Barbecue Meatloaf

It's no secret that there are picky eaters in my family and I include myself on that list.  Finding something that everyone likes is sometimes hard.

When David was much younger getting him to eat any kind of meat was next to impossible.  Then we discovered the secret - barbecue sauce.  He dips everything in barbecue sauce now.  Chicken?  Yup.  Pork?  Yup.  Ground beef?  Yup.

So when I discovered this Barbecue Meatloaf recipe, I knew it would be a hit.  And it was.  And now I'm going to share this little gem of a recipe with you.  Oh and did I mention, it only has 5 ingredients and only takes 25 minutes to cook?  Yeah, that's my kind of recipe.

Barbecue Meatloaf

1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup barbecue sauce, divided
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Mix up the beef, breadcrumbs, egg whites, pepper and 1/4 cup of the barbecue sauce.  Spread it all out in a pan (I use an 8x8 pan).  Spread out the last 1/4 cup of barbecue sauce on the top.  Cook on 350-375 (depending on the pan you use) for 25 minutes.

Ways to Mix it up

• Use 1/2 lb ground beef and 1/2 lb ground turkey instead of using all beef.  It tastes just the same and it's healthier.
• Use Cornflake crumbs instead of breadcrumbs or use Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs for a slightly different flavor (Cornflake crumbs are our favorites.)
• Use teryaki sauce instead of barbecue sauce.  I may or may not have discovered this secret after starting to make this without checking first to see if we had barbecue sauce.
• Use 1 whole egg instead of 2 egg whites.  It won't be as healthy, but if you are in a pinch and only have 1 egg in the fridge, it works just fine.
• Use different flavors of barbecue sauce for different flavors of meatloaf.  Our favorite is Sweet Baby Ray's.

Try it out and let me know how it goes.

Spring Cleaning: Week 2

I am following Money Saving Mom this month in the 30-day house cleaning challenge in an attempt to clean up my house (it really needs it).  You can follow my progress all week through Instagram (#cleanin30), Twitter (#cleanin30) or Facebook.  You can also join in the challenge fun.  Download the 31 Day House Cleaning Guide that we are following and you, too, can have a sparkling, or at least somewhat cleaner, house.

Days 6 and 7: Clean the bathrooms and clean all interior windows

Technically the 30-day cleaning challenge does not include weekends.  Money Saving Mom is only challenging us to clean throughout the week.  On the schedule, Day 6 says to clean the bathrooms.  Since we had just done that on Day 4 and since my kids clean their bathroom on the weekend as part of their regular chores anyway, I counted that one as being done.  Day 7 says to clean all the interior windows.  Somebody must be possessed if they think that chore can be done in 20 minutes.  I counted.  I have 16 windows on my house.  It would have taken me hours to clean all those.  I am so glad that chore fell on the weekend (on a Sunday, the day of rest, no less) and I don't have to feel guilty about not doing it. Shew!

Day 8:  Sweep and vacuum all floors in the house

Over the weekend, my sister, two friends from high school and myself had a girls' weekend.  We all stayed at my parents' house and played tons of card games and board games (and I got a great manicure!).  While I was there, Tim stayed home with the kids and got the house in great shape - including vacuuming all the floors!  So I woke up Monday to a clean, vacuumed house and I didn't have to do any of it.

Day 9: Surface clean bedrooms

Our rooms were pretty well straightened, but in one corner of my room there was a pile of things I was setting aside for a future yard sale as well as some things to give away.

OK, so it was really cluttered.  I boxed up all the yard sale items and put a very descriptive note on the box.

Hey, honey is better than vinegar any day, right?  I got together the items to be given away and put them in my van.  Then I put a crate of painting supplies down in the garage and Ta da! a clean corner.

I also decided this was a good day to work on a stain that's been on Julie's floor for a while.  Why did I pick that day to work on it?  Mainly because I had just bought new carpet cleaner and I wanted to see how well it worked.  This stain was in Natlie's part of the room (Julie's American Girl doll and yes, Julie decided to spell her name that way - poor child is spelling-challenged).

Isn't it cute how she has everything set up?  Maybe that will be a future blog post.  Anyway, the stain is in the bottom center of the picture.  Here it is closer up.

Lovely, huh?  So I sprayed the foamy stuff and scrubbed.  The final result?

Not perfect, but better.

Day 10:  Deep clean the living room

I was pretty tired of cleaning my this point.  So I didn't "deep" clean the living room.  We have wood floor in there so I decided to dust under the couches and piano, something I only do occasionally.  I found all sorts of goodies under the couches.

Day 11: Clean the bathrooms

Yet again...I don't normally clean the bathrooms every 4 days, so I decided instead to clean out the drawers and cabinets in the kids bathroom.  I got rid of a bunch of expired sunscreen and toothpaste and did a lot of decluttering and straightening.  Drawers 1 and 3 are now hair stuff and drawer 2 is nail stuff.  Poor David.  All the drawers are full of Julie's things and he gets nothing.  Guess he'll survive.

Julie's hair supplies all straightened up.

Day 12: Clean out closets

Um, yeah, I'm going to amend that to "closet" instead of "closets."  The blogger at Fresh and Organized must either have a much smaller home or must work a lot faster than me if she can clean out all the closets in 20 minutes.  Or maybe her closets are just cleaner....

I'm going to post the before picture today and I'll post the after picture next week.

Another busy cleaning week done.  Got any Spring Cleaning done this week?

The Gratitude Project

My one word for this year is Gratitude, being thankful to God for all he has given me.  Join me in the Gratitude Project every Thursday.  I list what I'm thankful for and you tell me what you're thankful for.

(from Feb 5)

• I'm thankful that I can take a nice, long, hot shower every day.

• I'm thankful for access to healthy food and that I am well fed.

• I'm thankful for clean drinking water that comes out of my tap every day.

It's those little things we take for granted that we need to remember to be thankful for.  What little things are you thankful for today?

Great Posts to read from around the Web

 pdiaz - Dreamstime stock photo

I read blogs A LOT.

I love reading what real people write, even the mundane, seemingly trivial stuff.  I do love fiction (as you can tell on here, I'm sure), but the real words of people living in the trenches of life just resonate with me.

And when they do, I want to share it.  So I thought I'd give out a little bloggy love today and share some of the blogs that I'm reading with you.

Here are some of my favorite bloggers and some recent great posts that they have written:

• It's Almost Naptime - Missy is a mother of 5, with her newest little one recently adopted from Ethiopia (recently, as in within the last 6 weeks). Missy always makes me laugh. "That's the kind of mother I am" is a hilarious post that will make you realize you aren't the only one with bad days.

• We are THAT family - Kristen is a mother of 3 and writes about raising her kids to be godly not to be happy.  She also has a heart for missions and sponsors a home in Kenya for expectant mothers.

• Money Saving Mom - Crystal is possibly my very favorite blogger out there.  While MSM started out as only a deals/frugal living blog, it has morphed into a blog about setting goals and living a disciplined life.  Crystal just has so much wisdom to share, I learn something new every time I read her posts.  (The deals are still there too.)

• 2Wired2Tired - Tesa is a mom of two kids that are only 14 months apart.  Her tagline says "They're wired...we're tired."  Tesa's blog is just fun to read and I feel like I know her just by reading her posts.  She shares recipes, product reviews, fun stuff to do as a family and she host a lot of giveaways.  If you want to try to win free things (like an ipad mini), her blog is the place to do it.

• IHeartOrganizing - Because in my heart I want to be organized, Jen's blog just makes me smile (and makes me jealous) every time I read it.  With great style and, of course, great organizing tips, Jen's posts are picture-filled and fun to read.  She also features posts from several other organizing gurus as well as hosting weekly giveaways.

• Stuff Christians Like - Last but not least, is Jon Acuff and his hilarious-but-true blog about the "churchy" world.  He is such a good blogger and writer that Dave Ramsey hired him just so he could blog full time.  If you want a good read that keeps you saying "That's so true, we are like that," check out his blog.

Hope that I could help you find some great things to read today and in the future.  There are so many blogs out there and so many things that bloggers write about that it's impossible to find all the good ones on your own.  

Do you have a blog you love?  Let me know in the comments and I'll be sure to check it out.

Discussion: Your Best (and Easiest) Housecleaning Tips

This month we've been talking a lot about Spring Cleaning.  That term can mean different things to different people, but I think we will all agree that

We want our houses/apartments/homes to be clean and we want to exert the least amount of effort possible to do it.

So how exactly do you do that?

I would love to know your tips and tricks to housecleaning using the least amount of energy possible.

Leave me a comment on here or on my Facebook page with your best cleaning tip.  

I'll compile them all together and post it for you next week.
There's no point in keeping great wisdom to ourselves, is there?

I'm participating in a Group Writing Project through the Problogger site.  Feel free to go check out other discussion posts as well.

Pinteresting Pins: Magic Eraser & a Baking Soda Trial

Time to test out more fun things I found over on Pinterest.

Shockingly enough, Pinterest is good for more than just finding yummy food.  Did you know that?
There are all sorts of great time-saving and sanity-saving tips on there.  I created a great little board called "Frugal Household Ideas."  Go, check it out.  There are lots of great (cheap) household tips that should make your life easier.

I looked over what I had pinned to see what would be most useful to me right now and this pin stuck out at me: All the uses for Magic Erasers that you didn't know about.  I always keep Magic Erasers on hand, but, I have to admit, I pretty much only use them to clean walls and trim.  I guess I never knew there were other things to clean with them (hence the pin title "all the uses for Magic Erasers that you didn't know about").

When you visit the website, you will see an incredibly long list of uses in the post, as well as 240 comments that include more uses (and a very detailed conversation about what the Magic Eraser is actually made of, in case you are interested).  Obviously, I couldn't try out every use on the list, so I picked out a few that intrigued me and went to work.

Here's my list and the results:

• Inside the oven door - On the actual metal, it cleaned great. On the Glass? Not so much. I tried Windex Multi-Surface Cleaner and a regular sponge on the glass and it was so much better.

• Dried paint on door hinges - The Magic Eraser did not clean this at all, not even one little smudge came off.
• Agitator in washing machine - It's crazy that this was on the list because mine has been dirty forever and it never even crossed my mind that you could clean it!  Maybe I'm really the one who's crazy.  Anyway...this was a score!  It cleaned that agitator beautifully and so quick and easy.

• Stained caulking around sink - It really didn't do anything for my stained caulking, but maybe it depends on the type of stain?
• Bathtub floor - The thought behind this is that the sponge cleans with micro-abrasion (kind of like the micro-dermabrasion you can use for your skin).  It actually gets the dirt clean by taking off a tiny layer of whatever surface you are cleaning.  So those little micro thingies are supposed to get into the spaces on the rough bathtub floor and get them all clean.  Guess what?  It didn't work. AT. ALL.  But since I was in the bathtub cleaning anyway, I decided to try it out on the stubborn ring around the tub.  It worked very well.  Just scraped that sucker right off.

My last experiment was with the grout on the kitchen floor.  The Magic Eraser article claimed that it could clean grout and mine really need cleaning. So I did a little experiment.  It just so happened that I had pinned another tip about how to make your own grout cleaner. (Direct link if you don't have Pinterest.)  I decided to clean some of my floor with the homemade baking soda and water grout cleaner from that pin and some of it with the Magic Eraser to see which cleaned better.

Definitely the baking soda and water cleaned better than the Magic Eraser.  The Magic Eraser did get the grout cleaner than it was before, but not shockingly clean.

While the baking soda paste got the grout clean, it was a complete mess to use.  The directions said to "let it dwell for 10 minutes" then to "rinse clean."  I'm not really sure what it means to "let it dwell for 10 minutes" so I just let it sit there.  But the hard part?  "Rinse clean." How do you get a bunch of wet baking soda off of your kitchen floor without making a huge mess?  You just don't, that's how.  I cleaned it all with a sponge...twice.  Then I mopped...three times.  Guess what?  The floor is still gritty with baking soda.

The moral of the story is: I still haven't found a grout cleaner that I like, but, hey, if you want to clean your washing machine's agitator...the Magic Eraser is the way to go!

Have you found any great uses for the Magic Eraser?  How about grout cleaner?  Know any good ways to clean that?

Spring Cleaning: Week 1

I am following Money Saving Mom this month in the 30-day house cleaning challenge in an attempt to clean up my house (it really needs it).  You can follow my progress all week through Instagram (#cleanin30), Twitter (#cleanin30) or Facebook.  You can also join in the challenge fun.  Download the 31 Day House Cleaning Guide that we are following and you, too, can have a sparkling, or at least somewhat cleaner, house.

After reading back over this, I can't believe I'm going to show these pictures on the Internet.  I'm going to loose my rock star organizing status and let you guys see how my house really looks most of the time!  Just don't think too badly of me, OK?

Day 1: Surface clean kitchen and living room

Day 1 started with Munchkin #1 throwing up in the middle of the night and all morning long.  Needless to say, surface cleaning was not high on my priority list.  Keeping up with sick person laundry and cleaning floors from where said sick person got sick, was much more urgent.  So I did Day 1 on Day 2 and it was all good.  The world didn't stop turning or anything.

I didn't have the energy to tackle both rooms in one day, so I just worked on the kitchen.  Here's how it was to begin with.  I'm almost embarrassed to show these pictures.  It was b.a.d.

Before the clean up - counter clutter galore!

I tackled the clutter, put things back where they belonged, sorted through lots of school papers and mail and, finally, got the counters cleared off. I even got the kids in on the action (what better way to spend Spring Break, right?).  They sorted through their school papers.  Anything with a clean white back gets put into the recycled printer paper pile.  All others get thrown away.

My sorting helper.
Getting to use a staple remover adds to the fun!

Then there were these:

While I love all my reusable grocery bags and my 31 totes, finding places to store them all is tricky.  Then I remembered one of my favorite tricks - command hooks on the inside of a closet door.  Ta-da!

Here's Day 1 before and after:

Before - Yikes!

After - Ah! I can see the counters again.

Day 2: Clean bathrooms

This one was much easier for me.  I had bathroom cleaning on my list anyway due to the second child in 2 weeks being sick.  Everything needed disinfecting with bleach.  I cleaned 4 sinks (I left Julie's sink for her to clean since it's one of her weekly chores), 3 toilets and 1 germy tile floor (we're talking on hands and knees with bleach wipes scrubbing all over the floor - fun times).  I decided to leave the tub and shower for another day because I like to procrastinate like that when it comes to cleaning.

I didn't take a "before" picture because, well, you can't see germs, so I thought there was no point.  But here is the "after" picture in the kids' bathroom.

Clean and germ-free, we hope.

Day 3: Surface clean bedrooms

I decided to tackle one corner in my bedroom that has been frustrating me for months.  Way back in January when we had lots of snow, Tim set up a little office area in the bedroom so he could work from home for several days.  And it never got put away.  And more stuff got added.  And I couldn't get into my closet without moving out the table every time, which was annoying.  Day 3's task was the perfect reason to clear it all up.  The task technically meant to clean all the bedrooms but the kids clean their bedrooms once a week for chore money, and I wouldn't want to take away their opportunity to earn, now would I.

Cleaning up involved listing several things on our local Facebook yard sale to get them out of the house (selling them all today - yay!), folding lots of laundry, putting wayward tools back in the tool cabinet and finally doing a Pinterest project that I will tell you all about next week.

Here's the "before" and "after" shots:

Before - I think junk just attracts more junk.

After - Yay!  There really is a floor there and I can get into my closet again.

Day 4: Surface clean an extra room

I really wanted to pick the den as my extra room, but our den is huge and it's hugely cluttered so I decided to pick one corner of my den.  Cheating?  Maybe a little bit, but if I try to clean too much and get overwhelmed then I end up just stopping.  So a little is better than nothing.

This project was a combination of my kids cleaning up the Lego/train table, Tim taking down the clothes racks I used to prepare for the consignment sale and me cleaning up where an end table used to be.

The before and after:

Before - Sigh!  So much straightening needed.

After - Maybe they can actually play Legos on the table now.
Just a thought...

Day 5: Surface clean the living room

This was a speedy cleaning day.  I'm getting ready to go relax with some high school friends for the weekend.  Luckily, the task for the day is to clean the living room and it wasn't too bad (surprising, I know).

Here's the before and after:

Before - mainly Easter basket things to put away and a few toys on the floor.

After - fresh and clean.

Now it's your turn.  Tell me which rooms you've cleaned this week.