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elizabethelakes

in food

Easy Night In

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April 29, 2016
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Sometimes I get tired. Ok, so I work from home and I have nothing to complain about. But sometimes I get tired of the constant grind of working, cooking, cleaning, repeat. So when my husband, yes my husband, taught me this easy dish, it became a key tool in the tool kit.

So tonight we are using some amazing ingredients from Trader Joe’s to make an exceptional 20 minute puff pastry pizza.

Thanks to their monthly Fearless Flyer issue, I found this AMAZING fresh Burrata at Trader Joe’s. It’s a type of fresh mozzarella that has a surprise! creamy filling. It’s delicious. If only I had some fresh truffle to shave on top of it with a bit of olive oil and I would eat it by itself.

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in home

The Kitchen

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April 17, 2016
2 Comments
1990

This is the amalgamation of all the decisions I’ve made over the last 6 months. It’s the countertop, it’s the appliances, it’s the cabinets, it’s the fixtures. And now it is a kitchen.

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Who knows, maybe this will be one of those kitchens that circulates around Pinterest. To me, it is perfect.

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Let’s talk appliances. Continue reading

in home

Moving Day!

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April 5, 2016
4 Comments
1092

The day is finally here! We’ve been waiting for this day since last July. But really I’ve been waiting for longer than that. For every rent check I’ve ever paid, for every deposit I’ve ever lost, for every wall I couldn’t hang a picture on. This is my reward. And without further ado….

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A beautiful day for moving! I know I’m biased but I think the front is breathtaking! The brick was completely different than I imagined but it’s perfect.

Let’s go inside…Continue reading

in diy

50th Birthday Decor On A Budget

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April 2, 2016
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904

Need some decorations fast, easy, and on a budget? I did when I was asked to help out with my mother’s 50th birthday party. In this post, I will go over two very easy designs, (1) Banners and (2) DIY Photobooth.

Banners

This was amazingly easy and super cute. All you need are a few things:

  1. Cardstock – I would argue that a good book of multi-color cardstock is a must-have in any household. There are so many adorable things you can do with it and it’s inexpensive to keep around. Joann’s almost always has coupons for 40% off one item so I paid $6 for 100 pages.
  2. Letter stickers – They sell these in different sizes and a pack comes with 4-5 of every letter so it will last you through a few different occasions as long as you can creatively incorporate Q’s, Z’s, and X’s.
  3. Paper trimmer or good old fashioned scissors. The paper trimmer just saves a ton of time but not necessary.
  4. Hole punch
  5. Twine or ribbon. Jute twine is another great resource for loads of different projects. It goes with every color and gives a more rustic look and feel.

With those materials, I really don’t need to give much direction. See for yourself:

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in finance

Did I Get Scammed By The Mattress Industry?

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March 20, 2016
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1009

Yes. But I think I got more emotionally swindled than anything. I paid $2000 for a King Simmons Beautyrest World Class Firm, a queen Serta Formosa Eurotop, box springs, metal frames, and a 43” Insignia LED TV.

The list price for all of these things together was somewhere around $5199. What an amazing deal!!!! OR WAS IT? On the positive side, I don’t think I overpaid. Could I have gotten the price knocked down another couple hundred dollars? Probably. But the part that bothers me the most is that I left the store feeling like I had robbed it. Like I had gotten a STEAL. Well it turns out that this was the board that they set and I played perfectly into their little game.

mattress

Game

Here’s how it happened. Tommy and I wandered into a Mattress 1. They had a very confusing promotion going on that was called “Any Size for Twin Price”. The confusing part about this was that it was EXACTLY what it said it was. Come again? “Any Size for Twin Price”. Seriously? This went on for some time with the sales associate. When I really think about it, mattresses are probably made of extremely cheap materials. The $3699 king size mattress that was marked down to $1599 probably cost $20 to make, so either way their margins are ridiculous.

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