Food

My food purging started back in the fall of 2010 just before a 4 week trip to Kenya. I had a goal of getting rid of everything in the freezer and refrigerator so that I could unplug that sucker while we were gone. So I needed to get smart about utilizing the food that we had. Its ridiculous really, that is how much food we had in our kitchen that we just weren't using. I have hominy in my cupboard. I really don't even know what that is! So I googled "recipe finder by ingredient". That search led me to http://www.supercook.com/. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this website. I started out by going through my kitchen and entering every ingredient in my cupboards, freezer and refrigerator (even the hominy). I was delighted to see the results. With what I had in my kitchen I could make 2,000+ recipes without even going to the grocery store. I could narrow those results by starters, entrees or desserts. I could further narrow the results by typing in one of the ingredients that I wanted to use. The site lists the recipes I can make with the ingredients I have on hand first and then also lists those that I can make, but just need to pick up a couple of extra ingredients at the store. The best part? When I signed up for an account with them they saved all those ingredients for me, so that I don't have to enter them every time. I remove items I've used up as I do and add new ones as I buy them. Did I mention this tool searches a bunch of different recipe sites? Yep, food.com, allrecipes.com, recipezaar.com and foodgeeks.com among others I'm sure. Some of the yummy recipes I've made utilizing this wonderful tool include:

• Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Crust
• Cheesy Beef Enchiladas
  
• Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole
• Mexican Lasagna
• Honey Glazed "dump" Chicken
• Magic Meatloaf
• Sausage Potatoes Au Gratin
  

Everything turned out amazing! Well except for the honey glazed chicken. It was too sweet for my husband and while I thought it was good, I didn't like it with rice. It had potential though. Anyway, that's besides the point. I've grown to depend on supercook.com when figuring out what to make for dinner every night. Its saved me money, trips to the grocery store and created room in our kitchen. Win/win/win.

The kids toys

I get SO tired of picking up toys. (Maybe I already said this?) But sometimes I feel like I spend all my housecleaning time just picking up stuff off the floor and it doesn't leave time for anything else. My solution? Get rid of the toys. Okay, not ALL the toys, but a lot of them. Also, I really need to start encouraging the girls to help me pick up instead of just doing it myself while they play or whatever (which let's admit it, its just easier to do it yourself sometimes!) So I went through all their toys. There were piles of toys everywhere in our apartment. I have no idea how we got so many toys. But there they were. So I went through every last one and asked my self several questions about that toy.

1. When was the last time they played with it? (Or, have they ever played with it?)
2. Do they have similar toys that I can get rid of all but their favorite of that group?
3. How does this toy benefit them? Does it encourage learning, physical activity or using their imagination?
   
4. Does the toy annoy me? (e.g. Fisher Price Corn Popper)
   
5. Does the toy have too many pieces to keep track of? (Ahem, Mrs. Potato Head...)
6. Am I keeping this toy because I want to them to like it and play with it, but they're really just not interested?

So using these questions, I managed to get rid of four 33 gal trash bags of toys. And honestly, I've been eying a few more that I'm thinking of getting rid of too! Now all their toys fit in the toy box in their room with three baskets for blocks and balls in the living room.