Sweet, Sweet Relaxation...

This weekend was yet another wonderful one. J and I spent the whole weekend together, and with no one else, which I thought was really great. I feel like we needed that, a chance to shut the world out and just focus on spending time with each other. I had a wardrobe make-over this weekend...inspired by my desperate need for work clothes. My work environment is an extremely casual one and for the past 4 years, I've been perfectly comfortable wearing jeans with holes in the knees and tee shirts, or shorts and tank tops, and while I may still wear those every once in a while, lately I've been feeling like my closet is completely empty. Last Thursday, I was attempting to get ready for work. Standing in front of my closet, I literally could not think of one thing that I could wear to work. I'm turning 24 in a few months, and the realization struck me that I don't have any professional clothes. No dress pants. No dress skirts. Very few dress tops. J has always been way more into professional fashion than I have, so I let him help me pick out a whole new work wardrobe! I ended up with 2 pairs of dress pants, 2 dress skirts, 6-7 dress tops, new heels, a new pea coat and some underwear accessories. I'm so excited!! I love all of the stuff I came home with, and I got it all at a deep discount, so I wasn't too sore in the pocketbook afterwards either...

Today, as the weekend was winding down, J mowed the lawn as I picked up the house a bit. Then he went to sleep before he had to go to work and I decided to make him some yummy treats to take to work and share with his fellow night-shifters. I decided to make what I am now naming Ooey-Gooey Peanut Butter Piles... So I thought I'd share the recipe with you!! :)

Ooey-Gooey Peanut Butter Piles:
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups cheerios (you can use name-brand or generic...I used Honey Nut Cheerios)

Combine corn syrup and sugar in a large pot on the stove. Over medium heat, bring the sugar and corn syrup to a boil. Allow to boil for one minute and then remove from heat. Add peanut butter and vanilla to the corn syrup mix and stir until smooth. Add the cheerios and stir until the cereal is evenly coated. Then drop by spoonfuls on to waxed paper. Allow to cool and store in a container. Delicious and super simple!! Took me about 30 minutes!!

I highly recommend them!! A new issue that we've been having around the house is house flies! Whenever I discuss this issue with anyone else, they say "Yeah it's that time of year...". I'd never noticed that there was a "time of year" for flies. Don't get me wrong, they're not terrible, it's not like a horror movie in my house, but there's usually about 2-3 in the house every day. It's getting extremely annoying. It seems like I can't kill them before there are new ones floating around! This has apparently been a problem for other people as well because when we went to WalMart to find fly paper or fly strips, we found out that they had sold out of them earlier this week... So I got online and started googling natural ways to make fly traps at home... and here's what I found a sugar and vinegar fly trap... Here are the directions for making one...

First, take an empty plastic water bottle or soda bottle and rinse it out. You could even use larger containers (empty 2-liter bottles, empty bleach cartons, empty milk jugs, etc) if you wanted to make larger traps...

Next, use a sharp knife to cut the bottle into two pieces, making the cut just under the section of the bottle that starts to curve (usually where the top of the label is).

Next, pour about 1/2 a cup of apple cider vinegar and 1-2 teaspoons of sugar into the bottom of the bottle and swish it around until the sugar is dissolved. This will be the solution that both lures the flies into the tap (because of the sugar) and kills them (because of the vinegar).

Finally, insert the top half of the bottle, nozzle down, into the bottom portion of the bottle, creating a funnel effect. This will give the flies access to the solution, but they will not be able to get out because their instinct is to go UP, not down and THEN up. I secured the edges of the bottle together with Scotch Tape just to make it more secure, but this isn't necessary...

And voila!! Done and done! I'm hoping that this works to trap some of those little pests...