Beautiful Things

This past weekend my family and I went on a camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.  You can read all about our trip and see some pretty amazing pictures on my family blog, The Farnsworth Chronicles.

20 Ways I Use Vinegar

There are hundreds of ways to use vinegar.  You might have seen articles floating around Pinterest about all of these fabulous uses.  Since moving away from using toxins and chemicals in our house, I have found vinegar to be a staple. We go through gallons of this stuff.  Literally.  I buy a gallon almost every time I go grocery shopping.  

Farmers Market Meals

This post has been sitting my queue for a while.  I've just has so many other things to blog about so I never quite got it finished until now.  A few weeks back - or maybe more like a few months back - we decided to head to the farmers market in Downtown Golden.  I haven't been to a farmers market in years and given our new found love of veggies we decided it was time to check it out.  I guess I had visions of super cheap, delicious looking veggies at booth after booth.  

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

What could be better on a hot summer day (especially with no air conditioner) than a tall glass of strawberry lemonade? The last time I went to the grocery store to buy this sugary goodness I picked up a can of Country Time because on the label is said it big bold letters, "No Artificial Sweeteners of Flavors."  I should have known better.  It's about as processed as you can get but I was in a hurry and it was for my 4 year old's birthday party.
 

Commercial Break Workouts

We haven't had cable in our house for years now.  Hulu Plus and Netflix have long since replaced it and we've never looked back.  That is not to say we don't watch TV.  On the contrary - we watch PLENTY.  Maybe too much sometimes!  Now, Netflix doesn't have commercials but Hulu has these perfect little (sometimes annoying... OK highly annoying) one to three minute commercial breaks.  I've discovered this is the perfect time to get some strength building in. 

Make No Sew Reusable Swiffer Pads

This tutorial is how to make reusable Swiffer Pads.  I would love to own a sewing machine someday but as of now I do not have one.  So I went in search of way I could make these without actually sewing.  I found THIS site with a great tutorial on how to sew some if you would rather do it that way.  And I threw in my own creativity with a much cheaper means of sticking it your Swiffer.

Swiffer Solution

I ran out of Swiffer solution a long time ago.  I'm embarrassed to admit just how long it has been since I've actually mopped in our kitchen or bathrooms.  Yikes!  We have a traditional mop and bucket but it gets stinky quickly and quite frankly it's just a hassle right?  I mean filling the bucket and wringing out the mop.  Who wants to do that?!  Ha!  We bought a Swiffer years ago to avoid this cumbersome process.  It was nice to spray and push.  But then you had the nasty pads that just get thrown away and the super expensive refills to buy once you run out of the solution.  And they are smart too.  The refills are not made to be refilled at home.  They want you to keep coming back for more.