Category Archives: DITL

Random Thoughts Tuesday – 1/26/2016

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  1. The snow has pretty much kept all spending to a minimum for the past week. Although I am starting to get the itch to start purchasing things for gardening and definitely want to get started on our kitchen remodel both sooner rather than later. My goal is to last the final week of the January Money diet.
  2. I have officially decided to work with monthly menu planning this year. I am going to give it a good years try and  see if it reduces my grocery budget overall. It has worked really well for January and looks the same for February.
  3. I have not even begun to work on my income taxes yet, this is officially the latest I have done this in recent memory. I am now going to wait on the final three official piece of paperwork before even opening a program. I have all the numbers I need but just decided at this point, why not wait.
  4. I am finally starting to see some positive aspects of Windows 10 after a full weeks use. One of my biggest overall complaints is that it does not allow me to print a copy of my calendar.
  5. My Sunday school class is completing Priscilla Shirer study called “The Armor of God.” I can honestly say I am learning a lot and it is most definitely my favorite study I have completed.
  6. I feel really good about the progress I have made toward my goals this month except for one.

5 Things Friday

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  1. Today was my first official paid Snow Day EVER! I am so thankful because worse than snow is the solid sheet of ice that currently covers our road.
  2. I was able to clean out the playroom, and re-organize Zach’s room. He is able to play with all his toys and has a spot to return each. I am so excited as this also puts us closer to beginning our kitchen remodel. I manage to move reduce and reuse everything today so the total cost of this is ZERO.
  3. After spending most of the day cleaning and organizing we had a family game night. The little kids are now old enough to play UNO. Zach had a hard time at first because he did not win but even asked to play again at bedtime.
  4. The kids have been out of school at home for a solid week now. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday and Wednesday were scheduled teacher work days,Thursday and Friday, school was cancelled due to the weather.
  5.  This week is also rare in the fact that we have only had cheerleading one night and don’t have a competition to go to this weekend. I know this is probably the last time this happens till April.

5 Things Friday-Money Related

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  1. We went shopping at Costco yesterday for some “needed” groceries and I am excited to report that we have stay on budget for the month. We spent $105 yesterday which puts our grocery spending for the month at $116!
  2. Tomorrow is a sad day.. I have plans to take down and put away the Snow Village for the year.
  3. Sonic is currently running some awesome specials. Yesterday, we were able to grab 5 deluxe cheeseburgers for $4.23 and added cheese fries at home to make it an awesome and inexpensive meal.  Next week they will have fifty cent corn dogs, I know at least one meal on Wednesday will be these!
  4. Last weekend, I realized that my watch was losing time. Matt decide to take it to Walmart to get the battery replaced. Unfortunately the battery was not the problem. I really did not want to spend money on a new watch but it is almost a requirement for my job. After some thought and discuss, we replaced the battery in one of Matt’s old watch and I am using it. I don’t mind, because of the large size. I consider this another win during our January Money Diet.
  5. Our new bed arrived on Wednesday and so far, we are both enjoying it!

Random Thoughts

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  • Matt picked up our pork order from Zaycon yesterday. It is awesome!  I received an email yesterday about a deposit/refund because we received a pound less of the pork tenderloin than was originally promised. We frozen 5 of the 6 tenderloins we received after cutting in half. Dinner on Wednesday will be the remaining tenderloin with lots of leftovers. After re-packaging I am thinking that we should have at least 6 months work of pork. This should average out to less than $4 a meal for pork.
  • Our new King size bed frame was delivered today, unfortunately the mattress will not be delivered until tomorrow. We started moving beds on Sunday to make like easier so tonight, we will be sleeping one last time in our queen size bed which is currently in it’s new home, Lily’s room. Lily and Kendall have been sharing a bed for the past 3 nights and at least Lily is waking up on time in the mornings.
  • Working is harder than I expected this week. I knew going in this would be a long week but I am so tired that all I want to do is go to bed, Hopefully by this weekend, I will find the energy to put away the snow village so that Matt can start work on expanding the kitchen soon.
  • Matt has let me know that he prefers menu planning by the month instead of weekly. This way he can change around meals as needed without having to worry about eating the same items several weeks in a row. Currently we have a plan through the first week of February. I am going to try this method for at least January and February. The real deciding factor will be if this method ends up saving money or not.
  • We are planning a grocery store trip to Costco on Thursday. This will be the deciding factor if we are able to stay on our $200 budget this month. So far I have spent $12 and plan to stick to as close to $100 at Costco as possible. I want to prove to myself that I can stick to a budget. Looking ahead both February and March will bring Zaycon meat orders. My goal is to use up food that is currently in our pantry and freezer for the first 4-5 months of the year, ultimately keeping the grocery budget at or below $500 for each of these months. I can then spend the summer months re-stocking the veggies and fruit from our garden.
  • I made a shepherd’s pie tonight for dinner and the kids LOVED it. In fact this is the second night in a row that everyone has eaten and we have no leftovers.

Not so Wordless Wednesday-Family Craft Time

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This past weekend, my sister in law, who lives in Atlanta, made a trip up to visit with us. Eric, her son, was able to come as well. My kids absolutely loved having them both for the 24 hours they were here. Saturday night was spent opening gifts eating and playing a board game that she had purchased for Lily.
Sunday after church we decided to work on some new decorations for our front sign as Christmas has passed. This turned out to be a load of fun and the results are even better!
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The buckets we found in the Target $1 bin several weeks ago, I was so excited to find that the colors just about perfectly match the color of the letter. The snowflakes are hand painted and just perfect, enjoy a closer look.

Day in the Life 12/17/2015-Cooking

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My unscheduled time at home ends tomorrow, so I decided to spend the day by getting ahead. I have actually enjoyed cooking most of the week, probably because I had the time and energy to do it. With this in mind,  I wanted to go ahead and get ahead start of Christmas preparations as we will have family over for several meals in the next couple of weeks. I had a plan in mind and was able to actually finish everything on my updated list. However before cooking, I clean both the vacuum cleaner and did a quick clean of the floors.

On the  menu plan for today was cowboy beans, so I started by frying a pound of bacon and then browning a pound of hamburger for this. I realized as I was browning the hamburger that I should go ahead and make a pot of chill for baked potatoes next week. I ended up letting the second pound of hamburger sit in the pan to defrost. I also need to cut up onions for the beans. I love my pamper chef dicer but it is hard to clean so I went ahead and chopped up 6 cups of onions instead of the 2 cups I needed for the beans.  I decided to try bacon wrapped appetizers that we saw on Saturday morning. This was definitely a good call as Matt froze a bag so we would have some next weekend as well. They are awesome but time consuming. Next was a corned beef ball that will work as an appetizer for several times.

After checking our supplies, Matt and I decided to head to the local meat shop to make a purchase that should last till at least March. We  have ordered pork from Zaycon but want to add hamburger, cube steak and beef stew to the freezer. We also purchased chicken wings for our annual super bowl party. I was very impressed with our total of $113, which is 18 meals of meat.

I came back home to work on browning and freezing the 20# of ground beef. While this was cooking, I was able to finish up my day with candid pecans which will be a gift and desert on Sunday. I am very proud of the hard work that I put in today but also realize this gets me ahead for the next couple of weeks.

Cooking accomplished:
Cowboy beans ( 4 total meals including today)
14 bags of ground beef
2 appetizers
Chill
Candid pecans.

Are you cooking for Christmas?

 

5 Things Friday- Not the Happiest

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5thingsfriday-logoRED1. I was diagnosed with Shingles this morning. I honestly was surprised by this but it makes sense. I was almost thankful for an extra week out of work, I am highly contagious until I finish the medication Wednesday at lunch, until I started the medicine. My current side effects include being  hyper including feeling like I can jump out of my skin, and nauseous to the point I just want to put my head between my legs. My prayer is that the shingle pain and itching does not increase and the side effects decrease.

2. Our septic system is not working properly. This has been an ongoing problem since I bought the house in 1992.  We are again trying to fix the problem as our yard is becoming a wet mess. Today we had to move the trampoline out of the septic field which also involved making several paths of mud in the yard. We hope to have it fixed completely within the next week.

3. Matt and I decided to finish putting up Christmas lights outside this afternoon after moving the trampoline. The light looked awesome until it blew out the outlet outside. Matt had to go to Lowes and replace the entire outlet which meant our bedroom was dark for a couple of hours.

4.  Both of our email accounts have been hacked. Matt is spending his evening on the phone with the internet company to try and get this straighten out. This will be the third time this week that we have been on the phone with this company for a variety of issues.

5. Zach is having a rough time without sleeping. He was so tired last night that he ended getting several spankings prior to bed. Tonight, I put him to bed an hour early tonight but he is so tired that he is keeping himself awake. The medicine I am on, makes me less than patient so let’s hope the extra sleep helps.

 

Random Tuesday Thoughts 11/24/2015

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  • We are counting the day until we leave for our Disney trip. I have made a list of one thing I want to accomplish each night this week and so far I am staying on track.
  • Last night, I was able to squeeze in a trip to get my nails done. I decided to go all out and got gel nails. The tech jokingly said that these should last me till Christmas. My reply was I will be happy if they last til we return. This is the second time I have got gel nails. The first time was a flop as less than a week later, one started to peel. Getting my nails done is a huge treat and so I am really hoping they last a long time. The good news, I already received a compliment at work today about them.
  • We are debating on taking our “box” for our trip. We did remove an interior seat and I am hoping this eliminates the need for the box.
  • My plans for Wednesday night (tomorrow) are to get my two casserole prepared to pop in the oven on Thursday and bake a cake.
  • I am really hoping that I don’t have to work and we get to hit the road at an early hour on Friday.
  • All the inside Christmas decoration are up. I decided to scale really back this year due to the trip but I am already really enjoying the tree and of course my village.
  • I am 90% done with my Christmas shopping! I refuse to purchase any more until I can count and get what is purchased wrapped.
  • Speaking of wrapping, I did wrap the kids DVD players tonight and they will be opening on Friday morning.
  • We are working on cleaning out the refrigerator, and continue to stick the menu plan. I did give away some fresh produce but otherwise we are using what we have!

 

Friday 11/20/2015

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  1. In order to have enough time to enjoy our Christmas decoration and not feel so pressure to get things moving when we return from Disney. The plan is to get our tree up and decorated tomorrow. I am scaling way back on decorations  this year with less than 50% coming out of the attic. Christmas is still my favorite time of the year!
  2. Kendall had to sit in time out for the first time EVER because of her behavior at school. I do feel a little bit guilty because we have been crazy busy this week and the added excitement of our Disney trip probably contributed to the problem.
  3. Zach will play his first soccer game EVER on Sunday. I am excited but nervous especially since this league does not have any practices. We just show up and play.
  4. We are planning to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family this year. I do have to bring a couple of dishes and my have to work after our celebration but we still have so much to be thankful for.
  5. Our change in Menu planning appears to be working. I am hoping to not throw away any leftover prior to our trip!

Monday Menu Planning

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This week menu planning takes on more importance as we purchased a new refrigerator and need to clean straighten and re-organize so that we can start on a right with the best use of space.

Breakfast–  Baked oatmeal on Sunday, eggs and sausage, grits, poptarts, cereal and toast.

Lunch- I thought I would share a little more about our lunches this week.
Monday- Everyone had a fresh salad. Tuesday- Homemade chicken dunks for Zach and Kendall. Lily chose a sandwich. Wednesday- No school. Thursday- Grab an go day- Each child picks 3 items which must include either a cereal bar or pack of crackers for lunch. Friday- Chicken dunks again.

Dinner- We have several different new meals this week as this is our least busy week for the month.

Saturday- Lunch- leftovers.   Dinner- White chicken chili
Sunday- Lunch- Meatballs and baked sweet potatoes.    Dinner- Pepper steak, rice and eggroll.
Monday- Cranberry Pork Roast, snap peas and fruit cocktail.
Tuesday-Grilled chicken, pineapple and corn.
Wednesday-Spaghetti and meatballs
Thursday-  Chicken and broccoli? or hamburger helper.(Depends on when new appliances arrive)
Friday- Taco Soup

My goal is also to make double portions of both Thursday and Friday dinner to freeze for use in the upcoming weeks.