Home Exchange

In case you haven't heard, my husband & I use homeexchange.com A LOT. We use it for almost all of our vacations.

If you haven't heard of it nor seen the movie The Holiday, basically you pay $120 per year to sign up on the website. You list your home with photos and information. You can then email anyone on the website or wait for people to contact you.

Since we live in the middle nowhere, we usually have to contact people. You can send out dozens of emails at a time. We have been to Lancaster, Washington DC, Arizona, Alabama (a condo RIGHT on the Gulf of Mexico!) and Florida. We have also been to Ireland. There are 43,000+ members from all over the world.

At the beginning of this year my husband sent out 20 or so emails to home exchange members in North Carolina. And we got positive responses from 5 people! One of which has an estate and a private 7 area lake. Crazy, right? We decided to swap with all five and have exchanges already set up with 4 for this year and another for next year.

Yesterday I woke up to an email request from a member in the Netherlands asking if we wanted to swap homes and cars with them. How awesome! And so we are going there in August. The Netherlands is close to Germany and only 5 hours from Paris. We are so excited!

So, if you think you cannot 'afford' a vacation because of hotel costs and car rentals, I would encourage you to try home exchange. It is great for a family since most homes have multiple bedrooms and bathrooms. You get to see a ton of photos and communicate with the owner.

Remember, that when you go to a hotel THOUSANDS of people have slept in that same bed. They have sat on that same toilet and used the same remote. With home exchange, usually only a few people have slept on the bed - the owners!

If you are interested, feel free to email me. As a member, I can 'gift' you a membership for 12 months at 50% off. I get nothing from this deal and you get a great opportunity for less than $60 for the year.

Recent Ebay Sales - 2/12/13

Well, my shingles rash is finally healing and the pain has gone. It got really itchy for awhile but I think it will completely heal without any scars. 

This week my husband & I are doing a major house cleaning since we have company coming this weekend. I love to clean the house when I have time so I am looking forward to it. 

Most of my ebay sales are under $20 which still allows me a $15 profit per item. I usually just list the items that went for $20 or more here on my blog. Although I didn't have a 'woo-hoo' item (that is what ebayers call a huge, unexpected sale), I had a steady week. 

Here is what sold this past week: 

1. April Cornell purple dress, sold for $20. 

2.  Chico's blue jersey skirt, sold for $20. 

3. Talbots black & white zigzag long sweater, sold for $33. I wore this two church before I listed it and got a ton of compliments. 

4. Ann Taylor (factory) floral dress, sold for $26. 

5. Talbots black square neck dress, sold for $25 within hours of listing. 

 

6. Eileen Fisher black skirt, sold for $35 within hours of listing. 

 

7. Ralph Lauren navy blue polka dot silk dress, sold for $25 within hours of listing. 

8. Chico's linen jacket, sold for $26. 

9. Calvin Klein dress, sold for $38. 

10. Ann Taylor black pin stripe suit, sold for $29 within a day of listing. 

11. MM Couture by Miss Me coral dress, sold for $21. 

12. Ralph Lauren light blue denim dress, sold for $20. The buyer also purchased 8 other items from my ebay store. The total of her bill was $180! 

13. Talbots navy floral dress, sold for $23. 

14. Talbots orange linen skirt, sold for $23. 

15. Talbots purple & gray floral skirt, sold for $24. 

16. Talbots blue & white stripe seersucker jacket, sold for $26. 

17. Chico's slinky purple outfit, sold for $22. This would have brought more but it was their smallest size. 

18. Chico's white Chinese lantern print jacket, sold for $30. 

Homemade Granola Bars

I love the convenience of grabbing a granola bar since I am on the road a lot. I have been eating Luna bars which are SOOOO yummy but cost almost a dollar a bar. Since I eat about 3 a day, that gets expensive. 

I found this granola bar recipe on Pinterest and stole it.

The cost is around $5 for the batch depending on what kind of nuts you add. I cut mine into 10 bars so the cost is about 50 cents a bar.

1 bar is about 110 calories, 15 g. of carbs (7 g sugar), 5 g fat, 3 g of protein.

Here is the recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together 3/4 cup of applesauce (I used cinnamon flavored - yum!) and 1 ripe banana.

Mash together.

On a baking sheet, toast 28 crushed almonds and 6 tablespoons of coconut (I skipped this step and just added them to the mix).

Add the remaining ingredients:

1/2 cup dried fruit (I added dried cranberries)
1 cup uncooked oats
8 tablespoons of flax seed

Mix all ingredients together. Moisten your fingers well and start packing the mixture into a baking pan (I lined mine with foil so it wouldn't stick). The mixture should be the thickness of a granola bar. I used a 9" x 12" pan since I didn't have a square pan. The mixture would fit perfectly in a 9" x 9" pan. 

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown on top. Then allow to cool and cut into bars.

These will last for about 1 week in a tupperware container in the fridge.

I made my husband his own batch using honey and peanut butter instead of the banana & applesauce and he loved them. They didn't stick as well but he added the broken crumbles into pudding.

Avacodo Fail

For my New Year's resolution, I promised myself I would try a new vegetable or fruit every week for the entire year. 

This week was going to be avacodo. 'Was' being the key word. 

I purchased it on Sunday and kind of forgot about it put it off. Until today. I was not looking forward to trying it. I took it out of the fridge earlier today and it was making an odd noise when I squeezed it. And then it kind of oozed a bit. 

It then it kind of broke open. It seems I waited too long and it went bad. So now I have to buy another. Darn it. 


And for some reason I took photos of my freezer & fridge while I had the camera out. My husband & I eat the same foods almost every day.

Our freezer holds four things: beef, frozen chicken, frozen grilled chicken and coffee for guests. 

 
 And the fridge: 

Lots of soda!

The plastic containers hold my husband's food: cooked chicken, eggs & beef. I cook once a week for him.

My food: fruit!

 I literally eat homemade granola bars, fruit and grilled chicken every day. Once in a while I add wheat pasta & dairy free sauce. It makes it easy to know what to buy at the grocery store!

 

Laundry Room Photos

Our home was built in the 1980's. When we purchased the home, there was layer upon layer of ugly lovely floral wallpaper. There was dark wood trim & paneling everywhere. There was powder blue appliances and tons of linoleum. We painted bright, crazy colors when we moved in 11 years ago. And then we kind of grew tired of them. 

We have spent the last 5 years re-doing the entire house and I loved every second of it. The last room to be done was the laundry room. We had originally painted lime green & tiled the floor with really cheap tile (seriously...the entire floor cost us $30!). I wanted something different this time. Something calm & not neon. 

I came across this blog and bookmarked it last year. The hubby agreed to the color (yippee!) and we bought two gallons of it. 

Here are my before & afters. 

Before: 

Before: Lime green walls, dark wood doors & trim, black & white flooring. 

After: 

 We painted the doors & trim white, painted the walls blue, I used a Target shower curtain to make a valance and purchased Mohawk laminate flooring from Home Depot. Total cost? About $400 for the entire re-do!

The lamp was a TJ Maxx clearance purchase. My homemade laundry detergent sits out all the time.

The 'wash' sign was purchased at TJ Maxx years ago and my hubby sprayed it white. I really want a chandelier to replace this light but they are expensive! I am searching for one at a thrift.

My folding table was free! The top is a used door and the two cabinets on the bottom were from a retirement community. One side holds the sheets and the other holds cleaning products.

I love our stacked washer/dryer. It came with the house and it frees up a lot of room.

Hiding behind the washer & dryer is our scale & trash container.

My husband's tool cabinet is hiding in the closet. It does not match. Too bad these don't come in white or pale blue. Ha!

Recent Ebay Sales - 2/6/13

My hubby & I have been painting a fellow church member's bedroom. We are headed back today. They are older and I LOVE TO PAINT! Seriously, I love it. A gallon of paint makes such a huge difference. Unfortunately (for me), they wanted the same exact color. They had ivory on the walls and they wanted the same (boring) shade of ivory. It makes it hard to see where you painted and there is not that big of a difference. 

I haven't been doing as much on ebay since we have been out of the house a lot. Yesterday I was able to put up about 20 items before we left and another 15 when we got back. I currently have over 600 items for sale.

And...I went to the doctor about my rash (which I originally thought was from food allergies). Turns out I have shingles. Thankfully it is contained to my back. It is super itchy at times and I have to keep myself from scratching it. It takes me back to my chicken pox days in third grade.

Here is what has sold recently: 

1. American Eagle jeans, sold for $20. 

2. J. Crew pink mini skirt, sold for $20. 

3. Victoria's Secret bikini top, sold for $20 within a week of listing. 

4. Coldwater Creek printed skirt, sold for $20. 

5. White House Black Market strapless dress, sold for $25. 

6. Coldwater Creek loose tunic top, sold for $19. 

7. Talbots teal corduroy skirt, sold for $20. 

8. Talbots merino wool dress, sold for $20. 

9. Coldwater Creek skirt, sold for $20. 

10. Soft Surroundings skirt, sold for $34. 

11. Patagonia skirt, sold for $20. I found & sold TWO of these this week. Same style, same color.

12. Talbots green skirt, sold for $20. 

13. Jennifer Lopez tweed mini dress, sold for $20. 

14. J. Crew strapless cotton dress, sold for $20. 

15. Ralph Lauren long denim skirt, sold for $20. 

16. Anthropologie's "Lithe" skirt, sold for $35 due to a flaw. 

17. Garnet Hill tiered skirt, sold for $33. 

18. Anthropologie's "Sitwell" skirt, sold for $23. 

19. XCVI gathered skirt, sold for $25 with a day of listing. 

20. Ralph Lauren crested blazer in a plus size. Sold for $125 with a day of listing. Woo-hoo! 

21. Ralph Lauren polo dress, sold for $20. 

22. White House Black Market skirt, sold for $19.50. 

23. Nanette Lepore black tweed skirt, sold for $43. 

24. Ann Taylor faux wrap dress, sold for $24. 

25. Laundry by Shelli Segal black tuxedo dress, sold for $22. 

26. Ralph Lauren white denim skirt, sold for $25.