10 things to be thankful for

I'm sitting here waiting for Jim and Haley to get home from softball practice and I remembered I wanted to blog about some things that I am thankful for. Tis the season right?

1. My husband and daughter
2. Our health
3. Both Jim and I having stable full time jobs.
4. Being able to have what we need to live.
5. Our extended families
6. Our furry family!
7. Our friends
8. Being able to provide my family with home cooked meals. I love to cook.
9. Being able to stay warm in our house even though my husband is the thermostat nazi!
10. My Cricut!

This morning I made a little crafty sign.

I turned this Dollar tree sign (originally red) into a family sign. I first spray painted it lightly with a metal primer and then painted it with 3 coats of black acrylic paint.

I then used white contact paper for the name and the words and year. Turned out nicely, except that I didn't gage the space between established and the year correctly. I should have moved the year out a bit more..

Oh well.. it will look nice somewhere!

Using Freezer Paper as a stencil

I sometimes frequent the Cricut Boards I like to see what everyone else is making with their machines. This past week, I was lucky enough to view a great idea. This gal took a 4$ throw blanket and personalized it with Freezer Paper, her cricut and fabric paint! I thought to myself this is a great Idea! I have done a couple of these blankets this past week and one today so I thought I would put up a quick tutorial of how I did it.

The first thing you need to do is find the image or name you want to cut and then cut that out with your Cricut using freezer paper. Cut it with the Shiny side on the sticky part of the mat. I used an image that someone so graciously sent me called "Volleyball".

Next, you will want to weed your phrase or image. Then iron the shiny side down on your item. What I do is press down and then pick up my iron and move it to the next spot until it is sticking to my fabric. Then I just run it lightly over the entire phrase or image for about 10 seconds.

This is my image without the insides… The parts of the letters that need extra pieces, the O, B and A.

Make sure that everything is how you want it and iron it down!

I applied a coat of white fabric paint because I wanted my glitter paint to have a bit of white tint to it. Here is my first coat of paint, in real life you can still see the image under the paint. Since my "V" was so close to the bottom of the freezer paper, I used a bit of blue painters tape so that my paint wouldn't seep into my blanket.

Also, to make the paint dry faster ( mostly because I am super impatient) I used my blow dryer to dry it in between coats.

I put on one coat of shiny white Tulip paint and then 2 coats of Glitter white Tulip paint and dried with the hair dryer in between each coat. I recommend you let it dry several hours after your last coat and overnight if you can. However, since I am really impatient, I weeded the design after I blew it dry for about 15 minutes.

In hindsight, I wish I would have put another coat of just plain white on it and then followed it with the glitter paint. But, since this is a prototype of what we are doing for some gifts for my daughters friends, it will be just fine.

I hope this helps anyone who might be having a problem visualizing how to do this.

Julie

Vacation, all I ever wanted!

Ahhh, Vacation... finally here... Time to relax, time to finish up my holiday decorationg, time to get the food ready for our Thanksgiving Feast on Thursday, time to make a list for Friday's shopping excursion... Wait, didn't I say it was time for Vacation?

Oh well, I love to be off work and at home during the day. There is something just so peaceful about it! I love to just do things at my own pace without someone bothering me to go hear or there, or do this or that! Ahhh the feeling of freedom!

I tried to capture "the look" of Christmas with this shot, however it did not turn out how I wanted it too... I love the glow of the lights though... makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Apple Pie Squares

I found the absolute best recipe for Apple Pie Squares on a blog this week. They are in the oven right now and my house smells heavenly! This said blog is written by a chic named Edie! I have loved that name for a long time and secretly wished I had named my own daughter that! I was so taken by this blog that I read almost the entire thing! And she has been blogging for a while! It was very interesting!

 

The recipe from Life In Grace's blog:

 

{glazed apple bars}

First you combine 4 C. flour, 1/2 t. salt and 2 C. sugar.
Then, cut in 3 sticks of butter. The mixture will be crumbly and Meg recommends you use your hands. I wholeheartedly agree. I first tried my mixer and it didn't work well. Press about 2/3's of this crumbly mixture into a jelly roll pan.

Peel, core and slice 4-5 Granny smith apples and layer over the shortbread mixture.
Combine 1/3 C. sugar and 1 t. cinnamon, sprinkle it over the apples.
Crumble the remaining flour/sugar/butter mixture on top of the apples.
Bake it at 350 degrees for 50 - 60 minutes...until it is crispy on the bottom.

After it bakes, let it cool.
Make a glaze with 1 C. powdered sugar, 1 t. vanilla, 1 T. water.

 

I highly recommend that you try these… just from the smell alone I know I will not be sorry!

 

We are going to be going to a bonfire this afternoon for Haley's softball team. They get to meet their new little sisters today so I hope that will be fun for her! I like this aspect of the softball organization she is with. They do a lot of community service and they are all about family and it really is great! We are blessed to be a part of it, not only because they are a very successful organization but because of their focus on the things that really matter! So, we are going to pack a lunch well dinner I guess and sit around the fire and play games and have fun! What's on the menu?

 

• Haley's new favorite sandwich! Hawaiian Bread (you know the circle shaped one) a layer of ham, white American cheese, and another layer of ham, cut into 8 wedges!
  
• Either chips or cheese popcorn
  
• Apple Juice or sprite
  
• And of course Edie's Glazed Apple Bars!
  

Yummy!

 

Later tonight, I really have to get a good grocery list going, I am almost out of flour… that is insane because a person who bakes as much as I do should never ever run even close to being out of flour!!!

 

Alright off to make the sandwich and get ready for the bonfire!!

 

Ok, so I haven’t blogged in forever again.

You know it is funny… I also want to blog, I want to write… but I just never make time for it. I think facebook has taken over my life. Truth be told, I was going to switch from blogger to word press, even made a blog a few months ago over there. But I never went back. I do that a lot. With a lot of things in my life. I am a starter… I love to start things, new things, old things, all sorts of things. But I am not a strong finisher, I get bored easily and then I slink off to try something new!

Just like today, I am trying something new. I am writing this post from Word. I have wanted to try it for quite some time but I just haven't had the time. So, while the cupcakes are in the oven and I have a few minutes. I thought I would try out a test post. I have to figure out how to post pictures straight from here though and not have to save as a draft and go into blogger and upload the photos… Ha! It kind of defeats the whole purpose.

Since, I last wrote… summer softball ended, summer volleyball began and ended, fall softball started and ends tomorrow, High School Volleyball started and ends on Thursday… That's a lot of stuff… Have you ever noticed how I never really write about myself. Only my daughter really. Nothing that I want to do or accomplish. I just noticed that I now I find that odd and a little boring. Hmmm… Interesting.

So, Here are a few things that I am currently interested in. I will not include anything that Haley is doing as it should be obvious that I would be interested in that.

1. Baking.
   
2. Cake, cupcake and cookie decorating.
   
3. Decorating and home improvement
   
4. Contemplation of going back to school.
   
5. Saving money
   
6. Cleaning my house
   
7. Starting to knit again
   
8. Would love to read the twilight series. I know I know.
   
9. Getting my Christmas shopping done. I really would love a low key Christmas this year.
   
10. Wondering if my job will survive the recession.
    

You know what that was actually quite hard not to include anything that was related to Haley.

Well, the cupcakes are done and I need to get them out of the oven, so lets see if this posts right!

back from a hiatus?

Well, softball is winding down, in fact this is our first weekend off in almost 2 months! We have one more tournament and the championship game of another on Monday and then we are all done and we go back to Volleyball! When is the rest! But, I have to tell you, I love it and I wouldn't have it any other way!

We are still working on paying down our debt and living frugally, well we were until softball that is. All the travel in the summer leads to alot of me

als out and sometimes all three meals in a day out so it really did do a number on our budget. We are back on track now with eating at home at e

very possible time!

We have our garden in 16 tomato plants, 6 jalepeno peppers, over 100 green bean plants and 20 cucumber plants! No onions or potatoes this year... it has been so wet and rainy here that I didn't have time to get it all in! I can't wait until we can start eating garden fresh produce! Yum!

Here are a few pictures from our summer of softball :)

Runner up in state!

Well, now that the excitement of Junior High volleyball is over... we can get back to our regularly scheduled life for 1 week. Yes, you heard me... 1 week. In one week track meets start, club volleyball tournaments start and travel softball is still practicing. Nuts I know.

Here are a couple of pictures from the state championships.

Regional Volleyball Champs!

Softball, Volleyball, not time for me Oh MY!

It is all I have been doing lately. Not that I am complaining because I am not... Just busy is all. This week we start sectionals for volleyball, so that should be exciting. Haley made a club volleyball team last week so just when I thought that volleyball was almost done... this smacks me in the face. I have not been doing well at all with not spending. I haven't done any real grocery shopping in 2 weeks so we have been eating out alot! I need to get it together and pull my head out of my butt!

We had some more cutbacks at work in the last few weeks. I had to let another person who worked for me go. So now we are down to 3 in a department of 5. Things are getting hectic and I am the only one that doesn't get paid overtime, so I have been trying to pitch in and help more by staying later. I don't mind as it is apart of my job to pick up the slack when things like this happen. I am sure I am losing most of the people that have read me over the past few months, but just know that I will be back soon... hopefully very soon! I like to blog, and I really like to read blogs! I really need to be better at commenting more as well.

I have alot going through my head, this is the last year that I am going to be the president of our travel softball league and I have a ton to do and no time to do it in. I really need to get motivating and get the few things left that I have to do for it!

Have you ever felt like your writing is just all over the place... I guess, I use this more as a journal of my daily life then a blog about anything in particular. I went back and was reading a little of it and it is pretty hard to follow. And I noticed that I talk about Haley alot! lol .

Oh well... I might never be one of those super popular blogist's but that's ok... I like this little place to journal my hard to follow thoughts :)

What is with this Snow!

It snowed again last night... not nearly as much as they said we were going to get (6-8 inches) but it is still cold and the wind is blowing like crazy!

We had an exciting week with Haley's volleyball team! They one their conference championship on Thursday and the game was so exciting!! They won in two games and the best part was that they won against their arch rival!

Back in the Saddle again!

After a two week hiatus from frugal shopping I am back on track. I did my weekly shopping trip this week. Below you will see a picture of the goods. I didn't have to buy any meat this week because we still have plenty in the freezer. So, with the money I would have boughten meat with, I bought some toiletries and cleaning supplies and cat and dog food. I spent $57.43 and I am done for the week. Woo hoo.

There was a great deal on cereal this week. I bought 4 of Haley's favorite (Fruit Loops) for less then $4.00 and then I got 2 boxes of Rice Krispies and 2 boxes of Corn Flakes also for less then $4.00.

This week's menu will include:

MeatLoaf

Pork Chops

Home Made Chicken Strips

Pizza

Taco Ring

Haley gets two choices but she hasn't made them quite yet. I will have to update when she does.

It is about 3:30 here and I have quite a few things left to do before tomorrow. I am going to make homemade bagels for breakfasts this week. I think I will make some cookies as well so we have something to snack on. This past week, I made Pioneer Woman's best ever Chocolate Sheet Cake! It was awesome! We all loved it!

Before I go, I have one recommendation from my grocery shopping today. I love salsa! Not necessarily super hot salsa, I like it to have a kick but I also like to taste all of the ingredients. I had two coupons today for $1.00 of Wholly Salsa, and one of my grocery stores had them on sale for 10/ $10. So I bought two of them for Free! It is the best Salsa I have had in a long time, next to home made. Not super hot but definately a kick and you can taste all of the great ingredients! Try it the next time you have a hankerin' for some Salsa, it won't let you down!

I have fallen off the wagon

Life has been busy busy lately... We have been going everywhere for volleyball, work has been busy, and I am trying to get the season started for softball... that includes getting games schedules and tournaments as well. Also, my daughter and her friends are thinking about starting a club volleyball team... Since I have experience with running a softball league, I think I have been volunteered for Volleyball as well. We shall see!

So, I have fallen off the wagon, the cooking everything at home wagon... We have eaten out 2 times this week do to very poor planning on my part. I didn't get to grocery shop at all for the last two weeks. I have stopped to get milk and a few veggies but for the most part we have been living on what we have. This is fine and we have plenty to get us by... But I did not plan any of my meals this week at all!

Last night we had a late volleyball game and we were all starving after it so we went out for Pizza, and tonight Haley was going downtown with her friends so Jim and I decided to treat ourselves to Mexican! We could have definately gone with out those two expenses... but oh well we are back on track for the rest of this week and next now!

Since I haven't been blogging much lately I don't have any new recipes ready and I have still been trying to learn how to edit my photos in elements... I just haven't had much time to devote to it. So, here is a picture of my daughter that I am currently working on.

Chicken and noodle casserole

I really need to start taking pictures of these, but normally the food doesn't last long enough because the fam is starving!

Chicken and noodle casserole

2 cans chicken stock
1/4 cup or a bit more flour
1/4 cup butter
1 cup cubed velveeta cheese
2 chicken breasts cooked and diced or cubed.
2 cups frozen peas
Box of your favorite pasta

• Cook noodles to al dente or just about done in my world.
• Start making a roux. Melt butter in saucepan, stir flour into melted butter and let cook for a few minutes.
• add in a cup or so of the chicken stock and whisk together. Once combined add the rest of chicken stock and stir frequently.
• Once combined and slightly thickened, add in cup of velveeta cheese and allow to melt.
• Combine sauce, chicken and noodles. Add peas.
• Place in 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes.

This is really quite tasty and easy to make! It gets the Haley stamp of approval.

I served this with a salad and crescent rolls. It was a yummy dinner tonight!

Menu Plan Monday... On Wednesday!

Well, alright, so I am a little late. My bad. The weather has been horrendous here. Jim was invovled in two accidents today (just fender benders) but still.. 2 in one day! Yikes!

Roads are bad, it is colder then a witches hoohaa... and it is supposed to get colder! ACK!

Menu Plan for dinners!

Steak, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls
Chili Cheese Dogs, chips
Homemade Pizza and breadsticks, salad
Meatloaf, potatoes, green beans, rolls
Pork Chops, salad, peas, cheesy potatoes
Chicken and noodles casserole
Grilled cheese and tomato soup

In no particular order!

View a ton of other menus here!

Raspberry Lemon Mini Muffins

Today has been very productive. Ground Beef was on sale so Jim went to town and bought 15 more pounds. 11 of those pounds were seperated into 3/4 pound packages and went into the freezer. 2 pounds went into a meat loaf for next week. I then crumbled the last 3 pounds and froze it in four different bags. 2 cups each. I also made two pizza crusts for this coming week as Haley chose homemade pizza for dinner for one of her two nights. I will share the menu with you on Monday :)

I also made some mini muffins (chocolate chip and Raspberry Lemon) I have to share my recipe for the rasberry lemon because they are so so good. These are very lemony so don't make them unless you love yourself some lemon!

makes 12 regular size muffins or 24 mini muffins

1-3/4 all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar ( I used organic cane crystals)
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 6 oz container raspberry yogurt
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1-2 tbsp lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

You will need two bowls for this
In one bowl stir together flour, baking soda and powder and salt.

In the other bowl mix together yogurt, egg, butter, lemon zest and juice until smooth.

Stir into other batter until just moistened.

Spoon into muffin or mini muffin tins.

I baked for 9-1/2 minutes, start checking them after 8 minutes.

I also put a glaze on mine:
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup organic sugar ( you can also use white sugar, if you feel like it)

In a saucepan stir together until sugar is dissolved turn off and let cool it will thicken slightly.

Once muffins are done, poke holes in them and spoon glaze on them.

They are super yummy and you will love them! If you love lemon that is!

Had to go to Evil Walmart today

The town that I work in has most of the stores I normally shop at for deals. Today was wal-mart day, but only because I knew I had coupons where I could get a couple things free and a few other things really cheap! Like I said in a previous post. I try to avoid shopping there and only buy super good deals and get out of there as fast as I can. This is why I like to shop on my lunch break. I know I only have a certain amount of time and that really limits the time I can spend browsing!

Here is what I got today for just a bit above 10$. I think it was $10.15

I purchased 3 Johnson and Johnson buddies soaps, free with coupon, 3 tucks medicated pads (lol don't ask but they are for hubby) these were also free with coupon, 4 rice a roni .99 after coupon, 3 chef boy r dee's .76 after coupon, herbal essence (splurge because I love this shampoo) 1.64 a bottle after coupon. I think I did pretty good! I love the free stuff, Haley even though she is older loves the smell of the little buddies soap and it is gentle on her skin!

You might be wondering if I shop everyday. The answer would be, yes pretty much. As I stated above, It helps me use up my lunch hour or so and I get to enjoy my Saturdays because I don't have to go grocery shopping! This week I will shop over the weekend at the Grocery store in my town because they are having an outragous sale. 10 lb bags of potatoes for a Buck!! Holy crap! I will probably get four bags and just store them in the basement and use as needed. That should get us through until the end of March at least! I will probably stock on a little more Ground Beef as well, because it is on sale again as well.

Last night, as we were walking out to our truck to go catch Haley's volleyball game, I fell on the ice, Oh my goodness am I paying for it today, my back, my neck and my whole mid section is sore. It even hurts a bit to laugh! Ugh, I hope it goes away soon. Yet another reason why I hate winter!

There won't be any shopping updates tomorrow as I have no place left to shop at this week until the 3 days sale at our in town grocer. I will have to post the before and after pictures of my bathroom paint job! :)

My Target deals today

Wow, I really scored at Target today! I used coupons for the things I bought (with exception of the 90% off christmas stuff!!WOOOT!)

3 electrasol diswasher tablet (25 packs) for .75 cents each!
2 Eggo Waffles packs 1.25 each
4 bottles of suave shampoo ( I think these were like 38 cent each!)

Not even 8 dollars for items that are of way more value! The electrosol alone is regularly priced at 4.29 a box!

Take your coupons from this weekend and go to Target!

You won't regret it!:)

Budgeting and paying off debt

So, before the end of the year Jim was laid off from work. Not a big deal normally because he can collect unemployment and we always have my salary for any of the extras we might need. For the past two years Jim has been subcontracting, which basically means he is his own boss, he works for a company, but they don't pay his benefits and don't collect taxes on his behalf. He has to do that all on his own. This also means when there is a layoff, that means no unemployment, UGH!

So, we are living off my salary, which is going much smoother then I anticipated! About two months ago I started paying off debt a little by little. We really don't have much debt, just our house payment and 1 vehicle payment and household expenses and a few credit cards with not much balance. I have been paying the credit card down with the least balance and this month I will get to pay one off! YIPPEE!!! one down and a few more to go! I have filed my cards away out of my wallet so there is no temptation and we pay cash for everything now.

So, budgeting, more specifically, the food budget. We cook alot from scratch around here, but what we don't I use coupons for and stalk the grocery sales. I have a really well stocked pantry and freezers so I pretty much just pick and choose things that I might need. Today I was able to get what is in the picture below for about 5$.. not bad and most of it was for stock piling!***NOTE***after trying to load the picture for 2 days now on blogger, I am unable to post it. I have no clue why because the picture size is very small.. I will try photobucket later today. I still have to hit target and hyvee tomorrow and then Wal-mart on Wednesday. I try very hard to stay away from Wal-mart and I only go in there to get the really big loss leaders and then high tail it out of there!

I am also going to start doing the Menu Plan Mondays at Organize Junkie . I won't start until next week though as I haven't really had much time to plan out my menu this week! I am excited about it all!

Oh, another thing...I went to both Walgreens and CVS in my area yesterday and today, and boy I was so disappointed. Most of the really good sales, they were already out of the product :( Ugh!

April Showers Giveaway

So, I was surfing blogs, looking for some winter decorating ideas and I found a blog called April Showers. She has a super cute blog and is giving away a Bath and Body Works Gift Card as well as a gift card for Mark. Avon.

You should go here and enter yourself!

Happy New Year and this camera is ticking me off.

Happy New Year everyone, May 2009 be great for you and your family.

Now, The new camera I bought

Is really ticking me off, I can't get a good picture in a less then well lighted area for anything, everything comes off grainy and mis colored. I don't know what I am doing wrong. It has alot of settings on the top.. I was using the portrait one with the flash. I think I should have used the high ISO setting. I had a camera that was exactly like this just a few years old and it took great pictures all the time. I never really had to mess with anything. This is really frustrating to me. It takes good pictures in high light but I need great pictures all the time. Especially in low light or heavy flourescent lighting. Haley plays volleyball and cheerleads in a gym that is painting like a mint green... All of my pictures from Cheerleading save a few have come out grainy and with a greenish cast on them. I need some major help, can someone direct me to where I need to go?

Thanks in advance and I will leave you with a real cute picture of our little dog Kneissa and one of the outside cats, Mel.