Sun Loungers Score

Brand new webbed sun loungers for $2.00 each. A little scrub-down required, but for that price, we'll be chillin' lakeside in the cheap. Excellent score, thanks to Austin who spotted them shoved in a back corner of the local Wal-Mart. Score!!

Thrift Store Score

Here's a great example of why I love thrifting. Yesterday, Lauren and I did a run-through of the Ajax Salvation Army Thrift Store.

Lauren scored this skirt. Very cute, denim with blingy stones, faux fur trim and a pretty ribboned belt. 

The skirt cost $5.99. And guess what? It still had the tags on it from Children's Place because the skirt is BRAND NEW! And it was priced at $29.50 brand new. Score!!!!

Ambitiously Lazy

Cleaning tarnished silver can be such a drag, as can any kind of cleaning. It's gross - rags, black stuff, and schmenky, stinky silver polish. Eww...so what's a girl (or guy) to do?

There's an easier way. We can let a little natural chemistry (not of the sexual kind!) do the work for us. For those of us who struggled in high school chemistry, we can finally say we're putting the knowledge to practical use.

What you need:

- tarnished silver item

- 1 cup boiling water

- 1 tbsp. salt

- 1 tbsp. baking soda

- 1/2 cup vinegar

- aluminum foil

- bowl

- cleaning cloth

Here's my tarnished silver cup/vase thing ($2.99 @ Sally Ann - I once bought one new at a design shop and paid $10):

What to do:

1. While the water is boiling, line the bowl with foil, ensuring it's shiny side up

2. Add the salt and baking soda and then pour in the vinegar. Admire the chemical reaction and consider how chemistry savvy you are.

3. Stir it gently to make sure the salt and soda have dissolved.

4. Pour in the hot water, add your silver item, and let it sit a bit for a couple minutes.

5. Flip the item over (ensuring not to burn your fingers and be required to scream about how cleaning silver sucks) a few times so all silver surfaces are exposed to the magic chemistry treatment.

6. It will let off a bit of a weird odour, which means it's working and the tarnish is loosening. After 5 minutes, test rub the surface of your silver to see if the tarnish budges. If it does, you're on to the next step. If not, let it soak a little more then try again.

7. Wipe/polish the item with your cloth to get all the tarnish off.

When you're done, you're going to want to wash your hands to get the black and the weird smell off. And also, if you're a germaphobe like me, you just beed to wash your hands.

When you're done, admire your handiwork and brag a little about your chemistry skills. It's that easy!

Tah Dahhhhh!!!!

Vignette du Jour

Almost brand-new crock pot, a dozen new cotton placemats and some excellent looking cookbooks. All hauled from The Village and Sally Ann. 

Hungry?

Musings from the furniture warehouse

We're about a month out from closing on our new cottage and not only is excitement building, but the stash of stuff is too.

It's a little overwhelming, but in a good way. In the way that turning one's living room into a furniture warehouse might feel. 

Here's Coco, furniture warehouse supervisor extraordinaire.

And here's a lovely vignette of green table top items Coco is supervising:

Cute retro 80's tea set with salt & pepper shaker - $9.99 at The Village.  Table runner - $3.99 at Sally Ann. 

More vignettes to come - stay tuned!

Chillllaaaaayyyyyyyy

Crockpot Recipe - Spicy Turkey Chili

Here's an easy and awesome crockpot recipaaaay for making spice-ayyyyyyy turkaaaayy chilllaaaayyyy, and it won't cost a ton of monaaayyyy.  My family loves it.  Enjoy!

You'll need:

• Crockpot
• Big fry pan
• Beverage of choice to savour while cooking - mood depending and appropriateness factor as well. 
• Approximately 1 lb. lean ground turkey
• 1 onion, chopped 
• Beans and plenty of them. I use 1 can of black beans, 1 can of red kidney beans, and 1 can of white kidney beans. Typically the 540 ml.19 oz cans. Drain and rinse them all. 
• Drained (or mainly drained) can of diced tomatoes (herbed or not, whatever tickles your fancy)

Here's the basic supplies thus far and yes, feel free to go no-name and save a few bucks. Spend your savings on wine, Starbucks or whatever tickles your fancy. :

Other stuff to get out:

• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
• Red pepper flakes (anywhere from 1 tsp to 1 tbsp, depending on how spicy you want it)
• ground coriander (1 tsp but more if you want)
• ground cumin (1 tsp but more if you want)
• chicken stock (approx. 2 cups)
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 1 can tomato paste (no clue how many ml/oz it is, but it's the small one)
• spicy chilies if you have them handy (green ones or my favourite, ONE smoked chipotle pepper)

What you need to do:

1. Heat oil over medium heat. Add turkey, onion, red pepper flakes, coriander and cumin. Cook until meat no longer pink.

Here it is cooking - can you smell those onions? Yeah baby!

Then, using a slotted spoon, transfer the meat (onion etc.) (but not the grease!!!) to the crockpot. Isn't that nice not having to do the old "let's drain the ground beef grease" game?
2. Add all the beans, tomatoes, corn, tomato paste and chicken stock (plus optional chilies) to the crockpot and stir gently to combine. Don't smush the beans!
3. Cover and either refrigerate to cook next day or later, or go ahead and fire up the crockpot. You can cook on low 6 to 10 hours or on high 3 to 4 hours.

Here's how it looks assembled:

And when it's done - looks almost the same but smells and tastes YUMMAAYYYYY!!
Enjoy!  

By the way it goes well with Corona. 

Cheers, darlings!

Cottage Kitchen Haul from The Village

We bought a cottage recently and while we've not yet taken possession of it, we are certainly taking possession of items to kit it out and are shopping and stockpiling like an episode of "Hoarders." But in a good way. By the way, plenty more to come about The Cottage. Trust me, I never shut up about it. Consider yourself fairly warned.

A couple Saturdays ago, under the guise of buying yet another pair of leggings (or jeggings or skeggings) for Lauren, I swung by The Village (Value Village for the uninitiated.) In addition to replenishing the legging supply and making my lucky cookbook find (see April 12th post), I took a real good look through the "kitchen stuff" for a few items on our cottage supplies list. 

As always, at The Village, there are treasures to be found, amid the kitcsch, the bizarre, and the "eww, where's the hand sanitizer?" items. I mean - water bottles - who is going to buy a used, plastic water bottle? I gag at the thought. And lingerie. Let's not even go there.

I saw a bunch of crock pots but have decided to hold off on buying one, since I don't know that I would actually use one at the cottage. I plan to cook differently there (as in fresh and leisurely and somewhat wine-lubricated versus "throw something in the crock pot on the way out the door to work!") so I took a pass. And while we're in the market for some decent random pots and pans to supplement our partial set, I didn't find anything to meet that need yet. If I was in the market for beat up pots, I'd have been set. Just sayin'. 

So now that I've told you what I didn't buy, here's what I did get:

- Large white serving platter - perfect for a plate of mixed grill (steak, salmon, chicken, etc.) or the Thanksgiving turkey

- smaller apple-motif  "cottagey" serving platter for appetizers, vegetables, etc.

- hip looking 4-part appetizer dish

- glass measuring cup

- salad spinner

- muffin tin

- a whack of acrylic stemware, including wine and champagne glasses. Yeah, I know, I say I won't drink out of someone's plastic water bottle but I bought plastic glasses. I'm not always logical.

- 4 brand spanking new with labels still on them Isaac Mizrahi hot pink and white linen-look napkins that can double as placements if the kids don't cover them in spaghetti sauce, gert, and schmenk.

I washed all the items in hot temperatures and plenty of cleaning product so we're all set. 

Total cost for my haul? $34.00! Brilliant!

Here's a picture of my purchases:

And here's Coco photobombing/admiring my purchases:

She wishes she could shop at The Village.

More Value Village haulage to come, I'm sure, so stay tuned!