One Thing At a Time: Yogurt

Since I'm gradually replacing the things in my house and the food in my fridge with safer, healthier alternatives, I thought I'd highlight which transitions were successful and which ones weren't.

Success: Rachel's Yogurt



I have an issue with yogurt. I absolutely love the stuff, but yogurt with fruit chunks in it makes me gag. Literally. I think it's the funky texture. You've got this nice creamy yogurt with chunks in it. It freaks me out... It kind of limits my yogurt options past vanilla and plain.

Imagine my delight when I took a chance and tried one of these, only to find absolutely no fruit chunks in the fruity yogurt! Finally! Someone else gets that it's gross! I can't vouch for all the flavors, but the Orange Strawberry Mango and Blueberry Pomegranate were both chunkless. And aside from not being chunky, it's also delicious and all natural! Acording to the website:

Always natural, Rachel’s products are free of artificial flavors, preservatives or sweeteners including no high fructose corn syrup and are made using milk from cows not given artificial growth hormones (rbST-free).

Sweet!

Proving That I'm a Grown Up Business Woman

I've been thinking lately about my need for a legitimate home office, a place where I can consult with clients and not be horribly embarrassed by the pile of shoes under the desk and the stack of junk mail covering the keyboard. Right now the nearest Starbucks is serving as my meet and greet place.

My office certainly isn't in bad shape, it's just not a place that says, "Professional and Capable Person Who Deserves your Business." I need to ditch the clutter, get a cafe' sized table and chairs, and print off some high-impact examples of my work. I recently got a membership through a canvas and photo printer and I get one free canvas and 40% of sample canvases for being a professional member. It would be really awesome to be able hang some examples up and show off what my work looks like in print. I also need to get together some subject-specific albums: babies, teens, weddings.

Right now I don't have a huge need for this, but eventually I'm hoping that I do. Wedding consultation is really the big reason I want to be able to have a nice home office. Brides and weddings is like "big time" for me. I adore wedding photography. I want this so badly. I need this. I've never been this ambitious about anything before and I think the progress I've already made has been great. My goal is to be self-employed by 28 so I'm moving right along...

I've also been reading more and more about business management and researching networking opportunities for creative fields and small businesses in Omaha. My friends and family have been of more help to me than I could have ever asked for, but it's also nice to have other people out there throwing my name around. I know that I'm not a top-notch, world-changing photographer, but I think I have what it takes to be a startup professional in this industry. With time, knowledge and help I think I can really do this.

Moses Prey

Friday night my husband's band, Moses Prey, had a show at Barley Street Tavern in Benson. I'd never been there before but the bar was pretty cool. My one complaint though: the Boulevard wasn't cold enough.

Organics and Green Cleaners

Buying organic food is something that Matt and I go back and forth on. Obviously, we would love to only shop at Whole Foods. There's no denying the quality of produce and meat available there, but our budget doesn't always allow it. Aside from the price of it there's also the limitation of giving up those certain delicious items that wouldn't exist without some mad food science. I'll be damned if I don't love me some Velveeta and Diet Coke.

CNN had a pretty informative article this morning about buying organic: How to buy the best organic foods. We've already started doing one of their tips which is gradually replacing items in your kitchen with their organic counterparts. First up in our house was eggs. The difference in price is pretty freaking big. ($2.40 vs $1.00) but I swear they taste better. There's more of an egg flavor to them. It makes sense though... A lot of the flavor in our meat and animal byproducts is lost because of the way they're breed and housed. Free-range chickens move around a lot more than caged chickens so the muscles have a stronger flavor to them. It's kind of like white meat verses dark meat. Dark meat comes from the muscles the chickens use (legs and thighs) and white meat comes from the muscles they don't (breasts and wings).

I also think it would be nice to rid my household of chemical cleaners. I'm slowly but surely replacing things like laundry detergents and cleaners with safer alternatives. Seventh Generation has some great products and even coupons on their site. Real Simple also had an incredibly thorough article a few issues back about items you may already have around the house that double as safe grime busters. I also think it's a smart thing to do now since we often have our little nieces and nephews over and might one day have kids of our own running around. Kids touch everything, investigate everything, put their mouths on everything... I'd feel much better knowing that my house is free of any unnecessary chemicals.

What does everyone else think of buying organic and natural? Is it important or just a bunch of hippie BS?

Also check out:

• Dirty Dozen: Top 12 Fruits and Vegetables to Buy Organic
• 18 Easy Convenience-Food Upgrades

Out of the Closet

I took the doors off the closet to refinish them and I had two very alarming thoughts.



1. That is one messy closet. It's going to be a few days before the door get put back on so maybe now is a good time to clean it out.



(That tis but a fraction of the shoes I own.)

2. Wow, that is one little (but now very unmessy) closet. Who in their right minds would make a master bedroom's closet that freaking small? Oh wait, people in the 1960s, that's who. Because forty years ago Americans weren't the giant clothes whores they all are now. At one time that was adequate wardrobe space for two adults.

As a result of refinishing my closet doors, I ended up purging three or four big bags of clothes I decided I no longer need. Lucky for me and my tiny closet, one of the side effects of being a broke homeowner on the verge of late-twenties is that I've aged past the point of wearing half the crap I bought when I was 20 and I'm too poor to go out and buy new stuff. Look at all that spare closet spare!

Tips: Removing Paint From Windows

I spent yesterday afternoon helping my dad fix our basement door. We (or he rather) got the threshold down and changed the lock and bolt set on the door. That only took a measly four hours! Today he's coming back to help install the new storm door.

Also included in the running list of "Why The Hell Would Anyone Do That?" house repairs is scraping the paint off the door's windows. The old owners painted the doors, the door knobs, the stripped screws, the keys to the door... Why? Seriously, why do people paint over windows? I know the obvious answer is "So people can't see inside," but that's not the answer I'm looking for. The answer is, "Because they're lazy." Only lazy people paint over windows.

Curtains or contact paper folks. It's as simple as that.

Obviously, the painted windows have to go. There are three small windows and I've got the paint scraped off one of them so far. It took me maybe 20-30 minutes. It was pretty easy. Obviously, it will scrape off with a razor blade, but the real trick is to spray it with Windex as you scrape. It will soften the latex a little bit and make it peel easier.

Gotta get back to those windows! Up next is scraping the paint off the garage windows... Fun!

If There Were 50 Hours in Every Day...

...I would:

Master fondant
And gum paste (whatever it is)
Learn to sew men's wear
Paint the closets
Write a cooking blog
Take up screen-printing
Landscape
Tile the laundry room
Make Blurb books for my family
Learn to make bread, pizza dough and biscuits
Reread all my favorite books
Discover new favorite books
Make mixes of all my favorite 60s bands
Upkeep my Etsy shop
Tailor all my vintage clothes

What would you do?