Category Archives: Tiny Tip on Thursday

Just Checking In

Mostly just a quick post today. I go into work in just a bit and then, I’ll be working every day (minus the weekends, of course) until Christmas Eve. I was off the first three days of this week but can’t even tell you what I was doing, maybe Christmas shopping? A little. Cleaning? A very little bit. Cooking? I did make one batch of *okay* Christmas cookies. Picking up the camera? Not really. Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda kind of week I suppose. So no pictures for this post.

No snow for us either. Been a bit chilly but no ice/rain/snow or sleet. Just cloudy and blah though the sun is out today.

A Tiny Tip Since It’s Thursday

I’m the use the whole roll of tape almost just to wrap a gift type of person. So no surprise when I ran out of tape this week. If you need to buy scotch tape, don’t pick up the single roll by the wrapping paper (if say you’re in Walgreens because it’s the closest place to you and you’re in a hurry). Go back into the office supply section and get the 3 rolls packaged together, better price and not as crowded.

Other Random Stuff

Wrote a post over on Chit Chat With Jean. Plan to switch over there on Jan 1. It’s still a work in progress at this point. Looking for a good word press tutorial site if anyone has recommendations?

The cookies I made were mint surprise cookies. Started out thinking I’d use a recipe in an old Southern Living Christmas cook book but the recipe looked off to me. Ever heard of a cookie recipe that didn’t call for eggs or baking soda or baking powder? Wasn’t quite brave enough to try it so switched over and used this recipe  from Mr. Food instead.

Staying on the food theme, I also winged it with some homemade minestrone soup one night using this recipe as a guide. A surprising hit with my picky crew!

Better go get ready for work now. It’s candy cane/wear red & white day. No idea what to do with that one.

What’s been going on in your world this week?

Washing Masks And Making The Smell Less Vile

What  a weird topic for my Tiny Tip on a Thursday. I’d lost money for sure had someone bet me this would ever be a blog post.

There’s really not much to like about wearing a mask (I know the purpose but I don’t have to like it) other than maybe it hides the m-acne. mask + acne = m-acne. Just me? I’m blaming the mask and not the 5+ lbs of m&m’s consumed during the quarantine stage of all this.

Perhaps it is just me (and I very much do brush my teeth!) but the smell inside those masks the first time I did not do much to please my olfactory senses. Yuck. Someone invent scented masks and quick!

Meanwhile, I did find a way to help this with this problem. When I wash them, I add in a couple drops of essential oils.

I favor the two pictured above. Mainly because when I signed up with Young Living, the rep told some story about Thieves being named after the grave robbers during the plague. They used the mix of oils to avoid the plague or some such nonsense. Still, a great story and I like the serendipity of using it. Oh, and the smell of the oil as well. That’s important, too. Purification,  name says it all. To me, it has a light lemon scent.

Note: I think any brand of oils would be fine for this. I just happened to have the Young Living brand on hand.

Although, these can go in the washer and dryer, I still prefer to hand wash and simply air dry our masks. 

Is it just me, did you find wearing masks stinky at first? Maybe I should just change toothpaste? Ha!

Quick Comfort Snack

And it’s not a dessert! There’s an odd one coming from me.

Wait, is that celery? Yes, it is. Do you like celery? We’re a divided house when it comes to this one.

G and I like it. J and my husband, not so much. G usually dips it in peanut butter. I typically just eat it plain. Did you know that celery supposedly boosts your immune system?

Every Thanksgiving, my mom would set out a dish of the filled celery you see above. Hers was a lot prettier than mine. I loved this appetizer and still do. It’s super simple. This is a comfort snack for me because it reminds me of Thanksgiving time as a kid.

I’m sure by now you’ve guessed the celery is filled with cream cheese. However, not just cream cheese. Cream cheese mixed with a dash of garlic salt.

My  Bunco hosting plans (it was scheduled for Saint Patrick’s Day) included serve this as one of the all green foods on the table. Even had ideas of dying the cream cheese green

If you’ve not bought it before, do yourself a favor and pick up a tub of whipped cream cheese. Genius invention. For the amount of celery pictured above I used about 1/8 teaspoon to maybe 6 tablespoons (didn’t measure) of whipped cream cheese. This is very much a too taste kind of snack.  Start small on the garlic salt. A little goes a very long way.

What are some of your non-sweet comfort snacks?

Clearing My E-Mail: A New Way

This year, I’m determined to stay on top of my inbox.

I don’t know about you but my e-mail inbox can shoot up to 500+ messages in days. It’s worse around major holidays with stores shouting at me about the savings!

Of course,  don’t want to miss out on any great coupons so I tend to be a little lax in my unsubscribing ways. Plus, it doesn’t seem to work very well to unsubscribe.

At the end of last year, I made a small change in how I was deleting my e-mails. Mostly out of necessity as I had over 2000 e-mails stacked up at the time. Had to go through them all. Important ones regarding school dates, personal information mingled with messages shouting save lots of money by giving us all of yours! A rather tedious process.

At some point, I decided to select all and just “remove” the important looking ones. I hit the delete button. Guess what? All those important ones moved up to first place in my inbox. I took a minute, read through those taking any action steps or saving them if needed (I have an e-mail filing system…school, bills paid, etc).

Then, it was back to select all and repeating the process. Went so much faster than trying to read through each one and decide what was important.

An important mantra for me when sifting through the store ones (especially in January!):

There will always be another sale!

Think this may become a Saturday morning routine for me. It feels nice to have an inbox number of 4 as opposed to 4000.

How do you keep your e-mail clear?

I Like Days Off Work

Since my New Year started off with lots of time working, I enjoyed my day off on Tuesday. And intend to enjoy my day off today (in between doing lots of “have-to” things).

My work day on Monday looked like this (taken from my phone during my break time): 

That does not look like a typical cold January sky! And it was not. We hit almost 60 degrees on Monday. Lots of outside playtime and minimal mud as well!

Of course, now as I predicted (Hey, I could have been a meteorologist in another life! Or I’ve just lived here all my life), they’re calling for these this weekend: 

Don’t you wish you could live somewhere it snowed pretty gold glittery snowflakes?  Ha! The photo above is my new doormat, picked up on clearance at Big Lots. 

We’re going to get the regular white stuff on Friday night into Saturday. Maybe. Never know but the TV people seem very confident.  Took the photos of my mat while outside enjoying the sun on a somewhat (though still warm) cooler Tuesday.

Also noticed this bottle my husband found while hunting last week. I think it’s calling for some sort of single stemmed flower planted in the dirt inside. Any ideas? 

The rest of my day off:

Along with the rest of the world, I’ve been watching Marie Kondo on Netflix. Even grabbed her book at the library (bonus tiny tip: there wasn’t any waiting for the large print edition of the book while the list on the regular book was 10 deep). 

Of course, it’s hard to pile clothes on the bed when it’s still occupied. I think my little gray cat had a better idea on how to spend a day off. 

My plans for today:

Take a photo of the pretty sunrise. Our sunrises and sunsets have been stunning this week though this was the first one I could capture: 

Try very hard not to start on wrong footing with over-tired teen. Go grocery shopping for the sake of my “starving” family. Mail a (now very late) Christmas package. Perhaps read some more in my book. Enjoy my candles: 

Clean the house. Watch a bit of Netflix. Go shopping. Meet friends for dinner. Simply enjoy the day.

How are you spending your Thursday?

****

Linking up my post with I Like Thursdays hosted by LeeAnna over at Not Afraid Of Color.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...