Monthly Archives: July 2019

Decluttering, House/Lifestyle

2019 in 2019 – small victories

Remember when I said I was going to try and write updates often on my journey to ridding our home of 2019 items this year? Yeah, that never actually works out. I was making really great progress, and then I was rear-ended while driving to work at the end of February and was diagnosed with whiplash and damage to my rotator cuff – making it difficult to lift anything/try on clothes, etc. Then, once I was feeling better (thanks to weekly physiotherapy and massage therapy appointments!), work began to pick up. I only had three days off in the entire month of June (and two of them were the 29th and 30th) – so working seven days a week doesn’t leave much time for decluttering!

The July 1st long weekend was my first multi-day weekend since April so I took advantage of that and tried to make a sizeable dent on my chart of 2019 items. We have been keeping track all year as items leave our house, but we are quite far behind where we should be. In order to hit the goal of 2019 items, it averages out to 5.53 items per day. Today, July 6th is the 187th day so we should be at 1034 items by now – which is not even close…

Anyways, I once again went back to this organizer. I use it for makeup – despite almost never wearing makeup…

The mission was that top purple drawer – which was stuffed to the point of overflowing with lipstick…

I opened each one, and if it looked wrong or smelled off, it was an immediate no – some of them had visible mold, so disgusting! I even found this one that looked fine, but based on that date I did not want to keep it! Lipstick usually has a shelf life of 6-12 months…so 27 years felt like it might have been a bit of a stretch….

By the time I was finished, I had 63 items to go into the trash. 63! Who even needs to own that many lipsticks?!

I know there’s items in my keep pile that will end up in the garbage before this year is over once I try them out, but for now, this is what that drawer now looks like:

The little perfume samples were sitting on top of the bathroom counter, so it’s nice to have a spot to stick those!

I also owned this cute little lipstick organizer, so I figured I should actually use it! It makes it so easy to find exactly what you’re looking for!

So again, this doesn’t make a huge, noticeable difference in the house, but it’s nice to have more space for other things in this organizer.

Total items gone: 590

Disney, Food Review

Homecomin’ – May 2, 2019

Yes, we had just ate there the night before – but that didn’t stop us from going back again! Originally, our plan was to meet up with Billie, Sarah, Ariane and Steve there, they had a reservation at the exact same time as us. But then we were gifted the amazing present of a VIP tour for that day so plans were changed. We didn’t think we’d have time to actually make it to our reservation (since there were a few options for start times for the tour thrown around), but I decided to hold onto the reservation anyways. We ended up finishing our tour around 3:45 giving us lots of time to get to Disney Springs for a 5pm reservation!

We arrived, checked in and didn’t wait long before receiving the text that our table was ready. As we entered, I did a quick scan of the restaurant – unfortunately no Chef Art Smith in attendance tonight. Also no table by the window, instead we were at the same 2-top table right behind the hostess stand where we’d sat before on a previous trip.

Our waiter came over and asked if this was our first time eating at Homecomin’ ( obviously we told him no) – he then asked when was the last time we had ate there – he laughed when we told him yesterday. I believe his exact comment was something along the lines of “perfect! I don’t need to go over the menu with you guys!”.

Of course the first item to take care of when you’re at Homecomin’ is the drinks! We decided to switch it up from the day before, and Luke ordered The Local – RumHaven coconut water rum, lime, simple syrup and fresh pineapple $12 and I decided to try the Blood Orange Madras – blood orange moonshine, freshly muddled strawberries, pineapple puree and cranberry juice $12.

The Local was nothing really special, but Luke did enjoy it (he really likes pineappley-coconuty tasting things). He probably wouldn’t get it again, just because there’s so many unique, fantastic drinks on the menu at Homecomin’. My drink was delicious though! I believe it’s a limited time offering, but I’m sure it’ll be back again at some point!

We decided to skip the appetizers tonight, and try something different for our main entrees. Luke went for the Fried Chicken Salad – crispy fried chicken over mixed greens, pecan-smoked bacon, egg, heirloom cherry tomatoes, red onion and cucumber tossed with icebox dressing, cheddar biscuit croutons and fresh herbs $18

The icebox dressing was the same as the stuff drizzled on his house-made chips that were served with his Cuban sandwich (so he knew he liked it). Of course the chicken is great, and Luke ate all of this. It’s a great salad for those days when you want to pretend you’re a healthy eater haha….

I decided to cheat on my beloved fried chicken, and ordered the Braised Short Ribs – this fancy “pot roast” is made by slow-cooking boneless beef short ribs until they are fork tender. Served over creamy mashed potatoes with a demi-glace sauce and French green beans $30

This was my short ribs meal #1 of the trip – but definitely not my last! This was very good, but I do think I’ll stick to the chicken when I’m at Homecomin’ from now because I missed it haha. The mashed potatoes are always amazing, but the green beans were just ok – I like mine cooked a bit more than these ones (a little too al dente for my taste). They weren’t lying about the beef being fork tender though, you did not need a knife for it! Delicious!

Luke decided we needed dessert – but we figured we could share one tonight and ordered the giant slice of Hummingbird Cake – the famous pineapple-banana cake with cream cheese frosting from Chef Art’s bestselling book “Back to the Table”. Served with seasonal fruit gastrique and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream $12

This is a huge serving – I don’t know how one person could eat an entree and this by themselves – but it’s the perfect size for sharing! I don’t even really care for pineapple, but this is good. I’d still put the Pecan Pie as my favourite dessert here, but there’s really not a wrong option…

According to the picture I took of our bill, Luke ordered another Blue Hooch at some point. I didn’t take a picture of it, so enjoy this picture I had from when he ordered one during our meal the night before:

Out total bill came to $96.92 after applying my Annual Pass discount of 10% (before tip), and it was another great experience at our favourite restaurant <3