Container Store Sale

I just received my new Container Store Sale Catalog. Swoon! I love their products. Below are some of my favorites.

This is the Etched Floral 3 drawer cart currently on sale for $19.99. Oh how I wish I had a place to use this! For my desk or craft area or as a night stand! Darn, I could use the storage but have no place to put it.

These Daisy Storage boxes are on sale for $6.99 and $9.99. They also have matching bins and drawer organizers. Don't they just make you smile?

These WaterWeek bottles with tray are such a great idea.  There are 5 16 oz bottles. The catalog suggests using them for the week. I'd get two sets and use them for a day for an easy way to keep track of how much water I'm drinking (I drink LOTS of water a day). Love the tray to keep them from knocking over in the frig. Easy to grab one and go. And they are pretty! On sale now for $14.99 for the set of 5 and tray.

In the Kitchen - Dump Cake

OK, it's not the lemon sour cream pie I was talking about last week. I used the sour cream on baked potatoes and then didn't have enough for the recipe. I didn't feel like running out to the store, so you get a dump cake. I had a coworker who always brought in this cake for pitch-ins. It was a big hit.

1 can crushed pineapple
1 can extra cherry pie filling
1 box white or yellow cake mix. It really doesn't matter much. I used white because I had it.
2 sticks of butter (OMG - lots of butter)

Preheat oven to 350. In an 9"x13" pan dump in the can of pineapple with juice. Spread evenly. Dump in the can of cherry pie filling. Spread evenly. Dump the cake mix on top and you guessed it. Spread evenly. Cut each stick of butter into 12 pieces and spread evenly on top of the cake.

Bake for 1 hour.

Variations:

Use a pineapple upside down cake mix, add 1 cup shredded coconut and 1 cup pecans for a Tropical Dump Cake. Still use 2 sticks of butter.

Use 2 cans of cherry pie filling (no pineapple), 1 box chocolate cake mix, add 1 cup pecans and sprinkle 1/8 cup sugar over butter for a Black Forrest dump cake. Still use 2 sticks of butter.

Serve hot or cold. Vanilla ice cream is always a nice addition. Serves 12 (or more like 9 with a hungry teenager in the house).

Enjoy!

Clutter

Clutter, how I despise you. You make me twitchy. If you saw my perfection post you'd probably guess that I have a tremendous dislike of clutter because the house doesn't look close to *perfect*. Right now its far from it. I'd be embarrassed if someone came over (I embarrass easily). I'm trying to embrace some of my clutter and accept it as part of normal life. Everyone has it, right?! But the house feels overrun! I have a theory. My house is small (650 sq. feet) and has 2 adults a dog and a cat living here. I don't think I have an empty surface in the entire place. So my theory is that the clutter looks amplified because the space is so small. When I had a 3700 sq. foot house the same amount of daily clutter was spread out and "appeared" to be less. There were so many more surfaces for it to sit on. So I don't have too much clutter, my house is just too small!

Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist

I like things Perfect. Just so. As I imagined them. The dictionary defines perfect as: "excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement" "entirely without flaws, defects or shortcomings". So there really are very few things absolutely perfect and yet I strive and drive myself bonkers trying to get there. In fact, my quest for perfection can so paralyze me that I don't even attempt a project, knowing that I won't achieve the level of perfection I require. It can really stink because projects don't get started or finished because of this foible of mine.

Ok, the title of the post stresses a recovering perfectionist. Below are 3 things that have helped me in my quest to recover from my dreaded perfection obsession.

1. Accept (truly and fully ... it might require counseling) that I am imperfect. Yes, I realize most other people know I'm imperfect. But I'm a prideful person and strive for perfection in all that I do. It leads to thinking such as I don't measure up to my own standards, so I can't love myself, so how can others love me and on and on. Or maybe its the other way .. if I'm perfect people will love me. I think this will be a lifelong lesson with daily practice needed and as I mentioned lots of counseling! Knowing you have a problem is the first step.

2. Commit to being your authentic self (in Dr. Phil speak). After acceptance comes commitment. Don't play a part. People want to get to know ME not the me playing the part of who I think a perfect person would be. If I play the perfect role long enough I can forget who I really am - my authentic self. It can be very scary to take the mask off and show the world all my flaws (many just imagined I'm sure due to that darn P word).

3. The galloping horse rule. This one is less emotional and more practical. When I was in upholstery school I (again) was struggling with my perfectionism. I remember an instance where I was trying to get the last little wrinkle out of the dust skirt (the usually black fabric on the underside of your upholstery). Yes, the bottom where nobody ever looks. After an hour or two (!!) working exclusively on that darn wrinkle on the underside of a wing chair my instructor finally got fed up with me and told me "if you can't see it from a galloping horse from across the room it is good enough". I was appalled at the time. However there is such a release with this rule. Tension and strife melts away. With practice I can now apply this rule to some areas (not perfect yet .. oops!) of my life. When I'm getting bogged down, my friend Alison will scream at me "galloping horses, galloping horses!" and I snap back to my imperfect yet pleasant reality.

National Get Crap Done Month

Do to an overwhelming lack of forward momentum in the decorating, diy, crafting, cooking and general housework departments the last two months, I've declared July as Get Crap Done Month. I will attempt to start and FINISH (oh my) a project in each catagory this month. My thinking is if I declare them out loud (or in writing as the case may be) that I'll be too embarrassed not to complete them. Feel free to ask me about their progress throughout the month if you don't hear any reports coming from me.

Decorating: Paint my son's room. There are 60 year old plaster walls in fairly bad shape so it requires some major prep work prior to actual painting. Sad that we have lived here almost 3 years and he goes to college in 2 months and its just now getting done. Bad mother, bad mother. On a positive note, I get more say in its decorating since it will be my craft room while he's away.

DIY: Tile the backsplash behind the pedestal sink and replace the faucet (both require my brother's help and are subject to his availability) in my bathroom. My backup project is to caulk all the windowsill cracks where the lovely carpenter ants were emerging from. Actually this project should be done even if the bathroom project is done.

Crafting: Make and hang drapes (only after painting is done) for my son's bedroom so that the TOWEL he has hanging in his window can be removed. Yes, we look like trailer trash. It's embarrassing for somebody with a decorating/lifestyle blog to have such an abomination in her home. I have no excuse. OK, I have a little excuse. We have no drapes in our condo due to being on the 3rd floor (private with plenty of mature trees) and our love of sunlight and openness. We moved furniture around in my son's room and now the sunlight is hitting his computer monitor causing a glare and impairing the 2700 hours of video game playing daily. His immediate solution - hang a towel. My immediate reaction: ACK!

Cooking: Get back to my recipe Monday posts. Make two new to you and two new to me recipes for the month: cilantro slaw, cherries in the snow, lemon sour cream pie (ummm.... pie) and, and, and, zucchini bread yeah zucchini bread or maybe homemade pizza crust or a great corn and black bean salad. Hard to decide, they all sound good.

Housework: ugh, housework. Well as a general must do better, I have to keep up with the dishes on a daily basis. I hate washing dishes by hand and we have no dishwasher (except moi). Currently I let them go until my son is using a sugar spoon to scoop peanut butter for a sandwich since every other spoon is dirty. As a specific task (there are so many to choose from) I'll pick putting away my son's art work brought home from high school and organizing his body of work to protect/preserve it. As a bonus, this will free up some closet space in my new, temporary "craft room". This requires my son's help and separating him from the computer which is attached permanently, like an electronics umbilical cord.

This is all in addition to some volunteer work I want to start. And our staycation plans of museums and free concerts. Oh and blueberry picking and jam making. And plant repotting. And some bloggy crafts and more posts than the last month (which were a little sparse I'll agree).  I've also had an elderly Uncle pass just a few days ago. There will be many relatives I haven't seen in years at the memorial. I would like to take my genealogy information with me and try to fill in some holes. I need to do this before the older generation is completely gone. Of course I have to organize it better first. Oh, and I'd love to go to a summer flea market or street festival. And the weekly farmers market. And ...

I'm tired already and haven't even started. I'll have to plan out specific tasks on my calendar or otherwise nothing will get done and on July 27 I'll be in a panic looking for a reasonable excuses why I was so lazy, oh I mean busy with other important things.

In the Kitchen - Cilantro Slaw

This is one of my all time favorite side dishes. They serve it at Cactus Bar & Grill, (warning music plays on the website so mute it if you're at work!) 404 S. Wells Chicago. (Shameless plug: Go there! It's a fun place with good food and drink specials). I'll order a cup of it instead of french fries. The bar just happens to be owned by my brother and I work there and several of his other places as a bookkeeper. I lucked out and just got the recipe so I can make it anytime I want (like for 4th of July). The original recipe was published in Bon Appetit June 2006. Like most of my cooking, it's super simple and inexpensive.

Cilantro Slaw

- 12 ounces purchased shredded three-color coleslaw mix (about 7 cups). I could only find a 16 ounce package of plain green, so I chopped red cabbage and cut carrots and added it to the mix.

- 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

- 3 tablespoons canola oil

- 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (if you use concentrate use the appropriate reduced amount, ask me how I know)

- 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Place coleslaw mix and cilantro in a large bowl. Whisk canola oil, lime juice, salt and pepper in a medium bowl to blend. Add to cabbage mixture; toss to coat.

A little trivia: Cilantro is the leaves and stems of the coriander plant. It is a member of the carrot family and can also be referred to as Chinese Parsley. Some people have a genetic permutation so that cilantro tastes like soapy, gasoline flavored water. Cilantro is widely used in Mexican, Caribbean and Asian cooking.

Enjoy!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day! We commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

We are afforded many freedoms in our country some not lawful in other countries. During this time of celebration I like to reflect on my political, religious  and  personal freedoms - to choose what I believe and how I want to live.

Mostly I choose to celebrate my freedom to be equal, believe, not believe, abstain, practice, voice, protest, write, create, express, worship, vote, join, and many, many others. I realize these freedoms are upheld in the Constitution and subsequent laws and are all not necessarily spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems right to think of them on the day that we stood united and declared our freedom from tyranny and started the process of building our great nation.

I hope you enjoy your 4th of July and take a minute to reflect on its significance in addition to enjoying your  B-B-Q's, parades, family, and fireworks.