"Berry" Neat Trick

My "crunchy" sister-in-law showed me the neatest trick ever to get out (semi -fresh) berry stains. The kids had berry smoothies for breakfast and we did this about an hour later.

In order to do this, you take the garment that has berries all over it and stretch the area where the spots are. She used a mixing bowl and a rubber band to keep it stretched out in place.
The following picture does not do this t-shirt justice of how many berry spots were on it and how dark they actually were.

Then you take boiling hot water and pour over the spots.

And Wha-laa!!

Spots disappear.

Seriously. It totally worked. We did this small procedure on two different t-shirts and a pair a pants and the (semi-fresh) berry stains all completely disappeared.

I was amazed.

Am I the only one who didn't know about this?

First Day of Fall

Well the weather guy says it can get up to 107 degrees today,
and we don't have to many trees that change colors, but I am so in the mood for fall.

Can you tell?

Happy Autumn Everyone.
You still have time to enter the giveaway.

Lemon-ee Yummy Breakfast

I've got a new favorite quick breakfast.

Plain or wheat bagel, with low-fat whipped cream cheese and lemon-pepper.

I'm serious. Try it.

Pure yumminess.

Mr. Dunbar and Bogie like it, too.

What are your favorite toppings for bagels?

(Steph, this was all because of you.)

On the lighter side

Our living room is dark, very dark any time of the day past 10am, the sun just shines on the other side of the house. Due to family expansions (ie Mr. Bogie) we've had to move our desk into the great room. The dreadful hand-me-down desk that over powers the corner.

This is what is used to look like. It was Mr. Dunbar's desk, when he used to work from home. But now it is my desk, because now I work at home. So I finally changed it up a bit, a while back.

This is the material I used. In the picture below, it looks like crinkled paper bags, but that is so not the case. Its a really nice woven fabric that just happens to be the same color as paper bags.

And this is what my desk looks like now.

So much nicer for me. I love the new chair. Mr. Dunbar doesn't. He says it hurts his back and his butt. I say, "Don't sit in it then. You stole the fancy laptop we got for Christmas a few years back. Go use that computer, elsewhere."

He just laughs.

Oh, well, he's a happy man other than that.

Black and Green Snack Salad

A staple salad when I was growing up was macroni salad. We had it at every bbq, every weekend gathering, every party. Nowdays there are times I don't want a heavy pasta salad, sometimes I just want the crunch and ting.

So I took the first three ingredients that always made the base for the macroni salad in my mom's house and turned that into a snack all on its own.

Celerly, pickles, and black olives

are dee-lish, and make for a great snack or salad.

Try it.

Or do you think I'm nuts?

Didn't even realize...

Do you know how fast you spend money and don't even know it? I am a master of this...
After reveiwing my week I realized that I spent money at Disneyland on Monday, between Fastrack, one churro, and one sandwich I spent $18, so I am going to deduct that from my $77. Now I have $58. See, I spend money and don't even realize it. Especially with things like Fastrack because it just beeps in your car's little sensor and you never really give it a second thought. Atleast I don't.


So I am going to have to get creative on ways to stretch my money for this month. Hmmm... I'm not very good at this. Spending money is usually a gig I am really good at, just ask Mr. Dunbar.


Just a few more details of my perameters for my No Spend July.

• All of our bills are paid. Mortgage, insurance,utilities, etc.etc.


• My goals for groceries and gas are to try and reduce them as much as possible. I normally spend between $100 and $125 at the grocery store each week. I spent $40 at Trader Joe's on Sunday. My MIL took my men shopping last Friday and they came home with tons of stuff, so that totally helped out- and none of them even knew I was planning to do this. (God is so good. Hooray for MIL's!!!)


• Gas will definitely be harder because we have to drive everywhere in our area, but I'll be at my grandma's house for the next few days and there ain't nowhere to go over there. So that should stretch out the need for more gasoline by a day or two.


• I am going to try and use up as much stuff as we have. Like toothpaste, hair stuff, and cleaning supplies. I have this thing with constantly buying new tubes of toothpaste and bottles of cleaning supplies. It totally borders on OCD.
• My $100 has to cover anything that I would normally just swipe my debit card or AMEX for. I read this article on saving versus stretching your money and right now I am trying to do both. Stretch it until the end of the month and then whatever I don't spend, actually save it in the boy's accounts.

So that's my plan.

No Spend July

I have been contemplating the idea of having a "No Spend Month" for a while now. Actually, I thought perhaps a week or 15 days, but for some reason the month mark kept coming up. So towards the end of June, I thought, this is it July will be my month.

Now I haven't gone over the deep end like Small Notebook, only spending $250 for the entire month, including groceries. I like fruit too much in the summer. But I do give the girl credit, lots and lots of credit. Maybe if I decide to do this annually, I can work up to something like her. But this year for the Dunbar's we are taking small steps.

So there will be NO extras this month. No extra $5 this or $5 dollar that from Target. No clothes this month for myself or the Dunbar Men. No Starbucks. No getting hair done. (Such a killer, I'm due for a do next week.) No car washes. No eating out for lunch.

No extras.

But I do have to put one thing on the table, I ordered a pair of boots last month that will be charged to my credit card this month. It's the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale people. Deals like this only come once a year! The boots are already paid for, thank you very much Adam!

Now in the state of our economy I know that it seems like, hey you should have already done that. A lot of people have already done that and I have also. I have cut back- drastically from say three years ago, even from a year ago. But this month, I am not giving into the temptation. Week one is almost over and I have done great. Today was my first time to go to a store since the June 30th. And it was Target, of course, and I spent $23! Unheard of in the Dunbar home.

I've got $100 to last me until the end of the month. Well minus my $23 bucks from Target, so I guess I have $77 left.

Do you think I can do it? Could you?

.

Oh and whatever I save my dad will double for the boys savings accounts. Right, Dad?

Decorraging- Adding a little red

Here is a small peak of what I've SLOWLY been working on in my office/living/play/greatroom. Yes, we have an all- in-one room. Something about two kids taking over our house and needing bedrooms. Anywho, these are my little red accents, thus far.

Birdcage, courtesy of Mom's garage, it was some awful forest green.

I bought this Waverly toile, totally overpriced (even with the coupon), but it was one of those wide ones so I have enough left over to make a pillow. If only I knew how to turn that sewing machine on...

This shelf is another swipe from Mom's house. I love it.

And that is about all of the red I've added. Now that Mr. Dunbar is home I'll have more time to spend on making things look pretty rather than just trying to keep kids fed, bathed, and entertained.

Have a happy day and if you haven't already, take the typing quiz below.

I want to send someone some shiny OPI nail polish for their fingers or toes.