Can It Up! February: Frozen Fruit

This month's Can It Up! ingredient was frozen fruit.  I was hoping to find something really fun in the freezer section, but alas the most exotic fruit I found was pineapple, so that is what I went with.  I didn't want to make another jam, so I poked around the internet for a recipe that used pineapple, wasn't jam, and I had all the ingredients I needed in the house.  I came across this recipe for Pineapple Salsa, and thought it sounded good.

A few months before we moved to New Mexico, a burrito place called El Diablo Burrito opened.  They made some AMAZING burritos, among other things.  They also had a pineapple sals that I loved, and always ordered in my burrito.  I was hoping this recipe would be similar to that salsa, and it is! I am so excited and now wish I hadn't done a "small batch".  Guess I'll just have to make more.  I really liked this recipe because only takes a few minutes to chop everything up, a few more minutes to heat it up, then the processing time (which really took the longest).

I whipped this up tonight, canned three jars, and used the left overs on our dinner.  The pineapple salsa is Colin approved :)

Ebates Plug-in

Do you use Ebates? If not, click here, sign up, then come back.  It's a free way to get money back on a lot of your online purchases, including on Amazon!

If you already do, do you ever FORGET to use Ebates, only to realize AFTER you ordered something, that you forgot? Happens to me ALL.THE.TIME.  It is so frustrating to know that you just clicked away free and easy money back on your order.

Well, be frustrated no more! I just found out the Ebates now has a plug in for your browser that alerts you when you are on a site that has Ebates available!! Click here to install it and never miss an ebate again.

** I wasn't asked to write this blog post, I'm just so excited about this plug in that I had to share.  
** Disclaimer: the Ebates sign up link above is a referral link, please use it ;) The awesome plug in link is not a referral link.

"New" Dresser

A few weeks ago I finally decided I wanted to get a dresser for my clothes.  I haven't had an actual wood dresser for my clothes since I was probably 15 years old.  I moved around a little bit after that and switched to a few of those rubbermaid bins with different size drawers. I used that set up until I moved off campus midway through my sophomore year of college.  Then I bought a bed frame that had drawers in it.  I guess that kind of counts as a dresser.  I have been using that bed frame ever since.  When we moved to the house this past summer, we decided to use that bedframe in the guest room and just a simple frame for our bedroom. I had originally thought I would buy a dresser in the first two months of living there, but never got around to it, so I just had the drawers from the bed frame lined against the wall in our room:

Huge mess of clothes

It worked for a few days, but then I just got annoyed and left the clean clothes out of the laundry in piles on top of the drawers and other clothes.  It also took up a lot of space in the room, the drawers are pretty deep.

I finally broke down one saturday morning and went looking for an old dresser to spruce up (read: Colin to spruce up ;) ). We stumbled upon this, and I thought PERFECT!

Or, you know, NOT.  Just look at these awesome features:

Yup, someone actually GLUED plastic lady bugs to the top.  This lady bug is for you, Laila ;)

After a quick stop at Home Depot for some paint and new drawer pulls, Colin was off working on the dresser:

Dogs checking out the drawers

Alright, ready for the big reveal? It is pretty drastic...

After working on the dresser for three days (after working all day), this what the dresser now looks like:

I think it cost a total of $60 for the dresser itself and the supplies to fix it up.  Pretty awesome, if you ask me.  AND now our room doesn't look like a 14 year old lives in it. WIN.

Valentine's Day

Dear Colin:

{Via}

... Just pretend all the girl references, are boy ;)

Far Cry 3 #FarCryGold

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this post. Please visit Amazon.com to get your own copy of Far Cry 3, today's Gold Box Deal of the Day! I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.
Today I have some great news to share! Far Cry 3 is the Amazon Gold Box Deal of the Day and is available for just $34.99.  Click here to take advantage of this amazing offer!  After you order your copy of Far Cry 3, make sure to check out the different ways Colin de-stresses, below.





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Stress is widely considered as one of the worst banes of modern society.  We work far too much, expose ourselves to impossible deadlines and expectations, and don’t take nearly enough time to decompress and de-stress.  Stress has been shown to be related to all sorts of physical and mental ailments like heart disease, depression, and even weight gain.  Needless to say that when stress rears its ugly head, it’s important to find ways to relieve it. 

Relaxing while playing video games and hanging out with the pups

I’m generally a low stress person.  I used to let myself get worked up about a lot of things.  Classes, studying, money, relationships; it all affected my mental state in a very negative way.  So what happened?  I got sick…SICK.  I came down with one of the worst cases of Ulcerative Colitis and Toxic Megacolon (yes, it’s a real thing) that my doctors had ever seen.  For those who don’t know, these are intestinal disorders.  I won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but needless to say, they are horrendous.  The combination of these two diseases almost killed me and led to me getting my large intestine removed at the ripe old age of 19.  So, what are some of the causes of these problems?  Heredity – a risk factor for me since my mother also had Ulcerative Colitis.  Diet – I was in college, so my diet pretty much consisted of pizza, pop-tarts, hot wings, and ice cream.  And the final risk factor: STRESS.  The way I saw it, I couldn’t change the heredity issue, but I could change my diet and I could certainly allow myself to de-stress every once in a while.  So, how do I decompress during or after a particularly stressful day?

1.       Forget about it - When I’m stressed out, the first thing I think is “how much does this REALLY matter?”  In the grand scheme of things, am I going to be lying on my death bed remembering this moment as one of my worst?  If the answer is no, as it will be 99.99% of the time, I just put whatever situation is happening in the back of my head and try my best to forget about it.  Because, in the grand scheme, whatever is stressing you out today probably won’t matter to you tomorrow, so why worry about it now?

2.       Focus on the solution, not the problem – Let’s say something goes wrong at work.  I deal with money all day, so let’s pretend I’ve just wired somebody $10,000,000…and they weren’t supposed to get a wire at all.  Uh oh.  Do I get stressed?  NO.  Instead, I focus on the solution to this problem.  I call our wire department to see if it can be cancelled before it gets sent.  Yes?  All good, no problem.  No? Ok, next step.  I call the receiving bank to see if they can send it back before crediting it to the person’s account.  Yes?  Perfect.  No?  Damn, next step.  I try to contact the receiving party to let them know they will be receiving a large amount of money erroneously and that we will be reversing the transfer shortly, pulling it out of their account.  I apologize profusely and everyone goes away with no harm, no foul.  Did it ruin my day?  No, maybe 15 minutes of it, but I don’t focus on that.  Once the problem is resolved, I move on to the next one and solve it, not dwell on it.

3.       Get some exercise – I’m not saying you need to get a gym membership and go pump some iron with the bros.  Just get up and move around for a while.  Stand up from your desk every 20 minutes and stretch a little or take a lap around your office; your life will improve dramatically.  I walk my dogs twice a day in addition to the 20 minute rule.  Why? 1. Dogs love walks, proven fact.  2. I also love walks.  Fresh air, movement, and spending time with my dogs.  All proven stress relievers.

4.       Play video games – Yes, I’m 30 years old.  Yes, I play video games.  Am I some kind of freakish man child?  A bit, yes.  But more than that, video games offer an escape.  Kind of like reading a book or watching a movie, but with more interactivity.  So yes, when I’m stressed out, sometimes I just fire up the XBox and play some games.  It offers me some time to get my head out of whatever problem I’m having, and quite often, I’m actually subconsciously thinking of a solution to the problem while playing my games rather than focusing on it so intently that I’m actually stressing myself out more.  I’ve had plenty of revelations while playing video games.  Bowl-shaped tortilla chips?  I figured that out while playing Halo in college.  Just kidding, but I’m 90% sure that’s how they came around.

- Colin
*Disclaimer: I was given a copy of Far Cry 3 as compensation for this post, however all opinions expressed in this post are mine and true.  There are affiliate links in this post.