Joining a Gym

We recently signed up our 8 month old daughter for swim lessons. Obviously, she won't actually be learning how to swim. It's more just to get her used to the water and to give her something to do and get out of the house (or maybe that's just me?). It is at a local fitness center so the price per lesson is cheaper if you are a member. We decided it's not worth it for her to be a member since this is the only activity for her age group. However, after our tour of the place, it got me thinking about joining.

A few years ago, I belonged to a YMCA and I went frequently. I did all sorts of classes, worked out on my own, and played in the pool. I really enjoyed it. The only reason I stopped going was because I moved 300 miles away for college and now marriage. I had briefly thought about joining a gym when I first moved out here but it was a cost I wasn't willing to pay. I ran outside just about daily and did a little weight training on my own at home.

Now that I still have a little pregnancy weight to get rid of and lots of toning to do, I find it hard to get back into it. I really think the classes would help me. They are even at times before and after my husband's job so he can watch the baby while I work out. Our center also offers to watch your child for up to 2 hours (FOR FREE!) while you go work out. That is extremely exciting for me. I'm just still a little unsure about joining. It comes out to about $1/day if I go every day.

Here is my list (that hopefully you will find even slightly helpful for your own dilemma) of why it would be good to join:

• classes give me motivation. Having specific times something is happening makes it that much harder to skip
• between lots of different classes, a pool, a large basketball court, and lots of fitness machines there is a lot of variety that I don't get at home
• time for myself and doing something that is just for me (this seems especially important after having a baby)
• it is close to home so it will be quite convenient to drop by at any time of day (or in any season)
• socialize and meet new people
• being around positive people with similar goals

I am sure there are other reasons and obviously they won't all apply to you but hopefully I have helped you make your decision. After a lot of debating, I think the cost is worth it. Some insurances will even give you a cheaper rate if you join a gym because typically, it makes you healthier. I am going to join! 

Family Cloth

For those of you who don't know, family cloth is reusable toilet paper. I actually don't like the name family cloth because it seems like the family just finds a new corner on the rag you keep in the bathroom. It's not like that at all.

In fact, it's really comfortable and even luxurious feeling. I actually started it from an environmental and frugal standpoint. Toilet paper is expensive and just because you flush it down the toilet, doesn't mean it goes away. Plus, the amount of trees and energy it takes to make toilet paper is unfathomable. You can look up the statistics for yourself. Some people think that the water it takes to launder the family cloth defeats its purpose but that just simply isn't true. It doesn't come close to what it takes to make the toilet paper in the first place.

The best part is, it's really simple to make. You could use whatever you want. Cut up pieces of old clothes, wash cloths, whatever but I wanted to use up some flannel scraps I had. I cut them to about 6 inch squares, two layers. Then I sewed them wrong sides together and just zigzagged the edges to avoid fraying. I read on other people's blogs that about 50 (per person) will last a week before needing to do laundry.

I also made a bucket (using that really awesome tutorial I found a few weeks ago with all those different buckets---the one with the clothes pins) to hold all the clean ones. It sits on the back of the toilet tank. Then I took a plastic bucket with a cover) for the old ones. It's smaller than an ice cream bucket but that could work too, especially if your whole family is participating.

In my family, it's just me so far but I'm working on convincing my husband about it. Either way, we are currently still buying toilet paper but we are going through much less of it, meaning we buy it less frequently thus saving us money. Every little bit helps!

To me, there's no ick factor when laundering them because I am not putting anything worse in the washing machine than what my baby produces. Or if you use cloth diapers, it's the same thing. It's really not a big deal.

BLT Ravioli, Buckeye Brownies, and Homemade Granola Bars

We have been busy trying to cook from scratch more. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes we give in and use prepackaged things. And sometimes we combine the two, like with BLT ravioli. I don't think we will ever make our pasta from scratch (although we did make gnocchi once) but it's just not worth the time to me.

BLT Ravioli is a great recipe. It does require alfredo sauce. They use jarred but I didn't want to do that. So I made this sauce. It recommends doubling it for a whole box of noodles. We did so, but I'm not sure it was necessary. The sauce was really easy to make and the only ingredient we didn't have on hand was the cream. It does cook up really really fast and if you make it too early, you have to constantly whisk it so it doesn't form a film on the top.

The BLT Ravioli is a bit more time consuming. I do believe it was worth it and I will make this recipe again but it took a lot of time management, which has never been my strong suit while cooking. Our bacon took 15 minutes to cook and the rest of the prep took about 5 minutes. We did use frozen spinach rather than fresh though because it was what we had. Also, we left out the cheese because our alfredo sauce had cheese in it and the ravioli was cheese. That seemed like plenty and we didn't regret it. This recipe was a new twist on an old favorite. It was great!

Then over the weekend, we made buckeye brownies. Brownies don't need any sprucing up and are plenty of calories on their own but these looked too good to resist. We love buckeye balls so when I saw these, I knew we had to have them. I will admit we gave some away so we didn't eat the entire pan ourselves. The chocolate topping takes a lot longer than expected to harden but we ate them before it completely hardened anyway.

Lastly, we made our own granola bars. They always seem like such a waste of money to buy and you can't control what goes into them then. These ones can even be made vegan, if you pick the right ingredients (like the chocolate chips). We replaced the corn syrup with honey. We also only needed 1 1/4 cup of cereal instead of 2 cups. I love how quick these came together. You do have to wait to cut them but that isn't a big deal. You can even freeze them!

Homemade, From Scratch Egg Rolls

In town, we have two new Chinese buffets. David and I love Chinese food but apparently, so does the rest of our town. They are always packed, to the point that there are no spots remaining in the parking lot! While we are waiting for the fad to die down, we decided to make our own Chinese at home. A few weeks ago, we made a yakisoba (I believe I blogged about it...) and last night, we made egg rolls.

I had planned on buying the pre-made egg roll wrappers but our local grocery store doesn't carry them. I considered seeing if Walmart had them but after I looked up the recipe, it didn't seem worth it. They are super simple to make with very few, cheap ingredients that you have on hand.

This recipe is what I decided to make. I did follow a comment's suggestion of adding a little sugar to make them crispier. I'm not really sure if that worked or not but they tasted great. I only got 6 wrappers out of it because the link wants you to make wonton sized wrappers. We made ours a little bigger but they definitely weren't square. The final result didn't look like egg rolls but they tasted like them!

For the insides, we shredded half a head of cabbage and three carrots (or you can buy a prepackaged bag, like what you would buy for coleslaw) and threw in some shredded pork we had frozen before Baby was born. We added a few squirts of soy sauce and some ginger. That was all they needed. These were plenty flavorful and not necessarily authentic, but they were what we were looking for (because the Chinese buffets around here probably aren't all that authentic either).

So we combined all the filling ingredients in a large bowl. Then we put some in the middle of our dough, rolled them up whatever way made the most sense and put them on a greased baking sheet. They went in the oven for 17 minutes (15-20) at 425.

We will definitely make these again but they do take a bit of time to make the wrappers by hand. My suggestion is to chop up all the vegetables while you are waiting the 30 minutes for your dough to be ready.

Parmesan Baked Fish

I don't have a lot of fish recipes and most of them are rather similar but I was quite impressed with this one. It didn't turn out "crusted" the way a breaded fish would but it was still delicious, easy, and quick!

1. Thaw fish fillets. We use pollock and just put it in the fridge overnight. Since there are only two of us, we only thawed two fillets but you can easily adapt this recipe to use as many fish as you want.

2. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a cookie sheet.

3. Combine an egg and 2 tablespoons of milk in a small bowl. We had extra of this and would easily do 4-6 fillets.

4. In a ziploc bag or on a large plate, combine Parmesan cheese (about 1/3 cup for 4 fillets), a couple shakes of paprika, and salt + pepper to taste.

5. Put your fillets on a plate in a single layer (you can do this in batches if your fish don't all fit on one plate). Using a pastry brush, brush on the egg and milk mixture. I had done this to both sides of my fish but the bottom side of the fish just end up stuck to the pan so next time, I would only do the top side.

6. Then either place fish in ziploc bag with the topping or rub the fish around the plate so they get covered with the mixture. You actually need less seasoning on the fish than you would think to get a good flavor.

7. Lay on cookie sheet, seasoned side up.

8. Repeat with all remaining fish. Bake for 25 minutes or until they flake with a fork.

Grocery Tote

I have been wanting to make a bag to take to the grocery store for quite a while now. We have a few of the cheap ones that are practically free at the store but they're rather small and weak. Then, we have a nice one that David's mom made us at Christmas but we use it for taking stuff up to the cabin. I had the perfect fabric for it. I had fabric with a bunch of oranges on it and then a different fabric with pears and apples on it.

I had searched patterns but everything big enough needed more fabric than what I had. I only had 3/8 of a yard of the pears and apples and just under a yard of the oranges. I also wanted the oranges to be a lining, rather than a second bag. I discussed this with David's mom and she helped me figure out a pattern for a big bag that uses both fabrics (with the addition of canvas for the bottom and straps).

We used the entire 3/8 of a yard because I didn't know what I would do with scraps of such a big print. My pears and apples was 42 x 15. My oranges were 42 x 20. And my canvas was 5 1/2 x 42 for the bottom part of the bag and 5 x 32 for the straps.

First do the straps. Take your two strips and fold the long ends into the middle and fold in half again. Top stitch down both sides. (That sounds a little confusing. Lay your strap fabric down, fold up into the middle hot dog style and then fold the other half to the middle. Fold in half again (so everything is contained on the inside. I hope that makes more sense.)

Then sew your canvas to your outside piece along the 42 inch edge. Iron seam to one side. Then top stitch, making this seem like one piece of fabric. Now fold in half (right sides together) and sew along the side (opposite your folded side) and sew along the bottom (the canvas side). Do the same with the lining piece but leave a gap (to turn) in the bottom.

Keep both pieces inside out and then square off the bottoms. I did mine 8 inches wide.

Now attach your straps. Turn your outside piece right side out and let the straps hang off the top about 1 1/2 inches. Sew right across the strap. Then place your outside fabric into your lining, right sides together. Sew around the top. Turn, using the hole in the lining. Close the hole in the lining, either by hand or by machine. Now, top stitch the bag and secure the straps even further by sewing X's across the part you had left hang off.

You're done. I know it sounds complicated but it's really not. Maybe I'm just not the best at explaining it.

(Normally it doesn't hang on the bathroom door but that was the best place for a picture.)

I took it to the store this morning and it can hold more than a basket can! It's a huge bag.

Clothes Pin Holder

We have recently set up a clothes line in our laundry room. I have been waiting for it for basically two years now and we even bought it a long time ago (months? a year?) and now it's installed! I'm not sure what took it so long but I couldn't be happier. This especially comes in handy for drying my new cloth pads.

Anyway, I need something to hold my clothes pins because the packaging they come in is rather annoying. I thought about just buying a bucket but I thought it would be nice if it would hang on the line too. I used this tutorial and found it very easy to follow and very simple!

I had to adjust my fabric size just a little bit because for some reason, most of my fat quarters are 18 x 21 instead of 18 x 22. I don't miss that one inch though. The only problem is I used the plastic embroidery hoops and those don't tighten. I think it'll still work out though. I also had David construct me an S hook out of wire and then we hung it on the line.

The tutorial says you can use interfacing if you want but I think mine is stiff enough without it. Your preference of course.

There is the finished product sitting on my ironing board! I'm not sure how it happened, maybe when everything got folded over around the hoops, but the front of mine is lower than the back. I actually like this because it makes it easy to reach in and grab the pins. I will also mention that the yellow and black (outside fabric) was actually one of the first fat quarters I ever bought and I'm finally using it!

Since yesterday, I have actually made another one of these, although much smaller for a different purpose. These bags are so handy and I can see myself making about 50 more for various things. I also think they would look nice if you did install a rod like in the tutorial and made about 5 or 6 of them to store various supplies above your sewing table. I might just steal my own idea for my own table!

I struggled with the square corners for my wet bag but on this project, it was somehow a lot easier and I didn't have any problem. Maybe that just means I've acquired that skill.

My Official Reusable Pads

I have finally found the perfect combination of layers and absorbency for my reusable pads. I have discussed using them before but I never got it quite right. Then I took a hiatus on it for a while, got pregnant (rendering anything I made untestable), and just recently got back to it. So far, I only have 2 made, 1 one of each size (regular and overnights) but these are just so perfect! As I find more time, I will be sewing more. Although, I also recently ordered a Moon Cup so with that coming, I'm not sure how many more I'll need.

I know this probably grosses out some readers but you would not believe the difference reusable pads make! Even if you ignore the money you'll save, the environmental factors, and the fact you can make them to your specific needs, these are great! They are more comfortable, I have heard they shorten your cycle, you're not putting chemicals anywhere near your body, they are cute, and I just find them a huge improvement! You can google more about it if you are curious about the other factors.

Since I only have one for now (for daytime), I am still using disposables. I can tell there is immediately a huge difference when I switch from my reusable back to my disposable or vice versa. Mine are just about as thin, don't make that awful crinkly noise, don't have the wings stick to my legs (I can't be the only one with that problem), and just feel more comfortable!

I made my daytimes 10in x 4 in but that includes a 1/4 in seam allowance (and some room for trimming since my layers didn't end up exactly even). It is very important to prewash all fabrics you will be using or you will experience some shrinkage in the wash, and all the fabrics will shrink down to the same size.

I have a flannel layer on top, then a layer of t-shirt (literally, I cut up an old t shirt), followed by a microfiber cloth (like the kind you get the automotive aisle), a layer of vinyl-y type stuff, and lastly a layer of pretty polyester (I'm sorry I can't get more specific than polyester but it's thin and reminds me of a linen). I know that sounds like a lot of layers but since most of them are really thin, I promise these pads won't feel bulky. So you cut all of those layers to 10x4. Then layer it all out and sew with your polyester layer and your flannel layer right sides together (so you can sew all the way around, leave a gap, and flip it out with your seams on the inside). Sew closed your gap. Then figure out how long you want the wings (I measured what I would need using my underwear). I used a flannel layer for the top and a polyester layer on the bottom. Right sides together, sew, flip, sew closed. Attach wings to the back of the pad by pinning and sewing the square where they overlap. Add a snap to the wings and boom! You're done! I do take it one step farther because I have a problem where mine like to slip around so I write something (usually my name) in puffy paint on the bottom.

The only difference between my day times and my night times is length. My night times are a couple inches longer and the back flares out just a bit, giving me more coverage. If you are a sewer, these are so simple to make. They are also easy to care for. I wash mine like how I wash everything else but then I hang them up to dry instead of putting them in the dryer. I also know some people soak them in cold water between the time they are done using them and the time they do laundry and the time they do laundry and then use the water as fertilizer for their flowers. It's actually a really healthy thing for the plants.

I can't rave about these enough! I hope you enjoy them just as much as I do. Of course if you don't sew, you can always have me sew you some (for a fee of course, but I will try to be as cheap as I can about it) and just let me know in the comments what you're looking for!

Frozen Burritos and Dessert Chimichangas

With a baby in the house, it can be really hard to find time to make lunch. Even something as simple and quick as a sandwich can be a huge undertaking some days. This means, I like really quick, convenient lunches. Something I can pop in the microwave while I tend to my baby and then come back and check on it. Usually this involves TV dinners or pot pies but I try not to use those too often because they aren't the healthiest and they cost money.

Before she was born, we had froze ahead some meals so it would be really easy to have a nutritious meal fairly quickly. We obviously (she was born 7 months ago) ate through all those but I somehow had forgotten about continuing to do this. I decided to make my own frozen burritos. It's really not hard and comes out pretty cheap, about 30 cents a burrito.

You will need:

• tortilla shells. I used the 10inch burrito size ones
• refried beans, either canned or homemade
• shredded cheese

Of course, you can add in meats, spices, salsa, hot sauce, etc but I wanted to keep mine simple. Then you combine the beans and cheese in a bowl, fill your tortilla, roll it up and you're done. You can either wrap them individually in plastic wrap or tin foil then place in a freezer gallon size bag or freeze them all on a cookie sheet and then put in the freezer bag once they are frozen. This prevents them from sticking together.

I got 5 burritos out of one can of beans and about one cup of cheese.

I hear you don't need to thaw them before cooking either. Just throw in the oven or the microwave and you got yourself a meal!

Now since I only got 5 burritos out of that recipe and I was expecting 8, I needed a recipe to use up my last 3 shells. That was when I found dessert chimichangas. The link doesn't include directions, other than the pictures, but it does have the ingredients. I combined all of the filling ingredients and heated them in a skillet over medium-high heat until they looked to be the right consistency. Then I filled and rolled the tortillas and put back in the pan with a little oil until slightly golden brown. Then I rolled in the cinnamon sugar topping.

I will mention I cut the recipe in half since I only needed to use 3 tortillas and my tortillas were pretty big compared to the ones called for. These were really good but I liked the shell and topping just as much as I liked the inside so maybe sometime in the near future, I'll just make the shells. I'm pretty sure that is already a thing but I've never had it before. 

(Vegan) Alternative to Meatballs

Since my pregnancy, I haven't gone back to being a vegetarian and not sure if I will or not. We do try to eat less meat and at least once a week, we have a meatless meal. It's actually already a really healthy practice, as well as good for you and the environment, if you haven't already considered this. There was a big campaign trying to make it more known called Meatless Mondays so I'm sure you will find plenty of information about it's benefits if you look that up. Anyway, last week Friday was our meatless meal. I wanted pasta but I thought it needed a little more protein. That was when I found this recipe. I actually had everything but the lentils on hand (with a few adjustments) and I had also been looking for a way to use up my package of mushrooms. My adjustments were I left out the bay leaf, used balsamic vinegar instead of red wine, and used some seasoning from a ramen packet mixed into water for the broth.

These are very easy to make but a little time consuming. Next time, I'll make a big batch and freeze some of them so I don't have to spend two hours cooking dinner every time. I don't think they are supposed to taste like meat and they don't but they are still great, especially when mixed into your pasta sauce! They were also bigger than I was thinking they were. A person had suggested using a mini muffin tin if you want them smaller but I don't have one of those. I suppose you could use a big muffin tin and just not fill it as much or you could probably get away with using a baking sheet.

We rated these a 4 out of 5 in our house! I will definitely be making them again. They also come out really cheap, in terms of ingredients. Around here, you can get an entire bag of lentils for a dollar (and you only use about 1/6 of it), and mushrooms for $1.50, much cheaper than meat!

Wet/Dry Bag 2

Once again, I am inspired to make my own pads (and maybe actually do it this time!) but first I needed a place to put them. So I made a wet/dry bag because I ended up using my divided one for nursing pads. I used this tutorial with a few minor changes. This was a really simple bag and I could easily make a lot of them (or more in different sizes!). In my previous post, I had mentioned I had learned how to do a boxed bottom by using the seam and cut method and it was with this project!

My outside was part of a cotton fat quarter and my inside is a vinyl-y type of fabric I got at a fabric garage sale a while ago. I figured both of these make the bag washable, which may come in handy if I really do end up storing used reusable pads in it for on the go.

I did make mine a little smaller because I wanted it to fit in my purse, plus the zipper I had was only 9 inches, rather than 10. Then I had intended to leave out the part of the zipper to make a cute little tab for it but for some reason, mine didn't work out that way. I think it had something to do with my sewing over the little metal pieces at the end of the zipper. This also causes not only a broken needle (boy, was that a mess to fix!), but also the end of your zipper doesn't line up so there is a teeny tiny gap when you close the zipper (meaning it doesn't close 100% of the way). That's okay though. It's good enough for me! Plus, it's easy enough I could make another one if I wanted.

As you can tell from my size comparison with a computer mouse, this is a small bag! But I think it'll be perfect.

Book Tote

Over the weekend, I made a really cute book tote. I actually had all the pieces cut out and sitting on my ironing board forever but I finally finished it! I did make a couple changes to the pattern to make it easier. For one, I cut all my pieces to the same size (when you get to the pinning step). So this means when you line up your 7 inch piece with the 7 inch side of a different piece, they are both 7 inches. The pattern calls for one of them to be 7 1/2. Same with the 9 inch pieces. This actually made me really mad that I didn't catch it sooner because I had accidentally cut the pieces at 9 inches, instead of 9 1/2. Then I discarded those pieces and it turns out I could've used them instead of cutting new pieces! Oh well. I'm over it.

The other annoying thing about this tote is actually having a bottom piece rather than making a boxed bottom with seams and cutting the corners (a technique I actually just learned this weekend while working on a different bag!). That would've made this project immensely easier.

I do like the end result though. It perfectly fits about 2 books, depending on how thick they are. I think it's adorable and could have many uses (some that don't even include toting books around!).

I would like to make a whole bunch of these but I should probably find uses for them first. Eventually, when my little girl is older, they'd be cute for her to cart around her stuff in.

 I'm sorry I don't have a size comparison for them but let's just say they would fit a Bible (or a similar sized book) perfectly!

Food! Dinners (part 2)

The first dinner is Black Bean Spinach Enchiladas. I've been meaning to make this one for a few weeks and just never got around to it. I will admit I used canned enchilada sauce but I had half a can leftover from the last time I made enchiladas (it freezes well. It's not quite the same consistency but it tastes the same once it comes back from the oven). I purposely left out the onions and cilantro but I just plum forgot to put the cumin in. It still had plenty of flavor, even with cutting the enchilada sauce to half a can as well. I wasn't a big fan of these but I'm still kind of spinach-ed out because I seemed to eat it by the handfuls for the longest time. My husband and mom really enjoyed this recipe though.

Pork Yakisoba is another recipe I found on pinterest. It's actually chicken but we never have that on hand and we did have pork, so I used that instead. In this, we had to make some alterations. For instance, we left out the sesame oil and hot sauce. We also substituted the worchestershire sauce for liquid smoke and used ginger spice rather than fresh ginger. I was really excited to use our garden carrots though. They weren't very big but we had enough of them to make enough for this. I didn't particularly like this recipe either but it might've been the cabbage. I think it absorbed too much of the liquid smoke, giving it too strong of a flavor.

For a lighter dinner, we made veggie egg bites. These were so quick and easy! Plus so good! I used peas, peppers, and corn for the veggies. I put them in the microwave to thaw a little bit first but the website said that wasn't necessary. I did end up needing 11 eggs and I only got 11 muffins out of it so I would adjust that for next time. I also forgot to salt them so I salted after, and might do that in the future on purpose for people's personal preferences.

Lastly, I needed a side to go with the veggie egg bites and my mom had brought zucchini and summer squash with her so we made fritters to go with them. These were also really good but you need an amazingly non-stick pan to make them. We have an Or-greenic pan and this worked wonders but the first pan we used didn't. They just stuck and when we were able to flip them, they lost the part that kept them together. These did turn out really delicious though. And I thought they accompanied the egg bites well.

And that's all my new recipes! (If you missed it, don't forget to read part 1 with desserts!

Food! Dessert (part 1)

With my mom here last week, I got a little behind in posting (what else is new?) so here are 8 new recipes that I tried.

First on the list, is puppy chow cookies. These cookies didn't quite turn out the way I wanted them to. I accidentally burned the bottoms (they were too close to the heat coils in the oven) and then the chocolate didn't melt to the right consistency so I ended up frosting them. They were still good but definitely not what I expected. I imagine if they hadn't burned, they would've been much better. Maybe next time I'll just make actual puppy chow. This recipe also surprised me that the cookie itself is just a peanut butter cookie. I would've put some chocolate in the cookie too.

The next recipe doesn't have a link. I found it on pinterest but when I clicked to go to the link, the link went to something else (don't you hate when that happens??) so I just followed what the comments said to do.

• 3 bananas
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 2 cups oats
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350. The title of this is healthy cookies but mine seemed a little too soupy for cookies so I put it in an 8x8 glass pan and baked for closer to 20 minutes. These bars turned out really good and reminded me of banana chocolate chip bread. I did like that they didn't have any added sugar or even flour, making this recipe so simple. I will mention I did not know if the order of the ingredients mixed together mattered, like for cookies, so I tried to do all the wet ingredients first then mix in the dry.

Peanut Butter Banana Bars are delicious! These were relatively healthy too and just as quick as the previous bars. I really recommend these, especially for a lighter breakfast. I know the ingredient list is a little long but it should all be things you have on hand.

My last dessert is Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. These were also really good and quick. I found out during making them I only had 13 cupcake liners so I made the full recipe for 24 muffins into only 13. Mine turned out huge but still cooked in the right amount of time, surprisingly!

So can you tell I had some frozen bananas to use up? I made all these in the same day (my mom sure had a job of washing my mixer over and over) and I still have 2 bananas left!