My poor niece has been running around getting everything in order (power of attorney, medical power of attorney, military id cards for them, doctors, toddler car seats). There is just so much to do with the twins moving up here and her moving down to Southern VA. Please say some prayers for her as this is a really difficult time, I just can't even imagine what she's going through.
As far as our house goes we just put the shrink wrap plastic stuff over our windows and I think I already notice a difference. Yes, we're due for some new windows sometime soon. I'm going to be paying attention to our electric bill and comparing to last year to see if there is a difference in our usage. I also want to insulate our laundry room door (to the outside) more too as its always so drafty in there. We have the twin's room all set to move in the cribs, with a bed in there for my niece for when she's up visiting. There is still a huge to do list but I think I'll be able to get the house in order by the time the twins come.

Our first snow of the year from this morning!!

Update-Projector Pictures

Looking at the back of our family room behind the couch is our toy center which is why this is Hannah's favorite room. She was very upset that the toys were all covered up during the movie.

This is the projected image, the hubs of course chose Star Wars as his tester movie, lol. After this he moved it back so the screen was about 9 feet wide and 4.5 to 5 feet high. He also hooked it up to our sterio so the sound was pretty good too :)

We watched a movie Sat night then again on Sunday night. Its such a good rainy day thing to do, I definitely want to make it a special treat for us to break it out so it doesn't get old. :)

Fun Freebie

So the hubs is one of those smart people and because of this works in a smart people field. Well his company just switched offices and was getting rid of a TON of things. He brought home a bunch of computer equipment and while explaining their very specific uses my brain exploded due to non-understandiness. One thing that he brought home though I am interested in, it's a VERY nice projector, one that basically turns my family room into a movie theatre. He's working on setting it up for a nice rainy day movie for after we are done our chores. The cat is in heaven because right now it is projecting his computer screen on the wall and let me just say that pointer that was moving across the wall is VERY tempting to my little kitten cat. He just jumped 3 feet up in the air to attack it and slid down the wall. Seriously I'm in tears its cracking me up.

We were out and about all day, had to get brakes for the hubs car, pick up his front forks for his motorcycle, check out wood flooring for our house, stop at Lowes to get stuff for Christmas and a pedestal sink for the downstairs bathroom. We found Teak flooring that we're going to put in the Kitchen, Hallway, Living room and Dining Room. We have to wait till January for it to come in though. Thankfully my family is going to help with installation so the price won't be too bad.

My Christmas adventure this year is going to be soap making. I was having a hard time finding Lye anywhere but after some searching online I realized that Lowes sells it as drain cleaner. The hubs doesn't understand how drain cleaner will make soap I told him its like a chemical peel but cheaper, LOL I'm horrible I know.

Some Good Dinner

Last night I was soo close to ordering out, I was just tired when I got home and didn't feel like cooking. I stopped at my sister in laws house and took in some of the cuteness that is my niece. The pit stop fueled me on and gave me the boost I needed to make some dinner. So I made some roasted potatoes, chicken and asparagus.

We had a lovely dinner with a stimulating dinner guest, Kitten Cat Snuggle Fluffy Pants III (we're trying to rename him because his name now isn't safe to say in front of children, he got the name from his love of jumping on the dining room table).

The hubs was REALLY happy I made asparagus.
I also made a Cranberry Lemon Cake from A Hippie with a Minivan's blog and it was goooooooood

Big News In Dirkey Land

So many of you know that I have a great neice and a great nephew that are incredibly adorable. Well right before we left for our Hawaii trip we talked to their mama and she had some news. She is in the navy and is getting new orders to go to a new city and spend some time on some big ship for 4 weeks at a time. You can imagine that this would be pretty hard for a single parent to pull off, as the twins (who will be at about 13 months when this happens) aren't very good at watching themselves for weeks on end. This is where the hubs and I come in, starting sometime in January we will start to watch these adorable kiddo's for her until she is able to have them with her again. I put in my notice and my last day at my current job is in December to give me some time to get my house in order and do some babyproofing. The babyproofing is necessary because in my 30 years on this planet (as of last Tuesday) I have caught the nasty virus of the knick-knack. I've heard that knick-knacks don't really go well with young babies unlesss they are in the paddy-whack give a dog a bone variety.

I visited with my niece and the baby's this weekend and realized the need of some baby-refreshers before the kiddo's arrive. At one time I was quite skilled with the whole changing diaper and clothes routine but my skills are pretty rusty. My grand niece crawled away from me blindfolded while I was trying to put her shirt over her head(my family is blessed with HUGE craniums so shirts are difficult). My grand nephew and I made some headway and I was able to comfort him when he was crying (a couple of times anyway). I have a feeling that the first couple weeks we have them will be pretty interesting and time consuming until I get this whole twin thing down. They really are the most adorable things coming or going so that will make up for whatever shananagans we get ourselves into.

So if any of you have any tips for me, lay them on me. I look forward to being at home, its a little scary to go down to the one income (ok alot scary) so tips on that would also be appreciated. I'll be updating more on the Hawaii trip and actually add pictures this week! I know, wow, content!!

Getting it done

I have unrealistic expectations of myself. There, I said it. I expect to be able to work full time, keep my house amazingly clean, make a home-cooked nutritious dinner every night, eat right, exercise, maintain a healthy marriage, keep in touch with my friends, read, spend time praying, studying my bible and find time for my many projects.

Shocker: I can't.

I'm coming to terms with this and realizing that I need to find ways to be able to do what I can. This week I started making "easy meals" for dinner. Instead of thinking I can come home and make a meatloaf, mashed potatoes and asparagus; I come home just saying hey I can make scrambled eggs. Just by giving myself that break I'm usually able to go a bit higher than I expected. I'll add some sauteed spinach and onions in the scrambled eggs and grate some cheese and put it in a pita.

I've noticed this in my weight loss, if I look at the big picture and the whole amount I want to lose I get frustrated and lose my way. If I take it a day at a time and try to make good choices within that day it works better and I feel better about myself in the meantime.

In my house, my goal is to make my bed every morning and put away more than I take out. Everything doesn't need to be spotless all the time I just need to try to do what I can. If I keep on track with it the house can look pretty decent.

So I'm trying to take life a bite at a time. I want to start working at whats at hand, trying to throw away the ridiculous expectations that I place on myself and on others.

Life Got In The Way

So this summer it feels like I lost it and went into survival mode for a couple of months. I lost a good bit of frugalness and by just surviving we saved a good deal less than we could have. I didn't cook nearly as much as I should have, we skated by not going grocery shopping more weeks than I can count, we ordered pizza or went out to eat more than normal. Honestly I don't feel too bad about it, we were busy enjoying life and having so much fun we didn't have time for the normal stuff. Now that the summer is over and things are slowing down and the house is getting back in order I feel like I can tackle this and get back on track with our savings and also prepare more healthy meals for me and the hubs.
This past week we did eat healthy meals that I prepared myself and I'm going shopping today to make sure that we do the same next week. I'm keeping a tighter reign on us as far as spending goes and making sure we're not going too crazy. Any ideas for quick, easy, healthy meals for this week? I love a challenge so leave me a recipe :)

btw as far as weight loss goes I lost another 2 lbs this past week! Yeah!!

Six Days Later!

Wow, I've really been slacking in the blogging department. Oops!

This weekend was insane! I took a half day on Thursday then had off Friday until Today. During that time I was helping a friend with her wedding (Friday Night), making a cake for a friends retirement (Sat Afternoon), driving down to a friends shore house (Sat Evening) and sleeping over, chilling at the beach with a good group of friends, driving home, and completely overhauling my house.

Yesterday I realized that the hubs forgot I had off of work when he called me a couple times to make sure I was awake at 7am. I decided I wanted to surprise him with a clean house and dinner on the table when he got home from work. This may seem like an easy task for someone who has the Whole Entire Day to get ready for it, but our house was hurting. The hubs and I both got new computers last week (yes that was the surprise!) and we spent the whole week playing with them while the house crashed down around us. It was bad! It was REALLY REALLY Bad! I went to town and cleaned the whole upstairs (I'm talking polished the furniture and everything). Took clothes to Goodwill and while I was out got an oil change with a free car wash. Started doing 6 loads of laundry. Changed sheets, vacuumed, did dishes, organized closets, scrubbed both bathrooms, moved about 200 cd's back to where we keep them (to be organized by the hubs), replanted the herbs that died while I was away in July, cleaned the cat litter, paid bills, organized our paperwork. By the time the hubs got home dinner wasn't on the table and I was grumpy! So much for a surprise right!! Welcome home the house is almost clean and I'm tired and grumpy!! Ahh I had the best of intentions. The hubs was a trooper and made dinner and helped clean last evening. Oh yeah I even washed our shower curtains, apparently you are not supposed to dry them though cause now we have a mini skirt curtain! :)

Today though it was like waking up to a clean slate. Everything was where it should be, I put away the last load of laundry before I made my way to work. I put a little extra effort into the way I'm presenting myself. It felt so good to ride to work in a clean car and I'm excited to come home to a clean house as well. I'm going to work at getting the house and the yard in better order and taking the smaller steps to keeping it like that. Weight loss has been going good I'm over the 20lb down mark now I'm working on my 40lb which I hope to have by Thanksgiving. Have any of my fluffy readers tried Dietbug? Oh My Gosh, I love it!! It has really helped me figure out the best way to eat. You have to keep your calories, fat, carbohydrates and proteins within a healthy range. It has really helped me to understand the whole balance to how you should eat, I feel like I kind of get it now. Well thats about it I have a few other things to update during the week as well.

Simple Living

I was very inspired a couple months ago reading Like Merchant Ships to simplify my wardrobe. Currently the hubs and I share one large dresser and the closet. We have it divided evenly, however, my side is constantly overflowing and threatening the rest of the bedroom. I went through last week and took out things in two piles; one was very gently used to be taken to a consignment shop and the other were things that have gotten a lot of love (mostly stained) to be taken to either a thrift store or homeless shelter. I went through everything and was very strict with myself. If it stayed in my closet I had to start including it in my rotation (which as of the whole summer has been 1 pair of green capri's, 1 pair of grey shorts and 1 pair of jean shorts). When I got through I had two very large lawn and leaf bags full of clothes that needed to leave our house. I did go out and buy a few nice shirts as I really didn't have much other than t-shirts in my closet.

The closet is now separated by color, style (tank, short sleeve and long sleeve). I have several sizes of clothes in the closet organized by size so when I undergrow the clothes I have now I can get rid of them (hopefully consignment shop) and just start on the ones waiting in the closet. When I get down to my ideal size my closet should look pretty minimalistic but even now its definitely 100 times better than it was. It does bring me peace to try and pick out clothes and I feel less slovenly since there is nothing I can pick out with a stain on it. It also will save us money because I can see exactly what I have and if I need anything instead of just trying to remember and hopefully I will spend less money!

Just with that completed I am inspired to try to do the same with the rest of the house to go through with a discerning eye and keep only what we will truly use. The hubs and I try very hard to be cautious with our spending habits to not buy too much clutter, but even so it does find a way to fill up our rooms.

Garden Bounty or as Beyonce would say Bountyliscious!

Mmmmmm we're still harvesting the goodness, below is some freaking awesome tomatoes we have going on at Casa de Dirkey.
I think I've said before I'm totally digging on this whole gardening thing! I love having the freshest best tasting veggies at my hand for dinner. I don't know if I've divulged this yet, but I'm kind of a veggie snob (shocker I know). I will not buy canned veggies and it causes great pain to buy frozen veggies but I will do it (rarely).
One of my favorite things that I've been making this summer has been Zucchini Parm. Mmm just typing it makes me drool...

Here's the recipe:
need
3-4 good size Zucchini's
Olive Oil
Diced Tomatoes (preferably fresh)
Mozzarella
Parmesan
2 white onions
7-8 cloves of garlic
Lots of spices (parsley, basil, oregano, etc)

I slice the Zuch's up into disks then lay out a layer of them in a Lasagna Pan. I then will spread 2-3 crushed garlic cloves over them and sprinkle with olive oil. Then I'll put a thin layer of diced tomatoes, diced onions, spices and cheese on. I repeat this all 3-4 times and bake at 350 for about an hour or until Zucchini is tender when you pierce with a fork. You might want to cover with aluminum foil until the last ten minutes of cooking time so your cheese on top doesn't get too brown.

Seriously-SO GOOD!