Author Archives: Sheila

Recipe Challenge 28 and 29

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So it was bond to happen, we tried two new recipes this week and neither one will be happening again. I am only disappointed because both of these appeared to have real promise and they are both ones that I have recently found online. The good news is that this week I am going to look through a bunch that I have already printed to find something new to try.

Pioneer Woman Pot Pie- Lily was actually in charge of this recipe. I already have a recipe that I use on a regular basis but thought why not give this one a try. Lily did an awesome job of making it and following the directions but it just was not as good as the one I normally fix.

Crock pot Ranch pork chops and potatoes- I found this one on Facebook so no link sorry. Kendall and I worked on this recipe together. Our first disappointment was that it was suppose to cook in 3 hours in the crockpot but it needed at least six to cook both the pork chop and the potatoes. We all ended up grabbing something out of the fridge for dinner and have individually tried it as left-overs. It just did not provide the flavor I was hoping for. It was not bad but we all added extra ranch to give it more flavor.

The official count for the year is Repeating 14, Maybe 7 and No 8.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

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Kendall is finally almost done with cleaning out her room. She was able to reduce the amount of clothing down to the point of everything fitting in her closet!!! This allowed her to move a huge dresser out of her room! Lily decided to take the larger dresser and was able to empty out not only her smaller dresser but also a bigger standing shelf. Lily does want to replace the shelf with a mirror and three shelves but we shall see. I moved the standing shelf to my room and laid it on it side under my jewelry box. This is currently a place to keep all of Braxton’s toys, clothes and diapers! Finally Zach did not want to be outdone so he exchanged 3 small dressers for one from Lily’s room. I am pleased with the extra space that everyone was able to find and we have moved at least five garbage bags of clothing to the building for a future yard sale or something.

I have been able to sell between ebay and Facebook market place 4 American girl dolls and a ton (50) build a bear outfits. We used this money to cover our tickets to the Disney Halloween party in August.

Our August Disney trip is completely paid for including air fare. The only item left to purchase is a gift card to cover food on the trip. Matt receives 3 paychecks in July so we plan to use the extra check to purchase a gift card to use on the trip! Next, we are going to work on paying for our December trip! At this point, we will have the plane tickets covered between credit card miles and airline vouchers.

I will be working in Guam through the end of June due to the school closure. My goal is to take the entire month of July off of work and resume both Davie County and Guam in August! I am so ready for a normal schedule!

I am focusing on controlling the grocery budget this month to under $550. So far we have been way over budget each month!

Matt and I have decided to tackle our master bedroom sink area. We are going to repaint the walls, change out the cabinet and sink for a double sink vanity! I am hoping we are able to complete this project in two weekends but it may take a little longer.

I am starting to quickly lose hope in our garden this year. The weather has not cooperated at all. We should be having warm spring/summer like days but for the past 2 weeks the temperatures have been stuck in the 60’s. I have covered everything I could on the couple of nights of freezing but things are just not growing well. In addition, we are having to water every other day. We have had little to no rain since mid April. I was so hopeful for the garden especially using all the seed packets but now if we harvest one each from our vegetables that will be the break even point!

Menu Plan

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I was very successful last week in getting the freezer stocked with lots of easy to fix meals. The only items that I can think of that I want to add to the freezer are veggies from this summer. I am holding out hope for an awesome garden. I need to make a couple of Baked Ziti but I also need to purchase the sausage for this so it may be a couple of weeks and later this summer we need to restock the breakfast meals especially the omelets bags. This week it is back to cook and enjoying some different meals hopefully.

Breakfast– Saturday- Biscuit King! Sunday- Matt made bacon and waffles  Monday, Tuesday,  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-choice of breakfast muffins, eggs, sausage, pancakes,  cereal or grits. Nothing new or special here

Lunch-   Saturday-Pizza from Recipe Challenge 27 Sunday- Olive Garden treat for Mother’s Day. The kids will have school delivered lunches, Matt has 2 days of chicken sandwiches and 2 days of hamburgers I am going to return to eating at least one salad a week and also continue with some left-overs on other days.

Dinner-  Saturday- Left-overs or sandwiches Sunday- left-overs Monday-Chicken pot pie (new recipe, that Lily will make) Tuesday-Taco Pasta (Zach is in charge) . Wednesday- Ranch Potatoes and Pork Chops (another new recipe) in the crock pot. Thursday-Chicken Sandwiches and French Fries. Friday- Orange Chicken and egg rolls.

Just a normal week around here! We are starting to pick up some activites with me working two nights this week and piano but slow and steady still wins the race.

Recipe Challenge 26 and 27

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I was not sure about trying to bake an entire cake from scratch. In fact, I can not remember the last time I baked a cake from scratch. But the fact I had a ton of extra carrots and raisins from school lunch delivery gave me a nudge to just try it. I don’t even have the website to share with you about this recipe because it was one I copied from Facebook. What I do have is a lot of pictures to share. This cake and cream cheese frosting turned out awesome it is super moist and sweet. Melt in our mouth delicious!

Recipe number 27 combine several different things. First I made the pizza dough in the bread maker. Next, I decided to wrap the dough around a mozzarella cheese stick. Finally, to use up the Asian honey chicken from last week, I added it to the pizza with some red onions! This was also another hit!

Does not look as good as it taste!

Prepping Ground Beef

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As COVID-19 continues, we are seeing changes especially at the grocery store, not only are prices starting to rise but we are continuing to see limits and stores out of stock on many items. We have been finishing the last of our cow purchased two years ago and were running on the low end of meat. I was so excited to find the chicken on sale last week. After processing it, Matt and I talked and decided that instead of continuing to wait to purchase beef we felt the need to stock up. I knew that we could not afford to purchase a whole cow right now and also that supplies are not great in the area as well. I decided to head to a local meat market to complete the stock up. I did not purchase any steaks as these are a treat and I can purchase a meal for around $30 when we chose. I also did not get any stew beef as I see at least 2 packs in the freezer and no cube steak as we have probably 4 packs of this left. I did purchase 3 meals of pork chops and 3 sets of wings. The biggest purchase was 40lbs of ground beef. I was a little surprised at finding even at this market, ground beef had a limit. They did not care about packaging but had a strict limit on the pounds that could be purchased. This is totally new for them as I often purchase large quantities for church functions or simply to save myself a trip.

I already had a plan in mind for most of the ground beef but it has taken several days to complete it. I will add that both Lily and Kendall have worked hard several days along side of me to get it all in the freezer in useable portions.

Zach helped me fry up the first 10 pounds, we bagged 2 1-pound bags of cooked meat and threw the rest in the crock-pot to make taco meat. We enjoyed tacos for dinner. I froze 4 1# bags of taco meat along with a single serving of taco meat.

Next up in the crockpot was sloppy joe mix. The recipe I use calls for 6 pounds of cooked meat. This recipe is a little time consuming to prepare but after cooking on low for 4 hours it is definitely worth the effort. We enjoyed sloppy joes for dinner and I bagged 12 bags of sloppy joes for future use. The secret to bagging is 3/4 cup per bag which equals 2 tablespoons per sloppy joe for six people. This is a meal that is quick and no left-overs.

Lily, Kendall and I made 4 bags of Salisbury steak from the remaining 4 pounds of raw meat. The girls ended up making around 50 meatballs which we froze for later use. I am going assume that is another 3 meals.

Cooked ground beef is an easy cheat for a quick and simple meals. I decided to go ahead and fry another 8# and bag up individually. I decided to bag up 4 1# portions and 2 2# portions of raw meat as well. Last but not least I made and froze 18 meatloaf muffins, this will provide us with 3 meals.

A Grand total of 44 meals from 40# of ground beef! I am super excited with this and even more so that I can grab and go to throw together an awesome meal!

Menu Planning Monday

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I know that I always do better with a goal and a plan. I am counting down the weeks until my summer vacation begins (6) so in the process I want to get a jump start on what the summer may bring. I realized last year that I needed to use some of my free time to stock the freezers with quick and easy to complete meals for the fall. I need to start planning for fall 2020. We will go from over six months of limited to no extra activities to three kids in three spots/ activities along with my return to full time work. The goal is to get the stocking done before the summer starts! This week, we should be making a large beef purchase and I will be working full steam ahead on cooking. The good news is that I only have one night scheduled in Guam this week and I gain an hour a day simply by working at home. You will notice that we did well this week with only one meal of eating out!

Breakfast– I was able to get a jump start this week by making Sausage muffins on Sunday! I need to make up some baked oatmeal bags and continue to add choices such as French toast and waffles to the freezer when ever possible. Saturday- bacon and eggs . Sunday- Sausage muffins.  Monday, Tuesday,  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-choice of breakfast muffins, eggs, sausage, pancakes,  cereal or grits. –Still have not gotten around to a baked oatmeal but really do need to make one this week.

Lunch-   Saturday- pizza and ham and cheese sliders. Sunday- Gregg’s (local restaurant) .The kids will have school delivered lunches, Matt has 2 days of chicken sandwiches and 2 days of chill that he made on Saturday. I am going to return to eating at least one salad a week and also continue with some left-overs on other days.

Dinner-  Saturday- Left-overs Sunday- chicken nuggets Monday-Hamburgers and French fries (hamburgers are in the freezer) Tuesday-Taco Tuesday (the plan is to make a crock pot full of taco meat and freeze the left-overs to use in the summer and fall. Wednesday- Sloppy joes and tator tots ( Again made in the crock-pot with the left overs frozen for use later). Thursday-Spinach Ravioli (Lily’s in charge) Friday- BBQ chicken pizza. Zach is in charge.

I will also be cooking and freezing one pound bags of cooked ground beef to use in meals. Next weekend, I plan to make 5 dinner packs of Salisbury steak and several pans of meatballs to freeze. This should use up the 40-50# of ground beef I am planning to purchase. I will also need to purchase several packs of Italian sausage as I would like to get at least one baked ziti in the freezer. Hope you will stay around for the ride and please share if you have a great recipe that you think we would enjoy especially if it can be doubled!

Recipe Challenge #23,24 and 25

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With most of the garden planted, we are currently in maintenance mood so that leads to some extra time. This weekend, I decided to turn some of that energy into cooking and trying new recipes. The focus of at least the next three weeks is to cook ahead so that the majority of the summer is spend relax and enjoying the pool. At least that is the current dream. Now to the recipes

#23- Million Dollar Spaghetti Pie- this recipe is courtesy of a local extension agent. I discovered and copied it from a friend on Facebook. My friend had two recommendations- first to split the recipe into two pans and next to double the sauce. Both of these turned out to be great suggestions and we did both. Lily was actually in charge of this on Friday evening. It did take almost an hour to assemble and complete but it is definitely well worth the time! We all enjoyed this recipe and it will be a repeat in the future in addition to the second pan that is already in my freezer.

#24– Crock pot Monkey Bread I wanted something sweet and since this was a fairly simple recipe, I decided to give it a try on Saturday. It used up the last can of biscuits so I will need to replace this. This recipe turned out ok. The edges burnt and the frosting was just too sweet for us. This is not a recipe that I will be repeating.

#25- Sausage Muffins. Breakfast is definitely the hardest meal these days. No one wants to wake up early and everyone likes breakfast. This is another recipe that I found on Facebook so I can’t give the best credit to. You will notice that I have linked this recipe in my section just so I can keep up with it. I actually tried these on Sunday morning and made a second batch already that is available to use this week. I made one small change between the two batches, add in 2 additional eggs. We all felt like they needs some topping so Matt and Zach added hot sauce while I went with syrup. Kendall is a plain girl but still ate two which is a huge success. This are really easy to make and we plan to heat for 30 seconds in the microwave for breakfast!

Saving on Saturday

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  • Turning off lights and not using the heat or air condition. We have been fortunate to have a very unusual Spring so far with temperatures the end of March in the 80s and now most of April temperatures around 70. Even with everyone home during most of the month, we reduced our electricity bill by $70 from what was budgeted.
  • I am keeping a close eye on the sale ads. I had actually ran out of 2L of Diet Coke last week but Food Lion, our local store ran a sale for $0.99 on Wednesday and then reduced to $0.79 Friday thur Sunday. I am stockpiling these. My goal is to have purchased a total of 50 by Sunday. These do not go bad and at a saving of $0.90 a bottle. I can give up a little extra space.
  • While at Food Lion, I decided to check the clearance bins at the back of the store. I was shocked to find that they had reduced the price of a bunch of cookies. Most items were between $0.25 and $0.50 cent so I decided to go ahead and stock up. I spent a total of $16 for all of this!

I also headed out to CVS this week to grab some deodorant and shampoo that was on sale. I had an average of 59% saving. I am actually pleased with this as I started out with no ECB and ended with 3.

5 Things Friday

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  • I have worked 5 days at Davie County Schools and 5 nights in Guam. I am tired! But the really good news is that I have 6 weeks and 1 day until summer break.
  • The weather continues to be almost as strange as COVID-19. Today was a high of 64*. I always remember as a child that May 1st was the day that you could wear shorts and go barefooted outside! Not today! The good news from this is that we have been the entire month of April without heating or air. This saved us around $70 last month.
  • My goal for the next six weeks is to get our freezers fully stocked for the fall. This will allow me to really have the summer off. I am going to need to make a large meat purchase so that we can begin the process next week.
  • The square foot garden is continue to grow with all the seeds that we have planted. We used the lettuce that I have harvested over the past several weeks to make salads on Wednesday.
  • We have reduced our credit card debit by over $1000 since January. In addition to purchasing and install our new floor in the kitchen/dinning room and paying for our August Disney trip!

April in Review

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April was not as long as March. I think we are finally settling down into a manageable routine. Matt worked from home the first two weeks of April but has returned to working at his office full time. I am working full-time at home. I am planning to continue through the month of May. I may need to return to work during our school work days in June but I will wait to see what is decided between now and then. School building have officially been closed for the year in both North Carolina and Guam. Lily will not have to take final exams but otherwise she is still completing her charter school. I am getting some limited work in Guam, a lot of IEP for the next couple of weeks. I am hopefully to complete 10 hours of work for April and another 10 for May before the school year ends. We did receive our government stimulus money this month. It was used to pay for the floor in the kitchen and dinning room which I originally budget with Guam money. The rest was applied to debit but every little bit helps!

The garden has taken up a considerable amount of time this month. We are very hopeful that it will produce some inexpensive veggies most of the summer. I have planted the majority of item from seeds this year. Seeds were purchased at twenty-five cent or less a pack. I made a trip to a local nursey and purchased both pepper and tomato plants spending $11 total. So far we are harvesting “volunteer lettuce” each week. I still have some cherry tomatoes to transfer and I am planning to plant green beans every two weeks so that we can get a more continual and plentiful harvest. I still need to purchase and plant sweet potatoes but I am going to assume that will be the last of expenses this year. We have already built an additional strawberry box so I will have to end up buying dirt to fill it this fall.

Goal #1 Grocery Budget of $550- We have exceed it again this month but $190 worth of chicken breast makes this a no brainer. But on the bright side it is still less than we spent last month! Currently we have spent $922 which also includes a stock up on Diet cokes. I think we should also note that April is a 5 week month which threw me off as well. I am hearing lots of reports of increase pricing for groceries and a possible meat shortage as well. I am planning to stock up on beef and maybe pork next week. I expect the grocery budget for May may be high as well for that reason. The good news is that we should be able to dramatically cut our grocery spending during the summer because of stocking up now. I will continue to watch prices and re-stock items as needed. I actually have started a price list on my phone to begin checking items as I am out picking up other things during the next several weeks.

Goal #2 – Record and keep up with gas/ auto purchase- We spent $$450 this month in gas! This does include the windshield purchase. We decided to wait until May for the taxes and tags on the car.

Goal #3-Use a cash envelope system for everything possible. Success! No spend days are 9 this month. This is better than March but still not my goal of 15. I am not sure what the goal will be for May. Spending will increase as we travel to the pool and as restrictions are lifted. May 10 days of no spending….. or should I just count the days?

Goal #4- Blogging- 15 post per month. This is post number 18 for the month! Which is an increase of 1 for the month! Go Covid-19!

Goal # 5- Fitness- Goal is to walk 3 times a week. I have met this goal this month. The kids are really good at reminding us that we all need the fresh air and exercise. We actually walked 12 days this month! I should be able to continue this especially if the pool opens in May.

Goal #6 – Bible study- Goal- 3x a week – Getting better but still not achieved.

Goal #7-Attempt at least 52 new recipes this year.-  For the first time ever we are ahead of a goal. We have tried 22 new recipes so far this year. We need to try 30 more. I am actually thinking we can meet and exceed this goal. The one down side is that only a handful will be used again.

Earnings_ $75 in gift cards. I did complete one large payout on Swagbucks. Matt completed another survey outside of Swagbucks and should receive another $50 gift card in a few days for Amazon. I will be surprised if this amount increase in May as people are overwhelming the system.

Except for the grocery budget, we did extremely well in the month of April. We are blessed and continue to thank God for his provisions!