Manic Monday

~ Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I won't lie, I've never really cared about this holiday, but this year it's a great excuse for taco night at my aunt-in-law's! Usually when we do dinner nights with that part of the family I bring a dessert, and tonight is no different. I thought I would get super festive and theme the dessert, but I ended up with something a lot more simple than I expected. I made it extra simple and just scooted on over to Betty Crocker's website for idea. Bypassing the tres leches cakes and spicy hot chocolate cookies, I baked a Mexican Chocolate Cake for dessert tonight.

It's crazy simple... probably too much so. I feel like I cheated. This recipe is literally just a boxed cake + cinnamon. Apparently adding cinnamon magically turns a food item Mexican? Who knew... 

To my horror, Smith's had no devil's food cake mix when I went a-lookin', so my cake is instead a cinnamon chocolate fudge cake. Not a bad alternative. Half of the recipe is for frosting made from scratch, but the reviews were questionable so I just bought some Betty Crocker frosting. More cheating. 

~ Do you have clothes to donate laying around?

When catching up on my blog reading from the weekend (I was far too distracted to do it in a timely manner before this morning), Ramblings of a Suburban Mom turned me on to Fashion Project. 

Their system looks so simple! They send you a pre-paid bag, you fill it up with your clothes (and accessories too it seems!), and send that sucker right back (also free). Unfortunately, the items you donate must have at least a $50 original price value, and it must be a brand from their list. Granted, it's a long one, but lately I've been shopping at ONLY Maurices and they did not make the cut for the list (too cheap, though I personally struggle to call $30 shirts "cheap"). 

But that doesn't mean you, other people of the work, can't benefit! Take your fancy clothes and donate them to Fashion Project and get a gift card as well as the good karma knowing you've also contributed to charitable causes. Cleaner closets + money + karma sounds like a good time to me. 

~ Finally, a key holder!

B and I had been talking for a while about getting a key rack to hang up by the front door, because we are often in a rush to get out the front door and trying to hunt down one pair of keys or another on the way. I feel like it's really just me that this happens to, but he must have experienced the trauma of lost keys a time or two in order to be as excited as I was over a key rack of all things. 

I was super close to buying a really nice one with sea glass from etsy, when I made a "quick" Target run and stumbled upon this bad boy: 

I'd heard that Young House Love finally got some products in Target a couple weeks ago, and I was intentionally hunting their section down. I swore I'd seen key holders in their photos taken at Target, and I was right! I love everything about this key holder, and B was equally excited about it when I texted him this picture (which was a total surprise to me). And so, Sir Octavius now sits beside our front door after a couple days of dawdling in the shopping bag. 

Because we were super iffy about the electrical from the switches and where a stud may or may not be, we ended up using some trimmed down Command mounting strips to stick Octavius to the wall. He wiggles just a bit, but it's a better alternative to watching B electrocute himself. I suppose the wiggling is my fault, since I refused to accept a relocation after we recognized the electrical issue. I think it's worth it.

I think I'll wrap up now, but I'm hoping to craft my next post around my current challenge of decorating our powder room!