SuzysSitcom.com shows you how to make beautiful chrysanthemum mirrors.
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.
2hr Cleaning Checklist
Classic View
Grid View
This week’s menu
Breakfasts
Oatmeal, Cereal and/or Banana Oatmeal Smoothies — since we have swimming every morning, we’re keeping breakfasts really simple at our house right now
Lunches
Lunch at church function — brought a big tossed salad
Snack-y lunch
Avocado Egg Salad, carrot sticks, apple slices
Cheese Quesadillas, sliced veggies, fruit
Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches from the freezer, veggies, apple slices
Leftovers x 2Snacks
Fruit/Veggies
No Bake Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Baked Oatmeal
No Bake Energy BitesDinners
Dinner with extended family — brought a big tossed salad
Sausage & Veggie Stovetop Hash, Blueberry Cobbler in the Crockpot
Steak, Scalloped Potatoes in the Crockpot, Fruit Salad
Quinoa, Tomato, and Avocado Salad, Grilled Chicken, Fruit Salad
Lasagna on the Stovetop, Homemade Rolls in the Crockpot, steamed broccoli, fruit
Dinner with friends — bringing a relish tray
Dinner with extended family
What’s on your menu this week? Share details and/or your link to your menu plan in the comments.
10 goals for this week
I think this might be a first: I actually crossed everything off my goal list for last week! I’m not sure what it was except for the fact that I did really make my goals a priority, we stayed home more, and no one was sick! 🙂
Last week’s goals:
Family/Mothering Goals
1. Finish reading Wilma Rudolph: Olympic Runner aloud to the children.
2. Continue with swimming lessons for all three children.Personal Goals
3. Finish reading Beyond Bath Time plus one other book.
4. Sleep for at least 7.5 to 8 hours every night.
5. Continue on with the Choosing Gratitude 30-Day Devotional.
6. Exercise at least five times.7. Finish listening to Stop Acting Rich.
Homemaking Goals
8. Organize my top dresser drawer.
9. Try at least two new recipes.Business Goals
10. Edit and submit an article for publication on RooMag.com.
Here are my 10 goals for this week:
Family/Mothering Goals
1. Start and finish reading Stuart Little aloud to the children.
2. Continue with swimming lessons for all three children.
3. Write a love note to Jesse.
Personal Goals
4. Start and finish reading The Simplicity of Homeschooling, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
5. Sleep for at least 7.5 to 8 hours every night.
6. Exercise at least five times.
Homemaking Goals
7. Start working on planning out our Fall Schedule.
8. Try at least two new recipes.
Business Goals
9. Finish editing my new ebook (more details coming soon!)
10. Projects finished for LitFuse Publicity campaign.
How did you do on last week’s goals? What are your goals for this week? I’d love to have you share your progress on last week’s goals and your goals for this coming week in the comments. Of, if you’ve blogged about it, leave your direct link below. Let’s cheer each other on to live purposeful and productive lives!
You can download a free customizable weekly goal-planning sheet here.
Gluten-Free Cinnamon Biscuits in the Crockpot
For those of you who were asking, Frugal Farm Wife converted my Crockpot Cinnamon Biscuits recipe to be gluten-free! Check out her Gluten-Free Crockpot Cinnamon Biscuits Recipe here.
Losing Power, Gaining Focus
Guest post from Jenn of Hang On, Baby, We’re Almost… Somewhere.
When a storm blew through the DC area and left millions without power the week before the 4th of July, we were among the millions. I am thankful that, for us, the outage ended relatively quickly — in 72 hours. Still, in three hot summer days, we learned some lessons that I think speak to my budget-aware side.
1. Without an Air Conditioner or Electricity, Our Day Revolved Around the Sun
Our awareness grew of the time of day, position of the sun, and maximizing light and air flow while minimizing heat. We all pitched in to manage our environment, raising or lowering shades, opening or closing doors and windows, re-icing the food we kept in coolers.
The day seemed more purposeful, less “Where does the time go?” than when we rely on a thermostat to control our temperature. I am using some of these techniques now to try to lower our electric bill.
2. Cold Showers Aren’t As Bad As I Thought!
Even in the hottest part of summer, I’ve always taken hot showers. I’m cold-natured, I’ve thought for years, and I need hot showers to stay comfortable.
Turns out, I live in a chilly climate, albeit an electrically-powered one. You plop me down outside for three straight days of weather in the upper 90’s (mid-30’s in Celsius), and I like a cool shower as much as the next gal!
3. Storm Shades Really Do Work
We discovered that the pulley-run storm shades that are on the windows of our home are one of the best ways to manage heat flow in the house. We loved them already because we can make our bedrooms almost completely dark even in broad daylight, but they made an enormous difference while fighting the heat.
Installing them here in the U.S. would most likely be expensive (we’re blessed that the home we rent already had them installed!), but similar methods can be adopted using things like blackout curtains, window film, and wooden blinds.
4. We Survived Just Fine Without TV.
My kids don’t enjoy TV as much as I thought they did, but my 10-year-old son does love the computer as much as we thought he did.
We talked more and were outside more, but we didn’t have to resort to major outings to manage to pass our time together. We just did simpler things, mostly at home.
All that focus on being kind to each other and building good relationships sure paid off when we didn’t have the distractions of TV, the Internet, video games, cooking, ironing, and laundry. That realization was the most valuable of all these lessons.
Jenn LeBow is a native Texan; lover of Jesus; happy wife of Honey, a Diplomatic Security Special Agent; mom of four (mostly) delightful kids: Cartwheel, 21; Einstein, 10; Blossom, 8; and Ladybug, 3; debt-free; and a voracious reader, whose appetite for books is reluctantly subjugated to other duties in her life. She blogs at Hang On, Baby, We’re Almost… Somewhere.
Free printable Oven-Free Menu
15 Ways to Have More Energy (Part 5)
We’ve been talking about ways to have more energy this week. If you missed the first two posts in this series, read them here.
13. Choose Gratitude
Your attitude can make or break your situation. You can choose to focus on what you don’t have or you can choose to be thankful for what you do have.
There is always, always, always something to be thankful for. When you have a thankful, grateful spirit, you’ll automatically have more joy, zest for life, and energy. It’s the natural outflow of gratitude. And not only will you have more energy, but I promise you’ll just plain enjoy and appreciate life a lot more if you choose gratitude.
Struggling to be thankful in the midst of hard circumstances? Try writing down a list of your blessings. As I’ve found, when you start writing down your blessings, you just may have trouble stopping!
14. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
Don’t compare yourself to others. It’s never productive and it’s a great way to waste great amounts of time and energy.
I recently learned this lesson in a very personal way. Here’s a snippet from my post
It hit me anew just how easy it is to want what we don’t have–better hair, better decorating skills, a better personality, more creativity, more spunk… there’s always someone who it seems we’d like to trade places with because they have what we want.
But trading places with someone wouldn’t fix anything; we’d just inherit a new set of things we wish we could change. No one has it altogether. Everyone has struggles and difficulties.
Comparison only leads to discontentment.
We can’t change who we are, but we can make the most of our situation. We can’t choose the personality we are born with, but we can choose to be thankful–even in the midst of difficulty.
And we can choose to be intentional and purposeful in how we live our lives so that we make the most of all that we’ve been given instead of wishing we were someone else.
15. Wrap Your Life Around Things That Matter
When you spend your life dedicated to what really matters, you’ll have so much more energy and excitement for waking up and living each day. I try to ask myself often, “What will matter in 25 years from now?” And then I seek to wrap my life and invest my days into those things.
Live your life with outstretched arms. The more you live for others, the more you step outside your comfort zone, the more you give freely and generously of your resources and time, the more you’ll wake up feeling blessed, motivated, and inspired to life to the fullest!
At the end of my life, I don’t want to look back with a lot of regrets and wistful thinking. I want to give everything I have to this one life I have — because I only get one shot at life!
photo courtesy of BigStock
Olympic Rings Fruit Pizza
In celebration of the Summer Olympics beginning today, we did some fun activities today:
We used chocolate-covered sunflower seeds I got at the health food store to make Olympic Rings.
Silas had a little bit of trouble lining up the seeds with the lines, so I ended up just having him match the colors and put them in the circles.
The kids were looking at Pinterest with me the other day and saw a picture for Olympic Rings Fruit Pizza and begged if we could make it.
While our Olympic Rings Fruit Pizza didn’t look quite as great as the original recipe, the kids had so much fun making it and were so excited to show Jesse when he got home from work!
Freebies In My Mailbox
I got some great freebies this past week!
Free Schick Hydro Razor
Free Arm & Hammer Sensitive Toothpaste sample
Free Tide Pods
Free Febreze Set & Refresh Air Freshener
Free Tea Forte samples
Free Tampax sample pack
Free Escada Perfume sample
What freebies have arrived in your mailbox this week?
By the way, if you want to start getting great freebies in your mailbox, just start signing up for the freebies I post every day that interest you. Within 4-6 weeks, your mailbox will start filling up with great freebies!
Reader Tip: How to Avoid Garage Sale Pitfalls
Jessica emailed in the following tip:
Summer is in full swing and like many bargain hunters, I love a good garage sale. It’s like a treasure hunt. Looking though one box or pile after another, searching for that one needed item.
Garage sales, however, can have their downsides as well. Here are three pitfalls to avoid when going to a garage sale:
1. Don’t buy what you don’t need.
Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean you need it. Spending a $1 on a set of curtains may be a great deal but if you have three sets of curtains at home and have no need for another why waste the money.
The best way to garage sale is to have a list of items that you need and are looking for. I also try to make a list of my children’s clothing sizes so I can purchase a size up of off season clothing they will need in the future.
Also remember to travel with a tape measure this will keep you from buying that item you just knew would fit but turns out to be too big for your space.
2. Try before you buy.
If you are going to buy electronics, kitchen appliances, yard equipment, or anything that requires electricity or batteries, make sure you try before you buy. In my experience garage sale hosts are happy to demo an item for you to show you all the bells and whistles.
Make sure you run it through all the cycles and ask if the owner has had any problems with the item. I may just be blessed but I have never had a bad experience buying any items such as these at a garage sale most people are honest with the things they sell but you always want to do your due diligence.
3. Watch your mileage.
When you go out hunting for your treasures have a plan. Look through your local sale papers, check Craigslist, and look online for other garage sale postings in your area. Most will have a list of items that they are selling and this will help you decided on a route before you leave the house.
Driving around on a Friday or Saturday morning just searching for signs or going all the way across town for a sale that turns out to be nothing can be hard on your gas tank and eat up your garage sale savings.
Garage sales can be a lot of fun and a great way to stretch the family budget. Just remember to set some simple guidelines for yourself before you start and you can really watch the savings add up.
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15 Ways to Have More Energy (Part 4)
We’ve been talking about ways to have more energy this week. If you missed the first two posts in this series, read them here.
10. Laugh Often
It’s well been said, “Laughter is the best medicine.” It’s amazing how smiling, laughing, and seeing the humorous side of life can just make life more enjoyable — and give you much more zest for life!
We laugh a lot at our house. We laugh at ourselves, we laugh at each other, and we sometimes laugh for seemingly no reason at all — or at least we forgot what it was that we were first laughing about. 🙂
Yes, sometimes we’re just a bit on the crazy side around here — like when Jesse and I decided to create a good night cheer for the kids before bed the other night. We were all pretty much rolling on the floor after our attempts at putting together a cheer with chant, jumps, hand motions, and all. 😉 However, we believe life is meant to be savored — and sometimes being silly just makes it a whole lot more fun!
I’m always on the lookout for a funny story to share with Jesse from something the children say or do. If I find some funny photo or saying on Pinterest, I’ll email it to Jesse or save it to show him when he comes home. And we also love to watch comedy clips or funny movies as a family.
Look for the humor in life — and you’ll probably start to find it just about everywhere!
11. Clear the Clutter
Whether it’s paper clutter, an overloaded email inbox, or lots of stuff in your house that you don’t love and use, clutter can drain you, bog you down, and zap your energy and creativity.
Everyone has a different level of clutter tolerance, but if you’re tripping over excess stuff at your house and struggling to find stuff in piles of unopened mail, chances are your home could use a little purging.
Going through my house from top to bottom twice a year and doing a complete clutter overhaul is something that has been extremely effective in helping us keep a handle on clutter. I also find it helpful to ask myself five questions about what I own:
::Do I need this item?
::Do I use this item on a regular basis?
::Do I like this item?
::Is this item taking up space I don’t have?
::Could I bless someone else with this item?
12. Stop Worrying
We can waste precious amounts of time, energy, and thought worrying. And how much of the time do the things we worry about actual come to pass?
Instead of letting yourself just go round and round fretting over what probably never will be, redirect that energy into something positive. Anytime I catch myself worrying, I try to instead pour that energy and time into something more productive: reading, writing, exercising, listening to an audiobook, cleaning, singing, or serving someone else. Most of the time, I quickly forget about what I was worrying about!
As a Christian, I also have made a commitment to pray instead of worry. When I start mulling over something and being concerned or fearful over what might be, I try to remember to refocus my thoughts on what I know to be true: God is in control and He will give me grace for whatever situation comes my way. And then I pray and commit that situation over to Him — and I get busy doing something else that’s much more important and productive than worrying.
…To be continued tomorrow.
photo courtesy of BigStock
Crockpot Cinnamon Biscuits
These slow cooker cinnamon biscuits taste just as good as cinnamon rolls without all the extra time and effort. Plus, since they bake in a slow cooker, you won’t heat up your kitchen!
I recently came across a recipe slow cooker “Cinnamon Rolls” and I was very intrigued. So naturally, I had to try it for myself.
But in typical Crystal fashion, I had to tweak the recipe a bit, too. 🙂
Spoiler Alert — We LOVED them!
I was really happy with how they turned out.
They were yummy, easy to make, and with the alterations I made, they are good for you, too.
Best of all, we had hot biscuits without heating up the house!
Now I’m all inspired to try making other breads in the crockpot!
While the original recipe calls these Cinnamon Rolls, since they aren’t rolled up in any manner, I changed the name of the recipe to Cinnamon Biscuits, as that seemed better suited.
Ingredients for Slow Cooker Cinnamon Biscuits
- 1 recipe of your favorite biscuit dough (I used Homemade Whole-Wheat Baking Mix mixed with enough milk to make it into a biscuit dough.)
- 1/4 cup butter melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup raw sugar (you could also use brown sugar or regular sugar)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
How to Make Cinnamon Biscuits in the Slow Cooker
1. Thoroughly grease the crockpot with butter or shortening.
2. In a small bowl, melt butter in the microwave and stir vanilla into it.
3. In another small bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon.
4. Roll out biscuit dough and cut into biscuits with a biscuit cutter.
5. Dip biscuits into melted butter mixture, then into cinnamon sugar mixture. Put in crockpot in a single layer.
6. Cover the crockpot with a tea towel or paper towel (to reduce condensation) and put lid on.
7. Turn crockpot on low and bake biscuits for 2-3 hours until done.
You can glaze with a powdered sugar & milk glaze, if you’d like. Or you can leave them unglazed like I did. I thought they were plenty sweet without the glaze!
I let Silas make his own biscuits with some of the leftover dough!
Recipe
Slow Cooker Cinnamon Biscuits
Ingredients
- 1 recipe of your favorite biscuit dough (see notes below)
- 1/4 cup butter melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup raw sugar or brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Thoroughly grease the crockpot with butter or shortening.
- In a small bowl, melt butter in the microwave and stir vanilla into it.
- In another small bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon.
- Roll out biscuit dough and cut into biscuits with a biscuit cutter.
- Dip biscuits into melted butter mixture, then into cinnamon sugar mixture. Put in crockpot in a single layer.
- Cover the crockpot with a tea towel or paper towel (to reduce condensation) and put lid on.
- Turn crockpot on low and bake biscuits for 2-3 hours until done.
- You can glaze with a powdered sugar & milk glaze, if you’d like. Or you can leave them unglazed like I did. I thought they were plenty sweet without the glaze!
Notes
I used Homemade Whole-Wheat Baking Mix mixed with enough milk to make it into a biscuit dough for my biscuit dough recipe.
Recipe adapted from Get Crocked
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Today’s shopping trips: The health food store & Walgreens
We went to the health food store and Walgreens today. Here were our purchases:
The Health Food Store Shopping Trip
Ezekiel Sprouted Tortillas –$3.99
Raw Cheddar Cheese from a local farm — $5.93
Quinoa — $2.42
Pears — $0.99/lb. — $1.69 total
Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds (we’re going to use these for some Olympics-themed activities — I was looking for an alternative to M&Ms and these fit the bill!) — $6.70Total with tax: $22.24
I’ve never purchased quinoa (can you believe it?!) and have been wanting to try it. I was surprised at the price tag on it from the bulk bins, so I’m going to be on the hunt for a better deal on it since I’ve heard it’s really good and good for you. If you have a recommendation for where to get a good deal on it, I’d love to hear!
Walgreens Shopping Trip
10 Memo/Composition books — $0.20 each with coupon
5 Highlighters — $0.19 each with in-ad coupon
Glue — $0.39
Jumbo Glue Stick — $0.39
Erasers — $0.39
2 packages Sticky Page Markers –$0.39 each
2 packages of Wexford Dividers — $0.39
3 Clear School Boxes — $0.49 each with in-ad coupon (2 not shown as they were snagged to be put to use by two eager kiddos as soon as we got home!)
Total with tax : $8.21
Shared Jul 26, 2012
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How we save money and keep life simple by using the resources in our community
How we save money and keep life simple by using the resources in our community
Stephanie emailed in recently and I thought you’d be inspired by what she shared:
Have you ever thought about simple, small ways in which you can use the resources in your community to save, and also to teach your children simplicity and the basics of life? The reward of hunting and gathering is immense.
Here are a few of the ways we’ve used the resources available to us in our community to save money and keep life simple:
–My husband hunts. That provides considerable deer, hog, bullfrog and fowl meat for us. We also fish.
–My 6-year-old son and I have collected at least a gallon of mulberries in the last two weeks and we are freezing those for future use.
–We collect black walnuts (we live in Kansas) in the fall, let them sit all winter, then crack them in the spring.
–We pick rhubarb from my husband’s grandmother’s house, it comes up every year.
–A kind farmer let us ride his combine and gave us a bucket of wheat which we will grind into flour.
–I save the crusts off his bread and make my own bread crumbs.
–We save rain water and use it for our garden (though the drought has hindered that some!)
What are some ways that you save money by using the resources available to you in your community?
We Paid Cash: Our hospital birth
A testimony from Lydia who blogs at Five4Five Meals
There is this book we read to our son called Wherever You Are: My Love Will Find You. The first line reads, “I wanted you more than you’ll ever know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go.”
If I wrote this book for my son, the first line would read, “I wanted you more than you’ll ever know, so I did some serious saving to pay for the hospital bills.”
You see, when I was ready to have my baby I was a newspaper journalist working for cheap at a company that offered bargain basement benefits, so long before I got pregnant, we started saving.
Months later, I found myself pregnant, thrilled, and sitting in the insurance coordinator’s cubicle at my obstetrician’s office. She was telling me that my insurance was covering little and my deductible was among the highest she had ever seen. I was fully aware that my benefits amounted to a latex bandage and two chewable vitamins, not the $5,000+ it would take to have this little guy.
When I told her we had been saving for a baby her eyes grew misty. “That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said.
We started saving six months before I was pregnant, cutting out everything from sodas from the drink machine at work, to coffee to lunch outings. Because of this, we were both able to sock away $50 a week from each paycheck.
We also saved any money we got for Christmas, birthdays, tax refunds, and the cash we were graciously given as shower gifts.
At the time, my husband worked out of town a lot, so per diem checks also went in savings along with spare change, gas reimbursement checks, funds from freelance writing gigs, and a few things sold on Amazon and eBay.
When my baby boy was born the night before our sixth wedding anniversary, I was not worried where the cash would come from to pay for his delivery.
I have to be honest, there was still a fair amount of sticker shock that came when the hospital bill finally arrived and I was grateful my husband and I had padded our savings. I was even able to get a 20 percent discount from the hospital when I paid our bill in full instead of in installments. That equaled a savings of over $2,000!
Life has changed so much since our son was born, and not just because we are new parents. My husband was offered a job — out of the blue — that pays excellent benefits and afforded us the opportunity to move closer to my parents and, due to our new-found savings habit, allows me to stay home.
This has been everything I prayed for.
While the saving was tough and the bills were expensive, my son is worth every penny. Some things you just can’t put a price on.
Lydia Senn is former stressed out journalist turned freelance writer and stay at home mom, who blogs about cooking on a budget and cleaning green. You can check out her blog at Five4FiveMeals.com.
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.