No bake energy bites - Pinterest Recipe review

Well... I said I would get on the ball with reviewing some Pinterest recipes... so here we go.  We were in desperate need of some healthy and different snacks around the house. Something we can grab and go, something I can send to work with hubby because god only knows what his "snacks" are. I was looking at the millions of pins I have pinned on Pinterest, and I came across these no bake energy bites and thought - PERFECT! Here is what we need to make these:

1 cup dry oatmeal (I had quick cooking oats so I used these)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup of ground flax seed (this is where the energy comes from!)
1/3 cup of honey
1 t. of vanilla extract (I forgot this but they still turned out great - just in case you are missing it from your house!)

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until thoroughly mixed. Let chill in the fridge for a half an hour. Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever size you like. At the size you see in the above picture, I made 22 balls. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week. One suggestion I have is to keep some flour next to you to put on your hands as you roll, to help them not stick to your hands as much. You can see a little bit of the flour I used on a couple of the balls in the picture, but its not enough to change the healthiness of the recipe.

All in all, I would give this a huge thumbs up!  


One should eat to live, not live to eat. 
Moliere 

Enjoy!

Morality. Kindness. Honesty.

Morality:

~is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are "good" (or right) and those that are "bad" (or wrong). The philosophy of morality is ethics. A moral code is a system of morality (according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles. An example of a moral code is the Golden Rule which states that, "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

My parents spent years saying over and over again "treat others as you would want to be treated", and I believe I spent years trying to know the difference. Are parents still saying this to their children? I pray so. According to the bullingstatistics.org website, we lose 4,400 of our young people each year to suicide due to bulling. And our 10-14 year olds are at an even higher risk for suicide than ever before. What? 10-14 year olds? These young ones are suppose to be playing outside with their friends, joining sports or hobbies and having fun. This is suppose to be a worry free time for them. What is happening here? Have we lost kindness, morals, ethics and the saying "treat others as you want to be treated"? God, I hope not. As a woman who yearns to become a mother soon, I think about how kids are treating each other often. 4,400 of OUR young people? This means that the numbers of kids who are bullied/treated poorly have to be staggering. 
Just in my every day life, I have seen morality and ethics dwindle. Maybe it is the type of business I worked in for 6+ years, but maybe it is more than that. I think we have lost ourselves in the need to succeed at ANY cost. (Run people over, lie, cheat, steal, fight, drive the bus!)  When I managed a group of  about 8, I constantly told them - always do what's right, nothing else matters as much as that. Give credit where it is due, and do not worry about where it will leave "you" in your stature. Stick up for what you believe in. Stand tall in your decisions, in your morals, and in caring for others progress and success. I did what I could to bring people up this way. And that is honestly how I felt - I felt it was my job to "bring them up", and I felt a motherly duty to do this right. Finding out that one or more of them have not taken what I taught them and grew on it, has been devastating. My eyes actually welled up with tears as I told my husband, "how could this happen? This is not how I brought him up".  My husband and I both worked for the same company for years, in the same department. We both tried and tried to run honest departments, manage honest people, and be honest, trustworthy, hardworking employees. We often stuck up for what we believed in, and took a lot of heat from it. But we wouldn't go back and change a thing. If anything, we would fight harder. Fighting for what's right is why we can sleep at night.
If we had more people caring for other successes as much as they do theirs, this society would be in a much better place. Consider that. Consider changing the way you do things at work, at home with your loved ones, how you teach your children.... because they will learn from it and use it day to day. And it may just save someones life.
This brings me to something that I have wanted to do - which is to start my random act of kindness and bucket list. I think I will start working on that now.... and I implore you to do the same. I will update you when I have my list complete as this will hold me accountable for finishing it!  

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.” 
― Henry David Thoreau

The "Be Social" Giveaway!

The support everyone has showed us with the blog, our business, and everything in between has been AMAZING... I cannot thank everyone enough. We are asking for just a few more "favors", with a sweet prize in the end for two of you! Wonderful at Home has put together two Vintage Pedestals for two lucky winners, and there are several ways to enter at the bottom of this post! Have fun and good luck!

Entry-Form

Slightly worn, but not forlorn!

Boy! It's been a while since my last post. With treasure hunting, refinishing items for our booth, filling our booth, working at the Antique Mall, working on a new business venture, looking for craft shows to get into, trying to get our Etsy shop open.... and more.... It has been more than crazy! I actually put my darling husband to bed tonight and came back downstairs to work!
So I thought I would show you what we have been up to at Wonderful at Home!

Of course - things get away from me, and I don't have before and after pictures of everything, but I thought you may still enjoy seeing what we have been up to! Boy, I just can't get enough of antique and vintage finds! But who can!?
                                                    BEFORE:

BEFORE - This mirror is already beautiful, but then we put a coat of "Coco" colored paint on it... and....

Whooolllaaaa! I love the detail on the top!

This chair was in someone's garage our here in the boonies.... we changed the seat covered (it was nothing to look at, and it was tattered and torn ) - we kept the paint just as it was found, because it had such a great worn look to it already

My mom found this telephone table (sometimes called a gossip table), at the Salvation Army. Gorgeous! We changed out the seat cover because the one that was on there was all torn and stained (not in a good way) and I think it looks great!

I wish I would have gotten a "before" picture of this, but if you can try to imagine, it was just plain wood color, similar to the color shade of the floor it is sitting on... but after a beautiful coat of "paris gray" and some wood appliques... WOW!

I hope you like what we have done... and really try to appreciate antique and vintage finds when you see them. It so often breaks my heart when I see or hear of these "slightly worn" items being tossed aside, trashed, or left out in the elements, as we cannot ever get that time back. Treasure them, or make sure they get to a good home so someone else can treasure them!

I know a lot about a lot of things, but there's always something to learn. That's the beauty of the antiques business.

~ Karen Keane

Priceless Treasures....

The first Sunday of every month, the Antique mall where we have our booth, has a 2 hour period before the mall opens, where just the dealers get to go in and add more treasures, rearrange the booth, and chat with fellow antiquers. It was a great day for us as my mother and I had gone out a couple days before on a big treasure hunting trip!

We found lots of goodies, and my husband and I had finished re-purposing a few items that added to the booth! 

Treasure hunting is amazing. I just love picking through all the old, dirty, rust covered treasures to see what we can find. I often think... boy, if they just made things like they used to... but they don't! I don't know whether it is lack of innovation, laziness, or just the fact that manufactures, want to produce and shove items out the door as fast as they can to make as much money as they can.... but its sad. These items... treasures from the past are priceless.

I look at them and wonder... what is the story. Did this teacup travel here from another country as a gift from one family member to another? Whose house did this shabby chic, chippy medicine cabinet come from? How many of these vintage ornaments belonged to someones grandma?

I hope, if/when you come across a antique/vintage find... you think about the story, and the fact that the item is priceless, because if you just toss the treasure to the curb, you wont find anything as truly beautiful like it again.... 

Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.

 Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Amazing Breakfast Pizza

Now this... this is breakfast.... A Breakfast pizza that EVERYONE in the family will love. Yes. This is it.
We eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner and reheating it makes it leftovers to die for! Trust me, your family will thank you!

What you will need:

• 1lb of Bob Evans Pork sausage (It comes in a roll - I use spicy, but regular will work fine)
• 1 1/2 package of Pillsbury refrigerated crescent rolls
• 1 cup of shredded frozen hash browns - thawed
• 1 cup of shredded colby jack cheese (can use cheddar if you wish)
• 5 beaten eggs
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/8 t. of pepper
• 2 T of Parmesan cheese
• 12 in Pizza pan 
• Pizza cutter works best to slice it up

What to do with all these ingredients 

Cook sausage, drain fat. 

Separate dough into triangles. Place on an ungreased pizza pan with points toward center. Press together and around edges to form crust, making sure no holes are in bottom or around edges.  

Spoon on sausage, sprinkle with potatoes and then cheese. 

Combine eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Set pizza pan on oven rack and THEN pour the egg mixture over. Sprinkle with Parm cheese and slowly push oven rack in. I suggest you have a pan on the bottom of the oven to catch any drips, because I am sure I have not make this once, without the eggs dripping over - its just the way it is....
Bake until knife comes out clean at 350 for about 25-30 minutes. Cut with pizza cutter into pizza shape pieces.

Whether Heat it up for leftovers, send it to work with your hubby for lunch or a quick reheat to keep the kids satisfied (packed with protein) - you will thank me later! 

"All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast"
John Gunthur

Enjoy! 

This was linked up at