School Time Again.

OMG! Where the heck did the summer go.  We still have the heat, so know it was here...still here for many weeks to come actually.  School starts tomorrow for my youngest daughter Miss Zebra.

She starts the first day of her last year in school.  Well, public school anyway.  She is now officially a senior high student.  She plans to attend a local college and become a neonatal nurse.

I have been cleaning like crazy and not feeling like I am getting anywhere.  But, I have swept the living room, dining room and kitchen, along with hall.  I will mop it all later this evening when there is less traffic running through.  I also cleaned up my kitchen.

This past week, I once again was keeping my grand son.  Man did I miss that little guy while his mom was on maternity leave, and while we were on vacation, and while they were on vacation. I know, terrible run on sentence. I was also lucky enough to keep the baby girl two days this last week as well.  WOW! what a learning experience.  I never had two little ones together, spaced my bunch out a bit more.  Any way was glad that Miss Zebra was home to help out.  I am doing a little shuffling with the furniture in the rooms so am hoping that will help make things a little easier for me on the days I have both the little ones.  Part of the...awkwardness...of the flow of the house now is that youngest son, Mr. College, and his cat are staying with us until his school starts back up.  He will be here until later part of September.

Now that baby is here, vacation is done, I hope that hubby comes through and we actually get to start on the kitchen remodel.

This is the before photo.  I know it looks fine, but it really does not flow well.  And...while it looks like it has a lot of storage, the majority of the cabinets are too small to hold much. 

I have got to work hard on my sewing room this week, am putting a twin bed in it for Mr. College to sleep on while he is here.  I first thought that I would just put it in storage when he went back to school but after thinking about it, have decided that I will leave it for the grandbabies to nap on.  And...if hubby's snoring keeps up, may just sleep there myself. LOL

Oh you know I couldn't resist recent photos of my grands.

These two are my oldest daughter's two sons, they live in West Texas.

 This is oldest grand son, Mr. T.  He is ten, likes baseball and ice cream. He came to visit for a few weeks, went on vacation with us as well.

This is Mr. T's little brother, Mr. W.  He is three and likes dinosaurs, cheeseburgers, queso and baseball.

These two are my oldest son's two children.  They live here in the same town as we do and I am fortunate enough to be able to care for them during the week day while their parents work.

 This is Mr. M.  He is two and loves little animals, big animals, any stuffed animal.  Can't find anything that he really likes to eat though, very hard to feed him.  He loves his new sister though, very gentle and loving with her.

 

And, last but by no means least, this is Miss C.  One month old in this photo.  Not sure what she will like, but so far she loves to eat and be held.  A little spoiled to being held actually, but I will work around it.  How can you not hold a new baby?  LOL

Well, I am off to do a little more cleaning and then try to sit down and work on the menu plans.  Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment, I like knowing if any one actually pops in.

Well, well, well!

It has been exactly a month since I posted.  That is truly pitiful.  I must work on posting a little bit more often.

On a good note, everyone is finally well.  Hubby surprised me with an impromptu trip to Las Vegas since Miss Zebra was out of school for Easter break...yes they still call it that here.  Mr. College wondered home for a visit as well, as his college was having their Winter Break...what they call it...at the same time.  We had  good Easter, I hope all of you did too.  My oldest son, Mr. M's dad, didn't want to come over to eat an Easter dinner because he didn't want "old food". 

Guess that one is partly my fault, I made the mistake of saying that I found a ham in the freezer and was going to clean out my pantry before I bought more food.  HOWEVER...it is not like I am a food hoarder and the items are really old.  The ham has been in the freezer since I bought it on sale.  I had picked up one for New's Year Day and just picked up an extra.  Three months, exactly, is not that old for a fully cooked ham that has been in the freezer since it came home from the grocery store.  The nerve, where does he think all those steaks and burgers come from.  Yes I stock up slightly when I catch a good deal, but only what I feel will be used with in a two month time frame.  As for the pantry...I clean it out and reorganize it every other month.  Purging anything that may have expired, donating what I know won't be eaten to the local food bank.  I swear, the oldest thing in my pantry may be a jar of Miracle whip bought 3 -4 months ago or a box of cake mix that may have gotten hidden that may be 4 or 5 months old.  For one, I don't stock up on things like that, and two, it just doesn't last that long around here.  Good grief, wonder what he would think if I turned in to an extreme coupon/hoarder.  They have years worth of supply stocked up in make shift shelves all over the house.  Good grief, does this child have no memory of when we were lucky to have wieners and canned tuna for several days until we got paid again?  Guess not.  On the other hand, maybe that is a sign that I did a great job of getting our family through some rough financial times, which everyone has from time to time.  I never had to get assistance of any kind for us.  Thankfully I also had the best teacher in the world, my mom.  She saved every thing and pinched a penny until it chirped.  When we cleaned out her home of 30 years to move to a smaller home, there were bags of glass jars she saved, margarine and whipped topping bowls, pieces of foil, even twist ties from bread bags.  She also washed and reused ziplock bags and Solo cups and bowls.  Oh well, I guess I should be happy for him that they aren't going through those hard times like we did.

So...goals for this month are many.  I need to get back to basics.  Basic home cooking, basic cleaning, and time for my crafts.  In spite of son, I am going to be cooking from the pantry and freezer this month.  I have a lot of cleaning to do, now that spring is here and it is warmer I can actually open up the windows and get some fresh air going through here.  I also have to get it together and even though I don't want to, have to file my mom's tax return.  Even though she passed away last year, she still had income for 6 months of the year.  On the good side, she should get a refund and I don't want the IRS to have one cent of what doesn't belong to them.  I have about 5 more quilts to make for the church orphanage project.  Now that I have received all the software programs I  purchased for quilting and embroidery, I need to sit down and work through the tutorials to learn how to make the most of them.  Oh, and I also have picked up some wonderful historical non-fiction books.  Published collections of various diary entries for civil war era, early 1920's, and World War II (from the perspective of a woman living in England).

Guess I better get some dinner going.  Thanks for stopping by.

New Year - New Start

Well, it is the start of a new year.  They seem to actually be showing up a lot sooner than they used to.  Remember being young and thinking on New Year's Day as you eat you black eyed peas that it going to take forever for it to get to Christmas again.  So many things can change in that year.  Loved ones lost, loved ones just beginning.  Now, as this year starts, I cherish the memories of my parents that are no longer living. I miss them something terrible. I look forward to a new grand baby coming. 

Along with that comes all the plans for the year.  Do any of you make resolutions?  I used to, but just don't any more.  I just don't get them resolved.  Don't get me wrong, I still make out goals and plans for the future, both immediate and longer, but I just don't label them.  Keeps the pressure of so I don't feel disappointed or a failure because I didn't loose that weight, clean the house, eat more healthy or what ever a resolution would involve.

Are there areas I want to work on?  Yes there are, many of them, too many too list.  Okay, so I do have a list, just not going to share it.  I will say that I want to work on me this year.  I have been so busy giving me away to so many other people that I have disappeared a bit.  I think I need to find me, such a cliché saying, and then work on making me better.  I need to define my relationship with my Savior, only by getting that in order can there be any type of order to myself.  I am no good to anyone if I am can't even pull myself together.

I want to be better at being a wife, which means better at taking care of the house. Better cleaning, better meal preparation, working on getting the house fixed up the way I...repeat "I"...want it.  I have been in this house for going on 13 years and it still doesn't feel like mine.  I want it to feel like mine.  You know, like I belong instead of visiting. 

I want to be better at being a mother, which means paying more attention to my kids.

I want to have time to do all the craft things that are stuck in my head.  The counted cross stitch projects (my new obsession) that I have started.  The quilts I have planned.  All the quilts in various stages that were put away when life got in the way.  In other words, I am determined to finish all that I have started.  For a change.

Oh I am great, stupendous in fact, at making list and organizing.  Problem is, the organizing just doesn't quite get there.  I start, like sorting out a closet, then way to easily get side tracked by some sort of thought that blows through my head.  I buy all the needed supplies for doing the organizing, then just don't use them.  Maybe it is time to re-visit Fly Lady or the SHE school of thought.

I had planned to play along with a challenge or two, but am also thinking all that over as well.  I did give up and quit the Crazy January challenge.  You can read more about it on that page.  Needless to say I am way too slow at stitching so it is already driving me crazy to have the two projects I started just sitting around.  I will continue to work on them, that gives me a total of three WIP in the cross stitch department.  I have no UFO's any more as far as cross stitch is concerned.  The one UFO I had, was the Nativity, but since I am actively working on it again I have updated its status to a Work In Progress (WIP) now.  I use to have an intense passion for quilting.  I am good at it.  My dad would call and ask me what I was working on, I would email him photos, he was my biggest fan.  What ever I made - quilt, ceramic, garment construction, crochet - he was interested and loved it all.  When he died, it hit me so hard I don't think I really let myself go through a proper or rather healthy grieving process.  At any rate, I kind of stopped quilting for a while.  Now, that little bug is back and wanting to do a lot of stitching.  Besides, I think it would kind of be like disrespecting of me to not pick it back up.  I even learned in a bible study class that craftsmanship is my gift from God and I feel that by not using it I am not honoring that gift.  On one of my groups, there is a WIP/WHIMM challenge that I am the coordinator for.  The WHIMM (Works Hidden In My Mind) category in my case is about to explode.  I even bought a little bit of fabric this evening to put me in the mood.

I have to make some diamond blocks for a Crazy Quilt challenge, so will be starting on them no later than this week end.  They are small blocks, but have a lot of embellishment that will go along with them.  Thankfully, with quilting I was blessed with speed.  Guess so much of the speed gene was used for quilting that none of it is left over for cross stitching.  Sounds good anyway.  My biggest obstacle with sewing has been being able to get to my machine.  It seems that just when I get my sewing room cleaned up, something happens and stuff gets dumped in it.  Mainly, that is where boxes of Mom's things get set for me to go through.  So very hard to do.  I still need to finish up her bills, she passed in July.  At any rate, today I worked around Mr. M as best I could (along with the diversion of catching up on emails after being gone for a week) and was actually able to get quite a bit accomplished.  I bought the stuff for shelving, just need to get it attached to the wall now.  I also bought some cheap but pretty fabric to make the curtain to hang over the closet doors (now removed) and purchased a little extra to make a window topper to match.

Well, it took forever for me to get out of Walmart tonight.  Have to go back tomorrow because the idiot man checking was too busy talking and charged me twice for an item.  I also have to go to the bank in the morning, it would seem that someone has once again gotten our bank account info and made debit purchases.  Metro PCS...again...$118 dollars worth this time.  Last time it was our daughter's account and she didn't have any money in it so it only debited $1.51 but it is the hassle of it all.  Now, I have to find out whose card is being used, mine or hubby's, and they will block that card.  That sets off a whole new set of irritation as we both have so many things that are automatically debited each month.  I kind of hope it mine, hubby and the two of our kids are on a trip at the moment, won't be back until Sunday, so can't block his card.  I hate people who think they have the right to just take what they want.  Any way, I am headed to the bath and then to bed.  I would go straight to bed, seeing as how it is almost two in the morning, but I am freezing and a bath helps warm me.  Crazy thing is in another few hours I will have a big old hot flash and sure won't be cold any more. 

That's life I guess.  Speaking of which.

Meet my helper.  She has made her mission in life to eat all my threads and to see just how much skin she can take off my legs by crawling up them.  Yesterday she has started climbing up the back of my computer chair and then sitting on my shoulder.  Her very loud purrs in my ear tell me she is content there.  Just makes it a bit difficult to do anything.

Thanks for stopping by the zoo, come back soon.

Oh What Fun!

Okay, so you know how you eat all the cake and cookies the week before you know you are starting a new diet?  Because you know that  you won't be getting any after that day? And you really want to get them out of the house?

Well, I am preparing for my diet date.  A stash diet that is. Jan. 1 will start a no buy, use the stash, finish the UFO's personal challenge.

For quilting, this means that I will only purchase what I need to complete a project.  I will be making a list of all my UFO's (unfinished forgotten objects) that are stuffed folded up neatly on the shelf. I will be feeding the PIGS (projects in grocery sacks) so that they fatten up in to wonderfully completed quilts to go to new homes.  I have an obscene amount of PIGS.  Good thing I love ham so much. I did find a great deal on EQ7, quilt design software, over at the Quilt in a Day site so purchased it...on Thursday, it arrived Friday.  I was in total shock at the speed. I can't wait to load it and start playing with it.  Next week though, I am going to play with my AccuQuilt Go cutter and the new tumbler die I bought.  I purchased fabric today for a purple and grey quilt to made out of the tumblers for a gift for youngest son's girlfriend.  I do suspect however, that in the not to distant future she will become family.  Think, hope anyway, they are planning on waiting until they are both out of college.  They have been together for like five or six years already.  Also, purchased some iron on interfacing to use for the t-shirt quilt I plan to make out of youngest son's t-shirts I have collected.  Actually he collected them, kept them stuffed in his closet, I found them when he moved out.  So, figured if held on to them, I can make them in to some thing he can really hold on to.

Now, the "Stash Diet" as it deals with my newest fascination of counted cross stitch.  For this re-visited hobby, I call it that because years ago (many, many years ago) I enjoyed this particular craft.  But, like so many things in my life it was boxed up, put away, not to be thought of for far too long.  Well, in the process of sorting through boxes in the storage to unpack and place in the sewing room that was no longer needed for a bedroom for mom, I found some UFO's that had not been touched in at least 12 years or more.  I have developed a new determination to finish all unfinished works in my life.  Guess it is a by product of the loss of mom, dealing with all the final disposition of her things and such.  At any rate, there has opened up a new window of interest again after being closed up for far too long.  Getting rid of the musty part of old I guess.

So...as with the quilting, I am going on a diet with this area as well.  Problem is, I haven't really got the huge amount of stash to supply my addiction with the counted cross stitching as I do with my quilting. But, I am in for the game.  I have only one project in the works currently, that will be an ongoing project for some time it would seem.  I stitch very slow.  Don't know why I can create a quilt in a day, two at the most, completely finished, but it takes forever to make all those little x's of thread everywhere.  On the agenda for this new project, it will be a lot of organizing, just like with quilting. I already have planned which project I am starting first.  I am so tired of working on my current project, the nativity.  Once I tasted reality and swallowed the sad fact that I will not be able to finish it for this Christmas, I immediately placed it at the top of my "ongoing finish for 2013" list. 

To "prepare" for my  upcoming stash diet, I have gone on a little spending spree.  Not a lot, but I did buy the thread for my next project, but forgot the cloth.  I will have to remember to get some.  I am thinking that it would be much cheaper to buy some cloth by the yard.  I have a serger and can finish off the cut edges.  Maybe though, I will just have to buy the cloth as I go.  Not sure which would make more sense, money wise, at this point.  Any way, at this time, I am really concentrating on building up my thread stash.  Last week, I bought a thread of each color, sorted it and have it all inventoried.  At the moment however, I think I went a little overboard on bidding on Ebay.  I will only have a problem if I actually win them all.  However, I have budgeted for just such an occasion. At least I will have on hand all I need to work with, supply wise. As with the quilting, as of Jan. 1 there will be no more purchases of thread, charts, kits to just stuff find a place to store away.  I will only use what I have on hand.  Of course, it doesn't count if you have to buy a few threads to replace what you use up, or run out of before finishing the project.  Yep, that's the story...I'm sticking to it.

Oh this is going to be so much fun.  Wonder if I can stitch while on the treadmill, which I will be starting back on Jan. 1 as well. Well, exercise anyway, thinking of getting some hand weights and a ball for scrunches.  Will start simple.  Also need to get back on track with my food as well.

I have decided to re-organize my day a bit and starting on the first of the new year I plan to sew during the day.  Well...as much as I can around Mr. M and his needs that is. Cross stitch when everyone has gone to bed and it needs to be quieter.  By that I mean I won't disturb hubby who goes to bed at 8:30 each night.  I have to fit in menu planning in there somewhere as well. It seems to really run a lot smoother at meal time if I have planned it out a bit.  We eat out way too much, my fault, and since I am the largest instigator of it, I will be hardest to push for home meals.  It is better all around financially to plan out the meals and eat at home, emotionally I don't have to worry what is for dinner, and physically is much healthier for us as well.  Hubby eats out a big meal every day for lunch with his job.  Miss Zebra eats at school each day, she tries to make healthy choices but sometimes that is really hard with what the school offers up.  It makes sense to make the evening meal more nutritious for all of us.

Pulled some more items from mom's storage out today and brought them to the house to go through.  I finally got the furniture I want for the sewing room all in place, just need to clean it back up as every thing was just kind of piled here and there willy nilly to change out the pieces of furniture.

Cross over between these two crafts will be the crazy quilting projects.  They are both quilting and embroidery and they are embellished with all kinds of embroidery stitches and decorative pieces.  I have a box of my mom's clothes that I saved, her more favorite pieces and a sack of my dad's neck ties.  I will cut them up and make a crazy quilt for myself and my brother, just throw size, and then will make smaller pillow or lap size projects for each of the grand kids to have. This project will take a long time I am sure, but that is okay too.  This project will not go on any list, no deadlines, nothing but time to heal and remember.

The other craft that I enjoy, or hobby, but I just hate the word hobby because to me it conjures up time spent doing some project that is of no use to anyone.  When you say you have a craft, it sounds more artsy, more special.  Regardless, I also crochet.  Love the things I create, but like with cross stitch, am totally at a snail's pace with it.  I will never be able to understand how someone can sit there and tell me how relaxing, calming, crochet is.  I can only work so long, by that I mean not long at all, for I become a nervous irritable wreck.  So, because I have a weird sense of need to punish myself, I bought some this new yarn out to make a scarf for my oldest daughter, Mrs. C, the teacher.  You can crochet with it, but it has a net, much like the old fishnet hose, built in to it.  Apparently, it makes really great scarves because the yarn design naturally makes a spiral or ruffle.  I talked to a woman at the store that has used it quite a bit.  She knits though, will never be able to learn that, and she showed me a little of how to do it, but with wanting to crochet it she advised me to check out YouTube for videos on working with the stuff.  Mrs. C has already hinted that she would like one.  She finds things on Pinterest, then lets me know...in not so subtle hints...that I should make it for her.  She has a lot of misplaced confidence in her mother's abilities sometimes.  But hey, makes me try new things...once.  If you haven't looked around that site, you really should, it is amazing.  Make sure you lots of time when you do.

Well, it is late and I have written a book in this post.  Thank you for dropping buy and listening.  I have a year's worth of cleaning to get done tomorrow.  Hubby loves me so much he had to share his little bug with me.  I have been sick for a week or so.  So...nothing has really been done around the house because as you all know, only mom can do it.  And, even if she can't really hold her head up, is sneezing a storm, coughing up a lung, it will all be alright when ever she does get around to it.  Come back and visit soon.  Will be updating later in the week the nativity progress.  I kind of hit a sweet spot with some large areas of the same color to stitch.  Oh my stars, that doing three or nine stitches of a color at a time just kills.  I should just nickname the project Small, because, "you're killing me Smalls).

That being said, I am off to soak and then to bed.  Have a really full day waiting for me tomorrow.  Will see how much I can get done.  Have you finished your Christmas shopping?  I am about a fourth of the way done.  Need some online orders to arrive, then wrapped, and one more shopping trip with hubby and we will be finished.  I am so excited that we are heading to Texas to see family right after Christmas.  I will have to pull some photos off Facebook of Buddy, Mrs. C shelf elf.  If you haven't heard of this craze you really should look it up.  She is so creative in story ideas that I just eagerly anticipate reading each day's post about what he was up to during the night.

Wednesday Wrap-up Workings

I came home Monday night and found that hubby had loaded Office 2007 on my computer. I am so happy to have my Word and Excell back, especially my Office photo manager.  YEAH!  It is so much easier to work with photos now.

Speaking of which, here is how the Nativity is looking.

At least this project is coming a long with out any problems.  As you know it is a UFO that I am determined to finish.  As slow as I stitch I am confident in saying that this will not be finished in time for Christmas.  Maybe by Christmas...2013?  It is fun to work on now, I can actually see some of the figures coming to life.  A wise man kneeling, the manger, an angel, a shepherd looking on.

Also, if you followed any of my postings, you would know that my "house" project was scrapped and am now going to scrap the SW Angel.  There is just way more work to taking out stitches and correcting stitching mistakes than is worth.  While I dearly adore the elderly friend that gave it to me, I have decided to just start from scratch and make a new one.  I will start on her after the holidays are over.  I have a few kits as well that I plan to work on.  I must say, the hands free embroidery stands are working quite wonderfully.  Just need to get the hang of tying off when I end a color.  It is awkward and bothersome to loosen a screw, flip the frame over, end that color...or start one for that matter...then flip it back over to work on.  I did see a neat YouTube video that is a basic how to for counted cross stitching.  It is really quicker stitching, with an in and out in one motion of the needle, however, with all the work I have already done on the piece it is a bit difficult at times to work the needle in and out from the same side.  But...that may be due in part to the fact that the cloth is loaded sideways in the scroll.  The cloth is way more wider than it is tall, so it only fits in a scroll frame sideways.  I am tempted to go back to a hoop frame and then place that in the floor frame.

Last night I made soup for supper.  We are all sick to different degrees.  Hubby has had it the worst, so he wanted to pass it on for our enjoyment.  I have had it, while my throat isn't so sore anymore, I have lost most of my voice, nose is running like crazy and I am so tired.  Taking care of Mr. M is not helping the matter either.  Miss Zebra has so far gotten by with barely any bug effects at all. Anyway, I made Enchilada Meatball Tortellini soup.  OH WAS IT GOOD! I really need to get my but in gear and get back to organizing a menu plan, start posting again on MPM and get this house cleaned up.  I still have stuff in a storage unit from mom.  Speaking of which, I need to make myself sit down and fill out forms for her insurance, social security death benefit, and finish up her personal papers to get ready for her final tax return.  So much to do, that I just don't really want to deal with.  And, especially this time of year, I miss them both so much.  I just get this overwhelming feeling of being an orphan.  Even though I am a grown woman with a mostly grown family of my own.

Now, hubby wants us to go camping and dirt bike riding with a dirt bike club this week end.  I am thinking that none of us are well enough to do this, and I can only think of all the things I need to do to get ready for Christmas.  I really do need to some how organize myself so that I can find time to not only stitch on my counted cross stitch project, but also on my quilting.  In January I will be building three crazy quilt diamond shapes and embellish them with embroidery and such for a swap.  The embellishment will take a little time to be sure, fortunately I sew really fast so building them will only take one evening. We will see what happens I guess.

Thanks for dropping in, come back often.

MPM - 9/10

I have had the most trying and most fun day in a long time.

First off, I am pleased to say that I have met my goal of keeping up with my menu plans.  I want to plan several weeks ahead, but at the moment doing one week at a time is at least forward progress after going so many  months with out doing them.  I will be linking up with MPM once again.

So, I am posting this menu plan for this week:

Sun. - Slow cooker Pork roast, Green beans, homemade pasta with pesto sauce
Mon. - Stuffed peppers, rice, salad (this may change)
Tues. - Garlic Chicken Scampi, homemade pasta, green salad
Wed.  - Egg rolls, fried rice, wonton soup
Thurs. - Brisket, beans, potato salad 
Fri. - Slow cooker scalloped potatoes and ham, pea salad.
Sat. - Left Overs

The beauty of menu planning is that you can be as strict with it or just use it as a tentative guide.  Here, we use it as a tentative plan.  1. I am still getting back in to the groove of menu planning, so things come up that I forgot to plan for.  2. Our routine for the family this time of year is always last minute kind of changes going on.  That's why, for me it just a kind of road map to follow but still has room for sight seeing.  

For example, I had planned out my first menu plan for the week, making up meals that would use up the left overs.  In other words planned left overs.  Only one problem, that little 2 pound pork shoulder roast just didn't have enough meat left over for four more meals.  Also, I used a different recipe tonight, wanted a less spiced up recipe so any left over meat could be used for different recipes.  Didn't want the flavors competing so to speak.  Normally, my family doesn't much care for pork roast so there is lots of left over meat. Not this time, they really liked it.  I have to say, in all honesty, I liked it too.  I had almost given up on cooking pork roast because they just never seemed to come out right.  This recipe is out of my new Fix It and Forget It Big Cookbook that is for slow cookers.  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. The recipe was super simple and has changed my mind about pork roast.

It really was good. Guess I said that already. Don't you just love those slow cooker liners? I won't post the recipe as that would be against copyright laws.

Back to the point, as I said, I had already planned the week's menu, making use of all those left overs.  Realizing there just wasn't that much left over, I had to redo the menu.  The second attempt had like three days of chicken in a row.  That would just never go over in this house.  Also, I realized as I cleaned out the fridge that I had some items that needed to be used sooner rather than later, so menu plan number three was formed. That is what I posted above, that is what I am going with.  Unless I go to the spare fridge tomorrow and find that the peppers have gone bad.  Then I will figure out something else.  My family would love to have beef and potatoes every night of the week, however, I am just not creative enough to pull that off so I try to be sure and not have the same meat two days in a row, vegetables either.  Besides, I dearly love my chicken and potatoes are not diabetic friendly to my body.

Menu planning is a best friend for the budget.  1. You know ahead and can plan for it.  2. No impulse buying because you now have a plan. 3. You can take advantage of sales or great buys you happen on. I am hoping to use menu planning and once a month cooking or bulk cooking to cut my grocery bill.  My goal is to cut it by 1/4 for the next two months, then 1/2 after that.  That is going to be hard because of holiday cooking, but I think I can do it.  I am going to give it my best try at any rate.  I actually have a very well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer so it really should be easy to accomplish.  Of course, there seems to be always something I am finding I am out of that I thought I had.  Am sure there will be small trips to the store a few times.  Hopefully a minimum amount.  If you need some inspiration for your menu planning, head on over to Organizing Junkie where she host Menu Plan Monday, hundreds of creative minds post their menus each Monday to share with all.

This was tonight's dinner.

It was really good and since there was not much left over, I know the family liked it too.  

The beans have a really long name, Pennsylvania Dutch Green Bean Casserole, but when Mom shared the recipe to be published in a cookbook for the Airstream club she called it Marinated Green Beans.  When I see "marinated" I just automatically think of Italian seasonings, oil, like marinade for meat. This recipe is sweet and sour thing with the mix of sugar and vinegar.

Marinated Green Beans

2 cans french cut green beans
1 med. onion, cut in rings (I usually end up cutting in half rings, gives me a flat side to cut the onion easier)
8 strips of bacon (I find that four is fine)
1/2 c. slivered almonds
6 T. sugar
4 T. vinegar

Drain beans, put in casserole dish.  Place separated onion over beans.  Fry bacon strips, save drippings.  Cut bacon strips in halves, lay over onion rings. (I chop my bacon before I cook it, so it is more diced) Add sugar and vinegar to the bacon drippings.  Heat drippings and pour over casserole.  Marinate several hours or overnight. (overnight is the best, but is still flavorful after about 4-6 hours) Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Takes a little prep time, but well worth it.

My other triumph tonight was my home made pasta.

 OH AM I SO GLAD I BOUGHT THIS MACHINE. I admit, there is a huge learning curve with the dough, but I am looking forward to making more.  I was a little nervous about the whole thing after reading some of the reviews of the people that did not like the machine.  I wondered if it truly was the machine, or as one reviewer put it, just a problem with their dough.  I whole heartily believe it is the dough.  My research, and an earlier attempt at making noodles, convinced me that it is very important to use the recipe provided with your machine. The proportions are different for different machines.  At first my dough was a little dry, added some water, then it was a little too wet.  I kept working with it and was able to get it going fairly well.  If the dough is too wet, it won't extrude correctly.  If the dough is too dry, the pasta won't keep it's shape. All in all, I considered it a success.  In fact, I had way too much pasta.  I have some in the freezer and will bag it up, see how that works.  I have some of the dough left over as well which I bagged up and put in the fridge.  I have no idea how that will work, but I hope to do a little more research and see if I can find away to preserve it or store it so I could make a large batch and just pull off what I need for the meal.

I don't know if it is the cat I am babysitting (my youngest son's), allergies, a late summer cold, or a mix of all three but I am sneezing, blowing my nose while trying to catch it from running away and my head feels like it weighs a ton. I am off to soak in the tub with some eucalyptus salts and then doing a little reading before I hit the bed.  Morning routine starts early around here, and then I will get Mister M. too.  Also, I have managed to go through most of my boxes of craft stuff, just have the fabric to stack on shelves.  Hubby finally got my sewing table put together tonight as well.  The diva den, craft studio, is almost back in place and ready to start having some creating going on. Kind of bitter sweet though, found three projects that I was supposed to complete for my mom and didn't.  Now that she is gone, it kind of hurts to come across them knowing that I didn't finish them for her.

Thanks for stopping by, come again soon.

Easter Break

Okay, so it isn't politically correct to call the school break Easter Break, but our area's spring break is always scheduled during Holy Week.  At any rate, we are in the middle of the week long break.  We have taken advantage of the time off for Miss Zebra.  The beach was yesterday, just went for the day.  It was a wonderful day.  Perfect day at the beach in fact.  Hardly any wind, just a breeze...not too cold but not too warm.  Very comfortable and very few people.  Wonderful day to just sit on the beach.  I took my tablet to read, but just crocheted instead...and slept.  I hate to admit it, but I took some allergy medicine the evening before, a different kind than I normally take, and it wiped me out.  I just easily dozed off when I didn't need to be alert for anything. It was really heaven to just zone out and doze in and out with the sound of the ocean waves, birds, and light breeze in the trees surrounding me.

On the way home we stopped at our favorite road side fruit stand.

Have you ever seen such HUGE strawberries?  They are so sweet as well.  I tell you, I cut to up and had a little over a serving size.  This morning, I cut up the largest, added a half a banana the sprinkled a bit of Splenda over it and it was the best breakfast I have had in a very long time.

As for crocheting projects.  The green fleck shawl is now finished.

I think it really turned out great.  It was an easy pattern to follow and even though I found a few things questionable about the pattern, I emailed the designer who was very kind about answering all questions.  In fact, the designer really liked my finished project and requested to be allowed to use the photo of my folded shawl be used as a feature photo for the pattern.

Here is a photo of the pointed portion of the shawl, to show the ruffle detail.

I am currently working on a few squares that need to be finished as soon as possible to get in the mail, then it is back to my WIP , of which I have a few.  Tomorrow we will be leaving to go camp out in the desert and ride the dirt bikes, and me on my quad.  The wind is forecast to be blowing very strong so I am taking my ripple afghan to work on as well.  I really don't want to go, but am however looking forward to some much needed down time. However I can get it.

We will be back for Easter services and I will be cooking up a storm since I won't be here to cook ahead as I usually do.  Knowing that this is how it will happen, I am keeping the menu simple, and down sized compared to the past. Will see how this all turns out.

Thanks for stopping by and come back again.

Friday - Finally!

It is Friday, finally.  That means a week end and a couple of days off coming up.  Today I have Mr. M and daughter J is home sick.  Oldest son C, Mr. M's dad is home sick as well, so must be something going around.  Hubby is also on his Friday off.  I will have to wait and see how this day rolls, I have so much to catch up on around the house this week end.  Most will have to be done on Sat. & Sun. when I don't have Mr. M to play with.

So, on to other things.  After a little over a month, I am finally finished with the UT afghan.

This was the first time I have ever made anything that involved so many color changes.  I kind of like the way it finished out, but then again I do not like the amount of fuzzy ends that pop up ever where from the color changes.  I plan to make another one, using a half double crochet or double crochet stitch instead of the single crochet and am going to use a little different color change method for the longhorn head as well.  Am also thinking that I may start and end each row to have some fringe on the sides.  I think grandson Mr. TK will like it though, he is 8 so I didn't make it as large as the pattern called for.  I hope he likes it any way.

On another crochet note, I was so surprised and flattered when Ravelry sent me a request to feature my photo of the cathedral window pot holder.  You can see it in the previous post and read more about it there.

Hubby fixed my oven.  Yahoo, Yippee, Hurrah.  I have been baking up a storm, casseroles and meat mainly, but I did make some muffins for breakfast yesterday.  I am so thankful to have my oven back.  Funny how something so little can really make your day.

Guess I better get going, I have a few things to take care of while Mr. M is taking a nap.  Never know just how long he will be down.  It is difficult to get an organized type of daily schedule going with him here, but am so wonderfully blessed to be taking care of him.

Thanks for stopping in and please come back again to visit.  Feel free to leave a comment, let's me know some one is reading this. LOL

Monday As Usual

Friday was my birthday.  My 50th birthday. I was having a little trouble...okay, a lot of trouble...with that number.  Thing is, to make it worse I was one two kids short this birthday.  Am use to oldest daughter not being here as she lives in Texas and we don't get to see them much.  However, this is the first year with out youngest son who lives in Riverside now where he attends college.  Now, it wasn't going to well mentally to begin with, but it got a little worse.  Hubby had to have his annual colonoscopy, it was done on Thursday.  Now normally he goes in early in the morning, sleeps a few hours afterwards and is back to normal.  This time...he has been sick as a dog ever since.  It wasn't until Sunday he was actually being able to eat, and keep it down, Friday being the worst of it.  Needless to say, I did not get to go out for my birthday.  It was a really drab day.

On to other things.  I am still don't have an oven, so am winging it as far as the menu plans.  It turned cold today and rainy so I have a nice taco soup simmering in the crock pot.  It smells really good through the whole house and hopefully when hubby gets home today he might can light the stove in the RV and I can bake a pan of cornbread to go with the stew.  If not, we have crackers. LOL  I guess I really should just sit down and plan some menus for the crock pot or stove top.

I am still in hooker mode. Crocheting a little each night.  Lord it takes me along time to crochet a project. I am actually making some head way with the UT afghan.

I am about half way there, maybe a little more. I am learning to make color changes in the middle of rows. Not really liking it though. If there wasn't such a contrast between the two colors I could carry one color along while working the changes.  I did try it and just didn't like the way it looked.  I plan on making another one, with a couple of changes, and may try carrying two yarns on that one.

You can find the UT pattern by Jenny Riddle on Ravelry.  I just love that place.

Now, for a yarn question.

If anyone reads this and knows what the name of the color for this Red Heart yarn is, please...please, please,please...let me know.  This is all I have left of this multicolored yarn and I have lost the wrapper that had the color name on it.  I am not finding a name for it. It is in my Playful Ripples afghan.  I thought it was a color named Mexacali, but it is not.  This partial skein is all I have so if I can't find any more, it will be a small afghan. Which is workable, but the problem is I am kind of falling for the color combo and that means it may be one I end up having to keep for myself. LOL

Thanks for stopping by today, feel free to leave a comment and come back to visit soon.

Tuesday? Thought it was at least Thurs.

This has been a really long few days.  Hubby got home on Friday and I still don't have a working oven. Making it a little hard to prepare the kind of evening meals I would like to.  I am doing very well on my resolution to cook from the pantry.  I will be buying groceries later in the week, shouldn't be a big buy as I don't need much, am hoping it works out that way any way.

On the crochet front, it is positive that the ripple afghan I am working on will only be a large as the multi colored yarn I am using holds out.  I went to the store to try and buy one more skein only to find out two important points.  One, the yarn is not Mexicana and two, that color combo is no longer made.  It really is a shame, wish I knew the color name, beautiful jewel tones colors. At any rate, I have set it aside to work on at the hospital on Thursday while hubby gets his annual colonoscopy.  All the color changes are based on a color and pattern sequence and the color changes all take place at the beginning and ending of the rows.  No counting stitches in other words.

Unlike the new project I am working on.  I found an afghan pattern on Ravlery.com that is perfect for my oldest little grandson, a huge University of Texas fan.  However, since the color changes form the design of a longhorn I am constantly having to count stitches.

Not sure how I am doing, just can't find a way for the orange not to show on the white at places. But so far it is going according to plan.  I have gone through one skein of the orange, the designer that posted the pattern estimated she used three skeins, so guess I am close to being 1/3 of the way to completion. I was further a long but realized that I was two sets of pattern directions behind.  So...played frog with about 10 full rows.  I have however become quite comfortable with changing yarn colors mid row.  At this point, that is really all I am focusing on, learning basics to further my skill level.  Trying to learn something a little new, at least to me, with each project.

Thanks for stopping by and check back to follow my progress.

Staying on Track

I know it has only been a few days, okay so it is Thursday of the first week of my new organized life, but this is actually the longest I have stayed on goal before.  Sad, I know, but true.

Tuesday meal was the chicken meatballs.  We bought these at Costco.  I fully admit that they do not fall under the rules of the "Real Food" challenge, nor did the teriyaki rice mix.  I pulled out the carrots left over from last week and served them as well.  It is extremely hard to get everything hot and served at the same time when it is all cooked in the microwave.  I will be so happy to get my oven back.  This is also not a cheap meal by any means (approx. $14 per box, two meals worth), but hubby bought them after getting a taste sample so I have to use them.

Last night we had pork tenderloin that I cooked in the crock pot.  It was supposed to cook for another hour, but I put a meat thermometer in it and it was done.  Ended up a little overcooked as it was really dry and falling apart.  My crock pot has been going south for a while, the digital timer was messed up so you couldn't tell by looking how much time you put on it.  Had to count it out when I entered the time.  It also cooked really hot on high, and not so hot on low.  I had learned to compensate for the problems for the most part, but last night I had enough.  We went and bought me a new one at Costco (the club membership was my gift from son and his wife) which was a little cheaper than the original one I purchased (several years ago) and came with a little mini crock pot as well.  I got it home, cleaned it and put it on the counter, then realized that it is about a quart and half larger than the old one (and here my family is shrinking) but I guess I can double up on some things for planned left overs.  At any rate, back to the meal, I made mashed potatoes and fried okra with it. Not the sides planned, but since it was unexpectedly just the two of us it was easy and I could control the amount better.  I froze the left over meat to make in to pulled pork sandwiches next month.  The whole meal was $3.30 for everything.

Tonight's recipe is a type of stir fry, so thankfully will be a quick cook and on the stove top.  It has potatoes in in that are cooked in the microwave first.  Tonight's meal will be 100% completely with in the rules of the "real food" challenge.  The unexpected advantage of cooking more from real foods, less processed items, and cooking from scratch is that the amount of trash we have is at least half of what it was last week.

Just another little bit of information.  Since we had fallen in to a rut lately, same old meals over and over, when I planned out my menu plans for the next few weeks I purposely planned all new dishes.  I am wanting something new, something fresh, and a bit more rounded meals for the family.  Not ground beef or chicken every night or around here, tacos and baked chicken at least once every week.  I know that these are family favorites (at least the tacos, burgers, hot dogs) but we really need a little change around here, not to mention that I am including more pork and fish (okay, seafood)

Now, I have to mention something here about a cookbook I bought recently. Well, last year sometime.

I thought this would  be a great resource book, which for the most part I guess it was.  I do however, have to challenge her price analysis of the meals.  There is absolutely NO WAY that I can purchase the ingredients of a dish for as cheap a price as she does.  I realize that she lives in the midwest, but that is just no excuse.  I even emailed her and called her out on it, she wrote back that she did calculate each recipe according to her best sale price.    Which are way lower than my best sale prices.  Here are some examples.

I just bought store brand unsalted butter on sale for 2.98 a package, there are 4 sticks, 8 tablespoons per stick, for 32 tablespoons for a package. That calculates out to .09 per tablespoon.  She calculates .05 per tablespoon.  If I use margarine it would be closer, but still not that low. The main ingredient I debate the price with though is ground beef.  She averages a pound of ground beef for $1.50. The price however is very inconsistent through out the book. One recipe has 1/2 pound ground beef for .75, one recipe has 3/4 pound for .76 and such.  You get the point.  Most of the beef dishes are just not priced accurately.  Now, I totally understand that she was shopping sales, one recipe may have been made with a better sale price than another.  I totally accept that beef prices in the mid west are most likely cheaper than here in California.  I even agree that since the recipes for the book were made and created in 2008 and 2009 that things may have been a bit cheaper.  However, my point is that it is just a bit misleading.  I mean, this is 2012 and groceries just last year pretty much nation wide took a 24% to 28% increase across the board.  But, I can get eggs, cheese, canned goods, milk, pretty close to her prices, even chicken, but I just don't believe that the beef prices are true. There fore I think that she should not keep claiming that the cost of her meals are $5 or less. She has a web/blog site and continually claims the low cost of her recipes.  The site has some great recipes though along with some really creative ideas from readers, as well as links to great coupon and highlights good sales.

That being said, she has some wonderful recipes in the book.  I will be purchasing her second book "$5 Dinner Mom Breakfast and Lunch Cookbook" but will not be anticipating actually making the meals for $5 or under. She does share some great shopping strategies that I can use to get cost as low as possible.

Have you seen "Pioneer Woman" on the Food Network?  Ree Drummond is the host.  She is wonderfully down to earth with her dishes and her stories.  She lives on a working ranch in Oklahoma.  Ree stormed the blog scene with her stories of meeting her husband (she calls him the Marlboro Man - enough said), going from being a big city girl to a country gal, her children, her children's books and her photography.  Read her blog by the same name to learn more about her.  I am so jealous of her kitchen, believe it or not, her husband converted a small house on the ranch into a large kitchen and dining space.  She has three work stations so every one can cook together, 3 stoves, 3 sinks, huge counter top work space.  She is awesome and for the most part uses normal ingredients and simple techniques to cook her meals.  Oh, and did I mention that she beat Bobby Flay in a throw down?

Well, little man is awake...again, so need to jump off of here and tend to him and then grab a bite to eat.  Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment, and come back soon.

Quick Change

It is the fourth down, 90 yards to go, 1 minute left of the clock.  Let the hail mary go.

This Taco Casserole was last night dinner.  Not a touch down, but enough for the first down.

So, this family lives on football.

Now, I am not the best at cooking with out a recipe, more the type of person that needs exact precise directives.  However, I stand behind what I made.  I still have no oven, so had to improvise and adapt.  I am also sure that I did not really make up this recipe all on my own, just not really that creative in the kitchen, but here is what I did.

Taco Casserole (for lack of more creative name)

1 lb. ground beef

1 package of taco seasoning (Walmart brand)

1 can of chopped tomatoes with green chile (store brand - same as Rotel)

1 can of whole kernel corn (fresh & easy brand organic)

1 can black beans (store brand)

1 can black olive wedges (love these, but hard to find)

flour tortillas (I used about 6)

grated cheddar cheese (store brand)

sour cream (store brand)

1.  Brown the ground beef, stir in the taco seasoning to just coat the meat. 

2.  Add the canned vegetables and let simmer.  

3.  Cut the tortillas in to wide strips then square them.  Mine were probably about 2 inch square. Add to simmering mixture and stir.  

4.  Pour in to microwave safe baking dish, sprinkle with cheese. Cook for 30 minutes on power level 5.

All the vegetables are in it, so don't really need to serve anything else with it.  The tortilla squares get soft and chewy, much like a noodle. 

The total cost of this meal was $7.76 and it made enough for two meals.  That actually comes out to $3.88 for the meal or $1.29 per serving.  Ground beef is incredibly high around here and I consider my self lucky to get it on sale for under $4 a pound.  Especially since I only use the more expensive 93% lean, which this meat happened to be 97% that I bought at Costco.   It may have been a little cheaper, I don't have that receipt recorded, but not by much.

This was not exactly what I had planned for the first night of my new menu plan experience, but hey, two major goals were met.  I used the same ingredients (for the most part) as I had planned and everyone ate the evening meal together at the same table and on time. I had planned on making beef empanadas, with a rice dish.  However, both need to bake and while I could have cooked the empanadas in the toaster oven, the rice dish just is not all the same cooked in the microwave.  For some reason, my experience has been that the rice in the microwave gets mushy and starchy.  Now, baked in the oven, that green chile rice dish is out of this world.

Thanks for stopping by, come back soon.  Grand baby just woke up so time to play memaw a while.

Grocery Shopping - Victory & Defeat

I did my big grocery shop yesterday.  Victory is that it is done and all put up.  Defeat is that I spent about twice what I had planned on.  On the up side of that, I am pretty sure that looking over my list I shopped for four weeks instead of two.  I will see how long I can go before going back to the store.  Well, will have to go back for milk and bread, but not much else.  Actually, this is the first time in a really long time, that I have been sitting this well prepared on the meal front.  It feels pretty darn good.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find that when I copied my purchases in to my new spread sheet grocery money tracker that very little of the groceries were processes (or what I considered processed or pre-packaged) items.  Straight forward products for cooking meals (canned goods, baking supplies, meat, produce) and a smaller portion than I thought was for household items (paper goods, cleaning supplies) so that was good thing.

The second defeat was in trying to use coupons and store loyalty cards.  I have seen it done several times, so thought I would give it a try.  You know, on that totally unhonest, bordering illegal, show "Extreme Couponing".  Those women swipe their loyalty card which has preloaded coupons, then hand the clerk a big bale of coupons to bring the total down even further.  This was the first time I have gone online to download coupons to my loyalty card.  I did this at the Von's store.  They had the items on sale, so I thought I would get the added savings of a manufactures coupon.  NO...NOT HAPPENING.  First of all, it seems that the sale price in the circular is with the coupon (had to read the little fine print for that info) so am wondering why bother to pick the offers I want to go on the card.  I really think that this is just a bit misleading to the public.  At any rate, to boil the whole episode down in a nutshell (which included a conversation with the manager) if you have loaded coupons on to your card (which you don't have to do because just using the card gives you the discounted price) you cannot use paper coupons.  So in other words, I can't use any other coupons on items that are on sale that week.  He explained that I couldn't get double savings, the manufacturer only reimbursed the store one time, so I could use either the store card, or the printed coupons.  Also he explained that the companies were opting to go with the online loading to the card to reduce their cost of printing thousands of coupons that aren't used. (Guess he hasn't seen "Extreme Couponers" where they dumpster dive for those unused coupons) At any rate, he further explained that it works well for all, the customer gets a little savings, the store isn't out any money, and it forces, I mean urges, the customer to use their store.  I politely explained that I understand the policy, but that the cashier kept my paper coupons, so had now lost them for a future purchase.  He came back with that I still had the card savings.  To which I replied that I could use the printed coupons at other stores.

So, lesson learned.  Once again, couponing just doesn't work in real life the way it is set up for the show. No big surprise their.  And, will not be using the online card system any more.  If I can get the same savings by just running the card, why bother.  Besides, Von's is so much more expensive than the other grocery stores that I will just go back to shopping only the loss leaders there.

Now, here is the other little defeat.  I was making dinner last night, which was really good.  I cooked a whole chicken in the crockpot, then heated up left over fried okra and potatoes augratin.  Meal cost next to nothing and have just enough chicken left to repurpose in another dish, plus about 2 quarts of wonderful tasting broth. I pulled out a can of crescent rolls and started preheating my oven while I got the rolls ready on a pan.  Went to put them in the oven, it was still heating.  Thought I must be moving faster than normal so gave it a little more time.  I then opened the oven to see how warm it was, ice cold.  My oven has quit.  So...here I have all these menu plans, groceries bought just for those dishes, and no oven.  I know, I can cook with the crock pot, the microwave, a toaster oven, and of course all the burners are working.  But I use that oven a lot.  Hubby is pretty sure he can fix it today to work until we can get the part (about $70) so am keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, got to go get the crew up for church.  Thanks for stopping by and come again soon.

Exciting Friday!

Well, exciting for me.  I am so happy to say that I have met most of my goals for my list of tasks to complete before Monday.  You see, our schedule around here has been so crazy that I decided that Jan. 9 would be the actual start of my new year.

I have been battling some kind of wicked bugs (yes plural) the past few weeks.  Kind of like having a head cold, flu and stomach bug all in one.  It has made me extremely worn down, all the holiday cooking didn't help with my energy level either.  But, to give an update on what all is happening, here we go.

I cleaned out and defrosted my freezer just before Christmas and created an inventory list showing what I have in there.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I actually do have and the variety as well.  I caught a sale, not a great "stock up while you can" price, but better than normal so I bought a few chicken breast for the freezer.  Since I already had a few in the freezer (along with a whole chicken, several packages of parts and some ground turkey) I decided to cook up some of the breast in the crock pot, packaging them for the freezer to have meat already cooked for the recipes that call for cooked chicken.  I found a package of marinade for Lula Chicken so mixed it up and put a couple of the breast in a resealable bag with the marinade. In order to keep up with my resolution to stay organized, I then put that inside another bag and placed the empty envelope between the two bags so I know what it is marinaded with.  Yes, I know I am genius, no one on earth has ever thought of this. (hope you see the sarcasm intended.  Also, in the freezer, are the pies and cheesecakes that were not even touched from the holiday meals.

Now, I know what I have.  Oh, and when I inventoried, I noted what each shelf holds so I can find it quicker.

As I posted earlier, I also cleaned out my pantry.

From this over stuffed chaotic mess. Which was actually worse than this, just too embarrassed to show the actual before shot.

To this. I created an inventory of every product in there and how many.  Getting ready for that first bill of groceries in 2012.  The one which will be for normal food, no holiday meals, no camping trips, just every day staples.  Actually I am kind of giddy to have it all organized and find I have so much.  Funny how it looks less when it is organized.

So, the next step was to create some menu plans. Out came the recipe file, and I do mean file.

See, I did say file.  Being a little over enthusiastic when I first start a plan, and having fun with my label maker, I set up categories (bread, beef, you get the picture) breaking up some of them like desserts by type.  These are hanging files by the way and hold recipes I printed out from various web sites, mail groups, magazine pages and such.  Any way, each category holds a "keeper" folder inside that file for the recipes I try that go over big with the family.  Some I want to try sooner than later are put in the "Try Soon" file.

I have written out a calendar page listing what is planned for the week, along with the recipes (in order).  Now, as I posted earlier, my first attempt was not planned well.  Too much chicken, not enough beef.  Also, I  didn't pay enough attention to the ingredients, amount of prep time or cooking techniques so there were an awful lot of recipes that would not make it around here.  So, I scraped the whole plan and started over.  Over all, the second, more thought through, menu plans were much better.  I did go back and tweak them a little when I noticed that I was having three days of Mexican flavors in a row or three days of pasta.  Which by the way, pasta does not go over well in this house.  Makes it kind of hard to be cheap when they don't like pasta or rice, but I throw it in anyway.  Back on topic, before I knew it, I had a full 8 weeks of menu plans written out, not even making a dent in my recipe file.  The next step was to write out a shopping list for the first two weeks.  I then compared it to the inventories of what I have on hand and only have a very small shopping list. Which is great because there are a lot of household items I am out of.  I will be posting my menu plans each Monday linking up with I'm An Organizing Junkie's blog for Meal Plan Monday. Each Monday hundreds of bloggers link up with her site posting their menu plan for the week.  It is quite fascinating to see what other people are having around the world.  I will also post links to anything menu related I find out there.

In keeping with this organizational goal, I will be creating an budget spread sheet so I can see where the money disappears to.  Some things of course I just don't have any power to control the cost (mortgage, car loan, insurance, utilities) for the most part.  Sure I can do little things to make sure that I am using electricity in a wise manner, shop around for the cheapest insurance, make the gas last longer, but I do have the powder to reduce the amount we spend on groceries, eating out, entertainment and such.  I had been keeping a price book (listing the cost of various products for which stores) but the prices change from week to week (even day to day at some stores) so gave that up.  My new approach is to create a spread sheet that will show exactly where the grocery budget goes.  What part is actually food because I think that while the majority of the spending is for food, I want to know exactly how much of my budget is for actual food and how much is paper goods, cleaning product, personal items or pet related.  I want all my facts in order when I discuss the money with hubby.  You see, I have a budget for each pay period for groceries and more and more of it is going for non-groceries (school lunches, gas and such).

I have joined the Pantry Challenge over at Jessica's blog Good Cheap Eats which is great site. We aren't going to starve, or just eat beans and bologna, but I am going to use up what I have already bought first.  My mother always accuses me of having enough food to feed an army on hand, so it should feed us three well.  This plan should also help me to be able to take advantage of the weekly specials and loss leaders better.

To help with my resolve (notice I didn't say resolution) for healthier eating, I am also doing a real food challenge.

You can read more at the Real Food site. Going strictly by Lisa's definitions of "real food" may be a little extreme for this family, but I hope to ease us in to it.  To help us get started there are mini challenges at the site, I am starting the 10-Day challenge on Monday.  Basically it cuts out the majority of all processed foods or products having you used whole foods for the meal.  I am a bit lazy in the kitchen at times, using my busy schedule with the grand baby as an excuse for not being able to put a proper or decent evening meal on the table.  I also use it as an excuse to run out and get fast food from my lunch.  I am actually going to experiment and each time I really (just die if I can't) want to go drive thru, am going to put the amount I would have spent in a jar for savings.  Am also going to jar up all my coupon savings and any cash left in the budget each time as well.  I am hoping to have saved enough this month to get at least half the amount I need for a new bed for my daughter Miss Zebra.  That is a whole other story for another time.

It is late, so I am headed to a warm bath and my bed.  Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment. Come back again soon.

Cooking

So...I have been cooking all day and feel as if I have nothing accomplished.  I was only able to get about half of what was planned actually cooked.  I was lazy and waited on dish washer to clean dishes.  Of course, I was gone about an hour trying to finish up last minute Christmas gifts.  I got completely put out with the crowds, so decided to just get up early...like 6 am...and run to Walmart to finish up a couple of things.  For the most part I am done, just need to wrap up my daughter's gifts.  However, I did get some dishes made ahead of time for Sunday's Christmas dinner.  The dressing is made (including a small pan of no sage for mom), a batch of Jubilee Jumbles cookies (Christmas tradition around here), and a pumpkin roll (my first ever).  Also cooked a lasagna for the meal tonight and am now waiting for a batch of chicken wings to cool down so I can box them up for mom.  All of this while trying to keep my wounded thumb out of water or contaminants.  I was slicing potatoes the other night and some how lost a chunk of my thumb.  It burns like crazy when it gets wet, throbs like a heavy metal drum when I touch it against something.  So, not real impressed with my final offerings though, while they are still completely edible are just not really up to my personal standards.  The cookies - the recipe calls for evaporated milk or sour cream.  Now, for more years than I care to count, the cookies have always been made with sour cream.  I know this, even had the sour cream sitting out.  I of course went right ahead and made them using the evaporated milk.  The glaze on the cookie is a browned butter glaze (which is misleading because the butter is not browned or turns brown, just melted until it just gets a dark golden color) which the past two years when I made the glaze I burned the butter in the first batch having to start over.  True burnt butter does not have an appealing taste at all.  Knowing this, I had this wonderful idea to just melt the butter in the microwave instead of using a sauce pan.  It tasted okay, but did not thicken as much as when using the sauce pan method.  Even though my youngest son G is still sneaking them (they are his favorite) which proves that they do taste good, am sure I will be making another batch tomorrow.  Will also be making another pumpkin roll, using a different recipe, as I do not like my first attempt.  I will say it was much easier than I had anticipated, so that first has at least gotten me past that "trying something new block".  I had made some cream cheese icing for my youngest daughter J's birthday cupcakes, had a whole bunch left over, so had saved it to use for the filling.  While it was still tasted good, the end result was just not what I was looking for.

On the list for tomorrow:  pumpkin pies, buttermilk pies, cheesecakes, fruit salad, deviled eggs, all for Sunday dinner.  I just found out that I will be having a couple of extra boys over for the meal.  They are my son's friends and they have no family here so they are coming to eat with us.  One of which cannot eat pork, and of course we are having ham, so need to figure out something for him.  I am going to be totally exhausted for sure.

Speaking of crowds, if we are living in a recession the shopping around here just does not reflect it.  People were packed in there buying high dollar items.

What is more expensive is food.  I read somewhere that the department of agriculture reported a 28% increase in food items.  Personally, I believe it is a larger increase, but that's is just the opinion of this mom who even though we are down the number of people to feed, the cost to feed us is up.  Way up.  For just the basics.  It is just a struggle to keep the budget and yet feed us healthy tasty meals.  In an attempt to get healthier, trim hubby and I, trim the cost of food, I am working on spending the holidays on menu planning. I have been  printing off a huge stack of new recipes to try. Hubby has a ski trip planned for us just after New Year's.  I don't much care for skiing, will probably only ski half days, so will be taking a couple of projects to work on.  Told him I was taking my big old file tote and was going to work on my recipe files and create some menu plans while they play in the cold snow.  I will be sitting warm with my sugar-free hot cocoa. I know from experience that menu planning does save a significant amount of money, just takes a little planning time.  Along with that will be the healthy aspect I mentioned, am going to work on less processed foods and more whole food dishes.

Now, I am about as cheap as they come when it deals with spending, but I must say that a new show on TLC called Extreme Cheapskates is really going to be borderline ridiculous.  It is a spin off from the show Extreme Couponers.  The preview mentions one cheapskate that makes their own washable toilet wipes.  I remember when the Tightwad Gazette was the going thing and thinking how my family would react if I, as the book suggest, were to take all the rolls of toilet paper and separate the layers then re-rolling to make two single ply rolls out of one double ply roll.  Or especially if I were to go to the feed store to buy bulk oats to make oatmeal every morning.  I can at least see how that would work, but washable toilet wipes?  No way.  That is right up there with cloth feminine pads.  I didn't use cloth diapers because of the pooh aspect, would never use the cloth pads because of the trouble those would be.  No, I am sure there are many more areas I can cut the spending down with resorting to those type of over the top savings strategy.

I am off to see if the wings are cooled off now, so am shutting down the computer.  Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment.