More Decluttering - People Actually Get Rid of Books?!?!

Because I like decluttering my house and I live with people who like to keep me busy by cluttering up the previously decluttered,  I spend a lot of time reading about organizing.  Lately a lot of people online have been talking about "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up".  I was tempted to buy it but there is so much online about it, I don't feel like I really need to.

I followed along as people on You Tube purged their clothes.  Easy - I do this on a regular basis anyway.  I even went through my daughter's clothes (with her help, I didn't just get rid of her clothes on my own!).  She was able to get rid of 75% of her pants!  We condensed all her stuff from 2 closets down to one and emptied 2 dresser drawers.

Then everyone online started doing their make up and jewelry collections.  I only have a couple pairs of earrings, 2 necklaces and one bracelet so that was unnecessary.  I also have only one basket that holds all my make up but, for a laugh, I went through it and actually found some things to get rid of.

Not sure why I was digging around these items everyday to get to the things I actually use.

But then it came to books.  I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to get rid of books, ever.  Right?  That has to be a rule somewhere.  I love my books.  I love reading them, I love holding them, I love looking at them.  (I also talk about my love of books in my birthday post.)  We have bookcases in almost every room of our house.  In the family room I keep my old hardback books which I use as decoration (I have actually read all of them).  The other bookcases are hidden away in spare rooms and the basement.  I ran out of space quite a while ago and slowly started filling the computer room closet, hall closet and my bedroom closet.  I was considering buying more bookshelves but then I was forced to admit that I probably didn't need to keep all these books.

A couple weekends ago, I grabbed a bag and quickly looked through my books.  I was shocked that I was able to relatively quickly and painlessly come up with 4 bags of books that I didn't think I'd ever look at again.  Then I had my daughter go through her one bookcase and she came up with 4 more bags.  Hers was a little easier because she is 18 but still had books in there for 3rd graders.

My husband is not a reader but when he saw what I was doing, he immediately protested.  Turns out he likes having the books around, just to look at apparently!  I promised him that the bookshelves would still look quite full and that I wasn't touching any of the old, hardback books in the family room.

Then the question was what to do with the books.  We found a group called Better World Books.  They resell what books they can and donate others to libraries, schools and hospitals.  A portion of the money they raise goes to help various literacy programs.  I did some research and felt pretty good about them so that is where our 8 bags of once loved but no longer needed books went.

So far it seems that I have survived although I do have an urge to buy more books!

Spicy Tempeh Sandwich

This is going to be a quick and easy post for a quick and easy recipe.  I came home to a completely stressed out Kayleigh and we literally threw this together.  We all loved it and I've been craving it ever since!

Spicy Tempeh Sandwich

1 tablespoon oil
1 package of tempeh, sliced thin
1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
1/2 cup hot sauce similar to Frank's Red Hot (we used the Aldi version)
2 tablespoons vegan margarine

Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the tempeh until it is lightly browned.  Add the peppers and cook another 1-2 minutes.  Stir in the margarine and hot sauce and cook until the tempeh and peppers are coated and everything is heated through.  Serve on hamburger buns.

Chickpea and Kale Piccata

I'll start off by saying that I'm not sure if this is a piccata or not.  I was calling it that but then I realized that anything with capers and lemon juice, I tend to label as piccata.  I really should research what that actually means.  Oh well, it was delicious, and I loved it, and that is the name I have in my head so I'm sticking with it!

The great thing about kale is it holds up well which makes the leftovers perfect for lunch the next day.  It might turn a little olive green because of the lemon but it tastes just as good as the night before.

Chickpea and Kale Piccata

4 tablespoons vegetable broth (for sauteing)

1 cup sliced onions

6 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

2 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 teaspoon ground thyme

3 tablespoons capers

2 cups chickpeas, drained and rinsed

4 cups kale, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

In a large skillet, saute the onions in broth until they are soft.  Add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Add the vegetable broth, salt, pepper and thyme and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat slightly and cook for about 5 minutes.  Stir in the chickpeas, capers, and kale and cook until the kale is wilted, about 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat and squeeze lemon over the top.  Serve on  mashed potatoes.

Our Pantry is Empty! What We Learned From No Spend March

We survived a month of "no spending".  Overall we spent about $150 in groceries and only paid our regular expenses.  We didn't buy anything extra or spend any money on entertainment.  Although we weren't able to keep our weekly groceries under $20, we did pretty good.  Here are some of the things we learned through the month:

The Italian and Mexican shelves suffered the most!

• Things last a lot longer than we thought.  The whole month I thought we were going to run out of ketchup and my facial cleanser but we never did.  Turns out I was really bad at judging how much is left in the container.
• Meals can be easy, quick, and cheap and still taste really good.  We went back to our old favorite recipes and remembered why they used to be our favorites.  We didn't get bored at all although by the end of the month, I was craving more fresh vegetables.
• You can survive a month without peanut butter and all purpose flour but not tamari.  We ran out of all of these the first week but the tamari is the only one we bought in March.  
• The world doesn't end when you pull the last non-dairy milk carton from the closet.  I always have at least 4 or 5 cartons in the closet so that I never run out.  By the last week, we were on the last soy milk but it lasted and I didn't even have to skip a smoothie.
• Speaking of smoothies, it is fantastic having a month's worth of greens and bananas in the freezer.  I'm going to buy those in month-long quantities from now on instead of every week.
• Lemons and limes make your life happier.  We ran out of both mid-month and our meals suffered.  
• There is something very satisfying about seeing the food in your pantry actually decrease.  It made me just as happy as when I would see it fully stocked.

Overall it was a really good experience and worth the time and effort.  We saved a lot of money and learned what to buy and what not to buy.  There are a lot of pre-made sauce kind of things still sitting in the pantry which we obviously don't like so I am determined not to buy them ever again.  Bill and Kayleigh were very supportive through the whole thing and very patiently waited for April to arrive!  

Catch-All Room

Despite what feels like constant chaos in my house, I love decluttering and organizing the different areas whether it is a room, closet, or just a drawer.  There are certain parts that I've done over and over but there is one room that I have put off because it was so overwhelming.  I wish I had thought to take pictures before we cleared the room.  It is truly impossible to even imagine how bad it was.  But I guess that is why there aren't any pictures!  I did find a couple to show that it was actually a functioning room at one time.

This room used to be my daughter's room (as you can see from the random Winnie the Pooh items).  When she was about 8 years old we moved her down the hall to what was then a spare bedroom.  That's when the disaster started.  First, we took the water bed that was in the other room and put it in this room.  The problem is that we didn't actually set it up as a bed so we started piling boxes and general junk into the big open bed frame.  Finally, we came to terms with the fact that we weren't going to have (nor did we really need) a spare bedroom and got rid of the water bed.  We decided to use the room as a "study room" for Kayleigh.  We set up my parent's old kitchen table for her to do her homework.  A couple months later, she got a sewing machine for her birthday so it became her sewing room.  Then a few year's ago, she really got into baking so the table was used to store all her baking supplies.  

Kayleigh sewing back when you could actually see the top of the table.  

There was even enough room for the ironing board.

Through all this, the room served several other purposes as well including a place to feed the cats, store Bill's bowling and bike supplies, keep the paper recycling, and general junk collection place.   We used to clear the table off every year for Christmas and use it as a second table for the food.

Here is the best I could do for a disaster picture.  I took this last year to show Kayleigh's cake decorating supplies organization.  Yes, we tried to organize in the middle of a big mess.  We were trying at least! You can barely even notice what we were trying to show because there is also a tower of scrapbooking paper, a bike wheel, a bowling bag, a random cup from when I was in college, and a tea pot.  You'll have to just imagine what the other 90% of the room looked like!

Eventually that became too much of a hassle so we just started shutting the door. When we were remodeling the family room and computer room, we started simply piling everything from those rooms into any open space in here.  Then, as I decided not to move some of the stuff back into the original rooms, they started to collect dust.   It was terrible.  It was almost impossible to even find an open spot to feed the cats.  The worst part is that you look straight into this room when you walk in the house.  

One day about 2 months ago, I decided I'd had enough and started clearing everything out of the room.  We took the table down and then looked around at the space.  We decided that the bowling and biking stuff would get permanently removed and that the other items needed to be better contained.  Kayleigh and I ran to Target for something completely different but stumbled across these shelving units that were on sale.  Then we found the bins and everything came together.  

Recycling is still there but hidden in that basket in the corner.  This unit has several of our larger items that used to be under the table including a pressure cooker, serving dishes and Kayleigh's sewing machine,  And, of course, there is always Dot!

This is the other shelving unit.  We managed to get tons of stuff hidden into those containers but it is still all very accessible.  My scrapbooking supplies are to the left.

One of these is holding Bill's extra water bottles and the other is actually empty!

There are Kayleigh's baking supply drawers that we were trying to show off before.

All the other, larger, baking items are in these.  

Here's inside one.  I couldn't believe everything fit so well.

 

Just for reference, that is the main door to our house as seen through the kitchen.

And this is what you see now from the kitchen.  Much better.  And there is Dot, again,.

The room still isn't perfect.  You'll notice a huge piece of drywall still pushed against the wall (not sure what that was even bought for) but it is so much better.  Every time I walk in this room or even just glance in from the kitchen, I feel so good.  I wish I had done this years ago but better late than never!  

The dry wall along with Dot.  Can you tell it was almost dinner time when I took the pictures.  She couldn't figure out why I was in there without her food bowl!

Please tell me I'm not the only one with a energy draining junk pile in their house.  I guess all that is left now is to tackle the basement, or maybe the garage!

Potato Tacos

For some reason I thought I already posted this recipe.  I'm assuming I had planned to back when my life was absorbed with studying and never got around to it.  While looking through my posts to make sure it wasn't a repeat, I noticed we eat a lot of Mexican food.  Not real Mexican food, but our strange version of it.  It is so easy to turn vegan and it is generally inexpensive so that meets our main food criteria.  Plus we really like it.  So here's another one.

This recipe comes with a free tip that I learned from the always useful Internet.  Aldi's sells jalapenos in a bag of about 6-8.  This always seems like a great deal to me and I can't help myself from buying the bag instead of the one jalapeno that I actually need.  Then, of course, at the end of the week I'm left looking at a mostly full bag of jalapenos just waiting to go bad.  My solution is to mince and freeze them.  This is obviously a good idea but leads to terrible, burning hands caused by chopping way too many hot peppers at once.  Usually I was my hands, wait a little bit, and I'm fine.  The last time though, I was a mess.  The pain was actually getting more and more intense.  Out of desperation, I had Kayleigh type "how to stop hands burning from jalapenos" into Google and she came up with the crazy solution was washing your hands in cold water and mustard.  This seemed very weird to say the least but I was desperate so I squirted some plain old mustard into my hands and washed them.  I kid you not, the burning stopped immediately.  Amazing.  I also smelled like hot dogs all day!

I adapted a recipe from "Color Me Vegan" by Colleen  Patrick-Goudreau.  Several year's ago I received this as a birthday present and we spent weeks trying recipes from it.  It got to the point where we'd be checking out at the grocery store and Bill would say something like "So I guess we are doing purple this week?"!

Potato Tacos

2 cups sweet potatoes (1 inch dice)

2 cups Yukon gold potatoes (1 inch dice)

1 cup onion, diced

2 red bell peppers, diced

1 jalapeno, minced

1 clove garlic

2-4 tablespoons vegetable broth (or water)

Salt & pepper

Hard shell tortillas

Toppings such as salsa, guacamole, cilantro, etc. (doesn't really need any toppings in my opinion)

Using a steamer, steam both kinds of potatoes until soft but still holding their shape (10=15 minutes).  In a large skillet, add 1 tablespoon broth and saute the onion and peppers until soft.  Add additional broth as needed. This takes about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook one additional minute.  Add the potatoes to the skillet and season with salt and pepper.  Cook until all ingredients are well blended.  Slightly mash the mixture so that it somewhat sticks together (to make an easier taco  filling).  Place into taco shells and top with your chosen toppings.

Steamed

Sauteed

Mashed

Tortilla Pizza (or what to eat when everything goes wrong)

We've had to get creative several times this month as we attempt to limit our grocery shopping.  One meal, in particular, really challenged us.  I had planned pizza.  Usually I make my own dough but I had a mix hiding in my pantry (I think it came in a subscription box but can't be sure).  It was supposed to make two pizzas so we decided to give it a try.

I mixed it up first thing in the morning.  It looked like a tiny puddle of nothing but I covered it as directed and waited.  3 hours later, nothing had happened.  Maybe the yeast in the mix is old?  We added a sprinkle of yeast and waited some more.  By mid-afternoon it was obvious this was not going to turn into pizza.  No problem, There's still time to make our regular pizza crust... Seriously, is this all the flour we have??  Great.  Thank goodness for tortillas!

We have often made quick lunch-time pizzas using tortillas.  The nice thing is that they are individual size so everyone gets their favorite toppings.  For Bill and Kayleigh that is basically cheese.  For me it is a variety of sauteed vegetables.  This time I used mushrooms, onions, spinach, olives, and garlic.  I meant to add artichokes but completely forgot.

But wait, we weren't in the clear yet.  I heard my daughter say "where's the pizza sauce" and I wanted to scream.  How can we be out of pizza sauce?  Probably all those lunchtime tortilla pizzas!  No problem.  We grabbed anything that sounded like it would make pizza sauce and mixed it together.  Shockingly, it worked!

What a ridiculously easy and yet exhausting meal!!

Panic Pizza Sauce

1 can diced tomatoes with juice

1 can tomato paste

1 tsp oregano

pinch of crushed red pepper

1 clove garlic

1/2 tsp onion powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all together and mash the tomatoes a little.  If you don't want any chunks (like Kayleigh) blend it.

Tortilla Pizza

Flour tortilla - any size but smaller usually works better

Pizza sauce

Toppings of your choice

Assemble the pizza on a pan or stone.  Place in a 425 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until tortilla becomes slightly browned.  Slice like a pizza and eat.  

Oh, and that pizza dough mix didn't go to waste.  I added tons of whole wheat flour to it until it kind of formed a ball and then made bread sticks.  They were ridiculously salty so I guess it was a good thing we didn't use that for our crust.  Further proof that homemade is always better.