Easy Breezy Weekend Reads – Ideas While you Stay at Home

Happy Weekend, Friends!

 Yesterday, we woke up to sunshine and blue sky. It always seem to put a little spring in our step, and makes us grateful that the warmer days of Spring are on their way. It suddenly motivates me to want to clean up the garage, set up our back deck, and put up some more cheerful Spring decor…

I thought it would be fun to put together some links that may be of interest and help to you during these days while you’re staying home.

Hopefully they’ll provide helpful, practical ideas, as well as a few boredom busters.

20 Ideas While you Stay at Home

Cook Up Some Yummy Recipes

As a certified “I don’t like to cook” person, I must admit, I’ve joined many of you in the sudden desire to cook and bake all the things! Here are some of my top favourite recipe ideas.

Breads & Quick Breads

Why, oh, why do we all want to bake bread? (I’m raising my hand here, too!) I have some super yummy bread recommendations that we’ve personally tried and give the family stamp of approval. They are:

• Cast Iron Caramel Buns
• Swedish Tea Ring (This would be great for a brunch, Mother’s Day, Easter morning, or Christmas day!)
• Overnight buns – Mix these in the afternoon, roll them/ form them in the evening, and bake the next morning. Delicious!

If you are having trouble purchasing yeast in your area, you might want to try out:

• Rolled Biscuits (They are quick and make a delicious side for soup.)
• Sour Dough Bread – I’ve never made this, but friends have given it rave reviews!

Freeze Ahead Meals

I’ve always been a fan of meal planning, and I’ve jumped back on that bandwagon in full force the past few weeks! Here is a detailed post on how to meal plan and cook meals for your freezer. Yesterday we put 12 meals in our freezer and we feel like rockstars!

What did we make, you ask? (Thank you for asking!) Here’s what we stocked away in the freezer yesterday:

• 4 meals of beef enchiladas
• 2 meals of Chicken Tortilla Bake
• 2 meals of marinaded chicken breasts ready for the barbecue
• 2 meals of Crock Pot White Chicken Chili
• 2 meals of Chicken Gnocci Soup (that we won’t freeze, but we’ll eat this weekend.) Here is a recipe that’s similar to the one I used.

Yummy Baked Treats

On my list of “want to bake” snacks are:

• Blackberry or Blueberry Streusal Muffins
• Mom’s Peach Crisp (I need to write a blog post for that yummy one!)
• And these Peanut Butter Chocoloate Chip cookies are amazing. (I better not bake them or I’ll eat the whole batch!)

Shop for what you need Online

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Which means, if a person purchases/ signs up through my affiliate link, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost for the customer. (and many thanks if you do!;))

I admit that we’ve never been much for shopping online. However, we’re sure grateful for that option now! When we discover we need something that doesn’t warrant our “once a week necessity shop”, we love the option of checking out options online. We finally just now checked into Amazon Prime and got a membership.  The Amazon membership program offers special benefits including:

• * Instantly watch thousands of movies and TV episodes
• * Borrow Kindle books
• * Get unlimited FREE two-day shipping (no minimum order size)

You can get a free 30 day trial with Amazon Prime by clicking here.

We also discovered that if you are a college student, there is a special student Amazon Prime rate offered at a discount. The Amazon Prime Student program offers special benefits to college students including:

• * Unlimited FREE Two-Day Shipping (with no minimum order size)
• * Exclusive deals and promotions for college students

Click here to try out the Prime Student 6 Month Trial

Try Some New Crafts

When we first knew the stay at home order was coming, I quickly picked up some watercolor painting supplies. Watercolor painting has become my daily “bright spot” activity. I’ve discovered a whole list of free resources online to help beginners like me. It’s so fun!

I also discovered a site called Bluprint that is offering their online craft classes for FREE until April 16th! There are over 1300 creative education classes ranging from sewing, cake decorating, knitting, photography, and more. It looks fantastic!!

I never dreamed that making homemade face masks would be the trendy craft of the year, but this week I’ve made this no sew Norwex Face Mask and this trick turns one Norwex window cloth into 3 or 4 face masks. My friend Julie put together a great blog post with resources for a whole bunch of different great face mask tutorials.

There! I hope that will give you some helpful ideas for you and your home. 

Oh, and one more thing…

If you are wishing you could get to the hairdresser and can’t, here is a way to put twist braids into short hair. It’s my new hairdo sanity saver!;)

For more ideas for your home

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