That Works For Me {book review + giveaway}

*******This giveaway is now closed************

The winner is Stephanie Ann – congratulations!

You know how I post a Works for Me Wednesday tip every Wednesday?  Well, I’m not the only one – hundreds of helpful tips covering all kinds of topics are linked up each week.  And now, Kristen (who hosts WFMW each week) has compiled many of those tips into a organized book.

And guess what else?  Yours truly is featured in this book!  Yep, three of my Works for Me Wednesday tips were included in the book (but I’m not going to tell you which ones…you’ll have to buy it to find out…).

I am so excited about That Works for Me! (and not just because I’m in it…)  There are tons and tons of helpful tips that have been used and confirmed by real people!  The book is divided into categories like babies, beauty/fashion, blogging, cleaning, organizing, crafts, gardening, frugality, decor, gifts, homeschooling, parties/holidays, laundry, hospitality, recipes, parenting, marriage, time management, technology, and traveling.  Whew!  There’s something for everyone!  Each entry includes a summary of the tip and provides a link to the original blog post for that tip so you can check it out in more detail.

If you want to find out more about That Works for Me!, go here.  Here‘s an example of what a page from the e-book looks like.

There is also a related contest going through the end of April: submit a tip that works for you (you don’t have to have a blog to participate) and you might win a $150 to use to get your house professionally cleaned!!  Wowza!  You can submit as many tips as you want, too.  Go here to find out more about the contest and/or submit your helpful tips.

But that’s not all!  I’m also giving away one copy of That Works for Me!.  Here’s how you can win:

• entry #1: leave a comment on this post telling us about a tip that works for you (it can be a tip about anything!)
• entry #2: become a follower of my blog (sign up is on the right side of the blog) and then leave a comment telling me you’re a follower (if you’re already a follower you can just leave a comment telling me so)
• entry #3: Like That Works for Me! on Facebook (go here) and then leave a commenting telling me that you did.

The giveaway will end Sunday, April 22.

Can’t wait until then?  You can go ahead and buy it now: Click here to visit wearethatfamily. - use the coupon code SAVE1 to get $1 off your purchase.

2012 goals and bucket list update – March

Time for an update on my 2012 goals and bucket list (see here for the January update, and here for February)

2012 goals:

• read through the entire Bible - We’re almost done with the New Testament!  We’ll finish up Revelation tomorrow and then start in Genesis – the rest of the year will be spent in the Old Testament.  The only thing I haven’t liked is that we flew through the smaller books (James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Philemon, Jude, etc.) often doing on book or multiple books per day.  We didn’t really get to savor each book, but I guess that’s where personal Bible studies come in.
• get my healthy lifestyle back, specifically to lose the 20-25 pounds I’ve gained since getting married. - The good news is I didn’t gain weight this month (despite all the cake).  The bad news is I didn’t lose any weight either (thanks to all the cake).  I’m still holding steady at a little more than 7 pounds lost.  This has definitely not been easy.  It’s amazing how much harder it is to lose the weight at 25 than it was at 19. But I’m just going to keep on chugging.

2012 bucket list:

• make an apple pie from scratch
• take cake decorating classes – I took the Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 classes this month (see here, here, here, and here) and had a BLAST!  I’ve signed up to take Course 2 in April, but then I think I’ll be done after that (Courses 3 and 4 are mostly fondant, which I think is pretty but not very tasty so I’m not as interested, plus we’ll be traveling in May so I won’t be here for the classes)
• learn how to make Mom’s homemade Christmas cookies
• make 72 hour emergency kits for our home and cars
• make my own laundry detergent
• bake a loaf of homemade bread
• make a quilt – still going strong.  I’ve made blocks for January, February, and March and I’m loving it more and more!  I can’t wait to get to work on the April blocks
• grow something – I’ve done a little bit of searching and I think I’m just going to have tomatoes and herbs this year – we have limited space plus those seem to be fairly easy to grown (since I’m totally new to this); now that school is almost over I can concentrate on figuring out when to plant and how to care for the little guys
• can pickles
• take some sort of vacation - We bought plane tickets to go to Chicago for a long weekend in May.  We haven’t chosen a hotel or made any plans of what we are going to do when we get there, but we know we’re going!  I’m so excited because I’ve been wanting to go to Chicago for a while now.
• get at least one scrapbook done for my in-law’s
• ???start an Etsy shop???

Other notable things:

• My practicum is over – very bittersweet.  I’m glad to have more time now, but I really loved the school and the people so I’m going to miss being there.
• Also, this semester is virtually over for me.  I am 99.9% done with my portfolio (just finishing touches now – I should be able to turn it in this week!) so once I get that turned in then I’m done!  Wow!  I can’t believe this is finally here.  Now I just have to wait until May 11 to graduate and be officially done.
• My blog had a big month: it hit 50,000+ total views and 100+ followers!  So fun!
• The house still hasn’t sold, but we’re having lots of showings so fingers crossed that someone will want it soon!

I can’t really think of anything else.  This month has basically revolved around cake .

dashing dish – my newest blog crush

I have to tell you about my newest blog crush – Dashing Dish.  I found this blog through Pinterest and over the course of several days read through all the old posts.  Does that make me a creeper?  Maybe so, but I don’t care, I love this blog so much that I just have to share it with you!

Dashing Dish is written by a super sweet girl named Katie.  She share healthy recipes, fitness tips, devotional thoughts, and of course tidbits about her life.  I was really inspired by her story about the unhealthy relationships she had experienced with food in the past and how she found health and balance – things that I’ve struggled with some too.  I also really like how she journals as she does her Bible reading and I think it’s a great way to keep your thoughts organized and focused.

Reading through her recipes makes my mouth water!  She makes all sorts of things, but I’m especially drawn to her desserts (I am such a sweets girl!), which are much healthier than many desserts you come across.  She includes both the calorie stats and the Weight Watchers Points Plus for each recipe.

I think this frozen Reese’s peanut  butter pie might be my birthday dessert this year:

[recipe and source]

I’m going to try these turtle cheesecake bars for Valentine’s:

[recipe and source]

These peanut butter swirl brownies must also be made sometime ’cause you know I love me some chocolate and peanut butter:

[recipe and source]

Michael loves chocolate chip muffins so I’m excited to try out this healthier triple chocolate chunk version:

[recipe and source]

And these peanut butter pancakes will be making an appearance on my breakfast table sometime soon:

[recipe and source]

She also makes protein shakes in all sorts of flavors.  I was a little skeptical about them but the pictures looked so good, she loves them, and other readers loved them too so I had to try them out.  She also uses a lot of peanut flour in place of peanut butter.  Y’all know I have a serious love/hate relationship with peanut butter – I love it bunches but have a hard time keeping it around because I just eat spoonfuls out of the jar.  This peanut flour gives the peanut butter flavor without as many calories, plus I’m not going to eat flour straight out of the package so not quite as tempting.  I bought the ingredients I needed for the protein shakes, ordered the peanut flour, and anxiously awaited it’s arrival so I could try it out.

Wednesday I went ahead and made a shake that didn’t need the peanut flour – a mocha flavored shake.  It was good.  Then yesterday the peanut flour came and so today I made a peanut butter butterscotch shake – AMAZING!!!  Seriously!  It was just like eating ice cream or a milkshake but so much healthier!  You HAVE to go check out her shakes – here she gives the base recipe for the shakes plus tons of flavor options (you might think the ingredients are a little strange but trust me, the end result is incredible).  I’m not kidding – the peanut butter butterscotch is to die for!  She also made a video to explain how to make a Dashing Dish protein shake.

[recipe and source]

So the protein shake recipe is a winner.  I’m excited to try some of the other flavors she suggests.  I also used my peanut flour this afternoon to make Reese’s cookie batter oatmeal (very similar to my peanut butter chocolate oatmeal recipe).  It was delicious as well – the peanut flour is also a winner in my book!

[recipe and source]

Now you probably want to lick your computer screen and you think I’m a total crazy stalker, so I’m going to end this post (and go grab some supper because all this talk of food has made me hungry!).  But first I have to tell you one more time…check out Dashing Dish (and make a shake – yum!)!

(all images in this post were taken from Dashing Dish)

new recipe organization

I’ve organized my recipes to give you (and me!) easier access to them.  If you look toward the top of the page, there is now a new tab (next to “blog” and “about me”) that says “recipes”.  When you click on it you should see links to all the recipes I have posted here on chocolate moments so far.  I’ll update the list as I add recipes to the blog.

my dream scrapbooking room…I’m drooling…

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading blogs for several years.  One of the blogs I love is Kevin & Amanda.  I basically have a blog crush on Amanda – she is super cool.  I found her blog a few years ago when I Googled “scrapbook rooms” and a post about her AMAZING scrapbook room came up.  Head over to her blog to check it out, but here’s a peek: Is that amazing or what?  If you click on the link above, you can even use the interactive feature on her post to see details about each part of the room (I just took a screenshot so I could show you her room; I hope she doesn’t mind – I’m still learning blog etiquette).

Then I discovered the free fonts that Amanda creates? offers? I’m not sure how that works exactly.  But anyway, she turns people’s handwriting into fonts that you can download and type with.  I love them and use them all the time when I make signs for my classroom; I even used them to create a pi day t-shirt at school a few years ago.  Once I learn more about blogging maybe I can use them here too.

She also has some really great recipes.  I made her chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes for a super bowl party with church friends and Mom and I made her Reese’s chocolate peanut butter cake for my birthday.  Both were rich and amazing!  Those cookie dough cupcakes were to die for!  Here are pictures of both – these are my very poor pictures, her food pictures are much better so look at the ones she posted.  I just wanted to show what they looked like when a less than professional cook (me) made them.  Someday, ya know in that far away world where I get my scrapbooking room and super nice DSLR camera and all, I’ll take fantabulous pictures of my food too.

chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes – plain (yellow? white?) cupcakes with cookie dough in the center and buttercream frosting that tastes just like cookie dough – yummylicious!

chocolate cake, with chopped up Reese’s baked in the cake, with peanut butter frosting, and more Reese’s covering the outside – chocolate peanut butter heaven.

So now that I sound like the craziest stalker ever, you should go check out Amanda and her blog.  I love to live vicariously through her travels, pictures, food samples, and her mad blog computer code making thingermajig skills.

Why Blog?

Well…after stalking reading lots of other blogs for the past 5 years I’ve finally decided to take the plunge and start my own.  I have no idea who, if anyone, wants to read my crazy thoughts – but if nothing else, this can serve as a journal of sorts of my life.  My goal is to record and share my “chocolate-worthy” moments (which for me is practically everything!).  Get ready for lots of pictures, cooking, crafting, and silliness.  Computers are not my strong suit and I’m still getting the hang of this blogging thing so bear with me.