 According to my watch, one hour until it is officially Black Friday for all you Americans. That's right, the deals will be waiting as well as those in the lineups trying to stay warm. If you would like to snag a great deal on a trendy product without losing an eye in the process, why not check out the sale going on at Butler Bag?
These are the Cadillac of purses. Never fails. You are leaving the grocery store carrying more bags than you should be with a wiggly baby on one hip. As you approach the car door you fumble foolishly for your keys that have now sunk to the deep recesses of your oversized handbag. Amidst diaper wipes, lip balm, Blackberries and McDonalds happy meal toys, your keys are among the missing. With one of these purses there will be no need to repeat this scenario again. Each satchel has small compartments that make locating a particular item a snap. No more shivering in the parking lot looking for yo ...
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 Nothing like a warm winter day to kindly remind you how filthy your car is. That leaky milk filled sippy cup under the seat and the familiar crunch of Barnum and Bailey animal crackers stuck to the mud crusted floor mats.
You think this would have been enough to haul out the monster shop vac and bring my little matrix back to it's former glory. Nope, instead I growled about it and proceeded to add it to my "to do" list. While I should have been gutting out the vehicle I was blog surfing when I came across this hilarious car related post written by one hilarious professional organizer. I recently met Jackie on my trip to the POC conference in Toronto and she recently shared her views on New Brunswick drivers. She sure nailed this one on the head. Here's Jackie's view on us Maritime drivers - Politeness reigns supreme. If you're at a 4-way stop, wave the other people go first even if you got there first and even if they're waving you to go first. You might have to sit there all day until a car with an out-of-provin ...
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I mentioned this tip in yesterday's post on making Peppermint patties, but wanted to clarify in case I left anyone scratching their heads over the dipping part. For three years now I have been attempting to dip, roll and fish out of molten hot chocolate, peanut butter balls and mint patties. I love having these chocolate dipped treats around and especially like packaging them for gifts. The problem is I hate making them. That is, until now. Yes, it really did take me three years to come up with a system that did not drive me to spike my flavoured coffee or run out and buy some convenient knock off's to give out as gifts. I finally figured it out. I simply place the item on the end of a dinner fork and gently pour the chocolate over top. The excess runs off and through the tongs while I gently transfer the item to another fork held in the other hand. By now the excess has dripped off and I can easily place on a waxed lined cookie sheet to set. No more holes where a toothpick once was, no more prong marks and no more div ...
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 I have been bookmarking some new and interesting recipes in anticipation of starting my holiday baking. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this site to find daily posts on various goodies to make this Holiday season. Today, My Organized Chaos hosted a cookie swap where others share their prize winning goodies for the rest of us to drool over and add to our ever growing list.
I knew immediately which recipe I had to share. After getting this one from my best friend three years ago, it is now one of the most requested treats this time of year. Stef told me about these peppermint patties and judging by my ever expanding posterior, I wish she hadn't. They are a little time consuming to coat in chocolate but the mint itself is easy. Here's the recipe: 1 package icing sugar (the original recipe never specified the exact size but I am assuming the smaller one. To be honest I never measure, I just go by consistency)
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And this pile was only a small portion of the collection that came with my hubby when we combined households. What I could not hide in the clear coloured recycling bags at the road, I was stuck to store somewhere. Actually, hubby takes full credit for this next idea and let me tell you there is no better way to my heart than coming up with a new organizing system. 
He bought a dozen or so of these cheap Dollar store CD sleeves as well as a couple of appropriately sized baskets. Painstakingly he removed the disk from the bulky plastic case, inserted them into the thin sleeve and finally inserted the jacket. He labelled the top and filed them alphabetically.
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 Frequently, I visit sites that have posts on various organizing escapades. I love looking at how others keep it all together, or a least make it look that way.
Here are a couple of my recent faves I love how Jim uses one of my all time favourite items for organizing his pantry. The handy and inexpensive dish pans. For a few dollars, these guys maintain order in any space.. Here is some more pantry eye candy. Katie is a gal after my own heart. I am sure she loves those lock n locks as much as I do (well maybe not as much, I have mine all individually named)
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 Remember way back when I told you about stockpiling ground beef and the great deal I snagged?
Yes, I now admit I got a little carried away and realize it was not entirely necessary to send my poor hubby back to the feeding frenzy of frugal shoppers to snag another 30 lbs. This mass quantity of meat left us, not only with cramped fingers, but most of all a massive pile of hamburger patties. With hamburgers comes condiments. I am utterly amazed with the amount of toppings needed to cover several beef patties. Seriously, do they really taste the actual hamburger? It used to take me 2o minutes to haul all of the jars out of the fridge and another 20 to pile them back. We are talking relish, ketchup, mustard, honey mustard, BBQ sauce, sweet and sour pickles, sliced dill pickles, hot peppers and mustard pickles. I finally figured out a way to make this task a little eas ...
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 I remember back to when I was 9 and I received the opportunity to attend summer camp held at a historic site called King's Landing . This was a living museum of sorts where tourists walked through a 19th century village complete with families portrayed by yours truly.and from around the world. This was a summer camp that gave participants a chance to live the authentic lifestyle complete with parents and siblings with days filled with chores (shovelling poo and milking cows), class in a one room schoolhouse and activities that were conducted by people of that era. One thing I remember in particular was the chore of making butter. Every couple of days we were responsible for beating on this wooden stick in a barrel until one of two things happened:
A. Our arm fell off or.... B: the cream turned into butter. Since we were told to switch arms should the former happen the only alternative was for B to hopefully take place before you had to resort to your feet (option C by the way). I swore from that day on there was no way I was ever going to do that much work for such little reward. Fast f ...
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 Ok, it has taken a full week to get back into the swing of things. Being away at conference and having all of my meals, not only prepared but served, makes it a tab bit difficult to resume my duties in the kitchen. Last week my poor family had a couple of home cooked meals but for the most part took care of themselves.
So I am officially back to reality and since it is kind of crucial the kids get fed, I decided to get back to my old cooking routine. To my poor deprived family (can you hear my sympathy oozing out of this sentence?) no more boxed mac and cheese or spaghetti reruns for you! Monday - Beef stew in crockpot served with quick breadsticks Tuesday - Tuna buns with tomato pasta. I love this meal because I simply add my canned crushed tomatoes to organic whole grain pasta and sprinkle a little parmesan cheese. Easy, healthy and cheap. Wedn ...
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