Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Monday, June 14, 2010

In the last week

In the last week I have.....

~ worked more than I thought possible during the summer
~ cleaned the whole house (except for mopping, I hate mopping)
~ bought some new cloth diapers to try
~ joined a gym
~ worked out in above mentioned gym

This week I will rest :)

Friday, June 4, 2010

Saving some money!

I read a great post over at Money Saving Mom today. Who is money saving mom you might ask? Only one of the best money saving resources ever!

Money Saving Mom is written by a mom named Crystal who is constant giving money saving tips and ideas. As a matter of fact Crystal and her husband are so committed to being debt free that they saved up 100% of a mortgage. That's right folks! They saved up for a house and God provided them a way to be mortgage free :)

I came across an article here about the things that this family does in order to stay debt free. After reading her article it made me stop and think about all the things that my family and I currently do in order to save money.

So in no particular order.....


1. Make our own soap

2. No Paper towels

3. Cloth diapering (this one will be started up again as soon as we find some new ones we like)

4. Keep our air set around 85 in the summer

5. Keep our heat set on 65 in the winter

6. Use the cash systems for our groceries

7. Use a weekly menu plan

8. Grocery shop using a list

9. Shop consignment sales

10. Replaced our dryer sheets with tennis balls

11. Wash clothes in cold water (except for the cloth diapers)

12. There are also some more things that I do to save money but they border on the crazy side so I'm not going to list them for now :)

I realize that we do alot of things to save money, but there are some more things we could be doing

1. No more candy bars and soft drink snacks

2. Eat out less

3. Eat less meat

4. Fans only instead of AC

5. No cable

6. Line dry clothes

All in all we do pretty well, but could always do better :)

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Yummy :)

I just made the best homemade BBQ sauce ever! That's right folks... I cooked something from scratch and take it from me I will never by BBQ sauce from the store again :)


Happy Cooking

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

My grandpa

I love my grandparents tremendously! I have one I never met, one that passed away when I was young, one that lived a few hours away from me and one that lived next door and my family took care of. Not to mention the grandparents I received when my husband and I married.

I could spend hours talking about all of them. I was named after one ya know. So was my daughter. One set of grandparents had 9 kids, 8 of them girls. What stories they must have been able to tell :)

I want to talk tonight about my grandpa though: Papa. He was such a wonderful man. I can remember him teaching us how to go about bottle feeding a calf or how to make sure we did everything we could to be as frugal as possible (yes folks the cheapness I have runs in the family).

My papa knew the definition of hard work. At any given time he worked multiple jobs yet was always willing to give the shirt of his back to someone who needed it.

My papa had trees in his front yard where he would rest every afternoon. This is where he would offer visitors a seat when they happened to stop by. This is where we would hang on to every word as he was telling stories and what a good story teller he was!

As papa got older he suffered from Alzheimers . My family took turns taking care of him along with my aunts family and my papa's brother. Before he passed away it became nearly impossible to take care of him so he was placed in a home for Alzheimers patients.

I know that nursing homes bring up strong emotions in people and that is neither here nor there right now. It was a last resort for my family and yet somethings that had to be done. Thank goodness it was close to where we live.

My family took turns visiting the Alzheimers home. Boy was that an experience. As crazy as it sounds I liked it there. It was a chance to reach out to people who needed it. I heard wonderful stories about many a childhood. They enjoyed the company that we were able to provide as well as the occasional visit from our family dog :) It was always a great experience to see someone's face light up from bringing them something as simple as a soft drink. The people who worked there were good people who loved my papa dearly.

if you ever get a chance to visit someone in a nursing home please do. It is more beneficial than you realize. I came across this article tonight that describes how wonderful this experience is. Check it out here.