New Day

2011-12-23T05:41:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas Everybody!

I am sorry that I haven't posted in a while. Life gets away with me!
I just wanted to wish y'all a very Merry Christmas. May the Lord bless you!

Thursday, Nov. 3

2011-11-03T11:18:00.002-04:00

I really need to go make some coffee. I've been up a while but things are slow this morning. I got my sheets halfway changed and then was sidetracked by the children. Then I somehow ended up on here.

Yesterday I went to the hospital with my mom to see my grandmother. She had surgery for intestinal cancer. I hope they got it all. She is doing fairly well considering. She's a tiny woman and that big hospital bed swallows her. I hope she can come home soon. The doctor wants her to go to a rehab place but she has plenty of family and friends to take care of her right at home. Also, her sister in law (my great aunt) is a retired nurse... anyway hopefully the doctor will change his mind. She is on liquids for a week. A friend brought in chocolate bars yesterday and I about had a fit! That was so mean as this lady is also a nurse and knows she couldn't eat them.

Today is bedroom day. My bedroom is in pretty good shape so I just need to finish the bed and sweep the floor. Then I want to take some of the children upstairs to help me pick up the playroom. It won't take long for that either. I have about three loads of laundry to do today. I just might be able to fold the two loads I didn't get to yesterday as well. Then I'll be all caught up! Cool! Laundry has always been my biggest challenge. So if I can keep this habit going- and the washer stands faithful in continuing to work- then I should be able to keep the ball rolling.

The floors needing the most attention today are the kitchen and dining room floors. I'll feel better with that done!

We're working on creation in science and so this is neat to have the littles learning what we take for granted in knowing. It's easy to forget that the children don't know what we do. We have begun using Exploring God's Creation. This is to supplement the Prairie Primer.

We have a lot more school to do as we didn't do any yesterday. This year seems to be going pretty well. So this gives me peace of mind.

Supper? Hmmm, I might make some Chicken Divan. Dalton has been craving curry for a while and that has a bit of curry powder in it. We all love Indian/Sri Lankan/ Oriental food so much. That means a lot of curry!

Have a great day in the Lord!

Wow, What a Tiring Day!

2011-10-31T22:40:00.003-04:00

I begin this entry under hesitation as I am intoxicatingly tired. Today was a very busy day. It seems like days ago when I visited our local produce stand and grocer to buy some supplies to make some chow-chow. It was actually just this morning. This is a type of relish made from leftovers of your summer harvest. We had tomatoes to take off the plants before the frost came. The only bad thing is, the tomatoes were green. I am saving the biggest ones to ripen inside but the small ones were in danger of waste if I didn't preserve them.

I am very blessed to have found a food processor at a yard sale Saturday morning. That saved me at least $20! It worked like a charm today, thankfully. We not only used it to chop the tomatoes, cabbage, onion and peppers for the chow-chow but we shredded additional cabbage for some chinese dumpling (pot stickers)and even more cabbage and carrots for coleslaw.

Brittany worked with me in the kitchen a lot of the day and that was a delight. She helped keep my mind off my grandmother having surgery for intestinal cancer. She and I both are amazed at how much work went in today!

So, now we have 19 pints of chow-chow for the year. I am glad that all jars sealed. I have no idea what the stuff will taste like as I lost my Mom's recipe and had to try one I know not much about. It seemed basic so hopefully the chow chow will be.... basically good. There's more green tomatoes but I think I'll just hope for the rest of those tomatoes to ripen indoors.

It's almost 11pm and it's past my bedtime. This is my story of the day I made chow-chow in 2011. Goodnight.

House Cleaning and Homeschooling

2011-10-25T12:19:00.004-04:00

House cleaning and homeschooling is truly an art! It takes organization and stamina. It takes alertness and flexibility. With all that said, despite my lacking in each of these departments...it is possible. :D In addition to all this, it also takes a desire and the right attitude to do it. It's all in the mindset of taking pleasure in tidyness. It takes an eye for getting rid of clutter.

Flylady is a wonderful tool to teach good habits! On and off in my 21 year marriage, I have been a side-tracked home executive. Once a routine was set and the ball was rolling something would come in and shuffle things up. Sometimes it was the wonderous event of another child entering the family. Sometimes it would be illness. Either way, it happens! Then it takes some determination to get the ball rolling again.

I do have a few tips that helps me keep the house going and I think could be helpful to share here.

1. delegate: You cannot do it all on your own, nor should you have to. It's not doing you or your children any favors for you to try and do it all. Write out a plan for each child to have their own chores. Teach everyone to be giving at times and pitch in to help others- even if it isn't their job.

2. Routines: Have routines in your life! Having a plan is key. Having routines that you do every day will become habit and later you'll find you've done things without even knowing it! Now isn't that nice? Flylady teaches to have that morning routine of getting up, getting dressed, make bed, swish toilet, swipe counter and sweep floors. Your bathroom will smile right back at you! Your bedroom will as well. Begin your laundry first thing. This is the one that I often forget. :D The key though is to have laundry as part of your routine. Do it each day!

3. Have designated days or weeks to work in certain areas of your home. Flylady teaches to do this in weeks. I do this by the day. Monday is livingroom day. Why did I chose Monday? Well, I don't know what your livingroom looks like on Mondays but if it looked like mine, you'd want to do it too! There's something about detailing the livingroom first thing on Monday mornings that makes concentrating on school so much easier.

Tuesdays are dedicated to the kitchen. Tuesdays works great for me as it gives me a full two days before we head for our monthly shopping trip. I use the Tuesday before that big shopping day to clean out the fridge and examine the pantry in order to write lists of what to buy and menus.

Wednesday is our laundry day. This is where I catch up on folding wash and working in the laundry room/ family closet. Wednesdays are good for me because we have church that night and I need to pick out clothes anyway. So on Wednesdays I also pick out clothes for church that night, Sunday clothes and also any outside activities we may have the following six days.

Thursday is bedroom cleanup day. Why Thursday? Well,long ago I used to listen to a radio show that came on a few hours on Thursday (the Flylady show!) and the radio, at that time, was in our bedroom. So while in there I had plenty of time to clean in there. So it became habit to do this on that day for me. The children also cleans their rooms on this day. The girls, especially, are excited to show me their tidy rooms when they're done! The little ones always want me to come and see right away what they did. :D

Friday is bathroom day. This is the day I like to really detail the bathrooms. Isn't it most common to have guests on the weekend that needs to use your bathroom? It is here! So I like doing this in the morning and having it all fresh just in case.

In our house this leaves the playroom and the school room. If we get to it, this then gets done on Saturday. I must admit, these rooms don't get done as they should. As a matter of fact, our schoolroom and the laundry room are the two worst rooms in my house. I'm still establishing habits in these rooms for myself and the children.
On Saturday we work on outside chores as well.

Make sure that you have a time limit for the detail cleaning.

4. Make it a habit to put things away. Teach this to your children. THIS INCLUDES THE MESS MY CHILDREN ARE MAKING AS I TYPE THIS- THIS VERY MOMENT. Teach yourself and your children to wipe up and pick up behind yourself. You will thank you. Your children will thank you. Your children's spouse will thank you. Your grandchildren...do you get the picture? Okay. Before you leave each room think to yourself, "how can I make this room better before I leave?". It will become such a habit that you'll do it no matter where you are. I catch myself wiping the counters in public restrooms.

5. Keep a notebook or binder with lists, lists, lists and more lists. Make this your brain. When you have to teach on owl pellets, integers, phonics, conjunctions, human anatomy, spelling words and so much more, you have no more brain cells to work and remember all the cleaning chores you have! WRITE A LIST. Example:
Monday (livingroom): vacuum between cracks on floor, clean under couch and loveseat, mop, sweep cobwebs from ceiling.
Tuesday (kitchen): clean ceiling fan, clean out 'fridge, clean bottom drawer of stove
Wednesday (laundry)
Thursday (bedroom) clean off dresser, vacuum closet floor
Friday (bathroom) clean tub and shower, clean fan over toilet, detail toilet

Get the picture? Access what is going on in each room and what needs to be done first. When I first began this my house was a WRECK and I didn't know where to start. So I just began with what bothered me most or what was husband's first choice or what NEEDED done first. Believe it or not, after weeks of keeping this plan there will be days when you will be done before your time is up! Then you can sit down and type posts like this. ;D Keep a running list of what you want to do next, but allow for time for when disasters slip up might take top priority.

6. Do quick tidies throughout the day. Make everyone stop and pick up. Make. this. a. habit. Teach the children that you are not looking for perfection but that there has to be a cap put on how far you'll allow disorder go. Make it a game. Tell each child that they need to pick up 7 things each and put the things in their homes. What? You say with seven children plus a mama that this would be 56 things to pick up. That isn't possible to have that much to pick up if you picked up earlier. Do you wanna bet? Besides, if they do run out of things to pick up, tell them to go down the hall or into another room and pick something up.....or make it just 5 things.

6. Have an afternoon routine, after you're done with school. Mine is checking the kitchen and diningroom floors to see if they need attention. Do any other floors need a quick mopping as well. Is there something I should do to head toward our goal of making supper? What rooms needs a room rescue the most? Make that room make you have a nice "aaaaaahhhhh" feeling when you walk in. No matter though-- do it quick!

7. Clean up after every meal and while you're cooking! Assign a person to a day for dish duty so the same person isn't stuck in the kitchen each day. Here I have them load/unload the dishwasher after lunch and after supper. Whoever does the cooking washes the cookware and also wipes all down in the kitchen.

8. Don't sit and watch t.v. unless you have something to do. My main things are menu planning, folding clothes or floor exercises. Just don't sit being unproductive. It causes......ummmm....unproduction. Yeah.

9. Don't strive for perfection. Not that you could ever achieve this. I mean, perfection is a good goal but be fine with leaving something for later. It will be okay. After all, aren't things looking up anyway? So you're moving in the right direction.

Before you know it, you will feel peace and not frantic if someone pulls in the yard to have a surprise visit. Ask me how I know. You will also have time in the morning and then also in the afternoon for school goals as well.

Listerine...yes, Listerine!

2011-10-25T10:32:00.002-04:00

Okay, so when I talk of "Listerine", I do also mean the off brand as this is what I mainly use. Listerine is a wonderful way to have a fresh mouth by killing germs but that's not all, my friends!

It's good for cleaning as well. Yesterday I mopped my floor with it and even after rinsing out the mop, it still smelled Listerine fresh. Do you want a fresh smelling toilet? Use Listerine! Seriously. Try it!

A Usual Thursday

2011-10-21T10:52:00.003-04:00

I woke up at the usual 6:00. I am thinking of waking up at 5:30 like I used to. Only because it seemed easier to wake up then than later. Strange as that seems, it's somehow true! I made James' lunch and breakfast and after he was gone to work, I lied down for another hour. After I woke again, I dressed, tidied the bathroom and bedroom and made the children's breakfast. I got on here a bit and then had a phone call from a lady who is about to start homeschooling her son. She has been consulting with me on what to do for about a week now. She was frantic today. I was able to calm her down and point her into the right direction.

School went well. I was able to explain math to the 9yo in a different way of which he seems to get! Hopefully he will remember and get it like that today. School was lighter than the others days but we're getting in five days this week so it's fine.

Brittany made a lunch of sandwiches for the family. I had picked squash from the garden. I stewed the squash. I had that along with some fruit and peanuts. I'd rather had eaten a sandwich but I'm trying to be good. :D

In the afternoon I worked on putting up curtain rods in the children's rooms. Also, I did some laundry. The same lady called back in the afternoon for an update. She seemed encouraged. :D The room for the day is the bedrooms. Mine seemed well enough in order, which was good since I was hanging curtain rods.

I made Pioneer Woman's Frito Chili Pie. I saw that a blogging friend had made some recently and it sounded tasty in this cool weather. Turns out that there was just enough for each of us. I'll make more next time.

We had our family devotions. I had said earlier that we're reading out of Hosea. It's not Hosea but Amos. I get confused with these smaller Old Testament books.

We watched a little on Netflix and then went to bed.

Having Trouble Being a Stay-at-Home Mom?

2011-10-20T10:17:00.003-04:00

THIS WAS IN REPLY TO ONE THAT WANTED ADVICE ON A LOCAL MESSAGE BOARD. I THOUGHT I'D POST IT HERE AS WELL.

I think everyone is right on with having a to do list. I think that it is a must as well! I'd go as far as making out a loose schedule. Even babies like schedules! I personally think that everyone should have a routine in their life. Wink
Treat it as you would a job. Get up and get dressed every day, down to your shoes. I think that the job of a mother and housewife deserves more than being barefoot and sweatpants! If you wear make-up, then put it on daily. Fix your hair as well. This sets the tone for you meaning business. I joke around that my putting on my make-up is a public service. Cheesy

Have a morning and night routine. Set goals for when to do laundry, to have the kitchen cleaned after each meal, to tidy the messiest rooms so many times a day. Have special playtimes with the baby. Read to the baby at a set time each day. Really be aware of their developement and what you can do, in play, to spark good developement.

Make lists for your menus. Learn of new ways of cooking. Do things to make your home a home. Perhaps you could pick up sewing something for the home or learn about arranging areas well to be more organized and sufficient. Take pride in your home, yourself and your family. I am not talking of the worldly pride listed in the Bible as sin. This is the kind of pride that makes you feel good that you've taken special interest in your world and what you feel in your heart matters most in life.

It is a heart issue after all. Put your heart where your treasure is. Is your heart with your child, home and husband? Is your heart with a career? What do you find to matter the most. Put your whole heart into it and take pleasure in reaping good results.

I wanted to add that it's good for us all to have breaks and have something to enjoy but we all really should watch what our lust of the flesh is. For some it is vanity of self, for some it is the television, for some it is putting effort into many other things that does not hold eternal value. It can be harmless things but it becomes harmful when done too much, or becomes the apple of your eye over other matter. We all fight the lust of the flesh-- or at least we should. Work is just that- work! Still, it feels good to fight what we want to do and put in it's place what we should do. That is a good feeling.

A Usual Tuesday

2011-10-19T22:39:00.003-04:00

I was tempted to post on this past Monday's day as it was most excellent. I mean, it was almost downright perfect! But then I thought of how I'd already done a usual Monday and really needed to wait to do a usual Tuesday. Whelp, yesterday was a usual Tuesday alright! :/ LOL

I got up at 6:00. I made James' breakfast and lunch and sent him off to work. I had a few minutes of quiet time before the 14 year old woke up. He's the early riser now in our family. Tuesday are my kitchen days. I worked at sweeping and mopping in the kitchen and dining room as those floors desperately needed it! I worked at clearing off a few counters and wiping down the counters thoroughly. I also detailed the mixer/blender. Bad news in the Watson household-- our coffee maker is leaking! YIKES! We have had this Bunn coffee maker since my 12 year old was a baby. It's been a goody. I will have to replace this coffee maker with a cheapy though. I think I'll get one that will have the coffee ready when I wake up. You know, the kind with a clock on it? That is, if they are too pricey.

Anyway, Brittany worked a bit on a cabinet shelf that needs repairing. Maybe now I can rearrange our pots and pans again. I like the cabinets that we have been gradually putting in the past year. Our kitchen is ever so slowly coming along!

Before lunch, I worked on spelling, grammar and math with the 7,9 and 12 year olds. I felt like pulling my hair out with one who isn't getting it right now but then again was encouraged by another who is sliding through super-well. Isnt' that the way it goes? There's usually one to keep you humble and another that encourages you enough so you'll keep going. LOL

After lunch we had a little free time and I worked on phonics with the five year old. She's doing fairly well. We had circle time songs with her and the three year old. They love this! I guess I do too. :D

For lunch we had chili mac. It's that time of the month where our meals become quite interesting because it's time for that big shopping trip. Right then I decided it was time for a quick grocery run to our local grocery store and produce stand. I am a produce junky per se. I bought $40 worth of produce! I had three baskets overflowing with yummy fruit and veggies. James surprised Samuel and I by stopping in at the produce stand. He was joking that he had to stop so I wouldn't spend all our money there. Haha.

Once getting back from there I began supper of fried pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy with a salad. Okay, so let me tell ya'. My biggest skillet is a 12" skillet. It took me an hour to fry all over those pork chops! ONE HOUR!!! I was reminded of another reason I don't like frying pork chops or chicken. :D It also reminded me of why I am looking forward to that cast iron skillet James is planning on buying soon. It is a 16" size. I am sooooo excited~! I love cast iron cookware!

After supper we had devotions. We are in the book of Hosea. I also read out of the Prairie Primer. We are to be studying on mustangs this week so the children will be excited as they enjoy horses. After reading we watched a little TV off Netflix. The children like the show called How Thing are Made....or something like that.

By this time it was between 10:30 and 11:00pm. It's way past this mama's bedtime! This is it for another day.

My Usual Monday

2011-10-11T07:41:00.002-04:00

I thought that I'd do a "my usual" series. Who knows what will become of it as I just thought of doing that. :D Okay, so for now I am going to tell you of my usual days. I will give yesterday as my usual Monday.

I woke up at a few minutes till 6:00am. First thing I did was get hubby's breakfast and lunch ready for him to head to work. Afterwards, I had prayer time. That's a very good way to start the day--in prayer and service to others. I swished, swiped, and sweeped the bathroom. Then I made the bed and tidied the bedroom. I also got dressed for the day. I made it simple today with just eye make-up and my hair in a ponytail holder. I started a load of laundry and then worked on the room of the day.

Today's room of the day is the livingroom. I was going to take down my basket collection and clean the baskets today but it's raining. I was to do this outside. So instead I decided to dust the room well, including on top of the entertainment center. When did that get done last? It has been a very long time. I also cleaned the ceiling fans, scrubbed down the coffee table and my desk. Then I swept and mopped. It took three changings of water to mop the floor. Nine sets of feet and one week can do some damage to a floor!

By this time, the children were awake, had ate, gotten dressed and were ready for the day. My five year old was ready in time to "help" me mop the floor too! She's going to be a good house keeper one day.

Well now, it was time for school. Mondays are always the hardest with getting school in. I always feel torn between the house needing attention and getting school in. Things were somewhat smoother today.

For lunch, I made simple sandwiches. We had tomatoes, and we know that makes life better. :D A friend of mine found deli ham as a manager's special for .99/pound. She offered for us to split the eight pounds she got. YAY, friend! A gal after my heart. :D

We did a tad more school and then sort of fell off the wagon. I visited on here and the children got to playing outside in between rain showers. I didn't have the heart(discipline) to make them come back in so soon. By the time they were done playing, it was time for the littlest (and Mama) to take a nap.

After nap time I worked in the kitchen to do a quick tidy and then on some laundry. I was also able to go out to the garden. I picked some yellow squash (4), a lonely tomato and a few green beans. I took note that tomorrow I need to get out and pick some peas and more green beans. We'll have some of these veggies with beef stroganoff tomorrow night.

By this time, it was time to begin pizza. Hubby arrives home from work in time to deliver kisses and hugs only to go back out on a call. I set to work making the dough. Oops, I forgot to add the butter to the dough, only to remember after the dough had risen. What to do? I added it and rolled out the dough. Adding this in late made for a greasy feeling dough. I had three little girls wanting to help put the pizzas together. We baked three large ones along with some garlic bread.

We had supper and there's enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow, just as planned! After supper, I should have cleaned the kitchen but did not. I neatly stacked the dishes and headed to the laundry room to fold some wash and rotate the laundry. Will tomorrow be the day we finally catch up on the laundry monster? There's always hope!

We were hoping to go to a church revival tonight but since it didn't work out at least we were able to watch the services on the computer. Yay, internet! Bro. Joe Arthur really has a unique way of delivering a message. :D He cracks me up, yet is so edifying in standing for the truth, the Word and high Biblical standards.

I watched a show on Netflix about how things are made. It was alright but on the edge of being boring. By then it was time for bed.

This was a usual Monday.

Wednesday

2011-09-21T08:54:00.002-04:00

tired

Hey Everybody! I hope you all are doing well. We are doing fairly well here...the same old- same old! School is going fairly well. I would like to pick up the pace a little bit in order to meet our goals for this year. It's amazing how your thoughts change on educating as the years go by! I am sure they will change even more before it's said and done too, if the Lord doesn't come first.

We are still into the Prairie Primer, for the lower grade children. We are in the beginning of the second book. The things you can learn from Laura Wilder's writing is amazing! You could dig, dig and dig some more and never really be done with all there is to explore.

Our oldest is still working on her credits to graduate this year. I feel sad that my first child is ending one chapter in her life and beginning a new one. I miss the wee little girl. However, I do love the older girl as well. I could not have asked for a better child. The Lord did bless abundantly with her!

Our youngest schooler is learning her sounds and just beginning her schooling adventures. Boy howdy, I sure hope this 100 Easy Lessons works! I am so used to our old curriculum that using this other seems backwards in some ways. Anyway, we'll see what happens and if there's any damage, I'll have to patch it up later.

We finally moved the chicks that are about six weeks old over to the big chicken run night before last. They now have more room to move and a bigger feeding box. I am sure they are quite happy there. They are still separated from the older chickens and will be for quite some time. That is, for the ones who aren't hitting the chopping block in a few weeks. I just don't know about these meat birds though. I feel so bad for the, seeing as how they grow so fast that they have a hard time getting around. I think we'll stick with regular heavy breeds to butcher from here on out. I don't know. We'll see.

James planted some greens in the garden last week. Some are by seed and some are seedlings. I am still waiting for the seed to pop up. We haven't had great experiences with seed germination this year. Well, with some we have. The peas and squash flourished this year. We continue to have volunteers to pop up all over the garden. I am allowing them to grow in hopes that we'll have time to get a little of something out of them. Our crowder peas are coming on well. We may get a few more meals out of them before it's over. I have learned for these that we will need to plant quite a bit more to get what we want versus the purple hull peas. The purple hull peas produce amazing well. Who knows, the crowder pea plants might surprise me.

We planted carrots and spinach seed but they haven't came up. I have about given up on those. That's discouraging. It may have very well been where we bought the seed from too. These were from dollar store packs that were marked down due to it being the end of the summer.

We have many chores to get done today. Also, we need to work on getting ready for church tonight. I also need to sit down and mark my calendar with many dates that are coming up. There's so much going on and I am disoriented with what is when. I don't want anything to sneak up on us!

I hope that all of my fellow blogging friends have a great day in your homes and that the Lord blessed abundantly!

Goodbye Summer

2011-09-15T20:21:00.003-04:00

Joy-Anna's birthday cake

In many ways I am sad about the closing of another summer. I am quite melancholy, I suppose. I always think things like, "we will never see summer 2011 again. Yep, there's only one summer of 2011". Then I look back and reflect. I suppose in a way I should be happy for the closing of the season. While I do love summer and am a true summer girl at heart, this summer seemed so cruel. Sometimes each of us have struggles in so many ways that no one knows of and no one could understand. Only Jesus can truly understand. He does and He's there to listen. Now, if only I could always remember that. It's a fault I find in myself each and every time. To remember. Praise God that He is more faithful than I. He is One that is taken for granted in all of our lives. He never leaves and never forsakes but thankfully some seasons do. While to me each winter always seems quite cruel in many ways, I hope for this fall and winter to be kinder in other ways. So, here's to the new fall season! Fall of 2011. I pray for it to be a good one so when I am white headed I can say, "yes, I remember the fall of 2011 and it was a good one!".

Happy Thursday!

2011-09-15T20:00:00.003-04:00

peanut butter balls

This week seems much slower than normal. I suppose that's not so bad at my age. ;D
School has been fine. We've finished our first book for Prairie Primer. We should start this second book tonight. As life has been dictating, we've actually been doing most of our reading at night. It works for us! After finishing the first book, Jesse (9) picked it up and said, "that's a very good book. I think this will be my favorite.". I do hope that he thinks the same of the other books as well.

Brittany has begun her last math credit for school! She started Math U See's Stewardship course. It's GREAT! Steve Demme (creator of MUS) includes a Bible study book to go with. The course says that the extra book is optional. I am requiring it. Steve Demme wrote the book to his sons as godly advice. Why couldn't I include such a thing? I'm excited to read it myself and I have been going through the math book.

Today was an errand day for us. We've split our grocery shopping into two smaller trips this month versus the one big trip. I hope we can go back to one big trip next month! It makes for better time and less gas used. Also, I plan only once so less brain cells are used. haha

We were able to stop by a local thrift shop and get some goodies, mainly for our 3 year old who recently had a birthday. We picked her up some Little Pet Shop goodies. I also picked up 5 bottles of children's vitamins. These were donated to the thrift store by CVS. The date is still good and they cost $1 each for 150 vitamins. Yay!

So Gloria wanted some make up for her birthday. She's starting young, ay? So we got her some Lip Smacker's lip gloss, the play powder compact from the thrift store, some glitter fingernail polish and some fingernail stickers. Fun-fun!

So tonight will consist of reading, painting nails and my finalizing our menu lists for the next two weeks. Tonight we had spaghetti and garlic bread.

Have a blessed night in the Lord!

Happy Friday!

2011-09-09T08:33:00.003-04:00

James tilling the garden

It's Friday! This is exciting! For some odd reason Thursdays and Fridays of each week are our heaviest school days. I love them! Now if only I could get that feel Monday through Wednesday. It is as it is though. We are getting much done and sometimes much is good. :D We are about to be finished with the first book in Prairie Primer. I'm so excited! Next week we may begin the second book in the series. I don't know who is enjoying this more, the children or me!

Do you ever have so much running through your head that you HAVE to write it down right away for fear of the thought evaporating into thin air, to be lost evermore? This is me all the time! This happened this morning and I couldn't find a pen quick enough so I had to hurry and type it into the computer. I don't know why it is that I must write everything down or I don't remember it. A lot of times, I'll refer back to my lists but sometimes I just need to write it and then I'll remember. There's something about the ink(or lead) putting it on paper that makes it stick. So my life is a bunch of lists. Lists, LISTS, LISTS. Lists of groceries, menus, budgeting plans, household chores, gardenings, things to do with the children, Bible notes and study ideas, Sunday School ideas, decorating ideas, home improvement to-do lists, discipline area lists... Paper...lots of paper... So, I was semi-cleaning out the school room, pulling papers out and throwing them in a pile in the middle of the floor. Then I began thumbing through notebooks and throwing away old ideas. Volumes of words written down....I felt I was throwing away a part of myself but I knew once it was gone, I'd be okay. I am and I lived! I'm still breathing and no one is hurt. I don't miss them. There's more paper and pens to write new plans and still volumes of what's already written to review old plans. Life goes on.

So, today's Friday. Today will consist of a significant amount of learning and it's house blessing day, as Flylady would put it! So, we'll run down the house blessing, errr, list.

Normally we'd have pizza for supper since it's Friday but the baby will be turning 3 on Monday and we're having that then. So, considering I have only frozen, whole chickens, I may go with cubed steak. That's fairly easy to thaw out and fry. Yes, FRY! I'll make gravy and cook rice to go with. My husband will be most happy. :D

Have a great day in the Lord!

2011-09-06T18:08:00.002-04:00

Meatloaf

Okay, seriously, I don't know why we took this picture of some meatloaf I made but we did! I guess if you practically live in your kitchen, you take pictures of what's going on in there. :D

Wowser, this has been another busy few days. Let's see, where did we leave off? Oh yes, Friday.... Okay, on Saturday we got up, dressed and went to church. The family and I cleaned the church while James went with some other men of the church to go do some ministry work. After we cleaned church, we went over to some friends house and had lunch there and visited. James met up with us there when he was done. We had a great visit!

Afterwards we made a few quick stops to some grocery stores as we needed to get ready for company on Sunday. Our nephew and his sweet family was coming to visit with us Sunday afternoon! Yay! He has been in Afghanistan and recently returned back. So our evening was filled with cooking and getting ready for company. We had roast for supper.

On Sunday, our day went like this: Sunday School, church, store, home with company, choir practice, and then church. SO MUCH FUN! We had a great visit with family and got to catch up on our lives together. We had baked chicken, green beans, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, gravy and rolls. Next time we see them will be Christmas.
For supper we had leftovers from dinner.

Monday, James worked his second job and we had a usual day...chores, school and cooking. For lunch we had quesdillas that consisted of leftover roast. YUMMY!
For supper we had a casserole with the leftovers from Sunday. It's in the winter edition of Taste of Home magazine, 2009. I think it's called "Creamy Chicken Bake" or something like that. Neat thing is that most of the ingredients left over from Sunday went into the casserole! I used leftover Velveeta cheese, chicken, and gravy. It was tasty and was glad to stretch the groceries. :D

Here we are on Tuesday. James is off today and tomorrow so we are enjoying time with him. We didn't have school today since we had school yesterday and yesterday was Labor Day. We planned to take today off with James. James and I ran some errands and just worked a bit around the house. I was reading on a message board about canning meat. It had been a long while since I had so I canned 5 quarts of beef stew meat. The pressure's coming down now on the canner so it will be fun to see how they turn out. Now I want to can some vegetable soup as a convienance food...maybe even some chicken noodle. I've never canned that before. For lunch we had tacos and I have already dumped the leftovers in a pot along with the other ingredients needed to have taco soup. This will be for lunch tomorrow.

For supper tonight we are grilling some ribs, squash casserole and some leftover cabbage and sweet peas. I am looking forward to supper as we rarely have ribs.

Okay, so that catches us up for now. As for the children, they are doing great....mean as ever! ;D As the days are getting cooler and with more rain, they can't quite understand why this cold natured mom(I catch a chill at anything below 74*) won't let them go swimming. Maybe they can get in a few more swims before fall really sets in. If not, we'll enjoy the new season the Lord has given us.

Have a great evening in the Lord!

Stretching the Cheese

2011-09-02T15:03:00.004-04:00

tomato pie

As you know, I like for us to make it on a tight budget, whether we have to or not.
Last night as I was making all of those breakfast meals, I separated out the cheddar cheese into what meals they will go in. I took a container and put enough cheese for two meals of quesadillas. Then another container for breakfast burritos, taco soup and tacos. The leftover cheese is in a bag to itself for whatever we feel we will want it for. This is a way to stretch the cheese! You know what you have for what-- a sort of inventory. Also, you know what you have left for creativity.

Thursday, 9/1

2011-09-02T13:40:00.003-04:00

Happy September!

Well, I shared with you the menu for the first two weeks of September. We went on a grocery shopping trip yesterday. This is to only last the first two weeks. Normally we' shop for the whole month but not this month. After I had the lists finalized, we did our shopping, stocked the shelves and 'fridge we were ready for a break! After taking some time off (AKA taking a nap!), I set to work in making supper. We had oyster stew, of which is a special treat here. My hubby was pleased to have some as it's a family recipe that his grandpa used to make.

After supper, James had to go on a call. While he was gone, I decided to make some things to stock the freezer. Thata' way it'd be easier most morning for breakfast and for sending James off to work with some lunch. I don't know about you but I am all thumbs after waking up in the mornings. The first 30 minutes or so I spend just trying to wake up! If not, I am dropping things and could possibly hurt myself if not careful while in the kitchen.

Still I don't like having cereal all the time as it doesn't stick well with us and the children are hungry in an hour or so again. So I do like some type of protein with breakfast. All of that to say, I made some meals ahead of time and put them in the freezer.

I made some sausage biscuits and put them in an ice cream bucket to freeze. You say, "an ice cream bucket???". Umm, yeah, you freeze ice cream in the buckets so why not other food? :D

After frying all of the sausage that I put in the biscuits, I decided to use the sausage grease to fry eggs to put in english muffins. I also put some ham in the english muffins, then put them back into the packaging and into the freezer.

So, while I was at it, I made up sandwiches for James' lunch for the next two weeks and froze them as well! Can I say, "FREEDOM!" :D I plan on making some breakfast burritos for the freezer as well. So then for the next two weeks I will not have to cook breakfast or make James' lunch except for two mornings. Sweeeeeeetttt. :D

This was so very simple as I used pop biscuits and also I used the griddle for four breakfasts but only have to wash it once! I am excited to reap the benefits of having this done ahead and I can focus on other important things.

Wednesday

2011-08-31T11:03:00.001-04:00

Painted Bunting

Happy Wednesday!

Well, today's another day...more school, more cooking, more chores. Grin Today will complete our first month with being back in school! I guess our school year isn't so new anymore. In a lot of way I feel good about what we've done. Still, I am glad to have 160 more days to accomplish good things.

As far as chores, today's laundry day for me. This is when I will put away any clothes that's not. All of the children's clothes are in a family closet. For six of the children, their drawer are actually bins on shelves. The almost 3 and 5 year olds like to go in there and pull out what's not needed and throw them on the floor. :Smiley So once a week they go with me to clean up. Also, I have a small mountain of laundry to fold and put away. In addition, I need to basket up the dirty clothes on the floor beside the washer so I can mop the washroom floor. Yep, I've got some work to do! laugh This is the day that I like to line up our clothes we'll be wearing for the week. So I pick out a few church outfits along with a few "going to town" outfits. I also try to make sure we have socks and shoes lined up too.

In a bit, I am going brown a roast to bake for today. I think I'll put it in our electric roaster over some root vegetables after I brown it on the stove top. We'll probably have that with some rice and also gravy from the drippings.

Tonight is church night! We all love going to church and I can't wait. God is so good to give us a wonderful church family.

Have a great day in the Lord!

September Menu

2011-08-31T10:30:00.001-04:00

Cold Platter

This is for the first two weeks. We will see what is on sale and what sounds good in another two weeks. I always like to plan all three meals. The "FD" beside some things stands for what I will pre- prepare and put in the freezer to pull out and have ready for that morning. I also have notes beside of what to use from what and also who is to help prepare meals. Except for Brittany, I am available to assist. She can do it all without me.

Breakfast:
pancakes (plain, pumpkin) 2X FD
muffins(cinnamon, pumpkin) 2X FD
egg burritoes 2X FD
pop biscuits and *sausage 2X *FD
ham and egg english muffins 2X FD
grits and eggs 2X
cereal 2X

Lunch:

quesadillas (any leftover meat or chopped ham added), Brittany 2X
leftover cold platter, Bethany 2X
ramen, Dalton 2X
roast soup(made from leftover roast), Mama 2X
tacos, Brittany 2X
PB&J with chicken and rice or chicken noodle soup (made from leftover baked chicken), Jesse 2X
spaghetti(cooked, seasoned meat already in freezer to go in sauce), Samuel 2X

Supper:

roast 2X
pizza Brittany, Dalton 2X
cubed steak Dalton
cold platter Bethany, Jesse 2X
fried chopped ham, pintos, potatoes and cornbread 2X
baked chicken, Samuel 2X
chicken noodle soup Samuel (made from leftover baked chicken)
oyster stew Jesse
taco soup Bethany( made from leftover lunch taco meat)

Time to Catch Up

2011-08-25T12:47:00.002-04:00

Hello Everybody! I trust that you are all doing well. We are doing fairly fine. We have been quite busy since our last visit. I suppose that is a redundant statement!
School is going well. I think that we are finding a good pattern to our days. Although, since it's still warm outside the children do often ask to get into the pool in the midst of the day. Mostly I tell them they have to wait until all chores and school is complete. Then on some days I say, "why not??? Go ahead!" Sadly, summer doesn't last forever and so we'd better relish it while we can!

Our new chickens are doing pretty well. We did have one that was ill yesterday and so we had to put her out of her misery. That was sad! So we are down to 24 new birds (8 are meat birds, as we lost two). Hopefully the rest will flourish and all will be well. It's been a week since they've arrived.

On Tuesday we planted some carrot and spinach seed. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. These were from seed packs we bought reduced at some local dollar stores so it doesn't come out well, there's no great loss! We have pea plants that should be producing in about three weeks. It's been a very good pea year!

I have started back on weight loss. I had gained back 5 pounds in the past few months so I hope to lose that and another ten on top of that. I never can seem to get passed a certain number. It would be nice to though! Maybe since I've been resting from a diet for a while, I won't hit a plateau until I am passed that number. We'll see! The first things I have implemented in my plan are:

1) drinking water
2) exercise

I have also started paying attention to my hunger signals and semi-counting my calorie consumption. For the longest time I did this by habit so I was surprised to realize that I had stopped...thus the 5 pound gain!

I've realized that the very number I am at now is the number that makes me start having bad feelings about myself. So, I'll be glad to be below that. It doesn't do anyone good to feel bad about yourself!

Happy Fuzzy Friday!

2011-08-19T11:20:00.000-04:00

Isn't she so cute?

Happy Thursday!

2011-08-18T10:40:00.005-04:00

Good Morning!

We got our chicks today! The post office called a little before 7am to let us know they were there. So I hurried and went to get them. I am so excited! Well, we all are. :D Sad news is, one of the chicks didn't make it. It was one of the meat birds. They are guaranteed through McMurray, the first 48 hours you have them. So, if James wants, we'll be calling them for a replacement. We'll wait and see if any of the others die in that time period first. The chicks are in our dining room, in a box right now. Still, I know they won't be there for long as they grow super-fast!

Today's a very busy day! Currently, the younger children are in their rooms cleaning them. The oldest two are cleaning the living room. Before I sat down to type this, I was in the kitchen washing some eggs we got from a local egg farm. They are all double yolks and from the place where we are blessed with free eggs. Double yolked eggs aren't expected to hatch well so they give them away instead. With having only three hens right now and only getting 1-2 eggs a day we are having to buy some at the store to supplement. We go through a lot of eggs in our household!

School is going well. We are going to watch a documentary on Abraham Lincoln today. It is on Netflix, instant streaming. I watching some of it the other night and it's EXTREMELY good! Especially since the younger ones are in the Prairie Primer and it is set about the time as Abraham Lincoln, it's quite fitting to watch right now. I love history! Science, not so much, unless it's dealing with nature or the human body but I am trying to be better about that.

Tonight for supper we are having some leg quarters that we bought a while back at .59/lb. I may use some poultry seasoning that we get from Sam's and bake them. Oh, who knows? I may just fry them! That's a rare treat as I may fry chicken once a year here. We have pintos in the crockpot so it will be a side item. I may make some coleslaw and have sliced tomatoes from the garden as well. It'll be pea picking time again tomorrow but am considering today a break from that.

So Busy...But Fun!

2011-08-08T19:33:00.003-04:00

We have been very busy this past week. My goal was to get five school days done in four but we got four done in three. We had our big, monthly shopping trip on Friday. On Thursday, we had friends over for swimming and fellowship. So this left Monday through Wednesday for school.

This past weekend was all the more busy! On Saturday we all woke and dressed to make it to church in time for prayer meeting and church visitation (our witnessing program). We went out for visitation and then it was lunchtime. We brought a cold platter for lunch and so ate in the fellowship hall. We then cleaned the church. I rode with a friend to Kroger and Aldi as the rest of the family finished cleaning the church. Our family has our assigned tasks and so I had done mine. :D

We then went to visit some friends, leaving straight from church. This was so much fun! We took the salad and garlic bread to have with some wonderful lasagna. Our friends had prepared cupcakes for a family member turning 8. So we had fun celebrating that. We also had some wonderful fruit cobbler. We learned a new game! It's called Farkle (spelling may be wrong???). So we're looking at getting this game soon. It was very fun so we had great laughs while playing.

After we left there we stopped back by the church for hubby to look at the well. The well is somehow not working right. So hopefully between our Pastor's and my hubby's brains, this can be remedied.

So after all this, we finally arrived home, I think a little after 9pm. Wowser, what a busy but fun day!

Sunday we went to our morning and evening services with eating and rest in between. The services were so wonderful! Both sermons were great and the evening service included two getting baptized. What a wonderful blessing! We had many, many, many visitors, all stemming from one couple. I am amazed! I've never seen one couple be able to persuade so many to come to church. It's a true blessing!

So here we are with Monday again. After supper we are doing our Little House reading and see what we can discuss. We've done our reading and math for the day so we need to get in the Prairie Primer. I am hoping for the next three days to be even more productive as we go on a little trip on Friday. :D

Okay, that is all. I expect the buzzer to go off any sec to let me know the bread is ready.... bologna sandwiches with chips tonight!

First Day of School

2011-08-01T21:44:00.002-04:00

So here's the schedule we kept today. It's subject to some tweaking as we see fit.

Well, we have one down and 179 mandatory school days left! :D I think that overall we had fun. Hopefully the children learned a bit. Our 4/ soon to be 5 YO loved her day! She couldn't wait to tell Daddy when he got home what she learned.

So, here I am at the computer, about to come up with a literature list for Dalton (10th grade) to use for US History. Hopefully that won't take long as I am ready for bed and looking forward to another day.

We began our Prairie Primer today. We read chapter 1 of Little House in the Big Woods. We talked about preserving food for health purposes, looked at an old animal trap with have, had Daddy to demonstrate it's use for us, had pork skins just like the Ingalls did on butchering day, watched a few videos on bears hibernating (facinating!), went over vocabulary words and comprhension questions of the chapter, and more that I can't remember! We also did our math and penmanship. The older two did their high school classes. Brittany has it very lightly this year so she helped with the youngers and did more chores.

I made up a chart of all the subjects to cover for the non-high schoolers. Each day I put a check mark on the subjects we touched on. This way I can see which has the least checks and what needs more work. This being the first day, I believe I am going to like this chart... may make up one for the older children. It makes for easy tracking and good record keeping.

We had meat pockets, sliced tomatoes and oriental vegetables for supper. The vegetables had a lot to be desired so the chickens can have the leftovers tomorrow. :/

Order

2011-07-30T13:11:00.002-04:00

Supper from last night....leftovers for lunch today. At supper we had homemade pita bread to go with. At lunch everything was served with vegetable crackers.

Wow, the weeks just fly by, don't they? Here we are at the end of the week and, boy-howdy, we are ending it with a bang of busy-ness! The past few days I've been planning school. It begins on Monday and I am so excited! I do need to pick up a few supplies of which seem to disappear so quickly. Where do the crayons and pencils go?
We need some notebooks as well.

Our four year old (will be five the end of August) is officially joining our little homeschool this year. I can't believe that little bundle has gotten big enough already but this is life. They grow up so fast. She is all excited and I want this to be as special as we can make it. She'll be learning her phonics and numbers, have more stories read and do more crafts. Also, she may join in on the Little House stories that the 3rd and 4th graders are going to have. We are doing the Prairie Primer with them this year and I'm so excited! Did I mention that already? :D I just hope that they will join in on the enthusiasm??? Hopefully my enthusiasm will last a little longer than a month this time. Hmmmm??? Ha!

So, I'm a-makin' schedules and my head's a-buzzin' with all kinds of ideas. Those poor high schoolers...their school is pretty well straight forward. Well, maybe they'll re-live some of their elementary days with the younger ones. Well, I am excited about our 10th grader's science as it's on computer this year (Switched-On Schoolhouse). I hope it will sustain his interest and make my life just a little easier. This year we have children scattered all between the grades. Mercy! This mama's brain will have to be recorded all down on paper because her program might be electrically shorted if not. So, charts are in the making and routines set in place....ahhhhh, order.....I LOVE order! Yippee-skippee!

So, I'd better run and see what all else I can organize. The plan is to have a plan and not go on the fly. No siree. Won't work. Can't do it. Ain't gonna be. Order....yes, order!

Questions (unedited)

2011-07-28T15:46:00.004-04:00

I wanted to answer a few questions real quick before I moved on to chores tonight.

Beth asked what the brand of the food slicer is that I have. It is a WaringPro brand. It is definitely one for home use-- not of professional quality but it is perfect for our family. Like I said, we slice meat and bread on it a lot and it's definitely something I am used to having now. We were fortunate in finding ours for just half price at Sam's Club.

Dana asked about our gardening practices:

Dana, we grow a garden pretty much year round. If we skip a season it is pretty much winter garden. We have been married for 21 years and may have skipped 3 summer gardens in those years. We gardened through many babies and through many circumstances! We try to grow as much as we can out of the garden. I would say that we grow about....just guessing... 60% of our vegetables out of our garden. My goal is to be at 90% or more. I'd like to be as self sufficient as possible. What helps with us are two things.

First, we live down south and our growing seasons are very extended. We can get in two summer gardens here and have two fall/winter gardens as well. Also, we have plans to have a greenhouse very soon.

Secondly, while we enjoy many kinds of vegetables, we do not feel tied down in having to have any one type of vegetable....okay, okay truth be told if we "had" to have any type of vegetables, I'd choose potatoes and onion. We like tomato paste as well. You can do a whole lot with tomato paste! Really, though, besides a few if the harvest of certain types aren't doing so well, we learn to adapt and eat what we do have. We may have a good green bean year one year so we will put up many quarts of green beans. Another year we may have many tomatoes. So in having the good years of certain vegetables, we can focus on the other vegetables. So being willing to adapt to eating certain vegetables versus others, helps.

With fruit, we get what we can. We have some blueberries to put in the ground before long and we have blackberries. We have muscadines also. Our plum tree has died and so has the peach tree so those need replacing this fall. I'd also like a crab apple tree too. James has gleaned many peaches this year from local farmers who were letting them drop to the ground and not using them. They allowed him to get as much as he liked. We have also been blessed in that some work buddies would share their produce that they had "too much" of. Normally I don't grown zucchini but James brought some home. So I shredded it to make zucchini bread. I've never made it before but we are willing to adapt and try something new as it's free food. We are about to try gooseberries as they grow wild on the side of the road. If we like them, we may grow some of those as well. We try growing watermelon and sometimes we get some that's edible. As a "thank you" to the local gas workers, some large farmers will give them boxes of peppers and melons. My husband has also been given jams, jellies, pickles and peppers as a thank you for his hard work.

For nuts, we have grown peanuts before and we have a pecan tree. So anytime we want nuts in a recipes we usually use one of those two. I'd like to grow sunflowers next year to harvest those seeds as we use a lot of sunflower kernals in granola.

I guess the main idea is becoming familiar with what you can grow and when in your region. How much you can grow on whatever land you have and what other ways you can grow food to extend your seasons, such as a greenhouse.

So in the end, after many years of starting small and growing more, we hope to grow or obtain by bartering as close to 100% as we can.

Wednesday

2011-07-28T15:39:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. I got up as usual and got breakfast out. We had a mixture of english muffins and peanut butter toast. I made James' sandwiches for work and sent him off. Afterwards I did some cleaning, got laundry going and made some Goliath sized tortillas. I like the recipe, even though the tortillas didn't come out as normal tortillas....and to think it came out of a tortilla cookbook! :D

After this, I took our 7 and 12 year olds to the dentist for cavity repair. While they were in, I sat in the waiting room and read up on the Prairie Primer. I plan on using this with 2 of the children this coming year. I have a feeling our newest student will be joining in before long as she can though. I am excited about this and hope things are as exciting to the children.

After the dentist we came home and had lunch of burritos. In the afternoon we had a quiet/nap time. Afterwards we did a little cleaning and I went into the garden a bit to pick tomatoes and peas. Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for church and leave. We had leftovers of beans and cubed stead along with a few sandwiches....and ice cream with cookies for dessert! Yum!

Tuesday

2011-07-26T22:24:00.002-04:00

Today was a very good day. I got hubby sent off to work as usual. I did not have any bread made so I sent him with boiled eggs for lunch. Bad me. He ate at Subway anyway as boiled eggs just won't do. :D
For breakfast we had cinnamon raisin english muffins with peanut butter. I was able to get supper going in the crockpots this morning. One crockpot was loaded with pinto beans and the other with cubed steak, gravy, onion and potatoes. I had a few of the children to do a little picking up upstairs in the playroom. I guess you could tell it if you knew what it looked like before. :/ I think I'm going to have to do most of it on my own. Children just don't know how to organize sometimes.

I did get around to baking bread today-- being that I was heavily reminded this morning. Ha! Jesse helped with this a bit. He really got flour happy in doing so. As I baked the bread, I made our lunch of lasagna Hamburger Helper and corn. I thought of the chemical red dyes in the Hamburger Helper the entire time we ate. It was tasty and easy though.

I was very ready for a nap by 2:00- so took one. I woke up the flour being spread from the kitchen all the way to the front door- compliments of the 4 and 7 year olds... and also the olders who were to be watching them but didn't notice their mischief. :/ So we had a happy session of vacuuming, sweeping and mopping....a lot of mopping.

I only got three loads of laundry done today- minus one not being folded. The good news is that the two oldest folded the mountain of clothes that was backed up. Yay, them!

This evening hubby tilled under the empty spots in the garden again and we planted A LOT of lima beans, green beans and colossus peas. I have a feeling we'll be busy in about two months or so. :D I hope so anyway.

I'd better get off here and switch the laundry once more. Also I need to make sure supper leftovers are put away. It is now quiet... all children except the oldest are in bed. I might go listen to the crickets chirp a bit. Have a blessed evening!

Monday, July 25

2011-07-26T07:45:00.002-04:00

Today was dental cleaning day for four of the children. Two have to go back for additional work on Wednesday. Blah! After we left the dentist off we stopped by a thrift store and then to pay our vehicle taxes.

James worked yesterday. He's off from his primary job on Mondays, during the summer, but he often does side work. He had a good day with that but we were glad to see him home last night!

I was not in the cooking mood yesterday so we had a breakfast supper. Afterwards we had some yummy watermelon.

Speaking of watermelon, we will never have bragging rights on growing watermelons! Our farming neighbors always did well with growing them. My parents can grow more than anybody can handle. Not us. One day we may find the secret perhaps.

I've been doing school planning for what I am hoping to begin this coming week. We will be having 6 students in our little homeschool. The oldest only has 3 more credits to go in order to graduate. She hopes to be done with her book work by January. We'll see...

We got in bed way later than we should have. I like "early to bed and early to rise". So hopefully we'll turn that around here soon. :D

Sunday

2011-07-25T09:38:00.002-04:00

We had a wonderful day! We got up, had a quick breakfast and went through the chaotic drill of getting everyone ready for church. We headed off to church. Sunday school was very good, with the exception of missing two students. They had fun at their grandparents' church, I'm sure. We are studying on Daniel. I have been using a storybook as our lesson book but I didn't like how they left out a lot of good things from the book of Daniel. So, I am making up lessons on that. We had our lesson on chapter one yesterday. Funny thing- we had a conversation on what pulse is in the Bible. In the dictionary it stated it is a vegetable that comes out of a pod. So I was telling the students, "you know, it like peas or butter beans that you shell?". They had no clue! :D So I am bringing some peas in their pods now and butter beans when those are ready. Also, I want to bring some lentils and show them those.

After church we had lunch and went to a few thrift stores. We are looking for some shoes for one girl and a suit for our oldest son. Nope. Didn't happen. So we're still looking...may go to Hamrick's this week sometime.

We came home and had a quick nap and I then made some soup and simple apple pie for our church social after the evening service. We headed back to church and enjoyed a second service. God is so good to have men who are willing to preach His Word!
We had the social afterwards and stayed to talk till 11:00pm! I love our church family!

All in all, it was a good day.

Saturday June 23

2011-07-23T15:22:00.001-04:00

Hey Everybody!

I am resting a little bit before getting going again. Today's been a good day. I went to Dollar General and used my $5 coupon. I bought two more "cans" of coffee that's on sale! Yay! I picked up a few other needs to make up for the $25 needed to spend to use the coupon.
Then we went to TSC store. James has a well part to return and we each bought a sunhat to help in the sun, especially while gardening. I love sunhats! We picked up Sheba's food and pine shaving for the chicken coop. Then we went to our favorite feed and seed store and got some chicken scratch and seeds for our second summer garden. We're planting our roma green beans, collossus peas (?), and fordhook lima beans. They should all be ready to harvest the end of September. We'll plan them sometime this coming week. James also talked with a fellow there on who to buy rabbits from. He gave us two numbers, the top one being the one he recommended. So that's a step closer to getting that started.

We pulled up our old corn stalk and green bean plants and James tilled the ground under. I pulled some weeds and picked a few tomatoes and peas. I observed that our "old" squash plants are beginning to bud up again. So we may very well have some fresh squash soon. I have about 20 bags frozen, so we'll save those for later if these come on.

Today I am making roast and liver nips for supper tonight. Have a blessed evening in the Lord!

Friday, July 22

2011-07-22T10:50:00.003-04:00

/>

Happy Friday! I hope that everyone is having a good week! Ours is going very well. The Lord is so good! Brittany had an ear infection the beginning of the week. We have some herbal antibiotic drops that we have used recently in the past that worked before. Well, they worked again! I am so very happy. The ear ache actually was swimmer's ear. She had serious pain and I am glad that's over. Ear plugs from now on for her!

This past Monday, hubby and I pulled the pump to our well. It's amazing what you learn when you are do-it-yourselfer home-owners! Hubby was able to replace a part and we were able to set the pump back down in the ground. The pump had been running a whole lot more than it should-sometimes continuously and this could wreak havoc on the electric bill...and burn up the pump! So glad it's fixed!

We have been enjoying the wildlife around our little homestead this season! I do love summertime! I am warm for once and get to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of nature the Lord gave us to enjoy.

I've been doing the normal chores here in the household. To battle high energy bills I have been hanging wash out on the lines. We go through a lot of laundry in this family of ours! You know, I was thinking, women used to-and some still do their laundry only on Mondays--even large family mothers. How in the world do they ever get all that wash done in just one day??? Seriously! I was thinking that they must have worn/ do wear their clothes a lot longer and allow them to be a lot dirtier than we do. Hmmm, maybe I should lower the standards a bit? What do the Amish do even today with large families and washing without electricity. Oh, I know HOW they do it, practically but how do they do so much? I'd like to know that.

Well, Brittany is at a lady's house helping her sew some today. The lady needed help in sewing certain garments. Brittany can sew by just looking at something - so unlike her mother here who needs a pattern. I am so glad the Lord gave her a tremendous brain! So, I'm sure she's enjoying her visit and she should be back later this afternoon/early evening.

Tonight's pizza night! It seems a long time since we've had pizza as we didn't have it last Friday as normal. So hopefully it'll turn out well. I hope to make enough for lunch tomorrow also.

Tomorrow we have hopes of planting our second summer garden. The first gave us a bunch of squash but all else just slowly streamed in...just enough to sustain us day by day but not enough to put away. We'll be set with squash though! So we hope to do another planting of green and butter beans... we'll have to look in the charts and see what all else we can plant right now. Our options aren't as open this go around.
Then it'll be time to think of fall plantings!

Okay, so I'm off. I told the children I'd make them banana milk shakes for an afternoon snack. They are breathing down my neck now. haha

Have a blessed weekend in the Lord!

Saturday

2011-07-16T21:28:00.002-04:00

I am trusting that everyone is having a good weekend! Ours is busy as ever. James took Samuel with him early this morning to do some side jobs. I slept in a bit and that felt nice! Usually I get up at the same time every morning but decided to treat myself this morning. After all, it's Saturday!

For four days in a row last week I did not do any laundry. YIKES! For our size family that is usually a "no-no". Life happens though. Sunday was Sunday. Then Monday we were busy all day with a preacher's fellowship we hosted at our home church. Tuesday I didn't do a thing but recovered from said preacher's fellowship. Then Wednesday we had company and so we were having too much fun with that! So my friend that came over Wednesday said she needed to catch up on her laundry and she's been busier than I even. So we decided to keep tabs on one another on how we were doing on Thursday. We both did many, many loads that day! I did not finish at all though and did some more on Friday and today. Hmmm...maybe on Monday I can finally be caught up. LOL

Our garden is doing well. The tomatoes are ripening slowly. I do hope to get some canned this year. We eat tomatoes a whole lot. Our squash has done very well. I think I froze 20 quarts and we've ate our fill of squash this season. We are about to pull up the plants and be done with them. The peas are coming on well too. We only planted one row (about 75 feet long) but it's producing nicely. The corn hasn't been so good but we are getting a few meals... we didn't plant much though. The green beans were a bit disappointing but we have gotten some put away for later and I let some beans get quite big to have shelly beans. The beans seemed tough from the start and I wasn't keen on the quality so we might try a second planting here soon.
The okra is putting on well...we only have four plants though. The cucumbers haven't done much at all...only 2-3 so far. Then again, I haven't been faithful in watering them though. As crazy as it seem, in them midst of this I am still scheming of what we can plant next and even thinking of our fall garden! I just like having enough food provided for the family, ya' know? :D

We have been enjoying the hot summer days. We have taken off a bit from school this summer but I think I'll give us only 2-3 more weeks before we hit the books again. I wasn't happy with our progress last year so really hope for a better year this coming year!

I am thinking of us raising some meat to butcher...thinking of some meat chickens and rabbits. With times being as they are and the idea of our economy on the way to collapsing, I thought this would be a wise decision. So, we'd have meat in the back yard, vegetables in the garden and dry food storage of what I buy ahead. This feels like a heavier burden with a large family and with the economy being in such turmoil. We have butchered chickens before ("we" as in hubby!). I've done a lot of research on raising and butchering meat rabbits. Maybe this will be a fall project for our family and we can fill out freezer up with some healthy rabbit meat! I think I'll feel like a full fledged prepper then. :D

OoOkayyyyy, so let's see what else is going on here.... I have begun baking homemade bread again with the sponge method. I am THRILLED! I don't have to measure a thing with how I'm making it. I might have to video it and post to YouTube sometime. We bought a kitchen slicer back in the spring that was on clearance at Sam's Club. That thing slices bread so well! I love it! A slicer has been on my "want" list for a long time and this one was just $31. We have sliced many loaves of bread along with chopped ham we buy in bulk at Sam's. I plan on buying some pork loin soon and I can't wait to slice some chops on it. :D

Basically our days has been filled with chores, relaxing and swimming. We got the pool going this year and hubby installed a salt chlorinator. After the initial cost of the chlorinator, the cost of running the pool is amazingly cheap....about $40-$50 a year. I'd recommend a salt chlorinator to anyone interested in running their pool and saving money in the end. The water is great on your eyes as well too as it contains about the same amount of salt as what is in your tears already.

Alrighty, I'd better get off here. The dishes in the sink are calling my name and it's time to wrap up our chores for the night. I hope you all have a blessed day in your home churches tomorrow and a great day in the Lord!

Cost Per Day July 10-15

2011-07-16T12:38:00.004-04:00

July 10

fried potatoes and eggs $1.20

lunch at McD's $21.08

sandwiches for suppers $3.25

bev.: milk, tea $3
$28.53

July 11

breakfast: egg sandwiches $1.65

lunch: leftovers (FREE)

Supper: at a huge church fellowship that we hosted...cooked all day but the only cost to me was: 10# rice $4.00
mayonnaise $3.00, relish and spices for deviled eggs $.50, flour and browning sauce for gravy .25, onion soup mix for gravy .35
sugar cookies $1.00, stir and go salad dessert $5.15

bev:milk $3
Total for day: $18.90

7/12

breakfast : leftover desserts from fellowship
lunch: made ham delights from rolls leftover from fellowship $1.25
supper: all leftovers from fellowship
bev. : milk, tea, coffee $1.50

$2.75

**I am not thrilled with the totals so far. Eating at McD's certainly doesn't help. On the other hand, that cost fed our family of 9(we had money left on gift cards from Christmas..yeah McD's is a rare treat). We ate out because we unexpectedly did not go home when we went to see hubby's mom for her birthday and we were stuck on the interstate for a long while due to an accident. I do think we'll be doing better soon...I hope.

7/13

b: eggs and toast $1
l: bologna sandwiches, popcorn, brownies $5.25 (we had friends over for lunch and so this was not bad at all!)
s: oyster stew and crackers $11.10
beverages: tea, milk, free soda, coffee $2.50

total for day $19.85 (ICK!)

7/14
B: oatmeal bake .75
L: soft tacos/ taco salad $6.00
S: taco soup...I am so excited about this! corn was left over from Monday so it was free, 1 can of kidney beans .87, leftover taco meat from lunch, tomatoes from garden, cream of tomato soup (free, given to us), handful of cheese .50, handful of lentils .50, a few dehydrated bell pepper bits, 2 T. sour cream .10, seasonings .10 $1.98
cornbread $.50
beverages: tea and coffee $1.00
snacks: fresh loaf of baked bread with margarine .50

Total today: $10.73 (Now, that's better!)

7/15
B: cinnamon raisin english muffins with cream cheese $3.25

L: ramen noodle cups for children and hubby, I ate leftover taco soup and cornbread $2.58

snacks: fresh homemade bread .40, ramen noodle cup for me .33

supper: chicken and dumplings $3.65, fried green tomatoes, squash and okra .25 (for cornmeal and milk...veggies were from garden and eggs from coop), peas, shelly beans and sliced tomatoes (free, from garden), coffee cake .50 (made by Brittany from scratch), cole slaw $2

Beverages: 1 gallon Kool Aid, 1 gallon tea $1.00

total: $13.96

Update on Cost Per Day

2011-07-09T15:33:00.002-04:00

BLAH! My goals aren't working out so well, are they? Ah well! I am still satisfied that for our large family, we're not doing too terribly bad. I could do a whole lot worse. :D Here's an updated list of how we're doing. I believe we are coming in at a little under $15/day. Hmmm, should this be our new goal, $15/day? Naah, I really don't like that number, once multiplied by 30 days. Maybe I'll say $14/day as a new goal. Okay, so it'll be $14/day. YEP. How's everyone else doing? I got a batch of gals doing this with me and even beyond how much is spent per day, a whole lot is being noticed. It's amazing what you'll learn in what you're consuming once you write it out and analize it.

July 1:
biscuits and gravy $2.10
2 cans pop biscuits $.80 I made some earlier but was not pleased so made homemade... both were consumed.
chicken tostadas $2.25
watermelon (free)
cookies 1.25
stuffed bell peppers $5.50 (meat $3.75, 3 cans tom. paste $1.20, seasonings .25, rice .30, peppers were free)
beverages of tea, coffee and milk $1.50

Total for today: $13.40
What boosted today's spending is that I should have origionally stuck to homemade biscuits and the cookies were meant for tomorrow's snack but the children were hungry from swimming. Ah well! This is a high day for us. Wink

July 2

breakfast : free at church

Lunch: Little Caesar's and 12 pk drinks $23.50

Supper: free at church

beverages: soda, listed with lunch

Total for the 2nd: $23.50

July 3:

B:muffins : 1.25

L:Italian bake: $2.20 (noodles were given to us for free by a person who works at a pasta factory, I added a little sausage and 3 cans of tomato paste with seasonings and about a cup of cheese mixed in.

S:leftover italian bake (free) and chicken and rice soup (1 1/2 chicken breasts boiled and shredded, carrots, celery rice and seasonings) $2.25
A loaf's worth of homemade bread was ate with the meals and as a quick snack with margarine. $.60

beverages: coffee and soda $2.75

Total for 3rd: $9.75

July 4th
B: bacon, eggs(free), grits(free from neighbor as a thank you for mowing her grass) with 4 slices cheese $4.00
L: ate with extended family to celebrate the holiday. We took a big pan of baked beans and brownies $3.00 (I used leftover bacon from breakfast to top the baked beans so that was helpful. Brittany made the brownies all from scratch-with free eggs from the back yard and .07/pound flour)
S: 2 packs smoked sausage, fried, 2 boxes Hamburger Helper fried rice(used no meat), stewed squash and onions(squash from garden and onions given to us through husband's work) $5.20
Beverages: tea and coffee $1

Total for today: $12.20

July 5
B: banana shakes $2.50
L: beans and weanies, sliced tomoatoes and popcorn $1.65
S: turkey soup, peach cobbler and ice cream $6.30
Beverages: $1
daily total: $11.45

July 6

B: pancakes and peach syrup $2
L: ham and cheese sand. $3
S: hot dogs and fries $5
snacks: popcorn .10, ramen cups 1.50
daily total: $11.50

July 7

B: egg sandwiches $1.65
L: tuna salad sandwiches and chips $ 5.50
S: cubed steak with gravy and rice, peas $6.75
Bev.: coffee, tea, milk, $3
snacks: chips and ice cream $3
$19.90

July 8

oatmeal bake $1.40

peanut butter and jelly sand. $2
coffee cake $1.00
peanut butter cookies $1.50

Pizza $7.00

bev.: tea, coffee, milk $3

$15.90

July 9

omelets and leftover oatmeal bake $1.20

lunch: leftover pizza, cubed steak gravy and rice (free)

supper: steak $11.25, grill packets of garden veggies (zucchini, onion and yellow squash, another squash of which we've never had before...looks like a spaceship to me. LOL Those were given to us)

bev: tea, coffee, milk, koolaid $3.25

$15.70

Cost Per Day July 1-4

2011-07-04T19:42:00.000-04:00

July 1:
biscuits and gravy $2.10
2 cans pop biscuits $.80 I made some earlier but was not pleased so made homemade... both were consumed.
chicken tostadas $2.25
watermelon (free)
cookies 1.25
stuffed bell peppers $5.50 (meat $3.75, 3 cans tom. paste $1.20, seasonings .25, rice .30, peppers were free)
beverages of tea, coffee and milk $1.50

Total for today: $13.40
What boosted today's spending is that I should have origionally stuck to homemade biscuits and the cookies were meant for tomorrow's snack but the children were hungry from swimming. Ah well! This is a high day for us. Wink

July 2

breakfast : free at church

Lunch: Little Caesar's and 12 pk drinks $23.50

Supper: free at church

beverages: soda, listed with lunch

Total for the 2nd: $23.50

July 3:

B:muffins : 1.25

L:Italian bake: $2.20 (noodles were given to us for free by a person who works at a pasta factory, I added a little sausage and 3 cans of tomato paste with seasonings and about a cup of cheese mixed in.

S:leftover italian bake (free) and chicken and rice soup (1 1/2 chicken breasts boiled and shredded, carrots, celery rice and seasonings) $2.25
A loaf's worth of homemade bread was ate with the meals and as a quick snack with margarine. $.60

beverages: coffee and soda $2.75

Total for 3rd: $9.75

Food Totals for July...Anyone?

2011-06-30T19:38:00.003-04:00

I am trusting that everyone is having a good week. I can't believe tomorrow is already Friday again! Tomorrow also begins the month of July. Wowser! I am kind of sad the summer is fleeing so quickly. Anyway, many times I will add up how much our meals costs and I try to keep a daily, average goal of $12 per day for our family's food budget. So I thought it might be fun to chronicle here what we are having and how much it costs. Since school is light for us right now, I figured if I were to do this that now is the time as this is as un-busy as it's going to be around here...Hmmm....un-busy....now that's a thought to ponder on for a while.

Any-hoo, so that's my challenge for July. If anyone wants to join in, please do! I am interested in how others do it, and how the Lord's provision in our lives. I like hearing about what all everyone is making as well.

I might have to do a YouTube on this one too. Fun-fun! I just hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew...pun not intended but, hey, it works! :D

Blessings to you all!

Moodiness

2011-06-26T16:45:00.002-04:00

Lately upon pondering on why some people are so completely moody, this is what my conclusion is;
Moodiness is disbelief in you deserving certain misfortunes. Moodiness is thinking that you're too good for anything bad to happen to. You see, when things are great, then that's when Mr./Mrs. Moody is happy. When things go bad, Mr./Mrs. Moody whines and wants the world to whine with them. It is then their ticket to be a grouch. In truth, this is a form of being unthankful for what they have been blessed with...what GOD has blessed them with. Indeed, being moody is a form of arrogance.

Now, don't you think that any such drastic moodiness is in our house. Yes, we all have a touch of moodiness periodically (who's perfect??? Raise your hand if you are!!!), but I tell you, some outsiders take it to the extreme! I am talking of the ones who practically live this as a lifestyle!

So, if you know the Lord...I mean REALLY know Him, how could YOU be "Mr./ Mrs. Moody USA"? Do you not think God knows what He's doing? Is He not righteous no matter what? Since when were you the next perfect person on this earth that everything should run smoothly for? Hold your head up, read your Bible, sing praises to the King and really think on what He's done for you. Can you still walk around all blah?
I think not! Obviously some need a lesson in this business....although it seems it would come as the Holy Ghost hit them. Hmmm.... and don't think it was a female that inspired this post as it was not. This is not a hormonal issue or an issue of someone going through a terrible event such as a death...just as someone is...oh 75% of the time.

So what should we non-moody people to help the moody clan? Well, I know a verse that is fresh in my mind. It was our theme verse for VBS this past week. Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Maybe once you stumble upon a moody person, you could ask them, "Isn't God good?" and smile a wide toothed grin. Either they will think you're a nuisance or they'll think about it. Maybe they'll share their struggles and you'll know how to pray. No matter how irritating moody people are (oops...see...it's catchy! So watch out!), they do need prayer! If the prayers of the church can send an angel to help Peter escape prison (Acts 12) then it seems prayer could certainly "fix" a moody person. Most likely, they need Jesus. If they have Jesus, then they are not close to Him.

So, smile and pray. Be of good encouragement toward those in need, even if you do want to bat them over the head and slap the whininess off their face. Don't do that!!! No-no! Remember, let your LIGHT so shine...be NICE even when they're not. Be of good example. :D

Blessings to you and yours.

Words to Live By

2011-06-21T08:58:00.000-04:00

~~~~Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without~~~~

Happy Tuesday!

2011-06-21T08:27:00.004-04:00

Hey Everybody!

I hope y'all are all doing well. We are staying healthy right now, praise God! Hopefully this will be a standing trend for a very long time. This week we have VBS at church and so I thought I'd share our schedule.

Many things to do as always....here's a little list:

~6:00 wake, quiet time, feed James and get him off to work, feed children breakfast, dress and tidy bathroom, make bed, computer time
~9:00 Office/paperwork
~9:30 garden work (hoeing, weeding, picking, putting produce up)
~10:30 spelling and math with some of the children
~12:00 prepare lunch and eat
~1:00 swim with children
~2:30 line up craft and activities for VBS tonight
~2:45 clean up time
~3:00 nap!!!!!!
~4:00 get clothes ready for VBS
~showers and baths
~leave at 5:50 for VBS

On Thursday we need to go do some grocery shopping so that will replace everything from 9:30-2:30 on that day. We'll throw lunch in there somewhere. If we swim that day, it'll be a bonus.

I really enjoy swimming mainly for physical reasons. It feels very good to my joints and the warmth of the sun is fabulous! The children enjoy it as well. I call it "swimming in the vacation". This year we bought a salt chlorinator, salt, new pump and filter, of which would equal a cheap vacation. Soooo, the pool IS our vacation. :D
The salt chlorinator works SO MUCH BETTER for us instead of all the chemicals. We do feel it is truly more economical. Hopefully next year we won't have to put near as much into it and we can make back the money invested.

Okay, so I must run in order to keep things going as planned. Truly, I'd like to crawl back in bed. Alas, no rest for this weary gal. ;D

Have a blessed day in God's goodness!

Garden Progress 11'

2011-06-03T13:23:00.002-04:00

We are getting quite a bit of squash now. We are so thankful as last year's crop didn't do go great. I had the wonderful garden itchies when picking this morning. Call me a bit sadistic but I love most summer discomforts like being itchy from a garden or hot. Funny, I'll be saying, "Wow, isn't it hot out here? I can hardly breathe because of the humidity. Isn't this WONDERFUL?" LOL

Anyway, so we have squash and we should be picking the beginning of our beans sometime this coming week. We have "baby tomatoes" and blooms on our cucumbers. I planted some more tomato, pepper and cucumber seed this morning. So we should have plenty to go throughout the whole season. Hubby says the peas will be blooming soon too. Our watermelon vines are growing well along with our okra plants. The corn's growing but not as plentiful as we'd like. I am about to pull up our spring onions. Then we can till that under and put something in it's place too...maybe we'll put more corn there if it's not going to be too hot then for corn... dunno.

I enjoy going out a few times a day and work here and there. The real work will come when the picking and canning begins. I am sort of dreading that part but it will be nice to have those jars later. Some late evenings hubby and I like to sit in the quiet and hear the lids pop as the canning jars are sealing... I guess that's a sound of progress.

2011-06-01T14:36:00.002-04:00

Good Afternoon Everybody!

The older children are in the pool. I just brought the littlest in to get her down for a nap. There's nothing like wearing her out in the pool to get her ready! I didn't get in today but just played lifeguard out there. Talk about HOT! I didn't want to mess with all the changing clothes but really probably should have.

The garden is doing pretty well. It needs weeding badly so I might get out there the next few early mornings to get that done. We will be picking beans very soon...baby ones on there now and the plants are full of white blooms. We will be eating our first squash tonight and the plants are full of blooms as well. Hopefully the rest of the garden will come on well soon too. I have water on the plants now as we haven't had rain in a while.

We had granola for breakfast, pizza for lunch and will have tuna patties with squash and...something else for supper. I've never made tuna patties but I figured it should be common sense. haha

Earlier I shot a few money saving videos. I posted a new one on Youtube and hope to get the others posted soon. They are some pretty common money saving tips but maybe someone will find them helpful. :D I am Sandlappersue01 on there. Hey, did you know that the name Sandlappersue was already taken? I thought that I was the only Sandlappersue...have been this for almost eight years now. Hmm...I might have to check this other person out. :D

Tonight we have church and I am looking forward to that as well. This afternoon two loads of laundry and some straightening will be in the plans. Have a good rest of the day in the Lord!

Bible Reading

2011-05-27T11:32:00.002-04:00

A reader asked me a few questions about my Bible reading. So I thought I'd share how I do this and where I am in this. Bible reading is crucial to staying close with the Lord. Do you hear me? Again, you cannot be as close to the Lord as you should be without reading AND comprehending what the scriptures say. There have been times when I didn't read my Bible the way I should. I will not lie. I know that those times were times when I was not drawing near to the Lord as I should have. Praise the Lord, that the more you read, the more you want to read. This is the Lord drawing you near. Fellowship is so sweet!

Practically speaking, this is my opinion. I do not like reading programs AT ALL! I say to burn them. ***This is my opinion*** They set you up to feel like a failure and they can make you fail at what your goal is. So what is your goal? Is it to zoom through your reading as fast as you can to say that you finished the Bible a time or two in a year? And how much can you comprehend during that time? How much did you feast on? What did you learn? That you can read really fast? What is your blessing from this? How are you blessing the Lord from this?

Oh, you ask what I do? I'll tell you a little bit just to give you an idea of what I do. I am not saying this is best, but it works for me...a mom of several children and several distractions. It's what I learned over the years. As, I type this I have the urge to get alone with God. You see, after a last night at church I slept in this morning. I missed my time in with the Lord. I WILL get this in today, though, as I have an extreme hunger for this. Where did the hunger come from? At first you don't always have a hunger. Even if you don't like a medicine, you must take it as it's good for you. After you find that it's does you good, you will come to crave that medicine. This is the Bible for me. So, I missed my dose at 7:00 this morning. I will get in my hour in a bit. You say how? I slept in this morning, folks. I won't need to rest later. The children will have their required quiet time though.

How much do I read? I won't share that with you. I will simply share that you need to choose a book of the Bible and FEAST on it. Read it as slow as you need to, to comprehend it, learn from it, digest it and grow from it. Keep reading until you have had your fill. Until you feel you've grown and have been nourished. You know, sometimes you may read one short chapter and you have to stop and think on what you've read. Sometimes you may have to read three chapters to get what you need. No reading program can possibly dictate what YOU need.

While I do read by chapters sometimes, I read by pages a lot of times. I mark at the corner of the pages of my Bible what I've read. I have simply put check marks at times and then sometimes I put the year (11'). Recently I started writing study notes on sticky pads and I'll put the sticky note on the page I've studied. It's there till I need it. It's there to refer back to later.

I always like to have my time of prayer coupled with my Bible reading/study. I have a sticky page stuck in the back of my Bible with a simple list such as: Husband, children, extended family, church family, hurting people, message board, etc.
As I read down the list I pray for the things on the list. For example, when I read "extended family", I think of what all is going on in the family outside our household and any burdens and concerns with those, I hand over to God. This is works best for me.

Usually an hour is all I get in one sitting. Usually it is in the morning after my husband is sent off to work and before the children demand my attention. There are those days that I sleep in and don't wake up till the children do. Or there are those days when the children get up as early as I. If they do, then I go ahead, feed them and as they eat I then get in my Bible reading. I like it first in the morning but if it doesn't work out, like today, then I will get it in during quiet time. I crave and miss it when I don't get it in. It is not a burden as I am not sticking to any man's plan. It is a blessing because I am tasting God's Word. He is talking to me and I sit, rest in the quiet and meditate. I feel refreshed and at peace and I don't feel tired or stressed. I don't have a feeling of "okay, I've done that. Check!". I have a feeling of thankfulness and a gain of fellowship.

I do try to move forward in the scriptures and read what I feel compelled to read due to current happenings in life or simply because of what I haven't studied as much and should. Sometimes I "chase rabbits" by doing a word study, or a study on someone in the Bible or finding verses to go with what I am reading.

Like I said, I am not perfect. I have fallen off the wagon before in reading before and pray that I don't again. But by the grace of God, there go I! Don't think that I have it together. My flesh is as wretched as the next. It is God that keeps me as I strive to please Him, I do fail and falter. It's like exercise, the more you move- the more you want to move....or eating- the more you eat the more you want to eat...or drinking water- the more you drink, the more you want to drink. Only thing is it's the Word. Labor in the Word-- you'll want more of it. Taste the Word, you'll want more of it. Drink from the Fountain, you'll want more of it.

Happy reading!

Tuesday, May 24

2011-05-24T09:14:00.001-04:00

Happy Tuesday Everybody!

It's been a great day so far. I got James sent off to work and as I was walking back inside I thought of how nice it'd be to sit on the front porch and do my Bible reading. So I spent a sweet hour out there. LOVE IT! I would have liked another hour but this is reality. Wink I knew the littles were scurrying around and were wanting some vittles. So I will live off what I got for now. I LOVE being able to talk with Him in the quiet. God is so good-- more than I deserve.

Well, I didn't get the floors mopped yesterday. I did get a lot done but not that. So that is on my list for the day. I also need to do quite a bit of laundry. I enjoy housework, really. There's something therapeutic about seeing things in order and clean. As the youngest gets older, this is becoming easier---not EASY but easIER. laugh So, let's see...floors, laundry, school and quick swishing of the bathrooms. The main room for the day is the kitchen....won't get bored there. laugh

I put some pinto beans in the roaster last night so they've been cooking. For lunch we'll have some bean burritos and for supper, taco soup. I want to get some beef ready for the dehydrator for jerky. I've been trying to come up with some nutritious after swimming snacks. So I am thinking of fruit, jerky, homemade yogurt and banana smoothies. I've been making homemade yogurt with powdered milk. It's the best I've ever made! Anyway, I am hoping to come up with some good snacks that won't make our budget swell.

I am really hoping we will be completely over this cold ordeal this week. Gloria has been running slight fever. I am giving her ear drops and ibuprofen whenever the fever starts. It wasn't as bad last night so hopefully it won't be there at all today. I really pray for NO MORE sickness for us, for a very long time.

Have a blessed day in the Lord and His goodness.

Catching Up

2011-05-24T09:13:00.000-04:00

Well, so it's been a lot of time since I've sat down to chat. I am a bad friend, I know. Please forgive me and show grace. :D We have been very sick for a very long time. This is so crazy. I have been fervently praying for this to leave and not come back. NO MORE SICKNESS, PLEASE!

Besides all that, gardening season is in full swing. So, it's been planted and we even have blooms on the tomatoes and squash. We need a bumper crop this year. We are out of all our vegetable stores... it's time to restock. So, I relish in the nice warm earth and getting my hands dirty. I love everything of summer time. Oh, it's spring you say? Well, around here in SC, when it's 96 degrees, it's summertime. It doesn't matter where we're hanging in this universe. :D

James and children worked hard to get our pool opened this year. It's been quite a few years since we've used it. So we've been able to enjoy that some. Our day mainly goes as such; garden, chores, school, pool, chores, garden... That's the story in a nutshell for this summer.

Oh! You noticed I mentioned school and it's summertime? Yes, yes. School. Remember, I mentioned being sick? We have been sick almost all of this calendar year. So when the children are sick, they don't do much school. When I'm sick, we don't do much school. Then upon recovery we must get the household in a certain stage of order before I can focus on school. So, yes my friend, we will be doing school this summer. Oh now, don't act like that! It's only going to be math and some reading!

Okay, so that's what's been going on here. Please forgive my neglecting you. I hope you understand....maybe you've been in my shoes before and can have compassion.

Shepherd's Pie

2011-03-25T09:46:00.003-04:00

Here's the finished product of the shepherd's pie from the other night. My oldest said that it was the best that we've ever had. I think it was because of all of the "help" I had in making it. :D

The children like helping in the kitchen a lot. I should have taken pics of our other yummy meals this week too. Awww well.

Anyway, I hope to upload a few videos on menu planning on my Youtube channel today. I'll let you know if I do. Have a wonderful day in the Lord!

YouTube

2011-03-22T22:07:00.002-04:00

Hello!

I wanted to share my Youtube channel with you. I hope that you have a wonderful evening in the Lord. :)

Susan

http://www.youtube.com/user/sandlappersue01?feature=mhsn

Happy Wednesday

2011-03-16T12:17:00.003-04:00

I hope that everyone is doing well on this cool March day. Here in our homeland the weather casters are saying that we should have warmer weather again for at least the next week or so! I am happy for that. Planting season is just around the corner!

We have still had sickness in our household. This have been going on for a month or so now. Since the beginning of the year we have visited the clinic three times. This is most unusual for our family. I will be quite thankful for this all to end!

We are still moving along in school. Honestly, I do not know when our year will end as with sickness and various events we have had to take off days here and there. I am guessing the end of the year will be the beginning of June, of which will be right in time for planting season. There's ALWAYS something to do, isn't it? :D With that said, I was thinking just yesterday I will look forward to focusing just on gardening. None of having to do a gazillion things at once. Not that it will actually turn out as so, but I'd like a very simple summer and a time to focus on stocking our pantry with a bumper crop this year.

Speaking of pantry, I am still working on building up our pantry each month. It is quite fun to see the pantry becoming more stocked with each passing month. I am praying for it to be completed by the year's end. Right now I am encouraged with what we have and have a certain system going, of which I hope to share with you soon. It is a combination of things I've gleaned from others and a few ideas that popped in my head along the way.

I am reading through the book Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman for the second time and have been encouraged to split up my days more efficiently to help run the household. Mondays are laundry days. Instead of preparing clothes for wear twice a week, I now do it just on Mondays. Laundry is done daily. With anything that needs ironing it goes in the ironing basket. On Monday, I take the basket upstairs along with some hangers and spend 45 minutes or so ironing. On Monday I also try to tidy the washroom and make sure things are in order. All clothing except for mine and hubby's is stored in this very room. I also try to wipe down the washer and dryer, empty the washer filter if needed, clean the window and sweep/ mop the floor is needed.

Yesterday was the first day for our "new" Tuesdays. This is kitchen day. Yesterday's kitchen day was quite a drama. I'll explain why. Currently we do not have running water in the kitchen or a kitchen sink. Along with our kitchen re-do comes the challenge of taking out the cabinets to put in the new... So this is the reason for no running water and sink. Hopefully this wall will all be done this weekend and we can have a glorious sink with running water and a dishwasher to boot (of which we've been without in a month. Dishwashers are highly over-rated but I am thankful for one nonetheless)! Much more is involved in home renovations than meets the eye, I'm here to tell ya'!

So anyway, with the current status, I do the dishes in the bathroom sink or in two kitchen wash tubs in the bath tub. Water is hauled from the bathroom sink as well.
Kitchen day was most challenging to say the least! Between this and having only 25% of the counter top, it made for a long kitchen day.

Normally on kitchen day, it would include cleaning the kitchen along with baking. Not yesterday as I was disoriented with the mess. The work was not fruitless though as the little girls and I made two batches of muffins, a batch of bread and some granola. I plan on adding in pre-made biscuits to freeze in pie pans to take out later and bake. Also, I need to make two batches of bread to last the week instead of one. It appears as if we eat 8 loaves a week.

A few weeks back we bought a food slicer from Sam's Club on their clearance shelf. It was down to $31.?? and I was SO excited! I've been wanting one for so very long and so I am glad to have another servant in the household. We have used it to slice chopped ham we buy from Sam's but what is most exciting is that it slices bread so well! I get a small thrill each time I slice bread now. Am I a geek? You betcha'! :D

So, here we are on Wednesday. Today is my office day. This is the day that I pay bills, balance the checkbook, plan menus, plan grocery lists, write letters, make appointments and adjust the budget as needed. Also, I review and go over school business. I catch up the school records as well. Internet research is saved for this day as well. So that's what I am doing today!

I am glad that I was able to visit with you again. I hope to add some more posts very soon and share in how we're doing and what is going on in our lives. I hope to also share more food and time budgetting and menu planning ideas as well. I always like when I learn from others and so maybe just a little that I share with you will be helpful. :D

May the Lord be with you and more importantly, may you chose to be with HIM!

Menu Monday

2011-02-28T21:26:00.003-05:00

Here is what I have come up with for March. These are a list of ideas and most are not set for any certain day. I always fail whenever I designate certain days to each meal. This way, whatever strikes me will work just fine. :D

Breakfast
4X eggs, bacon, toast
4X pancakes
biscuits and gravy
4X muffins
3X grits and eggs
8X granola
2X fried eggs, onions and eggs
cinnamon rolls
4X breakfast shakes

Lunch **use leftovers first, then...

2X ramen
2X tuna casserole
2X nachos
hot dogs
pig in blankets
2X egg salad sandwiches
baked potatoes
quesadillas
spaghetti bake
queso dip

Supper E= emergency meal CP= crockpot meal

4X pizza
turkey pot pie
CP turkey and rice soup
salmon patties, grits, greens
2X tuna salad sandwiches
CP crockpot chicken, green beans, salad
CP 2X pintos, fried sausage, fried potatoes and onions, cornbread
CP chili, cornbread
pinto bean casserole, corn
E spaghetti, garlic bread, salad
fried rice (with pork, frozen mixed vegetables)
CP roast and veggies
CP roast soup
cubed steak and gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans
CP fried sausage, macaroni and cheese, salad
BBQ leg quarters, cole slaw, green beans
church social (take green beans, corn and dessert)
Low Country Preacher's Fellowship
Steak, rosemary potatoes, salad
beef enchiladas, shredded lettuce, tomato, sour cream, corn
comfort meatballs, mashed potatoes, greens
meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans or fried okra, salad
E vegetable soup with choice of either cornbread or crackers
fried pork chops, rice and gravy, salad
Cubed steak sandwiches, fries
turkey
E egg sandwiches

Snacks

cookies, canned fruit, fresh veggies and dip, popcorn, peanut butter and graham crackers, pepperoni crackers, tuna salad on crackers

Happy Monday!

2011-02-28T17:49:00.002-05:00

I am trusting that you are being blessed with a very good Monday. Ours was a slow one but a good one. We got school well underway and the rest of the week should roll rather nicely.

As we speak(err, as I type), the oldest is next door with her dad helping a neighbor, the two littles are watching a preschool show, and the other four are outside playing.
I have our super-easy meal of chicken salad done. Our kitchen is a bit out of sorts right now and so it just seemed easiest. James moved our stove over to the other wall and installed some cabinets on Saturday. He had to take out of dishwasher and it currently is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. Hopefully it will be back where it should be very soon. :D Until then, I am the chief dishwasher in the household. I don't work as well as the other one though. :/ Anyway, so pb&j, ramen and chicken salad was the easy picks of the day.

We got March's grocery shopping done on Friday night. Boy, am I glad that's over! With the exception of a few choice items during the month we are done, done, done!
So, I have my lists in little plastic slip covers and I am beginning again, to mark things off with my Vis-a-Vis marker for the next big shopping trip. Once the shopping is done, I just swipe off the list and it's ready again.

Has the allergies gotten to you this year? It has a few of us in our family. I won't complain as the warm weather is worth it any day. We are jam packed with work until at least this coming fall. Right now we are remodeling the kitchen. Soon we will clean out the pool and get it running for this year (YIKES!) and then as soon as that's done it will be gardening season. Could we forego a few things and call it quits. Ummm, yeah. Maybe. I guess we feel as if we can't though so we'll keep trudging along in progress. :D

Hopefully within the next few days I can find enough time to get on here and post a few times more. I'd apologize but really have been doing what should be top choice. So while I miss you when not on here, I can't say I'm sorry for doing what's best. :D

Have a blessed evening in God's goodness.

Spicing Things Up!

2011-02-19T09:08:00.004-05:00

I wanted to share a secret of how to make tasty food in a frugal kitchen. I found that you can take a little of nothing and make something taste great by learning about different spices and what they do and for what dishes. Here's one of the places I keep our spices.

Here is another. All of the spices wouldn't fit in the first spot so I keep more in this cabinet along with our oils, vinegars and flavoring. Mainly baking needs is kept in this cabinet but it's also over flow for what doesn't go into the other cabinet. I have a gallon sized bag of curry spices as well but it's currently in a Rubbermaid tub as we're re-designing our kitchen and some things are put away for now. For anyone that isn't familiar, I'd suggest learning about what different spices can do for certain meals. One spice can make all the difference!

I buy a lot of our spices and herbs from Sam's Club. They are super cheap there. I also check out sales at various grocery stores. Sometimes they are as much as 50% off. I like getting some from dollar stores as well. Mainly I check out the dollar store and Sam's first and what I can't get from them, I get at other grocery stores. One example is bay leaves. I couldn't find any at Sam's or the dollar stores, so I ended up buying a box of them from our local Publix in their brand. Last container of bay leaves I had was in Kroger brand. Both seem to be good.

This is just another tip on how I try to save money for our family. I may have a lot of spices and herbs but this has been built up over the years. I didn't blow money on all this at once!

Recovering

2011-02-18T11:37:00.004-05:00

As I sit here typing I smell the scent of Linen Fresh Lysol in the air. I have sprayed everything down, am washing all linens and trying to catch up on the dailies that weren't so daily this week. It appears as if all seven of our children have survived the flu. A family in our local church had one of their children tested and, yes, it is indeed the dreadful, full-fledged flu. The children still have that aggravating cough and are not full of the energy that usually oozes from them but they are on their way.

A regular sized large egg compared to a double yolk egg.

Eggs from the hatchery.

Yesterday I thought to be clever and go to our local grocery store and stock up on eggs as they are running $1/dozen this week. We had been short on fresh eggs from the back yard and I cringed having to buy overpriced eggs from the store. So, as "clever" as I was I went and bought 13 dozen. So James comes home from work, beaming, and says, "I have a money saving surprise for you!". Oh good! I love money saving anything. He brought in a huge box of EGGS! I said, "well sweetheart, I have a surprise for you too!". When I opened the fridge to show him my stash, we both bursted out laughing. Good news is that a man that works at our local hatchery told James that when the hens lay double yolk eggs, they get rid of them as the chicks from double yolk eggs don't survive. So he told James to come by and get as many as he wants! Yay! As James and I went into the backyard to feed the chickens and make sure they were locked up for the night, guess what was waiting for us. Yep, four more eggs. :) By this time we had over 18 dozen. We are passing along 8 dozen to family and friends. Guess what we had for supper last night. You know it! We had a breakfast supper.

Also, the last two trips I had to our local grocery store, they had mark down milk. Some of the milk had over a week until expiration! I took all they had each time and freeze what I don't use. The regular 1/2 gallon jugs were marked down to .75 each and one 1/2 gallon of buttermilk was marked down to .50. I used half of that jug for biscuits last night and will freeze the rest for another batch of biscuits or cornbread later. This same store had marked down bagged salad mix almost every time we go in there too. I don't think anyone in our town eats salad except for us. So each time we go in we get bagged salad for usually .89 a bag. I love marked down deals. :D

We also picked up some leg quarters, a few weeks ago, for less than .50 a pound. They were being sold by the box. I bought only 20# worth but was glad to get into the deal. My criteria for meat usually is poultry needs to be under $1/pound. Pork and beef need to be under $2.50/pound, preferably $2/pound. I can't wait until we get the butchered beef for our freezers! I am craving some juicy beef... That's another thing, as long it doesn't interfere with nutrition, we eat simply what is at the rock bottom prices. Lately that's been poultry. I am about done with poultry for a little while. :)

Flu

2011-02-16T08:10:00.002-05:00

As it turns out, our family has been bombarded by the flu! This past year has been the worst as far as us being sick. I just don't know if this is some kind of germ warfare that an opposing government has released or if we are not as immune or if we are just being exposed to sickness more. Funny as it is, we didn't get out as much this past year as years before. Maybe that's the problem. :)

First it started by our 16 yo, then the 6yo, 13yo, 2yo, and 4yo. We have two children and both parents that it could potentially strike. I know that God has allowed it for a reason but for what I'm not quite sure. :D

I have been busy with laundry, meal making, medicine administering and just trying to keep the house semi in descent order. We are six weeks into the new year and I can honestly say that I think we have had one great week of school. We've gotten some done otherwise but I remember that one week as being one of satisfaction of a completed job. Maybe again next week?

Oh, my grocery budget is dwindling too as we keep borrowing from our stash. The children have finicky appetites right now so they feel only able to eat certain things, of which I had stashed away as stock up. So as we open these containers I take it off my budget for this month.

Today will be filled with more of the same, I'm sure. Also, I need to venture out and pay a few bills. It'd be nice if they had online billing but apparently not. Ick.

So, it'll be interesting to see what this day will hold. I hope that it will be easier than before. So, I'm now off to get the children some breakfast.

Happy Thursday!

2011-02-10T16:34:00.002-05:00

I hope that you all are having a very good week! Ours is coming along. Tuesday James was home from work, sick. Mark it on your calendars, folks! We have been married almost 21 years and I do not remember him EVER calling in to work. EVER. Weird, ugh?
I mean, when I worked at the bank we had sick days. We took the sick days whether we were sick or not. It was know that if you called in and said that you weren't feeling too well that it could mean you weren't feeling well enough to want to come in. :D
Now if we called in sick and stated that we CAN'T come in. That meant we really were sick. Okay, if we didn't take our days we got something like $10 for the day at the end of the year. I would have rather been home than having $10, thank you very much.
James....well he's a real man. He's going to work, work on time and work well. He gives it his all. He's a real man! Still, the poor man was down on Tuesday but back up on Wednesday.

So, we did do some school on Tuesday but it was light. Yesterday we did better and today has been even better. Hopefully tomorrow will be a big shabang of a school day only for it to be time to stop for a few days. Actually we'll be out on Monday as we're going to a church fellowship. There will be about three or so hours of services, then break for supper and then another church service. Preachers of the churches in the fellowship preach..and even outside preachers that are invited by the hosting church. Usually there can be about 200 or more guests. We host it at our church in July.

Lately I have been investigating what to do with our oldest son, Dalton. He is in the 9th grade this year. He recently stated that he thinks he's interested in computer programming. So, I feel all stressed, in making sure that I come up with the best subjects that would meet his needs in that area. I really need to email an old homeschool friend whose son is going to USC (SC). He's taking majoring in CAD. That's something James said that Dalton might would like. I know nothing of this but need to figure out where I can find these type of computer classes that is geared toward home schoolers. It stresses me a little.

Brittany's lot in life seems so wonderfully certain. She is very gifted in music and photography. She has a servant's heart and wants to be a wife and mother. When she graduates next year, she talked of offering piano lessons, doing more photography, and helping widows with chores once a week. Works for us!

Wow, I really need counsel with this other though! I believe for tenth grade, having him take simple keyboarding to build his typing skills and maybe a very basic computer class, of which is required to graduate anyway. Then the following two years we can go more into graphic design, etc.

Okay, so I better get off and get supper started. I defrosted some leftover turkey and am thinking of a basic turkey pot pie. I'd do a salad but that would mean having to drive to the produce stand. No thanks. So I might slice some tomatoes for the side.

I also have some laundry to wash, dry and fold and it's my day to clean the master bedroom. I'm kind of behind! :D

Why Stock the Pantry?

2011-02-07T21:20:00.004-05:00

Many may wonder why I'd want to stock the pantry. Having food in the cupboards does make me feel more secure. I don't know how everyone else is doing but personally, we have felt heartache of close loved ones a lot lately. For some it's job loss or even tragic loss in so many ways, of all has had consequences of financial doom.

It really has hit my heart so hard. I have thought of how I'd feel if it were us. What would we do? I'd at least like to know that we have food to feed us. I do like knowing that we have food that we can share with those hurting too. God would want nothing less.

Also, I know that having a stocked pantry can help you save money, when done in a very basic fashion. When I mean basic fashion, I mean as in not buying a bunch of prepackaged products but in buying the very basics. You know....just buying scratch items such as flour, sugar, yeast, beans, rice....etc.

The idea of topping off the pantry instead of just putting enough in to last to next pay day means a whole lot to me. It's not fun having the 'fridge and shelves empty and then scrounging for what to cook until you go grocery shopping. I'd like to begin going to the store just to fill back up what we have. Instead of feast to famine, things would be more evenly keeled.

What else does this mean to me? Well, it means that I can open most any cookbook and chose a recipe. Within reason, I'll have the ingredients and can make it without having to wait and write the ingredients on the list. You see, I will have already bought the ingredients at rock bottom prices and won't feel tempted to just buy the ingredients at "okay" prices.

Having a full pantry means having people over whenever and just throw something together on a whim to serve them. It'll be doable because the goods are mostly always there. I won't be a slave to what's on hand to make it until the next shopping trip.

To top it all off. I have witnessed that it can all be done without the bondage of coupons. For those who like coupons, that's great! For me, I've been there and back and would prefer to stock the pantry without breaking the bank and have my extra time for teaching the children or doing the gazillion other things that pile up on me. The rush of couponing often was often faded by a scenario going bad. It's not fun for me to play games with the money my husband worked hard for. Especially if we get bit and we lose the game. No thanks.

So, there's my reasons for stocking the pantry!

We would love to have you link your blog with us, at All in a Day. If you would like, please leave a comment and let us know what your grocery shopping day looks like!

Here's how it works:
1. Copy and Paste this code to add the All in a Day banner to the top of your post. That can be found here at the bottom of the page.

2. Copy and paste the list of "All in a Day Bloggers" into your post.
3. Put your name and a direct link to your blog post into Mr. Linky.

Carrie @ Our Full House http://www.ourfullhouse.com/
Elizabeth @ Yes They're All Ours http://yes-theyre-all-ours.blogspot.com/
Kathy @ Kathy Mom of Many http://www.kathymomofmany.blogspot.com/
Kristy @ Homemaker's Cottage http://www.homemakerscottage.org/
Lori @ Happy Busy Mama http://1happybusymama.blogspot.com/
Monica @ Natural Mama http://www.naturalmamax4.blogspot.com/
Renee @ Bakers Dozen http://bakersdozen.typepad.com/

Confessions of a Pantry Stocker

2011-02-07T21:03:00.002-05:00

I have a few confessions to make. Number one being that I haven't been following the menu. Truth be told, I like to write out ideas of what to cook but cannot go by a menu too well. Well, you see, it all started by a friend of mine mentioning that she had lasagna the night before. So, I had lasagna dancing in my head all day and afterall I did have some ground beef that needed to be used up. Also, that afternoon when James and I went to the grocery store, there was that cottage cheese on sale(or so it appeared). So, I thought of how we could have a special meal of lasagna, because afterall we did have some leftover pizza sauce from the night before. And so we did. Oh, it was all within budget.

Budget....that brings me to my next confession. If I t'were gonna count our little excursion yesterday in between church services then I'd be waaaayyyyy over budget. Well, ya' see, it goes like this. I have been having big ideas about building a pantry and well, it was sort of time to renew the Sam's membership. Afterall, we were pertinear close to being all out of yeast in the house. And everyone knows that yeast is cheapest at Sam's....along with their shredded cheese...and along with their pintos beans sold in 50 lb. bags...and well...I guess I need to back up a bit. We got our taxes figured out and so I sort of had the fantastic idea of using a small bit of it to stock the pantry. Besides, my hubby was all for it and while he was in the mood, I sort of went for the kill--so to speak.

Do you remember my fabulous notebook that I write our budgetting in? Well, I had plan A of stocking the pantry all laid out--doing it in one great big $1200 shot. Then I had plan B of which was just a normal grocery budget with just a little set aside to stock the pantry all in about nine months. I knew I couldn't blow $1200 in one shot. It would be fun though. So I "only" spent $300 to begin our pantry stock. It does feel good though. I am under this thought though, I cannot use any of the stuff from Sam's club this month unless I put it under my regular monthly budget. That goes for the cheese sauce and chips we dug into for supper last night and the nasty popcorn oil as well.

Now, I have plan C, of which is a combination of plan A and plan B.

So, there you have it. I am still going by my usual monthly budget but with two changes, I am not using the same menu and I did a $300 stockup of which I cannot touch until March, unless I take whatever items we use out of our regular budget.

The End.

Sneaky, Sneaky

2011-02-04T17:36:00.002-05:00

Our sweet Joy-Anna

Ha!Ha! Upon reassigning our chore lists I decided that Joy-Anna is well old enough to join the ranks of "chorehood". After all, she's at the grand older age of four years old. Much to our six year old's delight, I assigned her old chore of unloading the dishwasher to Joy-Anna. Upon telling Joy-Anna of her promotion, I wanted to set off on the right foot with a good attitude. So, with a great big smile and brightened eyes, I called Joy-Anna into the room. I said, "Joy-Anna! Guess what??? I am SOOOOO excited to tell you about your job. Boy, it's such a GREAT job to have and is so super important to do. YOU get to unload the dishwasher now! WOW! Isn't this GREAT?" With her usual joyful smile, her eyes brightened up and she said, "Yeah!". I then looked sort of worried and crinkled my brows then said, "But...but..but...you'll let me help sometimes won'tcha'?" She then grinned again and said, "sure you can help....sometimes. " :D Let's see how long the enthusiasm lasts.

Today has been a cold and rainy day. We have been quite busy with our Friday cleaning chores and getting in some school. We've kept the fire going and the house feels pretty toasty. Tonight is our usual pizza night. We may very well make something sweet for afterwards too. I am in the mood for something bready, sweet and carbish.

Thank you all for the links to websites that I asked for. I have been enjoying reading them a lot. Also, thank you on your comments on our pictures of our shopping trip. As you can see, I had a lot of help! Our Gloria (2) even walked throughout the whole store as she didn't want to sit in the buggy. She was so happy about that. I had to "threaten" her twice with having to sit in the buggy when she wouldn't stand still or wanted to touch something she shouldn't. Besides that and two of the children being too eager to help me, and with it resulting in a slight disagreement, we have a great time!

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend! If this rain would stop, we'll go witnessing with the church in the morning. Either way, we'll still be heading over to the church as it's our week to clean the buildings. We need to pick up some tea as well. With it so wet outside, we might get some much needed construction work done indoors. A woman can only dream! ;D

Menu for Frugality Plus a Little

2011-02-03T17:00:00.002-05:00

So, here's the menu for the next few weeks. This is to coincide the below list of things purchased and what we already had here at home.

2/3 B: ham on toast, oatmeal
L: spaghetti and garlic bread
S: pintos, potatoes, cornbread
2/4 B: muffins
L: leftover beans
S: pizza
2/5 B: granola bars & bacon
L: leftover pizza
S: turkey pot pie
2/6 B:peanut butter/cinnamon toast
L:egg salad
S: ramen with ground beef and sliced tomatoes
2/7 B: cinnamon rolls and egg
L: tuna casserole
S: turkey and rice
2/8 B: pancakes and sausage
L: ramen
S: grilled chicken salad
2/9 B: banana smoothies
L: chili mac
S: vegetable soup and cornbread
2/10 B: omelet
L: leftover soup and pb&j
S: chicken noodle soup
2/11 B: muffins
L: egg salad
S: spaghetti and garlic bread, salad
2/12 B: biscuits and gravy
L: leftovers
S: grilled chicken salad
2/13 B: granola bars
L: potato soup and bread
S: pintos, potatoes, cornbread
2/14 B: cinnamon biscuits, eggs
L: leftovers
S:dirty rice and sausage, squash
2/15 B:pancakes and bacon
L: tuna casserole
S: shepherd's pie
2/16 B: banana smoothies
L: PB&j and leftovers
S: wings, dirty rice, green beans, celery

Ingredients to a Frugal Pantry Plus a Little

2011-02-03T15:46:00.002-05:00

Manwich sauce
tomato paste
Knorr dried vegetable dip mix
light mayonnaise
Jenny O Turkey Ham
ground chuck
light sour cream
Italian bread
sugar free gum
tuna
cream of mushroom
instant pudding mix
ramen noodles
egg noodles
canned mixed vegetables
elbow macaroni
sliced pepperoni
cinnamon graham crackers
honey graham crackers
corn chips
pinto beans
pretzels
rice
flour tortillas
granulated sugar
self rising flour
canned mushrooms
spaghetti pasta
margarine
sharp cheddar, shredded
mozzerella, shredded
peanut butter
bacon
jelly
sliced cheese
canola oil
diet tea mix
eggs
saltines
soda
ranch dressing
breakfast sausage
coffee
canned rotel style tomatoes
bread

2011-02-03T15:33:00.004-05:00

So, this month I am micro-organizing our expenditures. Here's how I'm doing it:
Food/Beverage $360
non-food $75
Stock-up $65
Total allowed $500

I am also writing down everything that I buy. I just want to see what we actually spend our money on. So I've got a notebook to write everything down with an envelope attached to tuck the receipts in.

I have been to the local Dollar Store, Aldi and Food Lion. I am nearly prepared with 2 weeks worth of groceries besides some fresh produce from the local stand, some tea and maybe a little bit more of meat.

The next big shopping trip will be around the 17th to set us up for the rest of the month of February.

This is what is left to spend:
Nonfood $24.65, food/bev. $223.61, stockup $31.48

I'll write another post on what I have bought and then another post on our menu.

Can You Help?

2011-02-01T16:24:00.003-05:00

I am often looking for frugal websites on saving on groceries. Can you help?

I want normal websites with menus for normal STAPLE food, not boxed food. You know, the ingredients that granny (okay maybe great granny) would recognize if she were to step into our kitchen?
This is similar of what I am looking for
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/default.aspx

As long as the content is clean, I'd like to see it. Oh sure, I have the utmost respect for the coupon clippers. It's just not my thing anymore. I felt in bondage after a while so I decided to step out of the "Coupon Egypt". If the site has coupon saving mentioned every once in a while, I won't flip. It's just if it's the idea as a whole. Even if you know of youtube videos that people have made as a testimony to their hard word and God's provision, I'd love to see it! Thanks!

A Good Start

2011-02-01T08:40:00.003-05:00

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I am in hopes of a very good and productive day today.
Yesterday went fairly well. We all woke up and had some oatmeal bars for breakfast and then once we were all dressed, we did some school. Before we knew it, lunch time was here. We made sandwiches with cream cheese spread. After lunch it was time to take Joy-Anna to the dentist. One of the receptionist laughed and stated that she believes we are there almost as much as they are. Yeah, you're telling me!

After the dentist we ran by my favorite thrift store. I am SO SUPER GLAD we did! I have been talking of the perfect denim skirt for the longest time. I have wanted one that was the perfect length, did not have slits but was wide in the bottom to move around enough. I also like skirts with pockets to put things in while working. I found it yesterday! :D Only thing is this. I can fit in it but it would fit a lot better about 7 pounds from now. I am motivated! I told Brittany that once I fit into this skirt well then I will be at my goal.

I also found some Southwestern Company books. I am a sucker for their books! These are books in the Ask Me Why series. I got these books for .25 each! I was shocked. Those are yard sale prices- not thrift store prices but I was THRILLED. :)
Then in the kitchen section I found one of those Pampered Chef adjustable measuring cups. I always thought they looked nifty so I was glad to find it for 50 cents.
Then the other favorite find were a set of 13 or 14 children's sized cups. I got them all for $3. There's enough colors in the set for each of our children to have their own color. I also found a vinyl table cloth to go on the back deck picnic table this spring. The tablecloth shouts springtime and is so cheery looking. I found another necklace to add to our costume jewelery. It's pink... I thought of spring time again. :)

Next we made a quick trip to the grocery store. I stocked up on their shampoos. A long time friend stocks the drug aisle in this store. I talked with her a bit and in passing, mentioned I am looking for a good deal on toothpaste. She pointed me to the Close-Up brand. I was on sale for 2/$3. Also, there were some boxes with a bonus, full sized tube in it. So basically we got the tubes for .75 each. Swwweeeettttt. :)
This came out of my stock up money. "What???", you ask. I am beginning this month to build up our pantry. I want to get up at least enough stock to last two months. I will have to share along the way how I do it.

While we were in town, the children here did some chores. As always, Brittany did an excellent job of babysitting. Dalton is getting to where he helps a lot too. It was nice coming home to most of their chores being done.

After a little rest, it was time for me to do my chores. Once I knew it, it was time to begin supper. When James got home, he helped me in the kitchen. We had chinese food and it was the first time I made homemade egg rolls. They turned out great but I did learn that you have to really watch them because they brown fast!

After supper we had devotions. We are in the book of Joel now. We sang a few songs and went over our family memory verses.

After devotions, I watch a few shows of Take Home Chef, James researched prices for pool supplies and the children watched M*A*S*H. The next thing we knew, it was time for bed! Time flies quickly...

Humdinger of a Week

2011-01-28T12:43:00.003-05:00

This has been one humdinger of a week. We've had the icky stomache virus going around. You say, "oh no!". I wish not but it's so. :) Our oldest is currently recovering for it now. We did have missions meeting this week and all I can say is that we've been fought, tooth and nail for the meeting not to go as planned. It still went though. Many were absent but I still believe most of the congregation recieved some benefit from it.

Well, praise God, it's Friday! I have a lot of chores to get done. There's much to catch up on. Here's my list of today's chores. I really want to get them done so that we can enjoy working outside tomorrow. The temps are suppose to be in the sixties. :D

~clean off table in livingroom (cleaning living room earlier)(10 minutes)
~clean kitchen and wipe down with bleach water (1 hour)
~clean off computer table and vacuum floor (15 minutes)
~have children clear the hallway and stair, then vacuum and mop (10 minutes)
~dining room (10 minutes)
~main bathroom (10 minutes)
~master bath (10 minutes)
~glass clean where needed (5 minutes)
~mop kitchen and mud room (10 minutes)
~make pizzas (1 hour)

Total: 3 hours 20 minutes

I need to make a quick run to the dollar store for diapers and may pick up some paper plates. That'll be a grand treat this weekend. :)

Tomorrow we have a lot of junk to haul off. I thought that it would be a great day to clean up the yard a bit and get rid of some construction trash. Also, we have a bunch of misc. stuff such as old bikes, etc. It'd be nice to wash down the back deck once it's cleared too. Also, I'm sure the chickens would appreciate a clean house and a repaired fence. :) Boy, I hope we really can get some stuff done! So I really want the inside in pretty good shape so I will feel liberty to enjoy outdoor work.

I'm off to run my marathon of work now. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend in the Lord's goodness and grace. Bless Him in all you do.

Ice Cream Pies

2011-01-26T13:12:00.002-05:00

This is per pie:

Take 15 Oreo type cookies and crush in a bag. Melt 6T. margarine. Stir together. A little sugar can be added to mixture if desired.

Spray pie plate with non-stick cooking spray. Pat the cookie mixture into the pie plate to form the crust. Take softened ice cream, any flavor desired and put into the crust. If you'd like the pie to have a marble effect, squirt chocolate syrup on top of the pie in a spiraled fashion. Run a tool through the syrup to make the design. I used a dinner knife. I believe that the recipe I read suggested a toothpick.
Now, put into the freezer to reset and until ready to eat. I did find that once the pies were out of the freezer for a few minutes that the slices came out more easily.

We used moose tracks and nutty buddy flavored ice cream. I'd like to buy so me sugar free cookies along with some no sugar added ice cream and make this. This would be great, served with sugar free whipped topping.

2011-01-21T11:34:00.003-05:00

Bethany had a wonderful birthday! We spent most of the day away from home. We hit TWELVE stops while in town. Yes, that's right. Twelve....
Bethany picked out a pretty bike as her present. We also went in to the Dollar Tree. As a sort of "family party" each of the children could pick out some goodies.
We were gone from home for 6 1/2 hours total. Talk about being whipped! Then we still needed to unload the groceries and I started supper. We had pork loin, sweet potato casserole and salad. We had the ice cream pies for dessert. I'll post the simple directions for these on another post.

Friday was spent trying to get some school in. It seemed like an off day. No, not a day off. Just an off kind of day. I was dragging with not much energy and school was a slight battle. I think that school was hard going because we were off the previous day for Bethany's birthday. So the children were still in that mode. Also, it seemed that nothing was so easy. We had a hard time finding our books or there'd be multiple interruptions, etc. Praise God for the smooth days or we home school moms would stay discouraged! I now go in with the mind that there's just going to be days like these! Every job has it's down days.

So, of course we had pizza last night. It was Friday! :) After supper, the children watched a movie, I listened to a book on tape on raising boys and James did a little of each along with removing a few boards out of the kitchen to take down the wall. I also worked on planning high school courses for Brittany and Dalton. What a task!

Today James and the boys are cutting and loading more wood. I think that they are taking a load to his mother's house. James brother put in a fireplace for her to burn wood, to save on her energy bill. So James helps out with supplying wood as he can. This morning I worked on putting together Sunday School presents for the children. Most of them can now recite the Old and New Testament books! Yay!
I have also been preparing clothes for this coming week. We have a missions revival this week, that runs through Wednesday, each night. Next, I'll be cleaning the living room and load the dishwasher. Then it'll be time for Brittany and I to go get our hair cuts. Bethany is going with us as part of her birthday present. This will be her first professional cut! We are driving to a new place (same hair dresser though) and want to allow plenty of time to get there. It should take about 30 minutes or so. This is a huge treat as we don't go very often. At least now we are going more than we used to. :)

This evening, James and I will study for Sunday School and I will begin preparing a meal for church tomorrow. We have the privilege to eat with the missionary evangelist and wife, our Pastor and family, and another family in the church.

So, for supper tonight??? Hmmmm,................................
................................................................
maybe grilled chicken salad.

Happy Thursday!

2011-01-20T09:05:00.001-05:00

Today is our Bethany's 7th birthday! We are celebrating by getting groceries. laugh laugh laugh
No, seriously we are getting groceries but we are going shopping for her too. I think we may get her a bike today. Also, I think that we may go to the Dollar Tree and let each of the children pick up a few wants just for fun. I've got a gazillion little needs for the family too...hairbows, Sunday School prizes, pencils, pens, socks, knee highs, lipstick. Can you believe that I don't have a single solitary tube of lipstick in the house??? Say it with me- Poor, poor Susan!!! Cry Cry laugh laugh laugh I think we may go by Books A Million too. Brittany has been reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. It's a very long book and she's renewed it twice at the library. She said that it's so good that we need our own copy. It sounds very educational for you all that teach your own children.

We aren't having school today except for maybe sneaking in some reading and/or and educational video. Tonight Bethany wants sweet potato casserole. That's her favorite dish. So I think I'll cook a pork loin and have salad with that.
She wants ice cream pies with Oreo crusts for her birthday dessert. So I hope to make a coffee flavored one and a mule tracks flavored one. I am hoping that James can make it home at a descent time to celebrate with us.
Have a wonderful day in God's goodness.

Hump Day!

2011-01-19T10:37:00.002-05:00

Happy Hump day! Well, folks, it looks like we've made it to Wednesday. As I currently look out the window, I see beautiful, golden light fading, fading, fading. Well, seeing the sunshine for just a bit gave me a glimmer of hope that it may be back again in a bit. :) It's been wet and cloudy these past few days. I am seriously thinking of getting a full spectrum lamp to use in the winter. Until then, I'll hope for more sunshine and warmth. :)

Yesterday was a usual day at home. We had a lot of cleaning and some school. (Here's the sun again!!!) I cleaned the diningroom and mopped the diningroom and bathroom floors. We had our daily allowance of dishes and kitchen work as well. It was Brittany's day to do the laundry.

We had some leftover chicken leg quarters left over from Monday night and so I cooked those along with a few pork chops. Brittany made quesadillas with those, some pinto beans and crumbling cheese. I made up some tuna salad and baked bread for sandwiches at supper.

Once James made it home last night I was eager to hear about how the morning's meeting went. I was under the impression that the plan for raises was to be discussed. Not so. They talked of who they were switching to whatever position. James previous supervisor did not get the job of location manager. That really upset even me. He really deserved that! James is still not affected as he is still doing what he always does, a lot! LOL

Today we are heading to the dentist. One of the children is getting their sealants for their back teeth and another is getting a crown where a filling keeps coming out. The library are in the plans as it's just a few doors down from the dentist.

I am thinking that we'll have lemon pepper chicken tonight along with a few veggies. That will be a simple meal to help considering it's church night. Have a great day in the Lord!

2011-01-17T14:14:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was Sunday. First we went to Sunday School and church. We had quite a bit of visitors at church in the morning. That's a great encouragement! The message was on being back-slidden in the heart. After church we got a bit of gas in the van and came on home for dinner. I had made some turkey and rice before church and once we were home I cooked some kale greens to go with. We had sliced tomatoes as well. The tomatoes tasted very good with the turkey and rice. I think that I am beginning to appreciate the flavor of turkey more than chicken. I am thankful to have a good sized turkey in the freezer to cook again soon in the next few weeks.

In the afternoon James took a nap and the children played while I organized our budget and bills. Before we knew it, time had came to go back to church.

We had choir practice before the evening service. The evening message was out of I Corinthians 7. Also, there was a time for anyone to share what they had gotten out of their personal devotions as well. That's always encouraging.

Today we have had light schooling. I have plenty of chores to get done to get the house in better order. I worked in cleaning the livingroom in the morning and the kitchen and diningroom in the afternoon. I am hoping to get some mopping in before beginning supper. With this snow/ice storm the floors got dirty very easily. Thankfully the ice will be all gone soon. Maybe that will be the end of that!
It seems that this year and last year's ice storm brought us ear infections. Do I think it's a coincidence? Ummmmm, no. :D I'd like to be wrong though.

We had lemon pepper chicken patty sandwiches for lunch. We made ice cream sandwiches rolled in sprinkles for their dessert. I did good and didn't have one. :) Tonight I am hoping to bbq some chicken in the oven. I took some squash and peas out of the freezer this morning. I'll season and cook the peas on the stove and may just stew the squash. It'll be healthier than a casserole anyway.

I'd better go and continue with the cleaning. Have a blessed day in God's goodness and grace.

Sick Child and Fire Wood

2011-01-15T18:09:00.003-05:00

As it turns out, Gloria began going downhill in her demeanor quickly Wednesday night at church. She just was not herself at all. We sat in the nursery instead of staying out with the preaching since she was so whiney. We came home and she was up all night even with having Tylenol in her. The next morning I took her in to be checked at the Minute Clinic (CVS). The practitioner there verified her having an ear infection. I already pretty well knew that as Gloria told me so. If Gloria tells us her ear is hurting then you can bank on her ear is hurting! She is just recently becoming more verbal. With her cupping her ear with her hand and crying, "ear! ear! ear!". I knew she was in pain. I THOUGHT we didn't have any Motrin. Once home from getting her medicine and after purchasing another bottle of Motrin, I found a few bottles here already. LOL

So the rest of the day of Thursday was spent taking care of her and having a long nap. She's quite clingy as it is, of which I do not mind at all especially since she's the baby. :D Then when she's not feeling good, naturally she's right there with me even more. I was able to get some laundry and supper on the table as well.
I was thankful at lunchtime as I picked up Little Caesar's to make work more light.

Yesterday was apple day! Brittany and I worked a few hours peeling and cutting up the apples. I loaded up the dehydrator and we filled two pots to go on the wood stove for apple sauce. Brittany made apple dumplings for a snack yesterday afternoon and made apple cobbler for our breakfast this morning. I do declare! Apple cobbler is twice as good as peach cobbler! Yummy.....

Last night was our usual pizza night, of course. Yes, pizza again. No wonder my children love me. (ha-ha) I try to be a stickler to pushing the healthy stuff but pizza is truly my downfall. I like having our weekly allotment of it.

Today was firewood day. We got a big half a trailer full. We would have gotten more but James had to go on a few work calls so it set our wood gathering short. I have to say that I won't complain as my back can only take so much. We are hoping to get back out there this coming Saturday and work at it again. I am willing to say that we got enough today to last through March. Next trip we want to take some to James' mother's house for her fireplace. Then I am hoping we'll get enough to last through next winter as well.

I am about to season and put some burgers in the oven for supper tonight. I have a kitchen to attend to and clothes to get ready for church tomorrow as well.

I am working on an experiment of sorts and will hopefully share how it is going in about a week or so. :)

I hope that you all have a blessed day tonight and tomorrow.

LHOTP Survival

2011-01-14T10:40:00.003-05:00

For those of you asking about the Survival movie of LHOTP, here it is on Youtube. It is separated into parts so you have to click to see each part. :) Enjoy! I have found another video that I am excited to see that might be somewhat education on LHOTP. If it's any good, I'll share that link as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0mixs6ADY&feature=related

Money Savings

2011-01-12T14:09:00.004-05:00

We've been having fun with saving here and there. We've always been thrifty but
sometimes it seems we are more thrifty than others. :D Upon being inspired by Cheryl from Holcomb Happenings (link is on my sidebar) I have begun hanging the majority of our clothes up in the livingroom to dry. We have an exercise bar in one of the doorways of the livingroom, another bar running across another doorway and my basket collection across even another doorway. :) I have been hanging two or three loads a day up in this manner and am in hopes of us saving drastically on our gas bill.

Speaking of gas bill, I have also been trying to not use our gas range as much as usual. I've been doing quite a bit of crockpot and woodstove cooking. We use a small electric griddle and roaster as well.

Our electric bill was $58 less this month than one year ago this time. Our temperatures were a bit colder this year as well. By using our wood stove we've really saved a lot! Hey, more money for "junkin'", ya' know! :D We have always been able to find fallen trees and such on people's property and they were always more than happy for us to help "clean up" by getting the trees out of their way. :D We use hickory and oak for burning.

As far as time, it doesn't take much for us to throw a log on the fire and empty the ashes from the stove. The most time is being spent cutting and hauling the wood but we look at it as a great way for us as a family to work together. It's sort of like gardening. It's fun work for us to do together and be together. It builds character and strength as it also teaches living skills.

****Note to Dana: The Little House on the Prairie Survival movie can be seen free off from Youtube. I have the tape here somewhere but found it easier to look it up that way and view it this time. :)

Busy Weekend, Snow and Farmer's Market

2011-01-12T13:11:00.003-05:00

Time sure has been flying by! I cannot believe how hard it is to get on here and gather my thoughts enough to type out our doings, ways and wonders! Speaking of wonders, it's been a crazy winter wonderland outside as of late! We initially had about 5 or so inches of snow and then it was topped with ice. Today I took four of the children for a dental appointment and I was amazed how the landscape was one solid sheet of ice. I had tempting thoughts of skating across the farmer's fields by our house. I didn't, of course, as I would have whined about how cold and wet I was or how I broke my hand again. Ick!

So, we've had fun with the snow. Maybe I should re-phrase that so you'll understand. The children had fun outside in the snow but I had my fun inside while dispersing learning into the theme. We watched the Little House Survival movie as well as talked of how to survive in a blizzard. Funny as it seems, some things aren't so far fetched. We've been heating with our wood stove so I made use of it and have cooked much of our food there. I had the children to copy a few poems dealing with snow. The oldest has been making beautiful paper snowflakes and is getting ready to share in the craft with the younger ones. We made snow cream as well. It was pretty tasty, albeit a little hard to harvest the snow with the layer of ice coating the top. We studied a bit on weather and, as much as I could, went over how snow is made. I really think I'd like to find a good weather unit to study with the crew. I've had a weather center on my want list for a time. That was so neat!

On Saturday we had a super busy day. First off we went to the scrap metal place and James sold some copper he saves from jobs he's worked at. We went to church and had breakfast, prayer and then went out on church visitation. Once this was over we went out for a bite to eat. We ate at Zaxby's. We'd never been there before so we were oohing and ahhhing the interior of the place and then savoured our meals. You can tell we don't get out much. Ha-ha! We encountered another nice family while there. The dad of that family talked of how great it is to meet another family who knows what it takes to be rich. He was talking of our large family, of course. :)

After we ate there we made a quick stop in Goodwill and then headed off to the SC Farmer's Market. It was bitter cold out and we had hunch that there wouldn't be many vendors out. We were right. :( We did buy 50 pounds of potatoes at $10. Also, we bought a bushel each of green apples and tangerines. We picked up a small basket each of jalapenos and tomatoes as well. I am hoping that on the first warm Saturday we can head back out and be able to stock up on some more produce. I have yet to do it but tomorrow I need to lay out the potatoes on the attic floor. I'll have to take a picture when I do.
With the apples we have been having skillet apples and I hope to use the rest of them to make apple pies and apple sauce. I may dry some apples in the dehydrator for some sweet snacks as well. We are eating the tangerines quickly but if I have extra left I may section those off and fill a freezer bag for snacks later.
I'd like to save some of the zest as well to make orange flavored cakes as well.

This morning I took four of the children for dental checkups. It was the first time for us to get out on the roads after the storm. The trickiest part was getting out of our driveway. Once we were done with the dentist we stopped off at a thrift shop and then to Dollar General. We ran by the bank and then headed on home.

We've had lunch and now it's time for some quiet time for me and the littles! I am in hopes that once I'm back up I can hang another load of clothes, start supper, clean the kitchen and get us ready for church services tonight. Have a great wintry evening in the Lord!

It's that Time Again

2011-01-06T17:26:00.004-05:00

Remember back in the beginning of November when we went to the Farmer's Market? Well, it's that time again! We hope to go very soon. I learned a few things about how best to store the vegetables since that trip. I learned that the potatoes weren't cured as well as they should have been and that two months is about it in storing those. Besides the ones we stored in the kitchen initially, we stored the rest flat on the attic floor, on top of brown paper sacks. That worked very well.

The onions were stored two ways. One way was storing them in a box, cushioned in between wadded up newspaper so they didn't touch. Some were in the attic and some were under our bed. The other way we stored some was by tying the onions up into pantyhose and knotting them in between each onion to keep them from touching and also being able to hang them. This was the best way of storing the onions. We hung them in our attic this way. I'd say that they could be stored in this manner up to three months.

I sliced, blanched and froze a lot of the squash to use in casseroles, or stew. That was the only thing I believe I preserved.

The cabbage didn't store so well. I stored the extra ones under our bed. I think I'll try in the attic next time for those. The attic is cooler than under our bed. I had to throw three heads of cabbage out to the chickens due to them going bad sooner than I'd like. :(

The sweet potatoes are doing very well being stored in the attic as well. Those are so easy to keep! We have just a few more meals left for those as well. We wrapped those in strips of newspaper and stored them in a box.

I believe our attic stays in the 50s as far as temperature in the winter. This temperature is pretty good for a lot of vegetable storage.

We ate the rest fairly quickly except for the grapefruit, so storage wasn't a problem. We shouldn't have gotten so much grapefruit as I thought we were going to turn into one by eating it so much!

I am thinking when we go to the market this time, since it's January that there won't be so much out there. Who knows, though. We might find some goodies we didn't expect!

Happy Thursday!

2011-01-06T17:03:00.002-05:00

I hope that you all are having a great Thursday. It always seems as our second Monday because it's the day after our mid-week church services. :) So it sometimes seems we are getting another fresh start on Thursdays.

I am going to begin The Mystery of History and The Scientist's Apprentice with my 6,8,and 11 year olds. The older ones had went through these and now it's time to begin again. Actually the 11 year old had done some with the older ones but it's been a while so it'll be as beginning anew with him as well. The 6 and 8 year olds seem to have really gotten into spelling! I am so happy for that as well.

I went ahead and did most of today's kitchen work at lunchtime. Remember the beans I cooked in the roaster yesterday? Well, we had bean burritos for lunch today and will have beans with mexican sausage, fried potatoes and cornbread for supper. I went ahead and cooked the sausage and peeled the potatoes to fry later, seasoned the beans, and made cornbread for tonight. While I was heating the stove to bake the cornbread I made up two dozen chocolate chip muffins for tomorrow's breakfast. Brittany sliced and rinsed the potatoes and then put them in ice water while I made James' lunch for tomorrow. Our six year old helped to get some tea brewing for tonight's tea. So, all except frying the potatoes and onions my work is done. :) I am enjoying getting the bulk of the work done at once versus three separate trips in the kitchen each day. I believe I was in the kitchen at about an hour. It will be a little over that in the end but I thought that was good timing, nonetheless!

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the conclusion of our last Phase 10 game. We had a great time finishing up on Tuesday night while watching a documentary on eagles. Can you believe that between both nights of playing this one game, it took us a total of almost 3 hours? :) We had a lot of fun. Oh, who won? I did. :D

Sometime tomorrow I am going to have to venture out and get our groceries. That's the thing with being homeschoolers. We have the option to go out and get our errands done while others are in school but if we do then we are home later in the day to catch up. Hmmm, I guess I'll go earlier and catch up later. It's better than dealing with the hustle and bustle of crowds. I need to review the sales papers tonight and finalize my lists.

Have a great evening in the Lord!

Wednesday

2011-01-05T16:54:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting here enjoying some afternoon, albeit a little weak, coffee. :D I spent a very busy hour or so in the kitchen whipping up supper of turkey pot pie, some granola for breakfasts, and some haystack snacks as well. I hurried and worked as fast as I could, washing things up as I buzzed along. Then I hurried-scurried and mopped the floor of which I didn't get to yesterday. While working I thought, "Wow! Wouldn't it be neat to be able to whip up three meals a day in all of one hour and have the kitchen cleaned and mopped to boot???". So, I am pondering on this and might make this our goal for most days anyway. It seems the more experience you have in cooking, the faster and more efficient you become. Hmmm....one blessed hour in the kitchen a day. Wowsa! I am thinking, "you know, we have leftovers many a day for lunch and I can always mix up things for breakfast the same time I make supper...". I might have to write out a plan and share later.

Besides what I all the other cooking mentioned, I put some pintos to cook in our electric roaster around lunchtime. I found this neat idea on youtube not too long ago. So now I make big batches of beans, use some and freeze the rest. I am guessing I have about 4-5 pounds in there cooking now. After rinsing the beans I put them in and fill the roaster, well above the beans as beans absorb a lot of water. I fill our roaster about 1/3 up with beans. Then I let them cook all day, just like in a slow cooker. Works great for us!

School went pretty well today. It wasn't as intense as Monday and Tuesday this week for the little ones. Still, they touched on the basics and that's good for today. I wanted them to get in a nap since we have church tonight. That way they wouldn't be nodding off during the service. The olders worked on their school pretty much on their own, I think getting five subjects in each. I'll check their progress tomorrow as usual.

So, here it is, a little after 5:00pm. We need to begin loading up at about 6:45 to make it to church in time. I'd better begin baths and getting every dressed! Hopefully they can catch a quick bite to eat before heading out. Then, I'm sure they'll want a snack when we get back. Then it'll be time for some blissful slumber.
Have a wonderful evening in God's richness of grace.

Better Is as Better Does

2011-01-04T15:59:00.003-05:00

The children in our big snow the day after Christmas. If it had snowed just one day sooner it would have been our first white Christmas. It actually begin around 12:30am on December 26th. :)

The rest of the day yesterday ran pretty well. We finished out our school, with only missing one subject for two children (same lesson). Brittany made vegetable soup and I baked some cornbread. Brittany is turning into a pretty good cook. :) It was a tremendous blessing, to have her to hop in and whip it up for me.

Today's school turned out pretty well too. I do still have to do grammar and math with the youngest two school-age children and then check the math of Samuel(11). I think he's pretty much gotten down the concept so we may get to move on to the next lesson tomorrow. yeah!

In a bit it will also be time to get some meatballs in the oven. I believe we'll have meatball subs and tater tots tonight. While in the kitchen I need to catch up on the dishes. Brittany had laundry to wash today so she'll be busy with putting that away. I think that Dalton has a load to put away from yesterday as well. Hopefully I can get in mopping the floors this evening.

Last night James and I started a game of Phase 10 with the oldest four children. Jesse dropped out as it was a little over his head still yet. We were all on our 5th or 6th phase when we stopped. Hopefully we can continue this game tonight or on Thursday night. I am losing so am ready to get the beating over with. ha-ha
If James doesn't make it home in time to finish that game then I may do Bingo with the children. That is something most of the younger ones can join in on as well.

James has been super busy at work this season. They are having a meeting with his department tomorrow. I am hoping that the meeting will not bring too much bad news. I do know that this is not to be a "happy" meeting. I am just hoping that it will bring good to everyone.

Have a great evening in the Lord!

Some Kind of Strange Rambling

2011-01-03T16:51:00.003-05:00

Today was our first day back at school. I sort of had a feeling it wasn't going to be the greatest. I am not sure if it was because their schoolbooks weren't lined up and ready to go or if it was just a sign I had when the 2 year old wet my clean skirt first thing this morning. Maybe it was the spoiled milk I discovered from a jug 3/4 the way full still. Maybe it was when I had to get on to two of the children and take away their favorite toys for two whole weeks... who knows? Sometimes things go roughly and sometimes thoughts pop in you mind that you just aren't good at anything. It would be great to be good at something. You know, not just do things good enough to get by, but to do something really good. Some are the prettiest, some are the smartest, some can play music beautifully, some can sing beautifully, some are organized, some are put together and fit.... then there's some of us who can stay humble easily just by being ourselves. :D I've had a lot of humbling days lately. In the shadows are feeling not so worthy there's still always the leaping joy bouncing in my heart. Despite being, at best, average I still feel a sense of ownership of the Father. I still remember what gives me strength--the joy of the Lord. I feel blessed that my God and family love me as me. Trying to look from the outside--in, I don't know if I would so much. I am truly blessed!

I was going to type of our day but somehow this is what came about. I am sure there's typos and such as the words just flowed out of my fingers. God is so good--all the time! I am so thankful He delivered me from so much throughout all these years. I am so thankful He gifted me my family. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus!

Lurkers

2010-12-28T12:11:00.002-05:00

I hope to post something later. Until then, how about some of you lurkers type me a nice note in the comments section! I'll admit it. I like hearing from you. I know you're out there because I see when you've visited. :D Is it asking too much for you to just say, "hi". :D See, now you might just do it because I asked you to.

(((hugs)))

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T10:03:00.002-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! I hope that you all are having a joyful, Christ filled Christmas. God has been SO good to me. I have my seven children home with me. They are all healthy and happy. We have a warm place to stay and plenty to eat. We have most in our family saved and hopefully the littles will follow. God is just SO, SO good!

I don't know how God did it. I couldn't imagine sending my child down from a perfect place such as heaven, to live on this wicked earth. The thought of something terrible happening to my children just devastates my mind. For my children to be in harm's way sends me in panic. I often think, oh I'll allow the children to minister, as long as they are safe. God is SO MUCH MORE giving and loving. He loved the unlovely so much. How do we act toward the unlovely? Not God though! Our Father was willing to send His ONLY son down here to this earth and to endure SO much for everyone that was ever born. He bore enough for the sins of every single person that has ever existed. Do you know how much sin that was/is/will be? Jesus never-ever sinned but He was still willing to take the pain, agony, burden for all of us. People still carry their sins in vain when they don't even have to. If everyone only realized what Jesus did---for them and that they don't have to carry sinful burdens. If they only knew the joy of loving Him. It's a love that grows and grows. It gets so much sweeter as the days go by! That love is free to everyone. Such love! No greater love! I'm so thankful that He came to earth, endured all the pain and torment so that I could live forever....so that my children could live forever. One day every knee will bow and worship Him. It would just be wonderful if everyone would go ahead and do that now. So, I guess when I think of Christmas I don't think of a baby in a barn. I think of a person who had a sad, lonely, poor life here on earth for every soul that every existed. Wonder how many souls ever existed.... a lot. So I guess at Christmas I am happy but more melancholy and thoughtful of what He went through. I DO rejoice but not because of a cute little baby in a manger but because He was born to die so that I could be born to live forever. Forever is a very long time, of which I am thankful!

Our Tuesday

2010-12-21T23:11:00.002-05:00

We had a typical day for one off with school. :) We got up at 6:00am and I sent James off to work. I didn't need to make him breakfast as his employer was having one for a Christmas celebration. I ate a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast since I didn't have to cook for James. While having that I spent some time on the computer. Then I built a fire in the wood stove, had coffee and devotions, made oatmeal bars for everyone's breakfast. I had one as well, despite already having ate. They were very tasty and the children liked them.

I had devotions with the two youngest and encouraged the older ones (who hadn't) to have their devotions as well. Then it was chore time--I emptied dish drainer, wiped down coffee table and t.v. cabinet, began laundry and folded a load that was in the dryer from yesterday.

I was able to speak with James on the phone so that was a good morning treat. :) I dusted the kitchen doorway and woodwork along with the kitchen cabinets. I was able to take the time to clean the kitchen window as well.

I was able to also speak with a friend on the phone while choring as well. I made up our lunch of spaghetti bake and put that in the oven. We had that and salad for lunch. The spaghetti dishes are now gone!

Upon being inspired by a blog that I've been reading (Cheryl!!), I hung some clothes in the living room to dry. It was cloudy and damp out today and the clothes would have never dried outside. Brittany did two more loads and hung up a load as well. I'll have to show where I hang them later, once I find the camera. :)

The youngest and I laid down for a nap and then once I got up I watched an episode of Bizarre Foods (Netflix). By that time it was time to make supper of tater-tot casserole, green beans and leftover peas. This was a treat as we haven't had that in a very long time. I was inspired to think of something healthier for tomorrow since tater-tot casserole isn't the healthiest, nor was the fried okra and brown gravy from last night. So, I rinsed two pounds of pintos and put them in the slow cooker for tomorrow night.

While the casserole was in the oven I cleaned up the hideous dining room. I had just mopped last Friday but there was spilled something or other all over the table and all over the floor. ick. So I worked at getting that cleaned up, ignoring the potting soil dumped all over the school bookshelf and chairs. That is for tomorrow as there's no time now. As soon as the mop was rinsed out from mopping, the buzzer goes off indicating the casserole was ready. I had our oldest boy stir the tea. We watched some of The Walton's while we ate. James came in from work at 7:30 but only to pick up our 11yob and head right back out to work on someone's heating unit. They live over an hour away so I knew it'd be a late night.

The dishwasher was started late this afternoon from today's earlier dishes as we were eating supper so I knew it'd have to be unloaded and reloaded before bedtime. It reminded me of allowing room for another dishwasher for one day. We are redoing the kitchen as time and money allows and we had talked of putting in an extra dishwasher to make work more light. One is a luxury and I feel kind of silly thinking of having two... still we run ours twice a day and I usually fill up the dish drainer at least twice with cookware, etc.

It was then bath time. I gave the two littlest a bath and then had to help James with driving directions over the phone so Brittany got them dressed for me.

I got on the computer a bit to do some reading while our six year old unloaded the dishwasher and then James called me back while he drove on the way home. He has to go back to fix the unit after he gets the part later.

Once he got home I began a show of Undercover Boss. We watched that together. The people James went to help gave our boys a nice race car set. They set to work putting that together but halfway through I told them they must finish tomorrow. :) It was rather late by then.

I reloaded the dishwasher, wiped things down, wrote a list of to do things for tomorrow and now it's way past my bedtime. It will be at least 11:30 before I zonk out. Tomorrow begins again to hopefully do things even better for the Lord... it'll be a new day!

Monday, 12/20

2010-12-20T17:01:00.006-05:00

Today was a good day. After James headed off to work, I started a load of laundry. I keep reminding myself to put up our indoor clothes line so I don't use the dryer. That way on bad weather days I can still hang our wash. It's been fairly cold and while I like to get wash started early, I'm not up for hanging wash in freezing weather. :) Breakfast was leftover muffins from yesterday morning and fresh fruit. The fruit was given to us by a precious couple in our church. They have done this for many years.

The morning was really easy as we are out of school for Christmas break. I got me and three of the girls ready to go run some errands. I had two of the boys stay with our oldest, Brittany, as she is trying to get over bronchitis. She and I missed church yesterday for this reason as well.

We went and visited my parents for a bit. I had coffee, sat and talked with them for a good while. I saw my youngest sister as well. She is home from college. My mom gave us a new cookbook of which I will enjoy digging through to find new treasures to cook. :)

After leaving their house we stopped by the library to drop some books off, went to the bank and then to Reid's for a few essentials. While in Reid's this man, of which is far out in left field, approached us. He spoke of Jesus so initially of course I smiled. He then told me that Jesus was born on Christmas day and he could prove it. Ummmm....okay! He gave me a pamphlet on that. Then he told me that if I ever needed him to pray for anything I had to call him. I told him that I have direct access to the Lord but thank you anyway. He told me that he was more righteous than I and he then said that he bet I don't get down on my knees and pray 3 hours each morning like he does. YIKES. He asked me what denomination I was. I told him Baptist. I ask him what church is a part of. He isn't a part of any church. He grew up Baptist, went to a Methodist church a while but now just goes to a service here and there. He did say that he visited a church down the road yesterday but they took his arm and escorted him out as they didn't like his preaching. Wowser. Visits to the stores are beginning to make me want to stay home and not leave. :)

After we left there we stopped in at Walgreen's as they had eggs on sale. We are getting an egg every day or two from our hens but that's not near enough for us. I need to put out a light so that they will lay more.

The rest of the afternoon was spent eating a late lunch and having a nap.Looks like we'll have spaghetti bake tomorrow as the sauce keeps "growing" and I don't want it to go to waste. We're saving money so that's good! I spent some time reading a new blog of which I may share later. I really am enjoying reading of this lady's days. :) Then I began supper. We had crockpot roast, brown gravy(from roast drippings) over rice, simple salad and fried okra(frozen from summer). The kitchen needed a good once over so I worked at that and doing a final load of laundry.

James had another long day at work. He got home at 9:00pm again. I feel so bad for him having to work so much. On top of his regular employment he does side jobs in HVAC. With the frigid weather, he's in high demand for that as well.

Once the children were able to spend time with him, they brushed teeth, changed into jammies and headed to bed. All was quiet for us and it wasn't long before we followed suit. Another day will be here soon, Lord willing.

How We Budget Groceries

2010-12-20T08:08:00.001-05:00

This was shared on a message board I am on sometimes. I thought I'd copy and paste this here as well. :)

Wow, I REALLY like this thread and am so thankful for each of your posts on this. While reading your posts I am imagining what region you live in and what grocery prices would be there. I hope more people chip in their plans on how they budget as well.

I budget between $550 to $600 per month. This includes all household items. That is, anything used IN the house. Our dog and chickens are outside so that's in a separate budget (about $30-$40 per month). Our budget includes all three meals and snacks for the nine of us. The children are ages 2-16. Hubby takes his lunch to work everyday as well.

I used to write out a menu but it just didn't work for me. I do still write out ideas for the week and then I write what we actually had on the calendar. I just started this a few weeks back and it's totally for our family! The reason I have to do it this way is that I'd write out a menu and then couldn't follow through for various reasons. For instance, I had baked two chickens on Saturday. We used to go through about 1 1/4 chickens and I'd have left 3/4 of another for another meal. This time we went through only one chicken and I had enough left to make chicken enchiladas yesterday and chicken and rice soup last night. If I had made out our menu I would have only planned for one two meals for those chickens instead of three. Also, on Friday we had leftover pizza sauce that I thought would have been all consumed but wasn't. So, unexpectedly I am going to be making spaghetti for lunch by adding some more ingredients to the leftover sauce. I would not have had this listed on our menu either. So in the end I would have had to change at least two meals in one week. That is actually just over a four day span. Tonight we are having roast. I could have some left over or could not. Sometimes our appetites are different. If we do have some left over it will go into a soup for tomorrow night. Still, I won't know until supper tonight. Smiley

A few things that are definites are pizza night on Fridays and James' lunch. He eats while going down the road almost every day and he prefers sandwiches as they are easy to eat while driving. So yesterday I prepared enough sandwiches and packed them into different containers for the week. So each morning I just have to pull them out along with whatever breakfast I make for him to take. Besides the pizza and James' lunch and ideas I sketch on a scrap piece of paper or the whiteboard we only know what we're having about a day in advance. Yesterday while making the last of the chicken dishes I was thinking of what to make today. So I laid out a beef roast. I figured we had had enough poultry for a little while. I write on our menu (in our case a calendar) what we ate all day and how much the total was for the day. If we hit under our budget over time it adds up and we might have enough to get something out or a special treat from the store. I like to see the total be under $12 a day for food.

I like the pantry method. That is where I keep all the basic supplies for our meal needs in the pantry. I check the sales ads each week to see if there are any items with rock bottom prices. If so I look in the pantry and access how much we need of that item and buy accordingly. If those items don't come up for sale then I buy most of our groceries at Aldi or Sam's Club. If the pantry runs very low then at tax refund time I hope to restock the pantry fully and start fresh for another year. It seems with our regular pantry items we can make most of what I see in recipes. Occasionally I need to buy a special item. That's always fun, to try new things!

The pantry method is described in the Tightwad Gazette and I feel is the very best way to supply for our needs.

Believe to Receive

2010-12-18T17:04:00.004-05:00

We went and hopefully finished up our Christmas shopping for this year. If we forgot anything or anyone then they must get an IOU. :D While in a shoe store to pick up cowboy boots for one of the children this was our conversation with cashier.

Cashier: (speaking to six year old girl) Are you ready for Santa Claus to come to your house?

6YO: No, Santa isn't real.

Cashier: What? Well, I tell my children that if you don't believe then you don't receive. That's the way it works in my house.

6YO: Santa is only in cartoons now. He ISN'T REAL.

Cashier: Well, I have a friend on Facebook and she has a close connection to Santa Claus. I am going to tell her to put in word that you don't believe in him and he won't bring you anything.

Me: Jesus is the reason for the season.

Cashier: (shrugging shoulders)Yeah, you're right.

I wish that our daughter would have told that lady that she knew where her presents came from----from Ebay through her parents! I wish I had thought to tell that woman that all good things come from God and if she doesn't believe(in Jesus) then SHE won't receive (salvation). Of course I didn't think of it till it was too late. Bah hummbug to her Santa Claus! We can put in word to Someone who hears, cares and answers. To one who is still alive and will live forever. Glory to God in the highest! To my family, Santa is a funny cartoon and Jesus is for real.

Yeah, you do have to believe to recieve....

Happy Saturday

2010-12-18T09:37:00.003-05:00

We've had a fairly quite week. Light schooling was held and we relaxed a lot. Some of the children have the sniffles and so we are trying to get them recovered. Hopefully the others left without the cold doesn't get it! :)

I have been trying to moreso watch what I am putting in my mouth as well. I sort of fell off the calorie counting wagon for a while, thus gained 3 pounds! :( So here I go again, in hopes that I lose 13 more pounds this coming year. Last year I lost 17 (3 gained back) so hopefully it'll be doable. I turn 40 this coming week so hopefully I can be fabulous at 40 in so many ways....including weight-wise! :)

Despite being back on the calorie counting wagon, I have been having fun with cooking and baking! This pic was snapped right as I was about to make some oatmeal cookies. I bought some oatmeal in bulk, which came out to about .41/lb. Needless to say, we'll be eating oats quite a lot. Ha!

I had fun making some shrimp and grits this past week. It's a southern dish, quite common around here. Shrimp is one of my favorites. Long story short- I went to the dentist office and they had a print hanging on the wall of a local famous, seaside landmark. I told the dentist that it reminded me of shrimp and grits. So he, the hygienist and I talked of how we make the recipe. I think that dentist visit cost us more than a cleaning! Thankfully the local store had shrimp buy one get one free! Hopefully this coming year we can do some shrimping of our own. I think that'll be much cheaper. ;)

Our Weekend and Fun Finds

2010-12-13T12:48:00.003-05:00

We had our annual Christmas play at church yesterday. We are hoping that someone saw the play and it made them think of why we celebrate Christmas. I have quite a few pictures but unfortunately cannot share them as they have children of other families in them as well. I will one day sit and play with how to edit out other people's faces in order to not infringe on their privacy. :)
Here's two of our crew goofing off before the play.

Here's our baby. She handed out programs this year. Now that this is over I think *we* can now focus more on Christmas. I dislike hectic holidays and am hoping for a calm one.

I was able to do a little junkin' at a local thrift shop this past week. I found this really nice stained glass, lighted tea pot. I snagged it for $3. Theses are selling on Ebay for a pretty penny. Not that I really care but was curious and checked. The cord is long enough for it to reach on the top of our kitchen cabinets.

I also found this really cute snowman. I think he'll be moved around quite a bit but he rests on our kitchen counter top for now. He cost only $1.

I also picked up two pieces of copper ware to go with my collection. They were only .50 each. So in all, I spent $5 on some goodies for the home. That's always fun.

Happy Wednesday

2010-12-08T10:40:00.004-05:00

I hope that everyone is fairing well on this frigid Wednesday. Here in our local area we had a record low, down in the teens, in temps. and high in the 40s today. Last night I was up half the night rubbing lotion on our 2 year old's legs because she couldn't quit itching. She's just like me. Winter time does not do me justice in any way. :) So today I am upping her fluids and keeping her skin coated with oils and lotions along with thick clothing. This is in hopes that she won't be so miserably itchy.

See the wreath above? My oldest and I made this from materials we already had here at the house. The red material is actually a Christmas pattern. I could not think of what I could make with the material being I had only so much, etc. I had the idea to make a rag wreath. Now I have the idea to make quite a few more for Valentine's, spring, summer (AMERICANA!), and fall. For Valentines I thought we could shape a heart wreath. These wreaths are too easy, really! You just take an old wire hanger and shape it into whatever shape you want your wreath. Then you cut strips of material about 1"-2" wide and 6"-7" long. Then your fold the strip in half to where it's half the width and simply tie onto the hanger. I believe the more colors you have the more fun it'd be. I had an old denim dress and so I used some of that material as a contrasting color and it also makes this look more country. I really don't care for cutesy country. This is cutesy country but I somehow like the whimsey of it anyway. :D I guess it's one of those never say never situations.

School is moving along pretty well. I was hoping for us to take off two full weeks this Christmas break but I am thinking it'll only be seven school days (versus 10). That'll really depend if we can double up on some studies. I always have to have this certain sense of satisfaction with each child's learning in order to feel at peace with taking a break. We took off more time around Thanksgiving than I would have wanted too, but it was unavoidable. That's a con of homeschooling, if you take off then the littles have to take off too. But on the other hand, that's the beauty of homeschooling. At least you're taking off together. :)

So, here's our menu for the week for whoever is interested.

Sunday: chicken spaghetti, garlic bread and salad
Monday: chicken bog, salad
Tuesday: taco bake, corn
Wednesday: poor man's steak, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole
Thursday: baked pork loin, sweet potato casserole, green beans, salad
Friday: pizza and salad
Saturday: grilled hot dogs and chips

The chicken meals came from the same pack of chicken breasts ($5.00). Actually some chicken was also used from that pack for buffalo pizza last Friday. We really made that chicken stretch! The same with the beef used on Tuesday and Wedesday. Also, I unthawed some pintos that we used in the taco bake and will use to make burritos for lunch the next few days.

Quiet Monday Morning...

2010-12-06T07:52:00.003-05:00

Dishes to be put away...

Morning sunshine...

Coffee...

school books ready for the day...

Nativity scene...

Have a blessed Monday in the Lord, my friends!

21 More Days...

2010-12-05T15:26:00.002-05:00

That's what we have till Christmas. We are on a countdown! Busy, busy, busy. I am sorry that I haven't been on here in a while. I have been sort of VERY busy. :) I primarily got on to thank everyone for praying for my family member who had medical needs. The Lord is SO good and His mercy endureth forever and ever. That is no matter what happens, He's still good. Still, I am thankful that the medical tests run turned out very well. Please be in prayer for this person as they aren't out of the woods yet. Also, be in prayer for my Dad. He's been out of work for a long time and they are without any income. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Please pray, pray, pray! Thank you.

We have two more weeks of school. I want it to be heavy, good quality school as well. That way I will feel good about taking a two week break for Christmas and the New Year. I want to do a few fun things with the children such as baking some goodies and making a few crafts. Well, it seems that the boys aren't so much into that kind of thing but maybe I can get them in there doing something anyway. Maybe they could hammer up some Christmas bird houses or something. :D

I am having fun with a lot of ideas to decorate the home. I really like the Americana look and have been into primitive and nostalgic decorating for many years. For a few years I did Victorian decorating and still have some pieces here and there so I guess things are sort of eclectic! Still, I am having fun with the the rustic, primitive Americana. :D James and our oldest son constructed some wooden benches for our diningroom table. Yippy- skippy! James stained and sealed the bench tops and we are going to paint the bottom of them blue. It will go in our kitchen/dining area well. We are still working away as time permits on the new to us cabinets and all. We are slowly tearing down the wall between the kitchen and diningroom too. I'll have to take a few current pics of the kitchen soon to share what's going on.

Today's Sunday so we have our routine of Sunday School, morning service, lunch, cleanup, break, choir practice/play practice and then evening church. Then we come home and have supper, maybe a little t.v. then bed. Sometimes we stay in town between church services because of the commute. Including loading up and unloading the children the commute one way is about 35 minutes. So staying in town saves gas and us well over an hour of time.

Hopefully I can check in more this coming week. Blessing to you all!

2010-11-25T08:08:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I pray that you all are able to have a happy day.
Remember all that the Lord has given us. He deserves all honor and praise!

A Different Tuesday...

2010-11-23T16:10:00.003-05:00

Today seems so different than most Tuesdays. On most Tuesdays we are full fledged into school studies. This morning I went with my mom to a doctor's appointment and I didn't feel so well this afternoon. Also, we have church tonight. So in just a bit our time is going to be consumed with getting ready to go and cooking/eating supper.

Do you remember the YouTube link I shared with you not too long ago? I now have another one for you! This lady is full of knowledge with running a large family household and she now has videos to help others. I am enthusiastically checking for updates daily. :) http://www.youtube.com/user/LindaSheppardAAFCS
I cooked a big batch of pintos in our electric roaster. This was one of the tips she shared. If you're interested then go check it out.

I am back to adding up our food budget. Remember all of those posts over the years with me sharing on how we keep our budget low and my sharing a break-down of what we consumed? Well beware. I am doing that again- beginning today. :) So our FOOD budget is $400 a month. That includes all three meals a day plus snacks and drinks. Basically, I'd like to keep it at $12-$13 a day. Can we do it? Yes, we can (Oooh, that almost sounds like an Obama chant. I did not mean so.) So far this week, here's what we have spent.

Monday:
Breakfast was a little odd. It turns out that this meal was a grab and eat meal. I had a piece of leftover cake and a milkshake. The others had leftover pancakes, pb&j and milkshakes. Total for this meal was $4.50

Lunch consisted of something new. I made a turkey soup with ramen noodles in it. The turkey was leftover from a church Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. I boiled and picked the turkey to get the bits of good left. Inside the turkey I had stuffed it with celery, onion and bay leaves. This went in the pot as well. Any gelatin from the turkey was thrown in the broth as well. Then I added two packs of chicken flavored ramen noodles. I also added a quart sized bags of green beans from our garden as well. Usually I am not a ramen fan, except for sometimes the ones in a cup that has the dried carrots and peas. Anyway this lunch was VERY tasty! The total for this meal was .40-tops!

In the morning I had put pintos and water in our electric roaster- about full. In our crockpot I had put in a 2-3 pound pork loin roast. These had been cooking all day. While the beans were completely ready in time for supper, I dipped some out and finished them off for supper. I added some rice(1 cup), shredded some of the pork, threw that in and then added some mexican seasonings. Once this thickened up, I stuffed them into tortillas with some cheese and stacked them onto baking sheets, heated them in the oven until the cheese was melted. We topped these with sour cream and hot sauce. Yumm! $5.50 for this meal.

Here's the rundown.
Bfast: $4.50
Lunch: $.40
Supper: $5.50
tea/coffee: .40
2 bag popcorn: .50
Total: $11.30

Today's breakfast was a little bit mixed too. Mainly we had fruit smoothies and granola. $3.00 The granola is homemade and very basic. Thus it is dirt cheap as well.

Lunchtime we had leftovers from last night's supper and a few more quesadillas from the pork roast. $3.50

Supper is going to be chili from the batch of pintos and crackers. This will consist of some deer meat that was given to us by a customer so that was free. I think I'll serve a basic salad on the side as well. $3.50

Today's total with an allowance for tea, coffee and a few sodas: $11.00

To be honest, I've had my fill of beans for another week. On to different things now. I will freeze the beans that were leftover for next week. ;) I am hoping that with any leftover money at month's end we might can go to a sit down restuarant. That's a definite rarity!

That's all for now as I am off to get us ready for church and get supper going.

UPDATE: I couldn't put myself to cooking the chili tonight so we had simple sandwiches. I froze the rest of the beans until next week. :D So today's total came out to $12.50 instead. I'll use the deer meat in spaghetti or something tomorrow.

Overwhelmed....but Not Defeated

2010-11-19T17:35:00.003-05:00

Happy Friday everyone. I am so terribly sorry that I don't get to post any more than I do. I like using this blog as sort of a journal and am so thankful for those who take the time to check on here as you do.

I am not one who does so great with a lot of busy-ness. I remember as a bank teller many years ago, I'd spaz out at the long line of customers waiting to be helped. Ack! The head tellers would always say, "Deal with them one a time. Don't look at the line but at the one in front of you." I have to say, I've never mastered this. I am better at it but still working at it. The children are beginning the "I can't wait fors" of the season. Yesterday I told them to PLEASE just let me get through the next week and then we can proceed from there. My head is swimming. One day at a time is all I can handle for now. During this season there's still school to do, mouths to wipe, a house to clean, laundry to do, hubby minister to, church activities....on and on. Also a close family member potentially has a huge sickness to go through...could even result in death. Oh dear me, I am thankful for the Lord and His yoke...to be able to learn of Him. That's is where I find rest for my soul.

So, I do hope to have some good posts soon. But until then, each time you come here and I don't have anything new, could you please breath a short prayer for me? Thank you so much! (((Hugs))) to you all.Also, if you have something that you'd like to suggest my writing about or suggestions, then please email me at wewatson@pbtcomm.net
I'll see what I can do.
:) You never know. I might be back on again before the weekend is over. ;D

Monday, Monday...la-la-la...

2010-11-15T09:55:00.002-05:00

I am trying to get pumped up about it being Monday. To tell you the truth, it's almost 10:00am and besides having breakfast and my loading the diswasher, I haven't done a thing. So I really need to make the rest of this day count. It does seem that almost each Monday morning is like this. I can't understand why.

I trust that everyone had a great weekend. We surely did. God is so good to us in so many small and big ways. We had our usual pizza night Friday night and watched a movie. Then we had church visitation on Saturday morning. Someone actually came to church yesterday as a result of that. Funny as she didn't seem too interested when my hubby and daughter went to her house but she surprised us! Last month we had a fellow who I thought for sure was going to visit but he never did...yet anyway. You never know people really.

So here's today and here's my list to get done.

~laundry---this is a very serious need. The state of this department is in a dire emergency. It seems that the laundry maids have abandoned their posts. They will not be happy to know that it's catch up day.

~change sheets on our bed, inspect others' sheets due to any accidents made(huge sigh)

~ general pick up in each room

~ 2 hours of school instruction

~ move outside construction piles to....somewhere (nervous laugh)

~ assign "keepers" ...more on this later

~ cook supper and clean up kitchen

~relocate boards in the kitchen to....umm....the dining room?

~mop the kitchen and mud room

That's well enough for me. Have a blessed Monday in the richness of God's grace.

It's Friday!

2010-11-12T08:35:00.003-05:00

Sheba peeking into the livingroom

Happy Friday, everyone! I pray that you all are having a great day so far. Ours has basically just begun but I am hoping for a good one. I have a lot on the agenda. Fridays are our busiest days as we are trying to wrap up our home school week and also prepare for the weekend. Also, as some of you dedicated readers know, I have been trying out having a day of rest. Yay! I did have a few weeks in there were it just wasn't happening. Praise God for the Sabbath being for me and not me for the Sabbath. It would have been good if it would have worked out.... Still I am hoping for it to this week.

As far as preparing this week, here is my rather long list to get done before this evening.
~ cleaning living room (15 minutes)
~ bedrooms (everyone works, 15 minutes)
~bathrooms (15minutes)
~organize school books to rest for the weekend :D
~mop any floors that needs it (I am thinking dining room, mudroom, living room and red bathroom)
~Prepare clothes for church on Sunday, and visitation tomorrow
~take chickens out of freezer to grill tomorrow, make coleslaw,rice and gravy
~clean any needed glass

I am thinking this all will take about four hours BUT I will have all work done ahead for the next day or two. The house will be mostly clean and I can relax more that way. Now, this is MY list. Don't you think another second the children are kicking back and sipping sweet tea while I slave away. Large families don't work like that. :) Here's a list for the children.

~maintain loading and unloading dishwasher(this is done at least twice a day)
~oldest is making supper tonight of pizza
~playroom to be picked up
~bedrooms are occupant's responsibility
~yard cleanup, porch and deck swept
~van cleaned out

On top of this I need to run to our local supermarket and dollar store to pick up a few much needed items. Also, I estimate a few hours of school in as well. Here's the school hit list.

~Math for all
~Old Testament History, science, geography for 13yob
~geography, Spanish for 16yog
~reading, spelling, penmanship, math for 11yob,8yob,6yog
~phonics,colors and counting for 4yog

So that about settles it. It's a very labor intensive day but, boy howdy, how good it feels to have the house comfortably clean and a great school week wrapped up successfully. Most food prep will be done so it's a frugal way to take off instead of forking out big bucks to eat in a restuarant (restuarant is showing up on spell check but honestly, is this not how you spell it? I will have to check this out).

Okay, so I'm off to get started. Have a wonderful day in the LORD!

Good Youtube Channel

2010-11-12T08:26:00.001-05:00

I really thought that many of the people who read this blog would be interested in
viewing this YouTube Channel. It was like a Bible study,frugal living and homeschool conference in one! I plan on watching it again and chuckled quite a bit as I could relate to much of what she said.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FrugalMegHints

Budget and Prices

2010-11-10T09:07:00.005-05:00

An online friend asked me about our shopping trip. The load of groceries in the back of the van consisted of about 90% of a month of groceries. Added to this is restocking of milk, night time protection for a few bed wetters(aka off brand goodnights), off brands "pullups" for the potty trainer(for use at night or when needed away from home....or when I am too tired of washing up icky clothes), and any great deals on meat. We spend about $550 a month on average for household spending. This includes food, cleaners, paper products, chicken and dog food... Sometimes we hit $600 and sometimes it's $500 but it averages out to about $550. We have the seven children, ages 16 down to 2, and we eat all meals out of our kitchen except for about once a month we'll hit Little Caesar's or get dollar burgers. We have church fellowships we attend as well. Usually about once a year(twice maybe) the whole family will go out for a sit down meal. It's a big treat!

The picture of the produce from the farmer's market was taken of our first trip there.
The whole family had a blast going to the Farmer's Market! We should have tried it sooner really. Here is a broken down list of what we bought. Total we spent exactly $100.

50 pounds potatoes $12
50# sweet potatoes $12
50# cabbage $12
50# onion $15
1 bushel squash $10
1 bushel grapefruit $12
1 bushel tomatoes $12
5 cucumbers $2
1 bushel apples $13

I am hoping for us to go about every other month to restock our produce. I would not have bought tomatoes or squash if our crop had done better. We grow a sizeable garden each year but this past year's didn't come out so well. Fortunately we had beans canned for last summer and my parents gave us a lot of peas and squash from their garden. If it weren't for the love of gardening and the children's experience with it, I'd be tempted to just do farmer's market shopping. :) I am happy to have our diet consist of a lot of produce and less meat. We do have meat at almost every main meal but not as much as the average American family.

More maybe later. I have to catch the two year old. :)

2010-11-04T11:31:00.002-04:00

This is after a trip to the Farmer's Market.

These are after a trip to Aldi and Sam's Club. There's actually more in there than it appears. Of course neither of these two stores supply free bags so we bag the things ourself. Sometimes we bag them in the store parking lot but I forgot the bags at home this time. So, we bagged the things to bring them into the house. I was fortunate enough to remember the cooler bags. :) With these three stops and the usual milk stop and shopping meat sales, we are able to keep our household budget under control pretty well.

Writer's Distraction

2010-11-04T10:01:00.004-04:00

Don't you hate when that happens? Ick! I had a gazillion thoughts and ideas of what to write about on here. Yeah, some REALLY good things too. Then the devil tried moving into my life and the thoughts got crowded out with having to make sure I handle things right. I suppose this is when you are suppose to have an answer for everything. No matter what, GOD is still on the throne and NONE other. While things might hurt you in life and you can't understand them, I think that in the end it can be pleasing to the Lord to see how His saints handle theirselves and the obstacles at hand. If it doesn't kill you, at least it can make you stronger--in the LORD!

Sometimes, out of self glory, people try to bring you down. Just remember Who you are for, Who you love, Who you work for, and Why you do what you do. Remember to always keep your song. Nothing can EVER separate you from the love of God. Joy still comes in the morning and you can still keep your song.

I don't know if you've ever heard of a song called "I've Still God a Song". If you haven't you need to. It has helped me this morning and it's so true. I have a fear I may sing it out at the top of my lungs today while dancing through the house. No, not the worldly dancing you are thinking of. Not out of fleshly desires but out of pure thankfulness, worship and joy the Lord. :D

http://new.music.yahoo.com/mckameys/tracks/ive-still-got-a-song--200038230

This version posted is a bit too country twangy compared to the version I listen to but wanted to post the song here for you to hear. I tried finding the lyrics online but couldn't find them either. So forgive the country twang of the song and enjoy the words if you listen. :)

Okay, so maybe I've been inspired again and didn't know it.

2010-11-04T09:59:00.001-04:00

On the Jeub family blog, a fabulous post is on about tips for running a family/household. You might want to check it out. Their link is on my sidebar. Also, they asked if anyone had any more tips to share. Here's my list.

1. Make planned leftovers for meals.
2. Delight in your children’s faces, thoughts and cares instead of the television, phone or computer.
3. Communicate with each child.
4. Have a plan for everything.
5. Have a checklist of how to basically clean each room posted on each room’s door for the children to follow.
6. If a child is too small to help, find something for them to do anyway just to make them feel worthy.
7. Instead of just reading Jesus to your children, live Jesus to your children.
8. Love your hubby in front of your babies. It will make them happy and secure.

High School History

2010-10-20T15:10:00.002-04:00

This is in answer to a question about high school history posted on a forum. I thought it'd be of benefit to share my answer here as well.

Our oldest, of which is in the 11th grade, is now in economics and government. She is reading the Uncle Eric series for this. Let me tell you, I never knew so much about the two until I read some of these books as well. They are so interesting and you learn so much!

For actual history, our oldest has a natural interest in it. She chooses books (nonfiction or historical fiction) about the era she's interested in and just reads! She's even read history textbooks for fun. To document some of what she's learned, we have had her to write papers. She enjoys that as well. Another thing we do is to have her to write and answer her own questions of what she's learned. Sounds too easy, right? Oh contrar'! It does help to reinforce what she read to have her to make up her own questions and answer them. If she didn't comprehend much then she has to go back and search some more to draw out facts, etc.

Remember that history "leaks" into so many other subjects, such as music, art, literature and science. She loves them all except generally science. We were talking of creation today and she listed it as history. I told her that yes it is but it's also science as well. Seeing as she doesn't like so much science she never viewed it as such.

History is such a broad subject. Even if you are required to learn certain branches of history, it can be fun and creative. It doesn't have to include dry, boring dates and facts that are trivial.

If this doesn't sound appealing, then my next suggestion would be Mystery of History.

Day of Rest Update

2010-10-13T07:48:00.004-04:00

I trust that everyone is having a good week. The Lord has blessed us over and over...more than we deserve. :D Our week has been busy but productive. We did have one of our children down with a virus on Monday. She ran fever all day and got sick to her stomach once. Since she's been just fine and everyone else is fine so far.

I didn't think I was ever going to be able to sit down here and have a good time to gather my thoughts to type this out. Well, it's still not done yet so it's still to be seen. :) So how did the day of rest go? WOW! The Lord truly blesses. I can fully understand now what He was saying about the Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath. I cannot tell you how many times I thought of this and how freeing this was to me.

So we did prep work of making sure laundry was good and all clothes were prepared for Saturday and Sunday. This in itself can be quite a task. The Lord blessed though and I had everything pressed and set out for Sunday. You see, I could have done this Saturday night but I would have had that stress on me to get it done, which would have added to the stress when I was resting. While in stress, rest doesn't come! I know. It's just clothes. I know. I know. I know, but I tell you I would have been thinking about it till it was done. So this was done early.

Our meals were prepared ahead or semi prepared and ready to throw in a crockpot. This was fun! It was so much fun to not be in the kitchen for hours with the usual meal prep. Still, you know what? I still leisurely went in the kitchen and made a vegetable tray and broccoli salad and IT WAS FUN! A lot of times (okay, almost all the time) I don't enjoy cooking as I am trying to just get it done so we can have something to eat. I am in too much of a rush and have too many wheels turning to enjoy cooking. The funny thing is that I have always liked cooking until the past few years. I actually enjoyed the kitchen and browsed through cookbooks! Most any other time I'd be scurrying through the cookbooks in a hurry, trying to find what I needed. Not on Saturday. I sat and enjoyed the cookbooks. It. was. so. nice.

I am sure that you'd imagine the house a wreck by Saturday evening. Besides, we had an off day, right? First of all, there's no way that I could have had a day off with the house in disarray. I would have been miserable. Still, we worked ahead and got the main living areas up to par. This really helped to relax and enjoy the day. I still casually picked up here and there. We also used paper plates and cups through out the day. WHAT A TREAT! We wrote everyone's name on their own styrofoam cup and used the same one all day. At the end of the day I had a small pile of dishes in one of the sinks. My "day of rest" went from Friday night to Saturday night. So at the end of my 24 hours (about 7pm on Saturday) I washed up the pile in the sink. The main living areas were just as clean at the end as in the beginning. :)

So, what else did I do on our day of rest? I watched our college home team's football game of which they beat the #1 team in the country. That was a blast! Normally I would have been in the kitchen, working away, or in the laundry room. Since it was a time to rest, I was able to sit and enjoy my "job" of resting. I watched the WHOLE GAME. Yes! I was able to curl my hair in hot rollers. So I had fun yelling at the TV in my hot rollers. What a sight. Ha! Our oldest was surprised that her mother yelled at the TV during the football game. She never was old enough to see me enjoy a good game. I was always doing something. Oh, I still got up during the commercials and did a little here and there. I wasn't lazy. I just had fun.

It's freeing to know what all I could have done with this time. I could have read a book, sewn a dress, crocheted, rearranged decorations in the home and so much more. You see, it's a blessing to realize that working a day ahead to get things prepared to have a day of rest has freed up the opportunity to do a lot of things I "didn't have time for" before.

If you feel like a day of rest would be beneficial for you, then try it! Plan ahead and do ahead what needs to be done. Do it ahead and reap the benefits of "time off". I am hoping to be able to do the same this weekend too. :D Now I look at getting things done for that day off. It really shines a new light on everything.

My Day of "Rest"

2010-10-08T11:38:00.002-04:00

So here is Friday! I am sort of preparing to have a day of rest. I say sort of because I think I'll have to slowly work into this idea. :) Here are some things I hope to have done by say....5:00pm or 6:00pm tonight.

~For some reason I just cannot really rest when the house seems to be in havoc. So I have been doing some straightening and cleaning. So the house won't be perfect but it will be presentable. I will still do light maintenance- wipe here and sweep there.

~laundry: I really need to make sure we all have enough socks, undies, and clothes to last till Monday. I usually do a load of wash on Sunday afternoons and will probably stick to that. This afternoon I want to get all of our clothes picked out and ironed for Sunday. Also we have church visitation tomorrow and will work at getting those clothes picked out as well.

~ meals: Tonight we will have pizza. I usually head into the kitchen about 4:00 every afternoon to begin evening food prep and kithen chores. So I will work on pizza for tonight, and soup for tomorrow night. For breakfast in the morning we will be eating at church and we'll have leftovers for lunch. I'll put on a crockpot of beans and have cornbread baked for a simple snack tomorrow. Yes, we like a bowl of beans for a snack.:) I think that freezer meals would come in super handy for those who chose to take a day of rest. Oh, also I hope to make a quick trip out to purchase paper plates. That's a BIG treat at our house. If I can get it at a good price I just might buy some soda too. If not I'll make some tea ahead of time and have it in the fridge.

~ Hopefully I'll get the boys out to clean the van this afternoon. This will help greatly as that's an usual Saturday chore.

I can't think of much else which is a good thing because I need to go do this list. :) For all who choose to have a day of rest, I pray the Lord blesses you in it. And for those who don't, I pray the Lord helps you with all your work.

Happy weekend to all!