Josh & Anna Duggar

I've been a long time fan of the Duggar's show. Growing up in a large family (although not large at all compared to the Duggars) was a delightful experience and I love watching other large families. Well, okay, this large family. There are some large family shows that just about put me in tears.

For those of you that are fans of the show and like to keep up on their latest adventures, Josh and Anna have updated their website with photos of their daughter, their first year of marriage, the wedding and some other family photos. I had a ball going through all of these. You can see them all here.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday

Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells, Garden Salad, Garlic Toast

Tuesday

Beef, Bean and Cheese Enchilada's topped with tomatoes, salsa, lettuce, onion and sour cream

Wednesday

Smoked Sausage, Homemade mac & cheese, Beets

Thursday

Broiled Lemon, Dill Walleye, Sweet Potato Fries, Broccoli

Friday

Homemade Pizza

Glorious Fall Weekend and Then Some Sickness

This weekend might be our last glorious fall weekend. It was sunny and unseasonably warm -- in the low 60's both days -- just perfect for some outdoor enjoyment. My hubby took his canoe and went fishing. I felt like I was coming down with something so I stayed home. Sure enough, I awoke with a sore throat Sunday morning.

It's Tuesday and I still feel crummy. Things might improve if I could just take my head and neck off my shoulders and put on a new one. The voicemail box for the receptionist at my doctor's office is full. Hmm... that's not a good sign.

In other exciting news I washed my watch. My non-waterproof watch. After getting confirmation from a watch doctor that it would cost more to fix than the watch cost, I ended up tossing into the bathroom vanity door anyway. Why do I do stuff like that? Am I hoping for a miracle healing? Yes, a miracle healing for every broken thing I've stowed away over the years because I can't bear to part with it. Perhaps I do need a new head.

Since there is not a single show worth watching on daytame satellite tv (and we've already watched all the Beverly Hillbillies and Leave it to Beaver we've got) I've been doing other exciting things the past couple of days. Like:

• Clipping coupons and organizing my coupon box

• Shredding old paperwork

• Organizing/Purging all 3 million of my shopper's cards, gift cards, old medical cards, drivers licenses, voter registartion cards, etc.

• Making a list of all the things that I don't do or give enough attention to in and around my life, and house that drives me nuts (like the watch) that would make me feel more peaceful if I did. I'm afraid once this list is done, I'll stick it in a drawer with all the other junk and somebody will get a good laugh when I die. Poor Trixie -- all she ever wanted was to get out from under her clutter; she had to die to get away from it. The file room in Heaven is probably only separated from hell by a milimeter.

• Cuddling up with my fat, lazy beagle. When you're sick, there's nothing better than a beagle that's so lazy he has his own wallow mark in the couch.

• Organizing my digital photos-- this has been fun. I love to look through photos.

Well, I'm off to have a cup of tea and take a nap.

Home for the (Stress Free) Holidays

The holiday season brings numerous occasions for us to gather with friends and family to share fellowship and a meal or some delicious homemade treats. By the 3rd invitation, finding time to make yet another potluck dish or treat for work feels pretty overwhelming!

I love getting together with friends and family to share a bite to eat and all the festivities of the holidays. And, as much as I love to cook and bake, it can be a bit much at times to make our regular meals and foods for special events. After all, I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen!

One of the ways I make the holiday season a little less stressful is to pick one or two favorite dishes the freeze well to bring to get togethers. I then make up a big batch all at once and pop them in the freezer and take them out as needed.

One of my tried and true freezer recipes is Carrot Cake. Carrot Cake mixes up easily, thaws and serves beautifully. This weekend I made up 4 carrot cakes for the freezer. These 4 should* last me through the season. I'm a little nervous though, my husband saw me frosting them and was eyeing them pretty closely. I might get up one morning and find one half eaten in the fridge.

Here's my recipe for Fabulous Homemade Carrot Cake

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups shredded carrot

15 oz can crushed pineapple (well drained)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Icing

1 8oz pkg cream cheese

1 lb powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Enough milk to make spreadable

Cake Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9X13 pan. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and cinnamon. In a large bowl combine sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs; beat well. Stir in flour mixture; mix well. Stir in carrots, pineapple raisins and nuts. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Cool completely, frost and freeze (or eat).

Icing Instructions:

Soften cream cheese. Beat in vanilla and 2 Tbsp milk. Add powdered sugar. Mix and add in just enough milk to make the icing spreadable as you are mixing.

This post is linked to Tempt my tummy Tuesday and WFMW.

The Beauty of Frugal Grocery Shopping

I normally grocery shop once a week with a budget of $50 for the two of us for each week. I make this money stretch pretty far by mostly picking up the sale items and combining the sale price with coupons when possible. I then use these sale items to keep our pantry and freezer well stocked with the ingredients that we use most often in cooking. With the well stocked pantry and freezer, I can easily whip up a number of our favorite meals without a trip to the store.

Because the last couple of weeks grocery sales haven't been very good I only spent $15 of our grocery money last week for fresh items like milk and produce. This week I estimate spending around $20. That leaves me with me with $65 extra dollars to take advantage of the good specials when they finally do come along. In our area it's pretty rare to go two weeks without many good deals. Maybe the stores are saving them all up for closer to Thanksgiving?

We are not hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, but I still plan to buy a turkey at the deep discount Thanksgiving prices and prepare it for us to get a couple of good meals and all those yummy leftovers. I'll also use the "extra" grocery money to re-stock some of our canned goods, frozen vegetables and to buy some ground beef and chicken to add to our freezer stores.

How do you prefer to do your grocery shopping? Once a week, every two weeks -- once a month?


Sign up here, for Afullcup.com to find out about the hottest grocery deals and coupons. This is how I find out about some of the better printable coupons and weekly deals.





For more frugal tips, visit Lifeasmom, the home of Frugal Fridays.

Getting Ready to Host Company

The holidays are officially upon us. I really enjoy the holiday season and look forward to hosting a couple of get togethers as well as going to a few hosted by friends and family.

Hosting a get together, especially if you are expecting a large number of people isn't a piece of cake, but there are a few things you can do to keep yourself from getting all stressed out.

Have a plan and work your plan.

As soon as I know I'm having a group come for a get together the first thing I do is plan a menu of tried and true favorite dishes. Once in a while I'll sneak in a tasty new dish after I've given it a trial run and it passed with flying colours. At this time, I'll make note of the amout of food to prepare, what, if anything guests are planning to bring and what serving dishes to use.

Based on this information I make a list of all the ingredients I'll need to shop for in the upcoming weeks. This way I can take advantage of sales and work the expense into my weekly grocery budget instead of going on one big shopping trip and buying half the store. I used to work at a grocery store and the days leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas were the major money makers. You would be surprised at how many people over buy in preparation for a big meal.

Clean the house early.


If your house is filled with cute little urchins that can make a mess of a house in 10 seconds flat, then this advice is not for you. What works for me is to get the house all cleaned up the day before the meal so that way there's no cleaning on the big cooking day. It's a life saver for me! That way on the biggest cooking day of the year for me I only have to focus on cooking. Well, that and maybe setting the table.

During my cleaning time, I also check to make sure I've got plenty of paper products on hand (think tp and kleenex for the bathroom), paper towels, and napkins. I also make sure that I've got plenty of clean guest towels, kitchen towels and dish clothes handy. I don't want to be bogged down doing laundry or stocking the bathroom on a big cooking day.

Plan your clothing.

I like to have whatever we want to wear all ready and laid out ahead of time. That way we can slip into it just before the guests arrive and not risk getting our nice dressy up clothes all messy. I also leave an apron on until just before we sit down to eat. It's always been my good fortune to spill gravy or something on myself just as I'm finishing the last bit of cooking.

Enjoy!

The most important step -- sit down, relax and enjoy your family and the day. This is what you've worked so hard for!

You can sign up here to get a terrific Thanksgiving Recipes cookbook with lots of old and new favorites. Need some coupons to make your holiday dinner cost less? Go here.

Help for Simplifying Your Life

George and I enjoy the simple life -- it is just so much less stressful! Think about it, should every day or most of our days be filled with stress? What kind of a life is that?

Since we got married, we have been working toward simplifying our lives so that we have more time to enjoy really important things in life -- like God, spending time with family, serving others, etc.

Because I'm not an expert by any stretch of the word on this simple living stuff, I'm always willing to hear what someone else is doing to simplify their life. The same life simplifying activities don't always work the same for everyone -- we have to pick and choose what's best for our own situations. But, it's amazing to the how many creative ideas are out there!

Those of you that circulate much in the frugal blog-o-sphere may have seen that blogger, author and simple living expert, Leo Babauta, is giving away free downloads of his ebook, Thriving on Less

I printed this ebook out yesterday and have read the entire thing. It's an inspirational quick read at 27 pages. I really enjoyed it and thought you might too.

Leo says "after simplifying your life, you will realize that a life full of the things you love and value does not cost a lot of money at all."

That's the truth isn't it?

Here are some of Leo's tips that I enjoyed the most:

* Make people a priority.

Leo provides some great examples of how spending time with the people we enjoy does not have to cost money. I remember a few weeks ago when my sister came over to pick up our old kitchen table (that actually used to be hers years ago:) we sat down together for a cup of tea. We were both giddy with excitement at the possibility of spending an uninterrupted hour just visiting. We seldom get a chance to do that and it made our whole week to be able to just enjoy each other for 1 hour.

* Live in the moment.

You can spot people that live in the moment a mile away. I envy people that find living in the moment easy to do. It's always been somewhat a struggle for me. However, my mother has always lived in the moment. Very seldom have I seen her worry about all the stuff that she didn't get done the day before or feel overwhelmed by what needs to be done tomorrow.

As most of you know, my stepfather recently passed away. It's been a tough couple of months and I've been very worried about my Mom. I went to visit Mom a couple of weeks ago. When I arrived she was busy working in the flower beds to plant spring bulbs. The wind was whipping her hair this way and that as she held the shovel and smiled at me. She looked so youthful, so vibrant and so strong. I knew at that very moment, that somehow, some way, she would be okay. She was living in the moment; I could see it in her face. She wasn't thinking about anything else in the world except her flowers.

When we are not burdened with the thoughts of what will tomorrow bring? How will I manage we are free to enjoy today.

* Adopt a minimalist wardrobe.

How many times have you changed your outfit several times before finding the right thing? Do you have a closet full (and then some) of clothes but feel as if you don't have "a thing to wear"? Have you spent a ton of money taking advantage of all those "too good to pass up" sales, but only wear the same few outfits each week?

Personally, this kind of stuff drives me nut, nuts and double nuts. I want to run screaming from my closet and have someone force me to get rid of all the stuff I don't wear. I hate seeing those clothes set there day after day and yet feeling like I just can't get rid of them.

I've found that I'm happiest with my clothing situation when I have a small selection of clothes that I love, fit me well and are well made. Sure they cost more, but I'm also not buying a bunch of junk that I don't were. No clutter in the closet and no clutter in my soul.

Go here to download your free copy of Thriving on Less.

Now, just for fun...

If you could only pick one thing to simplify in your life. What would it be?

Menu Plan Monday

This week was rather slim pickings on grocery store deals in our area, which means I spent $15 on milk, a roast that was on a good sale and fresh produce. This could be one of those good news and bad news situations, but when you keep a well stocked pantry and freezer it's good news and then more good news.

Because we've got the makings for several of our favorite meals ready at hand we will be eating on the cheap this week, with no difference in the quality of our meals. The other good news is now I've got $35 extra dollars to take advantage of the best deals. It's getting to be holiday time and this is when most stores run some fantastic bargains on staples and baking supplies.

Here's what we're eating this week:

Monday

Roast Beef, Potatoes, Beets, Garden Salad

Tuesday

Tuna Noodle Casserole, Broccoli

Wednesday

Reubens, 3 Bean Salad

Thursday

Broiled Fish with Lemon & Dill, Sweet Potato Fries,

Friday

Chicken Fajita Pizza

The Missouri Ruralist Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder

I've long been a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and have been itching to read the columns she wrote for the Missouri Ruralist, before writing the Little House series. I've searched several times on the net for these columns but have only had the luck of finding one or two. Today I came across a link for every column Laura wrote for the Missouri Ruralist. How delightful!

All of these columns are in the public domain, so I am reprinting one of Laura's column's here for your enjoyment.

The Farm Home

By Mrs. A.J. Wilder, Rocky Ridge Farm

The Man of the Place and I were sitting cozily by the fire. The evening lamp was lighted and the day’s papers and the late magazines were scattered over the table. But tho we each held in our hands our favorite publication, we were not reading. We were grumbling about the work we had to do and saying all the things usually said at such times.

“People used to have time to live and enjoy themselves, but there is no time any more for anything but work, work, work.”

Oh, we threshed it all over as everyone does when they get that kind of a grouch and then we sat in silence. I was wishing I had lived in those good old days when people had time for the things they wanted to do.

When The Man of The Place was thinking, I do not know but I was quite surprised at the point at which he had arrived, when he remarked out of the silence, in rather a meek voice,
“I never realized how much work my father did. Why, one winter he sorted 500 bushels of potatoes after supper by lantern light. He sold them for $1.50 a bushel in the spring, too, but he must have got blamed tired of sorting potatoes down cellar every night until he had handled more than 500 bushels of them.”

“What did your mother do while your father was sorting potatoes?” I asked.

“Oh, she sewed and knit,” said The Man of The Place. She made all our clothes, coats and pants, undergarments for father and us boys as well as everything she and the girls wore, and she knit all our socks and mittens—shag mittens for the men folks, do you remember, all fuzzy on the outside? She didn’t have time enough in the day to do all the work and so she sewed and knit at night.”

I looked down at the magazine in my hand and remembered how my mother was always sewing or knitting by the evening lamp. I realized that I never had done so except now and then in cases of emergency.

But The Man Of The Place was still talking. “Mother did all her sewing by hand then,” he said, “and she spun her own yarn and wove her own cloth. Father harvested his grain by hand with a sickle and cut his hay with a scythe. I do wonder how he ever got it done.?

Again we were silent, each busy with our own thoughts. I was counting up the time I give to club work and lodge work and—yes, I’ll admit it—politics. My mother and my mother-in-law had none of these and they do use up a good many hours. Instead of all this, they took time once in a while, from their day and night working to go visit a neighbor for the day.

“Time to enjoy life!” Well, they did enjoy it but it couldn’t have been because they had more time.

Why should we need extra time in which to enjoy ourselves? If we expect to enjoy our live we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it, not just at stated intervals, when we can get time, or when we have nothing else to do.

It may well be that it is not our work that is so hard for us as the dread of it and our often expressed hatred of it. Perhaps it is our spirit and attitude toward life and its conditions that are giving us trouble instead of a shortage of time. Surely the days and nights are as long as they ever were.

A feeling of pleasure in a task seems to shorten it wonderfully and it makes a great difference with the day’s work if we get enjoyment from it instead of looking for all our pleasure altogether apart from it, as seems to be the habit of mind we are more and more growing into.

We find in the goods we buy, from farm implements to clothing that the work of making them is carelessly and slightingly done. Many carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, garment makers and farm hands do not care how their work is done just so quitting time and the pay check comes. Farmers are no different except that they must give more attention to how a thing is done because it is the result only that brings them any return.

It seems that many workmen take no pride or pleasure in their work. It is perhaps partly a result of machine made goods, but it would be much better for us all if we could be more interested in the work of our hands, if we could get back more of the attitude of our mothers toward their handmade garments and of our fathers’ pride in own workmanship. There is an old maxim which I have not heard for years nor thought of in a long, long time. “To sweep a room as to God’s laws, makes that, and the action fine.” We need more of that spirit toward our work.
As I though of my neighbors and myself it seemed to me that we were all slighting our work to get time for a joy ride of one kind or another.

Not that I object to joy riding! The more the merrier, but I’m hoping for a change of mind that will carry the joy into the work as well as the play.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” surely, and it makes Jill also very dull indeed, but all play and no work would make hoboes of us. So let’s enjoy the work we must do to be respectable.

The Man Of The Place had evidently kept right on thinking of the work his father used to do. “Oh, well,” he said as he rose and lighted the lantern preparatory to making his late round to see that everything was all right at the barns, “I guess we’re not having such a hard time after all. It depends a good deal on how you look at it.”

“Yes,” said I, “Oh yes, indeed! It depends a good deal on how you look at it.

You can read more of Laura's columns here.

All of the Missouri Ruralist columns written by Laura Ingalls Wilder over a 12 year period are available in a book available on Amazon. You can sneak a peak at it here. I'm thinking of using my Swagbucks to treat my mom and sisters to a copy for Christmas.

Fantastic Deal on Hunt's Tomato Sauce

See this gigantic container of tomato sauce? All 6 and 1/2+ pounds of it? It's mine and I've got 3 more coming. Now, why on earth am I buying gigantic food service sized cans of Hunt's tomato sauce? Glad you asked.

A couple of months ago I snagged a great deal on 15 oz cans of Hunts stewed tomatoes. By combining a sale with coupons I was able to get 4 cans for .23 each. Great deal, I thought until I emptied them into a pot of chili and found a ton of tomato peels. Who wants to eat stewed tomato peels? Blech!

To their credit, the nice folks at Conagra (the parent company of Hunts) promptly made the situation right by sending me 4 coupons for any Hunt's product valued up to $3.00. Last week I went to use these coupons and my frugal nature kicked in to full swing.

I wanted to find something pretty close to the $3 mark, so I ended up going with the gigantic food service sized cans priced at $2.99.

I figure I can use all this tomato sauce to make into chili sauce, spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce and can it. At the very least I can store some of the sauce as is in small recipe sized freezer containers and then just thaw and use as needed.

Do any of you have any good recipes for chili, pizza or pasta sauce?

Rodeos and Parenting

One of my brothers was pretty big in the Midwestern rodeo circuit -- until he developed some sense and realized he could easily get killed, maimed or break some important bones at the very least. We tease him that it took him quite a while to catch on that he was finally an "old timer".


He finally gave it up at 41. He was always one of the oldest cowboys participating in his events. In case you didn't know, 41 is considered kind of old for a hobby like rodeo-ing (is that a word?) We still aren't sure if he hung in there so long because he is so very tough and filled with courage or because he's an idiot. Maybe it's because he's never been in a full body cast.

Recently he and my mother were joking about this and she said: "well, I was 41 when I had your brother".

A long pause ensued. Everyone broke out in agreement that my mother had more courage than any 41 year old rodeo star.

Fall Cleaning Extravaganza

I've started Fall Cleaning a little early this year with my unintentional fall cleaning spree last Saturday. Usually, I schedule fall cleaning to take place a couple of weeks from now, so the house is all spic and span for Thanksgiving company. But, this year it will be nice to have the cleaning done earlier and we may all be going to my sister's for Thanksgiving anyway.

Here's a list of what all needs to be done in the upcoming weeks. I like to spread out the work over a couple of weeks so that no one day or weekend feels overwhelming when you add in the all the regular every day type cleaning that needs to be done. Hey, it works for me.

Kitchen:

Clean out cupboards; wipe down the insides and rearrange the contents. This includes the pantry cupboards, they are getting pretty disorganized making it hard to see what all I've got on hand.

Clean top of kitchen cabinets and wash the items sitting on top of the cabinets

Clean top of fridge (inside was cleaned 2 weeks ago) and finally trash the dying plant that's been sitting up there for the last 3 months mocking my green thumb.

Clean the oven and broiler compartment and drip pans

Mudroom:

Wash the walls

Sort through all of our outdoor clothing and do something with the clothes we are not using.

Clean and polish shoes and boots, waterproof any shoes or boots that need it.

Clean and reorganize the big set of shelves and the laundry cabinets. These are shelves where I tend to just stick something to get it out of the way. Needless to say the junk builds up fast in this area.


Living room:

Organize and clean bookshelf and entertainment unit

Clean the carpet (been putting this off for a long time)


Bedroom:

Clean under bed and dressers and night stand

Clean out dressers, wipe down the drawers and get rid of any clothes we don't wear

Bathroom:

Clean and organize the vanity and the linen closet

Use a Mr. Clean magic eraser to get the tub sparkling clean

Whole House:

Clean all light fixtures (and both ceiling fans) and make sure we have the right bulbs for the job in each one

Take down all curtains and wash and hang to dry. If you hang to dry on a windy day, you don't get any wrinkles.

Wash all windows

Search and destroy all cobwebs and dust bunnies

Wipe down light switches and outlets


As I go through the house paying attention to all the stuff I don't get to on a daily or weekly basis I hope to gather up at least a couple of good sized boxes of stuff we are not using anymore for our next yard sale. It's always such a rewarding feeling to eliminate stuff you never liked in the first place and can't even remember why you have it or stuff you just don't have a use for anymore.


What all would you like accomplish with your fall cleaning? Do you do fall and spring cleaning, or do you like to try and keep up with things as they need it?