bathroom styles

when i was younger i remember being jealous of my friend who had the fuzzy seat cover for their toilet and the matching fuzzy rug that fit perfectly around the toilet, but now when i look back at that i wonder what the point of those things were. you never sit on the top of the toilet, so why does it need to be comfortable? there are many weird fads that come in and out of style for the bathroom. for example carpet in the bathroom, pink bathtubs, and floral tiles. thankfully bathrooms these days have evolved from those God awful trends. so whats next for the bathroom, we've gone through the everything pink, everything having crown molding and the terrible idea of carpet phases. now we are in the modern times of everything looking sleek, shinny, and perfect. we like the bathroom to be calming but very organized and put together. the bathroom seems like the least likely place for technology, but i see that is wear we are headed. we already have the speakers in the shower, and the fancy toilets have been around in Japan for a long time. in public bathrooms we have automatic everything which we find very helpful. i see our future being TV's in the bathroom, bathtubs that draw your bath for you, high tech temperature settings for the shower, hopefully technology that will help us save water at the sink. i hope to learn more about the past of the bathroom and how the styles have evolved.

what to do with old valentines day flowers

flowers are always a great gift to receive for many occasions. i really hope you received flowers for valentines day and if you did hopefully they haven't became wilted yet. when flowers start to get old it is really hard to have to throw them away. here are some ideas of what to do with those flowers.

banana snack

when coming home from school, or stopping home quick between practice and work, a quick an easy snack is always fruit. whats great about fruit is its healthy, sweet, and delicious. one thing i like ot make at home is banana rolled in peanut butter and grahm cracker. its super simple.

step one: peel and cut a banana into slices.

Step two; put about a forth of a cup of peanut butter into a small mixing bowl.

Step three: grind up grahm cracker in food processor

Step four: mix grahm crackers with peanut butter until a good consistency so that it is mixed evenly

Step five: roll the edges of each individual banana slice in peanut butter and gram crackers.

Step six: roll the edges of each individual banana slice in more of just the gram cracker crust

tip: for more yummy goodness drizzled chocolate over sliced bananas or dip in chocolate and freeze for later.

tip: this is a snack that needs to be eaten right away or it will become rotten.  

love it or list it

love it or list it is a HGTV show that is about the business partner duo of Hilary Farr, the interior designer, and David Visentin, who is the reinstate agent. Hilary and David help their clients either love their current home or sell it and buy a different one. what great about this show is either way the client gains something from this. I wouldn't rate this show as one of my top favorite on HGTV however there are some things about it that i like better than other shows. the competition between Hilary and David add a comical banter to the show. they both want what's best for the client, however they think their way is always better. on one side Hilary redoes their current home to make it more appealing to the owner, while David shows the clients new homes that he believes will be more to their liking. I think one benefit or problem about this show is that when the client is deciding if they want to stay in their new and improved home or go to a new home, which usually has other benefits that they have been wanting such as the area the house is located, why would you not list your home. You not only get to go to the more improved location, but you have a home that is modernly renovated and ready to sell. i think this show is pretty good, but it wouldn't be one of my first recommendations. however its much more popular than some of the other HGTV shows. its been around for a while, since 2008 and has had 10 seasons.

peanut butter balls

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we all know that. However we still don’t make the time do make sure we get the nutritious breakfast we need in the morning to energize us for the day. Here a recipe that I like to make for those mornings when I am in a rush and I just want to skip breakfast and leave the house on an empty stomach. They are called peanut butter balls. It is very simple and there is no baking needed.

Step one: in a bowl combine 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 1/3 cup of honey, 1 cup or more of quick oats (depending on how much you like), a handful of MnMs or 1/4 cup of chocolate chips, and if you want you can add a couple of teaspoons of flax seed for an extra boost of fiber and nutrients that your body will benefit from in many ways.

Step 2: this batch should make about 12 small balls, depending on the size you make. So roll the mixture into small balls.

Step 3: put peanut butter balls on pieces of wax paper and put in a tupper wear container to cool and you are done! Pull them out anytime you want to grab one and then set back into the fridge.

cinnamon muffins

A really simple and fast breakfast or snack idea is mini-muffins. my family has a recipe for cinnamon muffins that we usually put in a mini muffin container, but recently we bought a muffin maker that makes small individual snoopy character waffles. we found that this waffle maker is also great for muffin batter and brownie batter! so here is my recipe for cinnamon snoopy muffins.

Step one: in a large mixing bowl add dry ingredients. 3/4 cup of Malt-O-Meal, 1 1/4 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. this recipe is for a regular muffin, add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon into the batter.

Step two: whisk together the dry ingredients

Step three: make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients for the liquid ingredients
Step four: add in liquid ingredients. 3/4 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Step 5: whisk together liquide ingredients and then gradually mix in the dry ingredients

Step six: after muffin maker, or in this case waffle maker, is hot and ready pour in muffin mix, keeping in mind that the muffins will rise more than you think. set the timer for 5 minutes to take the muffins out.

Step seven: on another counter set out two bowls. one for melted butter and the other for cinnamon and sugar. 

Step eight: when 5 minutes timer goes off use a tooth pick and poke he center of a muffin. if the tooth pick comes out clean they are done. then use a tooth pick and/or fork to take the muffins out and set onto cooling rack

Step nine: lastly dip the top of each muffin into the melted butter and then into the bowl of cinnamon and sugar and enjoy! 

bathroom hacks

 When you think about it our bathroom is a very strange room compared to every other room in the house. It’s one of the smallest rooms where you store the most stuff, and it gets more wet and humid than another room. So here are some hacks I came up with that have helped me in my bathroom.

If you have a sink with a cupboard or drawers underneath (which I highly encourage to have if you have the room) to add more storage space add 2-4 inch supports on the corners of the bottom of the sink vanity. You can use this room to store your scale or any small box. For example at my house we use a shoes box and wrapped it with nice paper and made a handle out of the paper to allow easy access to the box. We store our magazines, a blow dryer, and a curling iron in the box. The 2-4 inches is an easy instillation and that little room can go a long way.

At the store you can buy little clips that have a suction cup attached to them. Use of these in the shower to clip back your shower curtain after you have finished taken a shower. It will allow the curtain to dry off faster instead of leaving the shower curtain bunched up and wet creating mold.

Another suggestion for your shower curtain is to use plastic curtain hangers instead of metal. Metal allows rust to build up and it can be a pain to clean all the time.

NEVER have carpet in your bathroom. A lot of older homes still have the outdated look oh carpet in the bathroom, and some people today still think it’s a good idea. Well it’s not. Think about it, your bathroom is the one room that gets the most humidity and is the room that you are always using water in. carpet and water, don't mix well. It’s the easiest way to grow mold, and the hardest flooring to clean. Any type of flooring has the ability to grow mold, so my suggestion is to have a timed fan build in to your bathroom. Most homes already have fans build in but to have a timer just makes it so much easier to set a time for the fan and not have to worry about turning it off later.

This next tip you will probably think is a no-brainer, but I find some people still don't understand. Do not put hair down the sink or shower drain! Always use the trash. It is not too much of a pain to clean out the sink and put the hair in the trash rather than washing it all down the sink. It is far better than having to deal with a clogged up sink later on.

how to protect floors from wet and dirty shoes

Where I live it's getting that time of the year where the snow is turning into slush and it ruins all your shoes and back of your pants when you walk through it. whats worse than walking through the slush is then tracking that mucky mess into the house. to protect your floors from the mud and water you may try a shoe rack, however a shoe doesn't help you much if your shoes still drip mud and water onto the floor. my suggestion is to have a shoe mat instead of a shoe rack. the mat should have a boarder around it too keep water in and off the floor. another suggestion is to get a shelf or cubby holes to put shoes in. its an easy way to store them without taking up as much space if you were to lay all the shoes out on the floor.
When you are younger you should have learned to wipe your feet off and leave the shoes at the door. however kids can be very forgetful, and so can you as you get older. when you are in a rush to come in grab something and go, you don't really want to take the time to take off your shoes, so what ends up happening is a big mess of dirty shoe prints all through out the house. its best that in front of every entry way there is a section of linoleum or tile, and i suggest that on that surface you lay down a washable rug to wipe off your feet. what's difficult with carpet is that it's hard to wash. if you lay down a rug it should help to protect your carpet and flooring.

why teenagers rooms are so messy

the other day i was asked the question; why are teenagers rooms so messy? and so i was ready do answer back when i realized i had no idea why teenagers rooms were so messy. from a teenagers stand point i can argue that we are too busy and our lives are too hard, but on the other hand i know many times when i am laying around doing nothing and i'm really just too lazy to clean my room. i don't know if this makes sense but i have to be in like a cleaning and organizing mood to have the energy to clean me room. however i will clean my room if i have an incentive such as if i am told i cant go out with my friends if i don't clean. so why are teenagers rooms so messy? well here are my reasons why, and my reasons why sometimes our reasons are just not good enough.

teenagers spend 7 hours at school, then ,depending on what activities they are in, 2-4 hours after school, and then 2-3 hours of homework afterwards. that's about 9 to 14 hours they spend doing school activities or being at school. leaving about half of the 24 hour day to sleep. if teenagers need 7 to 8 hours of sleep then they are looking at about 2 to 5 hours left in the day to do other things such as clean our room, eat, socialize. So you could say their school week is too busy to clean their rooms, and because of their busy schedules their dirty clothes, garbage, and more just builds up on their floor and on our bed as the week goes on. Rushing out the door in the morning and in and out of the house through out the day is a cause of clothes and garage being thrown on the floor instead of taking the time to put them away. by the time the weekend comes around most teenagers are too tired or bust with other activities and homework to find the motivation to clean up their rooms. i think why some parents don't understand how a teenagers bedroom can be so messy is because teenagers tend to spend most of their time in their bedroom when they are home, unlike parents.

most of the time i would say all of these reasons are legit and are a good enough reason not to clean my room, however i also see how some of these excuses are bogus. such as when teenagers say to their parents "you don't understand i'm just so busy", and i think why parents don't believe that is a good enough reason is because they also are busy. with work and taking care of the kids. however going back to my earlier statement parents don't worry as much about needing to have a lot of time to clean their room because they are not in their bedroom as much as teenagers. to be honest teenagers are just too lazy to clean their room. maybe that is just me but i found from asking other teenagers they agreed that they are to tired or lazy to do so.

so my answer would be that teenagers rooms are always to messy because they spend almost all of their time in there when they aren't at school, they have way to bust of schedules, and frankly teenagers are just tired or too lazy when they do have the time to clean their rooms. teenagers like almost everyone, need an incentive to get them to clean their room, or to do anything for that matter. so if case you are wondering that is why teenagers rooms are so messy, from a teenagers perspective.

tips when it comes to decorating your wall

When picking out what to put on your empty wall, or over the couch an idea is a painting, family pictures, or a printed photo on canvas. Depending on your preference will tell you what would go best in your home. You can make any three or all three look good in your home. To make a painting or picture match a room is as easy as having a simple color palate for everything in the room. For example you could have a grey room with a black couch, and blue and gold pillows. So you pick a painting that goes well with those colors.

Pictures can give a more personal touch to the room. Usually family pictures, or school pictures aren't that big so my suggestion if you have a large wall is to put up multiple pictures is some sort of order or pattern and/or surround them with smaller pictures, a mirror, a clock, words, or the letter of your last name. 

A painting can be great because they can vary from so many different styles and colors. It’s also great if you have an artist in the family because hanging their art gives a display of their work and add personal meaning to the decoration. The easiest type of painting to put up in a room is a simple abstract painting. Abstract doesn't always mean busy pictures with many different shapes and colors. Simple paintings can be just a mixture of a couple colors blended together. These are easy to use for decoration because you just find a painting that has the colors that are already used most throughout the room. as i said before you should make a color palate of the main colors and accent colors in your room and then go searching for a painting to match.

A picture that has been printed on canvas i think can be very pleasing to the eye. A picture on canvas can be anything you want. My favorite is nature pictures; they look like they could be an extremely good painting. The other great thing about a picture printed on canvas is the editor of those pictures can customize it and give is a certain color filter to make it match your room better. For example you can get a picture of a close up of a sunflower and if your room has colors such as black, grey, blue, and gold, you can customize the picture to have a blue sheer filter over it and fade out other colors in the background. Or make the entire picture black and white and then add in splashes of color in the flower. It is all up to the editor of the picture. Pictures on canvas can be make for any theme because you can anything you want printed onto a canvas. 

Mixing some of these elements together can either turn out great or just look like a mess. Advise to putting multiple paintings or pictures on the wall is that they all should in some way match and the placement should have a sense of symmetry. basically if you step back and you sense something about it is uneven or one pictures or painting stands out way to much than the others then something needs to be replaced, removed, or added.

valentines day gift

Valentine’s Day is coming up and usually people split into 2 different categories, people who love the holiday, and people who dread February 14th every year. Whether you love the holiday, or hate the holiday, I think we can all agree that we all love what Valentine’s Day brings us, chocolate. Depending on how old you are, or how big of a commuted relationship you are in during Valentine’s Day will influence what you get your significant other for Valentine’s Day. This goes out to teenage boys in a relationship, or teenage boy who has a crush on someone, there is no better gift than chocolate. They may say diamond rings are a girls best friends, but personally, I’d go for a box of chocolates or some chocolate covered strawberries any day. I only have one brother and when he was in high school and had a girlfriend I was only 11 years old, but I remember this very clearly. I remember my brother in the kitchen all day making his girlfriend chocolate. Awe how sweet right. His girlfriend loved that he put so much time and effort into them, and he didn't have to spend any money either. I think the best gifts are the ones that are made, of course i would take a trip to Paris any day, but homemade gift give sentimental value that can’t always be bought from the store.

Here are some of my favorite Valentine’s Day gift I found on good old Pintrest.

Pop up picture box:

https://www.brit.co/valentines-day-photo-box/

Five sense gift:

https://stephaniesprojects.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/valentines-day-5-senses-gift/