Fall is fast approaching. And yes, I know – it’s the season of pumpkin EVERYthing. I’m as much a fan of pumpkin as the next gal, but this girl cannot live on pumpkin alone. And this time of year, as local fruits dwindle away I start looking for some healthy desserts for the fam.

Have I mentioned that my 11 year old girl has a sweet tooth the size of Texas? No? Oh my – she’s a HUGE fan of anything sweet. Anything. Chocolate is her favorite, but I can usually tempt her with a fruit treat. And believe me – we eat more apples here than your average family. We do live in the apple orchard paradise of the south, ya know. But even apples and pumpkin can get old. So, I found a fabulous “recipe” that makes everyone happy. And my family acts like these little fruit cups are the most decadent treats – makes me a happy girl!

Here’s the deal – it’s not really a recipe. There’s no cooking involved and no real way to mess this up. Yay! Here’s what I do…

Frozen Fruit Cups

• 2 (20 oz) cans crushed pineapple in juice (undrained)
• 2 (15 oz) cans mandarin oranges
• 1/3 cup lemon juice (from concentrate is fine)
• 1 bag (16 oz or so)frozen berry mix (mine usually has blackberries, blueberries and strawberries* in it)
• 1 bag (16 oz or so) frozen strawberries*
• 6 ripe but not overly soft bananas, diced
• 1 (12 oz) frozen orange-pineapple-apple juice concentrate, thawed

*Note: The frozen strawberries I get are just strawberries. No sugar, no syrup, no nothing. For two reasons – it’s healthier that way (and these do NOT need extra sugar) and because of child #1’s food dye issues. However, the frozen strawberries with no added anything come whole. And that would not make for good eats. So I simply take the whole strawberries and whir them for a couple of pulses in my Ninja blender. Easy peasy.

Also, all these amounts are flexible. I can’t always find these exact measurements in my stores – I just wing it.

Combine all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Ladle into freezer safe containers and freeze. When you’re ready for a sweet treat, allow one of the fruit cups (or two) to thaw in fridge until ready (or if you microwave, nuke it for a bit until soft.)

I use these nifty little Ziploc containers and usually get 16-18 from one batch. The 1 cup size is perfect for my children. But keep in mind one of my “children” is a 19 year old man-child. And the other is an 11-going-on-16-year-old. So, you may choose to use ½ cup storage instead.

These First Years Snack Cups would be great to use too!

And if you’re looking for a plastic free alternative, try these Anchor Hocking Food Storage Containers.

Hope you enjoy these great sweet treats!

The post Frozen Fruit Cups appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

It’s time for another upcycle on Altered State of Mine – it’s been a while. And this one? SO easy you could do it in your sleep. But I wouldn’t, because it involves sharp scissors. Play it safe, peeps!

Today, I’m talking boot noodles. And this isn’t a new recipe. Trust me. And yes, this is the time of year I need to talk about this.

So, I’m a boot wearer. Not hiking boots, though those have their function. But a fashion boot loving girl! And…it’s almost boot season!! Yay! However, my boots were suffering from a chronic illness – slouchy boot syndrome. Yes, it’s true. Every time I took off my favorite fall/winter accessory, they’d slump sadly to the floor. And risk getting scuffed. And not sit nicely in my closet. And just be…untidy. Well clearly, I couldn’t have that!

Necessity being the mother of…well, everything, I knew I had to figure out a better way to store my boots. Those things are expensive, ya know! My mom had just unearthed a couple of pool noodles from her storage for my youngest to play with. (Quick review – we live in the mountains. With NO pool. Just keeping it real, people.) After the girl lost interest – with no water, it didn’t take long – I had pool noodles floating around my house. Enter…boot noodles!

All I did was measure the length needed (I don’t really measure – I held it up to my boot and eyeballed it), then cut the noodles to length. They’re super easy to cut – use a craft knife, a box cutter or a pair of scissors.

Then just place them in the boot’s legs. Done. From slouchy boots to fine, upstanding members of the boot community in just minutes!

And why am I sharing this astonishing trick with you now? In August? Clearance sales, baby! Because while pool noodles are pretty cheap to start with, finding them on clearance makes this upcycle just that much sweeter.

The post Boot Noodles – How to keep your boots looking sexy with pool noodles appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

Here’s the full press release:

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jun. 12, 2014– (NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon Prime is one of the most popular subscription services, with tens of millions of members. Prime members already enjoy unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 20 million items, unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of popular movies and TV episodes through Prime Instant Video and access to more than 500,000 books to borrow for free with the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Now, Amazon Prime is getting even better—introducing Prime Music.

“Today we’re introducing Prime Music—more than a million songs from some of music’s best artists, plus hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists, all at no additional cost. Prime Music is the latest great addition for Prime members and we think they’re going to love it.”

With Prime Music, Prime members have unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs at no additional cost to their membership. Prime Music includes tens of thousands of albums from top artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. And we’re just getting started—more music is being added all the time. Prime members can choose exactly which songs and albums to listen to, or they can sit back and listen to hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists. Discovering music is easy thanks to Amazon’s personalized recommendations. Music fans will find tons of music they’ll love, from Grammy winners to indie breakout singers, along with a huge music catalog that can easily be combined with their own collection. Prime members can also download songs from the Prime Music catalog to their mobile devices for offline playback on planes, trains and anywhere they’re without an internet connection.

“When Prime launched nine years ago, the program offered Free Two-Day Shipping on one million items. Today, that selection has grown to over 20 million items. Prime Instant Video now offers unlimited streaming of more than 40,000 movies and TV episodes, up from 5,000 at launch three years ago. And the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library now features more than half a million books to borrow for free,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Today we’re introducing Prime Music—more than a million songs from some of music’s best artists, plus hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists, all at no additional cost. Prime Music is the latest great addition for Prime members and we think they’re going to love it.”

What Prime Music means for Prime members:

• Your music collection just got a lot bigger—for free with Prime: Over a million songs from artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, and hundreds of Prime Playlists, are now available for streaming and offline playback at no additional cost to your Prime membership, with new music added all the time.
• Your mix. Your music: Mix Prime Music songs with your own personal music collection to create the library you’ve always wanted.
• You be the DJ or let us be the DJ—it’s your choice: Build the perfect playlist by choosing songs you already love or songs you just discovered through Amazon’s personalized recommendations. Or, just sit back and listen to one of our hundreds of Prime Playlists designed for all types of genres, occasions, artists, moods and activities, like “Feel Good Country,” “Bad Boy Rock,” “Beards & Baristas: Indie Beats,” “Hip-Hop Workout,” “’90s One-Hit Wonders,” and many others.
• No interruptions from ads: Enjoy an ad-free listening experience with unlimited skips and repeat plays.
• Listen where you want: Enjoy Prime Music on Kindle Fire HD/HDX, iOS, Android, PC, Mac and any Web browser.
• Take it offline: Download your favorite songs and Prime Playlists for offline playback on mobile devices. With offline playback, you can enjoy your music wherever you are—and you can avoid costly data plan charges.

The post Announcing Amazon Prime Music appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

To celebrate summer, Uppercase Living is launching a “Summer Splash” incentive event and everyone is invited to join in on the fun! Between May 23rd and June 30th, every Hostess and Open House customer will be able to swim in savings and special offers! Check out the details below and then head to my Uppercase Living Website to place your order!

Customers

It wouldn’t be a party if the guests weren’t having fun! To get every Open House customer in on the action, anyone who places an order of $60 or more will receive an exclusive “Summer Fun Pack” in the color of your choice! With this fun pack you can deck out candle holders, wine glasses, serving trays… the possibilities are endless!

Hostesses

During the Summer Splash event, all of my Uppercase Living Hostesses with parties closing in June have the opportunity to earn more free product! For Open Houses over $400, hostesses will receive 25% ($100 or more) in free product. For those who have a $900+ party, you will earn 30%, which would be an incredible $270 or more worth of FREE PRODUCT CREDIT as well as 4 half-off items! And best of all… Double Up Rewards will apply to this promotion for even sweeter rewards!

If I don’t already have you on my calendar, contact me now to schedule your Uppercase Living open house!

The post Uppercase Living Summer Splash Incentive Special appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

Sometimes a girl just needs salad. Y’all with me? But when said girl has to feed her hungry family, including her man and a man-sized offspring, that salad had better be pretty spectacular. This salad fits the bill. And, are you ready for this? It’s made in the crock pot! Okay, not the actual salad part because that would be gross. But the protein part of the salad is made in your slow cooker – perfect for a no fuss supper!

This recipe has several parts – don’t freak out! It’s just the marinade part, the dressing part, and the salad part. You still with me? Awesome.

So, here we go…

For the Marinade:
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. fresh ginger, grated
1 t. dried red pepper flakes
2 T. honey
3 T. low sodium soy sauce
6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Mix marinade ingredients in a small bowl (and I mean small. Seriously.). Place chicken in slow cooker, pour marinade over chicken, coating each piece well. Cover on low 4-6 hours or high 2-3 hours. Remove chicken from slow cooker and cool. Reserve juices. Shred chicken into bite-sized pieces.

For the Salad:
1 bunch green leaf lettuce, chopped
1 head Napa cabbage, chopped
3-4 carrots, Julienned
1/2 c. roasted peanuts, chopped
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1/2 package maifun noodles, fried in hot oil (or chow mein noodles)

In a large serving bowl, toss together the shredded chicken, lettuce, carrots, peanuts, cilantro, and noodles. Just before serving drizzle with the salad dressing. Toss well and serve.

For the Dressing:
1/2 c. rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t. fresh ginger, grated
1 T. honey
1/2 c. of the reserved juice from the slow cooker.

Combine all ingredients in a medium sized jar. Shake well to combine.

The post Slow Cooker Marinated Chinese Chicken Salad appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

It’s Cinco de Mayo, y’all. And you know how much we love our Mexican food here. Here’s a roundup of some of my favorite Mexican recipes for your celebration.

Today’s menu for us includes tacos, made with my homemade taco seasoning mix. I’m also serving guacamole, of course! My guac recipe? Not so much a recipe. I simply mash some avocado with some lime juice, garlic granules, cumin and a dash of Adobo seasoning. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well. Done. We have guacamole quite often, and why not? Avocados are a great source of healthy fat!

If tacos aren’t your cup of tea, er… margarita?, then no worries. Serve up some Crockpot chicken Tortilla Soup with fresh, easy Pico de Gallo on the side.

Or take the easy way out, order in and whip up a serving of Mexican rice to go along with your easy celebration. Hey, no judging here! We’re all doing the best we can.

Enjoy your day, no matter what it holds!

The post Cinco de Mayo, baby! appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

I am so excited to announce that I’ve signed up as an Uppercase Living Independent Demonstrator! You know I love home décor and altering items. Now I can earn money while I decorate my house. And the best part is that I can help you get items for half price or even free! Make sure you like my Uppercase Living Facebook page to keep up to date on all the news, specials and exciting offers. You can also register on my Uppercase Living website to receive email updates. From time to time I will also share special news here on Altered State of Mine, but you won’t see everything unless you follow me on Facebook or sign up for my email list.

What is Uppercase Living?

Uppercase Living is the industry leader in vinyl wall décor! We offer hundreds of pre-designed expressions and images for you to choose from (such as witty phrases, motivational quotes, and meaningful sayings), that can be placed (and removed) quickly and easily on your walls and many other surfaces. For more information and to view our complete product line, visit my Uppercase Living website.

Host an Open House

Want to get Uppercase Living products for free? Host an Uppercase Living Open House! Share Uppercase Living with your friends, either in-person at a party or by handing out catalogs, and earn your order for free! My average hostess earns $50 in free product plus 2 half-price items and other goodies!

Want it all? Start your own business by joining my team!

You can start your own business with Uppercase Living for as little as $49 and you will receive huge product discounts, instant commission on all of your sales, and other incredible benefits. With a flexible schedule, an inspiring and beautiful product, and great support from myself and the Home Office, you can’t lose! Join my Uppercase Living team now!

The post Uppercase Living with Candy, Independent Demonstrator appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

There’s nothing earth shattering about this idea. It’s pretty simple, as a matter of fact. But it’s helped us tremendously and I’m hoping it helps you too! As y’all know, we’re a homeschooling family. Which means we are at home a LOT. It also means we go through a LOT of dishes. I’ve never sympathized with people when they tell me they don’t have enough dishes to run their dishwasher. Really? Wanna take some of mine home with you? We always seemed to be using multiple glasses each day. There’s only four of us in my family, but I’d often find two or three times that many glasses in my sink at the end of the day.

Enter…beverage bands! You know those rubber bracelets you get (usually for free) to help support some cause or to commemorate something? We have bunches of them around here! I just couldn’t throw them away, but after the event or cause was a distant memory, what was I supposed to do with them? Well, I use them to mark our drinking glasses during the day. That way, we know whose glass is whose and don’t use enough for a football team.

They fit on most glasses we’ve tried and are usually dishwasher safe (top rack). The only fly in this particular ointment for us? We have one child who simply refuses to use them. Not a problem for me, as long as they keep up with their own glass.

The post Beverage Bands appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

Our pastor recently challenged our church to pray over one particular word for 2014 that we believed God would have us focus on. (And for those who took several weeks to decide on a word, the word "procrastinate" was suggested. ) I had a 'word' for 2013, that I just decided would be a good one. Eh. Not so much. I was fully on board with this idea though, for one big reason. We also had to find a Bible verse to go along with our one word. YES! 

So, after much prayer and soul searching – truly – I decided on the one word I really needed to focus on. I started with the one area of my life that I feel is really out of (my) control right now. My anxiety. Working from that, I knew my word. CALM. This. This is what I need. Calm in my life and in my soul. 

So, here's my verse for the year. "The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” Exodus 14:14 (NLT)

And because I'm a visual person, I knew I needed to post this verse in my house where I can see it on a daily basis. I searched, but couldn't find a printable version of it that spoke to me. So I made my own. 

And because I know I'm not the only one who struggles with out of control anxiety (I am truly sorry, readers. Believe me when I say I empathize…) I'm sharing a free printable version of Exodus 14:14 with you! Just click the link below to get the full sized version. It prints great as a 8×10.

Download your free printable copy of Exodus 14:14

Please feel free to Pin it, share it on Facebook, and/or print it for your own personal use. 

Blessings to you!!

The post Just stay Calm… appeared first on Altered State of Mine.

Making your own taco seasoning mix at home is really simple. I've made my own taco seasoning mix for ages – it's one of the changes we made early on after one of the kiddos started having issues with red food dye. We try to eliminate as many highly processed foods as we can, without going crazy. Because seriously, some people go a little nutty over food. Y’all know someone who’s gone round the bend.

Anywho, the taco seasoning mix. This is super simple, people. And it has no weird preservatives in it.

These are the listed ingredients of the major brand taco seasoning we used to buy:

Chili pepper, salt, maltodextrin, spice, onion powder, corn starch, yellow corn flour. Contains less than 2% of: partially hydrogenated soybean oil, silicon dioxide (anticaking agent), sunflower and/or cottonseed oil, natural flavor, ethoxyquin (preservative).

Um, yeah. I don’t have a clue what most of those ingredients are – and the ones I know what they are, I’m mystified as to why they’re in it at all. Corn flour? Oil? Why??

So, I was thrilled when I did a little research and found out how easy it is to make my own seasoning. And how I can customize what I add for our own preferences. I use this mix for tacos, burritos, nachos, any type of Mexican food. I’ve used it on ground turkey, ground chicken and boneless chicken. I’m sure it would be great in any slow cooker meal.

I haven’t tried it on ground beef, since we’ve been beef free for so many years. But, if you want to use this on ground beef, I would suggest reducing the salt you add. I’ve found that ground turkey and chicken have naturally lower sodium content than beef.

After some trial and error, here’s my recipe.

Taco Seasoning Mix

12 teaspoons chili powder
10 teaspoons paprika
11 teaspoons cumin
6 teaspoons onion powder
6 teaspoons garlic granules
6 teaspoons sea salt

Combine all ingredients and store in a container with a tight fitting lid for up to 6 months. For ground turkey, we use about 1-2 TABLESPOONS per pound.

I whipped up this batch for burritos while the Hubster was cooking. That would explain the salt scattered in the photo. <sigh> Also, full disclosure? All the gorgeous pics you see on my blog? THOSE are the result of The Hubster’s amazing eye. All the so-so pics with poor lighting and composition? Yup, those are a result of yours truly. I am not a mom-with-a-camera. The Hubster? He’s the one with the amazing eye for lighting, composition, and opportunity. He’s kind of amazing. But, he was cooking last night (I *know*, right? All that and he cooks, too??), so you’re stuck with my less than stellar pics. Sorry. But the recipe is worth it! 

The post Make Your Own Taco Seasoning appeared first on Altered State of Mine.