Tuesday, November 25, 2008

What Are You Thankful For?

What are you thankful for...
Here is just a small sampling of my list.

10. That my children all seem to like each other (most of the time).

9. That deer season will be over in 2 months.

8. Plenty of food, warm clothing, and a cozy roof over our heads.

7. My dear, dear friends that live far away .... the ones that you would jump on a plane for if they needed you.

6. My friends that DON'T live far away and I'd only have to jump in the car if they needed me.

5. Finally realizing that chaos is difficult to live in... and allowing the Lord to show me how to get out of it.

4. The blessing of being able to enjoy the creativity that God has given me...

3. 5 healthy, happy children that continue to show me the love of our Father in ways I couldn't dream. Can God really love me as much as I love my children. He assure me that He does. What a mystery!

2. A husband that is truly a man that pursues my heart, and points me to God... He takes such good care of us.

1. The undeserved love of the King of King, and Lord of Lords. Even as a baby, He was my saviour. Wow!

There are many other things I'm thankful for...too numerous to list. How about you?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Reaping the Savings!

I did OK at Walgreens today. I purchased about $75 worth of stuff and paid about $25. Isn't that great? Well, here's my dilemma... I'm able to get some really good deals on stuff that I'm already stocked up on... but it's really hard for me to not go ahead and buy it. Walgreens has Skippy peanut butter on sale 2/$3 right now. And, I have coupons for $.55 off a jar, which brings the price to $1.05 each. That's really good. But, look at my stash.
I have about 40 jars of peanut butter!! Granted, we go through 1 jar about every 2 weeks. Still, we certainly don't need to worry about peanut butter for a while. So, you all are my witness... I will not buy any more peanut butter until we are down to our last 10 jars! It's time to reap all the savings... (but oh, it's hard to pass up a deal!)
Same thing for spaghetti sauce.
I don't know.... I only have 15 jars of spaghetti sauce. We eat quite a bit of spaghetti, so maybe I'll keep working on that stash.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Clutter Battle

This week, the sweet gal at http://www.thehomespunheart.blogspot.com/ has been doing a week of making your home a haven. I would love to say that I have been participating successfully... but, I didn't discover the plan until late and wasn't really able to get geared up for it. On Monday, her plan was to tidy your home. You know, just pick up some of the clutter around the house that has piled up. So, I made a plan to clean up a couple of places. I decided to tackle the fireplace. It gets so messy with soot, chunks of wood, just your all around basic fireplace yuck. So, here's what it looked like before:
After a little attention, I was able to get it cleaned up in about 10 minutes...

The other place I wanted to tackle was the kitchen counter. It's the clutter magnet in the house. Here's what it looked like before I got after it:

You can see stacks of coupons, cleaning pads for my stamping, some hand soap that I got a good deal on, and just your basic normal paper clutter. I got to work and got it cleaned up. I finished around 2:00 on Monday afternoon.
So, I took a picture of it around 6:00 pm. Here's what it looked like afterwards:
What do you notice!!! It's still totally cluttered, but with TOTALLY DIFFERENT STUFF!! I wasn't able to get a picture while it was clean... it only took about 4 hours to make it worse than it was before. So, I'll see if I can get it cleared off this evening. I've had a couple of things going on during these last couple of days, so getting extra stuff done has been a little difficult. The rest of the week is a little slower, so I'm hopeful to get some other things done. Thankfully, mercies are new every morning... so, I'll ask the lord (again) to order my day so I can get some things done tomorrow.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Simply Chocolate!

Is it really fall? This weekend I wore a summer dress to a wedding. I think the bank clock said it was 80 degrees! We're plugging along with life. When the seasons change I always feel this strong desire to change as well. Simple, simple, simple... that's the call of my heart right now. My friend, Sam, spoke to our homeschooling moms' group last week about celebrating. She encouraged us to use what we have and celebrate the little things. As my oldest drives off to church, my heart sighs as I think about how little time I have left with him. So, celebrate we shall! I've discovered a wonderful blog and she gave me the recipe for making fondue in the crockpot. Now, if you know me at all, you know I love, Love, LOVE my crockpot. I have 3 and use at least one several times a week.

So, here's her recipe for Chocolate Fondue -- In the crockpot.


1 1/2 c. chocolate chips (we used semi-sweet)

1/2 c heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla
(You can add some sort of liquor if this is for grown-ups only :-)

marshmallows, graham crackers, strawberries, apples, bananas, pound cake, or what the heck...just get a spoon and eat it straight out of the crockpot!

Put everything in your smallest CP and put on low. It took about an hour for everything to melt, and it stays melted for as long as you keep it on. We didn't finish it, so I just let it cool and then put the ceramic pot in the fridge. We have eaten it for 3 days now :-)...
The kids thought I was a hero!!




Oh, and here's a pic of my littlest muffin... he was the ring bearer at our friend's wedding. All but one of my children have been in a wedding...


Be still my heart....