Shopping Trip(s) and Menu Plan

Tonight is part 2 of 2 of the Frugal Living Workshop that I attended last week. I've been working on collecting my coupons and trying to start slowly. It is very inspiring to read the blogs ( Frugal Living Online, Super Coupon Girl, Money Saving Mom, Common Sense With Money...) and see how much money there is to be saved.
Before Bible study last night I went to Fred Meyer's to take them up on a $10 for $10 coupon that they had on milk, chocolate milk and orange juice. It was a great deal, so I bought 5 - 1/2 gallons of whole milk, 2 - 1/2 gallons of orange juice and 1 - 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk...all for $8. The milk is the non-hormone milk, that's something that I always look at first.
Then, after Bible study, I went to Winco while Ryan took Wyatt home to go to bed. I shopped for 2 hours, and used 3 or 4 coupons. I didn't save too much using my coupons at Winco, but I figured if I had them and was buying the product anyways, why not use them.
There was one snafu though, the Pumpkin Spice Creamer that I bought rang up at $2.98 and I knew that it was marked at less than that. So I told the checker and she was really nice about it and made a phone call for me. The person on the other line told her that it was $2.98, I knew that was wrong but I didn't want to argue over pennies. But it was right up front so on the way out, I double checked it... it was marked at $2.78. Ok $.20 you say? Normally it wouldn't be worth it to go complain. But dang it all, I had clipped a coupon for that little puppy and this clipping coupons business is hard work. So, I went back and waited for my $.20. (did I mention that it was just past 11:00pm?) Talk about feeling silly, but it was the principle.
So, I came home and Ryan and I worked on our ballots till 12:45am. Ryan had been reading all the measures since he had gotten home. Talk about more hard work. I always forget how much thought and studying voting takes. But, we got it done and I delivered it promptly to a voting box first thing this morning.

Part of these classes I'm going to is making a budget and a meal plan. I did 1 of 2. Yikes, I sat down to do a budget and didn't even know where to start.
Making a menu plan wasn't too hard for me, because I've been doing this since we moved back to Oregon and decided that I would be a stay at home mommy. It really does save money, because when I get lazy every once in awhile and don't do it.... well let's just say it wipes us out.
I wanted to try a couple new recipes this time so here you have it:

- Turkey Curry on Flatbread (this is a tried and true recipe from Everyday with Rachael Ray)

- Coca-Cola Glazed Pork Roast w/ acorn squash

- Pulled Pork Burritos w/ Sauteed Sweet Onions and Rice (I will make this recipe up as I go and use the yummy pork from the roast above) (new to us)

- Knockwurst Stoup (I have no clue what knockwurst even is so I use 2 pkgs of turkey bratwurst) (I also don't do the apple/parsley topper)

- Chicken Parm Meatball Subs (this is a Rachael Ray recipe, but I can't find a link)

- Apple Juice Pork w/ Squash and Golden Rasins (From my Everyday With Rachael Ray Magazine, October 2008) (new to us)

- Crockpot Black Bean Chili w/ Beef (new to us)

This will last us for about 2 weeks as we are big on leftovers in this house!!

If any of these sound tasty to you, please don't hesitate to ask for the recipe. I'm always happy to share!

Coupon Giveaway?

Anyone interested in getting into "couponing"?

Check out this blog entry by Frugal Living Online and enter their contest for a coupon giveaway!!

Who knows, you could be the next crazy coupon person.

Good luck!!!

True Conservatives Unite!!

Ok, I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna take my family blog and put something out here.

I truly believe that Obama is a not who everyone may think he is.

Amongst other reasons, this is first and foremost:

http://www.obamacrimes.com/

I heard this on a very well known talk show last week. Even though the media is slanted, I can't believe this isn't even a little bit out of the bag. They are sure keeping a tight lip about this one.

Berg vs. Obama (yep that's right Obama is being sued)
Let me give you some of Philip J. Berg's credentials first. Here is a quote I found on a website... "Berg, who served as Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania for eight years, ran twice for governor in 1990 and 1998 and once for the U.S. Senate in 1994, was former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County and a former member of the Democratic State Committee,..." (from this site)
So, Philip J. Berg (stauch democrat) has filed a lawsuit against Obama based on evidence he has collected, that he is not a natural born citizen. This evidence includes, but is not limited to proof of forged documents and an audio clip of his paternal grandmother calling her family member to say that Obama was born in Kenya. The crazy thing is that Obama hasn't disputed the charges. If these allegations are true, Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be president of the United States of America.

This is not a crackpot republican trying to pull some last strings to slip Obama up. I would probably disagree with most everything that Philip J. Berg stands for. But this is his attempt to hold up the constitution. It looks like he's coming up against many roadblocks.

I'm just passing on the information to my few readers, because it's awful that the liberal media doesn't present both sides of the story. If this was the other way around, it would have been smeared all over the place.
If you want to hear the same interview that I heard, here is a link.

All I will say is choose wisely my friends.
Romans 16: 17-20

I haven't totally decided who I'm voting for. Here in Oregon, the presidential vote doesn't really count, unless you're voting for Obama.
I'm considering a vote for the constitutional party candidate, Chuck Baldwin.
He's in your voter's guide.
He stands for everything that I want in a president.

I know that it is our American right to vote for who we want to.
I wouldn't have done this post if I thought that we were being given all of the information.

In composing this post, I have tried to be as respectful as I can be. So if you have a comment, please do the same for me and the rest of my readers.

Reasons For Not Blogging

Normally I would space each of these out into several posts. But we've had alot going on. Blogging has taken a backburner for a little bit.

1. Our house that we live in and "the little house" went up on the market to sell on Monday. Call it a preemptive strike if you will. We are ok for now, but a few months down the road if something doesn't happen with one of them it won't be pretty. We really feel like this is what we were being led to do. If both houses sell, so be it. Ryan really wants to move in closer to his job anyway. Well, he REALLY wants to move to Bend, but I don't think that's in the cards. The grandparents would revolt, BIG TIME!!

2. I've been cleaning out my front bedroom. I haven't even scratched the surface of it, but the last couple days I've been listing stuff on ebay and craigslist. That is very time consuming. And I'm not totally sure if it's worth it this time around. I don't know...I have some auctions ending today, so ask me in a few hours. I only have 1 watcher to one of my 4 auctions.

3. Just generally cleaning my house constantly in case of a showing. I'm not a naturally "keep things clean" person. Just ask my old college roommate, my mom, my husband, the next door neighbor....

4. I've been "busy" learning the art of couponing. Tuesday night I went to a class held by these fine ladies... This is stemming out of the mom's group that I go to at Damascus Community Church every month. Last month's topic was No More Excuses: Getting real with your Family's Finances. At the end of the discussion, she announced that they were going to have a class on saving money on groceries. She also gave a list of blogs to check out in the meantime.
Well, Jackie and I have been perusing these blogs quite regularly and it's true, there is quite a lot of money to be saved if you know the tricks of the trade.
To check these blogs out yourself here are a few more:
Super Coupon Girl
Money Saving Mom
Frugal Finds From Your Frugal Friend
Common Sense With Money
That is a smattering of the ones I've been checking pretty regularly.
I'm working on my shopping list and very excited about the deals I'm working on.

5. I ordered and received my digital scrapbook that I've been working on all year long. I'm extremely happy with it! Other than a few little typos on my part, it's absolutely beautiful! I'm so excited about this. The best part is, MyPublisher was running a special thru Costco and it was 55% off. So a book that was supposed to be $113.95 before shipping was about $60 after shipping. It's 100 pages so that makes it $.60 a page. There is no way that I could make a paper book for that cheap. I would spend $20-30 on the book alone, not to mention the page protectors, paper, stickers, embellishments, adhesive, and the list goes on....

6. I'm going to be trying to take pictures of Wyatt this afternoon at the park by our house. Just try to wrangle a very busy toddler at a park by yourself. Heaven help me...I don't know how I'm gonna do it.

There you have it...that's the update.
I'll probably think of stuff I forgot later.
Oh ya, I got tagged. That might have to wait till the weekend.
It's a pretty fun one though!

Everyone have a fun and safe Haloween. While I really don't like Haloween itself, we have fun celebrating in our own special way.

Sir. Winston Churchill

My mom is a sculptor.
She made this! (amazing right?)
This is the 2nd installment in a commissioned project that she is working on for Pinewood Preparatory School in Summerville, SC.
The first installment was her Mother Theresa sculpture. (you can see that here)
Mom has been working on this project all year, and it is a huge accomplishment to see the finished project.
She is a very unique artist because not only does she do all of her own sculpting, but she did the mold, and the patina (color) herself as well.

So, needless to say, I'm proud of her and her work and wanted to share it!!

Next up, a bronze sculpture of Frances Suddeth Josephson. Mrs. Josephson was a code breaker in WWII (you can read more about her amazing story here).

"Street View"

Have you ever looked up google "street view" and found your house?
Well, I have.
I've also found other people's houses. It can be very interesting.
For instance...
This is our house on street view.







But more importantly, I looked up the "little house" on street view the other day. It is a fabulous "before" representation of the house.







Ewwww...
There's that "cousin eddie" motor home. Don't forget the Christmas lights and dried up wreath. That, by the way, Ryan ripped off the first day we took possesion. Oh ya, and did I mention that this picture is well over a year old. So, the dried up wreath wasn't from this last Christmas, but from a Christmas of yesteryear.

This is a picture that I took a couple of weeks ago for our Craigslist ad.













And this is a picture that I took today. We had some of our wonderful family come over today and help us paint the house. They worked tirelessly all day long and the results were impressive. We had quite the crew today...Ryan's parents (Becky and Ray),my dad, Grammy Clay, Lisa, Jared, Cresslyn & Doug (thankyou so much Lynnann). My mom watched Wyatt all day and we were able to get a major portion of it finished.
We are expecting another day of really good weather tomorrow so, after church, Ryan and I will go and work on it some more.

Thanks so much to our family for helping us so much during this very stressful time!

Let's Go Ducks!

To say that my husband is an avid Oregon Ducks fan would be a mild statement. So, when his birthday was rolling around this summer, he began to hint about wanting tickets. I bought him tickets to Ducks vs. UCLA. (Thanks Pat)
It turned into a party because Doug and Lynnann, Jared and his friend Dean and us were all going. Uncle Tom and Aunt Jackie were kind enough to let us borrow their mini van and we all got to ride to Eugene, OR together. It's roughly a 3 hour drive to get there, the game started at 7:30. What time did the boys want to leave???? Two PM. TWO PM!!! They were talking constantly throughout the entire trip there. They were all literally like a bunch of Jr. high girls. And Ryan was absolutely giddy. Ryan is not usually giddy. Truly.

So, we got there a couple hours early and ate some horrible Mexican food. There wasn't a soul in the place and I'm not sure what I ate was actually edible. So, I just didn't look at it as it went into my mouth.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm not a big sports person. I find it so boring to sit in front of a TV and watch people run around the screen with a ball. Just not amusing to me at all.
But there is something about being there. Especially at the Ducks game, I don't know if some of Ryan's enthusiasm rubs off on me or what. I just get sucked in and all of a sudden I want to know what the heck I'm watching and why. I find that very interesting about myself.
Apparently they didn't play very well. (I know this because I was forced to have the post game show blasting in my ear on the ride home at 11:30-2am, Another guy thing I suppose)
But, the game itself was very exciting. It wasn't a blowout but the Ducks maintained a decent lead the entire time.
One of the UCLA players got injured and was on his tummy on the field for what seemed like about 20 minutes. Simultaneously, there had been a fight in the stands and a spectator was pushed over the edge and fell on his head (6-8 feet they said).
So while they were tending to the player that was very hurt. There were about 10 police men and firemen on the field tending to the other altercation.

We spent the night in Becky and Ray's (Ryan's Parents) trailer and Wyatt spent the night with them. Ryan and I were getting up early Sunday morning to help my grandma move into a retirement home.
So, we fell into bed at about 2:30 am.
That made for a very tired couple the next day, but it was worth it!