Materials Needed: Please see Tip Nut for the full instructions. I decided to attempt cooking the oatmeal in my slow cooker and followed the instructions exactly except I substituted the steel cut oats for regular rolled oats because that is what I had in my pantry. I wanted to see if the experiment worked well before heading to the store. My slow cooker is the standard size and I poured the ingredients in there. I was really intrigued by the water to oats ratio because it just seemed like far too much water. I flipped the slow cooker on and let it cook for eight hours.
Results: I programmed my coffeemaker for the same exact time and woke up to a steaming bowl of oatmeal and hot coffee this morning. The oatmeal still seemed a little thin, but I let it set up for a minute or two before I tried it. Within minutes, it thickened up and I had a perfect bowl of oatmeal.
This oatmeal is extremely creamy and tastes delicious! It tastes more on par with restaurant oatmeal because of the great consistency of it. With a lump of brown sugar and some dried fruits, it would make a wonderful way to start the day.
Conclusion: I will definitely be buying the steel cut oatmeal to eat this again. It was a wonderful way to walk up and motivated me to have breakfast which is very hard to do! Thanks Tip Nut for sharing all of your tips with your readers!
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I am so excited to open our Notebook Experiments up to everyone and I hope that you will be able to participate this week or in weeks to come! I will be posting this each Thursday so please mark your calendars if you plan to participate. You can post your entries at any time throughout the week and then leave your entry in the links below.
We have this handy banner that you are more than welcome to use, but it is not a requirement! It is just something you can add to add a little sparkle to your entry.
Rules for Participation:
1. Choose anything from any of our notebook entries (past or present) to do with your family. We have hundreds of bookmarked links of crafts, ways to save money, and organizing ideas. 2. Complete an experiment from the notebook and share about it on your blog or website. We would love to see pictures of what you accomplished or a detailed description of how your projects turned out. Please include a link to this entry, a link to the original posting of the entry (at the original crafster’s blog), and (to help us relocate the project) the date or link of the notebook entry where you found it. You can use the same formatting as our entries or you can just include that information in your post in your own unique way! 3. Post a link below. Please include your name or blog name & a fast description of your project. Example- MomAdvice (WHO bread)
I can’t wait to see what you create and what you find inspiring!
Calendars, planners, and online software change each year so for the back-to-school season, I would like to share with you some of the family planning options available to you for the new 2009 school year.
Let’s start with online planners since these are typically a free option for families. Online tools are ideal for clearing the paper clutter from your life and can be easily shared among family members. When using paper calendars, it can be difficult to get your family all on the same page (so to speak) so online tools can be a great option for making sure everyone is aware of those meetings and appointments.
Here is a quick round-up of our favorite online calendar tools:
Qlubb-This is a fantastic tool for getting people and events organized in your mommy life. Qlubb is a web-based group utility that enables real-world groups to easily connect, share and get stuff done. Qlubb brings all aspects of group interaction to one simple and intuitive place. With event calendaring, sign-up sheets, photo sharing, member rosters, file sharing, task reminder service, and bulletin boards, Qlubb provides all the functions needed to easily and actively participate within a group. This online tool is idea for room parents, club organizers, scout troop leaders, PTO, and playgroup activities.
Google Calendar– This seems to be a favorite among families because it syncs so well with everything in a busy mom’s life. Busy families can easily link to one another’s calendars to avoid scheduling conflicts which makes it a very appealing option. You can import events from other calendar programs like Yahoo! Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. You also can set up multiple calendars for different areas of your life, like one for your daughter’s ballet schedule or one for your weekly night’s out with your girlfriends. Party planning and invitations can be done through the calendar as well as setting up reminders for important events in your life. I love that you can share your calendar with your family (or the world, if you so choose) which should help trigger your spouse’s memory for that dinner with your family that he was so not looking forward to.
Cozi– In my opinion, this is one of the best free online tools that there is. I really just love the look and the feel of this calendar. I loved this calendar when it first came out, but they have made a new recent addition and you can now sync to Outlook, which makes adding events a whole lot easier. This software is made with a mom in mind. It is easy to use, color-coded (for each family member), includes pictures of your sweet little ones, helps you with your grocery list, has calendars with alerts letting you know when your appointments are and you can send love notes to your hubby…all from one central location. Left your grocery list at home? Just call Cozi’s toll-free number from any mobile phone and have your list read to you or sent as a text message.
remember the milk– This site is great for our list-writing mommas. You can make as many lists as you like and no one will tell you to put your notepads away. Into tagging items on your blog? Use the task cloud to easily see what you have to do. Want to store notes along with your tasks? You can do that too. Saving gas is always a priority too and you can use the map feature to see where your tasks are located in the real world. See what’s nearby or on your way, and plan the best way to get things done.
Ta-da Lists- Another great site for the list-writing mommas because that is virtually all this program is. It is simple, it takes about ten seconds to sign up for an account and you can make as many lists as you like. You could also be like, “Ta-da!” and have this open on your computer with a giant list of things you need your spouse to do… you know, if you were that kind of spouse!
Online planning has come a long way, but many families still rely on the good old-fashioned paper calendars to get their days organized. Despite using a computer to manage my business, I am still guilty of indulging in paper organizers to manage our hectic lives.
There are many budget-friendly organizers on the market and I wanted to highlight for you a few of my favorites for managing our schedules:
Family Facts On the Go Organizer & Planner– For the past three years, this has been my calendar of choice for my family. This calendar has everything that I need and is the perfect size to still tuck into my purse. My favorite things about this organizer is that it has tear off corners to mark what week you are on, it has a very durable waterproof cover that can withstand the elements, and it has organizing pockets where I can tuck in business cards or bills that need to be taken care of. The calendar starts in September, getting moms kicked off right to school with a brand new organizer. I have converted many friends over to this organizer because it has all of the tools you need right at your fingertips. (Price- $14.95)
BusyBodyBooks Academic Organizer– If you are attracted to a calendar with simplicity and lots of room to write down schedules, then this is the calendar for you. I would compare this organizer to a paper-format of the Cozi online calendar.
These organizers are roomy and have a weekly grid format with a spacious side by side view of your schedule. Each family member can get their own column of activities, making it easy to see who needs to be where. These columns can accommodate up to five family members on each page.
In addition to your standard calendar, the organizer offers extras like a planning calendar for birthdays and anniversaries, another calendar for the next year’s appointments, shopping lists, pockets to store items, a bookmark to mark what week you are on, and plenty of places to leave extra notes. (Price- $17.59)
BusyBodyBooks Wall Calendar– This calendar offers seven columns to arrange multiple and hectic schedules side by side. If you have less than seven family members, like our family, the other columns are helpful for organizing a chore/work schedule and your family’s menu plans for the week.
Other fun elements that make this calendar a winner is the pocket for storage, a place to start tracking appointments for the next year (no more do you have to write in the margins until you buy your calendar) and a place to keep track of birthdays and important emergency information. I also love that this calendar is spiral-bound so that it can lay completely flat when I am filling it out or when being hung on the wall.
Each week is an an entire page in the wall calendar, offering a generous amount of room for recording all of life’s little details. At the bottom of each page is a section for checklists and note taking. (Price- $14.65)
momAgenda– I keep two separate organizers to manage my business and my home life. For the last year, I have been using my momAgenda to organize everything for my website and I absolutely love it.
This calendar is clean and simple, but very elegantly bound. The calendar pages are set up in such a way that they provide ample room to get all of your scheduling needs in it. Each month has two pages devoted towards the month-at-a-glance and then it is divided by week (two pages per week). The weekly pages offer room to categorize which is very useful for a mom who needs to divide her work and home life or just wants to divide schedules. The book has two ribbon bookmarks to bookmark what week you are on and any area other area in your calendar you would like to keep bookmarked. Each page provides a great motivational quote and there are many other sections within the MomAgenda that make it a great tool for moms. For example, a party-planning section, a place to jot down favorite wines, and even a list of favorite websites.
This is higher priced than the other organizers that are highlighted, but I know many moms would get their money’s worth out of this one. The momAgenda website does, however, offer oodles of free printables that can help you get organized this year including a great back-to-school checklist that I plan to use this year. (Price- $45)
Jumbo Dry Erase Wall Calendar– I love dry erase calendars and go to town color coding everyone and making notes on these. I requested this wall calendar as a gift this past year for Christmas, never glancing at the dimensions when ordering it. When I received this calendar, I was shocked to find that it is about the size of an actual wall. After getting over my initial shock, it has been a great addition to our office to organize everyone’s schedules in one spot. If you have the wall space and a big family, I would recommend this calendar for your busy family. (Price- $14.99)
MomAdvice Weekly Planner– What list would be complete without our free printable weekly planner that we offer? I have heard from many families that this is a tool that they use when managing their busy lives. Unlike most planners, our design leaves just as much room for your weekend as the rest of the week. See all of your appointments, reminders and entire To Do list, all on one page. Fits any standard 8½ x 11″ binder. (Price- FREE)
Family Facts School Years Memento Keeper– While this is not a calendar tool, I absolutely have to highlight this as a way to jot down all of those memories and as a way to keep track of all of those endless papers that are coming home from school.
This memento keeper is thoughtfully put together and is built to last with durable pages and a strong hardback cover to keep all of those precious glitter projects safe.
The book starts with pre-kindergarten and ends with your child’s senior year in high school. For each section, there is a section for information about themselves, a spot for their photo, a place for their school information, summer vacation memories, and special memories from the holidays. There are also clever sections that your child can write their signature, draw a picture of themselves, and memories that their siblings and parents can share about them each year. Thoughtfully placed is a pocket in each section for your child’s favorite mementos, report card, photos, or report card. (Price- $22.95)
Do you use any calendar tools for managing your day? What has been the most successful in your family?
Welcome to our Apron Full of Giveaways, where we round up all of the best giveaways on the web. This is the spot where you can share your blog contests or where you can find fantastic stuff to enter.
Below are the contest links-if you are hosting a contest please link it up below. Sorry, we aren’t giving away the aprons just showcasing them! Please put your site name and then what type of contest you are hosting. For example, “MomAdvice (Children’s Movies).”
Please let me know if you have any questions and good luck to each of you!
I love meals that are fast, elegant enough to entertain with, and will free up needed pantry space. This dish fit the bill when I overbought on pesto for my son’s birthday. I kept thinking that the pesto would be fantastic mixed in a sauce. When I happened upon some chicken and cheese stuffed ravioli while perusing the wholesale club, I knew I would be able to whip something amazing up.
The flecks of green and foreign stuffing in the pasta would have been a turn off for many kids, but after a good five minutes of coaxing, the forks plunged into the dishes and quiet smacking was all that was heard the rest of the dinner hour…
Well, that and the request for more “honey” for bread by the sweet voices gathered around the dinner table. Yes, my children believe olive oil is a common commodity, much like other children request ketchup for dipping. Oh, if I only had such a gourmet palate when I was a child, I know I would be destined to create great things in the kitchen. Let’s hope these extravagant luxuries can be endured on a teeny grocery budget.
Ravioli With Pesto Cream Sauce
1 pound fresh or frozen ravioli 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons minced garlic 1/4 cup butter 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 cups milk (we used skim milk) 1 pinch salt 1 pinch pepper 1 1/2 cups grated Romano cheese 1 cup prepared pesto Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook as directed and drain. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in garlic and butter, and saute until garlic is soft and fragrant, about 1 minute. Dissolve flour in milk, then stir in. Season with salt and pepper, and simmer 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Add cheese, and stir until melted. Stir in pesto. Dish ravioli on plates and then drizzle the pesto cream sauce over it. Garnish with a little fresh basil or chopped parsley.
PS- Be sure to serve with oodles of bread with “honey” for dipping for those gourmet palates!
I just want to say a special thank you to each of you for visiting my website and sharing it with your friends, family, and your own readers. We had another great month and it is all thanks to you. I hope to continue offering support through our site, lots of giveaways for our readers, and a place where you feel valued and cared for. If there is anything you would like to see on here, please contact me (amy@momadvice.com) and let me know what you would like to see in the upcoming year.
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Please take some time this month to check out each of their sites. They are amazing at what they do and we are thankful that we have such great supporters!
Heather, from Freebies 4 Mom, has gathered up a fantastic freebie list for us this week. I am so excited, in particular, about the Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee and all of these upcoming freebie events. Make sure to check out Heather’s list of recommended money-making opportunities to earn a little extra cash for the back-t0-school season! Thank you, Heather!
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart. ~Celia Thaxter
Blueberry picking was a huge success for our family. I can’t recall ever picking blueberries before and I think we all marveled at how beautiful these berries were and the amazing abundance of them on each bush.
We headed to the Organic Blueberry Ranch in Mishawaka, Indiana. It is one of the largest in the Midwest, but their latest claim to fame is that they only sell certified organic berries. What a treasure this is to our community and it is only fifteen minutes from our house!
If you want a sweet little adventure with your children, make sure to take advantage of all of the berry picking. I was fortunate to have one child who doesn’t like berries, who could assist me with filling our pail, and one child who just sat down and consumed berries the entire time. In my opinion, that makes for a perfect team!
We only filled a small pail, but it was enough to have a little fun in the kitchen with and eat by the handfuls. I hope to return again before the season is over so that we can create a few more dishes with this summer treat!
I hope you are enjoying some of these sweet and simple summer pleasures too.
One of my dearest friends and I built our relationship up through daily email exchanges about our lives. We started emailing when my husband and I were just newlyweds and she was in a committed relationship. Our emails continued as we journeyed to Massachusetts and settled down in our first home, through my pregnancy, her engagement, her marriage, and her first baby, my second baby, her second baby… each email carefully documented our daily joys and struggles. When I became a mother my emails were full of joy, but a lot of whining about sleep, difficulty transitioning into motherhood, problems nursing, and general woes. Her emails were filled with encouragement and hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. When she wrote about motherhood though, she rarely complained but just reveled in the joy of being a mother. She was like that, she just enjoyed life.
Whatever she wrote about though, I seemed to want. It wasn’t belongings, but a sense of peace and of tranquility that she seemed to capture, that I had never had. I was always running, always going, always busy…I now realize that I didn’t take the time to enjoy the simple things, the simple life, and the simple goodness that could be created by being still for a moment.
I am trying to transition out of the busy bee world and into a more quiet time with my children. Perhaps it is melancholy because my firstborn will be attending first grade next year or perhaps it is just the realization that I don’t need to be running or constantly entertained to enjoy a quiet spell in my life.
Today was just one example of what a quiet day for us is like. The windows were cracked and I could feel the fresh air blowing into our house and the smell of freshly cut grass. I look down at my daughter as I feel her deliberate and persistent tapping on my leg. As I look down at her, I smile because she is wearing a pair of my shoes on her chubby little feet. Of all her toys, it is these shoes she loves and she calls them her “tap shoes” as she scoots the sandals across the floor. I look over at my son who is curled at one end of our sofa with a book. I can hear him as he sounds out each word very carefully and slowly, just as he has been taught in school. I revel in his growing vocabulary and how much he has learned this year- he has grown so much.
The smell of fresh muffins travels through the room as I wrap up my baking for the week ahead. This batch of muffins is stuffed to the brim with oatmeal and a little bit of chocolate, to balance out the heartiness and make them more appealing to my children. The muffins smell like freshly baked cookies and the kids begin to count down the minutes until they will be cool enough to handle.
I hum a little bit as I tidy up the kitchen, from the day spent baking, and fill the sink with the dirty dishes. The suds and warm water fill the sink and I dip my hands into the bubbles to finish the day’s dishes. As I scrub, I look out the window at our sweet little garden that we planted together. I recall the tender way my son wanted to help plant each and every plant, asking each time, “What can I do, mommy?” He was there for each step of the process and helped to water our finished product. He was just as proud and dirty as me that day.
I then sit at the other end of the sofa with my son and the sound of my knitting needles, Emily’s tap shoes, and my son’s quiet readings are all you hear. We enjoy the quiet of this day and look forward to our idyllic summer together. This stillness is what I need and I see our children growing from it. Not from the organized activities, the well-thought and well-executed organized crafts, the busy running. No, they thrive in the quiet and stillness…and so do I.
Do you see how the mundane can be made to sound lovely? Just as advertisers would have us believe that a new car will give us this amazing life we have always dreamed of, simple writing about simple pleasures may invoke that same enthusiasm. Suddenly baking muffins, knitting, quiet moments, a tiny garden, and doing dishes sound lovely…and you begin to want that. Imagine if the whole world returned to these simple pleasures- joy in the laundry hanging on the line, kids playing in sprinklers instead of with electronic gadgets, freshly baked goodies straight from your own oven, an appreciation for the beauty in nature instead of the beauty of our exterior selves…I would imagine that it would put a lot of companies out of business.
Today I challenge you to a day of simplicity and I look forward to hearing what special and simple things bring you the most joy in your life.
Is it your children’s laughter? Is it a freshly cracked library book? Is it the quiet time you spend with your spouse after your children have went to bed? Is it that first cup of morning coffee with a dash of cream? What are some simple pleasures that bring you happiness? Revel in those things, bring those things into your life, focus on those simple and amazing pleasures and see if it doesn’t bring into perspective the beautiful life you are already leading.
What simple pleasures in life do you enjoy the most?
I am so excited to open our Notebook Experiments up to everyone and I hope that you will be able to participate this week or in weeks to come! I will be posting this each Thursday so please mark your calendars if you plan to participate. You can post your entries at any time throughout the week and then leave your entry in the links below.
