Favorite Creulty Free Products

It seems like only a few months ago that I was so frustrated about not being able to find cruelty free (not tested on animals) products in stores. The most popular dogs in researchs labs are beagles, as you may know I have a very very soft spot for all animals especially dogs and especially beagles! I won't horrify you with pictures of lab animals but I think animal testing is just something people never think about.

                                                How cute is my Wonder Woman Beagle?

Last time I got my haircut my stylist was recommending a product and I told her I prefer Paul Mitchell products because they are creulty free and she said "are all the other products really tested on animals?" it's just one of those things no one and thinks about and until recently it was so hard to find cleaning/beauty products that weren't tested on animals!

Unfortunately for me my blog is not sponsered so I am not a paid advertiser but I just wanted to share my favorite products and where I got them in case you ever feel the need to be creulty free! Of course not all of our products are cruelty free, it makes no sense to throw things out, I already paid for them and thus supported the company's practices but I am in the process of making our house a "cruelty free" home!

                                                     My humble collection

Here we go...



Brand: Seventh Generation
What: Laundry/dish detergent, they also make paper products
Where: HyVee, Target and Whole Foods
Other: Also paraben free, meaning if it ever ends up in a lake it will break down and not effect the natural habitat















Brand: J.R. Watkins
What: All Purpose cleaner
Where: Target
Other: Smells great

Brand: Paul Mitchell
What: Shampoo and other hair products
Where: Almost any salon from Great Clips to the fancy places I don't go to
Other: It isn't cheap but priced the same as the other salon only shampoo.












Brand: Yes (yes to cucumber, carrots, etc)
What: Body wash and lotion, etc
Where: HyVee and Whole Foods
Other: It smells just like fresh cut cucumbers and is just super clean feeling

Brand: Tom's of Maine

What: Toothpaste

Where: HyVee and Whole Foods

Other: This has to be one of the most socially conscious companies out there, natural products, recycling, employees are paid to volunteer, you name it! 



I forgot to take a pic of our hand soap but we use Bath and Body Works because none of their products are tested on animals, and all their stuff is cute which is a plus.

I used to be really into cleaning products and cosmetics so I had a bunch of everything, but my step father in law was more than happy to crush my love of these products by explaining to me how they are all the same (he has a Ph.D. in chemistry so I know he's right). I still have quite a bit of stuff but I don't plan on replacing all of it when it runs out. I am always finding more and more organic products at every store I go to, if the same demand is there for cruelty free products I can only guess companies would make these products available!

Home Buying-Part 1

As promised I am blogging today about home buying! We start our REAL search with an agent in March, we are beyond excited
.
The very frst step is to figure out what you can afford, and you will most likely need to create a budget to get an accurate assessment of what that it is. I use a spread sheet with formulas, but I used to use a notebook... but I lost it all the time and the Mr. would always have to find it! Oops! I would be happy to share a copy of my budget format if someone can tell me how to put it on here!

One tip I cannot stress enough:
                What you can afford does NOT equal what you will get approved for!
Lenders look at gross income (before taxes are taken out) and debt, student loans, cars, credit cards, etc. They do NOT look at your luxury spending such as groceries, fuel, heat! Which unfortuantely means you will have to be a grown up and restrain yourself, because a realtor will be more than happy to sell you a home you can't afford. The Mr and I look at pricier homes and say "we could buy that house... or we could go on vacation a few times a year or go on fun dates" we don't want to be struggling to make a house payment. Our lender asked us our price range and approved us for that but the Mr spoke to one lender one the phone and they gave us an estimate of what we would get approved for that made both of us say "something exasperative and explicit".

When buying a house as a couple both your credit scores will play a factor and it's not bad to look into what your debt:income ratio is, there are many online calculators.  Make sure your taxes from the last 2 years are in order, we ran into a bump with our first house and after several trips to the IRS office and the accountant's we were able to sort it out, but it was so not worth the stress. Needless to say we don't do our own taxes anymore!

Get an agent you know, this is one of those places you want to take your mom up on the always "Oh I have a friend..." you need this person to have your best interest in mind. We really feel our first agent was only out for himself but it was our first home so we didn't even realize that until we had to sell our house. Our agent works with a large firm that does a lot of investing so at first I was apprehensive, but he has already pointed out some great things we wouldn't have thought about  because he looks at home appreciation, after our last house we definitely want this house to appreciate in value!

Get an idea of what you want, what both of you want. We have tried several times to make a hard list but there are just too many factors! Close to work... unless it has everything else we want, 4 bedrooms...unless it has a bonus room, and the list of "unless's" goes on and on.

Take your family's advice into account... sort of... my dad is big DYI farm boy so when it somes to "how easy could we fix this, etc" he is my go to guy! However keep in mind they will shove advice on you whether they know what they are talking about or not, so if you don't think they REALLY have an answer, maybe just skip it. Also keep in mind things like will your family be there all the time, if yes it may be important to you that they are comfortable, if not then get what you and your spouse want for your family.

Lastly on a totally unrelated topic, there has been major snow in KC and I worked from home today so I thought I would share two lovely photos.

Hanky frolicking in the snow

 

AND

 

                                                                  Zoe in a wig
Have a great weekend!

 

Buffalo Ravs and BWW Worthy Boneless Wings

This past week I made two awesome meals, I almost hate to share them because I want to hoard the awesomeness, but I know how often I get recipes from blogs and how much I appreciate it.

I have realized I will never be a great blogger because I cook just like my Great Grandma Viv, no recipe, a little of this a little of that and you better know your way around a kitchen because I don't direct well, my poor Mr has quite the time getting cooking help for me because I can't wrap my head around the fact that not everyone loves to cook and has been doing so since they were 8!

Buffalo Ravioli

We discovered these at Stefanina's, a local Italian restaurant in Troy Missouri. The concept it so simple yet so tasty... toasted ravioli, in buffalo sauce, dipped in ranch!

You will need:
Pre-packaged toasted ravioli (I used the cheap brand from Hyvee and they were perfect)
3-4 tbs Butter
1/3-1/4 cup Frank's Red Hot
Ranch dressing or Bleu Cheese dressing

Recommended Materials:
Huge bowl w/ lid

I didn't plan on blogging this therefore did not take any pictures, so just use your imagination:

How to:
Cook ravioli's to directions on package
While they are cooking melt butter in pan or microwave... How much butter and sauce you use will make the sauce more mild or hotter, I used 4 tbs butter with 1/4 cup hot sauce and it was very good but almost too mild.
Using whisk or fork blend butter with Frank's (or any other buffalo sauce you enjoy)
Toss ravs and sauce in a large bowl, I have one with a lid so I put the lid on and shake the crap out of it!

Serve with celery, and ranch or bleu cheese. I used the Hidden Valley Ranch from the packet because the bottle kind just wouldn't cut it for these! Enjoy!

BWW Worthy Boneless Wings

No pictures one this one for the same reason as above, I also didn't plan on straying so far from the recipe or on them being so darn good!

The Mr. and I love Buffalo Wild Wing's Boneless wings and though I highly doubt this is how they make theirs, the coating on the chicken was so similar the only real difference was I always get honey BBQ there and I just used original KC Masterpiece on these.  WARNING after typing everything out I realized this is definitely one of those recipes for someone familiar with cooking chicken.

You will need:
1 lb chicken boneless/skinless chicken tenders or breasts (I like the tenders because they tend to be cheaper and you will be cutting them up either way)
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (why not right? But don't try to use more of this flour than regular because it's very grainy and won't stick as well)
2 tbs season salt
1 tsp sea/kosher salt
1/2 tbs black pepper (all of the additional seasonings can be adjusted to taste, or leave some out or add other seasonings if you want)
BBQ Sauce
Water
1 cup canola oil

Recommended Materials:
That big ole bowl again

How to:
Cut the chicken into bit size chunks
With a fork or whisk mix eggs and milk
Soak chicken in egg mixture in the refrigerator for at least 1/2 hour, the recipe said 10 minutes, but my husband wasn't home yet and I didn't like the idea of chicken and egg just sitting out that long so I threw it in the fridge

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Mix flours with your seasonings in large bowls. Remove chicken from egg mixture and coat in flour mixture, then place on a cookie sheet (I covered mine with parchment paper to make clean up faster). Once all pieces are coated and on cookie sheet refrigerate again. I wanted to make sure the mixture was really on there before battering again. After 20 minutes (that was how long it took until the Mr to get home) remove chicken then dunk in egg and re-flour. While doing this heat oil in a pan on about medium. We have a gas stove in our rental and it has a low and a high so this is a guess. Cook about 5 pieces at a time in hot oil using tongs to flip them until golden on both sides (cut into thick pieces if you are worried they aren't done). You will get lots of icky stuff in the pan from the flour breading, so after a few batches I turned the stove off and used a paper towel to blot out the junk!

Once all chicken is cooked, thin out your BBQ sauce with a few tablespoons water... KC Masterpiece is super thick and wonderful and I worried about it sticking to the chicken. In batches place chicken and sauce in bowl and toss with lid on. You can use a big bag or just stir in a bowl if you don't have a bowl with a lid. Place chicken onto a different baking sheet again with parchment paper or aluminum foil (or wash the sheet you used before). When all your chicken is coated cook in oven for 5 minutes, this will cook the sauce onto the chicken. Serve with celery and ranch or bleu cheese. Enjoy!

Gift Wrapping

I really wanted to wait to post this because I didn't want my sister to see the gift I am bringing to her baby shower but now that I wrapped a second gift I couldn't wait.

As I have mentioned I really try to limit waste and as much as I love wrapping paper and fun gift bags (I used to work at Hallmark, of course I love this stuff) it just ends up getting ripped through and tossed. I hit Pinterest up for gifts using brown paper and newspaper. We don't get the newspaper but we were given a UK paper by the Mr's mom so I have quite the stash now. I came across this great bow! So I keep clicking to find the tutorial, which is of course in German! However there were step by step pictures, and I am a pretty smart girl so I figured it out. I was too lazy to make a tutorial but I will list the steps.

-Cut strips of paper (to desired thickness) and make loops
-Use a dot of glue and press together, for big "bows" use your fingers to get the desired round shape on each side, for small holes use a pencil or paint brush/toothpick whatever.
-Keep making smaller loops and repeating the steps until you have the bow you want
-Cut strips with notches on the end for the ends of the bow

The one of the right I followed the tutorial exactly and wrapped a piece of paper in the middle of the bow, I made 3 loops for the one on the right and just glued them all together.

The paper was a little too boring for me so I used brightly colored paper for the blue one and a piece of craft foam to make the dinosaur on the left.

Now your paper can get one last use before hitting the recycling bin!

My Official Rant of 2013

Everyone is making New Year's resolutions, but my Mr. made a great point last night, why are we supposed to make resolutions when it is so stinking cold out? I want to be more active, but I am not that fond of being active and I don't like being cold... so I am going to say my getting more active won't be going down anytime soon!

Anyways instead of a resolution I have chosen to do a rant!

Here goes...

I am officially sick of girls (I'm sure there are some men too) who are in serious relationships but are constantly whining about not being married. I am not talking about those who have been in relationships and are not ready to be married or simply don't want to, but those who are desperate to be married and aren't.

                                          Being engaged was pretty fantabulous if you ask me?

Why would you want to marry someone who obviously doesn't want to marry you? Or keeps pulling you along saying "soon" it is not 1950, and it's not his decision alone. As soon as I met the Mr. I thought "I want that!" and a few months later I knew this was the man I was going to marry, and I told him so. I also told him if we weren't engaged before I graduated I was moving back to St Louis and that was that. So he had about exactly a year to decide if I was the Mrs. for him or not!  

I know that sounds terrible, but my actual thoughts were, "If he doesn't feel the same why about me why would I waste my time?" We looked at rings after 8 months, to my surprise on his suggestion and were engaged at 10 months. Now how we got engaged and married certainly isn't  for everyone, but my point is, don't settle if you aren't getting what you need or want.

A hair stylist told my grandma she was growing her hair out because she thought she would be getting engaged that year. We both thought... "you think you are getting engaged?" This isn't something you talk about? If you don't know I am going to assume that you probably are NOT going anywhere in that relationship!

Hope you enjoyed my rant of 2013, I would love to hear what others' rants are!

Freezer Meal Dont's

Thursday night I reminded myself once again how much I hate cooking on week nights, I work 8-5 so to come home and prepare a meal, by the time it is prepared, enjoyed, and cleaned up, I am left with litttle me or husband/pup time as I always try to be in my bed by 9:30.

So on that night I found 6 meals (I would make 2 of each) that could easily be frozen and served later, several were recipes I use often with a few newbies, I planned to do my shopping at Aldi, and say screw "antibiotic free, nitrate free, or organic" for one shopping trip to save the money. Around 3 on Friday I realized I didn't have a quarter and worse I didn't have my canvas bags! Around 4 I got a headache that made me feel dizzy and nauseous  So I went home and crawled in bed... those pre-made meals would have been really handy that night! We ate a cheap frozen pizza. :P

When I woke up Saturday I realized I did not want to spend my entire weekend grocery shopping and cooking, so my "don't" was I tried to make myself not only do too much but also do something I really didn't want to do to begin with!

I salvaged my idea to cook ahead slightly. Thursday at lunch I bought crescent rolls in a tube on my lunch break and hot dogs. It worked out perfectly that the hot dogs come in a pack of 8 and the HyVee rolls come with 8! 2 tubes of rolls and 1 pack of hot dogs made 2 super easy and way better than frozen pigs in a blanket (I even got my nitrate free hot dogs!) We will eat 1 batch tonight and am freezing the second batch individually and will toss them in a bag together once they are frozen. 

Pigs in a blanket! Yes in a bowl... don't ask.

My second meal, is one of out favorites. I almost always have most of the ingredients for tuna casserole, I usually don't have the cheese but I made mac and cheese the other night so I lucked out. My tuna casserole recipe is:

1/2 box pasta (bowtie or rotini)

1 can cream of mushroom soup + 1/2 can milk (even my rice milk works)

1 big can tuna or 2 little cans

about 2 cups of cheese (any kind, I used monterray jack/colby and some cheddar)

It fits perfectly in a 11/2 quart casserole dish, feeds both of us with left overs!

I usually like to freeze my casseroles in casserole dishes, but the throw away kind are going against my efforts to be green since you can only use them once, maybe twice if you are careful. So I opted to freeze it in a gallon ziplock, though this still doesn't solve my "green" issue it is cheaper and saves room in my freezer... and to be quite honest I will wash the ziplock and use it again because I am THAT weird. I went ahead and froze an extra cup of cheese in a baggie as well for topping since I don't always have shredded cheese on hand and taped it to the casserole.

I will take it out the night before then stir it up before putting in a casserole dish, topping with cheese and then cook! TA DA! Would love to hear what other wives do for meals to help them keep their sanity!