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    Best Thing Ever,  Food,  How To

    How To Make Portillo’s Chopped Salad At Home (& Dazzle Your Family!)

    I am not–and never will be–a food blogger. (I’m guessing you’re not here for the recipes, anyway. So we’re good.) That said, I do enjoy food, and I am pretty good at making delicious things to eat. Sometimes I will prepare a family favorite for dinner and think, “I should share this on the blog.” Then I think, “But I’m not a food blogger, and the idea of staging the food for the pretty pictures makes me feel a little nauseous,” so I don’t share. Except just this once. I happen to have created a family favorite when I started making Portillo’s chopped salad at home, and I think you…

  • Review

    I Have Saved Over $2000 On Haircuts Alone.

    No joke. Here’s the deal: home haircuts are a great way to save some money, especially if you have a man or two in your house who really loves a buzz cut. Why pay $10-15 (plus gas money) every four to six weeks when you can take care of it at home in five minutes? Let me back up. I was given the opportunity, after visiting the Housewares show in Chicago a couple of months ago, to review the new Wahl Lithium Ion Clipper and I jumped at the chance, not only because my old clipper is also a Wahl, but it is corded and on its last leg because…

  • Review

    House Party With The Glade® Home Style Studio!

    It was a busy weekend! You already know that I absolutely adore spending time in the city. You also already know that I am usually pretty outgoing, so talking to people isn’t a problem. Working with the folks on the Glade® Expressions™ Happiair Tour this weekend meant combining two of my favorite things: the city and talking. (Seriously!) I was part of the Street Team (not the official name but it really makes me sound cool so I’m going with it), tweeting and Facebooking while passersby (and their noses) checked out the products that make up the new Glade® Expressions™ Collection. (The Collection features a Fragrance Mist and Oil Diffuser,…

  • I've Got Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments,  Too Funny To Ignore

    Zeus and the Hanger

    Time flies. It flies so quickly that I just realized I never wrote about the acquisition of J’s first car, six weeks ago. SIX WEEKS AGO. That’s like, four years in blog time. I won’t go into all of the details of the search except to say that J was delightfully open to “almost any car that runs”. This attitude was in massive contrast to his brother’s: when D was looking for his first car, he had things narrowed down to what was nearly impossible to find. Oh, he found it alright, but the annoyance level of everything having to do with that car hunt was high. This house was…

  • Friends,  Spreading the Bloggie Love

    It’s Not What You Know; It’s Who You Know!

    We recently had some problems with our stove. Basically it became more and more inconsistent when it came to…working. The problem? When we pressed the “preheat” button, the desired temperature lit up on the electronic display, but only for a moment. It then turned off, before the sensor “caught” and we heard the whoosh of the gas coming on, to begin the preheat. Eventually it would work, but only after we repeated the process ten or twelve–or twenty–times. After we discussed the fact that the stove was getting so unreliable, it would probably stop working altogether at the least convenient time ever, like when we were entertaining* or when we…

  • Family Fun

    No Need To Be Impressed. YOU Can Make Them, Too!

    The younger boy did me a favor and filmed me* making a tissue paper flower. Try it. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is! Really! (and there’s a little bit of mom-son banter, as a bonus!) *I also took video of him doing a “how to” on duct tape wallets…but it turned out to be 3 minutes too long for Youtube. Wah. We’ll do it over again; I want to post it on Saturday in case any of you need a last-minute Father’s Day gift!

  • Uncategorized

    Happy Homemaker Tip #2

    First, before I officially start this post, I have to tell you that if you came by for a visit yesterday and found that the link at the end of yesterday’s post didn’t take you to the place you were thinking, it has been fixed now and you will be taken to the right place. Or the wrong place. Depends on how you think about it. Long story short, it’s been fixed. Click away. I dare you. Today’s Happy Homemaker Tip is not something I personally came up with, but it has saved us lots of time and arguments around this house. The boys, though once were in sizes far…

  • Uncategorized

    Happy Homemaker Tip #1

    There are a lot of people out there (myself included) who love to get little tips on how to make life just a little bit easier. Anytime I come across a magazine that has a “Reader to Reader” section (I believe “Family Circle” and “Family Fun” are two of them that I have devoured many times), I am in heaven. Sometimes the tips are no-brainers to me; sometimes I feel like I’ve found buried treasure. It’s for that reason that I decided to add another sporadically appearing feature here at the Scrawl: Happy Homemaker Tips. You won’t see any Martha Stewart-ish complexities like labeling the shelves of your linen closet…