I have to introduce you to a blog I LOVE! I love Jamie and her blog! I accidentally discovered her blog on Pinterest and I am so glad I did! She is super cute and has the best clothes! She gives me hope that I can look somewhat stylish again, maybe once the baby weight is gone =) She finds the cutest things and at affordable stay-at-home mommy prices. So jump on over and check out Stylin' Mommies!
That's all for now!
S
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
When will it WARM UP!?!
I'm starting to feel pretty hopeless when it comes to the whole warm weather thing! We seem to have spurts of warmth, but it never sticks around. I keep starting projects that require warm weather and then it abruptly leaves.
I started spray painting my chairs when there was a moment of warmth this past weekend and then it was gone and I'm stuck with 6 chairs all at different points of being refinished...ughhhh! This is going to drive me crazy!
My son's seedlings are going to take over soon. I hope they live long enough to be planted in the ground.
Until it warms up I will be just reread the latest issue of Country Living every quiet moment! I'm looking for some new house inspiration!
I'm hoping we'll turn the corner any day now!
S
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Pretzels!
Today was one of those days where I had to eat everything! I was desperate for pretzels and we live in the middle of nowhere, which means I had to make them! They're super easy to make, so I got right to it! Here's the recipe!
Ingredients
- 1 packet of Active Yeast
- 1 3/4 cups warm water
- 4 cups flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 TBS baking soda
- melted butter for brushing
- sea salt
1. Put the yeast in 1/4 cup water until it is bubbly
2. Mix the yeast, remaining water, flour, and brown sugar. After it is mixed cover the bowl with a warm wet towel for 30 minutes.
3. Heat the oven to 475 and boil water with 1 TBS baking soda
4. Roll the dough into strips and cut them into 1 inch sections, then place each piece in the boiling water for 10-15 seconds.
5. Place the pieces on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and brush on melted butter, sprinkle sea salt on the pieces and bake for approximately 12 minutes.
Sadly, the pretzels are already gone =/ But, they're so easy I may make more tomorrow =)
S
(Notice I tried many shapes before deciding to just make pieces!)
Ingredients
- 1 packet of Active Yeast
- 1 3/4 cups warm water
- 4 cups flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 TBS baking soda
- melted butter for brushing
- sea salt
1. Put the yeast in 1/4 cup water until it is bubbly
2. Mix the yeast, remaining water, flour, and brown sugar. After it is mixed cover the bowl with a warm wet towel for 30 minutes.
3. Heat the oven to 475 and boil water with 1 TBS baking soda
4. Roll the dough into strips and cut them into 1 inch sections, then place each piece in the boiling water for 10-15 seconds.
5. Place the pieces on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and brush on melted butter, sprinkle sea salt on the pieces and bake for approximately 12 minutes.
ENJOY!
Sadly, the pretzels are already gone =/ But, they're so easy I may make more tomorrow =)
S
Monday, April 22, 2013
Get rid of my things!?!
Hi, my name is Sarah and I'm a hoarder....Over the past few weeks I've really been trying to get myself organized and that means letting go! I've always had a funny thing when it comes to getting rid of things others have given me, this means I have everything! For the first time ever I have felt okay about purging my closet, including things that were gifts! Well, so far so good! I gave some things to others, gave some to the trash can and sent some other items to ThredUp. I'm waiting to see how many items they accepted, I sent 21 items, so we'll see how it goes. I hope to be able to clean out and let go of many more things over the next few weeks and prep for a yard sale.
I highly recommend ordering a ThredUp bag and sending some stuff away! I haven't purchased things from there, but the do seemed to be reasonably priced.
I highly recommend ordering a ThredUp bag and sending some stuff away! I haven't purchased things from there, but the do seemed to be reasonably priced.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Meal Planning for A MONTH!
Well, it's been a bit since I've blogged! I've planned on doing it many times, but it just doesn't seem to happen :/ Life with two boys is going great! I can't believe my little is 10 weeks now! It seems crazy! He's a big dude still, weighing in at 17lbs.
I have to admit that I have cut back on doing certain things, like crochet and knitting, I still do it, but aside from a few orders here and there, I've just been doing things for myself and my family. It's pretty nice actually. I've started the insanity workout (13lbs of baby weight to go) and been working on doing a lesson plan for Monday-Friday for my mini-me, meal planning for a month at a time and keeping track of our budget more. Meal planning for the month and budgeting go hand in hand. In our house we have individual budgets for every member of the house separate from our general and grocery spending. I'm attempting to be smarter with that and already started Christmas shopping from Mr.M's budget.
Budgeting is becoming more important for us! I've realized that we buy whatever we want whenever we want it and that's a bad habit, it also makes it super difficult to buy for us during holiday times. We also need to work on saving for our vacation, weekend trips, and new house that we hope to start building by the end of the year.
On that note, the budget that we seem to have the most difficulty with is the GROCERY budget. It seems like we set it and then ignored it! In March I tried just tracking our spending and did my usual weekly meal planning and it seemed to be okay, until the last week when we went over by $80.
This month I took a new approach and tried planning for the whole month. The first thing I did was pantry cook! The last week in March I knew that we would go way over if we didn't, I also knew our cabinets were full and it still seemed like we had nothing to eat. I cleaned out the cabinets first, I was surprised by how many things had actually expired! Those items hit the trash, then I assessed what we had and planned our meals accordingly, only getting what was necessary, sadly we still needed many things because I hosted Easter dinner.
The last Friday night in March I worked on planning out meals for HOURS. I started with my go to meals- sweet potato shepherds pie, healthy turkey meatloaf, pork chops, spaghetti squash with roasted vegetables, Greek chicken and whole roasted chicken... I decided we couldn't have each meal more than twice a month. I then decided that we would have one left over night a week, we've never been good at eating left overs and it seemed like an obvious way to save money, we also kept with one meatless night a week, and making a dessert as our fun activity on Thursdays. The I searched for the new things I wanted to try.
Once I figured out EVERYTHING I was going to make I figured out what things I would need for multiple meals, ie. Chicken breasts, ground turkey, yeast and then all other things that could be bought in bulk, paper towels, water, formula (I already have diapers and wipes on recurring order on Amazon.com) I made a bulk grocery list and then the list for everything else we needed just for that week. Our in bulk shopping trip came to $350 (including formula) and our week trip $150.
I then decided I needed to color code things to give myself a heads up on certain days, like crock pot days.
I have to admit that I have cut back on doing certain things, like crochet and knitting, I still do it, but aside from a few orders here and there, I've just been doing things for myself and my family. It's pretty nice actually. I've started the insanity workout (13lbs of baby weight to go) and been working on doing a lesson plan for Monday-Friday for my mini-me, meal planning for a month at a time and keeping track of our budget more. Meal planning for the month and budgeting go hand in hand. In our house we have individual budgets for every member of the house separate from our general and grocery spending. I'm attempting to be smarter with that and already started Christmas shopping from Mr.M's budget.
Budgeting is becoming more important for us! I've realized that we buy whatever we want whenever we want it and that's a bad habit, it also makes it super difficult to buy for us during holiday times. We also need to work on saving for our vacation, weekend trips, and new house that we hope to start building by the end of the year.
On that note, the budget that we seem to have the most difficulty with is the GROCERY budget. It seems like we set it and then ignored it! In March I tried just tracking our spending and did my usual weekly meal planning and it seemed to be okay, until the last week when we went over by $80.
This month I took a new approach and tried planning for the whole month. The first thing I did was pantry cook! The last week in March I knew that we would go way over if we didn't, I also knew our cabinets were full and it still seemed like we had nothing to eat. I cleaned out the cabinets first, I was surprised by how many things had actually expired! Those items hit the trash, then I assessed what we had and planned our meals accordingly, only getting what was necessary, sadly we still needed many things because I hosted Easter dinner.
The last Friday night in March I worked on planning out meals for HOURS. I started with my go to meals- sweet potato shepherds pie, healthy turkey meatloaf, pork chops, spaghetti squash with roasted vegetables, Greek chicken and whole roasted chicken... I decided we couldn't have each meal more than twice a month. I then decided that we would have one left over night a week, we've never been good at eating left overs and it seemed like an obvious way to save money, we also kept with one meatless night a week, and making a dessert as our fun activity on Thursdays. The I searched for the new things I wanted to try.
Once I figured out EVERYTHING I was going to make I figured out what things I would need for multiple meals, ie. Chicken breasts, ground turkey, yeast and then all other things that could be bought in bulk, paper towels, water, formula (I already have diapers and wipes on recurring order on Amazon.com) I made a bulk grocery list and then the list for everything else we needed just for that week. Our in bulk shopping trip came to $350 (including formula) and our week trip $150.
I then decided I needed to color code things to give myself a heads up on certain days, like crock pot days.
Pink was for regular meals
Green was a pre-made frozen meal
Yellow for left overs and Eat out days
Blue for Crock pot
and Orange was for desserts
Our breakfast and lunch menu is pretty basic and revolves around 3 standards. We have completed 21 days on this plan and have stuck to it! We also finished our last shopping trip for the month! After the first week we spent another $400, bringing our total to $900 for the month before diapers and eating out...in the end we have finished $20 below budget! That's the best we've ever done!
I wasn't super prepared to blog about it this month, so my goal for May is to blog about it while planning and give details on planning, with meals, recipes, and lists.
I highly recommend planning for the entire month of May this week!
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