Heatherb84's Profile

I was planning on working my living room this weekend so I'm excited for this assignment matches up! It's been the one area I've avoided cleaning the most despite spending the majority of my time there. It's time to get it done!

I've lived in my house for 1 1/2 years and I've finally unpacked the last of the boxes in my bedroom thanks to the Cure (it was my main project as well). I've got several bags of items to take to goodwill now and I also cleared out a bunch of trash as well stuff for recycling. Just a few minor cleaning tasks and I'll have this assignment wrapped up. It's almost sad how happy finishing this makes me!

I don't have anything for meal planning (though that is something I'd be interested in finding out too!). But for spending and budgeting, I've been using You Need a Budget or YNAB as it's also known for the past year. It's really helped me get back on track and stay that way. My food expenses have been the areas where I really needed help sticking to a set budget and YNAB made it a lot easier for me. http://www.youneedabudget.com/

This is one of my resolutions as well! I have so many cookbooks but rarely use them. I love looking at the cookbooks and picking out recipes I would love to try but I never seem to remember the recipes and end up going online for inspiration. I signed up for Eat Your Books last year and intend to really get some use out of it this year.

It's an interesting way to eat a cupcake for sure. I usually just bite off the bottom half and save the frosted top for last. That's the best part of the cupcake to me anyway!

I only drive about 5 miles to my preferred Central Market. The two grocery stores closest to me are a not very nice Kroger and a questionable Wal-Mart (I once saw a man picking up and throwing down apples. I decided not to buy apples that day.). The quality of produce and other items I get by driving just a little farther is worth it to me. I would be willing to drive a little farther if necessary to get quality produce.

Perfect timing! I tried making granola bars last night using some granola I had made recently but I couldn't get the bars to stick together. I'll definitely be giving this method a try.

I love the idea of making an infused honey. I'm definitely going to give the vanilla version a try. However, the link for that one is wrong. It goes to another infused herbal honey recipe instead of the vanilla. A quick google search brought up the right recipe though.

I had 3 tomato plants until last weekend. The only one that produced fruit was a cherry but I would get maybe 4-5 a week at most when it was actively producing. I had an heirloom Black Prince that produced a grand total of two tomatoes and a roma that never produced anything. The cherry stopped producing near the middle of July when temps soared over 100 and the rain we were getting in the spring completely stopped (I'm in Dallas). I finally just pulled all of them because they were taking a beating from the heat and I was getting fed up with watering plants that weren't producing a thing. I never had any issue with diseases or pests other than some slugs briefly early in the season due to the large amount of rain we were briefly getting.

I'm going to try some fall tomatoes (Anna Russian and another variety of cherry) but I'm going to plant them in containers rather than the raised bed I had the others. I'm considering moving the raised bed to another location because it is in a location that I think gave my garden too much direct sunlight and that really did a number on all of my vegetables. They seemed to go through a wilt/perk up cycle on a near daily basis.

I mainly buy either at my local Penzey's or order online from The Spice House. I have bought some occasionally at Central Market in the bulk section.