I have made a commitment to...

...use my crock-pot every Monday of the school year.  I about gave up mid-menu-planning because I was uncomfortable with the restriction.  BUT I will persevere.

So far I have 5 ideas.  Only 5.  Help, puhleeze. 

In other news, I'm often asked, "With 10 weeks off, what do you do all day!?"  What a great question.  I ask myself that every single day.

That's why it's time to go back to school.

This activity filled 2 days.  You see, I had a gazillion Real Simple magazines that I couldn't bear the thought of tossing them to the recycling bin or to the wolves (the students will eventually cut them up in an attempt to write a "found" poem).

So this is what I did...

You might laugh.  Go ahead.  Hubs laughed for 48 hours straight.

Call me anal.  Call me uber-organized.  Call me ridiculous.

Just don't say you're not jealous.

So I took this stack of mags...

 Bought a few binders from the dreaded back corner of Target...

 Decided on a few categories for my "everything" binder...like "Exercise"

 "Cleaning"

 "Organizing"

 "Decorating"

 "How to..."

 And put them in my binder. 

 Then I made a "Recipes" binder...

 ...but most of my pictures are dumb. 

 Once I had filled both binders, they (the binders) found a home on my cook book shelf.

And all were happy on the Carlson front.  All.