Saturday, March 23, 2013

Thoughts From a Coffee Shop - Refreshing Your Home & Makeup Brushes

So I'm sitting in Starbucks on a cloudy Saturday morning. I'm surrounded by a plethora of hipsters with their coffee in hand, headphones in, probably listening to music that no one has heard of that's WAY cooler than mine, Apple computers open, sporting their Buddy Holly glasses and favorite thrift store/vintage finds.  Long story short, I want to fit in...so I'm writing a blog post. That's what the hipsters do right? They don't have to know that I'm listening to the Little Mermaid soundtrack in my headphones and I'm about to write a blog post about cleaning shower heads. They may have just discovered the greatest hipster band of our time, but I know for sure that they don't have a hawt crustacean band like I do. I win.

And now I'm going to tell you how awesome my Spring Break was. While you were lounging on a beach getting your tan on, I was deep cleaning my house via Pinterest while "Under the Sea" was blaring through my household. But fo real, those things bring me great pleasure...and I don't tan....ever. And now my shower heads are shining bright like a diamond while yours aren't. I take that back...a true hipster would never reference a Rhianna song. JKJKJK

But really, I hope everyone had a great Spring Break. I was just so happy that my husband was HOME!! He recently returned from a month-long business trip and I'm so happy that things are back to normal again. And he's taking me to DISNEY WORLD the day after I graduate!! The abundance of my time that I spend listening to Disney music these days is embarrassing. I just seriously can't wait to be there with him. I graduate 49 days from today and so we'll be in WDW in 50 days, but who's counting? The meer thought brings a smile to my face. The hipsters are staring.  

I plan on making a Disney World blog post with my review of the NEW FANTASYLAND and all the things when I return. Disney World is my treasure. I work in a preschool and when I'm alone with the children and want to start a group conversation Disney World is always the perfect topic. They get just excited about talking about it as I do...except for that one time. I told them that it was the most magical place on earth and one kid looked at me with an utterly disgusted face and said "my mom hates magic". I was like "ehhhhh I didn't say 'magic' I said 'magicAL'" hoping that would diffuse the situation. It didn't. NOT THAT KIND OF MAGIC OKAY!! But most of the time it works. But if you're taking your child/children to Disney soon I can help. Child Development (my major) and WDW are my specialties. I've sent my tips/advice for families with kids to a few people. I haven't been in 4 years (longest I've ever gone) so there's a lot more that I need to see this time. Matt has only been once and he was a wee tot. I look forward to showing him all the things. I was telling him my plans for the week we're there and he asked when we were going to relax. RELAX? IN DISNEY WORLD? No. I've got better things to do with my time. When we go with my children I'll build in time to relax. Now is not that time. So if you are taking your small kids too you can contact me (katiechedge@yahoo.com) and I can send it to you. OR you can just wait for my post to come in mid-May. I like to jump on any chance to talk about Disney World. I'm sure you're very aware of that now because I was planning on writing a sentence about Disney World and I'm on my 2nd paragraph. Moving on. 

SHOWER HEADS! 

My shower heads were looking a bit grungy and I decided to freshen them up. 


I just tied a baggy with vinegar and baking soda to my shower heads and let them soak for a few hours. Black stuff just fell off of them when I took them out. Ummmmm yuck. I never knew it was there. I feel like I've never been truly clean. I like to find disgusting things and make them fresh. It brings me joy.  




I also freshened up our mattress! Apparently a mixture of baking soda and your favorite fabric softener freshens up your mattress and kills bed bugs/dust mites. I don't have a microscope so I'm not sure that it worked, but I like to think it did. I'm hoping I didn't have any bugs in my bed beforehand but the thought that if I did and this helped makes me sleep better at night, both literally and figuratively. I didn't have any fabric softener on hand but I did used baking soda. I let it sit for a few hours. 


While I was at it I also decided to clean all of the linens on my bed. I washed the sheets, the down comforter...and the mattress topper even though the tag clearly said "spot clean only". I was on a cleaning spree and needed to kill all the bugs! I also have a problem in that I like to do what I want. So in response to that message (which I now know was a warning) I laughed and said "HA! I do what I want. I will stuff the whole thing in my washing machine and you will like it". Let me tell you that this isn't a small thing, it's like really fluffly. So I used all of my might and stuffed the mattress topper into my washer. Within minutes my washer sounded like it was preparing for takeoff in my laundry room. Alarmed, Matt rose from his office and frantically asked me what was going on. I told him that I had everything under control. Heh. Once the wash cycle finished I removed the topper and it only had a few holes in it. Nothing I couldn't repair. I let it air dry then sewed up the holes and put it back on our bed. He never knew the difference...besides its now incredibly lumpy but CLEAN nature. Ever since then, every time I ran the the washer it leaked all over the laundry room. It's done it before and it's kind of a janky washer so it didn't concern me. I cleaned it up every time and went on with my life. I decided to tell Matt nonchalantly when he got home from work one day to a puddle of water. He was pretty concerned and decided to take apart the washer. I think he wanted to be mad at me but we just couldn't stop laughing. I lose.


 Has anyone been missing Frosty the Snowman? Matt said "It's a winter wonderland"


Poor Matt. I literally break everything. My dad gave him that pincher thing for Christmas. We never thought we'd have a use for it. Thanks to me, he finally met his match. Also, notice my pink gloves. They look good on him. 

So note:  Pay attention to labels on things. That's all I really have to say about that. 

Good times. 

I went on to deep clean the rest of my house per usual. My grandma did recently tell me about a cleaning product she started using. It's magical. I'm sure you've heard of it. KABOOM! (RIP Billy Mays)


I use both of these Kabooms to clean counters, sinks, showers, toilets, etc. It's pretty magical.

This isn't really related, but I also cleaned my makeup brushes. I like to do this every few months. I used a little bit of olive oil and probably 3 times blue Dawn soap. No water. It cleaned them so well. After I moved them around in the mixture I rinsed them in hot water then laid them out to dry. You could see all of the makeup coming out of them. Another disgusting thing turned fresh!


So this concludes my hipster post on the most random, most unrelated things possible. Thanks for helping me fit in with my surroundings. Happy Saturday!

Monday, March 18, 2013

Chicken, Broccoli, Mozzarella Penne Pasta

As if the title doesn't automatically draw you in, this pasta is as delicious as it sounds! I found it on Pinterest and made it for my husband. He loved it. I'm not the best cook in the world...in fact I'm kind of a terrible cook. The easier and quicker the recipe the better for me. I'm still learning! Anyways, I was kind of nervous to make this but it was seriously delicious and nothing went wrong (a true miracle coming from me). I'll definitely be making it again. 

Here's a link to the recipe:

I couldn't find smoked mozzarella at my local grocery store but you may have better luck. I just used regular shredded mozzarella that comes in a bag. It was still delicious. We don't really like a lot of onion and it calls for an entire minced one. I only used like 2 teaspoons of the minced onion. Plus, chopping onions burns my eyes so bad and gives me a headache. I don't think I would've lasted the whole onion. Those are the only changes I made. It tasted wonderful with garlic bread. You should try it out and let me know how it turns out. I wouldn't steer you wrong :)