Easy curtain tiebacks

We have no A/C, it gets hot in here! I needed a way to keep the curtains in V's room open so the air can blow in.

I whipped these up in about 2 minutes:

All it is is a piece of ribbon (maybe 18 inches each?) I tied them tightly to some little white plastic circle rings (they are cheap and multi-packed at the fabric or hardware store) then I used a cigarette lighter to seal the ends of the ribbon so they wouldn't fray. I then put a little white screw hook into the wall and voila! Curtain tiebacks!

My Mom's birthday & I take on yet another project that is too big...

My mom's birthday was yesterday, so she and my dad decided to bring over fresh crab they'd caught literally the day before by diving for it, and my dad installed two new outlets in my garage (including adding them to my fusebox) to decrease the chances of Valerie unplugging my freezer again, not to mention the fact that the 1 outlet our  garage started with  is just  stupid. Then my mom proceeded to wash all the dishes up for me.  Seriously, you'd think it was my birthday!

Today we slept until 9am! But made up for lost time quickly. I made a loaf of white bread and tried hot dog buns (still need some help with shape, but they made nice breadsticks!)  I also installed two retractable solar clothes dryers (clotheslines) in my no often used side yard, did laundry and hung it out to dry as well as mow the front and back lawn. All before noon!

Then a trip to one of my new favorite stores Restore where I dropped off the old light fixtures from the kids' rooms (replaced those last week) and looked for doors.... you see my office closet door (bifold) fell off the track and my sweet husband went to put it back up for me. He succeeded, but in the process dropped the door into my office door and busted a hole in it since the doors are cheapo contractor grade hollow doors in our house. 

I had gotten the idea to get a charming old door with some character and maybe a window and I'd lovingly sand it down , possibly paint it and install it into my office. Yeah, if you know me, you know where this is going right? Erin takes on another project she thinks she can handle and her husband (or father as the case is sometimes) has to help her finish it because she does something stupid/wrong/too difficult and veers off course. Best intentions, I suppose.

Restore has about 3 aisles of doors, you go to the section (interior, with glass, exterior, 4 panel, etc.) and on masking tape on the side is the price of the door as well as the measurements. I found a matching measurement door that looked alright, it was $45.  A hollow door is about $22 at the home improvement store a new "slab" door (solid) is about $150.  Yes, I could have gotten a new, french primed door, but whatever....

I removed some old hardware and tried to sand this puppy, did not work.  So I put on two layers of paint on each side (adding to the probably 7 layers already on it.  I also noticed a small crack in the upper corner of the window.

I also found the beautiful door knobs that are from Australia, were barely used and I got them for $25 pretty good considering I found them online for about $65.  However, this was the part I also messed up, I couldn't figure out how to screw it onto the door and completely took it apart trying to figure it out, including dropping some pieces. So Paul came home from work and we played a game of Try to Figure out How the Knob goes back together.  Paul eventually won and we got the sucker on.  However, it's still pretty stiff and the lock won't work (it did before I messed it up).

After installing it (I had to chisel since of course the hinges were in the wrong spots and I over chiseled and we had to add some cardboard.  I cut out some letters from repositional vinyl and finished it off...

 From inside my office

Close up of super cool knob

So if I had to do it again, I'd probably just head down to Home Depot and get one of these for $92.

But it's a nice door (heavy) and I did it myself and kept out of trouble for an afternoon. I have a feeling my husband is done with my projects for awhile!

Cooking Day

Who would spend an entire sunny Saturday in the kitchen? Someone who found something besides chicken for $2.49 a pound, that's who!  I've been able to get chicken on sale (mostly at Albertsons) and do some chicken freezer cooking days but other meat has been more elusive. I figured since it is grilling season I just had to hold out and this week it paid off.

I got my weekly ads and saw nothing impressive until I got the ad for Safeway.  NOW note that the ad that is sent to me is for the newer store about 7 miles away, not the one 2 miles from my house. The meat I got for $2.49 a pound was $2.99 a pound at my local (2 miles away) store. Lesson learned, make sure you know what add you are reading!  I'm also trying out Safeway's new Savings for U program. It has coupons you load onto your card (or I just put my phone number in, even easier!) on the website, but it also has personalized deals just for you on things you regularily buy. For instance. I regularily buy mangos, so even though they were $1.35 or something each for everyone else, for ME they were $1.00 this week.  I also learned last week, even if you are remotely interested in it, make sure to load the deal on your card, because you might decide to buy it once you are there, I don't have the app on my phone, so if I didn't add it at home, I'm out of luck. I didn't do any other paper coupons.

Anyways, so here's my shopping trip of loss leaders which saved me 49% and also gave me 2 gas rewards for $.20 off each gallon at the local store which does have gas.  I use my rewards to fill up our minivan that holds 23 gallons or something.

Jimmy Dean Sausage-4 pounds @ $2.50 a pound (I've been wanting some sausage lasagna since Denise made some for our most recent meal swap!)
Brownie mix (Betty Crocker) for .99
A box of Pantry essentials cereal for the little kids .99
Safeway apple juice (I've been making some recipes that call for it and never have it on hand)$2.98 for both
Chocolate chips $2.39
Crystal Light 1.60
Top Ramen 6 pack for the hubby $1.21
Whole Grain Barilla pastas-8 at $1.00 each.
Lasagna noodles-$7.17 for 3, this was the only item not purchased on sale, on my sale sheet (you can print out what you loaded on your card to take to the store with you) it looked like it might possibly be included, but was not.
(2) 1/2 gallons of whole milk for $2.38 total (my gallons price was not on whole milk)
(2) whole gallons of 2% that are good until the 23rd $3.98 total
Tillamook cheddar block good until next summer (2) 2 pound blocks for $11.08
Gladware containers for all the ice cream we've been making $1.99 for 5 of them.
4 Cordon Bleu frozen chicken breasts (not on sale-good for quick dinner though) $4.00
90% ground sirloin and 93/7 ground beef, 4 value packs each value pack was about 4 pounds or just under at $2.49 a pound for a total of $40
Boneless pork chops, also $2.49 a pound, I got 2 packs with 9 chops each for a total of $21.16
Bananas at .39 a pound
Peaches at .77 a pound-I got 14 pounds that I'm cutting up and freezing, I did 7 pounds this morning I'll do the other 7 pounds tomorrow total of $10.60.
8 lemons for $2.00
a 5 pound bag of yellow onions for .99 -a note about the onions, there was a lot of rot on the outsides of them that I threw out. My last dish I ended up substituting the rest of my green onions I had left over because I should have had enough to complete all the dishes, but the rot meant I couldn't.
5 pounds of potatoes $1.69 (I used about 1/2 of them today)
more $1.50 a pound strawberries (I already threw about 10 pounds in my freezer) because this is the upick price and the rain has molded most of the crops here.

Total for all this was $136.95 My cart was very full.

Then today I picked up the final things I needed for my cooking:

1 can of stewed tomatoes for the Provincial pork $1.00
1 can of green chilies (used 1/2) .99
1 large can of tomato sauce (needed 2, ended up using a can of pasta sauce in one recipe) $.69
4 cans of Hunts pasta sauce for lasagnas-I used all of them today .93 each
Shredded mozerella cheese 6.99 for 2 pounds (used all of it today)
2 huge containers of ricotta (used 1 today) $9.98 total
1 huge plain yogurt, used 1 cup today, I'll use the rest for breakfasts 1.95
Tillimook sour cream, large container, used 1 cup today to make beef stroganoff for dinner $2.29
Cottage cheese used 1/2 today, I'll eat the other for breakfast $1.99
2 green peppers at $1 each
3 zucchinis, used 1, the other 2 we'll use this week $2.09 total
Green leaf lettuce for my smoothies $1.29
tomatoes .85
1 carton of mushrooms (8 oz) 1.99
baby carrots-2 pounds 2.00 used 1/2 today will cook the rest with brown sugar and butter one night later
3 wedges of parmesan, used 1 today, the other 2 I shredded (it was $16 a pound for unshredded, $11 for shredded) for putting on meals, etc. $17.97

total was $53.25

So with all this my freezer and fridge are stuffed...  today I made from 10 or 11 when I got home from the store until about 9pm tonight including cleaning up 2-3 times during the day and doing about 3 loads of dishes....

Here's what 4 serving meals went into my freezer today...

4 lasagnas (I still have enough ingredients to make at least 4-5 more but I need to buy or make more pasta sauce)
1 french stuffed potatoes
2 poppy beef
3 sloppy joes
4 meat loaves (stuffed with veggies as well)
3 meals (15 total) cornish pasties
2 herbed pork chops (3 pork chops each)
2 sweet & sour pork
1-6 serving Provincial pork (I am out of small pans, so I did not separate this as I normally would.


That's a total of 22 meals not counting the beef stroganoff I made with the leftover roast we had from earlier in the week using one of the boxes of pasta plus sour cream and some mushrooms leftover.

There's also 7 pounds of peaches and about 12 pounds of strawberries that I washed, then laid out to dry, then put separated out on pans to fast freeze, then after about 2 hours shoved in gallon sized ziplock bags.

I did the first 4 meals all at once and as they finished I put them on the kitchen table to cool until I got a break to label them.  I then made the meat loaves and cornish pasties at the same time because they were both meat and veggies heavy. I chopped up the veggies in my Ninja blender. It was awesome and quick!

I then made the last 3 pork meals after we had our dinner.

I think it was productive and relatively thrifty esp when you consider every meal has just under 1 pound of meat in it and I didn't have to clip any coupons, just load stuff on my Safeway card.

I have a little monkey, her name is Valerie

She's not even 2 and she's scaling the slides at the local playground. Normally I'm very anti-up the slide however, I was just in shock when she actually made it. This is her SECOND time up as I didn't have the camera out the first time. 

Fluffy Bread Every time

I've finally figured out how to make my bread fluffy and like store bought after about 2 months of trial and error. Here's the secret. It's not the recipe, it's HOW you make it.

The key is HOW you make it.  For wheat, multigrain or white.

I’ve been using this 7 grain recipe that uses hot cereal as a base and since it’s not so wheaty the kids love it.  This last time I almost made it too fluffy, tho, lol!

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2012/01/multigrain-bread/

So the key is to mix in a bread maker on the dough setting. (I only make ½ of the recipe as this one makes 2 loaves, we just don’t eat enough bread to go through 2 loaves. Do enough for either a 1 pound or 1 pound loaf.  Then take the dough out. Push into your bread pan. If you are using a Pampered Chef stone one that is not thoroughly seasoned or a regular loaf pan, use some non-stick spray. LET IT RISE AGAIN! 

My kitchen never seems warm enough so what I do is put about a cup of water in my microwave and heat for 2-3 minutes until boiling. Then take out the water and let the bread pan sit in the microwave oven with the door closed (basically you’ve turned your microwave into a proofing oven) let it rise until it’s as big as you want it, probably 20-40 minutes, then bake at about 350-375 for about 35 minutes until it’s as dark as you want. 

 Try turning it out onto a cooling rack when you take it out, but if it doesn’t pop out, let it sit in there for 10 minutes, the steam will loosen it, do not try to dig it out with a knife. 

Hope that helps, I’ve tried it with several different recipes and always get wonderful, fluffy bread this way.

A sample freezer cooking session

Now that I've got a freezer full of chicken enchiladas, I thought I'd try freezer cooking for myself. I do freezer cooking, but I do about 8 meals at a time and swap them with others, I wanted to try something just for us this time, so I turned to a book my mom passed to me, "Frozen Assets Lite & Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month" by Deborah Taylor Hough.

This book has lighter recipes than her original book, Frozen Assets and has something my usual "Once a Month Cooking" by Langerberg & Wilson doesn't.... mini sessions. This is how I usually cook anyways, I take a meat I find on sale and cook several meals from it. The mini sessions take a meat and have you prepare 4-5 meals with it as the centerpiece. I couldn't find a mini session I thought we'd all like, though, so I took 3 meals and tripled them. This book has you cook ahead more than OAMC but the reheat times are much quicker. She has you cook most things until ALMOST done and then you finish cooking the meal when you prepare it for your table.

I cooked 9 meals (3 each of Lemon Mushroom Chicken; Cheddar Chicken & Chicken Pasta Italiano). It took me 2.5 hours for them (pretty good considering I've never made them before and they were 3 seaparate meals, normally it takes about this much time for me to do 8 of the same meal) then another .5 hours to finish cleaning up the kitchen. Only one run of the dishwasher (sometimes it takes me 2) I did wash and reuse two saucepans (these recipes used my giant skillet with the high sides heavily) and hand washed 2 huge bowls I used to mix all the ingredients in at the end and let them sit to cool before packaging.

To make 9 meals-each recipe was for 6 servings, we typically eat 4, so I doubled each recipe and packaged 1/3 of the total separately I used:

Purchased:
10 pounds of chicken-$1.88 a pound skinless boneless from Albertsons. Albertsons typically has these 1.88 or 1.99 about every 3 months or so. The only way I've found it less is to buy in bulk packages of 40 pounds or more, so I try to hit Albertsons when they have these on sale.

1 package of mushrooms (8 oz? 16 oz?) 1.99

3 large lemons (used juice of 2.5 of them, saved peels and last .5 hoping to make something else this week)3 @ .79 ( 2.37)

12 oz cheddar cheese ( safeway had a great price on cheese this week-2 pounds shredded for $4.99 which is only $2.50 a pound for cheese already shredded-so I used $1.50 worth)

1 bunch green onions  .50

3 roma tomatoes 1.06

3 slices bacon (bought a bargain brand for $2.00 for a pound)

1 large zucchini .84

1 yellow onion .27

1 large red pepper 2.00


On hand:
1 can of diced tomatoes and 1 of mushrooms I already had on hand from overbuying on another cooking day that I used to replace fresh ingredients called for. Flour, butter, olive oil, garlic (I've got a Costco bag I'm trying to make it through... a Costco bag is too big for our family!), Chicken broth (I use Chicken Better than Bullion from Costco-I have a container of the beef in my pantry but have never used it-I'd buy the chicken again from costco, but probably not the beef, or I'd split with someone), cooking wine, dried parsley, milk, pasta and rice for serving meals with.

While I'm on the subject-a word about my pantry. I know this seems like I have a lot in my pantry. I have a typical closet with shelves type pantry (2 sided, with sliding door).  I only use one side of it, my large fridge and freezer and I have a chest freezer which typically holds done meals or meat I get on sale if I can't use it right away.  I keep lots of baking supplies on hand now that we make bread and cookies weekly (I used Costco baking supplies, sometimes splitting the huge bags with people).  1 shelf (so only the one side of the slider closet) is baking stuff, 1 is snacks/lunch stuff, 1 is "pantry"-canned goods, rice, pasta, etc. the bottom is storage of larger items and juiceboxes during the school year.  I keep tabs what is in my pantry and use it up. Since watching my pantry and only allowing it to be on the one side and doing more meal planning, I spend less money and I throw less away. I have many couponing friends who swear by keeping a stash and they pay less than I do for groceries (my budget is about $550 a month for the 5 of us, but I'm constantly battling that) but I love having the other 1/2 for appliance storage and I know exactly what's in my pantry at all times.

So the total I added to what I had on hand, including the main ingredient, chicken was $30.51 for 9 meals or $3.39 in additional ingredients per meal, or .85 per serving. Everything got packaged in 1 gallon bags and frozen flat to save room. I get gallon bags at Costco, we use them for everything.

Writing letters

Carter's learning to write letters at school. His first one was to his teacher:

Dear Mrs. Swenson,
   I am good at playing games.  I dont all weas play sutimes I guit playing cuss thae dont lett me do sumthing.  In Socint grade are we doing times like 2x1= cus my cusin sed he did times in socint grade.
   Love,
   Carter