A bit of whimsy in an extraordinary life

I have to say, the googly eyes are getting better. These ones from the Halloween section of Dollar Tree totally rock (if you put them on rocks that would be ironic, maybe even funny). In addition to some dollar store sea shells (yeah, I don't remember which one), and a bit of glue, I had to literally make my children stop.
I used Glossy Sccents (Crystal Lacquer, whetever name it comes in), as glue because these babies are on my little window sill at my tub. I am sure Elemer's would be sufficient, however with moisture I wanted to be sure. The only bottle I had left was sepia toned, so yeah, they all have a bit of pink eye. Oh well. They're still darling and I love the whimsy it adds to my peaceful tub time. By peaceful I mean I get a minimum of three interruptions, because heaven forbid....
Of course, with the Kawaii craze and Shopkins, the mini google eyes can (and have been) added to anything for fun, laughter, and amusement.
"Look Mom, my pencil has eyes!"
"Mom it's a live toy car."
"Mommy I put a face on one of your 'mommy diapers'."
The joy just doesn't end.

Surprising things you can totally buy at the dollar store.

This means I've tested it and was shocked to find it satisfactory.

5. Pregnancy tests. When you try twelve years to have a baby, you need confirmation, and not at sixteen dollars a pop. The only thing the brands offer over the dollar tree is earlier detection. Which costs even more. If it's been a month and you're like, could it be? Buy five of them suckers.
4. Nail polish. In addition to sometimes getting brand name the off brand product is just fine. When to beware; the twist won't twist, the ball doesn't roll. When too thick add pemover to the bottle and shake. When dry, let it go for Pete's sake. If you currently pay $30 a bottle you will not be satisfied by dollar store nail polish. You have a nuerological disorder and I cannot help you.
3. Children's socks. They are going to wine every time and outgrow them way faster than spending real money on them. Do not buy one pair. Okay, maybe those paw patrol ones, but generally, buy the three or more packs. Make them the same if you can. You will never have to worry about the other sock, because they're all the other sock. I really wish someone had yold me this trick sooner.
2. Seasonal kitsch. At the end of it all you only use it for how long. This gives a guilt free option of pitching them at the end (throwing away or sending to the thrift store). I am totally about recycling, but when I became frustrated with my window covers after last Halloween I felt so much better when I had to just tear them off (the plastic had kinda' melted to the window, eek!, I do live in the desert).
1. Books. Best selling books. Bad selling books. Books to make you cry. Books exposing lies. Books to help you cook. Books that tell you what to put in every little nook. Books that help you learn. Books you want to burn. Everytime you read a book, you could change your outlook.

What NOT to buy

This is a wonderful list. I should know because I LOVE list (and also I'm writing it, so, there's that). This list is not intemded to judge, only to assert a certain value. I obviously used all of these things, in order to learn it.
The idea behind value is generally monetary, so when I say Beef Jerky at the Dollar Tree is not a good value, that means something along the lines of, per ounce the value is not good. We've all been excited by a brand name at the dollar store, but as you load in five mini boxes of Cheese Nips, you could have had two large boxes at the store and that's 1 pound for five dollars, versus two pounds at the grocer. This is one good reason the 'brands' have begun to provide for these outlets.
If you are on your lunch break by all means, grab one of those boxes, a pot pie, and a chocolate milk. Definitely cheaper than other options for lunch. Plus, it's always a pain to explain to your co-workers why the fat girl always has a full box of Cheese Nips (and she growls when you come near). Only me there?
So on with the list (Let's go backwards, shall we?):

5. Femine products, if it's name brand the value is probably bad, if its not the product is crap.
4. Tissue products. While I must give a nod to Dollar Tree for upping rheir toilet paper game, the paper towels aint great, the napkins are abysmal, and the nose tissue. Just don't do it. But the get regular Kleenex sometimes, and then its stock up, however, this is not the cream of the Kleenex crop either. Confession: I buy the litle kiddie 6-8 packs here, for my purse, car, and oh, yeah, kids. Value, bad, but they're so helpful.
3. Meatballs.
2. Most toys. With the exception of getting brand cast offs; like last seasons, or 'well this didn't sell like we thought it would' product. Even in those cases consider, why is it here before buying. I mean a Hello Kitty pimple extractor seems like a great deal. (disclaimer, not an actual product, but I totally would have bought it).
1. Anything with artificial or 'flavored' in the title. This tells you two things. One, their biggest concern was to make it look like something else. Next they worried about smell and flavor. They never considered if it was 'good for you', because they don't have to. This is where you pick up your sword of justice and just don't buy these things. That's actually where change begins, in the wallet. (Like what i did there, change, wallet, eh? It's hopeless). The second thing it tells you is, it is not in fact, the product you are looking for. My two biggies: Artificial cheese and Honey flavored syrup.

$1 a day habit

I love my tea. And I can stop at McD's 3 times a day to help out my addiction. It's just a buck. Every time. Let's say you're not crazy like me; not everyone can be blessed in the exact same way. Let's say it's once a day. That's easy math. $7 a week, $30 a month, $365 a year. Ok. It's not terrible, at least I don't smoke, talk about expensive!
But here's the secret, my equally lazy friend (it's not really a secret), you can make that at home. spend an hour making four jugs, like me, still not as much time as the drive through this week. Yes, four jugs= one week. Don't judge me. In a jug is easily four mcdonalds cups worth of tea. Added to that the ice factor I drink half a jug a day.
What is the ice factor you ask? I am so glad you asked. The ice factor is that precious number of cubes that take up 75% of your cup, even if you say easy ice you'r gonna get 50%, ask for no ice (what is wrong with you?) for the correct ratio. So even though I can fill two mcdonalds cups with half it actually takes three or four as ordered to replace this much minus the ice. I assume you know how to make, or buy ice.
So here are my supplies, if you prefer sweet tea even better. Replace my packets with sugar or sweeteners, with sugars the cost increases, with sweeteners it decreases.  This should show the box (it had eight) but I had thrown it awat before realizing I could blog this.
                                  

Seriously, it takes twenty committed minutes. Continue boiling the same four bags until they reach a clear stage. After each pot distribute among your jugs, I keep mine in a sink full of cool water. You want to do it this way because the strong tea will be in all four and the weeak tea will be in all four. In between your first and second pan, add your drink mix (fruit punch is yum)and some cool water from the fridge if like mine your sink water doesn't get cold. For me the one packet per jug gives enough flavor and sweetness. You could try more if this isn't the case for you.

Here's the cost breakdown.
Flavor tea Four Jugs = .75
4 drink packs, .50
4 tea bags, .25

Sweetened with sugar Four Jugs =1.25
4 tea bags, .25
4 cups sugar, 1.00

Sweetened with dangerous chemical sweeeners = .45 (possibly cancer)
4 tea bags, .25
20 sweeteners .20

I reuse Arizona jugs that I paid 2.50 for full of tea. Really. So lazy.



                                            


*Addendums. I got a coffee maker the neighbor was abiout to throw out, ran vinegar through it and now use it for the tea! I bought a different brand of tea at Walmart that takes two bags per jug, but comes in 24 family sized bags for one dollar. The hubs like three packets of strawberry lemonade in his jugs and I have moved up to two packets of flavor because no one else liked it my way, lol.

New breakdown with those facts:

.38 for hubs
.25 for mine

continuation of the organized fridge

The dollar store item here is zip ties, sorry, you have to cut your own shapes from recycled products! I was lucky to find these inkadinkado stamps in my stash which went perfect, and yes I like to keep tuna cans in the fridge. Poke holes in your plastic shapes and run zip ties through the holes in the baskets, voila!Use either dry erase or permanent markers when labeling depending on if you foresee a change.

Eat Yer Heart Out Ikea- It's in my organized fridge.

Let me disclaim here: this is an itty, bitty fridge. I can't take a pic of my larger (still only apartment sized) fridge, because, it's...well....dirty. It's TOTALLY organized. But dirty.

Here I have created a system that only cost $7. The apartment size uses $10. Several tips I have when doing this:

1. Put like items together, this Summer it has been nice to pull out the 'condiment' or 'salad dressing' basket. If you store drinks in the garage simply fill up your 'beverage' basket for easy carrying to the fridge.

2. Use zip ties to ahdere labels made from recycled plastic. Any regular adhesive will fall away when cold.
3. If you are very persnickity buy a seperate color for your 'hands off items'. The conversation sounds like this,
"Child, where did you get this Babybel from?"
Inaudible shrugging.
"What color was the basket?"
Shuffling off to the fridge, "Well you never feed me anything good!"
I know at this point you can hear the fridge slam, pop back open, slam, pop back open. Shut.

Who actually wants to spend lots of money organizing the fridge? I will tell you it is well worth the effort, however to spend a little money doing it.

Old Faithful

Hack type: Recipe
Cost: $8
Feeds: 12

Aaah, the tuna noodle casserole. You hated, you loved it, you had to do it to your own kids. First there is the economy of it. Where else can you pack protein and vitamin for such a fair price? I dunno', pizza? But even that gets old. No it really doesn't I'm lying. Then there's the ease. Who doesn't need easy somedays?
I am going to try to do this a new way, bear with me. First, a photo of my ingredients:

All obtained at Dollar Tree, minus the peas, which I forgot, but the can is much larger that the dollar tree carries. Also to not in this instance they had in large tuna cans, 7 oz. so that is super. Aside from the case sale when Kroger has cans .50 each this is the best deal I know of (if you have an Adli's good too). The crackers are plenty but once in a while they get the noraml sized box, in which case I would not use a whole box.

Boil your noodles on the low side of the instructions.(7-9, do 7). Drain nicely and rinse if you prefer that (generally noodles should not be rinsed).
Stir in a very big bowl, drained tuna, cream soups, noodles. Add peas toward the end of the stirring so you don't mash 'em. Dump it in a pan, crush crackers and sprinkle over and cook for twenty minutes at 350. Mmmmm.... good.

• 1 package noodles
  2 different cream soups
  2 cans of tuna
  1 can of peas
  1 small box of crackers
  salt and pepper to taste

Some yummy stuff you can add:

Worcestire, yes it adds a nice ting with about a quarter cup, and is available at....I won't even say it.
Capers, Ohmyyum, they add somethign good to it! Very rare at the *ahem*.
Onions
Celery
Broccoli florets
Oh man sprinkle some cheese in with the crackers.... Make sur eif you buy Dollar tree cheese you are completely aware of what it is. Cheese can be, er, impeding, but fake cheese will send you to the er,eek!

Also carrrots. I do not care for canned carrots, but that would be the proper kind. Cooking them yourself would not only ruin the idea of quick and easy, they'd probably be too fresh and hard.

The (no longer) dreaded Custom Christmas Calendar

Hack type: Christmas gift


Ohmyword, I am so overwhlemed and everyone wants a homemade calendar for Christmas! I can't afford to do six seperate print ups from shutterfly (super site!) or Walgreens (yep, I like them too). Then, I cannot afford the time to actually create six from scratch! What ever shall I do? If only I could buy a calendar already made and insert photos randomly in clever ways.... But really cheap, because I am so poor.

What? You have a solution? But of course, I always have a solution (not always a good one, mind you). I went to my Dollar Tree, but all dollar stores will have these, and bought some very nice calendars. They may be on the flimsy side, but I am not playing frisbee with them. There are a couple ways to aproach the transformation: totally scrap each page, taking advantage of the month and dates but covering the pictures with paper. Work your photos into the pictures in a sensible manner. Or get ecclectic, mix and match sense and whimsy. I've done all three. I must confess number two wins these days, as I like to save time as much as money, and not everyone 'gets' whimsy.

If you're not blessed like me in owning a shape cuting machine (sizzix here), just trace shapes you see around you, tupperware lids are great. Remember to snip just inside the lines unless you are going for a wild and crazy look (NOT knocking a wild and crazy look.)

           Here's a full calendar:

Here are some of my faves from other calendars:

Bicycle tires!!! Perfect!








Heehee, they're coming out of the typewriter!




It's a frame, need I say more?

Hot dog salad

After school snack hack
Cost $2

So everyone knows kids will eat hot dogs for any meal, but you get tired of plain old doggies. If you're paranoid like me you cut the dogs in half down the center so the round pieces can't choke up your wee one. When they were littler I cut it into four strips. And that's how hot dog salad came to me.

First, do that. Cut into four strips and then slice into tiny chunks. Add a spoon full of mayo or Miracle Whip and relish, a squirt of mustard and ketchup, stir. You can serve with crackers or on bread. I recommend only feeding your kids with it, as our palates are much more discriminate.



Not awful waffles

Hack Type: Recipe

Cost: 3$
Feeds: 5
You will need:

Cake mix, eggs, syrup

I daresay, not only are these not awful, they're downright tasty. Now the hubs and I would not need syrup, perhaps adding peanut butter and banana instead, but you know kids. Groan. Definitely not an everyday deal-io, as we do try to involve protein in the morning meal especially. Milks got to be the vitamin source on waffle days.

Ignoring the box recipe add three eggs and 1 and 1/4 cups water. ok. That's pretty much it. Of course you can have yourself fun with sprinkles to the mix. Which I buy at the dollar store. Also nice to know is the spray oil available at the Dollar Tree lasts as long as other spray oil available elsewhere,
And they have a coconut variety.

You can see I have a bubble waffler, it was a wedding gift I think? But they do taste better than other waffles ;). This batch is ready for the freezer where I can pop them, like other brands, in the toaster on a school day.

Lazy Crazy Spaghetti

Recipe

Feeds about 8
Cost: $8


24 oz. spaghetti noodles

1 24 oz. can sauce
1 24 oz. can diced or stewed tomatoes
1 12 oz. jar red peppers and onions
1 12 oz. jar mushrooms
1 16 oz. can olives
1-2   package frozen sausage (cut breakfast links, NOT maple, but don't be afraid to try hot).

Throw it all in the crock pot, season with basil, garlic, onion powder, a dash of pepper. You can also buy 'Italian seasoning' at the dollar store, but I don't use this. Cook at high for two hours, or low about four hours.
Vegetarian; use zucchini, extra mushrooms, or even black beans instead of sausage.
This makes plenty of food, we are five and have as much left as we ate.
A little cheat I use on everything: I thicken with mash potato flakes;

yes, even this.
Serve over freshly boiled noodles.

Salsa soup

Type: Recipe hack

Ingredients:
2-3 pork steaks
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1 jar of salsa
1 soy milk or packet (1/4 cup)  milk powder (I use powder)
1 bag tri-colored tortilla strips

Cost: under $8 (the vegetables are usually below one dollar)
Feeds: 4-5

What's really great about this is it will be the 'temp' you prefer in your salsa mild (me), hot (hubby), or you can even go green. I should have worn safety goggles, because as I was stirring hot (two ways) salsa it popped up in my eye. Nice. Eyedrops. Tears. Cold pack (yes, from the Dollar Tree). sigh.
Trim fat and cut pork. Throw everything but the chips in a crock pot. Cook four hours or so on high. Add salt and pepper to taste, most flavor is already in the salsa jar! Sprinkle chips on top, the chips really bring it to the next level.
The thing here too is that this can be even less expensive. These ingredients are at your dollar store, but I stock up when beans, veggies and diced tomatoes go down to .50 a can in Smith's truckload sales) I buy meat when on sale. It is good with cheese sprinkled, but I do not recommend dollar store cheese. Sometimes they will get a brand you recognize and that is fine. Cheese freezes. Fake cheese is worse for constipation (yes, I said it) than normal cheese.

Vegetarian:
Omit pork, add zucchini. Cook on high for an hour or so. The cost goes down by 1-2 dollars. The taste is still marvelous.

Organize this!

Type: Organization

Omygoodness! When I read this 'hack' I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. So, yeah, all ideas do not originate in my mind, but, I'll share them anyway. The trick is to organize lids with a dish rack. Hello? How did I not think of this? The little grooves are great to keep them from banging into each other. After going from largest to smallest the leftover space fits the very smallest. I love how much space it freed up, and how I don't have to curse and yell at inanimate objects when I go to put the pots away. Brilliant. Those are actually one egg pans hanging out the back in the silverware bin.

Bonus idea:
Use a small towel rack to hold that most often used lid. Seriously 90% of the lid use is this one.

Letters, layouts, labels!

I just want to expand on yesterdays idea for those mailing labels.
If you have caught the craze like my friends and I of pocket letters*, you should probably just make a sheet of other addresses you use a lot. Another thought I had was to make a sheet of terms, images, quotes to slip on those card sized pieces. You can use these in your letters, cards, pages, whatever! Do them in color, or color them yourself!
Pocket letter, you ask? It's a cross between scrapping, card collecting, and keeping in touch. Take a sheet of baseball card holders and fill them with pretty papers, ATC (artists trading cards), pics. Add little mail-able gifties like tea, stickers, book marks. Add a folded letter in one pocket. Fold in three quarters and mail in a business envelope. It will take at least two stamps.
So here's my example, you can use color font or add color after printing, as I will:

Lifehack; medicines list

mailing label medicine list

Store: Dollar Tree

Product: Polaroid premium white mailing labels
Go to rmsint.com, choose avery dennison

Tired of endlessly answering the section of current medications? Do you forget and have to call in just one more? Do you write it down before Dr. appointments only to lose it in your bag? This hack is for you!

Type in all medicines, if room add allergies. Copy and paste to each rectangle section. When you reach this question on many forms place sticker. No worries about misspelling, misreading, or bad penmanship!

The good thing is you can alter the doc and reprint if changes occur, or leave room to add in later; you can see I have no room left, but I would probably white out and add in if a change occurs, because I am super cheap.

Cost is actually about .13 per sheet, plus ink.

Keep these in your purse or cut a few out for our wallet; use one in your address book or laminate a copy for emergency workers when necessary. Cover sticky and write something on the backside, including allergies, before laminating.