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.