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Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Chili's Million Flatbread Giveaway
Join the Chili's email club to get your free full-size flatbread, and you'll also get the latest happening and exclusive offers. Chili's is giving away one million of their NEW freshly-baked flatbreads. Loaded with signature toppings on a crispy crust, it's a taste not to be missed. Claim your free flatbread* before they're gone and get to your local Chili's!
A Decorative Inspiration
My mom had always been an HGTV fan, and now she has been introduced to Pinterest (should I be worried?).
She is always looking for ways to decorate her home. One day, my mom had an idea. Here is her idea that she proudly placed in her formal bathroom which goes with the theme color browns. She put her soap dispenser in a vase and filled it with seashells which were collected from beaches including Aqaba, Jordan.
I think my mom did a great job! I will pin her photo which I am sure she will repin.
She is always looking for ways to decorate her home. One day, my mom had an idea. Here is her idea that she proudly placed in her formal bathroom which goes with the theme color browns. She put her soap dispenser in a vase and filled it with seashells which were collected from beaches including Aqaba, Jordan.
I think my mom did a great job! I will pin her photo which I am sure she will repin.
Spring Cleaning in the 21st Century
After a long and cold winter season, spring is finally here and that can only mean one thing…. It’s time for everyone’s favorite, spring cleaning! Before you break out the old vacuum cleaner and dust buster, many tech savvy home owners are now turning to their mobile devices to aid in the often daunting task.
With that in mind, Appitalism.com, the first site to combine a social community with an online store to help consumers quickly and easily discover, discuss and download the best digital content for all devices, recommends the following fun and simple apps that will make this year’s spring cleaning a breeze.
- Clean Freak Cleaning Schedule ($.99 for the Apple iPhone) - Designed by working parents, Clean Freak uses the "divide-and-conquer" approach to keeping the home clean. Break down your chores into bite-sized tasks, and do an item every day. Check an item you've completed off the list, and Clean Freak will show you how many days since a task was last done. Completing all items advances the rotation, and you are able to configure less frequent tasks in the "every 2/4/8 rotations" sections.
- Organizing Your Home ($1.19 for the Android) - Unless you have some magical powers like Mary Poppins, you know that cleaning and organizing your home at times, is a painful process. With Organizing Your Home, that task will become much easier. Inside you will find practical tips and techniques to rid every room in your house of clutter and keep it that way.
- House Maintenance Schedule (Free for the Android) - House Maintenance Schedule" is a calendar application to log date of routine maintenance done to your home, and to remind you about the due date of the next maintenance. As a reference, it also has an easy-to-follow, month-to-month guide for maintenance works needed by you home
Things just got easier for Moms with ‘Delicious Days…’
Delicious Days is Kraft’s new headquarters for all things seasonal. Watch featured videos to learn new recipes that really take advantage of fall’s unique vegetables – even picky eaters will dive right in! There are also tons of classic recipes that are sure crowd pleasers - your family will definitely be asking about your secret recipe stash when you serve them an apple crumble filled with fresh picked apples and fragrant cinnamon!
The site also features content the whole family will love. Check out fun games, budgeting ideas, and party planning must-haves. If you want to get creative in time for Halloween, Delicious Days also features fun recipes that are spookily delicious, like eyeball cupcakes and the Ghosts in the Graveyard cake, perfect for getting kids to help out in the kitchen! After these recipes, your house is sure to be haunted with delicious candy ghosts!
While you’re at Delicious Days don’t forget to enter the AOL Home for the Holidays Sweepstakes* for a chance to win $2,500! It’s the perfect prize to get your family together in time for the holiday season.
Cooking Light Complete Meals in Minutes
Families are busier than ever thanks to busy schedules from the parents to the children. It is tough usually to prepare meals and still have time for some family time before the day ends. Today’s home cooks hunger for recipes that have it all—fast, easy, delicious and healthy.
Enter Cooking Light Complete Meals in Minutes, a new cookbook that allows cooks to choose exactly how much time they want to spend in the kitchen—whether it’s 15, 20 or 30 minutes—and find the right recipe in a snap. 
This ring binder recipe collection is brought together by Cooking Light magazine’s renowned Test Kitchen professionals and dietitians with the adage that there’s no need to sacrifice taste, nutrition or quality for speed. Brimming with over 700 amazing recipes—including savory main dishes, appetizers and beverages, salads, soups, and sandwiches—dinnertime will never get boring.
The book’s easy-to-follow, engaging design includes:
- 500+ color images
- Icons identifying each dish as a 15-, 20- or 30-minute recipe
- Complete nutritional analysis for every dish
- Lay-flat ring binder format for easy navigation
- Plan Ahead & Shop Smart: Taking a few minutes to plan your meals for the week can maximize each trip to the grocery store and give you more direction while you’re there. Make a comprehensive list that can help you limit your shopping trips to just once per week—saving time, gas and money.
-Befriend Your Freezer: Since frozen fruits and vegetables are preserved at the height of their freshness, their nutritional value is at its peak and they are as beneficial as fresh veggies. Having a nice selection on hand helps cut down on waste (since they won’t go bad) and saves you from rushing to the store for spur-of-the-moment recipe inspirations.
-Grab Your Gadgets: Mixing by hand might be better for your muscle tone, but using your electric gadgets can save tons of time and help you get the job done right.
-Don’t Look a Pre-Packaged Gift Horse in the Mouth: Need chopped onions, matchstick carrots, chunked pineapple, pizza dough, minced garlic or lemon juice? For a slightly added cost, you can save time by letting your grocery store do the work for you. Time is money.
-Slice Strategically: Stack produce like shitake mushrooms, zucchini slices and tomatoes slices before slicing them. It’s faster than cutting them one by one.
-Mix Mixes Into Your Repertoire: Premixed spices, cake mixes and more save tons of time and effort, and most people wouldn’t even notice the difference.
-Master Your Techniques: Taking a little time to learn the proper way to dice, chop, peel and cook will save you oodles of time in the long run.
From Summer Into School: Four Ways to Ease The Transition
It’s that time of year again. Teachers are decorating their classrooms, brand-new lunchboxes wait to be filled, and kids who have savored the delights of vacation are looking downright glum. If you’re a hardcore summer fan, you too may find it tough to get excited about the return of school. It’s not easy to exchange the relative leisure of vacation for the tyranny of the alarm clock, the inflexibility of pickup times, and the challenge of shepherding your family through another academic year while (hopefully) keeping your own life in balance.
Luckily, the start of school does not have to mean the end of sanity. Here are a few ways to ease the transition, making Back-to-School a positive, fun, and even spiritually enriching time for you and your family.
1. Make a New School
2. Focus not on what you’re losing, but on what you’re gaining. Yes, it’s tough to bid goodbye to swimming pools and charcoal barbecues. But every season has its own charms. On my short list of autumn fun: taking the boys to the pumpkin patch, letting myself eat candy corn again, smelling wood smoke in the air. Even if school itself doesn’t generate any smiles, get your kids talking about fun experiences they had last fall. Pull out some photos if you need to refresh their memories (or your own).
3. Pack a letter along with the juice box and string cheese. At times throughout my childhood (and early adolescence), my mom would tuck a handwritten note into my lunchbox. “I love you! Enjoy the Cheese Puffs! Love, Mom.” When I was very young, these little letters helped me deal with the homesickness I often felt at school. When I was older, they were a subtle, non-intrusive reminder that my mom wanted to stay connected to me. Though I couldn’t have articulated this at the time, I loved the fact that I was holding something handwritten, something that Mom herself also touched. That’s instinctively comforting for kids, who sometimes need a little shot of motherly encouragement in the middle of a long school day.
4. Get mindful and remember that nothing stays forever. “This too shall pass,” my grandmother always used to say. While that is a comforting mantra when you’re so stressed out you can’t see straight, it also captures the bittersweet reality of parenting. Someday you will miss the four-year-old who, though exhausting, dances with excitement upon showing you the letters he traced at preschool, or the exasperating teen who makes an unguarded comment revealing how much she still values your approval. I always try to remember that wishing away the negatives of a certain phase of parenthood inevitably means wishing away its joys, too. So if the school year is ratcheting up your stress level, try this little assignment: pause, breathe deeply, and think, This won’t last forever. Savor what’s good about the present moment. In the classroom of life, it’s one of the most important lessons we’ll ever learn.
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Ginny Moyer - Ginny Kubitz Moyer is an author, English teacher, weekend gardener, sporadic exerciser, and proud mother of two young boys. Visit her blog at www.blog.maryandme.org for thoughts on faith, parenting, and the occasional ode to Jane Austen.
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