Mod Apron

Aug 12

A box full of plastic kid gorp in the box for donation. Good riddance!

I’m keeping a few pieces by Green Eats (they’re really the only ones we use anymore these days anyway), but the rest is just useless ugly plastic clutter taking up precious drawer space in my kitchen.

I’ve also got my eye on a sweet set of Duralex tumblers from France (perfect glassware for kids!) and yes, oh yes, someday they shall be ours!

Jul 8

Homebody

After creating last week’s new housekeeping schedule, I decided to start things off on the right foot by doing a whole-house general cleaning and decluttering. My timing couldn’t be better because the donation truck is rolling through our neighborhood on Monday morning and I will be ready!

Yes, this does go against my declaration of ~~having~~ claiming weekend’s off. But hopefully, this will be the last chore-filled weekend for a long while. Means to an end, people. Plus, I’m feeling especially “nesty” right now and when the urge to clean strikes, you’ve gotta seize the moment!

Yesterday, I deep cleaned the whole kitchen. Man, that felt so good. I loved getting all those little areas clean that rarely get touched. Today, I’m going to work on the master bedroom and the kids’ bedrooms. Oh, and I want to move our holiday stuff down to our new storage locker in the garage. Lots to do! All while hopefully fitting in an hour at the gym this afternoon.

In other housey news, after a search spanning many months, I found the perfect runners for our long hallway and ordered the rugs. I LOVE them and I can’t wait to see them in our space. I placed the order right before bed last night and I was so giddy about the whole thing that I fell asleep and literally dreamed about rugs all night. How sad is it that I am this excited about my new rugs? (Answer: Quite sad, actually.)

Anyway, the best part is that we paid cash (as we ALWAYS do these days because we are credit card FREE) and we got a smokin’ deal on some pieces for the house that I am really in love with. We’ve got our whole lives to get this place exactly how we want it, so I refuse to settle. Nothing is coming through our front door unless I really love it. And these rugs definitely fit the bill!

I’ll do a before and after hallway post in mid-August once our new runners have arrived!

It’s a beautiful sunny San Francisco morning and I’m really looking forward to enjoying a quiet Sunday puttering around at home. Puttering Sundays are THE BEST.

Jul 4

Bounty on the kitchen windowsill.

PS - Check out the yummy dins I made tonight!

Everything tastes better in a Ball Jar. Especially strawberry-peach-banana smoothies on a warm summer morning.

[Photo via Instagram]

Jun 26

Oh snap! I nearly forgot!

Way back in the olden days (or “April 19th, 2012” as I like to call it), I promised you a review of the Trader Joe’s Kitchen Cloths that I bought.

I was looking for a reusable, washable, durable paper towel substitute. I needed a solution for those clean-up jobs that were too yucky for a dishtowel but too clean for a rag (think: something like wiping up spilled baby rice cereal). Did the TJ’s Kitchen Cloths do the job?

The verdict: Yes. I think they’re pretty great!

When I first used them straight out of the package, I had my doubts. They’re very stiff and not all that absorbent at first. But, after one wash, they softened right up and worked beautifully. Those little towels are just as thirsty as the package promised.

I have six Kitchen Cloths and I think this is a good number. Occasionally, they’ll all be in the wash, but that doesn’t happen often enough to merit the purchase of an extra package. Best of all, I haven’t bought a single paper towel since and I haven’t missed them at all!

I recommend the Trader Joe’s Kitchen Cloths wholeheartedly. Just make sure to throw them in the washer and dryer at least once prior to first use.

Aaaaaand we’re back. Sort of.

I’m still easing back into the swing of things after my parents’ visit. Which, with all the extra helping hands around here, felt like a vacation for me. And I’m still not completely ready to accept the fact that my vacation is over. Thus, I’ve spent most of today slowly playing catch-up.

Gasp! I haven’t even made a meal plan yet. And with all the leftovers, freezer meals and odds and ends I’ve got kicking around in my kitch right now, I kinda think I might skip it this week. Yup, I’m fairly certain this week’s gonna be a write-off. I’m hanging on to my vacation for dear life!

(But don’t worry friends, I have some groovy stuff in store for next week’s meal plan. Stay tuned!)

In other (unrelated) news, check out my lovely new plate display! My mom recently gifted these butterfly plates to me and I thought they were so pretty, I just couldn’t bear the thought of eating off them. I had my dad hang them in the corner of our dining room last week and I absolutely LOVE how they look up on the wall. My little plate display came out so much better than I expected. What a perfect addition to our dining room!

One wall down, only about 45 left to decorate! (Yeah, we’ve got a lot of wall space around here.)

Jun 5

I’m giving myself a big high-five right now (otherwise known as confidently clapping? Either way, it’s making it difficult to type.)

Feelin’ pretty good because I had a really productive morning! In addition to getting all the regular laundry done, the diaper laundry done, cleaning the bathrooms and hosting a playdate, I also made a double batch of granola and baked what might very well win the award for The World’s Fugliest Loaf of Bread. Seriously guys, it looks like it’s made out of goblins. Sure tasted good with my homemade cherry jam though!

Jun 3

Since some of the cherries I bought at the farmers’ market last week turned out to be a bit tart, I decided today to muster the courage to try something I’ve never done before: I made a batch of homemade cherry jam.

Normally, I wouldn’t waste perfectly good, healthy fruit on something as nutrition-less as jam, but since I make it a point not to waste food and these cherries were borderline inedible, I had to figure out a way to repurpose about a pound of too-tart cherries.

As it turns out, tart cherries make the best jam.

I can’t remember the last time I made something as wonderful and decadently delicious as the homemade cherry jam I made this afternoon. I’d even venture to say that ending up with about a pound of tart cherries might just have been the best thing to happen to me all week.

I used this un-recipe and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Store-bought jam isn’t even in the same league as the jam I made today; and dare I say it will be extremely difficult to return to regular old grocery store jam after this.

I discovered that making homemade jam is much easier than I thought it’d be. And requiring only 3 ingredients - cherries, lemon juice, and sugar - it’s a very frugal little venture indeed.

One pound of cherries yielded 3 jars of jam; I gave one jar to our neighbors upstairs (we traded for some homemade fava bean soup they made) and I kept the other 2 jars for ~~myself~~ my family.

Let’s just say I’m really (really, REALLY!) looking forward to breakfast tomorrow morning. Tea and toast, anyone?

May 24

Heavens to Betsy, I am a total zombie this morning. Baby boy was up roughly 97 times last night and it’s made for a really rough (and grouchy) start to my day. Poor Dennis left for work with his tail between his legs.

Thank goodness for fresh warm bread with raspberry jam, a big French press full of hot coffee and the warm, bright sun blazing through the open windows in the kitchen. These things are truly my salvation this morning.

Luckily, today is the one day this week that I don’t have a lot to do (other than a playdate this morning and our daily preschool run) so I can get an early start on making a big pot of soup. Can’t wait to play with the gorgeous bouquet of herbs currently decorating my windowsill and perfuming my whole kitchen. For some reason, Maya is fascinated by the herbs; she’s asked me about them at least a dozen times already today.

May 14

Oh for goodness sake.

Let me begin this sad story by saying that we never, like, never have brown bananas. We simply go through them too quickly to ever get to that point. I often wish for brown bananas, but between my two little monkeys our bananas get gobbled up before they barely have a chance to turn from green to yellow.

Brown bananas are like GOLD in this house.

But on this sunny Monday morning, I found myself with a secret stash of two brown bananas. Oh the glory!

And since I haven’t had the chance to make brownies yet, I had the brilliant idea to make a loaf of banana bread to serve at the HOA meeting tonight. Perfection!

I was up early and I seized the opportunity to bake before the kids woke up. I mixed, I stirred, I mashed, I baked.

And when the oven timer rang loud and true, I plucked my beautiful loaf of banana bread from the oven. It was quite something to behold, perfectly risen, and baked to a golden brown. But when I tried to turn it out onto the cooling rack, the unthinkable…

It all fell apart! Nooooooooooooo. #fail #tears #woeisme

And my beautiful loaf was reduced to a delicious, warm, crumbled pile of mess and crumbs. Not at all suitable to serve at the HOA meeting, sadly.

Good thing my kids have no objections to being served warm, crumbled gobs of banana bread for breakfast.* [Sigh.]

*Note Henry’s red, puffy, glassy eyes. That was caused by crying for more banana bread.

Mod Apron

Modern homemaking for the frugal urban mama.

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