TheSnackHound

We live in a open concept style home, which means we have to make sure everything in the “uni-room” doesn’t clash. Some people call it a great room, but I like uni-room. The dining room, kitchen, living room, and front hall are all one open area.  From our old apartment, we had two valances. One had been from our kitchen, and one from the office. Now the valances are in the new house are about seven feet apart on different windows, and they don’t really go together. Also, our apartment was in fiestaware colors, and our new place is more formal in the color palatte of the counters and walls.   I almost forgot the double sliding door that is embarrassingly naked, and is about ten feet away from those windows.

I recently came across a suggestion that you use bed sheets to create window treatments. I tried this once, and ran into some problems. They looked like Strawberry Shortcake and kokopelli took scrubs from a children’s hospital nurse. Or, they looked like we stole them from our bed, plain and simple.  Sometimes bed sheets just look like bed sheets and are too theme-y.  

The answer for me may be in getting some custom valances so things don’t look so slapdash.  I like things that coordinate without being matchy matchy, but they can’t look like our home is a tent in the Sahara, thanks to our white bedding. 

This one reminds me of the furniture store I worked at a few years back. Similar items with butterscotch check mixed with the pattern was paired with a painted ceramic rooster and majolica spaniels.  It really pulled the fake room together.  There was a customer at that store that I really remember well.  She didn’t understand that “custom” meant you picked out the fabric from what they had, the fringe, and the style/dimensions.  It does NOT mean that you can choose from something that doesn’t exist at any fabric mill in the entire world, like 2×3 inch raspberry colored Indian elephants with a green polka dot background.  She didn’t want the beige fabric with the African elephants because that species have larger ears, and she wanted small eared elephants, because it looked too “safari”. I am not making this up.

Our friends at Priority Windows are having a sale right now, where you can get 10-20% off of your order depending on what you spend. There are five bajillion (translation: over 470) fabrics, so you should be able to find something.  You can create custom window treatments in the style and fabric you choose. 

If you are like me and want something that is luxe, but are flexible, they have semi-custom treatments.   You get fewer choices, but you end up with something that looks like it was hundreds of dollars!  I initially looked at the custom choices and I was multiplying the price by the number of windows in my head and it sounded pretty unobtainable.  When I flipped over to the semi-custom stuff, it is very doable instead of having to save up.

Do you have a “uni-room?” If so, what did you do with the window treatments? Did you get something custom for all the different sized windows? Is every window different? Or, did you strike gold with another idea?

I have been told that I am easily entertained, and I also love dark chocolate.  Not only is it delicious, it has many health benefits, too.   Of course, that is null and void when you eat a bag in one sitting and then end up in a bad state of affairs and are confined to a certain small room of your home for several hours. Since this is a food blog, I will not mention the name of said room.

All segue aside, if you go to Coupons.Com, you can score yourself a two for one coupon.  Buy one 8.5 to 9.5 ounce bag of Dove chocolate and you will receive one free.  I was so psyched about that, that I was not prepared as to what happened next. 

We went to Kmart before the grocery store, and I had coupon in hand. The Dove chocolates were 3.69 instead of 3.99 at the grocery store.  At the register, I discovered the pleasant surprise that the current Kmart offer was 3 bags for 6 dollars!  NOT 3.69 as marked.   This, of course translated to $2.00 per bag.     When you consider that I had the coupon, it was like getting 2 bags for only a buck each!

I rattled on about my awesome bargain all the way to the car, into the grocery store, and halfway home.  By that time, my husband did not want to hear about it anymore because I was acting like I was the first person in the world to ever get a good deal, or maybe the chocolate addiction was talking and it was the ramblings of a junkie.

Either way, I was not selfish, and am relating my experiences here. Go to Coupons. Com, then get thee to Kmart!

The CA Wine Club is not just another “wine of the month” club, randomly selecting leftovers from a distribution list. They send their subscribers two bottles of artisan California wines every month, along with a current copy of Uncorked Magazine. Each month, it is not just a different variety, but a different winery. This is also a customizable gift, or a great way to treat yourself because you do get to exercise some choice over what you receive! You can also shop for the holidays now and you won’t be billed until your gift ships in December.

- Choose from monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly shipments. You are not roped into a long contract. On the contrary, you can continue your relationship month-to-month.
- You can sign up and receive one bottle of white, one red, or two of the same, either white or red.

Right now, the first month is on them. If you use promo code ADVENTURE, you save $34.95 at checkout.

There are a few of my frugal friends who told me that they shop for Christmas presents in July, and by the end  August they are finished except if they are giving baked goods.  At first I thought that sounded insane, as I have a few relatives who swear by shopping on Black Friday.  They shop, go to a movie, and have a girl’s day out.  For the uninitiated, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving where stores have big sales and everyone forgets the Reason for the Season and stampedes over eachother to get to the mall door at 5:00 A.M.

There are already prep underway for black friday 2008, even though it is only August. Of course, retailers have to plan their sales year well in advance, but customers are already synchronizing their watches. My philosophy is: if you were not planning on buying it to begin with, it doesn’t matter if its 50% off.  A friend of mine was roped into a complete pot and pan set that she didn’t need because it was on sale.

Usually what I do, is just stay home and let everyone else get callouses on their feet from walking and let them deal with the road rage. I sit home and watch holiday movies instead, and make popcorn on the stove top. Blackfriday.biz had me in mind, because they have a site that mentions all the black friday sales that are going on.   This way, you can plan and can get “in and out.”  Why do I care? They have all the deals online, like the ones Linens ‘n Things will be running, so that I can purchase something without leaving the house.   If I were to want to get even lazier, I can sign up for email alerts in advance as well.

Every house I ever went to in the 80s seemed to have a “mug tree” come standard with the house.  Sometimes you would be gifted with an empty mug tree, but sometimes you would get a mug tree complete with coordinated mugs.  Where would you put the ones you already had?   Today, we don’t have a mug tree, but we have dozens of mugs.  A couple we purchased and more than a few we were given as advertising come ons with every product or event plastered on its sides. Periodically, we weed them out for space, but there are a few stalwarts that always hang on because they are our favorites.

Sure to become not just your favorites, but a conversation piece for years to come, are NewWave Caffe Mugs from Villeroy & Boch.  Have you seen them yet? The handle is shaped so comfortably and funkily (Is funkily a word?) and those saucers are something I have never seen before. Actually, they are called “party plates” and are available in two sizes. You can rest your spoon, but also can enjoy your cake or crumpet in style.

Now that I think of it, I have seen mug sets that are very inventive before, but they usually have a $900 price tag from a gallery. I bet those Museum of Modern Art purchases are not dishwasher safe like these!

During the month of August, the New Wave Caffee Mugs are available for 50% off suggested retail price!   It is the perfect time to have an excuse to not just buy one or two mugs for personal use, but to transform your whole dinner table.   New Wave Caffee is so unique, it would be an interested juxtaposition to traditional tableware, or of course, would be the perfect finishing touch if you have New Wave dinnerware.

Never heard of it?  It looks like Dr. Seuss and the editor of the New York Times wedding and engagement announcement pages got together and BANG.   The NYT editor wanted stark white and spare and something in fine china.   Dr. Seuss wanted no right angles in the dinnerware.   This was the compromise.  Of course, I am kidding.    I could imagine these as a perfect backdrop for sushi!

Time is a’wasting. Get your Caffee Mugs on sale at a steal of a price before I buy them all!  My double spouted teapot needs these. This isn’t the last time you will be hearing from me about them!

Our new friend over at Mom Most Traveled is giving away a ruffled vintage inspired cupcake apron by Carolyn’s Kitchen. Who would have thought full length, frilly, girlie aprons would come back in style, considering how unisex things are these days. Actually, I take that back. It really has never gone out of style, and women are demanding it.

Full length aprons are something I should start wearing again for two things. I tend to be the person who is very careful, though inherently accident prone, and I have a penchant for coincidentally wearing white jeans when I decide to have grape juice or chocolate syrup. You know…the one spot that never seems to come out? Also, there is more motivation to pull out some stick-to-it-iveness in putting the right clothes on for a job.

The apron comes with a set of matching gloves for the ubercoordinated. How do you win? It is very simple to enter, just go check out the blog and leave a comment. You must mention an apron style that you like that was not mentioned in the blog posting. And that’s it!

Contest ends July 6th at 9 PM CST.  In otherwords, that’s tomorrow, if the date stamp on this blog posting patches the day you are actually reading this entry.

The whole “tomorrow” thing wouldn’t apply if you are in Australia, as it is already tomorrow from where you are reading.  Therefore, it would be a little over 26 hours from whatever time/day/century it happens to be where you are.

I should have also stated the year….it is currently 2008 A.D (Anno Domini).    Yes, I still like to use the recently out of favor “Year of Our Lord” rather than this A.C.E. and B.C.E. crappola that all the sudden creeped up on us, that despite being a former “almost majored in classics in college” student, I didn’t get that memo.   (B.C.E: ‘before current era.”  Unless it really means “Before Christ’s {physical} Entrance” but I doubt it).

I won’t get into the whole Julian Calendar/Gregorian Calendar/How that Equates to Chinese New Year and how much time until the end of the contest if you are living somewhere on the Moon.

Translation: Go check it out, but hurry!