How I Clean My Oven & a Linky Party


How often do you use your oven? In the Fall and Winter, I seem to use it just about every other day if not every day. Are you like me?

So in my quest to get ready for winter, I cleaned my oven.

Of course I used one of my fave Shaklee products, Scour Off.

Here's the product description on my Shaklee online site .

"Scour Off™ Heavy-Duty Paste

Size: 250 g

Great for the toughest cleaning challenges

Here’s an exclusive scouring cleanser that sets a new standard. It’s a paste, so it doesn’t form dust clouds. It cleans stuck-on messes. It even cleans burnt-on food in your oven.

And it doesn’t burn off your nose hairs in the process"

Oh Scour Off, you had me at "And it doesn’t burn off your nose hairs in the process."

(My self-clean oven doesn't self clean any more and when it did, the smell in the house was disgusting.)

Here are some before pictures...

And the AFTERS!!!!

(I just put a dab on a dollar store scrubber and added water and rubbed all over the yucky messes.)

I also use Scour Off on my ceramic top stove to get cooked-on-spillovers off. 

It's magical and smells like bubblegum!

Here's a testimonial from a couple of happy Scour Off users...

Claudia C.: "I used the shaklee scrub and it worked great on my stove!"

Amelia: "I used it to clean my Wood Stove.  It was fantastic!!"

If you would like any more information about Scour Off please visit my Shaklee Site or e-mail me if you have any questions.

I'm linking up too. and also here

And now the Get Ready for Winter Party.

The Rules:

1.  Link-up ANY project you have been working on (I'm not picky).

2.Link up with the intended post not your Blog home page.

3. Let others know about it.

Coupon Alert

Your next 6 cups of Taster’s Choice are on us!

Fill out the form to get a coupon for a free sample of 6 Taster’s Choice single serve sticks 6 x 2.3g, available in classic or decaf.

 Enjoy!

Menu Planning Monday - week of Monday Oct 25

Happy Monday!

For some odd reason I have been sick for weeks and weeks now.  Not the kind of sickness where I need antibiotics or anything... just sick. Cough, stuffyness, aches and pains, and lethargic. blech sick

Hubby thinks I should go see a doctor... but they will try to prescribe antibiotics and I hate to take drugs.

Have you ever felt like that?

So needless to say I've been lazy, LAZY, and some more laze lately.

My meals really reflect that.

Here is this weeks easy menu plan.  Key word here is easy.

Monday - Home made hamburgers, almost free salad from last week ( on sale $1.29 & $1 coupon stuck on package)
Tuesday - Pasta with homemade Meat sauce
Wednesday - Crockpot Ribs
Thursday - Tuna Casserole
Friday - FREE Pizza ( Flatbread pizza priced for $4.97 and I had $5.00 coupons = Free)
Saturday - leftovers and we are at a wedding

Have you noticed lately that I have been posting more coupons and free item alerts on this here blog?

I generally save about $30-$50 every week on groceries. And have been challengin myself to save more and more.


I am wondering if that is what you would want to more of on here.

Weekly sales, coupon alerts and ways to save money on groceries... in Canada.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

P.S. - let me know if you want any of these recipes.

I'm linking up to some of these parties.

Free Samples - Canadians Only

Have you heard of  P & G brandSAMPLER??

P&G brandSAMPLER

They have new samples to give away!

If you don't already have an account you will have to create one.

(and it will take a couple of weeks, but the size of samples are pretty generous!

Apples and a very BIG Pumpkin

This past weekend we did the traditional Apple and  Pumpkin picking.

Here are some pics.

There weren't many apples left on the trees.

You had to get "in the tree" to get them.

It's easier for the little people to get inside.

A. just could not wait, so he started chomping on one.

These were the empire apples.  Delicious.

Grandpa and the kids.

hmmm... I'm missing a child.

Next on to the pumpkin picking...

These two decided they wanted a

"BIG pumpkin."

(I think hubs had something to do with it)

I said no about a 100 times, but they were adamant.

So I said "you can have it if you bring it over from the field.

Remember girls, they weigh more than the two of you combined."

(insert evil laugh from mom)

We went out to the field and they started pushing a very large pumpkin....

And pushing...

And they got it rolling and rolling.

After watchin them for awhile (huffing and puffing), I

 told them to just leave it we would get a smaller one.

hmmm... did I mention they were adamant about getting a

BIG ONE?!?

I relented and let them pick one of the smaller 80 pound ones.

Sheesh

(FYI: We now have a very large pumpkin out front ready to be carved by somebody.)

See the one on the tarp just behind S.? That's the one that came home with us.

 (I picked that little guy on the scale)

Have you been apple or pumpkin picking yet??

Coupon Alert

I had a discussion with my "little cousin" (Hi Claudia!) about coupons and where I get my coupons from.

I promised her I would start posting them on my blog more often.

Here's a couple that I came accross today.

I love FREE!!!

http://www.save.ca/coupons

http://www.glad.ca/bag_giveaway_promotion/index.php

Not sure how long these will be available for... so hurry!

Menu Plan Monday - Week of Oct 18

Sorry, I've been MIA in the Menu Plan Monday posts.

With hosting a potluck Thanksgiving party the week before Thanksgiving and then the actual Thanksgiving weekend, I was sooo overwhelmed with Turkey leftovers, that we ate from the freezer/pantry for about two weeks. It Saved us alot of money though.

(the freezer/pantry is looking a little bare now, so it's time to start planning again)

Monday - Curried Chicken (recipe below)

Tuesday - Cheese Tortelline in Meat Sauce (from freezer)

Wednesday - Butternut Squash Soup

Thursday - Sheppard's Pie

Friday - Homemade Pizza

Saturday - leftovers

Sunday - Roast Chicken, potatoes, veg.

Easy Curried Chicken Recipe

1 tblsp of veg oil

1 whole chicken (cut up)

1 onion diced

2 cloves garlic

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 cup of diced carrots

1 cup of peas

2 cups of chicken broth

1-2 tblsp of curry paste (depends on how much heat you want)

I saute the onion and garlic in the oil.  Add the chicken pieces, and brown all over.  Add the remaining ingredients and cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked.

(I serve this usually with rice.)

Easy Peazy.

What are you eating this week?

I'm linking up to Laura's, Crystal's, Erin's and Lisa's party.

Adding pizzazz with fabric

How was your weekend?

We went apple picking... I'll show you pics later in the week.

Today I want to share with you my latest (ongoing, pain in the booty) project.

This is what my old dining room chairs looked like...

ewww... look at those gross stains



This the back of the chairs. Plain-jane-cream fabric 

(which I loved for a long time)

I added this taupe/khaki/greeny-chocolatey coloured fabric to the front...

And the seats.

(and I've protected the fabric with Scotchguard)

The Fabulous new back!

I tried to centre the fabric on the back of the chair frames.

Doesn't it add pizzazz??

Here's the before and after of the backs again...

 

BEFORE



AFTER

I still need to finish two of the chairs and then I'll show you the rest of the Dining Room.

What you think of my chairs so far??

I'm linking up to some of these parties.

Getting Ready for Winter Linky Party

We've been going crazy around this place getting everything ready for the inevitable Winter arrival. 
I'm hoping it will be December before the first snowfall (Christmas Eve preferably), but usually by November we've had a really good one come down.

It seems every year, there is one or two important things that get forgotten.

People, this is not glamourous work and there is "lovely" piece of art at the end. But it needs to be done!

So far this is what we have done:

1.  Closed the pool

2. Put the cover on the Air Conditioner

(mental note: get hubby to re-strech it ;))

3. Raked a truckload of leaves.

No really.  It was yard waste pick-up so we filled a bunch of bags with leaves.

 (will probably have to do this a couple of more times)

 

  

4. Emptied and cleaned the flower pots.

5. Cleaned the Furnace Filter.

This is really gross!  This is what it looked like.

We have an Electrostatic Furnace filter that plugs into furnace
and it's suppose to remove up to "97 % of alergens from the air that passes through it."

By the looks of it... I don't think so.

I took it outside, sprayed with Basic H2 all purpose formula and then washed it down with the hose.

And then I let it dry outside.

Look!! You can actually see through it now!!

Then I went to Home Depot and spoke to "the Lady" about what else I can do get rid of more gunk from the air. And she suggest this. It's the material that the disposable filters are made of (without the frame)

I cut it down to size and put it in-between the two layers.

(sorry I forgot to take final picture of it)

Our furnace is really old... like 30 years old. 

But it still works, and "furnace repair guy" says although it's not as efficient as it could be,

 it's still in working order. I'm going to look into getting a new one and look into the government rebates available as well. Soon...

So that's what I've done this week.

(oh and I'm Linking up here too)

What have you been doing to get ready for Winter??

 Rules:

1. Link the actual post not your blog homepage
2.  Mention the party on your blog or post.

Follow Me - I'm Canadian, the Great Canadian Link Exchange

The other day I realized that I had 95 followers on Google Friend Connect... what-the-what??  When did that happen.  I remember the day that I had one, then two... I was sooo excited that SOMEONE (anyone) was reading my little ole blog.

So for fun today I'm joining the Follow Me, I'm Canadian.... 

AND...

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for "Getting Ready for Winter" Link-up Party.



 Hopefully I'll be able to show you a little bit more of my latest project (that has been killing my back)

Shaklee Cost Comparison

I often get e-mails from readers asking about Shaklee products.

Here's one that I received recently that I wanted to share...

From  Jodi: "I am also very interested in the Shaklee line of cleaning supplies but have been told they can be very pricey! "

I thought I would post a Shaklee Get Clean Cost Comparison and let you decided...

(click on image to enlarge)

Please visit my Shaklee site for more information on the Get Clean line of products.