Let's hear it for the.... binders?!!

I am living a real exciting life today... you all should be extremely jealous :)

Today at work I literally spent my lunch hour making a poor man's recipe book... don't judge!!
I have mentioned before, in the eating Crisco on my Eggo's post, that recently I have been all about cooking, baking, learning and making mistakes in the kitchen. So I decided that, to do it properly, I needed to stop saving recipes on my Blackberry notepad and actually have them physically on some paper, in a safe place...
Enter.... the best gift ever!!

My office is mainly dominated by women so we tend to treat some of the men in our office like everyone else... women. We buy each other little prizes when we see something that "he or she would just love" and last week, I hit the jackpot!! My coworker was apparently walking home heavily buzzed from dinner one night last week (don't judge him either, lol) and decided that his two children (one only 3) needed some school supplies, so he made a detour to Office Depot. While shopping he saw two items that screamed Jess (another coworker) & CAB, so after a few misspelled BBM's, we learned we would have prizes awaiting our arrival at work the next day!! How exciting!

When I entered work that next morning, I was presented with a shiny Pink & Green (Go Delta Zeta!!!) binder!! WOOO WOOO!! Now to most this seems like an "eh whatever" gift, but to the Queen of Binders & Organization and a Delta Z sister... this was AMAZING!!

Proof that I am the Binder Queen
(and that's just the last two years)

I had been debating the last few days, which program would be the lucky recipient of this lovely new binder... but was having a hard time committing. I didn't want to only use it for a few months, it's far to pretty to be used just for one Parade season :(

Enter.... the poor man's recipe book :) and apparently a photo shoot!!

I think I need to steal this easel for my kitchen, right?!

My google was filled today with "how to organize your recipes" and "recipe tabs for organizing", I even went to Amazon.com to check index's of some of the most popular cookbooks... What I came up with was a list that made me realize I am quite the micro-manager of recipes :) twenty-four tabs grace my pretty pretty princess binder!! A little over the top I am sure, I don't really think I needed a tab separating appetizers from dips but ya know... it felt right.

I am a bit embarrassed to admit that you will see an error in my index... but my filing of "Desserts & Treats" (which is different than Cake, and Candy, and Cookies, oh and Pies & Cobblers) after "Grilling" just shows my excitement level for my new creation!! And I am sure I will be adding more tabs as I become an expert in the kitchen and will be able to fix my alphabet error soon!!

So if anyone has any recipes that aren't top Italian family secrets, I would welcome the opportunity to give them a try :) my future children will thank you I am sure... as no one wants a mom who can't make a mean Birthday DIRT CAKE
xoxox

OH PS... I think all my creativity with my recipe book (I know it still needs some work) came from my new fabulous hair cut!! Okay so it's not any different than before and to the naked eye it may not look like I cut anything off but Lizzie took a whole 4+" off my locks of love!! AND now it curls better and is super wild... which is totally awesome in this heat wave... no blow out for me!!! Woo Woo!!

Thank you bathroom mirror at work for the photo... you know ya'll love the papier-mache heads creeping through plastic bags photo in the background... don't judge :)