Frugal Friday #2

I feel like I am running behind today. I am working on a project that is taking up quite a bit of time. Thankfully I am in the finishing stages. Anyway, here we go. I cashed in my Walmart Savings Catcher money to do some shopping.

Everything I bought on my shopping trip this week was sale items. I didn't get a picture, but I was able to get a few things to stock the pantry. 

After baking dinner the oven was opened to release the heat back into the house. Thus keeping the heat from cutting on just a little longer. Use caution when doing this. You know your children and if this would be a safety concern. 

My ride has spent lots of time here. I am still running on a tank of gas that was put in almost two weeks ago.

We had a few not so frugal things this week also. Like take out picked up on Chucks' way home from work on a night I had a terrible headache. We both regretted it and agreed that next time he would just come home and whip up some sandwiches or Hamburger Helper. I also made a splurge purchase and bought a Valentine type shirt for Megan while at the store. Yes, it is cute, but certainly not a need. Live and learn, right?

So there you go. I hope this encourages you to do things to save money. The old adage that every penny counts seems to apply more and more as I see prices of just about everything increase. I find it ecouraging to hear about other frugal adventures.

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Letting Go

I have had this muffin pan for years. Can you tell that it has been loved and well used?

I can tell you that it ceratinly is! I thought about using a SOS pad on it, but I am not sure it would really help. For one thing it has/had ;) a non stick finish and I wondered if it would start to flake. Plus baked on baking spray is one tough thing to remove after it has been baked on repeatedly. 

I have new pans. Two to be exact. They were gifted to me at Christmas from my mom.

I will be honest and admit I debated about letting this go. I know... yuck! 

Why is it when we know something is no longer good for us or meets our needs is it so hard to let it go? Trust me when I say this applies to much more in my life then a muffin pan! I can feel my heart changing this year. As this is happening I feel the need to let some things go. Not an easy thing to do, but I can see that it is neccessary if my heart is to truly change.

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Joy in the Ordinary

Look around, really look around and you will find joy... joy in the everyday... joy in the ordinary things.

Date night. Megan was in bed, candles were lit, I baked cookies and we settled in to watch a movie. We really enjoyed War Room and it was nice to take time to turn off the electronics, and snuggle together. We stayed up way too late after the movie talking. It was super nice.

There was no school on Monday so Megan made herself a cozy are where she played, rested  and watched some YouTube shows.

I looked out the window and saw a bunch of birds resting in the neighbors tree. Is this a sign that the birds are moving back in? I know that it is to soon for thoughts of spring, but a girl can hope!

 I surprised Megan with a breakfast tray that I served in the living room.

 When she first saw it her smile was priceless!

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Keeping Home with Gratitude

When you are home every day it would be easy to lose sight of all the wonderful things that have blessed you. Take my counter top for example.

 The glue came loose in one area and the loose area caught on something and broke. I could easily grumble about this. It has been on the list of things to take care of for some time.

It doesn't bother me in the least. Each time I wipe the counters or walk out to the garage and notice this I am grateful.

Grateful that I no longer have the blue counters under these.

Grateful that I counter space.

Grateful that I have a handy husband that will eventually fix this.

Sure there are those that live in magazine perfect homes but for most of us we live in an imperfect place. Now I am not saying there aren't days that I don't dream for that perfect place. After all I am human! Dreams are great, but if you let them become wants and must haves then you are setting yourself up for discontent.

In reality, I am grateful for a home full of family, love and life. Sometimes life gets messy and counters break. That is okay because things happen when you actually live in your home.

Instead of picking things apart and grumbling about it I am choosing to show gratitude!

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Frugal Friday #1

When I go to the grocery store I always look in the clearance meat section. I found some reduced pork chops and was able to put three meals worth into the freezer. This was a great week for me as I also found some reduced ground beef another day. 

I stayed home as often as possible this week. I drove carpool each day (we live close to Megans' school), went out with my parents one day (my dad drove), went to Bible study on Wednesday evening and took the van for an oil change.  I searched for a coupon before the van went in.  I saved $15 off the regular price. As of this morning the gas tank was almost full. Yes! (Generally, Chuck fills the gas tank in the van on the way home from church on Sunday.)

I knew that we were not going to eat all of the leftovers so I pulled them out to put into the freezer. 

I had leftover roast that I cut up that will show up on the menu next week as hot beef sandwiches. There were a bit of rice and chicken stew left. I placed those into container and will pull them out of the freezer for a quick lunch for myself. I also divided up the rest of the spaghetti sauce I made on Sunday and now have two meals worth in the freezer. 

While out with my parents we stopped by the store. I needed potatoes and they were $4.99 for 10 lbs. I decided to pass and then Mom mentioned that they were on special for $1.99 at another store. Dad graciously took us there to get potatoes. 

Chuck took a look at the carpet cleaner and was able to get it working! He spent about five minutes on it and said it was something minor. I am thankful for a man that is willing to care for our things. 

So there you go. I hope this encourages you to do things to save money. The old adage that every penny counts seems to apply more and more as I see prices of just about everything increase. I find it ecouraging to hear about other frugal adventures. 

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Homemade Noodles

Oh, my friends, if you haven't tried to do this then you must! Super, super easy. Let me share with you how easy it is.

The recipe:

2 eggs, beaten
1 t salt
4 T milk

Mixed together.

4 cups sifted flour
1 t baking powder

Mixed together.

Add the wet into the dry and mix until it forms a ball.

Making dough into noodles:

Divide the dough into 4 sections. Dust with flour and roll out each section. Roll, roll and roll some more. Then you are ready to cut noodles.

Several years ago I was gifted an attachment for my Kitchen Aid that makes a variety of cuts for noodles.

This gadet is fun, but not neccessary. Honesty, it is pricey and this cheap, um, I mean frugal girl would never spend that amount of money on it.

So, if you don't have one of these all you need is a pizza cutter.

You cut the noodles any way you want. I found that when I was hand cutting my noodles they were much wider then the ones I put through the noodle cutter. Either way they are both tasty.

Generally I make my noodles in the morning and then lay them out on a dish towel and cover with a dish towel to dry a little bit. You don't have to do this, but I find that it helps dinner time to not be so frantic if I do a thing or two before hand. Drop into boiling water and cook for about 10 minutes. I have used these to make beef & noodles and chicken & noodles.

If you end up with more noodles then you need, No problem! You can put them into a freezer bag and then added them frozen to your next dish.

My next thing is to use the dough to make ravioli. I will you know how that works out if and when I tackle that. My advice for cooking for scratch is to just get in the kitchen and try. I have had a few disastered, but most of the time my family is very happy. Megan has already asked when we will be making noodles again!

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Working Wednesday

When you wake up in the morning to a neat and tidy kitchen and then see your living room looking like this. Sigh. 

Then you know what must be done. I grabbed the cleaning supplies, turned on last weeks sermon that we missed and got busy!

I picked up, dusted, fluffed and vacuumed. My carpet needs a good clean so I dug this out. 

Unfortunately I could not get it to work. It was not releasing any of the cleaning solution. Ugh! I will ask Chuck to take a look at it and get back to it another day.  Oh well, at least I tried. 

So much bettter!

I even made a list of some things that I need/want to do in this room. 

Now that I have finished this I will move on to finishing some laundry and tidy the rest of my home. That is what I am working on today. 

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

Joy in the Ordinary

Look around, really look around and you will find joy... joy in the everyday... joy in the ordinary things.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What a wonderful week we had! We enjoyed a big family dinner to celebrate my sister-in-law (back left in picture in the blue scarf) flying in from Hawaii. Her boyfriend, who is Hawaiian, flew in with her. He has never seen snow and came just in time for what the news is calling an artic blast!

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!

An Afternoon Well Spent

Sunday we oversleep. Well, maybe I should say I oversleep. I woke up well after nine and couldn't believe it. I walked into the kitchen and Chuck was unloading the dishwasher. When I asked why he didn't wake me up he said he thought I needed the sleep. I had gone to bed with a bad headache so I probabley did. He is a sweet man and I am thankful for him. 

There would be no church for us as we wouldn't have time to shower, eat and make it on time. We took our time getting ready and then headed out for a quick trip to Sams. There was some reduced for quick sale meat so we stocked up. We purchased two packages of ground beef and a package of strip steaks. 

Once home I spent the afternoon taking care of things in the kitchen. After a lunch of homemade pizza I got busy. I had some bread I had been saving and knew I would need bread crumbs so that was first on my list.

Then Chuck helped me to wrap the meat. 

I ended up with 14 packages of ground beef, four strip steaks, three hamburger patties and a meatloaf for the freezer. I will share that I ended up with so many packages of hamburger because I only use 1/2 lb at a time. It is a way to stretch the budget and Chuck doesn't notice the reduced amount of meat. The strip streaks are a treat as we don't buy many because they are expensive. If I don't need leftovers for Chuck to take for lunch each steak should feed all three of us. 

I used some of the ground beef to make meatballs. Part of this double batch of spaghetti sauce will be for dinner one night and then the rest will go in the freezer. We should get three meals from this. 

I also made a batch of bread dough. I made rolls for dinner and then froze the rest. 

Now I can pull them out to thaw and rise and have fresh rolls in a jiffy! I know they don't look pretty, but I hope they will look better as I practice more. 

As this was going on dinner was cooking away in the oven. I feel like it was a few hours well spent!

May your day be filled with joy and contentment!