Tasty Salads 4: Shroomy Delight

"...And you, whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms..."
-Shakespeare, The Tempest

This mushroom dish makes a pretty good midnight snack. Or meal. I sometimes don't get around to making food until then. It might sound a little weird, but I think it is super good. Try it!

1 lb Button mushrooms, sliced

1/4 cup English peas

1 green onion, sliced

1/4 cup yogurt

1 can tuna (optional - you should add some better than bullion or something so the yogurt doesn't taste so yogurt-y)

red pepper flakes

Fry up the mushrooms (you should never eat large amounts of button mushrooms raw because they contain a toxin that is neutralized upon cooking).

When they begin to shrink add the peas. Cook until the peas are sweet tasting (about 4 minutes)

Add tuna, if you are using.

Put in a bowl with the green onion, yogurt, and hot pepper flakes

You could serve this over pasta as a casserole sort of thing or just eat it as is.

If you want more:

 Tasty Salad 1

Tasty Salad 2

Tasty Salad 3

Tell Me Everything

At times I've found myself disconnected from others, keeping everything to myself. It's totally painful, physically and emotionally but sometimes it's just too hard to know what to say. I wrote this song on one of the days that I was feeling like that. 

Thankfully I've got some really good friends and an awesome family to help me through. Just listening to them and their experiences talking to my friends and telling them about absolutely anything and everything means the world to me. 

Tell Me Everything

by me

Mahalo nui loa to all of you lovelies who are listening to my songs. It is so nice to be able to share and I am looking forward to growing and evolving with all of you. 

<3 KM

Negative Spaces

 This song was my theme song the summer I went to Burning Man. These clothes would look pretty cool at Burning Man, too. I like how the negative spaces show skin in a unexpected way. 

http://www.sefirahfiercedesigns.bigcartel.com/product/leather-belly-top

skin graft

I don't know where these last three images are from, but they are super nifty.

Becoming a boss coupon-er - Free teal and purple pens at Rite Aid!

Have you ever watched those coupon shows where the people walk out with a shopping cart full of stuff for like $5? It's crazy, but it's real. After a long while of speculation, I am now a believer in the power of coupons and I want to tell everyone about them lol.

To get this Rite Aid deal I:

• Bought 3 HI C 10 count drinks on sale for 3/$4.98
• Used three $0.55 off coupons from coupons.com here (2 printed from my ipad app and 1 from my pc)
• Used $3.00 off Load2Card coupon which I pre loaded on the Wellness+ site
• Final price $0.33 for all, $0.11 each
• If you notice the little hand in the picture you can tell that my baby fully approves lol.
• Bought four Ink Joy 8 count pens on sale for $0.99
• Used four $1.00 off Inkjoy coupons from the SmartSource insert in 8/17's paper
• The whole dollar came off of my total so I earned a penny from each purchase, which took $0.04 off my total. 
• I also got back $1 in Up Rewards which I can use on my next Rite Aid purchase so technically I made $0.71. So stoked. 

I absolutely love the colors in the colored Inkjoy set. It includes teal, purple, pink, green, blue, orange, red and black pens. They make doodling, brainstorming and writing notes even more fun. Makes me want to pick up my Gelly Roll Pen habit again lol. 

How do you get so many coupons? 

This can be the tricky part. I recently signed up for a Sunday paper subscription deal in my area where you can get a year's worth of Sunday papers for only $20. I bought 5 subscriptions which comes out to $0.38 for each paper, but I get back way more than that. Some people are more ambitious about scouting out free coupon sources such as hotels and churches or wherever else but this works well for me. I also get extra RedPlum inserts from the Midweek magazine that comes to my mailbox.

If you're not ready to fully invest in coupon-ing just yet I suggest going to coupons.com first and printing out your coupons from there. You won't be able to get all of the deals this way but it is more than enough to see if you can commit to coupons as you can get quite a few deals there. Each device or computer is limited to 2 print outs but you can even download the coupons.com App to print from a tablet or even smartphone! Most stores limit to 4 like coupons per shopping trip so if you have more coupons than that it helps to have someone else to shop with.

Want to know where to go to find these deals?

Krazy Coupon Lady is a great source to discover coupon deals and to learn more about the coupon rules for each store. I also follow Frugal Living NW since I live in the Pacific Northwest, this is where I signed up for my paper deal through the free coupon-ing class they offer. I also like Passion for Savings because they seem to have unique coupon combos which have helped me discover deals that I didn't notice on other sites, and the blog is cute :P.

Any drawbacks to coupon-ing? 

Finding the right deal combos, preparing the coupons and going to the store within the sale's time frame can take awhile at first but I've found myself getting quicker at the whole process lately. I have a coupon binder system now which helps a lot.

At first it felt kind of weird getting free items at the store, almost like stealing :P. Now I look at it as though I am getting paid for the time I spend researching coupon deals. Most clerks are very nice and knowledgeable when it comes to redeeming coupons, at least in my area.

Anyone else a coupon-er?

<3 KM

As Below so Above

Down below the city streets are networks of tunnels making sure flood waters recede. I do not really have a problem with closed spaces. It's more what might be lurking behind the bends in the tunnels that bothers me. And yet I love to explore such depths anyway. 

One time I was exploring a tunnel and the water started rising up over my boots. I was sure a wall of water was going to come at me from around a bend and thrash me against the steel walls of the man-made cavern. When I made it to the entrance it was only drizzling. I never set foot in a storm-drain anymore if rain is in the forecast. 

You never would think about it, but sunglasses are a good idea if you are emerging in unfamiliar locations. You never know what's lurking in the sunlight.

I am wearing an American Apparel unisex tri-blend track shirt in black, which is more like a really dark grey.  It is very soft and the cut is perfect for me: I love long t-shirts. It is one of my favorite shirts, even though it suffers a bit of tiny pilling after a year of use, and it doesn't seem that much cooler than the cotton version.

  I also have on black Levi 511 jeans that are slightly too big... ah, the evil of clothes that are 75% off. They offer nice ease of movement without being too bulky.

 Both these garments make me happy that unisex clothes exist. Even if the Levis aren't billed as gender neutral, I think they qualify.  

 photos by MM 

H&M Trend: Red Pinstripes

Red and white pinstripes all around! Pinstripes are boss but it's somewhat rare to find them in colors other than black or blue. I was so happy to find 3 different red pinstripe pieces on my last trip. Super stoked although I ended up buying polka dots instead lol. 

If you love pinstripes but want to avoid looking like a referee this could help. 

This one's stripes are so thin it almost looks pink but it is really red.

Wrap Dress!

I also found some other red pinstripe stuff  lately:

Red pinstripe Converse!

Jack Purcell Salt Wash Stripes (clipped to polyvore.com)

Faded fabric tote "handmade from recycled sail material."

Nantucket Red Pinstripe Tote (clipped to polyvore.com)

Unfortunately I feel like bright red is not my color or I would scoop the tank blouse up. I'm pale but I have a warm skin tone so I think reds are that too cool look weird on me but who knows? I'm hoping to see neon or color shift pinstripes in the future, I think that would be extra awesome. 

<3 KM

Lavender Pink Lemonade

 Who can say no to pink lemonade on a hot day? And the pink comes from the lavender, so there are no worries about artificial dyes. When you add the lemon to the sweet, lavender tea the water turns from purple to pink because of the acid! It's so cool!

4 Cups of Water

2/3 Cup of Sugar (if you're quitting sugar like KM's last post you could probably use honey or maple syrup)

2 Tablespoons of Dried lavender

Juice of 2 Large Lemons

Boil the water and add the sugar to make make a simple syrup, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. 

Take your syrup off the stove and add lavender. Let steep until you can taste the lavender - about 15 minutes. 

Squeeze the lemons. Taste them. If they aren't very sour, use more. Don't worry about the seeds.

Add the lemon juice. Watch for the awesome color change! Strain out the lavender and the seeds. 

Chill and Enjoy!