It’s tax season again and today I’d like to share with you an annual tax season tradition in our home: the personal financial statement. I know, I know — finances? Boring! But before you close your tab or head back to Facebook, hear me out. Yes, finances are boring (usually anyway) and sometimes stressful. But […]
Meet Cricket and Bean (Don’t Shop, Adopt!)
Meet Cricket and Bean, our two beloved rescue pups. They both recently had birthdays, so it seemed like the perfect time to introduce them to the blog. Like I just said, they’re both rescues. Animal rights, animal shelters, and pet adoption are favorite causes for me. There are so many great dogs (and other pets) […]
The Lazy Vegetarian’s Guide to Meal Planning
If you’re looking for easy meal ideas that don’t cost much and are simple crowd-pleasers, look no further! Here are several lazy vegetarian meal planning ideas.
Fast & Easy Family Friendly Party Menu
I love New Year’s Eve. It’s easily one of my favorite holidays; its celebration is short-lived, non-committal, requires zero travel, and celebratory beverages and staying up late are optional. The last few years my husband and I have started a new tradition with some friends: Deep Fried NYE. We find that it’s the perfect way […]
The Haakaa: A Breastfeeding Mom Must-Have
With my first child, I considered my breastfeeding journey fairly successful. I pumped for 11 months and continued on for an additional 14 months afterward. I never gave up even though it was tough when I returned to work with almost no stash stored. Going in that first time around, I had no idea what […]
Breastfeeding: The Good Latch Checklist
When my second child was born and we first tried breastfeeding, I was quickly flooded with memories of my first week of learning to breastfeed my first. In that initial go-around with my first, trying to achieve a quality latch was a challenge. The first week or two was a real struggle, but eventually we […]
Super Awesome Skin Cream
The following recipe is for a product that I’ve been using regularly since I found out that I was pregnant five years ago. It started out as a DIY stretch mark cream, progressed into a lotion, then was adopted as a facial moisturizer, and the rest is history. Jars of it have been strategically […]
Funky Crunchy Mama’s Creamy Wild Rice Soup
If you’ve ever been up nort’, I’m guessing you’ve been introduced to a few local favorites: cheese curds — both squeaky and fried — a local Friday night fish fry (and hopefully the fish was a locally sourced walleye), and wild rice — probably in a soup, possibly in a pilaf, perhaps stuffed in mushrooms, […]
How to Use a Stalk of Celery
Celery. Does anyone really like celery? I’ve always kind of been on the fence as to whether I like it or not. Maybe it’s good or maybe it’s just necessary, but most of the time when I buy it, it sits in my refrigerator, unused, until it becomes so wilted that I finally just chuck […]
How to Keep Thanksgiving Simple
Man, oh man, can Thanksgiving be complicated! When my husband and I started dating, we’d pretty much split our day into three parts: his parents, my parents, and the bar. We’d eat too much at both sets of parents’, receive leftovers at both places, then dress up like truckers and digest with our friends from […]
