Monthly Goals: February 2017

Want to listen to my theme song currently?  Warning if you are epileptic, don't watch it as the scenery does tend to move around a bit and I don't want to be responsible for some poor soul having a seizure.

The song is called, "Unwell" and is by the band "Matchbox 20".  I have a "Matchbox 20" t-shirt I bought at a concert of theirs from back in the late 90's I still wear to bed quite a bit.  And if I totally lost you there, I'm sorry.  I'm an old nerd who has followed Rob Thomas since he sang his first album (he's the lead singer) *laugh*.

Yeah, I don't like to consider myself crazy...just a bit "unwell"...well okay maybe just a bit crazy.  But, if you can't speak to yourself in public, how else can you amuse yourself or keep your grocery list straight?

What a week!  This has been a week of my son not sleeping...at all...and today he came home with a stuffed up nose and a cough and then he collapsed for a nap and just woke up.  Yeah, it's 6:30 here.  Not looking like I'm sleeping tonight either, but man I hope he at least feels better cold symptom-wise.  I wonder WHY he could have a cold???  Hmmm....gee could it be the two hours of sporadic sleep he's been insisting on at night?  Nah...I'll blame sun spots.

I ended up going back to the doctor for my left arm as it was so bad today that my arm from the elbow down was completely numb, while my shoulder was in a nice amount of pain, probably from having to crash up in the living room a lot to stop my son from bothering his dad who has been working from late afternoon till the wee early hours of the morning.  The doctor put me on prednisone for the next five days and some anti inflammatory drugs to see if we can get the flare ups under better control and hopefully help get my arm to start healing.  I have to say so far the drugs are getting to me and I'm not feeling great, but at least I have feeling back in my lower arm and hand after the first dose of prednisone this morning.  So, yay for that!

Pros for the week were getting taxes done and feeling good about the amount on the return as it'll allow me to get the another chunk of dental bills from the hubby paid off when it comes in and hopefully leave enough of a cushion in the bank so I'm not in a pure financial panic as soon as bills come due for the month.  I just pray that nothing really expensive comes down the pike to make the money go bye bye as seems to be the universe's trend.

So, the goals for last month were definitely hit or miss, but I got a bunch of things done anyway, so I'm going to call it "okay" on the getting things done front.

This month's goals...well are all over the place.  "Waiting impatiently for tax return so I can breath again" is definitely on the list as with how short this month  is for paychecks, the 700.00 in utility bills that I'm going to have to roll over from this week onto next week's paycheck due to the checks being small and such...I need the money in the bank before the first rolls over next month or I might have the breakdown they talk about in the video, but I will definitely know why *laugh*.

So, here we go!  This month's goals!

Sewing Goals:

• Cut out, embroider and put together throw pillow for daughter's bed for her birthday (she wants a Pegasus, with flowers, on it.  Animals aren't really a strong suit of mine, so I'm praying this goes well).
• Embroider more as a whole (I have all kinds of projects in the works and am hoping my arm will be up to doing them here this month).
• Continue to work on making towels (since I didn't get to them yet this week) 
• Make a few pot holders to replace ones that are shot/gotten too thin.

Organizing Goals:

• Get den cleaned out from after Christmas cluttering up (I REALLY need to get the rest of the Christmas stuff into storage...between the cold and the snow I haven't really been up to it).
• Work on master bedroom more.  Weed, weed weed!
• Donate things to used stores as I go.

Cleaning Goals:

• Clean out fridge.  Deep clean.
• Shampoo more carpeting in house (preferably living room and daughter's room and then move downstairs to do down there all at once).
• Clean and organize daughter's room better.

Other Goals:

• Continue optimism that this year is going to be a great one (power of positive thinking!)
• Start on future journal
• Wait on word on daughter's insurance (hopefully I'll hear something soon...I refuse to make a step until I hear one way or the other this year though...I learned my lesson from last year all too well!)
• Make some more make ahead types of items and put into freezer (I made a huge pot of chicken taco meat earlier this week and am going to portion it out and freeze it for enchiladas and things later, so I want to get a few more things like that made as I make them for the menu.  And I need more soup in the freezer too at some point).
• Pay bills without panicking (hey, it could happen!).

How about you?  Have any goals for this month?

Menu Plan Monday: Menu for Week of 1/30/17

Okay, I'll admit I'm super proud of myself.  Not only did I sit down on Sunday and do my menu plan for the week, but I sat down on Sunday and did the menu plan for two weeks!!!!  Oh yeah!!!

I even went to the store yesterday and picked up what few things I'd need to make the menu plan happen over the next two weeks (lettuce, potatoes, eggs, sour cream).  I'm feeling all together here.  Feels great.  Now I'm waiting for the super curve ball to be thrown my way *laugh*.

I forgot my husband was going to be working weird hours this week, so he might not be home for dinner a lot (mini curve ball that got chucked my way), but after looking over my menu plan, I decided to just cook what was on it anyway.  This way there will be leftovers for lunches (and for whenever he gets home from work) and I won't be trying to figure out what to eat when he's not home for dinner.

Last night I made an Easy Potato Soup based on a recipe I found in the 5 Ingredient "Fix it and Forget it" Crock Pot cookbook.  I redid it a bit to suit our tastes and things and it turned out tasty.  My husband actually liked the soup (a rarity for him).  Lucky for me as it made a ton of leftovers too *laugh*.

I was actually worried the menu plan was going to go awry last night as my son has been pretty possessive of the kitchen of late (he likes to spin balls on the counters), but I managed to chase him out without too many temper tantrums and baked bread (I didn't get to it earlier in the day).  I made one loaf of regular bread and then quickly rolled out the other half of the dough (I used the "Bread in an Hour" recipe, so you have to work fast as the bread is raising before your eyes) and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on it, rolled it up and voila!  One loaf of breakfast bread is done too for the week.

So, yeah, so far, so good.  So, onto the rest of the menu plan!

Menu Plan for Week of 1/30/17

Monday:  Easy Potato Soup w/ham (use hash browns from freezer), home made bread

Tuesday:  Chicken Tacos (make in crock pot.  Use can of salsa from pantry to help season chicken), Spanish rice, corn (from freezer), salad.  Make pasta for son for dinner and for his lunches for school throughout week.

Wednesday:  Waffles with choice of toppings (grab different things from pantry as options), sausages, fruit cocktail

Thursday:  Chinese Savory Beef  (from the "Make More With Less" Cookbook), rice, garlic peas (use peas from freezer and fresh garlic from pantry).

Friday:  Mustard glazed ham steak, roasted carrots (from freezer), fried potato slices

Saturday:  Cranberry chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes

Sunday:  Creamy Pork Chops (from the "5 Ingredient Favorites Fix-it-and-Forget-it Crock Pot Cookbook"), Sweet and Sour cabbage (from Beatrix Potter Cookbook), herby soda bread (also from Beatrix Potter Cookbook), salad.

Desserts:  Coconut Pudding (probably switching this to vanilla so my daughter will eat it) - Tuesday, Ice Cream - Wednesday, Honey Cake (Beatrix Potter Cookbook) -Friday

To Bake (aside from menu plan items):  Breakfast Bread (Monday), Banana Bread (use over ripe bananas, Tuesday)

And there you go folks.  My menu plan for this week!  I'd post up next week's menu, but goodness knows I don't want to give the impression that I'm organized or something and help to foster unrealistic expectations or anything *laugh*.

Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

You know, with how hectic last week was, how depressing money has been and such...I'm really impressed with everything that I got done this last week.

I took out the terry cloth yardage I had around here to make kitchen towels.  This was one of those, "I'm going to make baby towels before the baby is born and it is going to be sooooo cute" types of purchases that I made when I was pregnant with my first.  And then the anemia kicked in and I quickly forgot that plan.  I kept thinking of things I was going to do with the terry material and since I needed kitchen towels it seemed like a good idea :).

I had some left on the end of the yardage after I cut the towels out and sizing it up quickly decided to make a quick bathroom mat for when the kids take a bath (seen above).

My son got a bad stomach bug a couple of years ago (he gets them bad when he gets them) and he ended up making a mess in the bathroom a couple of times on the mats I had in there.  After that my son developed a phobia of bath mats and won't tolerate any "semi permanent" bathmat to sit on the floor in the bathroom (I kid you not).  If I put an actual bath mat in front of the bathtub, my son regresses in his potty training and avoids the bathroom like the plague.  Poor kid.  So, I've been using a towel on the floor when the kids get out of the bath, but it's usually a bit big with a regular bath towel (small bathroom is an understatement).  So, I folded the terry material over to make a double width of fabric, sewed around the outside edge, leaving about a four inch opening one one side, turned the pouch right side out, sewed it shut and then quilted a quick "x" on it to keep the mat from getting all twisted up in the washing machine.  And voila!  A nice little mat for the kids to step out on :).

I only got two actual kitchen towels sewed up so far.  I got four more to go.  I found the width of the material wasn't big enough to get two big kitchen towels out of each row, so I made a bigger dishtowel and a smaller dishtowel out of each row.  I ended up with two different sizes, sure, but I'll also end up with six dishtowels once I get them all stitched up.  Not too shabby I'd say.

I got the chicken conversation done with my friends on Facebook (obviously from last post), got the housework nearly caught up (got a bit behind over the weekend with the kids home and we went sledding on Saturday in the backyard with some friends we had over and such), got my right arm back under control (yay!), and while I didn't get the menu plan done last week, we made it through the week without starving, so I had to do something right.  And my husband shoveled off the deck so I didn't have to (woohoo!), even with the new foot of snow we got over the weekend on top of what was already on the deck.

So, onto this week's goals!

Sewing Goals:

• Finish sewing dish towels 
• Fix holes in yellow comforter
• See if white and black comforter can be salvaged (it's pretty thrashed)

General Goals:

• Figure out Monthly Goals for February
• Figure out shopping goals for February (if any)
• Get W2 from husband's second employer and get taxes done (fingers crossed my husband finds time before I go crazy)
• Rip apart knitting projects
• Begin to plan daughter's birthday gift (ask her what she wants and then figure out how to make it)

And there you go folks.  My goals for the week.  How about you?  Got anything planned?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

First, I just want to thank the e-mails I got asking how everything was going and if my husband was recovering okay.  If I didn't reply to you yet, don't despair.  I will.  I'll get to my week in a moment, but first when it comes to the husband's recovery.  So far, in that regard, so good.  Also, thank you to the couple of people who Facebooked me and asked me if I had an e-mail or something as I guess my "page" tabs don't show up on some phones or something.  If you want to get in contact with me please feel free to e-mail me at...

makedohomemaker@gmail.com

I just want to say, once again, how touched I am at my readers.  You guys are great and I really thrilled that I've been fortunate enough to make some great friends through this blog :).

Now...the week.

Well, I can safely say the week didn't improve after Sunday.  My poor daughter was cycling with her stomach till Wednesday and just in a lot of pain and miserable.  She went to school basically long enough to get her homework sorted and things a couple of days (she's an old hat at this by now so we always try to make it till 1:15 because then she's just counted tardy instead of missing 1/2 a school day on the records) and then I'd pick the kids up early and let her go home, get into a tub and let her soak for hours (it's typical with CVS that baths help alleviate the pain, so she prunes when she's cycling) and just try to take it easy.  Of course, doing this also threw my son's normal schedule off and he didn't have a great week at school as a result...well Friday he had a good day anyway.

My car started having a burning brake smell through the week sporadically, so my husband checked the brakes and found that the front brakes are getting kind of warm, so it's probably time for new brakes. Not what I wanted to hear right now, honestly.

Then my husband's second job that he took over the summer sent out his W2 supposedly, but we waited two weeks for it to get here and it wasn't here yet so my husband called and found out that somehow they had sent his W2 to our neighbor across the street's address.  So, my husband went over and asked him if he still had it, but he had sent it back to the company because with the weather the way it was and him being old he didn't want to kill himself getting the W2 over here.  Can't really blame him, but I'm desperate to get the taxes done so we can get our return in with how short February is time wise and things.  I swore when I found out this development.  Now my husband is going to have to go to the company directly, I'm pushing for Monday since he's got a dentist appointment in the morning to get his last two teeth that need to be done checked out. 

I paid the various medical bills that my husband's doctor's office had consolidated into one statement and sent to us a couple of weeks ago (they just added them all together after getting things back from insurance) because I knew I'd have to pay them by the end of the month.  And then a few days later I get a collection notice from some outfit in Maryland.  Called the doctor's office and it turns out that MODA is taking so long to pay the bills that they are immediately 90 days overdue by the time I even get a statement from them in the mail, so I get sent to collections by the computer immediately upon receipt of payment from the insurance company.  Having insurance sure has complicated my life, made things a lot more difficult and cost me a lot of money because of rip off artists taking advantage of the insurance system.  I'm kind of looking forward to going back to self pay right about now.  Seriously.

And then the last couple of weeks my husband just hasn't gotten the hours in that we needed (work is kind of frustrating right now with sporadic types of things going on and such) so the mortgage is going to have to be a few days late so we have money for gas and things next week.

And then today I found out that my son's speech therapist, who is also a really good friend of mine, got rushed to the hospital yesterday with severe abdominal pain.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated for her if you have the time and thank you to anyone who can pray for her.  She's a wonderful person who would literally give you the shirt off of her back before you even asked for it and I'm really worried about her.

Overall...it was a long and depressing week.

However, some good did come out of the week, believe it or not.

1.  I decided that one way to get out of the funk of the week was to focus on things I'd like to do later when this wonder that is "Spring" finally comes, so I went on Facebook and asked my friends (who I knew at least a couple of them had a good amount of animals at their places) if anyone had a good source for buying 3 hens, a rooster and a good cold weather breed of rabbit that was also friendly. 

I started doing some research into rabbits more and weighing it with all the people who said it traumatized them as a child when the rabbits were slaughtered and things.  I came to the conclusion with my daughter's stomach condition and how sensitive she is that killing rabbits with her around could end...well badly for her stomach would be an understatement.  So, I finally decided to just get one rabbit for a pet for her and then get some chickens primarily for the eggs.  And thank you to the person who reminded me that the manure from the rabbit could still be useful as well as I quickly realized free fertilizer is always a benefit *laugh*.

My friend who has a LOT of chickens (like 24) offered me the three hens and the rooster for free as she's downsizing her flock this year.  I am so going to hug her when we go and get those this Spring as that not only saves me money, but I also know that the birds can survive out in a coop in the cold winters and survive okay (my biggest worry was buying birds that would die in the weather.  I'd feel terrible if that happened). 

I started thinking of a good way to redo the 1/2 of the barn that the hutch that my mother-in-law gave us is jammed into so it would fit the chickens, but also give them room to move around and such.  I think I've got a plan and I think I can dig out old furniture from our storage van to recycle into nesting boxes and a ramp and things for the chickens, so they'll have a nice spacious coop and I am hoping to be able to fit the rabbit hutch in there as well to keep it out of the wind, but I'll figure that out later as I'm not sure of the personalities of the animals involved at this point :).  My husband is also optimistic that he can use the raw materials from the hutch I was given to help build a rabbit hutch and coop areas that fit better in with our space.

2.  To help me battle the depressing state of things, I swear, seed catalogs came in the mail this week!  I had requested them a couple of months ago, so I was thrilled to get them in the mail (seen above).  It's like Christmas for adults I swear *laugh*.  I looked through and started circling seeds and plants that had short growing seasons and I knew we'd eat and also found a couple of new plants that I had no idea would grow in my zone.  I found a couple of different berries and things that I am hoping to be able to afford at some point in coming years.  I'd also like to get some fruit trees, clear the land around here, build some stone walls and make a beautiful kitchen and English garden type of atmosphere in the backyard and a few other animals and build my husband the big shop he's wanted for years.  And I'll find a pirate ship buried in the backyard loaded with gold coins to help pay for it all.  Ha!  One can dream can't they?

3.  I finally have, so far, been able to watch about 1/2 of "Edwardian Farm" on YouTube.  Every other time I've tried like three parts were unavailable to watch and it was kind of hard to get into as it came off disjointed.  I'm so far enjoying it a lot more than the first couple of times I've watched it because of this :).

4.  The new laundry system came in the mail this week and while I was kind of blown away with how small the magnets were (probably like an inch across and and an inch and a half tall) they stick to the drum of the washer well.  I've been using a small amount of laundry soap to help break up dirt on my husband's clothes and things, but so far they seem to be working pretty good.  The particulate matter they're picking up from the water is already apparent, so here's hoping they continue to work.   I'll keep you updated.

5.  The foam mattress cover I ordered from my family came in this week too.  And I am SO SO glad I got it!  Boy is it ever helping my quality of sleep with my arms and it really seemed to help out my right arm in particular.  It's a bit stiff now, but the masses of pain I was in are gone from that arm and significantly reduced in my left arm and I think a lot of that is just due to the fact that I was able to sleep a lot better and let my arm nest into the mattress instead of trying to figure out a way to make my upper arms kind of float with a pillow propping them up or something so they didn't hurt constantly at night.  My left arm was actually doing a lot better, but I've been stretching it out a lot playing with my son and things and I think I've been overdoing it a bit because of that, so last night I was kind of sore and miserable with that arm.  But that was also without the aid of Ibuprofen that I've been able to wean myself off of the last few days, so I'm not complaining too much.

6.   It warmed up this week!  We actually saw into the 40's one day a couple of days ago and it was wonderful.  Yesterday the temperature went back down into the 30's and it's snowing again today, but at least we're not looking at highs in the below zeroes or in the single digits.  Got my gas bill and it was as depressing as my electric bill.  I noticed that the price on natural gas is nearly 1.00 per cubic foot.  My jaw just about dropped off my head when I realized that.  The gas bill was well over 200.00 with how cold it has been, so I'm looking at 800.00 just in utilities this month.  That sucked.  Hopefully the worst of the cold weather is over, so I'm just going to be optimistic about it and pray the worst of the winter temperatures is over.

7.  I managed to get housework pretty much caught up this week, despite the sporadic school schedule and things, so that was good.

8.  The menu plan this week got blown to kingdom come with everything that happened, but about 1/2 way through the week I decided to start planning out next week's menu for the sake of having it done and hopefully working well by the time Monday rolls around.  This week's menu was kind of an odd mix of things.  We had BBQ chicken one day, french dips a couple of days, leftovers one night, Alfredo Chicken Helper one night (my "punt" meal from the shelf by the china cabinet") and stuff like that.  It was better than eating out, but not terribly exciting, so I'm hoping to do better next week.

And yeah, that's my week in a nutshell.  How did your week go?

Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

The best laid plans of mice and monthly goals got kind of blown out of the water the last few days.

First there was yesterday.  My husband ran the snow blower and then attempted to go into Anchorage with his brother to help a friend out, but the weather was so awful they turned around finally and barely made it back to the Valley without getting stuck.  So, he was gone during the time when I had hoped he'd be able to entertain the son so I could make towels. 

Then last night, my son kept walking by me and I'd smell something fruity.  It kept nagging at me as the smell seemed familiar, but I thought maybe he'd just gotten into some of my daughter's body mist again and spritzed his blanket by mistake.

Finally the brain kicked in and I realized where I knew the smell from.  The kid's shampoo.  Went into his room and sure enough he had wanted the squeeze bottle from the shampoo and had emptied out the last 1/4 bottle onto his carpet in different locations.  What I was smelling was probably the shampoo on his feet and the smell wafting from his room.

So, out came the cleaning equipment, including the carpet shampooer, while my husband gave the son a bath so the soap didn't burn him being left on him too long.  Once I got done running my "I hate to run on carpet even though I'm a CARPET shampooer" carpet cleaning machine for an hour...my arms were totally shot.  An hour running the carpet shampooer with normal arms would always leave me feeling like I got a workout.  This time I knew I was barely going to be able to move my arms by morning.  And hey, guess what?  I was right!

On top of everything my son refused to sleep at all last night and my daughter ended up with her stomach cycling yesterday and was still dealing with the after effects today, so both kids were home from school today (eczema flare due to shampoo incident on the son's part combined with not sleeping last night).  It was a long Sunday.  Topped off with my husband saying at dinner that he needed to get a tooth pulled today (the future extraction that we knew was coming) as it was starting to hurt in a familiar way. 

So, he ended up at the dentist today and got his tooth pulled and then had his truck die on the way home at the gas station.  Luckily, he was able to search the internet for a solution to the problem and found that in a lot of cases it had to do with the programming on the key for the truck (it would turn over, but it wouldn't stay running), so he tried it while waiting for his brother to come and tow him home and it worked.

So, yeah, it's been a trip the last few days.  Luckily, once I knew my husband was going in to get his tooth pulled, I quickly redid my menu plan, pulled out a pot roast and threw it into the crock pot early so it would be falling apart by dinner time and pulled out the last of the russet potatoes for baked potatoes tonight (I figure if nothing else he'll be up to chewing that and some canned peaches, so he'll get something to eat.  We'll have some pudding for dessert).  Thank goodness for technology that I can do things like that without worrying about having to use my arms too much.  Blessing for sure!

So, anyway, due to all of this, the towels got bumped till tomorrow in favor of sitting with a heating pad on and popping Ibuprofen while taking care of a kid with flared eczema due to the shampoo bit and a daughter who is still sore and weak feeling after yesterday.

BUT!  I did get some things done this week!  So, yay for that!

I did get the handkerchiefs made Saturday (seen up top).  I actually found I had a bunch of handkerchiefs already cut out and ready to sew (had been washed too boot) as I've been slowly, when I have fabric scraps of the right types of fabric that will work for handkerchiefs I've been cutting them out after washing the fabric and just setting them in the pile to sew later.  So, that saved time.  I ended up with a couple of different sizes, which I really don't care if some are smaller or a bit larger than the store bought handkerchiefs you can buy.  Let's face it, they're handkerchiefs!  Who cares if the size is a bit off.  You're going to use it as a tissue!

I also mended my daughter's teddy bear (photo didn't come out on that one, so I'll have to show that photo later :).  I used some off white fleece that I had and just cut out rectangles that would fit over the hands with some room to spare (to fold over the fabric to give a nice clean edge) and then I just followed the edge of the hand with the fabric, sewing as I went.  I did both hands so they'd match, for one, and because my daughter had started to pluck the teddy bear's other hand, for two. 

I got a good portion of my Amazon order in and found room for it all, but I'm still waiting on tuna salad and Hershey's Chocolate chips (not to mention my memory foam pad and the laundry system I ordered) and Amazon supposedly shipped them via USPS like Saturday and they're set to be here Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  I've never known USPS to move that quickly up here, but I guess we'll see if someone at Amazon screwed things up again with the shipping or not *sigh*.

I got a path shoveled on the deck, just in time for the temperatures to tank big time and then it snowed again, so I have to shovel off the deck at some point just for the sake of my husband being able to get to the garbage for dump day...or build a snow fort out there, which actually sounds more fun *laugh*.  I doubt it's happening within the next few days, though, as I'm pretty crippled up at the moment.

So, onto this week's goals!

Sewing Goals:

• Work on comforters (didn't get to that last week, unfortunately)
• Sew kitchen towels
• Sketch embroidery onto pillow cases 
• Darn some socks

General Goals:

• Shovel path across deck, again, at least, and preferably start to get some of the rest of the deck shoveled off.
• Redo menu plan for the next few days to make sure soft foods are on the menu for the sake of the husband's mouth.  Finalize and post.
• Get right arm to start moving again (please, oh please) without a lot of pain.
• Get caught up on housework.  Between the son having some issues one morning with not letting me know he needed toilet maintenance done (there that sounds less gross) and a sick cat Saturday, a lot of bedding ended up getting stacked in the laundry room.  As a result, I'm a bit behind on laundry...not terrible, but once the kids are in school tomorrow that is definitely a priority.
• Start weeding through things in master bedroom closet.
• Go through unfinished knitting projects and rip apart any that don't need to be finished to save the yarn for something else (like the baby blanket I started to knit ages ago for some birth in the family and ended up making and giving something else for...now everyone in the family has at least two kids, I'm not worrying about baby shower gifts anymore :).
• Talk to friends who own chickens and see where a good source to get some nice, hearty, cold weather breeds would be so I can get a bead on how much some chickens might cost come Spring (I hope anyway).

And yeah, that's about it for goals this week that I wrote down anyway.  How about you?  Working on anything?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

 Wow!  It has been a week when it comes to weather.  This is a week where Delta Junction saw a whopping -74 degrees F (mind you that's North, but holy Cow!) and we saw -40 one day with a high of -27.  When it finally warmed up to -17 to pick up the kids in the afternoon it would feel downright warm to how it had been.  That's sad.

Yesterday it started to warm up and suddenly we went from below zero to above zero and snowing so now we have about five inches that my husband is going to have to snow blow before tomorrow (if my son's speech therapist makes it...she missed today because the roads were gross, so we'll see) and they are calling for snow all week.  Alaska.  Don't like the weather, wait a few minutes and it'll switch, often violently *laugh*.

So, yeah, I'm not sure how this is going to impact my electric bill, but you know, at least we HAVE the heaters in the bedrooms so the kids stayed warm during this cold snap.  Blessings are blessings, no matter how much they cost sometimes.

So, let's get onto other money saving things that happened this week!

1.  I got a birthday check in the mail from my family back East and I found that it was just enough to buy the 25.00 memory foam mattress pad I had my eye on in my Amazon cart, so I bought it (thanks, mom and sisters!).  I'm praying it will help my arms...they've been making me miserable this week with the crazy pressure changes and the temps all over the place.

2.  Amazon sent out part of my order (some Japanese rice seasoning powder) out AGES ago, like December 26th and it was set to be here January 5th originally.  I was tracking it, but it just seemed to hit Washington and stopped.  On January 10th, Amazon gave me a refund on the order.  Ironically, the package arrived the next day.  I offered to let them take the money back out for the order, since I had gotten it and they refused saying that it hadn't made it when it should have been there, so the refund was the least they could do. 

I was on the internet with my daughter that night, oddly enough, trying to track down what type of animal Timmy Willy was from the Peter Rabbit stories.  I couldn't find that right away, but I did find a BUNCH of awesome books based around Beatrix Potter on the internet, so I went to Amazon to see what they had.  I love her artwork and her stories have been part of my children's lives pretty much since they were born, so obviously we're fans of her stories too *laugh*.  I found the cookbook up top for .54, which after shipping the Amazon credit JUST covered the cost of the book and had to order it.  It was kind of surprising to me, even, that I just bought the book on a whim, as I normally don't do that and I try to stick to my "list", but something told me to buy it.

It came in super quick and I've been looking through it the last few days and I have to say I LOVE THIS BOOK!  I was kind of skeptical about the book when I got it in the mail as it was pretty thin compared to other cookbooks I've gotten, but holy moley does the author put a LOT into a thin cookbook.  On average there are about three recipes per page (with Beatrix Potter sketches scattered throughout with photos as well) and the writer collected recipes from the areas Beatrix Potter lived and visited and published the regional recipes in the book.  The book has everything from game recipes, to garden produce recipes (I'm really keen to try a turnip soup recipe I found in it), to fish, to chicken, to beef, to desserts, to preserves (no joke, that's in the back of the book, including flavored vinegars and other things).  I'm loving on this cookbook a LOT and have found a lot of cool ideas to incorporate into my meal plans.  Between that, "The More With Less Cookbook" and the 5 ingredient crock pot cookbook that I got...I'm super thrilled on the cookbook nerd front of late *laugh*.

3.  I was trying to figure out how to make money stretch to help with bills coming up and was just randomly talking to my husband and was like, "Well, maybe I should cash in the few savings bonds I have" and my husband replied, "Um, what savings bonds?"  I went and got them in their precious purple envelope that I have protected carefully since I was young.  Those savings bonds have followed me a LOT of places over the years.  Two lowly ones that my grandma had gotten for me for my first and second birthday.  My mom had always told me to keep them as they'd accumulate interest, even though they weren't high value bonds or anything.  We went online and found that the bonds had matured and that while the government had extended the interest on the bonds a couple of times through the years, the bonds had still reached full maturity quite a while ago.  So, I went in this week and cashed them in.  The bonds netted me a couple of hundred dollars, which has helped to create at least a bit of a "pad" in the bank and will hopefully help see us through the hump until we can get our taxes done and our return in.  I kept the purple envelope they were in and got a bit teary eyed when I saw where my grandma had signed it.  I know she would be pleased that the money was being used to help get us through a hard spot in our lives and was benefiting her grand kids (the kids were never great-grand kids, just more grand kids :). 

4.  I used the "tear inducing" pickled cabbage that was open and adapted a recipe in the 5 ingredient crock pot cookbook that called for sauerkraut instead of pickled cabbage to see if it would work well to tone down the flavors of the cabbage.  It was pretty good!  I also used up an apple that was past it's prime on the meal as well, so win-win.  I ended up making pork chops instead of the pork roast I was planning on, just because I forgot to pull it from the freezer and stick it in the crock pot, but they still turned out tasty!

5.  I finished "Full Steam Ahead" this week.  I have to say as the series go, I prefer the farm series to the railroad history.  It was entertaining and such, don't get me wrong, but I missed seeing Ruth in the kitchen and other domestic aspects like she did in the farm series.  I started watching "Wartime Farm" again right after finishing the series for about the fifteenth time *laugh*.

6.  One night I had a sundae bar this week and I tried out two ingredient hot fudge sauce (just sweetened condensed milk and chocolate mixed together). I used some ancient Baker's Chocolate I had to make it, a combo of milk chocolate and unsweetened chocolate.  The sauce turned out really good!  I stored what was left in the fridge and it set up into true fudge it seems, but we're heating it up a little bit at at time and using it on ice cream for dessert on and off.  I love this dessert compared to like milk shakes or something as this uses a LOT less ice cream as the fudge and other toppings help to pad out the ice cream used (which honestly is the most expensive thing to get).

7.  Grocery shopping this week went okay...not great but okay.  I decided, when I realized how out of some things we were, that I was just going to aim to do two weeks of shopping this week and try to pick up bare minimums the next couple of weeks.  I am RIGHT at my grocery budget for the next two weeks after I was done shopping, which means once I buy milk the next couple of weeks...I'm going to go over no matter what I do on my budget, but at least we have fresh produce to last us the next couple of weeks and we have meat in the freezer from the sales I managed to hit last week.  Bright side, between coupons and sales I did manage to save 68% off of the grocery bill. 

I did all of my shopping this week at Carrs, going so far as to avoid Fred Meyer and the free refried beans I had waiting there so that I wouldn't spend more money on deals I might find there.  Some of the highlights on shopping this week were huge bags of name brand dry cat food for 5.00 (I got two as those are normally about 13 to 15.00 per bag), a big container of grapes for 5.00 (2 lbs worth, which is what one pound of grapes is going for right now, so definitely a good deal), lettuce for 1.26 for a head (personalized price), bananas for .79 lb (personalized price) and sour cream for 1.16 (personalized price).  And there was a 5.00 off a 50.00 or greater shopping trip coupon you could load onto your shopping card too, so that was a nice thing to get off the bill.

Carrs was also having a big case lot sale this week, but when I looked at the prices they weren't that great.  On average for canned goods you had to buy 24 cans of something to get the case lot price on them and when I looked at that price...basically you were getting regular sale prices on the canned goods, or you might save .10 per can past sale price on some of the higher valued items.  So you'd end up buying 24 cans of whatever on average and save a whopping 2.40 per case.  It just didn't seem cost effective to me, especially when I already had everything they were selling in the pantry already for as cheap, or cheaper than those prices and I certainly didn't need to pick up 24 of the item to get the price.

The one exception was that they had good tuna on sale for .69 per can on the case lot.  If you bought 48 CANS at one time.  Yeah, I walked on by that one.

8.  I darned a hole in a dish towel this week.  It's not pretty, but it'll work still.  I'm hoping to get some more dish towels made tomorrow (I have terry cloth material in my stores and am just going to use an old dish towel as a guide for how big to make the towels), but we'll see how it goes.

So, there is my frugal adventures this week in a nutshell.  How about you?  Good week on the money saving front or bad?

Yearly Goals: 2017

Man, this post was harder to put together than I thought it was going to be.  It was one of those things where you go and make a list, don't like how it comes together, rewrite said list, again it doesn't seem to be just right...rinse lather and repeat.  Finally, I just crumbled up the list and threw it over my shoulder in frustration (and then immediately went, picked it up and threw it away *laugh*) and just decided to write the post without bullet points as things this year...well it's kind of a philosophy vs. a physical goals type of year for me.  So, allow me to introduce you to...

Survive and Thrive Year here on "The Make Do Homemaker"

When I thought of my goals for this year they were kind of all over the place.  There were the usual, stress and immediately heartburn up in the throat, panic inducing goals of trying to get bills paid off or down, getting the rest of my husband's teeth done and blah blah blah.  And then I realized that all I was doing was immediately stressing myself out for the long term.  And the year hasn't even really STARTED yet.  Not a good way to start a year.  So, I tried to redo my thinking a bit and came up with some goals that I think I can accomplish, or at least hope I can, and not freak out about them all the time.

So, let's get to the goals!

1.  Focus on Hearth and Home

This was a big one for me to come up with, believe it or not.  Once I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to do gifts beyond my immediate family (and possibly my family back East) this year...it was like a tremendous weight was lifted off of my shoulders.  I didn't realize how much of my energy was going into thinking of gifts, what materials I needed to buy to make said gifts, what would people like, how to keep costs down as low as possible while making the gifts nice, etc etc.  You have no idea how liberating it was to walk through the used store a couple of weeks ago to go and get some snow pants for the kids and walk by the craft and material section and realize that I didn't need to buy ANYTHING this year to make gifts.  Nothing.  I think they could see my smile in Seattle.

A giant wave of, not quite relief, but more an uplift of energy, washed over me when I thought of not having to worry about all of it.  To be able to focus on doing things like embroidery for my family, for my house, heck for me.  To go through a canning book, not with a discerning eye for possible gift giving potential, but instead thinking in more pragmatic terms of what I could use in the pantry and not worrying about giving away jars and things.

So, this year I've decided is one where I'm going to focus my energy on my home and my family.  I have some plans for small projects to make things more comfortable around the house, working on gifts for my family for Christmas, slowly throughout the year and things. 

I want to continue spending more one on one time with my husband, probably once the kids are in bed, watching movies, maybe playing some board games and things like that.  I'm hoping to focus a bit more on making sure I spend time with him as I know he tends to take a back seat because of my son taking so much of my time and energy and then my daughter taking what is left.  

2.  Smile More.  Spend Less.

The struggle to keep cost of living down, for us (and I know many others) is tough.  It's so tough.  It's like you go through your day, not seeing the forest for the trees.  Or, more accurately, not seeing the dollars for the pennies.  Bills feel like a ship you are dragging by it's anchor around with you.  All day long.  Every single day.  You get the bills paid and feel a split moment of relief and then immediately start worrying about the next month's bills.  It's a pretty depressing and disheartening cycle to live in.

I'm hoping this year to weather the storms of financial hardships better.  I know there are other areas I can cut costs in...I just haven't thought of them yet.  So, I'm going to put brain power into doing that a bit and also I'm going to try to not stress myself out so much (which MIGHT be impossible, but we shall see) and try to enjoy life one day at a time.  It's worth a shot :).

The one area I see myself being able to cut back costs a LOT this year is not going to the used stores as much.  I don't go half as much as I used to anyway, due to lack of funds and all, but also I found that I was indulging sometimes in my own form of retail therapy.  Sure, it was on the cheap, but I was just spending money on something that was neat looking or something I thought was cool to basically cheer myself up.  And, while it works in the short term to cheer one up, the money could be spent better elsewhere and I really don't NEED any more stuff that doesn't serve a good purpose.  Now if needs present themselves (clothes, something breaks, etc) sure I'll go shopping for that stuff, but now that I don't have to go the used stores with an eye toward Christmas gifts for a lot of people...I think my trips will go way down in that area, which will also keep temptation to spend money to a minimum.  Same with yard sales.  I just don't see the need to spend money on that stuff anymore.

I'm hoping, instead, if I really want to cheer myself up and such, to just create something out of materials I have around the house that we could use (like say a new pillow cover for throw pillows or something), but would also make me feel better in my general environment.

3.  Become more self sufficient.

Ideally I want to expand the garden this year, which might or might not work, depending on how well I can dig by Spring with my arms kind of a mess, but if I can do it, I'm going to do it.  Even if I have to dig a couple of rows out of the yard, plant some seeds and see what happens, at least than I can say I tried.

I also, ideally, would love to find the money to build some coops for a few chickens and at least one rabbit  for the daughter for a pet...she's never asked for a pet before, but she really wants a rabbit.  I figure if I get her a pet female of a good breed for meat production, she can have her pet rabbit and it'll be one step closer for me to start a small rabbit concern.  Terrible of me, I know, but if you're going to get a rabbit, it might as well be with a bigger picture in mind.

Mind you all of that is hinging on money, so I'm definitely going to keep an open mind about it.  Expanding the garden I can see making it work no matter how much money we make, but the chickens and rabbit...those require food and so you need to be able to afford to feed them.  So, yeah, we'll see how that goes.

4.  Start a future journal.

This is one of the "philosophical ideological" goals for the year.  I was reading in a magazine (always a great source of universal knowledge *laugh*) that when people would start writing a journal like you would be writing it at some point in the future and start writing as if the goals or dreams you want to come true are already a reality that it seems to help guide people in the right direction and help reality kind of mold to those goals.

I liked this idea, honestly as just writing about how everything is going groovy, the son is talking and acting like he's never going to shut up again, how we're paying off our mortgage early and other things...it immediately made me FEEL better just kind of fantasizing about it all.  So, why not write it down, cheer myself up about life in general and make myself realize that the NOW is here yes and it might be a bogged down mess, but the future is yet uncertain and everything might work out just fine?  It seems like a neat project, so I want to do one this year.

5.  Start Rotating Canning all Year Round

This is one that is going to be hard to start.  I'm so used to doing "canning season" during the summer and fall that it seems odd to me contemplating doing more of it in the winter and spring.  My biggest inspiration when it came to doing it, though, was trying to find room for empty jars all over the place and while I could stack them back down in the pantry, I don't see the point in the jars just sitting around if they could be holding food in them for future use.

Now I know I'm not going to be able to can all the time just because sales won't be there or the idea of sitting canner sitting for an hour and a half just doesn't fit into the schedule.  But, I'm hoping to find the motivation to do things like can my own chicken when I find a really good sale, instead of going and shelling out way too much money for canned chicken that always tastes a bit metallic from the tin can.

6.  Bake More

I want to expand my knowledge of cooking and baking, but mainly baking.  Cooking I expand my knowledge on constantly and I really do get a kick out of it, but man...while cooking is fun and shouts "mess with me!  Create!", baking is science.  And work *laugh*.  But, I do want to get better at it and make food more fun and interesting around here.  I'm hoping that I can incorporate culinary adventures into the menu plan and just keep trying new things.  One of the biggest problems with being broke is that food becomes monotonous and just so boring because you just are so tired by life in general you just kind of throw food on the table and eat it.  I want to keep the joy in cooking and baking for me, so for me that means messing with things :).

7.  Cherish Time With My Kids

Sometimes you really just get hung up on being mom.  I've found myself spending more time lecturing the kids than I do laughing with them and while I KNOW that lecturing them is important to getting them to that all important goal of "independence" someday...I also want to enjoy the time I have left where my kids are...well..kids.

I'd love to have money this summer to go see things like the "Sea Life Center" in Seward and other outings, but we shall see, once again, how money goes.  If nothing else I hope to at least be able to picnic with them at our nearby lake and things (it's a fee to get into the federal park, but I'm hoping not too much).  I'm hoping to see a year with more fun in it this year.  I started getting better about being broke and finding some fun, but free, events to go to in our area last year and I'm hoping to find more this year to go to.  I'm optimistic that it's going to be a good year :).

Really, some goals to spending more time with my kids I've already gotten done so far this year.  Things like, "Drink cocoa", "Watch 'Simon's Cat' with kids on YouTube" and other things are easy to do, give me quality time with the kids and I HOPE create some good memories for them.  Oh yeah, "Finally figure out how to get a decent selfie with the kids" was one of the goals I had and am getting better at too (as seen above...well I think it came out pretty good anyway).

Oh and to anyone who wanted to see an updated picture of me...you asked for it *laugh*.

8.  Declutter and Get Organized

This is one that has been tying into some of the things I've been doing already this year.  I really am hoping to organize, weed and get things in the house running more smoothly.  It makes it easier on me, of course, but also makes the family happier having things clean and mom knowing where stuff is (ha, I nearly said "knowing where all the crap is"...yup, I'm tired *laugh*).

So, yeah, I could probably ramble on for about five more pages about things I want to do, like *flips through pages on notebook* I know that "Taking naps" is in that mess somewhere and "making healthier meals", but I won't bore you for hours with the somewhat boring aspects of my personal goals for this year ;).

How about you?  Got any goals for this year?  Lofty, small or otherwise?