Smart Home

How attached are you to your iPhone, Droid or other smartphone? It’s second on my list, after my kids of course, of things I freak out if I can’t find!  We all know that Candyland comes before Twitter, but it’s tough some times.
Our smartphones provide immediate access to information that long ago was in big encyclopedias near the card catalog at the library.  The information would be as up-to-date as its publishing date. With the advent of smartphone technology we want quick access to the latest information and we want it NOW not just what it was 15 years ago when the hardcover book was printed.

A recent survey released by Cozi, the No. 1 online and mobile family calendar and organizer, details smartphone use in families.  I’m sure it isn’t a big surprise that moms use their phones differently …

For many, many months my older daughter would always include one special request in her prayers at bedtime.  She would ask that
her Daddy work closer to home.  Since February 2011 Tom (@SmartyPantsDada) has worked more than 2 hours away.  For a few months he actually did the commute – back and forth – each day.  Driving more than 4 ½ hours a day, I was a nervous wreck with him on the road.  At the same time, during those 2 ½ months I was ridiculously pregnant or home with a newborn.  Regardless the reason, Tom’s determination to be there for the family was relentless.
As the baby reached 6 weeks, I gave him the green light to stay in Naples overnight rather than commute.  His company paid for hotel accommodation as needed, so there was no expense.  We started with just a night or two, and then over the last several …

We all want a deal.  We never want to pay full price… for anything.  Deal seeking and coupon redeeming is a must for a Smart Mama who wants to save a dollar and keep her family on budget. 
I have found daily deal sites like Groupon, LivingSocial, DailyDeals, MyCotorra and the like, to be fantastic.  Great deals on great RANDOM attractions, events and goods are always in abundance.  Two years in a row I’ve taken advantage of a phenomenal golf lesson package for my husband that I purchased on Living Social.  He loves it!
I also use the Entertainment book for even more.  It has been relied on for over 50 years, making it one of the most trusted savings books for families.  Its corresponding website, Entertainment.com, makes the deals easily accessible, without the need of the book.  Both the book and subscription-based website have equally great deals and coupons, …

Today’s post is brought to us by Amanda Dufau, a first-generation Cuban-American, was was born and raised in Miami. Her blog, Brandon’s Puppy, chronicles life with her husband and two boys. She can also be reached via Twitter @MandersD22  I hope you are as inspired by her commitment to lead a healthier lifestyle! I am! 
Last Spring, I took up running. I’ve never been a “runner”, but a friend coaxed me to go ahead and try it. He was so sure that I’d take to it, even like it, that he told me I’d end up running a Half Marathon with him. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I gave it a shot.
At first, I was gasping for air after two blocks. I thought to myself, “There’s no way I’m signing up for a Half”. I’d be out for about 4 minutes, …

The greenest product is one that already exists. A pre-owned find has history. By bringing it home, you extend its useful life, keep it out of the landfill, and prevent the environmental impact of producing something new. – EBAY Green Team (green.ebay.com)

Had you realized how GREEN you can be by buying gently worn clothing?  Or that your closets and drawers are probably filled with clothing that can be sold to another family rather than tossed in the garbage & ending in a landfill?  As Smart Mamas we strive to live a greener, healthier lifestyle.  Using cleaning products with zero harmful chemicals, cloth diapers for the babies and reusable water containers on hot days, we each find methods to minimize our carbon footprint.
The recently launched EBAY Green page (green.ebay.com) is a marketplace and resource guide for moms (and dads) looking to be more GREEN.  As …

Today I write a short message to you as I hope you will quickly read and act!  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) forcing internet censorship is currently being reviewed by congress.  This act, while with great intention of ending piracy, oversteps the government’s bounds.
“Law-abiding U.S. internet companies would have to monitor everything users link to or upload or face the risk of time-consuming litigation.” – Google
Sites such as Wikipedia, YouTube would be the 1st to bid farewell.

The Hormel Extended Blogger Family program has inspired me to share my New Year’s resolution progress!  I’m eager to hear about your’s!
We are half way through the 1st month of the year.  How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions!? Be honest!  This is a fantastic time to reflect on your accomplishments and rework how you will meet the resolutions that may have been a bit more difficult to stick with.

I pat myself on the back for a job well done with:

Eating healthier!
Drinking more water!
Picking up the house more often!
Saying HI to more people!
Drinking green tea daily!

 
Still Need to Work On

Exercising 3xs a week!
Cleaning up my desk every few days! (You don’t even want to look at it now!)
Going to bed earlier! (Let’s just say I watched part of the end of Letterman last night!)
Getting up earlier! (Woops, forgot to set the alarm this morning! Thankful for …

Smart Mamas use Pinterest because, well, they can’t remember it all.  Pinterest mixes a Smart Mama’s desire for organization and creativity and throws in whole bunch of useful technology.
Pinterest can be easily used by Smart Mamas.  There is so much there to help them.  Let’s start off with the basic…
What is Pinterest?
The best way to describe Pinterest is as a digital scrapbook, file folder or corkboard with added tech practicality.  Think of the way you have traditionally stored those magazine/newspaper rip-outs of recipes, playroom idea photos, fashion styles and more.  You would “organize” it in folders, on a cork board, in a box….now with advent of Pinterest, the same great info and photos you find in today’s media – the internet – is nicely organized for you to easily access and share with others. We now digitally “pin” rather …

Knowing how to maximize savings at a wholesale club is your task today!  Wholesale clubs, especially BJ’s, offer Smart Mamas a variety of “extras” that aren’t always seen at traditional grocery stores.  A visit to a local BJ’s Wholesale last month, including a tour from a representative of the club, taught me SO much about the great benefits that often go unnoticed by moms.  Here are 5 things I believe Smart Mamas need to know:

Multiple Coupons!  If you are purchasing a 3-pack of toothpaste you can use 3 manufacturer’s coupons – one for each pack!  Plus, if BJ’s has also included a coupon for that toothpaste pack in their coupon book (found in-store, sent home or available online,) that may also be used in conjunction with the manufacturer’s coupon!
Propane! Cheap propane gas!  Gassing up for the grilling season?  Did you know that BJ’s is often the cheapest …

Get out there and DO IT!  I woke up this morning feeling determined.  I wanted to get something done off my list.  I have stared at a

huge list in my Cozi calendar FOR-E-VER! This to-do list can’t even be called my New Year’s resolution list, but I have renamed it that for the sake of getting some motivation to actually get it done.
There are simple things on the list, like reorganzing the “crap corner” that originally was a nice pile of my older daughter’s school work, or getting to the bank and opening a bank account for the baby.  All things on the list would not take much time at all, yet all the list did in 2011 is grow.  Well, this morning it is no longer growing.
I got 6 things DONE off the list!  You honestly don’t understand how good it feels.  From a trip to the bank, …

In our quest to live healthier lives in 2012, a good, new recipe is always needed.
This is a 20 minute meal that’s so healthy, easy & delicious you’ll want to make it once a week. Because I use thin sliced chicken breast and tent my dish, this meal takes just 20 minutes and is delicious every single time. I love a little extra lemon so sometimes I add a little more to the recipe but feel free to put your spin on this recipe to call it your own.
Ingredients: 
Chicken (4 or 5 thin sliced breasts)
Lemons (3)
Capers (1/4 cup)
Sea Salt (to taste)
Fresh Ground Pepper (to taste)
Heat your oven to 425 F. Arrange your thin sliced chicken breast in a medium baking dish. Cut two lemons into 1/4 inch slices and completely cover your chicken breast. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over your chicken and lemon slices. Don’t worry about the pulp, it …

A deck of cards, palm of your hand, length of your pinky… we use visualizations to help us with our portion control.  It helps, but it’s not full proof!
#SmartMamaLUTION – Adhere to your portion control by adjusting how you serve the meal.
I recently made meatloaf in 4 mini-loaf pans.  Each meatloaf was the precise serving size that I should eat.  There was no temptation to cut a wider piece or have one more slice.  I bought the loaf pans at Publix for cheap.  Next I want to buy ceramic ones that I can use over and over again!

Later in the week I served dinner in a pepper!  Following a recipe from the Eating Well magazine, I stuffed red and green peppers with a ground beef mixture and it was delicious!  We even got to eat the “bowl!”  My daughter LOVED this!  Peppers are one of “her veggies,” so I thought …

#SmartMamaLUTION 6:  3 Easy Ways to Maximize Every Last Drop of Detergent
Pour detergent into the cap.
Pour detergent into washing machine.
Now what do you do with the detergent that remains in the cap?  I have 3 simple Smart Mama solutions that will help you maximize the liquid laundry detergent that remains in the measuring cap:

Drop the cap into washer and let it run the cycle.  The remaining detergent film will quickly become part of the soap solution. Be sure to remove the cap before transferring the clothes into the dryer!
Use a sock from the laundry pile or any piece of dirty clothing to wipe out the cap.  Throw item into wash.
Forget the cap, eyeball the amount of detergent you need and pour it directly into the washer.

These solutions will leave the cap clean and prevent detergent goo in your laundry room.
Share!
Is there …

Guest Poster: Joanne Palumbo of Homestyling101!
I am so excited to be a part of the SmartyMamaLUTION, partly because I love SmartyPantsMama and partly because I personally need a little motivation to get my own resolutions underway! Today I am going to help you tackle that dreaded playroom- which, if it is anything like my home, probably looks like an explosion of Walmart, Target and Toys R Us after this holiday insanity! So here is some advice on how to restore order to the chaos and how to find room for the new toys that just entered the already over-filled playroom.
Step 1
Remove children from the room. I joke about this but in truth, I can NEVER really clean up my kid’s toys with them anywhere in ear shot. Otherwise I hear “I love that toy!”….”I got that when I was 2….it is so special” to which I can’t really …

What’s for dinner?  We all have a handful of recipes that we go to when making that decision.  Great recipes, but with this New Year let’s broaden our recipe collection and even more importantly REMEMBER and REUSE the those healthier ones the kids seem to like!
Here a solution to the resolution to help you keep the dinner planning less stressful and healthier this year:

Create a What’s for Dinner? board.  This board displays the dinner menu for the week. It is placed in an obvious place in your kitchen area where everyone, especially you, sees it.  The menu board holds an array of menu items, tucked into a pocket.  These menu items are the tried and true meals that you know your kids will eat. It also has blank ones for new menu items to be added when you successfully get them to try something new!
The Planning

Each Sunday, together with the …

Keep your home a Smart CLEAN Home this New Year!  Microwaves are common household appliances and often get more use than a traditional oven.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 90% of American households have one!  The appliance was invented in 1946 by Percy Spencer whose 1st “microwaved” food was melting chocolate!  Yummy!  Nowadays we use it for far more than melting chocolate.  We cook, warm, reheat and defrost foods on a regular basis.  It’s our go-to appliance, therefore it’s probably the appliance getting the dirtiest the quickest!

Keeping that, often most important appliance, clean can be a challenge.  Cleaning your microwave should include NO chemicals.  Have you ever cleaned it with an all-purpose cleaner to then smell it’s chemical cleaner scent for many uses thereafter as the remaining cleaner burns in the appliance? Yuck!
Clean It!
Here’s a quick way to stick to that resolution –keep your microwave …

To be more organized is a common New Year’s resolution.  Organization is a key component to Smart Mama-hood!  Let’s take on this #SmartMamaLUTION by creating an inexpensive organizational container for the Christmas ornaments that will inevitably be put away within the next 10 days.
This ornament box was inspired by a beautiful ornament box I saw in a recent Ballard Designs catalog.  I fell in love with the concept but not with the price.  Even at Target, a similar ornament box runs for about $20.  I knew that there had to be a way to store the ornaments in such an organized manner as seen in both the catalog and in the store, but at a much more affordable, smarter price.
To make the shirt box ornament box you’ll need:

2 shirt boxes.  These boxes are typically on clearance this time of year.  The heavier/stronger the box the better.  One box will be …

New Year’s #SmartMamaLUTION 1: You will be a Smart Mama by preserving memories with your family.
We tend to remember the important days each year, like birthdays, holidays and even the 1st day of school.  But do you remember what you did last year on March 3rd?  or November 17? or the specific date your daughter found out she get an A+ on her science project?  I don’t.  But I want to.  I want to have those moments sitting on the couch with my kids and husband, looking back like you do with a scrapbook, and reminiscing about the events of year’s past.

Today’s SmartMamaLUTION is to make a memory box to jot down a blurb each day of something that’s memorable.  This 10 minute task will require:

few packs of index cards – you’ll need 366 cards
box no larger than a kids shoebox – I got …

Can you believe it’s already 2012?
Excuses are being thrown out the window!  We now need to take 2012 and make it the very best we can.  What we put into it will have a direct effect on what we get out of it.  Yes, time to throw away those remaining Christmas cookies if a healthier lifestyle is in your resolution list!
You have your personal resolutions that I welcome you to share here.  I have one’s too!  I also have a New Year’s resolution for my Smarty Pants Mama community! I have made the resolution to provide you with achievable tasks each day to make you SMARTER MAMAS – smarter in your health, in your home life and your family!
Tomorrow I will present the 1st task!  Curious as to what it is?  I bet you are!  Here’s a few hints: I was inspired at Pinterest!  It is something that your …

I cannot believe that tomorrow is New Year’s Eve!  This year has been filled with all sorts of roller coaster twists, turns and a few

loops.  In 2011 we were faced with my father being diagnosed with cancer, my daughter Cecilia being born, my father beating cancer (with a heart attack thrown in there!) and a not so great job situation for my husband.  I will gladly bid 2011 farewell and cheer to a new year full of great health, happiness and more!
Our night will be spent at home.  With the exception of just a few times in our 9 New Year’s Eve’s together, Tom and I will stay in cooking up a delicious dinner and watching the ball drop.  We typically go all-out at Whole Foods, buying a fancy cut of meat, delectable seafood  and a way too expensive bottle of wine.  We cook together our final meal of the …

It’s just days away. The day that we promised that we would turn a new leaf and __________! There are about a million ways to end that sentence.  From a promise to exercise more, read more, spend less time on the phone, take grandma out to lunch more, the resolutions are out there.  Beginning January2nd, you will commit to manageable resolutions that will make you a Smarter Mama – in health, in family life and in your home – with SmartMamaLUTION!  You will greet each day with a new resolution that will take you no more than 10 minutes to begin and maintain.  You will do this for you.  You will do this for your family.
What kinds of resolutions?

Yes, you will drink 8 glasses of water…but you will do so using new tools to make it easier.
Yes, you will not look like a shlep every day, …

Would you throw away a 5 dollar bill?
I found one under my kitchen sink and my husband wanted me to throw it away.  You see the bill was in the form of 2 unopened Brita water filters. We were cleaning out the cabinets under the kitchen sink and found all sorts of things, like the random half-used bottle of window cleaner, ½ dozen sponges and a pair of ripped gloves.  Most importantly, I found two brand new packages of water filters to use with a Brita water pitcher – a pitcher we no longer use or even own. So what to do with these filters?  Guess what Tom’s immediate thought was?  Yep, throw them away, we don’t need them.   But I thought, I don’t know, these are brand new, there’s got to be someone who could use them.  That’s when my ebay lightbulb went on!  Yes, I …

Spiced nuts are in the oven! Each year I make about a million batches of a special spiced nuts recipe that a colleague shared with me over 10 years ago.  They are delicious.  They are addicting.  These nuts are my gifts for teachers, friends and family.  I find something touching about giving someone a gift that you’ve made.  It’s sort of like the grown up way of drawing a picture for your teacher, I instead make nuts!
What I do change each year is that packaging.  I’ve done mason jars with a bow, clear plastic bags with Christmas ribbon and more.  I’m trying to decide how to package and present the nuts this year.  Of course, I’ve hit Pinterest for inspiration.  Here are some of my favorite ways:
Love this one, except getting my hand on the tins could be tough and expensive!

Source:

As I await a blogger event here at a BJ’s in Miami, I am walking around the store and impressed with the deals I’m finding!

Stay tuned for the next update!

eBay Lemonade Made by Tristan O’Brien – An eBay Money Maker Story
When all else fails, when you’ve lost your job, wife just gave birth and you’re essentially living in a new city with very limited support, what do you do?  Tristan O’Brien, of Westfield, Indiana, took his HUGE bowl of lemons and made a big glass of lemonade, eBay style of course!
If you take a moment and look around your home you will notice the many items you have are out of true desire not need.  Tristan did just that.  Along with his wife, he found numerous items, including an enormous big screen TV that wasn’t necessary in their home.  They took these items and listed them at auction on eBay.  They needed the money in their wallets more than hanging in their family room!
Before they knew it the items began to sell and sell – the …

Thank you to Kingston for sponsoring this review. Please click here to learn more about Kingston. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.
Kingston has brought the thumb drive to a whole new level with the Kingston Technology DataTraveler urDrive.
A thumb drive, a USB drive, flash drive…whatever you have called it, it has been what we have all relied on since the day the 3 ¼ inch discs started to bite the dust in the early 2000s.  These drives are typically removable and rewriteable and are a lifesaver for anyone on the go….Smart Moms, that’s you!
A thumb drive can be your personal backup “filing” system.  You can easily import/copy files from your computer to your drive and then easily bring your files to another location. Fantastic for moms, but with the …