Shelly Wutke

You know those home shows that take one room in your house and turn it into your absolute dream room? Maybe for some people it would be hard to choose just one room out of all the rooms in your house, but I’d offer up my kitchen in a heartbeat if someone offered to give me a dream kitchen.

Strawberries, peaches, blackberries, and blueberries – those little gems of the fruit family are nutritious on their own, but when you bake them up and wrap them in buttery crust or turn them into an icy-cool summer dessert? That’s when summer really kicks off at my house.

Living small doesn’t have to mean living with stress, because decorating small living spaces just requires a bit of imagination and some specific home pieces to maximize what you’ve got. It’s actually fun to live small because it forces you to be creative, and that’s where home décor magic can really begin.

Just like a techie loves the latest and greatest gadgets hitting the market, people who love to cook just can’t get enough kitchen stuff. Some handy kitchen utensils can really make the difference when you’re preparing a meal, while other kitchen supplies just make preparing food more fun.   If you’re a foodie or you’re just someone who wants to play around in the kitchen, check out a few of the cook kitchen utensils you just can’t live without:  

Right out of the gate, there are 3 things to really like about the LifeTrak Zone C410 fitness tracker – it tracks your activity level and gives you detailed and useful fitness information, it measures your heart rate just by touching it, and it’s one of the easiest to use fitness trackers I’ve ever tried. It does what it sets out to do and it does it so simply that anyone, even people who find fitness watches and fitness trackers complicated, can pick up and use the device within minutes. 

Good Chinese food or Chinese takeout can be hard to come by. So what to do when you get a craving for Chinese food but you don’t know where to order from? You can jump online and hit up Yelp or other review sites, looking for a recommendation. Or, you can do what I finally started to do – make it yourself. Creating Chinese food at home isn’t hard at all, and if you have the right tools it’s a fast, easy way to get your Chinese food fix. Here are a few of my favourite make-at-home Chinese food recipes:

When I think of the BBQ, I think of burger recipes. Most people stick to the basic hamburger, done up in a bun with mustard, relish, ketchup and maybe a pickle or two, but this year it might just be time to branch out a bit and explore your burger options. With so many different hamburger recipes to choose from, you could make a new version of the classic every night of the week.

In the vegetable world, Kale is the Captain America of Super Foods. Mistaking this rich, green leaf for just another type of lettuce would be seriously undervaluing it’s super abilities including lowering cholesterol, upping your fiber content in a single bound, and lowering your risk of cancer. It also has 45 different flavonoids that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.

What does the long weekend mean to you? For some people a long weekend is an extra day to turn the alarm clock off and sleep in. For others, it’s time to turn off the work computer and turn on the home computer. While it’s great to give your brain a breather and stuff yourself with hot dogs, it’s also the perfect time to gear up, get out there, and do things you’ve been waiting all winter to do.

It’s great to be impulsive, but if I know one thing for sure it’s that a family camping trip just can’t be done correctly when approached with a ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ mentality. Yes, logically you could be on the road in 20 minutes with the kids, a bunch of sleeping bags, tent, and flashlight to head off into the wild, blue yonder, but you’ll be regretting it come midnight when someone is cold, wants a very specific type of snack, or needs their nightlight to ward off the monsters in the dark.