Make Life Easier–Freeze It

At Indulge Salon, we believe in making life easier, not just in beauty and fashion, but in our every day lives. Home, work, play.

While browsing my favorite new app, Pinterest, I found a dandy little post that is completely about making  home life easier–especially in the cooking and meal prep department!

Weekly meals can be such a daunting task, especially when unprepared. I always like to go grocery shopping on the weekend, that way, I can shop for everything that I’ll need during the week to make dinners. This is called: Prepping the Prep.

First, you’ll want to make a list of all the ingredients that you’ll need for all of your menu items. This blog is great because it has similar ingredients for all of the meals you’ll be preparing. Similar but different at the same time. You’ll also want to put on your list a box of ziplock freezer bags if you don’t already have them.

Second, you’ll get all of your items.

Third, get your chopping block and cutting boards out! This will probably take you the longest unless you have little helpers assisting you. You’ll want to cut everything up and divvy up the ingredients between the different bags you have set up for the week. Don’t lose your mind, label the bags with a permanent marker.

Side note***To make your life even easier–label one side with the name of the meal, and on the other side, write the ingredients. This way, you can reuse the ziplock bags. Easy and Green!

After you finish putting all of the ingredients in each of the bags, zip to seal, and place in the freezer.

Wasn’t that simple? All you have to do is take a bag out the morning of, place in the crock pot, and let it cook itself. By the time you get home, your dinner is ready. This allows you more time to decompress from the day, spend time with your kids, feed the pets, or just watch your favorite dvr’d program.

Planning the Prep is always going to help you life your life full throttle throughout the year. With more time on your hands, you can focus on things more important than meal planning, like beauty and fashion, duh!

Have a happy planning week!

As always, Live Your Life… FULL THROTTLE

How to: Spring Clean Your Life Part 1

As much as I love to grow beautiful flowers, sometimes it just does not work.  I’m not sure if it’s the soil I use, too much water, not enough nurturing (I’ve heard that if you talk to your plants, they’ll grow…hmm..), or maybe I just don’t have the Martha Stewart touch.  Regardless, I do what I can, and as I am pulling out the dead leaves from underneath my plant, I realized that sometimes we need to do a little weeding out of our lives.  At this point, I decided it would be a good time to research the definition of what Spring Cleaning actually meant.  Here’s what Dictionary.Com says:

“spring-clean·ing

[spring-klee-ning]

–noun

1.

a complete cleaning of a place, as a home, done traditionally in the spring of the year.

2.

the activity of giving a place a complete cleaning:

Origin:
1855–60

Of course, Spring Cleaning refers to the cleaning of one’s house, but I feel that in order to grow to our full potential, we must clean out the dusty, overgrown, malnourished, worn out, used up, filthy, stagnant, dead facets of this complicated thing we call—Our Life.

Self-Of course this facet has several sub sections attached to it including, but not limited to, Body, Beauty, and Attitude.

Let’s begin with Body-There are things we love and things we hate, but most of them we can control.  I’m talking about weight, my friends! Spring cleaning this department takes much time, effort, and determination.  If you’re unhappy with the way your body looks in the mirror, join a gym, begin by scheduling time to walk around your neighborhood, borrow a workout dvd from a friend, get a workout buddy, etc. We all have our moments of unhappiness regarding our body size (I’m even talking to the skinny-minis out there!), but if we don’t start somewhere…we’re never going to get anywhere.  (As I write this, I am indulging in a tea-cup of vanilla bean ice cream…but please see my post on appreciation before you call me out on my hypocrisy).

Second subsection is Beauty-This relates directly to the Body section we just spoke about.  If you have troubled skin, you may be washing your face incorrectly, or you may have un-even skin tone, whatever it is…it can be managed and improved!  You just need to know which products to use in order to be most effective and cost efficient.  Some women think they need to have tons of make-up on their face to feel beautiful.  Ladies, a lot of men I speak with like women with…can you believe it…LESS. Yes, the whole “less is more” is actually beneficial. So, go for a tinted moisturizer in place of a full-coverage concealer, throw on a light blush, and brush on some brown mascara (brown makes you look tanner.yay!)  Your skin will love you for this breather from heavy make-up.  Try this for about 2 months and let me know how it’s working out.  Please, if you have thousands of compliments, you’ll have to include it on our Facebook Page 🙂

Third section is Attitude– Would you believe that your attitude can have a profound effect upon your life? The great thing is…both Body and Beauty improvements can greatly affect your attitude about life. You’ll be walking with a spring in your step!  On a more serious note, your attitude is seen by everyone and in your body language.  You don’t even have to say anything and people can tell if you’re irritated, angry, frustrated, happy, flirty, and the list goes on. Your emotions and attitudes will communicate how you really feel before you verbalize it, so you’ll want to keep it in check.

Would you believe that this is NOT IT? There are more facets of your life besides “Self” that need Spring Cleaning! But…You’ll have to check back tomorrow night for Part 2 of How to: Spring Clean Your Life.