http://www.etsy.com/listing/74334960/early-morning-fishing-matted-8-x-10-fine?ref=sr_gallery_26&ga_search_query=fishing+&ga_page=5&ga_search_type=all&ga_facet=
I have gotten a little off track on posting things for my Thankfulness Challenge, way off track. I am trying to get back on the rails. So three things I am thankful for.
1. Mother’s
Mother’s are wonderful. Mine is not an exception to that rule. She has taught me many things, how to sew, how to cook, how to be consistent, to finish what I start, to try, to garden…this list is endless. Mom and I are best friends, most of the time…unless we are on each others nerves, which happens even with best friends. I love her very much.
2. Friends
Girl friends are essential if you are a married woman, even if you aren’t they are still essential. No man in his right mind really wants to hear about the four hour shopping trip to try on swim suits, how many didn’t fit and how many you actually tried on and then hear that you didn’t buy even one! lol :0)
There is no understanding among the men on that point in my life. They simply walk into the store find the size and color that they want, and buy it! They will sympathize but really never understand the whole crisis.
I got to spend some time with some new and some old friends this weekend and I had a great time. I left feeling rejuvenated and ready for more of the hard stuff that life throws at us.
3. I am thankful for my husband. He is an awesome man!
One thing that I like about myself.
This is still proving incredibly difficult for me. I see opportunities to create in plain objects all around me.
Today I am thankful for
1. My daughters, who are growing up to be extraordinary women.
2. My sons that are incredible people. They are thoughtful, (for the most part) exciting, strong young men.
3. The creation of music. What an incredible way to express what is in our hearts.
This is getting increasingly hard. Today I like that I can feel some of the pain of my friends. I guess that means that I am empathetic, not merely sympathetic.
It has been a rough week. We found out that a girl the same age as my daughter died in a car accident on Wed. night and the funeral is on Tuesday. I am not upbeat and cheerful and this is why. The girls were Daisy Scouts together and it is hard to even think about. Please pray for her family and friends.
Talk to you later,
Karen
As a part of the Thankfulness Challenge, I am going to tell you about the Dave Ramsey adventure that we embarked on two + years ago. I agreed to go on this debt killing adventure kicking and screaming! No, really… I didn’t want to take his class offered at our church but I did out of respect for Hubs. (That is not his name, his name has been changed to protect the innocent! ) There is not much that he asks me to do for him and this was one thing that was important so even though I wanted to throw the 2 year old tantrum! Well, I think I did throw the tantrum but then I stepped up to the plate and did the adult thing. At the time we owed a bunch of $$$ from medical bills, car payment and some credit card bills. Our first step was to save the $1,000 emergency fund. Which of course, we needed within 10 days time. It seemed an unending dance with a horrible date of one step back two steps forward and then two steps back and one step forward and sometimes no steps at all. During that time we paid off the van, had an expensive rebuild on our septic system, replaced the roof on our house, extensive repairs to the heat and air system twice, and bought 2 cars since we had three drivers and one vehicle. We paid cash for each one of those repairs and had to rely on God to help us pay for them at all. I can’t explain it but when we needed cash it was there.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/3crowns
That was two years ago. Last year, we had our debt down to one larger bill. The van and the credit cards payed off. The credit cards were cut up and thrown out, accounts closed. His work started missing paying us on time each and every paycheck. Sometimes it was only a couple of weeks before they payed us. One time it was three months. Our savings dwindled but because of Dave’s snowball plan we were sitting pretty good. Then came a time of about 6 months with no work. Hubs was self employed and working hard at finding more self employed work. Things were tight and the company he was working for closed completely.
He is working now and has been since Novermberish. I forget exactly when he started working the 9-5 job but it pays the bills, was in town, is interesting and has insurance + a regular paycheck. All things you look for when you are out of work. We would never have made it during that time without some help from family, Dave’s no debt plan and the emergency fund.
Here are some lessons we learned that we have implemented for us.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/StymiepieStudios?ref=seller_info
1.If we are self employed again we will keep our emergency fund at 2,000 and the business account at 2,000+ as well, until we get all the debt payed off. Then we will save like crazy and increase that savings.
2. Always pay cash for cars and buy cheap cars for your kids, if you buy them a car at all.
3. Pay off the debt, it will set you free.
4. Keep your pantry/freezer stocked with food in case something happens and eat from them so that the food stays rotated.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/hopespantry?ref=seller_info
5. If someone in your house wants to do something (like do the Dave Ramsey plan) then do it out of respect to them, wholeheartedly. Face the facts; they are the $$ nerd and you are not. Their wisdom is greater than yours and the peace of mind of not having bills will be overwhelming.
6. God will provide for you if you are obeying him. Had we not gone on Dave’s plan then we would have been in a really, really bad place financially and the stress would have been much more.
7. “nevah, nevah, nevah, give up” in the words of Winston Churchill.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/PosterPop
In August of last year our oldest lost his job so we had what amounted to three unemployed adults living in our house with the three younger kids. I will brag on God a bit here: within a three week span of time we went from three unemployed to three employed as Hubs, oldest son and daughter both got jobs. I was even filling out job applications online and I have health issues so that wasn’t really going to work. Granted, the kids’ jobs are fast food, but they get the hours they want and the work environment is outstanding. We are again working at paying off the debt snowball. Oldest son is paying off his debt and building his own business. Oldest daughter is saving $$ and has her emergency fund saved and is working on money for a car sometime soon. Yay, all because I was respectful and followed Hubs direction on the Dave Ramsey class. Woohoo, God is great!
We are almost there, our strings are almost gone!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thedreamygiraffe?ref=seller_info
Along with four kids, my husband, the three dogs, and some close friends. I can’t wait. I try hard to not think about Dad and this is keeping me busy! :0) Brisket, potato salad, bread, beans and maybe coleslaw if I can get it togther and of course CAKE!!
Thanks for the best wishes!
Karen
Today I am thankful for three lessons that my Dad taught me. I remember him frequently throughout the year but most during March as we shared a birthday. He was a great man and fought a hard fight with cancer the last 14 years of his life. Though, I remember him most for the lessons he taught or tried to teach us when we were growing up. There are so many lessons that I am going to pick three today that I am thankful for.
1. I am thankful that He taught responsibility. He taught us or tried to teach us to be responsible for our actions.
2. He taught me that love needs to be tough and tender. Tough in that you set boundaries and expect people to behave well. Tender in that you should not be afraid to show your kids that you are proud of them.
3. He taught me many things but one of the more important ones was to laugh at myself and not be afraid of making others laugh. Life is too short to be uptight about how we look to others. He was very good at telling stories on himself and making others laugh.
Ok one thing I like about myself. I like people, all kinds of people. I like talking and listening to people. People are funny and have neat stories to share.
Today I am thankful for these three things!
I just cleaned out the little freezer of our refrigerator and found food I didn’t know I had! I threw out some food that had been forgotten and organized the freezer to make more sense! I have been organizing and trying to streamline our food prep. system. This really means that we have been making food ahead of time like I did about 6 weeks ago. Today so far we have made granola, freezer biscuits (see recipe below) Pizza crusts, pre-made the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then also Ham and Cheese sandwiches and corn bread mix! Did you know that if you spread peanut butter on both slices of sandwich bread it keeps the bread from getting soggy after you add the jelly. So the sandwich would look like this bread, PB, jelly, PB, and then topped off with the top slice of bread. We also did this with the ham and cheese sandwiches but a little different. Put the mayo or mustard in between the ham and the cheese and not right up next to the bread. There are enough for the week double bagged and in the freezer. Since we home school we don’t need to have sandwiches everyday. The one day we do need to pack a lunch we leave early and get home late. I am trying to reduce the stress on that day. I will let you know if it works. :0)
Angel Freezer Biscuits
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1/4 c. warm water
5 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. shortening
2 c. buttermilk
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Sift flour, cut in shortening. Add yeast and buttermilk to dry ingredients; mix well. Knead quickly 20 to 30 times. Cover and let rise in warm place for 2 hours.
Punch down, roll 1/2 inch thick. Cut with biscuit cutter. Place on a cookie sheet, then freeze. After frozen place in freezer bag until ready to serve. To prepare place unthawed on cookie sheet in cold oven. Bake 400 degrees until brown, 25-30 minutes.
We will be pre-prepping the dinners when the other crew gets in from the grocery store. I am a bit more ambitious this time as I am adding some family favorites to the recipe list and increasing the number of meals to 25 main dishes, 15 lunches and ten breakfast items. So far I think our grocery budget is about $257 spent. They shopped at Aldi’s first and then the Dollar Store. I had subdivided the grocery list into different stores as Aldi’s is cheapest and the Dollar store has the cheaper Mexican food items. The last store on the list has the best produce and meat so the big bucks will come from there. This list is also a bit inflated since we needed to replenish the pantry. These meals should last the month which would be a great blessing to all of us since it promises to be a busy one.
Dinners
Most of the dinner recipes are from the saving dinner website. I am adjusting most of them for freezer meals. I am also including in the shopping list the other meals that we will eat that are not freezer meals. We just needed a plan for dinner, lunch and breakfast. I am not satisfied that we are eating as healthy as we should. The names of the recipes are what the kids call them so they are family food. I am also not a nutritionist so these meals are probably not balanced in some way.
Lunches
Breakfasts
Well, I will write more later and include photographs of our dinners in process. The other thing to understand is that we will round out these dinners with vegetables, salads, side dishes and possibly, sometimes dessert!
What do you do to stay organized with your meals?
Karen
I decided about 2 pm on Valentine’s day that our family needed a special dinner. Specifically, that the man that bought the roses needed a pampering dinner. He doesn’t make much of a fuss about not getting special treatment, but he has been working extremely hard and needed some appreciation. So youngest dear daughter baked her first cake (chocolate wacky cake), and I frosted it.
Here is the Wacky Cake recipe:
3 cups of flour (being sure to level off the top of the cup measure after each scoop)
6 Tablespoons of cocoa
2 cups of sugar
2 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of salt
Put all of these in the sifter and sifted them into a bowl. Then she stirred in the last four ingredients
2 cups of cold water
3/4 cups of salad oil (we used canola)
2 Tablespoons of vinegar
2 Teaspoons of vanilla
Stir it all together and pour it into your cake pans. We baked this at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Cool it and then frost as you choose.
The kids helped set the table, and iron a real red and white checked tablecloth. I do have a thing for table cloths besides they absorb spilled milk before it reaches the floor. :0) I started using tablecloths when the kids were much younger and the table over a carpet.
I took a minute before the cake mixing started and made this garland. Yes, I was also on the phone and I am sure that my friend thought I was insane.
Here is the picture of the garland.
It took me about ten minutes, left over pink ribbon and scrapbook paper I will never, ever use for anything! I cut out the hearts free hand with about four sheets of paper stacked together at the same time. Using the straight stitch on my sewing machine I just sewed them onto the left over cream seam binding and then the left over pink ribbon. Done! A heart garland to hang where my wooden words normally hang.
Our daughter wrote super quick place cards and put them on the plates. The guys set the table and carried in the super easy tamales(from the freezer section and steamed in the rice steamer). That along with the beans, rice, chips and salad made for a great meal. Everyone was happy and dinner was special. Did anyone notice the super quick garland? Nope! Does it bother me, no! I called attention to it and everyone was happy. Blue moody feelings banished and everyone was pleased! Was the house spotless? Nope! Memories made and everyone happy! If we wait until everything is perfect then we will never create memories with our children or I am completely stressed and they are too.
What did you do special for Valentine’s day?
talk to you later,
Karen
Wow, I keep falling behind on this challenge. I am making an executive decision and I will extend the Thankfulness challenge out until I am thankful for 29 days. We are real people with real life things happening in our lives. While thankfulness is a huge part of our daily lives, I refuse to get stressed out by a blog theme! lol
Thankfulness challenge day 8!
1. I am Thankful for sunshine and warmer temperatures. It has been weeks since our outside temperatures were hovering around the freezing point. This week our average temperatures will be in the 60′s.
2. I am thankful for the lovely man that loves me and chooses daily to live with me and my chaotic, creative tendencies. He is incredibly easy going and flexible… Oh and did I say encouraging.
3. I am thankful for Christ and all he has done for me and with me. He has granted me forgiveness for all the wrong things I do, all the time, unconditionally, without ceasing.
Happy Valentine’s Day to you too!
Talk to you later,
Remember to post what you are thankful for! Gratefulness breeds contentment and peace within.
Karen
Things I am thankful for are
1. Shoes
2. Weather reporting (semi-accurate)
3. Routine
4. Peace
5. Homeschooling flexibility
6. America
Two things I like about me are
1. I have a sense of humor (about most things).
2. I am an average size (not too short and not too tall)!
