Apple Crumble

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What do you have for dinner when you're home alone, pregnant, and the fridge is almost empty? Apple crumble sounded good, so that's what I made. It was quick and easy and made me feel a little bit better about watching this evening's debate. 

Who wouldn't want a nice big bowl of this for dinner? Or dessert, if you want to go all traditional. 

I started with a recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch and tweaked it and it was delicious. Here's how:

First, make the crumble. You can mix together the butter, flour, oats, cinnamon, sugar, and baking powder with a fork or a pastry cutter. Or you can do what I did and use your fingers, which is either way more fun or a way to justify not having a super cool pastry cutter like this one that I kind of totally want. 

Then, slice the apples and put them in a greased loaf pan. This would also be a good time to start preheating the oven. 

Next, mix up the sauce for the apples. I used the same coffee mug for melting the butter and making the sauce. Because I hate doing extra dishes. 

Pour sauce over apples, stir to combine. Then pour the crumble over the top of that and toss it in the oven for 25 minutes, or longer if you like soggier apples. And you get this beauty:

It's crisp, crumbly, and makes about 2 dinner-sized portions. Or more if you're going for dessert-sized portions. 

Ingredients

Crumble:

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp butter, softened

Apple goodness:

3 medium apples (I used granny smith)

1 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 1/2 tbsp water

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Mix together all crumble ingredients. Set aside.

Thinly slice apples into loaf pan. 

Mix together all other ingredients for apple goodness. Pour over apples and stir.

Pour crumble over apples and bake at 375◦ for 25 minutes.

Enjoy with vanilla ice cream, if available.

Make Money on a Rainy Day

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It's raining! For the first time in months, it's raining! It's been raining all day today, and it's supposed to continue raining through the night into tomorrow. So far we've gotten over an inch of rain at our house! I love being able to keep track using my rain gauge, which seems so much more accurate than what you see on the news. When you live in the woods, what do you do on a rainy day? You can't cut firewood, or stain the floors, or work on cars (unless you have a garage, you lucky duck). 

You can, however, make a little extra cash without ever leaving home. Keep in mind, you aren't going to get rich doing any of these things, but if you're going to be on the couch all day, why not get paid for it? Here are some of my favorite easy ways to earn money from home:

Are you crafty? Set up a shop on Etsy. If you like to make things (and are reasonably good at it), chances are there is someone out there who will want to buy it. Plus, if you set up a shop by using this link, Etsy will give you 40 free listings; they're usually $0.20 each, so that's like saving $8.00 while also helping you make more money by selling stuff.

Take surveys online. There are several survey sites I've used successfully. I use SurveySavvy on my laptop and Surveys on the Go on my iPhone. Each of these sites offers a few surveys a week, typically paying $1-$3 each. It's not much, but it might be enough to cover a Starbucks habit.  

Swagbucks. I know you've probably heard this one before, but just in case: Swagbucks will pay you $3 just for signing up, and then continue paying you for farting around online through their site, doing things like searching the web, watching videos, and taking more surveys. And here's a trick to getting more bang for your (Swag) buck: 1 swagbuck equals 1 cent. Except that they offer a "deal" on your first $25 gift card every month, which you can get for 2200 swagbucks. So in the 3 months since I've started using Swagbucks, I've earned 6600 swagbucks and gotten $75 in Home Depot gift cards. Not too bad for someone who has traded their Starbucks habit for a Home Depot/home

improvement habit. If that's not your thing, they have a bunch of other gift cards, too. 

Scan your receipts. The key to rebate apps like Ibotta is the same as using coupons while you're shopping: it only works if you don't buy extra stuff just because you have a coupon for it. I started using Ibotta around the beginning of the year and have earned over $60 in rebates. If you sign up using this link, Ibotta will give you a $10 bonus when you redeem your first rebate. For some rebates, you need to buy a specific item (sometimes I'll use Ibotta to decide which beer to buy for hubby), but they also have "any brand" rebates for things like fresh fruits and veggies.

Sell your old books. There are so many websites that buy used books, it can be hard to know which one will give you the best price. Which is why I use Bookscouter. They show you which sites will give you the best prices for your books--and they don't just do textbooks. You can also sell stuff on eBay, of course, although I've had mixed results with them. If you've discovered the secret to successfully selling on eBay, I'd love to hear it.

Now, here's my favorite way to earn money with very little effort. It's called OhmConnect, and it's currently only available in California. You connect your  Ohm account with your electricity bill and they literally pay you for not using electricity. During what they determine are peak usage times, they send out a text or email and, if you use less electricity than they think you will, they give you money. If you don't want to save electricity at that time, you can decline to participate. You also save on your electricity bill if you use less electricity (of course). Through this month, if you're a SoCal Edison account holder, they will give you $40 just for signing up and participating in your first "Ohm Hour." How awesome is that? If you have another electricity company in California, you get $20, which is still pretty nice. You can sign up for OhmConnect here. I earned $3 because there was an Ohm Hour while I was on vacation. It's quite possibly the easiest way out there to pay for that Starbucks/Home Depot habit.

Saturday Night Mystery

For this evening's adventure, hubby and I saw a bat flying around our living room while we were watching tv. Then the kitties saw the bat. One kitty caught it (fortunate, as it wasn't flying out the doors we'd opened for that purpose, and unfortunate, as bats are very good neighbors and I hate seeing bad things happen to them). Another kitty stole it from the first one. I stole it from the kitties (wrapped in a washcloth; never touch wild animals) and took it outside. I was debating whether it was alive enough to warrant calling a rescue, when hubby decided to poke it with a stick (such a boy thing to do) and it flew away into the darkness. The question is, how did the bat get inside the house?

The Strawberry Experiment, part 2

Hello, friends!

If you read the previous installment of The Strawberry Experiment,  you may remember that phase one (rooting runners while attached to mama plant) was supposed to last 2-4 weeks. Being somewhat impatient, I decided to see if we're ready to move on to phase 2. The results were mixed. Some of the baby plants could hold onto their tiny lots while being picked up. 

Some overachievers already had roots popping out the bottom. 

And some had gotten dislodged and hadn't rooted at all. Yet. Those slackers I stuck back in the soil with a little encouragement to do better next time. Of my 12 baby strawberries that I started with, 7 were ready to go and 5 needed more time. The ones that seemed ready got snipped and carted off to a different part of the yard for replanting and a thorough watering. 

They might not look like much now, but this is just the beginning of phase 2: plant them and see if they keep growing despite the wildlife. Stay tuned for the result of phase 2 in (hopefully) a couple months!

Thanks, baby!

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One of the things I was so excited about getting yesterday was the baby thank you cards I ordered. You know how Amazon has everything? They even have thank you cards themed to coordinate with your baby shower! How cute are these woodland critter cards to go with our woodland critter nursery theme? 

I'm trying to stay on top of my to-do list, so I decided to get as much as possible done before our baby shower this weekend (6 more weeks until baby's due, so I'm freaking out a little (lot) about not getting all of our baby essentials already). I wrote the return addresses on the envelopes, folded all the cards, and finished the first few thank you's for baby gifts that have already trickled in. And they're ready to go now that I picked up some cute "Celebrate!" stamps from the post office, for which hubby laughed at me: "what's wrong with the stamps we already have?" 

"They didn't match. Duh." What's the point of having a theme if you're not going to use it? Silly hubby. 

ATV

Having an ATV is great, especially when you live on a dirt road and the UPS guy can't find your house. That's right, folks: 

Today, I chased down the UPS guy on my ATV. 

It was a (thankfully, temporary) guy who had marked our packages down as "undeliverable" since Tuesday because he couldn't find our house. Even though he literally drove past our house on Tuesday and not since, because he thought he was going the wrong way. Even though we have a number in front of our house. Anyway, the dog, my ATV, and I fixed the problem, so we're good now. 

And it is MY ATV. My hubby got it for me for Valentine's Day last year. And the next day while I was at work, he rolled it over on himself. He still has the scars. 

How ridiculous did I look 7 1/2 months pregnant, being chased by the dog, riding an ATV up to the UPS guy? I can only imagine.