Gross! My cats have fleas!!!

So my hubby is in Aruba with my brother-in-law and like 12 other guys for a few days.  My brother-in-law bought a house there with his wife and her brother and sister.  They all chipped in for the place which is awesome!  My husband got to go down there for a bachelor party for 6 days.  So jealous!  Has anyone else noticed that bachelor/bacherlorette parties have turned into weekend-long extravaganzas?  What's with that?  Anyways....

I've noticed that my cats have been scratching a lot lately so I finally checked them today.  Lo and behold, they have fleas.  Great.  Thank goodness my hubby is away because he would probably flip.  I've dealt with them having fleas before and it was not fun.  Before when we lived in the city, I didn't really have to worry about fleas too much.  Now that we are in the 'burbs, my big cat Mickey likes to open the screen door and escape outside to the yard.  This has to be where they got the fleas from!

Here is a picture of the culprit who opened the screen door and the follower who went outside right behind him!

Mickey is the big one and Abby is the little one

This is a picture of my yard that Mickey likes to escape to.  He always runs to that tree all the way in the back for some reason.

That pirate boat was here when we moved in and I have to get rid of it...  it's mosquito city all around it!

So anyway, this morning I went to the pet store and got Advantage to put on the cats.  I realize now that I'm going to have to start doing preventative treatments on them too.    I also ordered these pills on Amazon Flea Killer Capsules and I am giving them a plug because I immediately recieved an email from them when I ordered and it seems like they are a great company.  The Amazon reviews for this product are great too, and I always go by reviews, for everything.  I really do.  It's kindof an obsession...


However, I was also interested in finding out more natural ways to get rid of these buggers.  I read that adding some apple cider vinegar to their water will help get rid of the fleas, so I have done that.  I read that sprinkling salt on the carpet will kill them, so I did that to the little area rug we have.  I read fleas hate peppermint so I bought peppermint oil but didn't use it yet.  I don't think the cats will like me squirting them.  I also sprayed my little area rug with some Basic H because I read somewhere that helps to get rid of the fleas too.

I washed my sheets because they lay in bed with us and closed all the bedroom doors to keep them out.  I vacuumed everything and immediately threw the dirt in a bag and into the outside trash. 

 So now I guess I have to play the waiting game and hopefully these little pests will be murdered sometime soon.  It really freaks me out when they have fleas and I always feel itchy all the time watching them scratch themselves.  

Please contribute any flea remedies you may have.  I would love to hear your ideas!  I want these suckers DEAD AND GONE!  

Have a great day everyone!!!

Nina

My super scrub!

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

I did a little cleaning today, and by little I mean very, very little.  I was noticing how yucky the bottoms of my pans get because I neglect to clean them properly when I should.  

This is when my magical Scour Off comes in handy.  I really love this stuff for the following reasons:

1. It is nontoxic, natural, biodegradable, no phosphates... YAY!!!
2. It's fumes don't make me feel drunk/high.  I'm going to save the drunk feeling for later when I have my Friday night wine (YAY!)
3. Scour Off really smells great.  It reminds me of fruit punch.
4. This stuff really works!  Everywhere I use my Scour Off, it always gets the job done beautifully!

So here is the pan that I decided to clean today and this is the brown that I never, ever clean...

 
And here is my pan (notice the gross handle part?) with the crew that I will need for clean up...  just add some water!

Here is a picture midcleaning... I just smear some paste on, wet my sponge and scrub away.  The paste is a lovely pink color.

Next I washed my pan off and here is the end result!

Super clean pan and super clean handle!!

So this is the extent of my cleaning today.  I had to work so I didn't really have much time to clean and then it was time to pick up the kiddo from school.  Now it's time to make dinner, play with the kiddo, pack the hubby for Aruba (yes, really have to do this and will elaborate on my next post) and have some mommy and wine time!

Hope everyone has an excellent weekend!  You rock!

Nina  :)


P.S.  Here is the product page for Scour Off if you want some more info!

Scour Off Product Info 

Hold me over to dinner shake

Working from home offers me the opportunity to snack all day. My "office"/dining room is right next to the kitchen and it's so easy to just go there and munch all day. I don't really eat lunch (I know I should) but the longer I spend in the kitchen feasting, the less time I am working. I usually try to make myself something light for lunch that's fast and then I make myself this shake. It's pretty filling and super fat to make. It definitely holds me over until dinner time.


I leave this shake a little bit chunky so the chewing action tricks me to feel fuller as well (at least I trick myself to believe so!)


So here is my recipe for a pineapple strawberry vanilla smoothie!


 Pineapple Strawberry Vanilla Smoothie
1 cup of 2% milk (or any kind you prefer)
1/4 cup pineapple
1/4 cup strawberries (I had some I froze earlier)
1/2 tsp of flaxseed
1 Scoop Shaklee Cinch vanilla

Add all of your ingredients together in blender. I have this fancy shmancy single serve blender thing I like to use. It's like those magic bullet blenders. I blend it just until everything looks nice and mixed together... About 20 seconds. I like my shakes chunky because again, I like to chew my drinks! I love lots o'pulp OJ for this very same reason but never get it because it grosses out everyone else in my family! But I digress.

 

  

This is pretty much it for my pineapple strawberry vanilla hold me over smoothie. Hope you have a wonderful day!!!

Pizza Pizza Pizza!

Pizza!

It's definitely one of my top favorite foods.  My other favorite is probably potato pierogi.  I'm a Polish girl though, so what do you expect?  

Ah, but pizza.  So perfect.  So cheesy.  What's not to love?  I love ordering pizza.  Since we moved here to New Jersey, I have had fun trying out all the different pizza places around here to find our new favorite.  We had our favorite spots in Philly, one for regular pizza, one for white pizza and one for sauce on top pizza.  

One of my favorite things to do with my son is to make our own pizza from scratch at home.  It can get messy (flour all over ourselves and the kitchen) and take a long time (the recipe I use calls for dough-rising time) but it's fun and it seems healthier to me than pizza store pizza.  I don't know if it really is or isn't, but I feel like it is.

I have tried many different types of pizza dough recipes and so far this is my favorite.  It comes from the book Cook This, Not That  I like this series of books because I have gotten good ideas from them. 

So here my first attempt at documenting a recipe!

This is the cast of characters to make the dough

I start with a cup of hot water and add my salt.

Then I add my agave nectar.

 

Then I add the yeast.

Looks pretty gross.  Me and my son like to watch it when the yeast starts to activate.  It makes all these neat bubbles and it's kinda cool!

So after 10 minutes, your yeasty water should look all bubbly and foamy like this.

Next I add the oil.

The next step is to add the flour little by little and stir and mix and stir.  It comes out to look like a big sticky blob.  It shouldn't be too sticky though because that means you don't have enough flour.

Put your dough clump on a well-floured surface and knead it for about 5 minutes, adding extra flour sprinkles if the dough is too sticky.  I wash out the same bowl I used and grease it a little bit with some oil.

 Cover it in plastic and let that puppy sit for about 90 minutes.

This dough ball should rise nicely for you.  I punch it down in the middle about halfway through waiting for it to be done.  Sometimes it seems to rise too high for me so I just punch it.  Well, I'll have my son punch it because again, it's fun for him to do and watch!

So the I take the big ball of dough and roll it out onto my pizza plate.  Again, add a few sprinkles of flour to combat any stickiness.

 Now here's the best part of pizza!  You can add whatever you want to it to make it your own creation.  Our favorite sauce is this one, but use whatever you love!  Sometimes I don't use sauce and spread olive oil on the crust, season it with garlic powder, garlic salt, bits of garlic and lots of cheese!

Today it was just a plain pizza.  Add as much or as little sauce, cheese and toppings as you want!

Bake at 500 degrees for about 8 minutes.  Sometimes it's a few more minutes for some reason for the cheese and crust to get to this beautiful, golden color.  I'm so hungry looking at this right now!

So there is my first food post!  Hooray!  I hope you try out this recipe and let me know if you have a favorite that I can try out!

Pizza Dough Recipe (from Cook this, Not that)

1 package instant yeast

1 cup hot water

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp sugar or honey (I like agave)

1/2 Tbsp olive oil

2 1/2 cups flour, plus more for kneading/rolling

Combine yeast with water, salt and agave and let sit for 10 minutes while it activates.  Stir in olive oil. Add flour and stir.  When the dough is not sticky anymore, place on well-floured board and knead for about 5 minutes.  Put dough ball in bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let dough rise for about 90 minutes.  Keeps in the fridge for about 2 days.