Monday, April 9, 2012

April Monthly Newsletter


April Monthly Newsletter

www.enjoyrnr.com • (484)903-9808

Don’t you love this time of year? Can spring cleaning and flowers blooming be any better!? Now is a great time to think about what your home needs, before all the kids come home for summer break and it is difficult to work around them. How is your attic looking? Need organization help? We can help on an hourly basis for a minimum of 4 hours, which can get A LOT done! Or are your windows in need of a cleaning? Our prices depend upon type and location of your windows and the range is between $7-$15 a window. So count them up and let us know what kind of windows you have and we would love to give you a quick estimate! Now is the time!

Charity of the Month

In the month of April we will be donating 5% of our sales to Nature Conservancy. They work to make a positive impact around the world in more than 30 countries, all 50 United States and in your own backyard. They help habitats from the coral reefs to the deserts and they work to protect the lands and waters that plants and animals need to survive—for us and for future generations. They also face tough conservation issues such as climate change, rainforest preservation, and energy development in a growing world. To learn more about them please visit http://www.nature.org/.

Organization Idea of the Month

How is your desk holding up? Is it piled high with papers yet this year? An option that may work for you and your family could be “Go To” binders. These are binders that keep your daily, monthly and yearly things in order. Filing cabinets are great, if you can keep them in order, and some of us can’t crouch down or see very well inside a dark cabinet. So you can take this idea and use it for your daily needs, or go so far as to file with binders! First take binders and fill them with empty paper protectors and label each binder with the items that are inside. Daily binders might be: bills, receipts, food plan (budgets, menu plans, etc.), to file, etc. You may then want to label some files:

Wife Personal (birth cert., transcripts, passport, licenses, personal letters/keepsakes, etc.)
Husband Personal (see Wife Personal)
Auto (filed by car: maintenance/repair logs, insurance, titles, bills of sale, etc.)
Medical/Health (medical bills, insurance packets, past records, etc.)
Finance/Money (anything bank related, student loans, credit cards, etc.)
Employment (resumes, W-2's, acceptance letters, freelance invoices/forms, etc.)
Warranties & Manuals
House (loan/refinance docs, rental paperwork, maintenance/repair bills, tax/insurance form, deeds, etc.)

This method can also be used for kids’ paperwork, small crafts, memorabilia, and so much more!


Cleaning Idea of the Month

                This time of year you might hear “Spring Cleaning” 100 times in a day. One has to stop and wonder, what is a “real” spring clean? For some it’s actually vacuuming, for others it’s windows, and for most it’s getting where you normally can’t reach. For example behind your refrigerator, stove, washer, dryer, hot water heater, your bed, the list can go on and on. How can you make this easier you ask? Well, we have the solutions. If you need to move a piece of furniture far enough that you have to use the brush part of your vacuum, save yourself the trouble, and use EZ-Slide. You can purchase them as one time use or reusable. We recommend the reusable. You don’t want all the furniture in your home being able to slide easily. To use the reusable ones you just lift a corner, place these discs underneath and slide around the room. You may even want to rearrange once you see how easy it is! You can purchase them for $17 at Bed, Bath and Beyond and they will last you for years to come. It is worth the price. Also when you want to get behind your water heater or your oven, just get an old panty hose and rubber band it around the attachment of your vacuum. Then you can reach behind every place you want and not suck up that lid you had been looking for or that earring you thought was lost. So get to it and enjoy!


Craft of the Month

                Come spring, who doesn’t like a lot of flowers in their home?! However to purchase all matching pots or to have some that all look the same is difficult and sometimes very expensive. Here is a great way to make your home look beautiful with little effort, using any pots, plastic or ceramic. Before you transfer your plants into new pots, take some desirable cloth, cut it to fit around the pot and run a line of hot glue around the inside lip of the pot. Fold the cloth over and run another line of glue around the base of the rim, then again at the very bottom. Tightly squeeze the cloth around the pot. At the bottom cut the cloth for size and glue, but not too much – you don’t want the cloth to get wet and mold. You will have some extra cloth, so as you run your hands down, just gather on one side and fold over.


Healthy Idea of the Month

                Now that spring has sprung so many people are cleaning, baking, getting cheap produce and homes are just buzzing. However, being so full of activity there can be the potential of waste. Here are some tips on freezing food when you have that baking frenzy feeling, or find that great cheap produce!

I’ve been known for baking huge batches of sweets in one day and then freezing them for our enjoyment over the next few months. This saves me tons of time, we love our sweets!

Brownies & Cookies: Yup, I do it all the time. Just put them in resealable bags or storage containers with tight-fitting lids and they’ll last as long as you can resist them!

Breads, Buns, Muffins, and Rolls: Just double-bag them to prevent freezer burn and they should be fine for several months.

Cupcakes & Cake: Yes, I’ve frozen cupcakes and even whole cakes! You can frost cakes before or after freezing them, but if you use store-bought frosting, you’ll want to wait to frost them until after they defrost…trust me!

Granola: Yup, you can freeze it in mason jars or zip-top bags!

Pies: Just make sure to freeze them before you bake them.

Baking Supplies: I freeze many of my baking supplies in shoe boxes in our freezer! {Shoe boxes stack well and allow for ventilation.}

Chocolate: You can store all your baking chocolates in the freezer because they keep for much longer this way and taste “fresher”. Plus it frees up more space in your cabinets.

Nuts: I store all our nuts in the freezer to keep their oils from going rancid. I first heard this tip from Rachel Ray and it seems to work — so it must be true!

Flour and Sugar: While it’s not necessary, you can freeze flour and sugar — especially in the summer when houses tend to be more humid.

Fruits:

Before freezing fruit, make sure it’s washed, dried, and divided into smaller portions. This will make it easy to quickly grab what you need without defrosting the entire batch. Fruits should keep for up to a year if properly sealed.

All Fruits: You can pretty much freeze any fruit you plan to use in smoothies because it will get mashed up anyway; however, don’t plan on freezing fruit simply for eating — it will be really soggy.

Berries: I freeze all kinds of berries for pancakes and smoothies. I also keep 2-cup containers of crushed berries to use for making jam, ice-cream toppings, or for berry shortcake.

Bananas: I peel any rotten bananas and put 4 bananas in a bag or freezer container. Then whenever a recipe calls for bananas, I just grab a container to defrost

Meals:

I’m always making double batches of our favorite foods to store in the freezer. Then on busy days, I just defrost one in the morning, and it’s usually ready by dinner time.

Soups, Stews, and Broths: I divide these up into 1 or 2 cup portions so they defrost quicker.

Casseroles: I’ve frozen everything from lasagna and fajitas, to enchiladas, chicken dishes, and more! Just make sure all the ingredients are fully cooked before you freeze it. When you’re ready to eat it, just defrost and bake as normal.

Meat: You can freeze cooked meat, raw meat, ground meat, shredded meat, “whole” meat, etc. Just make sure it’s properly sealed to prevent freezer burn.

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