It’s a three day weekend here thanks to a state holiday! So, this means it’s a perfect time to work on “Project Basement”! With hubby home from work, and access to the truck, we can finally clear out the basement. Over the years it had become quiet the dumping ground for all homeless and unusable items in the house. That’s not what we wanted for our basement! We wanted it to be a great workout room.
In a dream world, we would be finishing the basement. However, since our budget is zero, we can’t hire an electrician to wire the basement. We’ll make something good happen though, even if we have to leave it unfinished! Here is the horrid before, where you can see just how packed full of “stuff” our poor basement had become. What is it about unfinished basements and their amazing stuff magnet powers?
It also turns out that it’s a hard room to photograph well. You can see that we have shelves for storage, and there is a work bench that was also here when we moved in. We might remove the shelves and put things on the other side of the basement (there is a second room, also unfinished), so we can gain the extra 3 feet that the shelves take up. Of course, that would mean dealing with all the stored items in those shelves too, which after spending all day clearing out the main part of the room, doesn’t sound all the appealing.
Today will bring a run to the thrift shop to donate all the things we are letting go of. And hopefully not much more than that since today is a holiday and we will be spending time with family and lighting fireworks. More photos to come though!
Number 43 on my 101 list says “Cook two recipes from each of our cookbooks and blog about it”. Anyone want to venture a guess at how many cookbooks I have? Honestly, I don’t even know. It’s a lot though. So, the first recipes comes from the book Hungry Girl: 200 Under 200: 200 Recipes Under 200 Calories
.
We have been trying to be a lot healthier all around, but every so often a person still needs something sweet! I thought it would be a perfect time to try this low calorie “shake”. We even ate it outside, which helped beat the heat. The recipe is called the HG’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisp Puddin’ Shake, and you can find the recipe by clicking that link if you want to make your own. However, the recipe in the book is different from the site in that the chocolate almond breeze isn’t listed in the book. It’s just listed as chocolate soy milk.
It was interesting. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, especially since I hadn’t eaten Cookie Crisp cereal before. The “shake” doesn’t really have the texture of a milk shake, but it was still yummy. The one tip I have is to blend it really well, and to make the individual servings. I made a double batch, which seemed easier, but it didn’t blend as well so my portion was a lot thicker and more cereal flavored than Heath’s was.
Not a bad way to have something sweet while not loading up on calories though!
A while back, many moons ago, I got an onion saver (like this one
). I was very excited about it, promptly washed it, and put half an onion inside. Well, I was cleaning out the refrigerator, and moved the ever present boxes of Mountain Dew, only to discover my onion saver. The one that had been there for months!
Oh dear. I could only imagine what was going to be waiting inside the long forgotten onion saver. In fact, I even got brave and pulled out my Flip to document the opening of the onion. I knew it would likely be gross, or at the very least, really weird, so why not make a video, right? I even had a dream about it, in which the onion had started to grow and was sending out roots and shoots from within the onion saver.
Well…
It wouldn’t even open! Something happened in there, and the whole thing was sealed shut. I probably could have tried harder to open it up. It’s possible with some “encouragement” it would have opened. But really, I was scared to see what was in there. It promptly went into the trash, and someday I will get a new one. And hopefully not lose it in the fridge.
When you buy an older home, there is a good chance that you will have a case or two of “the uglies”. Our home, while it had been well taken care of, and even had new carpeting and paint on all the walls, is no exception to the uglies. And of course, our job has been to eradicate all of them, one by one, and replace them with things we love.
Which brings me to current ugly that needs to be dealt with. The kitchen light.
It’s an old 80′s box style fluorescent lighting fixture, with a yellow oak box. Luckily, most of the time it’s barely noticed, but lately it’s not just being ugly on the outside. It’s being ugly on the inside too! There is something wrong with it. It won’t turn on right away, at times taking up to 5 mins or more to get going. And we have replaced the bulbs too (of course). So, we think it might be more than time to get a new fixture.
What kind of lighting do you like in kitchens? We are leaning towards pot lights, or maybe even some sort of awesome track lighting, but just aren’t sure. Have any of you replaced an old box style light before? Any tips?
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