Mothers Who Know

Ben and Ashley

2011-07-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

Our friends, Ben and Ashley, are wanting to adopt to grow their family. Check out their profile here.

Enchilada Sauce and Spanish Rice

2011-02-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

I've had some requests for the homemade enchilada sauce I make. I found the recipe and instructions here. But to make it easy for everyone, here is what I have in my recipe box...

Enchilada Sauce
2 T vegetable oil
2 T flour
2 T chili powder
1/2 t ground cumin
1 8oz can tomato sauce
2 c water
1 t salt
1/4 t garlic pwd or granules

Heat oil in 2 qt saucepan; stir in flour and chili powder. Cook for 1 minute.
Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 min.

Makes 3 cups sauce.

Here's a bonus recipe for you from one of my neighbors (he has been a chef for years). And a special bonus - it's SUPER easy.

Spanish Rice - Ernie's version

For 2 cups of rice....

2 cups of water/enchilada sauce
1 cup rice

Put some enchilada sauce into your 2 cup measuring cup (amt depends on how strong a flavor you want in your rice). Finish filling the measuring cup with water to 2 cups total liquid. Pour into saucepan and bring to a boil. Add 1 cup rice. Stir rice. Put on lid. Lower temperature to simmer for 20 minutes. Stir rice and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve. Yum!

Monday Meditation - Ephesians 2:20 - Cornerstone

2010-11-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

I'm working my way through the Institute Manual for the first half of the Old Testament. Currently, I'm reading a section on Symbolism of Christ. I decided to go through each symbol and record in my journal how I see Christ as that symbol. This morning, I pondered Cornerstone. Once I got a definition of cornerstone, it was very clear and simple.

Cornerstone: A cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation; all other stones will be set in reference to this stone thus determining the position of the entire structure.

The Church/Gospel uses Christ as its Cornerstone - all doctrines/teachings/practices use Christ as a reference. We also should do this in our lives - build our lives/decisions in reference to Him and His teachings, and the Gospel.

Monday Meditation - Exodus 5 - What Pharaoh taught me

2010-10-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

In Exodus 5, Moses and Aaron ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go sacrifice unto the Lord. Pharaoh's response is no. And then he tells the taskmasters to make the Israelites gather their own straw because, obviously, the Israelites must be idle since they feel they have enough time to go worship.

As I read this chapter, my first reaction was that people need time to worship and also to relax so they can rejuvenate. Then I had an immediate weight of conviction put on me - how often do I do this with my family? Thinking "Oh, you have time to play on your iPod?" "How do you have time to play?" "How can you get to do something fun while I'm always working?" And then I normally ask/assign a family member to do a chore. To be honest, it does seem like I'm doing all the work while everyone else is always relaxing/playing (except for the time that they are at work/school). After seeing how I was being like Pharaoh. I am now more conscious of the need for downtime for each member of our family, including me. When I push for someone to do a chore, I'm striving to limit what I'm asking. I'm also seeking to show by example that we work for a time and then relax for a time. My girls will yell at me when I ask them to clean their room "but you're on the laptop" or "you're reading a book!". Rather than simply telling them I'm their mother, I am pointing out to them all that I just accomplished. Yes, they need to not talk back to me but they also need to learn that we get to relax/play after we work and they won't learn that if I don't explain it (again, and again, and again).

I'm not missing

2010-10-25T04:59:00.000-07:00

No one has asked, but I wonder if anyone has been wondering what happened to this blog. My family blog has also been neglected.

Throughout 2010, many of the blogs that I regularly follow have been focusing on minimizing - their homes and their lives. This has also been one of my focuses. I kept finding myself distracted by the computer/internet throughout the day and at times, neglecting my home, other duties, and sometimes my children. With the start of the school year, I put myself on a schedule hoping to be able to get more things done and spend some time with my daughters. Princess Naked Toes started Preschool for 4 half days each week. About this same time, many other changes happened in my life. One being I received a new calling at church (I'm now the secretary for the Relief Society in our ward). Our Relief Society President gave a lesson on priorities and distractions based on a talk by Sis. Julie B. Beck.

All of this combined to tell me I needed to keep the computer turned off more - limiting my browsing time and even my "working" time on the computer. I'm trying to keep the computer turned off throughout the morning, striving to only be on the computer while both girls are at school and after they've gone to bed, and even then limiting it to only 1/2 hr of browsing (facebook, blog reading and writing) during the afternoon and maybe an hour in the evening. But this has not enough time to keep up the blogs - will try to improve upon that. But I will say that I am liking the schedule I've established so far - as long as I stay to it. I'm getting more things done that I need to get done - as long as I remember to look at my To Do list and prioritize it each day.

New Recipes

2010-10-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

I think I have a nice arsenal of great recipes. And then, I find something I really want to try. And since I subscribe to several food blogs, I keep finding more. Many of them are dessert recipes and I already have a recipes I'm looking at trying soon!

Caramel Apple Muffins

One-Bowl Pumpkin Bread (made with honey)

Baked Potato Soup

Lite Pasta

What recipes are you trying?

Monday Meditation - Who sold Joseph into Egypt?

2010-08-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

Last week, if you had asked me to tell the story of Joseph being sold into Egypt, I probably would have said... Joseph's had 11 brothers. Many of them (probably not Benjamin) didn't like that he was their father's favorite. So one day, when he came to visit them while they were tending the flocks, they desired to be rid of him and threw him into a pit. While they were eating, the decided that instead of leaving him there to die, they would sell him to a group of Ishmeelites who were passing by. They took him out of the pit and sold him and the Ishmeelites then took him to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar.

Friday, as I was reading in Genesis, I discovered a major difference in the facts of this story. Joseph's brothers came up with the plan to sell him but when they went to get him out of the pit, he wasn't there. While they had been eating, a group of Midianites came along and found him in the pit. They had the same idea as Joseph's brothers and sold him to the Ishmeelites.

Yesterday, I was still pondering this and thinking of how many times I've read that verse (Genesis 37:28) and yet never caught that piece of information. Then I had the reminder pop into my head that the intent to sin is a sin. We've been taught that you commit the sin in your heart before you commit it in action. Joseph's brothers did not commit the sin in action but they had in their hearts (and would have committed it in action if given the opportunity). And yet, probably most people would tell the story similar to the way I would have last week. Joseph's brothers have the reputation of having committed this sin thousands of years later!

What does that teach us? Not only do we need to be careful of our actions, we need to be careful of our thoughts and intents to do evil. When new in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we tend to focus on our actions, not committing sins. As we progress in our testimonies, we are taught to control our thoughts. This story has reminded me that as much as Satan can tell us that no one will know our sins, others not only can not our sins, but they can know our intent to sin. It is so important to give a wide berth to that cliff! Or we may gain a reputation that we do not desire.

Update: A friend just let me know that her version of the Bible (waiting to hear which one) says that the brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit when the Midianites passed by. Maybe later today, I'll try to find the different versions and see how they compare, including some translating from the original Hebrew.

WFMW - Coupon Organization Part 1

2010-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

I love coupons! With a little effort, I'm able to save quite a bit... well I don't save any money, I get more food than I would with my food budget otherwise. With that thought, maybe I need to stop couponing so we have less food in the house so I eat less. Hmm, have to think on that one.

Thinking is done. Nope! Going to keep on couponing!

Finding the coupons I need to match up with a sale could be quite difficult with my coupon stash if they weren't organized. There are several options for organizing coupons. One is to immediately cut out the ones you will use and discard the rest. Another filing system using baseball card organizers in a binder - you cut out ALL the coupons and put them in the binder and take it with you shopping. Neither of those work for me. So here's my system.

First, I sort my coupons. Since I usually have 5-6 sets of each insert (coupon insert sources is another topic), I take each insert and put all identical pages together and staple it. I go through each stapled group and cut out the coupons I know I'll use and set them aside to put in my coupon pouch that goes to the store with me.

The stapled groups are then filed in a file folder with the date on the tab (in pencil because I reuse the folders over and over). The file folder is then put in a hanging file with all the other coupon insert files.

Why do I do these steps?

So many of the blogs that I follow will give coupon match ups for items on sale, listing the coupons by date and insert. For example $1/2 Peter Pan Peanut Butter 8/1 SS (Smart Source). If I like the final price, I then go to my coupon file and pull out that date. I flip through the stapled groups until I find the peanut butter coupon. Sometimes, though, that coupon wasn't put in my paper (it's done by regions). Fortunately, by having them organized by date, I'm not looking through the entire 3 inch stack. (Yes it's probably that big but no, I haven't measured it. Okay, okay, now you've got me curious. I'm getting the ruler.... Well, what do you know? It was 2 1/2 inches.)

If I'm looking for a coupon on a specific product, there are several free coupon databases out there. I've used Coupon Mom and I believe Stretching a Buck now has one too.

Hope that gives you an idea for how to organize your coupon stash. This method definitely works for me! For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family.

Piano Lessons

2010-08-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

Here's information about Piano Lessons....

Availability

Tuesdays at 4, 4:30, 5, and 5:30 pm
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 1 pm, 1:30 pm, and 2:00 pm.

Piano Lesson Policies

1. Tuition is $40 for a 4 week session. Tuition is due the 1st scheduled lesson of each month unless other arrangements are made. Late tuition may be subject to a late charge or the time slot may be re-assigned to another student.

2. Makeup lessons may be available on a limited, infrequent basis. Students will not receive a discount for lessons they miss. Makeup lessons or a discount will be offered when the teacher is unavailable for a scheduled lesson.

3. Students are expected to practice regularly between lessons. Parents are highly encouraged to participate in practice times.

4. Students may discontinue lessons with a 2 week notice.

5. Students are expected to purchase their own music and additional supplies. The cost of books is not included in the monthly tuition. In order to obtain the correct music, students may request the teacher to obtain the music and the costs will be added to tuition for the month.

6. The preferred method is the Hal Leonard series. But other methods are acceptable.

7. Be sure to notify teacher prior to a missed lesson, as soon as you know you will not be attending your lesson.

8. If a check bounces, students will be required to pay for future tuition in cash.

9. A Spring Recital will be scheduled and all students will be asked to participate. If students are interested in participating in various festivals, we will make all efforts to make this possible.

Calendar

Session dates are as follows:

Sept 1 – 30
Oct 1 – 31
Nov 1 – 27
Nov 28 – Dec 23
Session Break Dec 24 through Jan 2
Jan 3 – 31
Feb 1 – 28
Mar 1 – 31 (no lessons 3/20-27)
Apr 1 – 30
May 1 – 27

Work from Home decision

2010-08-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

For about a year, I have not been working (for income). Before that I have done several part-time work from home jobs and each has ended when it was supposed to. The last one had had a lot of work which then basically ceased at the same time that we paid off our last debt. It then trickled along and I ended up earning two small paychecks in 6 months. 6 months later, I decided it was time to officially resign. Now we are just over 6 months after that and we are feeling a crunch in our budget. Princess Naked Toes is starting Preschool so that is being added to our budget. Her gymnastics also went up starting this month. If you missed the hints from my last post, my husband just had a kidney stone zapped so now we have a large (to us) medical bill to pay out of our savings (Thank you Emergency Fund!) which means we need to rebuild our emergency fund. Finally, through all our outings and activities this summer, many involving water, we have lost Princess Smiles-A-Lot's hearing aid and we must replace it ASAP. If you are not aware, an inexpensive hearing aid will cost $1300. With her hearing loss, we will not be getting the "cheap" hearing aid and hopefully will be able to get her an FM receiver so she can hear the teacher's voice directly in the hearing aid. And this isn't factoring in that my husband's car needs some repair work equal to its value or a new-to-us vehicle.

I've considered several work at home jobs. My dream job would be working with numbers (I'm a spreadsheet/paperwork addict - I know I'm strange) but haven't figured out how to find this kind of job from home or an office for the limited time I would have available. I really don't want to spend the whole of the 2 hrs I have with both girls at school 4 days a week working. Those two hours are already going quickly to errands, cleaning out projects and visiting teaching - maybe even some sewing projects that are waiting my attention.

So my husband and I have decided that I will start teaching piano lessons. See this post for details on lessons. I'm hoping to make just a couple hundred a month to ease the crunch, pay medical bills, and build back up our emergency fund. I am so done with debt that I'm not comfortable with our emergency fund being as low as it's going to be very soon without a plan to build it back up.

Choosing a Health Insurance Plan

2010-08-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

Except for the past 12 months, for most of our marriage, one or both of us have been employed by a large health system that provided decent HMO insurance. We had a set copay for a visit to our Primary Care Physician and a slightly higher copay for specialists (and it required a referral). We also had a set copay for an Urgent Care Visit and a copay for Emergency Room Visits. Lab and radiology work was generally covered 100% (I can't recall ever paying anything for any lab work or radiology).

Then last June, my husband was "laid off" (it was termed laid off but there was no plan to have him return so really it was terminated). We were blessed with a specified term of severance and we chose a COBRA option of that termination.

Then one year ago this week, my husband started a new job and we had to totally switch gears with our health insurance, including switching our care to the major competitor for his previous employer. This has been a hard switch and we delayed switching physicians as long as we could. We still miss our previous physicians, espeically our pediatrician and ENT/audiologists. When we selected our healthplan, we selected the more expensive plan because it was closest to what we were used to AND was cheaper than what we'd been paying. The hardest adjustment has been switching from an HMO mindset (all those set co-pays) to a PPO setting (with the benefit of being able to see a specialist without a referral - we don't even have to select a specific Primary Care Physician; we can change who we see at anytime without notifying anyone).

Just a 2 months later, we were having to re-select our insurance plan for the 2010 year as our new employer was adding a 3rd option for Healthcare. The Premium PPO would be $236/month for our family. The Value PPO was set at $95/month. And then the new Consumer PPO plan would be FREE! Oh how wonderful to think that we could not pay a monthly premium for health insurance!!

Fortunately, I LOVE LOVE LOVE spreadsheets and math. I sat down and came up with a couple likely scenarios. Love gets kidney stones every few years and it had been several years so odds were it could happen in 2010. Princess Naked Toes is very adventurous so it was extremely likely in 2010 that she would end up in the ER or Urgent Care for some incident during an adventure. My personal experience with my former PCP (who I had a love/hate relationship with) was that if I was sick or had a problem needing to be seen fairly quickly, he would be completely booked for a month out so I'd have to go to Urgent Care. I estimated costs for those 3 likelihoods and then plugged in how much it would cost us under each of those three PPO plans. Based on those numbers (our tendency to choose the Better over the Good and not buying the most expensive items), we selected the Value PPO.

In mid-July (2010), my husband started experiencing some severe pains which he self-diagnosed as a kidney stone. After several weeks of painful days/nights followed by okay days, he was in enough pain that I was able to convince him to see a Urologist and we were blessed to find someone to see him in the office that day rather than an ER visit. Under the Value PPO, we have a copay for office visits verses 80% after deductible for ER services.

That was a Monday. He ended up having a CT Scan that afternoon, confirming a kidney stone that still had a LONG way to go to work it's way out. Based on the stone's position and size, it was decided to do a lithotripsy that Friday. Let me just say that I WAY under-estimated the costs for a kidney stone.

So today, I sat down with all of our claims information for 2010 and created a wonderful spreadsheet comparing how much we've paid this year to how much we would have had to pay with both the Premium plan and the Consumer Plan. Now, I went ahead and calculated all 2010 monthly premiums into our costs so basically it's assuming, we have no more medical expenses. So far, there is only a difference of $800 between the 3 plans with the Value Plan (the one we chose) having the lowest costs to us!!

I've decided to keep the spreadsheet up to date with any future 2010 claims so that as we get to select for 2011, we'll be very educated on potential healthcare expenses in 2011 for each plan. Of course, monthly premiums and coverages may change so I'll have to change the spreadsheet accordingly, but I already have the base numbers ready to go.

As you prepare to select your own insurance plan coverage, I strongly encourage you to come up with what is reasonable for your family to experience during that coverage period. Include annual well-child exams, immunizations, glasses, a replacement hearing aid for the one that your family loses over the summer (oops - forgot to put that in our spreadsheet but I'll use the excuse that we haven't purchased the replacement yet), an ER visit for your own adventurous child, and maybe even an urgent care visit for the potential bike accident of your bike-riding spouse. The hardest part is estimating costs and a call to the local hospital may not be helpful because they'll won't know the specifics. So estimate HIGH.

Good luck!

Making up for Saturday

2010-08-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

So to make up for Saturday, I've been posting things we don't need on Craigslist this morning. I still need to post my old dishes since that's what we actually replaced. My goal is to make at least as much as we spent on the new dishes (since I did get such a great deal on them... more below on that). So far, I've posted a pack that attaches to a bike frame, our collection of Disney movies on VHS (our VCR died this spring so we haven't been able to watch them; plus whenever anyone wants to watch a movie, they always go to the DVDs first anyway), a spiderman costume (which I bought on clearance to use as a gift or for when friends come over to play but it's just sat in the closet for almost a year), a toddler swing (Princess Naked Toes likes a big girl swing now), and a snowsuit. I still have a few more items to go add.

As I took the stickers off our new plates and put them in the dishwasher, I discovered that regular price on those plates is $9.99! So I got really nice plates for about 1/3rd of their regular cost. I had forgotten too that those purchases came with the Kohl's dollars which I'll be heading back to Kohl's to use at the end of this week. Maybe I'll look for serving dishes to go with my new dishes... or a little something for me.

And an update on using the new plates, Saturday's dinner was definitely smaller because I used the smaller plates. But Sunday night, my husband opted for paper plates because he had filled the dishwasher with bowls when making chocolate chip cookies. Kind of defeats the fewer calories from dinner the night before though.

Utility bills

2010-08-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with my brother's mother-in-law the other day. (Is there a term for what that makes her to me? No idea. But we get along so the only term I can think of for her is friend.) Her house is a little smaller than mine (I just looked it up online and it's 200 sq ft smaller). But her total utility bills (gas, electric, water and sewer) are less than half of mine! One advantage she has is large trees all around her home providing lots of shade (meaning she doesn't need as much air conditioning to cool it down). But more than half! So now I'm on a mission to figure out why our gas, electric, water and sewer are so much. I'm getting together with some friends who are willing to share the intimate details of their utilities so that maybe we can figure some things out. Maybe MeeMaw (what my nephews call their grandmother) likes it hot in the summer and cold in the winter (I like it cold in the winter though). Maybe she sits in the dark. I'm also curious to see if I can find the bills from before I was a SAHM. Is it because I'm home all day, using lights, more a/c, etc?

We've been talking for a few years about investing in more insulation in the attic, and adding it to the crawlspace. Maybe this is the difference?

If you're interested in participating in our "research", feel free to chime in. If you don't live in the same area, we won't be able to compare cost but we can compare usage (comparing therms or kilowatts, or gallons of water). I'll share the results and our efforts as we go.

Not a good example today

2010-08-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

Just had to share, I was not the best example today of being a frugal shopper. Well, in some ways I was. We got some great deals. But my best advice, to myself and others, for being frugal - don't go shopping. And today, we went shopping. My next best advice, and it may not apply to you but it definitely applies to me - shop without your husband. Whenever my husband is with me, we tend to spend more, including if that means going over budget.

This weekend is Tax Free weekend for back to school. Our city is not participating so it's cutting out the state taxes, which is about half the tax bill. Now for me, this generally does not impact us because we don't buy a lot at one time. And even on a $100 bill, what's the difference between 7% and 3.5% - a whole $3.50! Is that enough to make me spend this weekend rather than next? What if next weekend, the items I want are 10% cheaper than this weekend? So I generally don't plan around the tax break.

But today I wanted to go get the girls a back to school outfit. Kohl's was generous enough to send me a 15% off your entire purchase coupon (good through the whole weekend so you can use it multiple times). If you spend $100 or more, it's 20% of. Combining my coupon with the tax break, and a back to school budget, a canceled vacation due to a sick Princess Naked Toes (she's better now), and I couldn't resist a trip.

While we were trying on a million outfits (a slight exaggeration but it didn't feel like it), my husband called. He got off work early for an x-ray (a follow-up on a kidney stone) and the x-ray was right next door to Kohl's. So he came over and joined us. He approved the outfits we had picked out for the girls (one each plus a few shirts for Princess Smiles-A-Lot). Then we started our way over to shoes. We made a brief pit stop at the dorm room decor stuff. We picked up two clip on lamps that the girls have been needing for their beds so that one can read when the other wants the light out.

We detoured through the housewares, looking at dishes. We've been talking about getting new plates - smaller ones, to help us with our portion control. So we browsed through (I had no intention of actually purchasing but just getting a feel for what he would be okay with and what he wouldn't - normally what I like, he doesn't). As we browsed, he held up a salad plate. I liked it. He liked it. It was on clearance.

They only had 2 of that one. They had 3 of another one that coordinated. We took a plate to the kiosk to see if they had more of the one we really liked online. Nothing. We ended up with the 5 plates.

The plates took us above the $100 mark so we saved a few extra dollars by going from 15% off to 20% off. That's a great excuse right?

Then we headed home. And I wondered if Kohl's.com would actually have the plates since the kiosk didn't. Guess what?! They did! Here's one thing I discovered about this set - you don't get to pick the pattern. There are 4 patterns in it, and you just tell them how many you want. Since we'd already spent so much (I know some of you are laughing but I don't normally spend that much at one time unless it's my stock up buying at Sam's Club or Christmas), we decided to go for it. We ordered 7 more plates so we have 12, plus we ordered 8 bowls.

My coupon worked online too. Kohl's will let you use up to 2 promo codes at the same time. So I did an internet search and found a code for free shipping over $50. I added a eco-friendly shopping bag for 78 cents to my shopping cart to hit $50. After several attempts, I discovered that I could only use both if my after 15% off cost was above $50. So I did some browsing, thinking about things we've been saying we need, and discovered a pair of Chaps pillows for $9. I added that, deleted the shopping bag (not needed). And voila, I got the 15% off and the free shipping so I basically paid $1 to free for the pillows.

Or to justify purchasing dishes that weren't truly a NEED, maybe I should apply those savings to the dishes and say I bought pillows for $9 and my dishes were less?

Curious about our new dishes? Here's the one that first caught our eye.

I really like square plates but my husband informed me today he doesn't. Guess it's a good thing he was there. This pattern is on the other 3 plates we bought today.

I don't know what will come in our package from Kohl's. But here are the other two patterns.

And in case you want some too, here they are at Kohl's.

I promise to go back to my normally frugal, penny-pinching ways tomorrow. I guess my back-to-school shopping is done. Dishes are back to school, right?

BlogHop 2010

2010-08-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hi! Welcome Bloghoppers to Mothers Who Know!

Today, I'm participating in Pensieve's Blog Hop '10 in honor of BlogHer.

I started Mothers Who Know as a place to share ideas (and hopefully gain some ideas from others) on how to live providently. Provident living is using our resources, including time, money, and our stuff, wisely. I participate in Works for Me Wednesday often (but not every week) sharing things that are working for our family, including ways that we teach our daughters about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You will also find recipes that my family loves. One of my goals with the recipes is to identify recipes that are naturally gluten-free that my family will eat. This means recipes that don't require special ingredients to be gluten-free.

I am a stay at home mom. After many years in the workplace, I started staying home shortly before our oldest daughter was born. Since then, I take the approach that stretching my husband's income is my "job". With that approach, we've been able to make it on one income (with some part-time work at home assistance periodically) and survived a summer-long unemployment in 2009.

So look around and hope to see you around again soon!

Taco Dip

2010-07-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

We attended a BYU Send-Off party tonight for two young friends who are heading off to BYU in a few weeks. Each family was asked to bring a treat to share. One of the families (the host family) have two members with Celiac's disease (they can't eat wheat/gluten) and I wanted to bring treats that everyone could eat and that I didn't have to go buy specialty flours. After browsing the internet, I finally came up with two recipes from my recipe box that we've made tons of times. The first recipe was fudge which my husband makes. Tonight I'm sharing the second recipe - Taco Dip. This recipe came from a co-worked when I worked in Florida. She brought it to work one day and I had to get her recipe. I've made it many times over the years and it's always a hit.

Taco Dip

12 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 c. sour cream
2 t. chili powder
1 1/2 t. cumin
1 1/28 t. red pepper
1/2 c. salsa

Combine ingredients and place in serving dish (I use a glass pie plate).

Toppings:
Cheddar Cheese
Monterey Jack
Diced tomatoes
green onion
black and green olives

Sprinkle toppings over dip. Serve with tortilla chips.

Tonight's seemed a little spicier than normal and as I typed this out I realized why - when I read the recipe I saw 1 1/2 t red pepper instead of 1 1/8 teaspoon. But I was out of chili powder so it probably really wasn't any spicier.

Another change for tonight was that I used the "Mexican" blend of shredded cheese rather than the cheddar and monterey. I also didn't have green onions or olives to put on (we don't normally do the olives since no one in my family eats them). In the past, I have put some green or orange peppers on it for more color.

WFMW - Ice Cream Novelties

2010-07-21T04:20:00.000-07:00

I LOVE ice cream! That's probably an understatement, actually. I have only had a few instances in my life where I have turned down ice cream (the majority of those times being when the only flavor was coffee/mocha which I won't eat - yuck!).

But I try not to buy ice cream. Do you know what happens when I have ice cream in my house? Even if it's not my favorite kind? I eat it. Every day. And I'm not good at following serving sizes - have you ever measured out your ice cream?

This Spring, we discovered boxes of Good Humor ice cream treats at Sam's Club. And they are working for our family! I love the ice cream bars and the cones are good too. My family also loves the ice cream sandwiches and fudge bars. But what I love even more is that it is proportioned out for me. No offense to Good Humor, but I'm also able to resist having it every day. It satisfies my ice cream desire without HAVING to have some. (Kind of like my love for cheese curls - I just can't resist but I can resist Doritoes - so which do you think I buy?)

Buying ice cream novelties Works for Me. For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family!

WFMW - Credit Card Motivation

2010-07-14T04:02:00.000-07:00

Years ago, we paid off all our credit cards and our car (this took years to do). But we failed to cancel our credit cards, in case we needed them in an emergency. Then we decided to purchase a van, believing we could afford the payments. We could but it stretched our budget and we made a few poor decisions that we ended up putting some charges on our credit cards. A few thousand dollars later, we were feeling the weight that comes with being a slave to the lender. We got serious about paying off that debt, again.

If you have been trying to pay off credit card debt, you've probably heard about Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball method. If you haven't, here's a very quick summary - list your debts from smallest to largest, then tackle the smallest one first (paying minimums on all the rest). The reason you pay off smallest to largest is for the excitement you feel paying something off - it motivates you to keep going. If you worked on the largest debt first, it would take longer to get that "reward" so you might lose your momentum.

But what do you do if you have a huge amount you're trying to pay or you are still losing your momentum? We needed a reality check that second go around of paying off consumer debt. Do you notice I bolded consumer? That's because so much of what we, as a country, use our credit cards for is consumed. Here's what we did...

In addition to smallest to largest, I made a LONG list of all the charges that made up the debt. So if there was a $1000 balance, I made a list of all the charges on that credit card, working backwards in time so I could see what made up the $1000 (I made interest charges their own item). Then as we made a payment of $50, I looked at the oldest charge and if the $50 covered it, I marked it off or as many items as the payment covered. Sometimes that charge was an interest payment. Sometimes it was an oil change that a vehicle needed. And sometimes it was a trip to McDonald's 18 months ago!!!! Isn't that ridiculous?! We were paying for something we ATE 18 MONTHS AGO!

That was a big reality check for us! It was also a great motivator. At that time, I was working part-time from home. We lived off of my husband's salary and used my variable income to pay off the debt. If I saw that the next oldest month of charges was $125, I would work really hard to make at least that much of a payment from my next paycheck. I was paid every two weeks and everything from my checks (after tithing) went to decreasing debt or emergencies.

So check out what you're actually paying when you pay your next credit card payment. It will probably surprise you what you're paying for - and hopefully motivate you to move forward in getting rid of that credit card and not use it again.

This method definitely Worked for Me for motivation and reality. For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family.

Time Out for Women - Kansas City Survey

2010-07-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

I just received an email from DeseretBook's Time Out for Women manager, Chrislyn Woolston. They are looking at coming back to Kansas City in 2011 (not St. Louis) on November 4-5 to the Overland Park Convention Center. Chrislyn has asked me to ask you the following questions. You can email your answers or leave them as a comment and I'll forward them too DeseretBook. I was disappointed that we didn't have a Time Out close to us this year so I'm excited that they are looking at next year (but I was hoping for St. Louis). To give you some ideas but hopefully not influence your comments (other than to encourage you to send in your comments), I'm putting my answers below too.

1. What stake are you in and how far of a drive is it to Kansas City?

Springfield Missouri South Stake - 3-4 hour drive

2. Do you see any conflicts with this date?

Not at this time but our Stake calendar hasn't come out yet.

3. Would you attend the event in Kansas City in 2011? Why or why not?

I probably would attend but I'd prefer one in St. Louis because when if I'm going to travel, I'd like to combine it with a Temple trip. If the Kansas City event waited until 2012, the KC Temple will be opening and I'd be able to combine a Temple and Time Out trip in KC.

4. Do you think women from your area would be willing to travel there?
Kansas City tends to be less popular with our area because it is a little further and not as convenient as St. Louis. Downtown KC is not an easy location but with the change to Overland Park it may increase interest (Love the change to Overland Park!).

5. Would you be willing to be on a team for this event?
Willing to be on the Team again - but if others are interested, willing to let them participate instead.
6. Do you see any obstacles in having the event in Kansas City in 2011?
Same comments as question #3 - wait until 2012 when the Kansas City Temple will be open (whether for the open house time frame or after it's open - but not during the dedication times).

WFMW - Piano Practice Tips

2010-07-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

Princess1 has been taking piano lessons for almost 18 months. I think she's very talented (yes, I know I'm a little biased) and she could be an outstanding pianist with practice. Practice? Yes, you need to practice and practice regularly. We've gone through spurts of being great about this and times of not so great. Part of it could be a hectic schedule and sometimes it's attitude issues and/or being too tired. Here are tips that we've learned to make practice time a success in our home.

1) Pick a practice time that works with your child's interest/personality.
I did learn this past school year that if Princess1 could get up early enough in the morning, she did really well at the piano in the morning rather than practicing after school. Sadly, this is not an easy accomplishment. But this summer, without having to head off to school before 8 am, we're doing much better with practicing in the morning. Some kids will do better in the afternoon. For next school year, we'll be discussing with Princess1 if she wants to continue practicing in the morning, before school, or we'll pick a time in the afternoon. One option we may look into is practicing at school while we wait the 30 minutes for Princess2 to get out of preschool (they release 30 minutes after the elementary).

2) It's okay to take a break sometimes.
Earlier this summer, we headed on vacation and did not have access to a piano or keyboard. I decided to not take the flash cards with us because I didn't think she'd be willing to drill flash cards on vacation. Turns out this was great for Princess1. She was excited to play the piano when we got back and her brain used the vacation to recognize the notes better.

3) Use a practice chart/reward system.
While on vacation, we met Jenny Oaks Baker, who is a professional violinist. Princess1 was really excited to meet her. I was excited to pick her brain for practice tips since she has 4 kids also learning instruments. Her recommendation was to look into Suzuki's 100 day method. This method involves practicing 100 days in a row (we're using Sundays as a bye each week for the Sabbath but counting it in the 100 days). At the end of successfully completing the chart, Princess1 has chosen a trip to St. Louis as her reward (to visit friends). If you miss a day (even just one), you start the whole chart over. We completed Day 10 today!

4) Determine your practice method
Decide if you are going to practice for a set time limit or by task. We tried using a set time amount but too much of that would go into waiting for attitude to dissolve. So now we are doing tasks - Princess1 plays her assigned pieces (1-2 from each of Lesson, Technique, and solo, plus the Sonatina she's learning, hopefully for a festival this fall). She also is required to do 1 page from either the Theory, Practice Games or Notespeller books, or she can review her flash cards. If she completes these 5 things (Lesson, Technique, Solos, Sonatina and non-music), she earns a sticker for her 100 days chart.

5) Be with your child.
Practice time goes so much better when you actively participate in practice time with your child. If you don't know how to read music, you can learn along with your child. Help them keep track of where they are in their song and repeat trouble areas.

6) Allow your child to make some decisions.
Children like to have some control and tend to rebel (or have attitude) when everything is decided for them. This makes sense since Heavenly Father gifted us with our agency to choose. But as parents, we can't allow our children complete autonomy.
From reading Tip #4, you might think Princess1 has no choice in the matter. She has lots of choices.
First, she gets to choose when we practice (yes, I know Tip #1 says to have a set time but sometimes my strong-willed child doesn't agree with the clock). She also gets to choose to have attitude and take a break to finish practicing later, rather than wasting my time.
She also gets to choose what order she does her practice in - what song to practice first or if she wants to do the non-music part first.
And then she gets to choose which of the non-music activities to do (she has decided she loves Notespeller).
Ultimately, she gets to decide whether or not she earns a sticker for practicing each day.

7) Praise.
Let your child know they are doing great.

8) Remind child of progress made.
This really comes in handy for Princess1 when she won't try because the music is hard. I've learned to remind her of different music that she's learned and thought was hard when she first started it. Then I ask her if it's still hard or is it now easy. She usually becomes inspired to try the hard stuff (at least one or two measures of it) and realizes that each time it becomes a little easier.

9) Take it easy.
As I explained above, we have to play each of the assigned pieces of music. Sometimes this is multiple times as we play as a solo or with the accompaniment CD. But as long as we play it once, we're good to go. Because we're practicing every day, she makes lots of progress even if we don't perfect a piece each day.

10) Play known pieces.
Sometimes to get over attitude or just for fun, we pull out pieces we've already "perfected" and play them. This helps with Tip #8 but also lets the piano be simply enjoyable instead of always "work."

These ideas are working for us, hopefully something here will work for you. For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family. Love it!

WFMW - How to wash child's thick hair

2010-06-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

I read another blog post this morning from Works for Me Wednesday that inspired me to write this tip.

Princess1 has really thick hair! It's so thick that even when she lays in water and we swish it around, there are sections of hair that are still dry. This makes it really difficult to wash.

Add to this thick hair, Princess1 has Sensory Integration Dysfunction. Fortunately, it's better than when she was a toddler. One of her biggest areas of issue has always been her scalp. She would scream bloody murder whenever I tried to wash her hair when she was little and couldn't stand to have her hair brushed either. It is a little better now - I don't have to pin her to the bathroom counter EVERY day to brush her hair, just once a week. And she is learning to brush her hair herself and do it more often so there are less tangles which pull on her scalp.

So washing her hair has always been difficult.

Now that she's out of the baby/toddler stage, I've been trying different kid shampoos for her but it wasn't until I tried the Suave kids shampoo that I found success. It works great for her hair, without using an entire handful of shampoo to cover her hair.

At a Relief Society getaway weekend in March, I got a tip from a stylist with the dry hair sections. She said that when the hair doesn't suds, it's still dirty and to wash again.

I came home and tried it. It works! One of Princess1's complaints was how long I took to wash her hair and all the scrubbing. Now, we get along great because washing twice takes less time than trying to get all the hair at one time. There's less scrubbing because I'm not trying to get dry areas wet and sudsing on the first try.

So here's what I do...

Wet hair, lifting it up as I pour the water on to try to get all sections wet.
Wash with quarter-size plus amount of shampoo.
Scrub gently
Rinse.
Using a quarter-size amount of shampoo, I wash her hair again.
Scrub gently
Rinse well.

Note the difference in rinsing? Because I know I'm washing a second time, I don't feel the need to spend 5 minutes (slight exaggeration but only slight) trying to get all the shampoo out of her hair the first time.

Also because I know I'm washing a second time, I don't stress about areas that aren't sudsing during the first wash. And generally, there's not a problem the second wash.

And that Works for Me!
For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family.

WFMW - Stop a soft taco from opening

2010-06-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

Our family LOVES tacos. Soft tacos and hard tacos. But my little girls always have a hard time with keeping their taco together. When you go to a restaurant (fast food or normal), they don't seem to have much problem - but I believe that's because they steam their tortillas fresh which lets them bend easier. I've tried heating them up in the microwave but that only lasts for so long. But earlier this year, I came up with a trick that's definitely working for my family.

Sour cream.

That's my trick.

I build the tacos for my daughters, and of course, they HAVE to have sour cream on their taco. After putting the sour cream on the inside, fold the "bottom" up a little bit so that nothing falls out the end after you roll it. Then roll the sides in. On the first fold, place a small dollop of sour cream and then spread it around. Then place the second fold on top. The sour cream "glues" the taco together so that when my girls set it down, it doesn't fall apart on them.

For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We are THAT Family!

Forced to slow down

2010-06-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Note: If you also read the family blog, the same story is posted there.

Have you ever been forced to slow down your life? I've had quite a few instances in the past few months where Heavenly Father has forced me to slow down. Normally it's been because I spent time in the sun and ended up with a migraine/nasty headache (I don't confuse the two but I've had both recently) or tummy issues (not vomiting or nausea, but just where my stomach doesn't feel good).

Then there was the day that I intended to go to Chik-Fil-A with my neighbor for lunch and ended up helping another friend try to break into her van (locked keys inside) and then her house and finally we all ended up at Chik-Fil-A. That day I decided Heavenly Father thought I needed to spend the entire day with friends.

Today, Heavenly Father decided I needed to spend the entire day at the strawberry patch. The plan - leave at 8 am, pick strawberries and back home by 10 am, make freezer jam, clean my house before pest control arrived (ants!) and then start packing my family's gear for a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house tomorrow.

Reality....

Leave home at 8 am, pick up neighbor and her kids and drive to strawberry patch (20-30 minutes away from home)
Arrive at strawberry patch, sample some strawberries as we pick them (Incredibly good! The best I've had in 20 years.).
Pay for strawberries and load all 4 kids (mine and my neighbor's) in the van.
Turn key to start van.
"Click, click, click".
Wait a minute.
Try again.
Click, click, click.
Repeat until giving up.
Call Love. He's in at work, an hour from our home. This was not his week to drive so he doesn't have a car and left his cell phone at home.
My neighbor calls her husband. He's at work - without enough gas to drive out to us and he left his wallet at home (so he has no way to buy gas to come get her).
Call closest mechanic - he's out for the next hour.
My Mom, who lives close to the patch and has a vehicle that would hold all of us, is out of town.
Think - if we leave the van for someone to fix it there or to tow it back, who can we call to pick up all 6 of us since we won't fit in the tow truck.
At 10 am, Love leaves work with a coworker who drops him off at home.
My neighbor's husband borrows a work vehicle and picks up his family.
The girls and I hang out at the strawberry patch.
Love goes to the auto parts store and confers with them - it's the starter.
12 pm Love purchases a starter and drives to patch, stopping at McDonald's on the way to get lunch for his stranded family.
1 pm Love arrives with food, tools and a starter. Everyone enjoys lunch.
After eating, Love installs the new starter.
We try starting the van.
Click, click, click.
Arghh!!
Look in phone book for closest auto parts store for battery.
Love experiments with the van and believes we have another problem.
Love calls the tow truck to take our van to our mechanic - estimated arrive 1 hour.
I call our neighbor to come pick up the girls and take them to her house - estimated arrive 30 min.
I move everything in the van to the car.
Tow truck arrives and tries jumpstarting with their power jumper (or whatever you call it).
Van starts.
Neighbor arrives and takes our girls to her house.
Love and the wonderful guy from the tow truck try turning off the van to see if it will start on its own.
Click, click, click.
They rejump the van - success.
I drive van, with Love following, back to town.
4 pm-ish Arrive at our house, Love drives the van to auto parts store and gets a new battery.
I do some cleaning to prepare for Pest control (did I mention the ants?)
4:30 pm Pest Control arrives and Love calls to say he's headed home with a van that will start again.
4:45 pm Pest control informs Love that our immediate neighbor's house has active termites!
5:40 pm pest control finally finishes spraying for ants inside and outside our home and yard.

We were so blessed today!

Why? We were blessed to have the van break down at a location with water, shade, plenty to eat (strawberries), a bathroom (port-a-potty) and a swingset.
We were blessed that this did not happen halfway to Grandma and Grandpa's tomorrow.
We were blessed that this did not happen halfway to our vacation later this summer.
We were blessed with an incredibly detailed pest control company! Pricing is comparable to what we've spent every other year as we've fought these ants but never have any of the other pest control companies spent almost an hour and a half searching for the ants (and termites now) and spraying.
We were blessed with a very friendly, helpful, and informative guy from the Towing company. I'd heard others recommend them but I have to say, he was better than I expected.
We were blessed with a friendly and patient owner at the strawberry patch who had no problems with us hanging out there all day.

After all these blessings, I'm going to be pondering what I'm needing to change so that Heavenly Father doesn't need to send me any more "Slow down!" messages. And we're ready to relax for the evening.

WFMW - Clothesline Tips

2010-06-02T05:15:00.000-07:00

Two summers ago, it seemed every blog I read was talking about using a clothesline. I learned a lot, but didn't have a clothesline. At the end of that summer, a friend came over to visit and I mentioned my desire for a clothesline. She asked if I had some rope. I did. So she immediately grabbed her cub scout son who was with her and the three of us headed outside and strung up a line between my trees. I started using it but not always.

Then last summer, as soon as school let out, my husband got laid off from work. Not knowing how long I would need to stretch our funds, it became a necessity to use the clothesline. I only used the dryer for "privates" or if it was raining. In the process, I remembered some of those tips I had read the previous summer and learned from experience.

This last week a friend posted on Facebook "A certain friend of mine will be excited to here that I hung up a clothesline today." I naturally assumed that friend was me because we had talked about it a few days earlier. I immediately commented with some tips for her and thought it'd be a perfect Works for Me Wednesday post.

Here are those tips.

1. Hang everything loose. When I first started, I'd hang the clothes tight between the clothespins. Do you know what that gets you? Stiff clothes. They need to be able to blow in the wind and the clothes need to rub against themselves.

2. Hang pants and shirts by waistline. There are two reasons I've come up with for this. First, the larger opening is held "open" by the clothespins so more air gets inside the clothes to help it dry. Second, if you end up with any clothespin marks, they are hidden more. Imagine you hung up your shirt by the shoulders and the pinch from the clothespin is visible while you wear the shirt later.

3. Hang towels and sheets folded in half, with fold toward ground. This creates an opening at the top to let air in and the halves rub against each other - the friction decreases stiffness.

4. Snap clothes before pinning up. I'm not exactly sure what this does - I'm assuming it gets out a little more water but if I don't snap, the clothes tend to be stiffer.

5. If out of pins, hang panties with other clothes. This one is a silly tip. But if you're run out of room on your line or out of clothespins, you can hang panties by hooking the legholes over a clothespin already in use.

6. If concerned about fading in the sun, hang inside out.

7. If too stiff, put in dryer for 15 minutes. Sometimes, items just get stiff (especially queen size blankets that I can't snap before putting on the clothesline on days when there is little wind). When this happens, I simply throw the item in the dryer for 15 minutes to soften it up. It's okay because I'm running the dryer less than I would to completely dry the item.

The benefits I've had from using my clothesline are many. First, I use less electricity so my utility bill is lower. Next, I'm not heating up my house from the clothes dryer so I'm using less air conditioning to counter that heat, so my utility bill is lower. I'm not an outside person and this gets me outside for short periods of time (so I don't become overheated) and I get sunshine. I also get more exercise from walking the clothesline and pinning than I would from tossing the clothes in the dryer (every calorie counts, right?). My sheets smell wonderful. I think the towels are more absorbent (but that only lasts for 1 or 2 uses). Also, my clothes/sheets/towels have no static cling!

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, check out We Are THAT Family!

WFMW - Scheduling Posts

2010-05-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't played around with the Post Options on blogger, I'm here to encourage you to use it! It has really helped my posting. I've had SO many times when I've found something that works for me and think "I need to post that for Works for Me Wednesday!". But then by the time Wednesday rolls around, I'm either super busy or I can't remember what the tip was. I'd heard others mention writing a post in advance but I didn't know how to do it. I figured it out a few months ago and it really Works for Me!

So here are the steps....

Click Post Options at the bottom of your draft post. It will open up some options for you.

If you are using the updated version, in the expanded area, on the right, you'll see "Post date and time" with the options of "Automatic" and :Scheduled at".

Click Scheduled At and then set the date that you want it to publish, even the time.

Then click "Publish Post".

If you are using the older version of blogger, when you click Post Options, you'll see a post date - just change it to be the date you want it to publish your post.

Note: When I was figuring out how to do this, I tried using Help because I wasn't always successful. The Help section said they were trying to figure out why it didn't work for everyone. Not helpful at all. But then I realized the truth. If you click Publish Post before changing your Post Options, you can NOT go in and then change the date and have it unpublish your post and save it for the future. As long as I set the Schedule at date BEFORE I click Publish Post, it always works for me.

Writing the posts as soon as the idea hits me definitely Works for Me! For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family!

Menu Plan Monday - May 24 - 30

2010-05-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

Here's our meal plan for the coming week...

Monday - Italian Beef

Tuesday - Ribs (from the freezer - but maybe next time, I'll add the recipe)

Wednesday - Fish (Recipe TBD)

Thursday - Chicken Tortilla Soup (scroll down for the recipe - also a chocolate cake recipe)

Friday - Fettucini Alfredo

Saturday - CookOut

Sunday - Homemade Pizza

This menu is being posted to Menu Plan Monday on OrgJunkie!

Fettucine Alfredo

2010-05-22T05:40:00.000-07:00

I found this recipe in an Italian cookbook while I was living in Florida. I started making it then and it has become a family favorite. It's also a signature dish for me so I must really love you guys to be sharing it!

The alfredo can be tricky as sometimes the butter and the cheese separate - it's a timing thing but I haven't figured it out enough to tell you how to avoid it, even after 16 years of making it, except to say do not overcook it. But it's still good even when the butter separates.

One thing about this recipe - I can't eat fettucine alfredo out anymore because 90% of restaurants use black pepper in their recipes instead of white pepper and no nutmeg. It's just not as good.

Classic Fettucine Alfredo

3/4 lb uncooked dry fettucine*
6 T unsalted butter (I've also used margarine)
2/3 c. heavy whipping cream
1/2 t. salt
Generous dash ground white pepper
Generous dash ground nutmeg
1 c grated Parmesan cheese

1. Cook dry fettucine in large pot of boiling water 6-8 minutes; remove from heat and set aside.

2. Place a large, heavy skillet on the burner used for the boiling water**. Place butter and cream in skillet over medium-low heat. Cook and stir until butter melts and mixture just starts to bubble. Cook and stir 2 minutes more. Stir in salt, pepper and nutmeg.*** I tend to put the pepper and nutmeg (individually) in my hand and then rub my hands together over the skillet. The rubbing seems to release some of the fragrances.

3. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in cheese until thoroughly blended and smooth. Return briefly to heat to completely blend cheese if necessary. (Do not let sauce bubble or cheese will become lumpy and tough).

4. Drain water from fettucine and then dump into skillet with sauce (or pour sauce over fettucine in pot). Stir and toss with 2 forks for 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve immediately.****

* I just grab what it looks like my family will eat. I also tend to go a little less than probably the recipe calls for because we like it heavy on the sauce (opposite of the way I like my spaghetti).

** I've learned this trick - the sauce will cook much faster this way and my family can never wait for this to be ready.

*** Don't procrastinate gathering your ingredients until it's time to put them in! You will end up overcooking the butter/cream and it could separate.

**** I love freezer cooking and meals that can be prepared ahead of time but this is NOT one of them! It does not reheat very well (butter and cream definitely separate).

WFMW - Works for Me Wednesday

2010-05-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

Today's tip for Works for Me Wednesday is to participate in Works for Me Wednesday!

Does that seem silly? As I was writing last week's post, I realized that by participating in this each (or almost each) week, I am focused on the positive things in my life, things that are working and not where I need to improve. For the areas I need to improve, I browse through everyone else's tips for ideas.

I find that as I go through my week, I am always on the lookout for those things that DO work for me. My poor husband and mom get lots of comments like "Oh! I need to remember to post this on Wednesday!" And now I simply go ahead and type the post and schedule it (how to do that will be next week's WFMW post).

So look for those things in your life that are working and share them with the rest of us!

For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We are THAT Family!

Menu Plan Monday - May 17 - 23

2010-05-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

We cleaned out the freezer section of our refrigerator this afternoon. Not an ordinary Sunday afternoon activity but I needed to figure out our meals for the coming week to decrease my to do's. We found quite a few freezer meals so that will be what our meals come from.

Monday - Spaghetti (sauce from freezer)

Tuesday - Bul-ko-kee

Wednesday - Enchiladas

Thursday - Asian BBQ Chicken

Friday - Rosemary Pork Roast (from the South Beach cookbook)

Saturday - grilled hamburgers

Sunday - Lasagna

The enchiladas are leftovers in the freezer (so already cooked). The lasagna, pork roast, chicken and bul-ko-kee are in the freezer prepped so I'll just need to take them out 1-2 days ahead to defrost in the refrigerator and then cook them.

I'm posting to Menu Plan Monday at Org Junkie - go check out some great menus!

Lasagna

2010-05-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

In a recent post, I promised my lasagna recipe. Fair warning - I don't like meat in my lasagna so you won't find it in the recipe but you are more than welcome to add some to your's, just please not when I'm coming to dinner :) My idea of lasagna is it's purpose is to combine pasta and melted cheese. The original recipe came from my Mom (I seem to say that a lot in my recipe posts).

Lasagna

24 oz can of Hunt's Garlic and Herb Spaghetti Sauce **
16-24 oz cottage cheese *
1/4 c parmessan cheese
2 c. mozzarella and cheddar cheese ***
9 lasagna noodles

Cook noodles according to package directions.

In 9x13 pan, lightly cover with spaghetti sauce. In a bowl, combine cottage cheese and parmessan cheese.

Then layer in the following order:
3 lasagna noodles
1/2 of cheese mixture
1/3 of sauce
2/3 cup mozzarella and cheddar cheeses
3 noodles
1/2 of cheese mixture
1/3 of sauce
2/3 cup mozzarella and cheddar cheeses
3 noodles
remaining sauce
sprinkle with mozarella, cheddar and parmessan

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

* 16 oz cottage cheese will work but I like lots so I try to buy the 24 oz container. I generally make lasagna when I can combine a sale and coupon on the 24 oz container to make it really cheap, or when I find one marked down because it's Sell by date is approaching. I then just make the lasagna to eat within a day or so or I freeze it for some future date (See note about freezing it below).
** I have been trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our foods BUT this sauce is staying, at least for now. Over the 15 years I've been making lasagna for my husband, I have tried different sauces. If I use anything but this one, both of us notice the difference and it's just not as good.
*** Mom's original recipe calls for 2 cups of shredded mozarella. A long time ago, I started using cheddar also. I never measure either of them. I just have a package of each and sprinkle what looks good of each on the mozarella layer.

Freezing Note: When I freeze this, I tend to make it in two 8x8 or 9x9 square pans instead of one 9x13.. This requires more lasagna noodles - last time I used 12 or so but it really needed 1 or 2 more. So try 14-15 noodles if you're going to make the smaller version. My family of 4 is easily well fed with an 8x8 or 9x9 and maybe have a piece or two left over.

Chicken Enchiladas

2010-05-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, a friend shared her chicken enchilada recipe with me (Thanks Jas!) after she mentioned that's what she making for dinner. So untasted, I requested the recipe and our family loves it! I have made a few adjustments to the recipe recently which have made them even better. Here's my current recipe for you...

Chicken Enchiladas

1 pkg flour tortillas (soft taco or burrito size - your preference or what's on sale)
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz shredded cheddar or mexican blend cheese
1 can Ro-Tel (original works but the Mexican version with cilantro and lime is best)
1 lb skinless, boneless chicken
1/2 recipe Enchilada Sauce (scroll down to the enchilada sauce recipe)

Cook chicken and dice or shred. Combine chicken, soup, Ro-Tel, 3/4 of the cheese and 1/4-1/2 of the enchilada sauce.

Spray bottom of 9x13 pan.

Put 2-3 large spoonfuls into each tortilla. Wrap tortilla around filling and place seam side down in 9x13 pan. Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas and cover with remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

WFMW - A Wonderful Mother's Day

2010-05-12T04:20:00.000-07:00

I had my best Mother's Day this week! Part of it is due to attitude compared to previous years and part of it was due to prep work.

To explain attitude - as an adult, I've struggled with mother's day. When I was single and living away from my Mom, it didn't mean much. Once we started trying to have kids, unsuccessfully, it was a miserable day, more so when attending church. So much focus on mothers makes it hard when you don't have children and want them. Thankfully I've noticed that the church has started placing more of an emphasis on women, not specifically those with children, over the past few mother's days. I also never liked it when they asked all the mothers to stand and then they'd hand out the mothers day goodies. I was uncomfortable standing up when I wasn't a "mother".

Then Mother's Day at home wasn't great either. Sometimes my husband forgot. Or he'd try to make me a meal, but he'd make it the way he likes it, not the way I like it. As Princess1 has gotten older, she definitely makes Mother's Day important and doesn't let ANYONE forget that it's coming. As a result, Love doesn't forget anymore. The presents have also gotten better over the years - Love still struggles at Christmas and birthdays to think of something for me but he's doing really well for Mother's Day (he must pay attention more for Mother's Day). Sometimes he thinks I'm really weird for what I ask for - a shower head (the one that you can hold and move around, plus has the different streams), an undercounter radio/cd player for the kitchen, etc. But both of those presents really made my everyday life more enjoyable and for me that's more important than flowers that die 2 weeks later (although I do like flowers too).

This year's present - a hammock for our back yard. I've wanted one for years and now I have one. Love and the princesses took me to Lowe's on Saturday (NEVER go to Lowe's on a Saturday and definitely NOT on the Saturday before Mother's Day). We were going to get peat moss. But they took me to pick out a hammock first. We came home and set it up. So of course, Sunday we were gone all day and then it was to rain on Monday so the hammock had to come down. Now I need to set it back up again (Love was told to take it down before it rains to help it last longer).

So why is all this a Works for Me Wednesday tip? Because what I did this year to make my Mother's Day great was to plan my own menu. Love asked a week ago what I wanted for breakfast on Mother's Day - cinnamon rolls and strawberries. I had Rhodes Cinnamon Rolls in the freezer - easy, YUMMY. So I bought strawberries on Friday. We would be having dinner with my mom, grandmother, sister (and family) and sister-in-law (and family). I offered to make lasagna (using the cottage cheese I got for cheap, cheap). So I made lasagna (recipe coming soon) and homemade italian herb bread on Saturday. This was in addition to working on building our garden. I also set out the cinnamon rolls to defrost and rise when I went to bed. Saturday was crazy and exhausting. But it was SO worth it on Sunday. Saturday night, my sister stopped by and took the lasagna (layered but not cooked) to Mom's with her.

Sunday morning, my husband just had to put the rolls in the oven and cut up the strawberries. It was delicious! Easy! Low stress for everyone! And off to church we went.

After church, we picked up Nana (my grandmother) and drove out to the farm to meet everyone. Mom and my sister put the lasagna in the oven and it had just finished cooking when we arrived. I threw my bread in the microwave to heat it up. Mom and my sister had made a salad and my sister-in-law bought some cake and cheesecake. I had also brought some ice cream. Again it was delicious! (I LOVE LOVE LOVE my lasagna.) It was easy! And we had a great time visiting and no one spent a whole bunch of time in the kitchen (although Mom did do the dishes - but that would be worth it if you didn't have to do the cooking).

So my Works for Me Wednesday tip, if you can remember it for next year, make your own meal ahead of time and let your husband or family heat it up for you. Then you relax.

For more Works for Me Wednesday, head to We are THAT Family!

Free to almost free Cover Girl Makeup

2010-05-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

I went to Dillon's today (5/11) to catch some deals (I expect they'll probably be repeated next week - I'm waiting for my ad to arrive to know).

Dillon's is doing the P&G deal where you buy 4 items and get $4 off your order. I did the deal twice in my transaction.

Here are the great deals I got....

Crest Kids' Hannah Montana toothpaste gel - $2.49 (minus the $1 deal, minus 75 cent coupon, doubled) so 49 cents! If Princess1 likes this, I'll go buy some more.

Crest ProHealth 4.2 oz toothpaste $2.49 (minus $1 deal, minus 50 cent coupon, doubled) = $0.49

CoverGirl Nail Polish $2.77 (minus $1 deal, minus 2.50/2 any Covergirl products) = $0.52 each

CoverGirl Eye shadow (singles) $2.24 (minus $1 deal, minus $2.50/2 any Covergirl) = FREE

CoverGirl Cheekers (single color) $2.96 (minus $1 deal, minus $2.50/2 any Covergirl) = 0.71 each

CoverGirl powder $4.46 (minus $1 deal, minus $2.50/2 any Covergirl) = $2.21

The initial prices above are sale prices. I didn't buy 2 of everything; I mixed and matched products. The coupons are from last week's (5/2) P&G insert in the Sunday paper. In addition to the $2.50/2 coupon, there is a $1/1 coupon. You will notice that I bought the single eye shadows. The quad shadows were $2.77 after the P&G deal so I stuck with the singles since they were free.

If you need them, they also had brushes and sponges that would be free or close to it.

Monday Meditation - Freedom to Worship

2010-05-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday during Sacrament meeting, our Stake President made a comment that started me thinking. He made a comment about being excited to worship this day. I asked myself Am I excited? How should I be excited? I started imagining living in a country where I didn't get to choose which Church to attend, or maybe didn't even get to attend any Church. Imagine a country where you are punished if you are caught praying, even in your home (examples are in the scriptures). Imagine a country where you can't talk to others about the Gospel without it being punishable by law.

I worry about where our country is headed. Many schools have limited dress codes to prevent kids from wearing clothing that would publicize their religious beliefs in case it would offend. We hear stories of kids being prevented from praying while in the school, even if they aren't trying to get others to participate. There are many interpretations of what the separation of Church and State means - some thinking that our government can not recognize any organized religion's existence, which in my mind means they are endorsing atheism. This is not a political blog normally. And I don't intend for it to become one. But I have to say stop trying to push a lack of belief in God because by doing so it is definitely violating separation of Church and State. In my family (parents, siblings), we have a variety of religions yet we are able to function lovingly, recognizing each other's religion as legit and an integral part of how we live our lives. We have those who don't go to any church so Sunday is basically the same as Saturday in their lives. We have those who go to Church, but also will shop, go to the lake, etc. on Sunday. And then we have us Mormons who go to Church and don't shop on Sunday. When we plan family activities, we look at what everyone's abilities/interests are. If we're going to gather at someone's home, Sunday is fine and we work around travel schedules and church meetings. If we want to go out to eat, shopping, an amusement park, etc., we pick a Saturday. It's called respect. And I am blessed to have that with my family. That's what our founding fathers intended with the separation of Church and State - not requiring everyone to believe the same thing and not punishing someone for believing different than you.

I get tired of being told that I'm intolerant because of what I believe. I'm not forcing you to believe as I do, don't try to make me accept your decisions as acceptable for my family. And I will vote my conscious. Today, I have that right as do you. I won't threaten you or harrass you if the vote doesn't go my way. I love that we have the right to vote and make our voices heard. And then we need to accept that vote. If we don't like it, then we can continue to work to get our opinion heard and change things.

Sorry for the soap-box diversion. Back to my thoughts from yesterday. Looking at my life, I think too often I have taken for granted my right to attend the church of my choice. I do tend to attend every week. But do I celebrate that ability? Do I wake up on Sunday morning excited to get ready to attend Sacrament meeting and worship? Or am I bogged down by all the preparations of getting my family out the door with everything we need, trying to be on time.. Do I truly praise the Lord? I know that I seek to learn what I need to learn from the lessons.

When we go to a party at a friend's house, everyone tends to walk in happy, joyful, excited to be there and celebrate. We should have a similar joy, excitement to attend our church services. We can do this! There are currently places in this world where you can't. This is one of our freedoms. Not only do we need to work to protect it through political means, we need to celebrate it through spiritual means. Let Heavenly Father know you appreciate that right by exercising it and by telling Him in your prayers.

And if you are reading this blog and don't happen to believe in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father or you don't belong to the same Church that I do, or you believe but don't think that requires attending a Church, this still applies to you. You can still celebrate and honor and protect the right you have in the United States to follow that personal belief.

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own cconscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. 11th Article of Faith

WFMW - Good, Better, Best

2010-05-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a conference talk entitled "Good, Better, Best". This talk really has changed my life and I use the principle he taught CONSTANTLY. It applies to everything in our lives. How we spend our time, what items we have in our home, what we purchase, what we eat. Everything.

I'm in the process of purging our home and we're using this principle again. I want simple. I want less stuff so that I can take care of the stuff we have. I don't want to settle for the Good - I want the Better and the Best.

I started this process with my daughters' room. We pulled out all the toys, all the books, all the stuffed animals and will be pulling out all the clothes. Books and stuffed animals were easy - We laid out the books ALL over the living room. I had no idea how many books we had! Then I had each girl pick their favorite 5 books. And we repeated that until they had each picked 20 books. I had them look at the remaining books - "Are there any books that you are going to be broken hearted over more than the ones you have in your keep pile?" Princess1 swapped out 1 or 2 books. Princess2 had to have some help with swapping out some books that we wanted to keep for ones that we didn't feel were the Better or the Best (sorry Dora books).

I put away the books we decided to keep - about 100. And then I laid out the remaining books all over my couch and took pictures. They were then posted on Craigslist to sell them. My husband and I picked $20 to sell them. He wasn't confident we could do that. But then I counted the books as I put them into boxes - just over 100 books! So I made sure the Craigslist ad said there were 100 books - so 20 cents per book. I had SO many responses to this post. But the more important part - we are moving closer to the Better and Best and simplifying our home and lives.

Interestingly - the girls have 1/2 the books they used to have and are reading MORE!

We did the same thing with the stuffed animals. When I gathered them all up, I had 2+ large garbage sacks full of stuffed animals. The girls picked their favorites - about 5 "large" and 3-4 "small" stuffed animals. It's just enough that will fit in a single file across the foot of their beds. The rest? I recently heard that the local Juvenile courts will accept stuffed animal donations to give to children who have to go through the courts. We experienced this ourselves when our adoptions were finalized and the girls loved receiving their animals. So I suggested this to our family and the answer was a resounding "Yes!". Now I just need to call the Court and find out when I can bring them the stuffed animals.

Why is this working when previous attempts to clean out didn't? 1) The girls are involved in picking the Better and Best items to keep. 2) I've asked the girls if they like cleaning up everything that gets scattered all over their room. Their answer is no. So let's have less stuff that we need to clean up - their response "Okay!" 3) The items we're not keeping are leaving our home quickly and are not given the chance to make it back into circulation.

So I have been successful with the books and stuffed animals. Toys are still making it out of the box where they are being stashed. The problem with them is I'm trying to find all the pieces/parts for the girls to be able to pick their favorites and then to either sell or donate the remaining. Guess I better get the remaining rooms done to find those parts. And do it now!

This process is working for Me! For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We Are THAT Family!

WFMW - ER Bag

2010-04-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, my grandmother had a stroke. She called me after she had called the ambulance, at about 7 am. Having worked in a hospital for many years, I'd heard many stories about long waits in the ER Waiting Room. So as I threw on my clothes, I also grabbed my current project and I headed out the door.

Once we were in the ER, we were actually seen by the doctor immediately. But after they ran some tests, we had to wait for results. After being told she was being admitted, we waited some more for a bed to be ready upstairs for her.

A few weeks later, back at home, my grandmother once again called the ambulance and then me. I again grabbed my project and put on clothes (she really likes calling the ambulance at 6:30 in the morning). This time I also grabbed a water bottle and snacks. She'd had a heart attack. After a few repeats of this, I had what to grab down pat. I also learned the items that I needed to grab for Nana. If you didn't know, many times once the EMTs have put their patient into the ambulance, they start some basic care before driving to the hospital. In my experiences with Nana, this took 10-15 minutes. This also allows time for putting together your bag or gathering items for the patient.

This past December, my Mom called and said the ambulance was on its way to her house to pick up my Dad. Knowing she had a few minutes and there wasn't anything she needed to be doing for Dad, I encouraged her to put together some items for her at the hospital - a project, a book, snacks, etc. She hadn't thought about that; she'd was focused on my dad.

Since Mom found my thoughts helpful, I decided to share them as my Works for Me Wednesday tip this week.

Here are items to grab for yourself:

project to do (knitting, crochet - something that is easy to grab and doesn't require space to spread out your stuff)
book to read/crossword puzzles/sudoku
water bottle
snacks
cash (to purchase food in the cafeteria or vending machines)
cell phone (check your charge- you may want to grab your charger too)
or address book with phone numbers if you don't have a cell phone with the numbers saved
calling card

Here are items to grab for the patient (many of these are for if you think they'll be admitted):

project (If I'm the patient, I generally bring a project; but this will depend on the condition of the patient)
a book to read/crossword puzzles/sudoku/toys (especially important if patient is a child)
family picture (if it looks like they'll be admitted, this can bring a little bit of home to their room)
wallet with ID, insurance information
a change of clothes, including underwear, socks and shoes (Nana always seemed to go to the hospital in her pajamas)
toothbrush (when admitted, this will be provided by the hospital, but the patient may really wish for their own)
hairbrush
If they are an 80/90 year old female, you better grab the basic makeup supplies (for Nana, this was always more important than anything else except clothes)
keys (especially if you don't live with the patient, you don't want them to be released and have no way to get into their home).

I know that if you are heading to the ER, you're not likely to look up my blog to find this post. But I'm hoping that some of these ideas will stick with you if you find yourself in the situation of preparing to head to the ER. They definitely Work for Me! For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We are THAT Family!

WFMW - Parking Backwards

2010-04-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

For the past few years, we've had season tickets for our local Symphony Orchestra. When we would arrive in the parking garage, we noticed a lot of people parking backwards in the parking spots. Hmm. Then we decided to try it. Wow! We could get out of our parking spot so much faster because others leaving were more willing to let us in the line and when they weren't, we can nudge forward into the line much easier. So now we park this way any time we can when we go to an event.

When school started this year, Princess1 changed schools. With the new school, it is very easy to park in the school's lot and walk up to the door to pick her up. One day I decided to try parking backwards at the school. It worked! I can pull out so much easier and the traffic is lighter when I'm trying to park than when I'm trying to leave. The biggest reason I do this now - safety! By being parked backwards, I can pull out and clearly see where all the other kids are at as they make their way to their vehicles. No more blind spots!

This works for me! For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, check out We are THAT Family.

WFMW - Reusing School Papers

2010-04-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

I don't know about other schools but Princess1 is in 1st Grade and brings home a TON of papers. This includes her artwork, others homework assignments, papers she started to write a story on but only wrote one word, flyers, newsletters, etc. I was feeling guilty about throwing so much paper away. And then I realized that I could reuse some and recycle some (and of course save those most precious ones). How do I reuse them? If the paper is 8 1/2 x 11 and in decent condition (not folded, wrinkled, torn, etc), and is only printed on one side, I put it in my printer to print coupons! Coupons only need 1 side to be printed on and the clerks at the grocery store don't care what's on the reverse side as long as the barcode is readable.

That works for me. I feel less guilty because I'm not just throwing everything away and I'm saving money in two ways - not buying as much paper AND using coupons.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, check out We are THAT Family.

Sausage Gravy

2010-04-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

A yummy, full of calories, recipe from my Mom. We grew up eating Biscuits and Gravy and this is the gravy recipe we used.

Sausage Gravy

1 1/2 cup milk
3 T flour
3 T grease drippings
1 t salt
1/8 t pepper

Instead of the grease drippings, I always cook my sausage and leave it in the pan with the grease - unless the grease seems like a LOT (plus I normally double the recipe) so I'm estimating the amount of grease in my pan. It definitely seems like some sausage creates more grease than others so I just eyeball it after cooking the sausage. I also use a roll or links - if I use links, I pull out a few to eat as links and cut up the rest; you could do the same with patties.

In a cup with a lid (or something else you can shake), put flour, salt and pepper. Pour in half of the milk (3/4 cup). Put lid on container and shake until flour is mixed with milk.

With grease drippings in your large frying pan (and the sausage crumbs), pour milk mixture into pan. Stir. Then add the remaining milk to pan. Stir and cook until thickened to your preference.

Anniversary Chicken

2010-04-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Denise made this for dinner on one of our trips to visit her family. It was so yummy I had to have the recipe! She served it with roasted green beans which has now become one of my and Adam's favorites too.

Anniversary Chicken

2 T vegetable oil
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup teriyaki basting sauce
1/2 cup Ranch dressing
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 green onions, chopped
1/2 (3 ounce) can bacon bits
1 T chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a large skilled, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken breasts, and saute 4 to 5 minutes each side, until lightly browned.
Place browned chicken breasts in a 9x13 baking dish. Brush with teriyaki sauce, then spoon on Ranch. Sprinkle with cheese, green onions and bacon bits.
Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Source: "Anniversary Chicken I" recipe by VICKI117 on http://www.allrecipes.com/

Chicken Wild Rice Soup

2010-03-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

Here's Colleen's Chicken Wild Rice Soup

5 2/3 cup water
1 pkg (4.3 oz) Rice-a-Roni Long Grain and Wild Rice Mix (I also use the Uncle Ben's version)
1 envelope chicken noodle soup mix (I normally use a can or two of cond. Chicken noodle soup)
1 celery rib, chopped (I'm substituting celery seed tonight since I don't have any celery and I'd have to pick it out before my family would eat it)
1 med carrot, chopped
1/3 c chopped onion (optional)
1 can cond. cream of chicken soup
2 cups cubed cooked chicken

Note: I'm using one pkg of my chicken mix (see Haystacks recipe) so it's combining the chicken and carrots

In a large saucepan, combine water, rice with contents of seasoning packet and chicken noodle soup. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the celery, carrot and onion. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the cream of chicken soup and the chicken. Cook 8 minutes longer or until the rice and vegetables are tender.

Deals for 3/24 - 3/30/10

2010-03-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some deals for this week...

Dillons deals From Money Saving Mom...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MoneySavingMomStoreDealsDillons/~3/bN6Neg01dzI/dillons-deals-for-the-week-of-march-24-30-2010.html

Dillons deals From Frugal Fritzie
http://www.frugalfritzie.com/2010/03/24/dillons-deals-324-330/
Price Cutter deals from Frugal Fritize
http://www.frugalfritzie.com/2010/03/24/price-cutter-deals-324-330/

You may also see some coupon matchups for this week at Dillon's from Stretching a Buck but her deals don't always match what's on sale in our region.

Since Dillon's is continuing the deal from last week (Buy 8 participating items, get $4 off), many of the deals I posted last week will still work.

I will add any additional deals I find from my shopping to this post - add your own finds in the comments or email them to me and I'll update the post.

Monday Meditation - Mosiah 4:16-18

2010-03-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

I really struggle with this scripture. It's not that I disagree with it, like I struggle with some other scriptures I've discussed. I struggle to implement it.

And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in van, and turn him out to perish.
Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punshiments are just--
But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God. Mosiah 4:16-18

Add to that:

And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perisheth not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done. Mosiah 4:22

I'm thinking this is one of those laws/commandments that there are different degrees to which you live it. One is action - just giving is the first step. At a higher level is attitude - we've given in the past with attitude (that the person didn't deserve it) but now we're giving with true charity, the pure love of Christ.

I wanted to expand on that thought - Christ doesn't give forgiveness only to those who deserve it, where the cause of their sin wasn't their choice. Of course, the only times I can think of a sin not being by choice would be injuring another in self-defense or a lack of knowledge of the commandments. And are those really "sins"? Christ's only requirement is for someone to ask for forgiveness with a true heart.

So applying the knowledge of Christ's example and this scripture, we can't judge who "deserves" our help if they are asking. Fortunately, we also have Heavenly Father's example in answering our prayers as to how we help. Heavenly Father doesn't always give us exactly what we ask for, He knows what we truly need and grants us those needs. So if someone is asking for help and asks for money, we don't have to give them money. If they are in need, we can provide food and in some cases, provide funding directly to the creditor (mortgage company, utility company, etc).

We give as we can, normally through the Fast Offering. Much of the time we fall under the exemption (Mosiah 4:24-25) because there is not much extra to impart to another. But the exemption does NOT apply to the attitude. If we do not have extra, we may not be able to give money, food, clothing, etc., but we CAN give Charity, the true love of Christ. Which means we do not judge others that they "deserve" the struggles they are going through and don't deserve help.

One final thing we are not exempt from is that if another is in need of a skill we have, even if we do not have extra substance, we can teach. For example, our household budget doesn't have much extra in it, but I can (and do) share with others how to stretch a budget. I think we do okay with this part of the commandment. Now on to improving my attitude of Charity.

Easter Bunny on Saturday?

2010-03-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm posing a question. I don't know who exactly who reads this blog but I expect answers! I have 12 subscribers on Google Reader, plus 5 followers through Blogger. Plus all those of you who just read it whenever you want (but I'll tell you I love subscribing on Google Reader so that I don't have to keep checking the blogs I like). So please post a comment with your thoughts on the following question....

Several of our friends have asked the Easter bunny to come on Saturday instead of on Easter Sunday so that Easter is spent focused on the Savior. We've never done this but I've been thinking of bringing it up to Adam to discuss it. And then I had the thought if the Easter bunny distracts from the sacredness of Easter, what about when Christmas is on Sunday? Should we ask Santa to come on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas? But I'm not sure I want to do that. If I do Easter, do I HAVE to do Christmas the same way?

Your thoughts please!

My Dillon's Deals 3/18

2010-03-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

So if you haven't heard, Dillon's is doing an AWESOME sale this week called March to Savings. Mix and match the participating items in quantities of 8 to take an additional $4 off (50 cents per item).

Here are the successful deals I got today!!
Kraft 8 oz shredded (and bars) (the 2% cheeses are 7 oz) $2.17 (minus 0.50 for deal, minus $0.55/2 coupon doubled to $1) = $1.17 each

Right Guard 3 oz clear gel deodorant $2 (minus 0.50 for deal, and $2/2 printed coupon no longer available) = $0.50 each <<<< Note after I got home today, I was able to print a $1/1 Right Guard Total Defense coupon from SmartSource.com and a $1.50/1 Right Guard Total Defense coupon from coupons.com. I believe saw this product in a 4 oz for on sale $2.99 so $2.50 with the deal.

Sargento 8 oz cheese (includes shredded and deli slices) $2.17 (minus 0.50 for deal, minus 0.75/1 Dillons mailer coupon - doubled to $1) = $0.67. <<<< Frugal Fritzie says there were coupons in the 1/31 but I'm not finding them in my 1/31 flyers)

Daisy Sour Cream 16 oz $1.89 (minus 0.50 for deal) = $1.39

Motts 64 oz 100% apple juice $1.49 (minus 0.50 for deal) = $0.99 each

Wheat Thins (small box) $2.49 - 0.50 = $1.99 (minus $1/2 Nabisco mailer coupon) = $1.50 per box

Gold Medal flour $1.99 minus $0.75/1 coupons from coupons.com (print twice) = $0.99 for 5 lb bag

Pam Cooking Spray $2.99 minus 0.50 deal and 0.35/1 coupon (1/24 flyers) doubled = $1.79 for 6 oz can.

Betty Crocker Frosting $1.49 minus 0.50/1 coupon (2/7 flyer) = 0.49 each

Smart Balance (small tub) $1.99 minus 0.50/1 deal and 0.55/1 coupon from Dillons mailer (doubled) = 0.50 each.

Deals I will be going back to do.....

Irish Spring 3 pack
Per ad, after deal, the 3 pack is $1. The 3/14 SmartSource coupons have a 50 cent coupon off 2 multi-bar packs - making each pack 50 cents.

Whisker Lickins - 5/$5.00 (only had Crunchy kind in tuna flavor) - B1G1 coupon, plus 50 cent off each from deal = FREE cat treats!

Smart Balance - $1.99 minus 0.50/1 deal, and coupon below = $1 each
follow link to $1/2 coupon here

Hellmann's 22-30 oz for $2.99, minus 0.50 deal, minus .75/1 coupon from Dillon's mailer = $1.49 each

You may find some other leads on deals from Frugal Fritzie.

Monday Meditation - Personal Revelation and Scripture Study

2010-03-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

I had an a-ha! moment last Wednesday that I will share, with some background.

Here's the background....

Last summer, I decided to change how I was doing my personal scripture study (basically reading and pondering the scriptures, going straight through). I decided one morning that I wanted to study the life of Christ using an Institute manual. So I grabbed the manual and started. Very quickly, I started gaining a greater insight into the 4 Gospels. As I learned things and pondered them, I wrote them in my journal.

As the end of 2009 approached, I pondered my goals for 2010. I looked at where I was in the Institute manual and thought I could complete it (well, the first course in it) by the end of the year and then I would switch to the Old Testament Institute manual to correlate with the Gospel Doctrine Sunday School class. then my Dad died and I got sick. My attention to my scriptures declined but I didn't completely stop. 2010 started. I set the official goal to read/study the Sunday School lesson before class each week, and also the lessons for Relief Society. I thought "surely, I can read those scriptures in a day or two each week and then the rest of the week, I'll study from the institute manual."

I also set an unofficial goal of these Monday Meditations. I started out using those notes I'd made in my journal. Each Monday morning, I'd start reading the scriptures for the Sunday School lesson. It took me forever each week, leaving me maybe 1 or 2 days to utilize the Life and Teachings Of Jesus and His Apostles institute manual. My spiritual a-ha moments were decreasing and I couldn't come up with topics for my Monday Meditations. I wasn't excited about my scripture time. But I was doing what I was supposed to be doing - preparing for our sunday meetings.

Last Wednesday morning, during my morning prayer, I had an a-ha moment. I'm supposed to be focusing on the Savior's life and teachings. I need to finish studying the institute manual. So I gave up studying the Sunday School lessons. I will probably have guilt for a while about this but I know what and how I need to be studying right now. Once again, after a few months of not, I am excited each morning to study the scriptures and see what I'm going to learn about. I have to force myself to put the scriptures away to go make lunch for my husband before he leaves for work.

So as much as we've been counseled to be active in and prepare for Sunday School by studying the lesson ahead of time, I'm following the counsel to seek the Spirit's guidance in all things. I'm following our Stake President's counsel from a few years ago to study the atonement and come to know Christ better. I'm learning that I don't have to feel guilty about not following ALL the "rules" when I'm following the Spirit's guidance.

And when I'm done with this, I'm excited to start utilizing the Institute manual for the Old Testament.

My advice to all my friends and "friends" from the blog, have your personal scripture study time be what the Spirit tells you you need to be studying. Seek out and follow those personal revelations and you'll find a greater love for the scriptures and the Gospel.

Cereal deals - ends 3/9

2010-03-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

If you didn't see the ad for this week, Price Cutter has Kellogg's cereal for 50% off this week (ends tomorrow). I just went and got some amazing deals.

First, Frosted Mini-Wheats 24 oz is $2.40 - www.coupons.com has a $1.50/2 coupon making these 1.65 each (6.8 cents per ounce which is amazing for cereal). I also used a $1 off fresh produce when you buy one box of Kellogg's cereal to pay for my 4/$1 grapefruits!

Next Rice Krispies 18 oz is 2.60 and at my small Price Cuttter there's a coupon dispenser above the Rice Krispies with a $1/2 coupon for Rice Krispies - 2.10 per box (not as good a deal as the Mini Wheats but still a good price).

For the sweet tooth - there is a coupon dispenser by the Froot Loops with a 70 cents off 1 box of Froot Loops, Corn Pops, Apple Jacks. Morgan grabbed a box of Apple Jacks for $2.45 (minus 70 cents = 1.75 per box). The coupons in the dispenser say "not subject to doubling" and they didn't. We just got the one box.

Finally I bought 2 boxes of Special K using a $1/2 coupon that I had.

So I just came home with 8 boxes of cereal!

Another deal at Price Cutter - Kid's Zooth toothbrushes are 2/$4 (the ad says also Oral B Kids toothbrushes - these weren't marked but the clerk marked them down for me because of what the ad said - this is the second item I've found this ad that didn't ring up correctly). You can use coupons from the 2/7 P&G coupon insert for $1 off these toothbrushes. So I stocked up on Hello Kitty and Princess toothbrushes for my girls at $1 each!

Tomorrow I'll be heading back to Dillon's (I also went Saturday) to stock up on the General Mills cereal that's $2.99 for the 25 oz box of Honey Nut Cheerios - I have a $1.50/3 GM cereal catalina (the print out at the register). My general rule of thumb on cereal is a great deal is 10 cents per ounce (cheaper than generic cereal). My family wants Honey Nut Cheerios or Mini Wheats everyday so we're stocking up!

You may find more coupons online - I just knew I'd seen the one on Coupons.com (which I didn't print before my trip to Price Cutter so I guess I'll be printing 2 this morning and heading back from the sale ends tomorrow).

Freezer Cooking Day - What I accomplished

2010-03-01T18:33:00.000-08:00

Wow! I am beat! Totally ready for bed. Why did I decide that I would start a 5:30 am workout class the day after a freezer cooking day?!

So here's what I accomplished today:

Waffles x3
Bul-ko-kee x2
Chicken Mix for Haystacks (enough for 2 recipes of Haystacks)
Chicken Enchiladas (using remainder of the chicken Mix) - I'll post this recipe from Jasmine soon.
      Originally, I was going to use enchiladas from the freezer for dinner next week but a phone call from my sister-in-law changed that as they'll be here next Monday.
Chicken-n-Gravy with Noodles x2
     I made this through step 1, freezing the broth/carrots separate from the chicken. When I'm ready to make this, I will defrost it and start with step 2. I have Reames frozen noodles in the freezer to add in.
Spanish Rice - 4 cups.
     This is a recipe from Ernie Hamilton and I love how simple it is. Simply replace some of the water you use to make your rice with enchilada sauce. One problem - I didn't have enough enchilada sauce to make the spanish rice and the enchiladas. So I also had to make Homemade Enchilada Sauce. After we eat the Enchiladas and Spanish Rice, I'll have to let everyone know if we liked it.
Taco Meat - 4 lbs
     2 lbs are for us and 2 lbs are for the Ronald McDonald House dinner our ward is providing this week.
Lasagna x2
     Another recipe from my Mom that I will have to share soon. Instead of making it in the 9x13 like normal, I layered it in an 8x8 and a 9x9 so that it will be for two meals - portion control!
Oatmeal Muffins x2
Tomato Basil Bread - made in bread machine. I will need to make several more loaves to use up the can of tomato paste I opened.
Sage and Rosemary Pork Roast x1 - I think this came from a South Beach cookbook.
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

So all together, counting the crockpot pork chops I made yesterday (and had enough leftover to freeze for another day) and not counting the 2 lbs of taco meat for RMH, I have 15 meals in the freezer (had to subtract one of the waffle sets which we ate for dinner tonight). Plus 12 muffins in the freezer, 12 in the refrigerator, 1 loaf of banana bread and 1 loaf of tomato basil bread!

Bul-ko-kee (Korean BBQ Beef)

2010-03-01T11:02:00.000-08:00

Love served his mission in Korea many moons ago but still has a love for the people as well as the cuisine. Back when I was working at the hospital pharmacy, I became friends with one of the pharmacists and his wife was from Korea. So one day, when she came to eat lunch with Mike, I asked her if she had a recipe for Bul-Ko-Kee (I poorly pronounced it but she knew what I meant) since that was one dish Love talked about. She very kindly provided this recipe to me....

Bul-Ko-Kee (Korean BBQ Beef)

1 lb Beef (Boneless top loin or sirloin steak)
1/4 c soy sauce
3 T sugar
2 T sesame oil
1/4 tsp pepper
3 green onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped (I usually mince mine because it's easier or I use dried garlic)

Trim fat from beef. Cut beef diagonally across grain into 1/8 inch slice (for ease in cutting, partially freeze beef for about 1 1/2 hours).

Mix remaining ingredients. Stir in beef until well coated. Cover and refrigerate minimum of 30 minutes. (This can be prepared the night before and this will really add flavor to meat). Drain beef.

Stir fry in skillet or wok over med. heat until lt. brown (2-3 min). You can grill it over charcoal just be sure to cut beef slices wider so it won't fall through the grill.

Makes 4 servings.

When I made this for my freezer cooking day, I made two sets - one is in the refrigerator marinating for tomorrow night. The other is in a ziploc bag in the freezer for some future date.

Freezer Cooking Day Master Recipe List

2010-02-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

I am participating in the March Freezer Cooking Day for the first time. I've attempted Once a Month Cooking one other time - and it was wonderful, well the results were wonderful! I'm attempting it again and feeling much more prepared and excited that last time.

So here's my Master list of recipes I'll be preparing tomorrow.

1. Waffles (x2 or 3)
2. Bulkokee (a yummy korean beef dish)
3. Haystacks
4. Chicken-n-Gravy with Noodles
5. Enchiladas
6. Spanish Rice
7. Taco meat
8. Lasagna
9. Oatmeal muffins

I'm starting my preparations today by cooking the chicken I will need to shred for the haystacks. The chicken and the broth have to cool overnight so I'll be able to move faster tomorrow by doing this prep work today.

I'm still working on the order I'll be doing the variety of steps I need to do. Wish me luck! To see other plans for tomorrow's big event, go here.

Chicken Azteca

2010-02-19T10:43:00.000-08:00

And one final recipe for today - this comes from Joella Shanklin. I love it but my family doesn't because they can't stand black beans (or any beans for that matter). But they allow me to make it once or twice a year and pick out the beans.

2 c frozen corn
1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and divided
1 c salsa
1 clove garlic (I normally use dried minced garlic)
1/2 t ground cumin
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 pkg cream cheese, cubed
Hot Cooked Rice
Shredded cheddar

Combine corn, beans, 1/2 c salsa, garlic and cumin in slow cooker. Arrange chicken over top; pour remaining salsa over chicken. Cover; cook on High 2-3 hours or on low 4-6 hours.

Remove chicken, cut into bite-size pieces. Return chicken to slow cooker. Add cream cheese and stir. Cook on High until cream cheese melts and blends into sauce.

Serve over rice. Top with cheddar cheese.

Kelly's Crockpot PorkChops

2010-02-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

This recipe came from Kelly Hull during a phone conversation one Sunday morning (it was what she was preparing for dinner). You can also use a pork roast instead of pork chops and it's still yummy.

Season pork chops with pepper, garlic powder and seasoned salt on one side. Brown.

Mix 1 can cream of mushroom soup with 1 packet dry onion soup mix. Add 2-3 T water to thin.

In crockpot, place 2 T sauce, then pork chops. Continue, alternating layers.

Cook on low (I don't have a time but it works fine if you start it before church and then eat after you get home so 3-4 hours).

Swiss Steak

2010-02-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

Here's another crockpot favorite. I grew up on this as one of my favorite meals. Sadly, when I got out on my own, I discovered that most people think swiss steak is tomato based so I had to get this recipe from my mom!

Swiss Steak

2 lbs round steak (cut 3/4 inch thick)
salt and pepper to taste
1 lg onion (I usually use dried onion)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 can water

Cut steak into serving pieces; season with salt and pepper and place in crockpot with sliced onion. Spread soup and water evenly over top.

Cover and set to High for 1 hour then turn to Low for 8 to 10 hours.

Serve over rice.

Linked to What's in Your Crockpot?. Go check out all the wonderful crockpot recipes.

Italian Beef recipe for the crockpot

2010-02-19T10:35:00.000-08:00

A friend asked today for crockpot recipes. So here's my first one - this is actually the main menu item for Sunday's birthday dinner for Princess2. It comes from my friend Denise and we love it!

Italian Beef

3 cups water
1 t salt
1 t ground black pepper
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried basil
1 t dried onion salt
1 t dried parsley
1 t garlic powder
1 bay leaf
1 (.7 ounce) pkg dry Italian-style salad dressing mix
1 (5 pound) rump roast

Combine water with salt, pepper, oregano, basil, onion salt, parsley, garlic powder, bay leaf and salad dressing mix in a saucepan. Stir well and bring to a boil. Place roast in slow cooker and pour salad dressing mixture over the meat.

Cover and cook on Low for 10 to 12 hours or on High for 4 to 5 hours. When done, remove bay leaf and shred meat with a fork.

Serve on hamburger buns with provolone cheese. For an even more scrumptious sandwich, put sandwich under broiler to melt the cheese. You could also serve it with the juices in a small bowl for dipping.

Monday Meditation - Philippians 4:13 and the Parable of Canning Sugar

2010-02-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

I love technology! I have figured out how to "schedule" my posts and that makes a world of difference with keeping this blog up, especially these Monday Meditations. I don't have to wait until Monday to write the post. I can write it as soon as the "meditation" occurs.

I am reading First Things First: the rules of being a Warner by Kurt and Brenda Warner. So far, it's a very good read. I'm already getting some ideas that I want to incorporate into our family and I'm in chapter 4. What struck me just a moment ago is Brenda Warner's thought on Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." She says "But I've come to understand that just because I can doesn't mean I should." She also mentioned the Proverbs 31 woman, you know, the one whose worth is above rubies. As I went to read that, I "accidentally" opened to Ecclesiastes 3 and started reading, not noticing I was on the wrong page. Do you know what it says? "To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

Do you think it was an accident that I ended up on that page? It fit in perfectly with what I was "studying" and Brenda Warner's thought. My thought on Philippians 4:13 is I'm surprised there isn't a footnote to say I can do all things that Christ desires of me through Him which strengtheneth me. We can't do EVERYTHING. We often hear the phrase "He won't give us more than we can handle." We're not required to deal with EVERYTHING at one time. But we can know that the challenges dealt to us can be handled when we rely on Him because He will provide what we need to handle it. That doesn't mean we don't cry or feel the weight of those challenges sometimes. Jesus cried and He was/is without sin so I'm not going to feel guilty about crying myself. There's nothing wrong with it.

I have another parable from my life to share. It's the Parable of Canning Sugar. One day I was at the Church canning some sugar with a sister from another ward and her husband. I knew that the church cannery said that I could get 6.1 lbs of sugar in each can. I had 4 lb bags of sugar. So that meant 3 bags of sugar would go in 2 cans. I put one bag in each can. Then took my 3rd bag and started pouring in to each can until I thought it was full. I would look at the two cans and think there is no way I can get any more sugar into either can but there was still sugar in my bag. So I would tap my cans to get the sugar to settle and pour a little more in. And I repeated this until all the sugar was out of the bag. Amazingly, I went through this exact process many times (I did 12-18 cans of sugar). And each time I was amazed that all the sugar fit.

I had the thought as I tapped those cans - this is like my life in the Gospel. Heavenly Father wants me to do this, and this, and this, and this. I can't do everything but I know I should. But as I rely on Him, take time to settle my schedule and priorities, like I settled the sugar in the can, then it's amazing the things I can accomplish that He desires me to do. But it has to be the things He has in plan for me or the sugar spills all over the counter. And He doesn't have me doing EVERYTHING. There is a season and a time.

One final thought. A few years ago, many friends kept inviting me to scrapbook with them. And I would go and fight and struggle to do the scrapbooking thing. I bought supplies and tools. It was hard. It wasn't fun. My stuff didn't look very good when it was done. But I kept trying. Then finally I realized I didn't HAVE to. Not all of my friends felt the need to knit, crochet, cross-stitch like I do. Why did I think I HAD to scrapbook. And I let it go. Wow! It was like a major boulder was removed from my back. It was a reminder of the principle above - I don't have to do everything. He will let me know what is essential in my life and as I follow that, He will strengtheneth me and I can do all those things!

Wacky Cake

2010-02-11T06:58:00.000-08:00

Another recipe. And again this is one I grew up with my Mom making (This recipe card is actually in my Mom's handwriting). Yeah Mom!

Reasons I love this recipe - it's easy, it uses only one pan (no bowls for mixing), it's moist, and it's fun!

Wacky Cake

1 1/2 c flour (Note: I have not tried using 1/2 whole wheat, but will next time I make the cake)
3 tb cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda

Sift above ingredients in 8x8 pan. Make 3 wells.

5 TB melted butter/margarine/oil (I wonder if applesauce would work to decrease the fat)
1 tsp vanilla
1 TB vinegar
1 C water

Mix butter, vanilla and vinegar in separate bowl. Note: I normally use a glass measuring cup to melt my butter and then add the vanilla and vinegar to the cup (less dishes to wash).

Pour into those 3 wells you made.

Pour water over top of everything and stir.

Bake in ungreased pan at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Another reason I love this cake is because I don't feel so guilty eating it - it doesn't need any frosting! And it's perfectly delicious still warm - no waiting for it to cool.

But I realized I need to do some experimenting for replacing some ingredients as I typed out the recipe. Guess my family will be guinea pigs next FHE. Hope it turns out yummy!

Oatmeal Muffins

2010-02-11T06:39:00.000-08:00

Growing up my Mom made muffins basically every Sunday. It was wonderful! Sometimes they were mixes but often, she would make homemade oatmeal muffins. So in high school Home Ec class, I started copying down recipes and this is one that I copied down (and still have my original recipe card that I made). Over the years, I've made some changes that I'll note in the recipe as I go.

Mom's Oatmeal Muffins

1 c quick cooking rolled oats (I actually prefer regular rolled oats over quick)
1 c milk (sometimes I use 1/2 reg milk and 1/2 c from powdered milk)
1 c sifted flour (I never sift and often use 1/4 to 1/2 whole wheat with the rest being white flour)
1/3 c sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 well beaten egg
1/4 c vegetable oil (my family actually prefers the muffins if I replace some or all of the oil with applesauce)

1. Combine rolled oats and milk. Let stand 15 minutes.

2. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into bowl. (Note: Adam knows what a sifter is and uses one - but I pretend not to know)

3. Combine eggs, oil and oatmeal mixture. Add all at once to sifted dry ingredients. Stirring just to moisten.

4. Fill greased muffin pans 2/3rd full.

5. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes (watch that time because these will overcook easily).

Yield: 1 dozen decent sized muffins

When substituting 2 T applesauce for 1/2 of the fat, these are 122 calories per muffin.

WFMW - Free (or Cheaper) Federal Taxes E-File

2010-02-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

For years, I did our taxes. At one point, we were both working outside the home, plus I was selling tupperware which meant self employment tax paperwork. It was too much. So we turned to a tax accountant for our taxes. Norma was wonderful! And we continued using her after I quit working and our daughter was born. And then I started realizing how much we were paying her (not that she charges mre than others). And I have a degree in Economics! Why was I paying someone to do something that I should be able to do myself? Because if I have to buy $70 software, plus an additional $30 to file state taxes, I might as well spend a little more for Norma to do it all.

Then I discovered the IRS's free e-file program. We used this for several years and it's wonderful! You must go through the IRS's website and follow the link to the software you want to use. If you make less than the maximum specified income, your federal e-file and use of software is FREE! You only pay for state e-file (which was cheaper than the charge the software at the store said it would be).

For 2009, we made more than the free e-file allowed. So I started checking out software at the store and doing the taxes online.

Software at Sam's Club (seemed cheaper than other stores) was $50 + $30 to file my state taxes. Going directly to the H&R Block website and also to TurboTax, I didn't like their prices either and wasn't sure which version to use - Free, Basic ($15), Standard ($30), Deluxe, etc.

So even though I thought our income was going to be higher than the free e-file program allowed, I tried it (using the H&R Block link who I've chosen for the last several years). I input all our information and at the very end, it said we made too much AGI to qualify to file our federal for free BUT it told me I only needed to buy the Basic Federal online taxes for $15. State e-file was $30. I still saved significant money over buying the software at the store. The price was not cheaper than if I had just bought from the website - BUT I probably would have purchased the deluxe instead of the Basic. Not sure how it would have worked if I selected Deluxe and then only really used the features of Basic. But I think I saved money :)

Finally, a new feature I saw this year but didn't try - the IRS has free forms that you can fill in online and submit electronically for FREE, regardless of your income. It is not software. It does not do the calculations for you nor does it hunt for deductions. But if you're comfortable with the paper forms - this is a way to do them electronically and e-file, thus getting your return faster, for FREE.

Overall, if you make less than $57,000 AGI in 2009, the Federal Free E-file program is the way to go!

And one last tip for you, use this link to find out when you will get your refund based on when you e-file. I had hunted and hunted for this before we filed and couldn't find it. So of course, H&R Block provided it after I filed - and it told me that if I had filed 24 hours earlier, I would have received my refund a week earlier.

These tax resources definitely Work for Me and I hope they work for you. For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, check out We are THAT Family today!

Monday Meditation - 1 Nephi 8 and the Parable of the Down Escalator

2010-02-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

All the females in our house are sick, including me, so today's post is from an old journal entry about Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. At the time, I was studying using Preach My Gospel. I recorded some questions and my thoughts. Some answers are "easy" but at the same time, I didn't catch the first years of reading this scripture. And each time I ponder it, my testimony is stronger and reminded of how I need to prioritize.

#1 - What did Lehi desire after eating the fruit?
Lehi wanted his family to partake also. He looked for them and beckoned to them. But he did NOT chase after them or drag them to the iron rod.

#2 - What do we need to do to be able to partake?
You must stay on the strait and narrow path - clinging to the iron rod. So keep the commandments and feast upon the scriptures. Each step on this path comes by our making and keeping our commitments and covenants and brings us closer to Heavenly Father. Being closer to Him gives us strength which makes it easier and possible to take the next step. That next step is never an easy step. Each step takes work. At the beginning of our journey, that next step would probably have not been even possible, but it IS possible now because of our current position, strength, understanding and abilities that have come from the previous steps.

#3 - What is your duty in helping others find and partake of the fruits of the Gospel?
First, we need to be working on keeping ourselves on the strait and narrow path and partaking of the fruit. Then we need to beckon to our family as Lehi did. Offering, but not forcing or coercing. Encourage those already on the path to keep moving forward and ignore those who ridicule or attempt to distract us from the path.

So that's it from my journal entry. But I am being reminded of thoughts I have had many years ago which I have titled "The Parable of the Down Escalator".

As kids, it was always fun to try to go up the down escalator. Picture yourself trying to go up those steps as they continue to make their way down. This is how I picture the Gospel. Our goal is to get to the top of the escalator but we must use the down escalator (I'm not even sure there is an up escalator). To get closer to the top, we have to work really hard to get our momentum going faster than the stairs are going down. If we slow down, often times our momentum will match the speed of the stairs and we become stagnant - not moving forward. Then there are those times when we like ourselves tired and stop working. If we pause for only a moment, we lose our position, but can make up the loss easily. But if we pause for anything longer than one moment, we quickly lose position and can slide to the bottom of the escalator. This is why it's essential that we have DAILY scripture study time, DAILY prayer, weekly FHE, attend our church meetings and regularly attend the Temple (the Fab 5 for my fellow 3rd Ward friends). These keep us moving forward so that we can get to the top!

WFMW - Sore Throat Remedy

2010-02-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

As I was growing up, any time we got a sore throat, this was the remedy we used. Once I was out on my own, I remember the first time I thought to use the remedy. I was working at a large medical group practice in Florida. I knew I didn't have the remedy at home so I headed over to the orthopedic department (I was friends with one of the doctors and several of the nurses) to see if they had some. They did. BUT, they were astonished with what I wanted to do with it. I assured them I would be fine and they finally relented and let me use some of the item. The next day, I was back at work without any sign of a sore throat. They were amazed. I wonder if any of them ever thought to use it themselves.

Once I got married, it was time I bought some of this magic cure. My husband, like those nurses, was skeptical the first time he saw me use it. But now, after almost 15 years of marriage, it's his first thought when his throat gets scratchy. And he was most disappointed the other day to discover we didn't have any - I had cleaned out the medicine cabinet and thrown it away because it was expired.

So what is this magic sore throat remedy? Betadine!

The other day I saw on the internet that it used to be an accepted treatment at home but is one of those that people don't know about any more.

Directions - fill a bathroom cup (8 oz) with warm water. Add about 4 drops of betadine and swirl. Then gargle with this warm solution and spit it out into your sink. Do NOT swallow! Repeat as needed.

I generally do not use the whole cup unless my throat is already really sore. If I do this at the first hint of a scratchy throat, I generally don't get a sore throat. I use warm water because it is more soothing to a scratchy throat than cold water. And I make sure to rinse my cup thoroughly after I'm done.

Betadine is normally with the first aid supplies at your local discount store. The 8 oz bottle I bought last week (to replace the one I threw away) was around $11. But it lasts for years, or until it expires. You can also use it on cuts.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, click here.

Monday Meditation - Mark 14:19 - Is it I?

2010-02-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

I love the scriptures. And I really enjoy it when a verse that I've read time and time again over the years all of a sudden stands out with a poignant thought. That happened earlier this month while reading about the Last Supper. I put the verse of Mark 14:19 in this post title but it also applies to Matthew 26:29. Context - Christ and his disciples are preparing to celebrate the Passover. As they sit down and start eating, christ tells them that "One of you which eateth with me shall betray me". In verse 19, "And they began to be sorrowful and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?". I assume that everyone reading these Monday Meditations knows that Judas Iscariot was the one who betrayed Christ. But that's not the point of my Meditation. It's not Judas' response, it's the response of all the apostles.

If you were sitting at a table with people you served with closely at church in leadership roles and the Bishop (or Pastor for those who are members of other faiths) said someone here is going to betray their faith today, would you ask is it me? I don't believe so. I think I'd be confident that I'm striving to choose the right and would know it isn't going to be me. So I'm more likely to be thinking "Who is it?" or "I don't believe that. We're all strong in our faith." So as I read this verse this month, that question caught my eye. Were they not as confident in their faith as I try to be? So I did a little research.

Pres. Boyd K. Packer, in 1965, said this:
"I remind you that these men were apostles. They were of apostolic stature. It has always been interesting to me that they did not on that occasion, nudge one another and say 'I'll bet that is old Judas. He has surely been acting queer lately.' It reflects someting of their stature....

"Would you, I plead, overrule the tendency to disregard counsel and assume for just a moment something apostolic in attitude at least, and ask yourself these questions: Do I need to improve myself? Should I take this counsel to heart and act upon it? If there is one wek or failing, unwilling to follow the brethren, Lord, is it I?"

Application - So instead of being weak in their faith, they were strong enough in their faith to question if they were doing something they needed to change. If the apostles questioned themselves with Christ's statement, I definitely need to question myself whenever we hear counsel from our leaders, especially the prophet. I need to ask how I can improve in this principle of the Gospel, not simply disregarding it as something I've got under control or am living pretty well. Every time the prophet and the apostles speak, we need to listen with an open heart and follow the examples of Christ's apostles at the Last Supper "Is it I?"

WFMW - Niece/Nephew Birthdays

2010-01-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

We have 20 nieces, nephews, step-nieces and step-nephews. I feel it's important for each of them to know that they are remembered and loved. I'm also on a quest to be the favorite aunt :)

When we first started having nieces and nephews, we didn't have children and both of us were working. So we were able to spend a little more on their birthdays and Christmas. But over the years, the numbers to buy for have grown and I stopped working outside of the home. Now that we are up to 20 (!) and have 2 of our own children, we were finding it very expensive to buy presents and ship them.

For several years, my husband's side of the family would gather in the summer. I would work hard before that gathering and send each family home with their Christmas presents during this gathering. Because the birthdays were all fall/winter birthdays, I would also get their birthday presents ready and send with them too. But as the kids get into school and money has gotten tighter, not everyone is coming every summer. Plus this last year, my life was so crazy I didn't get everything ready in time for those who did come to visit. So we had to come up with a new plan.

The plan - Generally, I have spent $5 - $10 on each niece/nephew (includes the steps) for each event. The exception is when they turn 8, I spend a little more because I make them a crocheted afghan. Love's job pays him twice each month so 24 times each year. With 20 nieces and nephews, we've added a birthdays budget. Each payday, I set aside a $5 bill into an envelope. Then when a birthday approaches, I go to Dollar General and buy a birthday card (I try to buy for the next month, not just the next birthday). I add a $5 bill, address the envelope and get it mailed.

I'm not perfect at sending the cards on time but getting better. Teenagers may not be happy at only getting $5 but it's more than $0 :) And it's what I can afford. Now my kids have 7 aunts and uncles so if even only half of them sent them $5, they'd be able go buy something very nice. Not that we expect others to follow our example and we've taught our daughters to not EXPECT any presents and to be THANKFUL for any and all presents they receive.

This $5 budget for birthdays Works for Me. Now I just have to figure out a less expensive way to send Christmas presents.

For more Works for Me Wednesday, join me at We Are THAT Family.

Monday Meditation - D&C 88:41-44

2010-01-25T06:29:00.000-08:00

One of the many focuses I plan for 2010 is studying the lessons for Sunday School and Relief Society. As I studied for the 2nd Sunday lesson in Relief Society, D&C 88:41-44 was a scripture referenced to learn the attributes on God.

The overall impression I get from this scripture and other scriptures is that Heavenly Father has a plan in all He does. Everything has a seaon, a timing, a purpose.

I don't believe that Heavenly Father controls everything in our lives as I believe He has gifted us each with free agency. This gives each of us choices and someone else's choices may impact our lives. So no, I don't believe that he causes something to happen to us. (On a side note, I do believe that anything that does happen to us by our choice or someone elses or by natural circumstances, CAN be used by Him to help us grow and CAN have a purpose.) I also believe that, actually make that I know that He knows us so well that He knows the choices we each are going to make and what those natural consequences will be. Anyway, back to my thoughts on this scripture.

Everything He does has a plan and a purpose. So as we strive to imitate him (remember this is the definition of worship), we should have a purpose and a plan for the things that we do.

So the choices I make today, what is their purpose? We went to a basketball game the other day. Did that have a plan and a purpose? Yes it did. The plan included when we would go and how we would get there. The purpose - to spend time having fun as a family. And we did.

Is to have fun a good reason to do something? First, The Family: A Proclamation to the World tells that we should have wholesome recreational activities as part of our family. Next, does Heavenly Father have fun? I believe He does because I've seen enough evidence of Him having a sense of humor. I also know that it's in our nature to have or desire fun and we are made in His image. All this leads me to say Yes, to have fun is a good reason to choose something as long as the choice is not detrimental to your spiritual or physical well being.

Monday Meditation - Luke 11:24-26

2010-01-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

There are scriptures that bother me, that I don't like. So I try to study them to better understand them so they don't bother me anymore or to figure out where a possible mistranslation has happened, so they don't bother me anymore.

Examples include when Jesus is teaching in a house and his mother is outside and asks to see him. His response is "who is my family? These are my family." I'm still working on this - I get his point but every time I read it, I think "honor thy mother", go see her.

Another example is the story of Mary and Martha when Mary isn't helping to get dinner ready and on the table. I so understand Martha's perspective. I'm actually getting a better understanding of this scripture and as that gets more solidified, I'll post it for a Monday Meditation. I will say that I know I'm a Martha more than a Mary.

But the point of today's post is Luke 11:24-26. Jesus Christ casts out evil spirits. In this scripture, He tells those listening that the evil spirit leaves and then comes back to find its home cleaned out so it invites more evil spirits to dwell there too. This makes the last state much worse than the first.

Whenever I've read this, the thought occurs to me then are we ever really cleaned from our sins? What's the point if it's just going to be worse later? Now I know this isn't truth - but that's my interpretation of those few verses. Isn't it wonderful that we don't just have 3 verses? We have all of the scriptures to help us truly understand the scriptures.

We Latter-day Saints are also blessed to have prophets on the earth! I found a great quote that made these scriptures an A-ha moment. Here's the quote...

President Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness
"The things which engaged him and caught his fancy and occupied his thoughts are gone and better substitutions have not filled the void. This is Satan's opportunity."

I get it now! As we remove what distracts us or leads us away from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, we need to replace it immediately with something good so that Satan is not given that opportunity.

Points System for 2010

2010-01-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share how we have updated the Points System that we use for Princess1. Princess2 will be starting a Points System after she turns 3 next month. Her point values will be different.

Princess1 still earns points the same way. We haven't changed that. But during FHE one night, we were discussing Good, Better, Best. That evening as I was falling asleep (which is when I get a lot of my "revelations"), it occurred to me that maybe we weren't following that council when it came to Princess1's activities. It took less points for her to watch TV than to play with a friend. But which activity would I rather her do? So we started pondering how to revise our system.

We made a list of different activities that Princess1 likes to do and then assigned a point value for each activity. I then put it on a chart for her, sorted by # of points required to earn that privilege. Here's the list...

Free (0 points)
Read a book or the Friend magazine
Color
Draw
Play games
Play with Princess2
write a letter
Cuddle
Puzzles

2 Points
Play dress up (requires room to be picked up)
Sewing/crafts

4 Points
Play with a friend at our house
Painting
Bike Ride
Easy Bake Oven

5 Points
Play outside (requires a parent with her until we get a fence)
Swimming (we have access to an indoor pool so this is a year round activity)
Wii
Play at a friend's house

6 Points
Computer
Television

7 Points
Sleepover

We've been doing this for just over a week. Results - Princess1 still does not want to earn points but the tv has been off and that works for me. The only time I wasn't happy was during the snow days last week because it was too cold for them to go anywhere and we all got cabin fever without even the tv to break it up.

Monday Meditation - Entrusted Talents

2010-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

Matthew 25:14-30 Parable of the Entrusted Talents

The lord entrusts one servant with 5 talents, one servant with 2 talents and to another 1 talent. He then travels away. When he returns, the first servant has increased his talents to 10. The second servant increased his to 4. The third servant decided to just hold onto his 1 talent and has no gain when the lord returns. The first and second servants were rewarded to be "ruler over many things" and to "enter thou into the joy of my lord." The third servant was chastised for not being like the lord who would "reap where I sowed now and gather where I have not strawed." This third servant's talent was taken away and he was cast into outer darkness.

Thoughts/Interpretation/Application

In the past as I've read this parable, I've always applied it to the talents we are blessed with and that we need to use and develop them for the Lord's service.

But as I studied this recently, the thought occurred to me that it also applies to my children that the Lord has entrusted to me. If I cherish them, they will grow to be of benefit to His kingdom. They will also marry and raise their own children up to Him, thereby increasing what I was entrusted with. We also have the potential if we live righteously to have more children entrusted to us in the celestial kingdom.

As I pondered this more, I realized there are quite a few things that this applies to.

Revelation - if we don't use and cherish the revelations we receive, we won't be blessed with more and the ability to receive those revelations will be taken away.

Our Home - We would really like to have a home with a basement, which would be a bigger home. The thought occurs to me that if we don't take care of the home we have now, keeping it in order, and use it as we can for His service, then why would he entrust us with more?

Our Callings - We need to serve where He has placed us and try to magnify that calling. He will then bless us with more - of course, there is the "where much is given, much is required" saying too.

Monday Meditation - Moses 1:39

2010-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Moses 1:39 - Behold this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

"Hence we see the complete unselfishness of our Father in Heaven. His whole work and glory is to bring eternal life and happiness to his children. Should not our whole purpose in life, therefore, be made up of righteous service one to another? If not, how can we ever hope to be as he is?"
Marion G. Romney, General Conference, Oct 1981.

At TOFW in October, I made the note from S. Michael Wilcox "Worship is imitation - if we worship Christ, we will stive to imitate Him."

My thoughts/application -
Heavenly Father's efforts are to return us to Him. If we worship him and therefore are trying to imitate Him, everything we do should be in an effort to bring ourselves, our children, our families and the rest of His children back to Him.

2010 FHE Lesson Schedule

2010-01-03T12:36:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned before, we have a rotation for FHE lessons.
1st Monday = Love; 2nd Monday = Me; 3rd Monday = Princess1; 4th Monday = Primary Program songs; 5th Monday = Special Activity

In 2011 (can you believe that's in less than 1 year now?), Princess2 will become a Sunbeam. As a Sunbeam, she'll start giving talks in Primary. So we are going to add her to our FHE lesson rotation in 2010 so she gets used to presenting before she starts Sunbeams. We also decided we needed to be more organized, with a purpose for each FHE lesson.

The new 2010 FHE Lesson rotation is:
1st Monday = Love = 1st Presidency Message in Friend magazine
2nd Monday = Me = Monthly Theme from Primary Outline
3rd Monday = Princess1 = Scripture Story
4th Monday = Princess2 = Scripture Story
5th Monday = special lesson or practice Primary music

We have decided what those scripture story lessons will be for the whole year.

1/18 Adam and Eve
1/25 Enoch
2/15 Noah
2/22 Abraham
3/15 Isaac and Rebekah
3/22 Jacob
3/29 (5th Monday) Story of Easter
4/19 Joseph
4/26 Baby Moses
5/17 Moses and Pharaoh
5/24 Ten Commandments
6/21 Joshua
6/28 Samson
7/19 Ruth and Naomi
7/26 Samuel
8/16 David and Goliath
8/23 Solomon
9/20 Elijah
9/27 Elisha
10/18 Jonah
10/25 Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego
11/15 Daniel
11/22 Esther
12/20 Birth of Jesus
12/27 Job

2010 Posts

2010-01-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to do posts here for a while. Life just keeps getting in the way, including the death of my dad. I miss him a lot and I've been surprised at how I've reacted to him passing. Some of it has been a pleasant surprise - I'm not lying in my bed wracked with tears all day every day, although I do have my moments. But another surprise has been a lack of energy - mourning him seems to zap all my strength at times. So I'm tired a lot, but I'm not sleeping less (or more).

I have a great plan for 2010 - let's see if I can do it. The biggest thought that keeps coming is a Monday Meditation where I will share a scriptural thought/interpretation/application. Not sure if it will happen every Monday but that's my ideal. I'm going to test out creating my posts and having them appear at a later date so I don't restrict myself to having time and remembering what I wanted to say on Monday to only Mondays.

So keep checking the blog and PLEASE add your comments. I'm open to others sharing their ideas here - let me know you want to "guest post" and we'll get it set up to do that. We're working on defining our 2010 goals today so hopefully I'll be able to post my goals in the near future.

Happy 2010. Keep an eye out for my next post which will be our 2010 FHE Schedule. Yeah!

WFMW - Seat Belt Drills

2009-11-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I took the girls and headed out of town to visit friends. While out and about, someone was having trouble buckling up. I made a comment to my friend about seat belt drills and she said What? I decided then that was my topic for today's Works for Me Wednesday!

A few weeks ago, I got really frustrated at Princess1. She would get into the van first and go towards her seat. I would then put Princess2 in her harness car seat and climb out of the back of the van to get into my seat, buckle up and turn on the van. Then before driving, I would check to see if Princess1 was buckled. No. Many times. Finally I threatened that if she couldn't get her seat belt on in the time it took me to get Princess2 in her seat and me into mine we would do seat belt drills.

She didn't take me seriously. The next day we were leaving Princess1's piano lesson. But she didn't get her seat belt on. So I turned off the van and climbed out. I undid Princess2's harness and sent both girls back to the entrance to the piano studio and we started all over again. I promised them that if Princess1 couldn't get her seat belt on before I was done with Princess2's harness, we would be doing it again.

Wow! Princess1 really does know how to buckle a seat belt. And now she can do it quickly. We haven't had to do another seat belt drill, but we've had to be reminded a few times as an encouragement.

So seat belt drills work for me! Maybe they'll work for you.

WFMW - Disinfecting the House/Don't share germs

2009-10-21T05:18:00.001-07:00

Updated: I keep updating this list as more tips come to mind or someone shares some.

With all the flu variations going around and schools closing, I have been pondering disinfecting my house. I've had friends make the comment for years when a little one was sick "I've just finished disinfecting my house". This past week I've been asking what that means to several friends. I thought I'd share their tips and mine on disinfecting the house and preventing the sharing of germs - even though I don't do all of them but I think about it.

1. Use a Clorox wipe to wipe all lightswitches and doorknobs. Also wipe telephones, remotes, Wii remotes, television buttons, front of VCR, etc. More things to wipe down - refrigerator handles, oven door handle, microwave buttons, faucet handles, cabinet handles, toilet handle, thermostat. Do this at least every other day.

2. Wash hand towels every day; give each person their own hand towel.

3. Replace hand towels in bathroom with paper towels.

4. Replace toothbrush/toothbrush head after illness; or run through dishwasher to disinfect.

5. Change clothes and wash hands immediately after getting home from school or event with lots of other people.

6. Wash pillowcases several times a week and immediately after being ill; wash sheets once a week and immediately after illness.

7. Spray all surfaces with Lysol every other day if not ill, every day if ill.

8. Wipe down hard surfaces with Clorox wipes every other day if not ill, every day if ill.

9. Spray Oust for 10 seconds in each room every other day if not ill, every day if ill.

10. Don't share drinks with others.

11. Cough/sneeze into inside of elbow or into kleenex; throw kleenex away instead of piling beside bed (I personally NEVER do this :) ); wash hands after sneezing or coughing.

12. Wash hands often.

13. Don't touch face.

14. Don't forget to wipe down the computer keyboard and mouse plus lamp switches.

15. Give each kid their own tube of toothpaste instead of sharing.

Do you have any additional tips/suggestions to add to this list?

For other tips today, enjoy Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family!

WFMW - Whose is Who's

2009-10-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

I apologize for any grammatical error in my title - especially to my mom. I'm tired and I just don't want to think about it any more. And so that I don't have to remember to do this post on Wednesday, I'm doing my Works for Me Wednesday post today.

So for my tip this week, it's primarily about towels.

My daughters share a bathroom and, within the bathroom, a towel rod. They both love Princess and TinkerBell so they have Princess and Tinkerbell towels. For the longest time, I could never remember who's towel I hung up on which side of the towel rod. Finally, I came up with this idea. Princess1 is left-handed and Princess2 is right-handed. So, Princess1's towel gets hung on the left side of the bar and Princess2's towel is on the right side. Now I never have to remember who gets Princess this week and which one has Tink, or if they are both using the same style.

This tip may not work if your kids have the same hand preference, but it Works for Me!

My inspiration - a must read.

2009-09-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Last week, I posted about how we have implement "points" in our home, primarily for Princess1. Well, the same source that inspired that has inspired me again. I'm not sure how I'm going to implement the concept but I have to share the concept with you today.

Please click here and read Lara's post. See if it inspires you too.

WFMW - Earning Privileges

2009-09-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

I love reading blogs. Some I read to find out about deals to help me save money. Some I read to share in other people's lives. And some I read to help me improve myself and my family. One of my favorite blogs combines the middle and last reasons for reading... The Lazy Organizer. I enjoy Lara's sense of humor and have especially appreciated her sharing of adventures in improving her parenting. One post really caught my attention at the right time in our life here...Follow the Dream. I'll let you read Lara's approach yourself. But here's how we modified it for Princess1, and somewhat Princess2 who wouldn't be left out.

Originally, my plan was to use the notebook approach that Lara uses. Handwriting is hard for Princess1 and I thought this would be a good way for her to practice without a "sit down, time to practice" event. But quickly we realized it wouldn't work. And I stumbled across another blog who did something similar but used craft sticks (sorry, I didn't pay attention to which blog it was but I thank you for your post whoever you are).

So I bought a set of colored craft sticks (I thought colors would be more appealing to the girls and therefore they'd be more cooperative). I took some gold paint and put it in an old applesauce tub (I save these for everything - which I guess could be a WFMW post in the future). I then dipped the sticks in the paint and hung them from a string with clothespins to dry. I then used a sharpie to write a chore/task on each one. Coming up with the list of chores/tasks was quite the effort because Love and I had to agree. I wanted to give Princess1 a point for playing/spending time with Princess2. But Love thought that Princess1 might fight being "forced" to play with Princess2.

So we compromised and created "CTR Points". This is the BEST part of our program. Anytime we spot Princess1 choosing the right (CTR), we will spontaneously give her a CTR point. This is often for playing with Princess2. It can also be used for an overall attitude or immediately responding when we call her or ask her to do something. It is also used for abnormal tasks that we need her to do.

By earning points each day, Princess1 earns privileges. If she earns 4 points, she earns tv/computer/wii privileges. If she earns 6 points, she can invite a friend over or go play at a friend's house. If she earns 8 points, she can have a sleepover. We started this this summer when sleepovers could happen during the week. But since school has started, we've yet to earn 8 points in a day but we need to have some alternative special privilege for when it's during the week.

Eventually, I cleaned out some peanut butter jars, wrapped it in scrapbook paper and put their names on their jars (thanks to my neighbor who has a cricut machine). The girls were both very excited to have nice looking containers for their points.

We've been using the point system since the beginning of summer. Some days Princess1 is enthusiastic about earning points. Other days she decides she'd rather not watch tv.

What earns a point:

Make your bed

Get ready for the day (get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth and hair, hearing aid, glasses)

Schoolwork

Practice Piano

Water garden

10 minutes of cleaning in your room

10 minute clean of the living room (generally as a family)

Set table for dinner (or other meal)

Help cleanup dinner

I believe all of these chores/tasks are appropriate for her age and abilities. And none of them take a huge amount of time (note that she only has to work on her room for 10 minutes, not until it's spotless).

What I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE is that I'm not taking anything away from her, ever. She has to earn her privileges. This is a more positive approach than a punishment for not cleaning her room. And because she gets to choose which ones she does to earn points, she has even more control over her day.

We tried this where she earns the points on the same day as privileges - so if she earned 6 points, she immediately called a friend to play. But with school, we discovered that by the time she finished earning her 6 points, it was too close to dinner time to go play with someone. So we switched it to earning your points for the next day. Princess2 doesn't like this and feels her motivation to earn 6 points is gone, except on those days where she has the privilege of playing with a friend. So it's still a work in progress - but the point system definitely Works for Me! Click here for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!

I'm "famous"

2009-09-18T09:12:00.001-07:00

I was so excited this morning to discover that one of my favorite blogs mentioned little ole me!

We are THAT Family is the host of Works for Me Wednesday which I participate in semi frequently. But often those thoughts are more in my head than I actually post because I forget about them when Wednesday comes around. In fact, I had an idea yesterday while visiting with my parents and now I can't remember what it was. But I'll call Mom so I can post it..

So a few days ago, Kristen posted a caption contest and today announced the winner... I didn't win :( But I was one of her favorites. To find out my caption, go here. And to see the picture, go here.

WFMW - FHE Outline

2009-08-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

As I promised last week, here is how we do Family Home Evening...

Opening Song
Opening Prayer
Practice Song - the song they are learning this month in Primary
Family Calendar for the week and highlights coming up
Lesson (usually 5-10 minutes)
Closing Song
Closing Prayer
Treats (You HAVE to have treats every week - isn't that what FHE is all about?)

Generally the opening and closing songs are from the current year's primary program to continue to practice them. But we occassionally will do other favorites (Morgan always asks for Follow the Prophet).

Overall, FHE takes about 30 minutes, including gather the family time.

Now on the 4th week, which is Singing FHE. We replace the lesson with the songs from the primary program and Follow the Prophet.

Treats - this is your excuse to make all those dessert recipes you have in your recipe box.

Now many families will follow treats with an activity. But we haven't gotten that into our regular schedule yet. Maybe when the girls get a little older and FHE isn't followed immediately by family scriptures and prayer and bed.

And this works for our family. Go here for more Works for Me Wednesday!

What do you believe about heaven and hell?

2009-08-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

We were recently visiting with our neighbors and it came up that our neighbor had once been told "If you don't believe the same as I do, you're going to hell." I've heard that before, but usually in the phrase "If you don't belong to [this religion], you're going to hell." I immediately wanted to jump in on my husband's conversation to say "We don't believe that." But didn't get the chance. Yes, a missed missionary moment... but I did talk with his wife a few days later and let her know we didn't agree with that statement.

As I pondered that and Princess1 being around kids of the full range of religious thought at school, I wanted to make sure she knows that we don't believe that. And to help her know what our Church teaches about "heaven and hell". So that's my FHE lesson topic for September. Explaining our viewpoint and what the prophets have taught is easy. I'll be doing something similar to this.

Princess1 already understands that not everyone believes Pres. Monson is the Prophet of God. And not everyone follows what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches. If you know Princess1 or Princess2, you've probably heard their comments about "He's a naked kid" when they see someone without their shirt on. They both know that modesty is important in our family but that not everyone follows that. Now, to teach them to not point it out loudly when we're at the park :)

Here's where I need your help. I also want to be able to let Princess1 (and Princess2) know what others they are around may believe. Rather than trying to go off my memory or guess what other religions or non-religious friends believe, I decided I would post it as a question. What do you believe (and/or what does your church teach) about heaven and hell. In your response, please include what religion you are, if any. My intent with this information is to show Princess1 how we believe the same and how we believe different from those around us.

Thanks for your help and for being willing to share your beliefs with us.

WFMW - FHE Schedule

2009-08-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

I always come up with great Works for Me Wednesday topics, but not on Wednesday. Wednesday finds my mind blank about what works for me. So when I got my idea today, I decided to go ahead and do my post.

Monday night is Family Home Evening (some people call it Family Night). Next week, I'll post what Family Home Evening means for us as far as what we do. But the main focus is some kind of lesson or discussion. It used to be, though, that I ended up ALWAYS doing the lesson. But when Princess1 got ready to enter Sunbeams in Primary, we knew we needed to change things so she could practice presenting (starting in Sunbeams, the kids take turns giving a short talk to the other kids during Primary - it's assigned for each week). So to help her be more comfortable, we came up with a lesson schedule for the month.

First Monday - Love/Daddy gives the lesson.
Second Monday - Mommy (me)
Third Monday - Princess1
Fourth Monday - Primary Presentation Songs
Fifth Monday (as needed) - special activity

This week was Princess1's turn. And the first time she did it all by herself. In the past, I've helped her select and prepare a lesson. Now before anyone gets all amazed, when she was 4 and 5, I created the lesson and whispered it to her and then she repeated what I said to Love.

So on Monday morning, Princess1 calls to me from the living room. "Mom, who's turn is it for the lesson today?" "It's your turn." "What should I do?" I then gave her the August issue of The Friend magazine and told her to read through it and pick out a story to read to us for her lesson. She did and read it to me that afternoon to practice. Then at FHE time, she read it to everyone. She did awesome! And we praised her for doing it all herself.

The month's schedule really helps us remember who is responsible for preparing the lesson. And that works for me. Now we just need to work on assigning out the other responsibilities too.

Princess1 is really starting to grasp the concepts of the Gospel. I can see her growing and preparing for baptism.... 17 months to go!

For more tips this Wednesday, head over to Works for Me Wednesday!

WFMW - The one left behind

2009-08-05T09:25:00.001-07:00

In a few weeks, Princess1 will be returning to school for 1st grade and Princess2 will be left behind. At the same time, we're hopeful that our period of unemployment will be ending by then too. What to do with Princess2 who is very attached to her sister and her daddy (she has always been a daddy's girl while Princess1 is more a mommy's girl).

So here's my plan:

#1. AT HOME SCHEDULE. It's essential to my sanity and to Princess2's that we have a daily schedule. It lets us both have time apart, time together, time to play and time to work. Last year's schedule worked really well but will have to be tweaked with the absence of naps now.

#2. TREATS. I will be coming up with special activities for us to enjoy those first weeks - a trip to the zoo, a trip to Bass Pro, the park (once it cools down some).

#3. OUTING SCHEDULE. In addition to our time at home and special outings, I want to set up some regular outings - storytime at the Library and the Nature Center, gymnastics class (pending employment), regular playdates.

#4. SPECIAL TIME WITH SISSY. I will be having a talk with Princess1 about dedicating some time to her sister when she gets home from school.

#5. SPECIAL TIME WITH DADDY. Princess2 has gotten into the routine this past week of waking up early so she can crawl in between us in our bed while we're studying the scriptures to snuggle with her daddy. Half the time she falls back asleep but she has some private Daddy (and a little Mommy) time. We need to make sure that she still gets that time with him.

And I'm hoping these Work for me. For more back to school ideas and tips, check out Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

On a second note, we learned to NOT walk home from school last year with Princess1. She would be so tired at the end of the day, that walking home pushed her over the edge and we had GROUCHY girl! By driving home, she would then share her day and be cheerful to be around. Too bad I didn't figure this out until May :(

Puffs at Dillon's

2009-08-01T12:59:00.001-07:00

If you need kleenex or Puffs for school, you need to head to Dillon's by Tuesday. Currently, Puffs are on sale for $1.99 for the large box (216 tissues). I normally buy these at Wal Mart in the 3 pack and it comes out to about 1.67 per box. BUT, if you buy 4 qualified items (which these are), you get $4 off your purchase. That makes each box of Puffs $0.99!! These are the only kind of tissues I buy so I stocked up. I may even decide to go back on Monday or Tuesday and buy a few more. Princess1's new school wants us to bring 2 large boxes of tissues so that's where some will be going. I was almost out of tissues in our house so it was great timing!

Enjoy your savings!

UPDATE 8/3 - I failed to mention loading a coupon on to your Dillon's card at P&G eSaver. And then yesterday's paper has a 0.25 off 3 Puffs coupon in the P&G coupon insert. I'll probably use one or two so if you want to come grab my extras, you're welcome to do so.

UPDATE 8/3 - Another great back to school deal. Walgreen's has the Expo markers on sale for 1.99 for a 4 pack. I bought them a few weeks ago when they were on sale too; but I'll probably head back for a pack for home this week.

Contact confession and goal

2009-08-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

I heard a story recently about a young woman I know. She questioned how much she was loved by her friends. So she stopped texting, blogging, facebooking, calling, visiting. And waited. Some friends checked on her pretty quickly. But others, it tooks weeks before they contacted her. Sound depressing? Well, more than depressing, it made me feel guilty. Because I had failed to contact her too.

I've been in this lady's place before so I immediately understood the story and how she felt. When Princess2 was born, I struggled. And I was so tired. So I didn't contact others. And no one contacted me, or very few. It definitely felt like no one. After awhile (months), I picked myself up and started making some contacts, generally using my calling as the push.

For me, I don't contact others because I wonder what I would have to share about me that anyone would be interested in. That's just my personality. It's not a lack of self-esteem. I generally like myself but think that others would find me boring or wouldn't be interested in the same thing. I am naturally an introvert and like staying home more than I like going out shopping or to the movies. Add to that how busy people are and it's easy to not make those contacts.

But after hearing the story, I wondered how many others out there that I don't hear from are feeling the same as this young woman or as I did when Princess2 was born. So I will be making an effort to simply contact those in (and out) of my immediate circle. So don't be surprised if I make a call to you for no reason other than to say hello; or I stop by unexpected with treats. If you need this too, you can leave a comment and you'll be on the top of the list. And if you're my friend on facebook, you won't be as surprised to find that a lot of the treats are going to be zucchini bread or brownies :)

So now I've written it down and shared my goal. Your job is to keep me accountable!

Food blogs - WFMW

2009-07-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share my favorite food blogs as they DEFINITELY Work for Me!

First is Leigh Ann at Your Home Based Mom. All of her stuff looks delicious and real (I could make it and my family might eat it). Maybe for Friday night, I'll make her cake pops, which Kate, below, also made this week.

Next would be Kate at Cooking During Stolen Moments. Last week I made her Piled High Chicken Melts. YUM!! And soon I'll be trying this, even though I'm not a Taco Bell fan.

And who could ignore Ree at Pioneer Woman. Every time I go to her site, I find my mouth watering and I'm ready to hit the kitchen!

Finally, if I don't already have a recipe for what I want to make, I head over to AllRecipes. I have quite a few recipes from them that have become family favorites. Like Anniversary Chicken, which I first had at Denise's house and had to have the recipe. I especially love that I can do an ingredient search! And I found a recipe there for zucchini bread that I'll be trying this week (and I'll be trying this recipe for Zucchini Brownies too that I found on WFMW today).

For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head over to We Are THAT Family.

WFMW - Job Hunt

2009-07-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a post that says we like to job hunt. But it is our life right now.

We have several criteria as we search for new jobs. First thing we consider is location. We like where we live so Network, or even PC Support, jobs in this area are always considered and normally applied for (there has been one we didn't apply for because it was nights, which wasn't the biggest problem - the bigger problem Thursday night through Sunday night and we don't want to work on Sunday, especially every week).

But we are willing to move, ALMOST anywhere. Here are the criteria for location, if we are to move. 1) Closer to a Temple. 2) Close to a meetinghouse (we are SO SO SPOILED by living less than 5 minutes from our assigned meetinghouse). 3) Not a major metropolitan area (we don't want to live in Chicago, DC, Miami, New York, Philadelphia). 4) Not in California; not in states that don't agree with our moral standards. (I still love my friends who disagree but I won't live in a state that has legalized same sex marriage; if you want to, then that's fine. I'll even visit but I don't want to live there.) On another note, my husband prefers (but not refuses) not to live in a state with gun laws he doesn't agree with.

So how are we finding jobs to apply for. First, we took a map and marked the Temple locations and an hour radius. Then we research those areas, looking for who their major employers are. Next, I create a Favorites/bookmark folder for that area and add links to those employers' career websites. I also create a spreadsheet of those employers and print out the list. Then each day, we go through as many sites as we can. Basically everyday we do our local community. Then another location. So as soon as a job is posted, we can know about it and apply.

And I just figured out how to post his resume to the internet using GoogleDocs! So if you know of any IT server/network jobs, please send them this link.

And that's how this job hunt is working for me. For more Works for Me Wednesday, go check out We are THAT Family.

Provident Living - Budget during unemployment

2009-07-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

As part of Frugal Friday, I decided to share how I budget since I recently showed my mom and she exclaimed "I was trying to figure out how to do exactly this!". I'll explain what I do and then there is an image of my spreadsheet (with made up numbers).

All the financial books I read tend to do budgets on a monthly basis. That probably works for those who have a monthly paycheck or even twice a month paychecks. But for us, we've always had bi-weekly paychecks. So a long time ago, I started using Excel to do our budget. I've tweaked it over the years and right now I'm loving it.

Across the top, I have two columns per paycheck (if Love and I both have a paycheck on the same day, that day would have 4 columns). At the top of each column, I put the date of the paycheck. Next comes the expected amount. Then those two columns per paycheck are broken down into the date the bill/payment is due or paid on the left and the amount to come out of that paycheck on the right.

Going down the very first column on the far left are a list of all our expenses/bills. The next column shows how much is generally paid for that expense. Then I look at when that bill is due. I then assign each of the next upcoming bills to a paycheck, making sure it's before the bill is due. I also leave a few rows blank at the bottom for various expenses - like a trip or birthday (then instead of the due date, the expense is written in the left column of that paycheck)

At the bottom of each paycheck, I have the spreadsheet automatically total how much I've assigned out to expenses for that paycheck. Then underneath that it shows how much I have remaining. If I have extra after expenses, I then add a second Savings line for an additional amount to add to our savings.

Starting a new Chapter in Life - Unemployment

2009-07-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

In May, we learned that 14 people at Love's job would be laid off by July 1 (out of 680 employees). Because there were only 2 people on his team at this location, we thought we were safer than some. But in the meantime, I started evaluating how we could cutback and put off buying things that we didn't NEED until we heard our status. I also started using my clothesline more (added reason was with rising temperatures, I didn't want to heat up my house with the dryer). And I kept thinking we would be told we were moving to the corporate offices.

Then THE Wednesday in June came. People were starting to be told that their job had been eliminated or moved to a different city. Love was told he was to meet with one of the big wigs at 4:45 pm. And we knew we were going to be impacted. The question was would he have a job in another location or was he being laid off. The meeting didn't last long. He was being laid off. His official termination date would be at the end of the month, but he was no longer working. And it was a lot bigger than 14; 70+ people were laid off.

But we are BLESSED! Because we had received the warning a month earlier and the Spirit had whispered to me that we were in for a change, I have been fine. At first I was cheerful in fact, but now I'm tired.

We are also blessed financially. We have been following Dave Ramsey's baby steps and through hard work and provident living, we are on Baby Step 3. That means we have no debt outside of our home mortgage and are working on our 3-6 month emergency fund. With our savings, an even more frugal living effort, and his severance, we will be able to survive in semi-comfort for a while. And if we find a job relatively soon, we should be able to quickly complete Baby Step 3 and move on to Baby Steps 4 and 5 in quick succession. We are both anxious to be on Baby Step 6 (paying off our mortgage)! It was thrilling when we received his last official paycheck last week to actually put $500 into savings!

Love has his bad days where he feels defeated because he's not out there providing for his family. But Princess1 and Princess2 are LOVING having Daddy home. I'm liking it too because I can sometimes go to the store, just me. Or go visiting teaching without having to find a babysitter. Princess1 and Princess2 will have a ROUGH time when Daddy finally does go back to work (which means I will have a rough time too). In the meantime, we are loving having Daddy around more.

As for the job hunt, we keep looking, applying and interviewing (yes, he's had a few interviews but no offers yet). I think the worst for Love is waiting to hear after the interview. So if you hear of an opening for a Network Engineer, let us know. I'm going to work on posting his resume this week.

WFMW - Smoothies

2009-06-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

We are THAT Family is hosting Works for Me Wednesday! I love Wednesdays - I learn so many tips!

Here's what works for me this week, or more this summer. My family loves smoothies! So I decided to share my smoothie "recipe".

Pour into your blender 2 cups of juice (my husband prefers orange juice)/lemonade/limeade.

Add:
4-6 oz yogurt, any complimentary flavor
2 handfuls frozen fruit
1-2 handfuls ice

Blend until smooth. Taste test for proportions (I usually want to add a little more frozen pineapple or peach).

Pour into cups with a straw (go skimpy on the kids cup though - I hate to find a half-filled smoothie cup later when I could have had more).

If you want to make it creamier, you can use some ice cream, frozen yogurt or sherbet instead of some of the fruit and ice.

And now that I've made myself want to go make a smoothie, that works for me!

Free Movies at Founders Park

2009-06-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

2009 Movie Lineup - Just Released!-->
July 10 – “Singin' In the Rain” (NR)
July 11 – “The Bucket List” (PG-13)
July 17 – “Igor” (PG)
July 18 – “Ocean's Thirteen” (PG-13)
July 24 – “Madagascar 2: Escape from Africa” (PG)
July 25 – “He's Just Not That Into You” (PG-13)
July 31 – “Kung Fu Panda” (PG)
August 1 – “Iron Man” (PG-13)
August 7 – “The Tale of Despereaux” (G)
August 8 – “The Express” (PG)
August 14 – “Hotel for Dogs” (PG)
August 15 – “Swing Vote” (PG-13)
August 21 – “Wall-E” (G)
August 22 – “Hannah Montana The Movie” (G)
August 28 – “High School Musical 3” (G)
August 29 – “West Side Story” (NR)

I see several that I want to put on our schedule. Maybe we'll see you there.

Hawaiian Haystacks

2009-06-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

I made Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner tonight and told everybody on Facebook that's what I was making. In just a short time, I got 2 requests for the recipe (or maybe they just wanted to come eat?). Do I'm posting it here for everyone to enjoy. Now this is the recipe the way I make it (following the instructions from my friend, Mom McIlquham). But if you want to cheat, you could use boneless skinless chicken breast and store bought chicken broth. But you won't feel like Molly Mormon :) if you do. I am a blogger but not a professional blogger - so no pictures of me making this or of a completed serving on a pretty plate.

First you make your chicken mix and broth.

Chicken Mix...
Place 4-5 lb whole chicken into 4 quarts of water with 4 carrots (peeled and cut up), 3 T parsley, 2 t basil, 4 t salt and 1/2 t pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
Save the broth you've created and put it in the refrigerator. Let chicken cool. Then remove bones and skin. Cut up the chicken meat - that's your chicken mix. Skim the fat off your broth and freeze extra broth.

Hawaiian Haystacks

2 cups chicken mix2 cans cr. chicken soup1 cup chicken brothMix together in pot and heat until warm/hot.
Serve with rice and toppings - your choice what you put on your plate.Rice
Chicken Mix
Chow Mein Noodles
Tomatoes
Pineapple chunks
chopped green onions
slivered almonds coconut
shredded cheddar cheese

You will need to then save your extra chicken mix and broth in 2 cup containers in the freezer. I actually prefer my own broth - much cheaper, I know how much salt is in it and I skim off the fat to make it "low-fat" broth.

Enjoy!

WFMW - Giving Beggar her pills

2009-06-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today's Works for Me Wednesday has the theme of Mom I'm Bored. I haven't figured out how to deal with that yet. My 6 y/o has just started saying she's bored or that she has nothing to do. I normally respond with "Then go clean your room". That normally stops the complaining - although it does little to get her room clean. On that front, we'll be following LazyOrganizer's notebook idea for the summer and see if that works to motivate her.

But my tip of the week is how I'm giving my cat her medicine. We realized that our female cat, Beggar, has been having seizures. Her vet recommended that we try seizure medicine to see if it helped. The first day I tortured both her and me by sitting on my bed with the cat crammed between my legs, holding her head still and prying open her mouth with one hand while trying to toss the pill down her throat with the other. And no, she did not take this calmly.

I finally got a lightbulb and off to Dillon's I went. I bought her some new treats - soft ones. Now, I put her pill in the middle of a treat. Smash it around the pill. Add a couple normal treats and put them in front of her. She gobbles them whole and we're done. I'm thrilled because I know she's getting her medicine (and it is helping). She's very happy (and so is Malley, our other cat) because she's getting treats twice a day now.

And that Works for me!

Free Kids Movies at Campbell 16 Cine

2009-05-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

Wehrenberg has posted the schedule for free movies this summer, including at our Campbell 16 Cine.

Here's the schedule....

6/3-4 Open Season 2
6/10-11 Kung Fu Panda
6/17-18 Tale of Despereaux
6/24-25 Madagascar 2
7/1-7/2 Stuart Little 3
7/8-9 Marley and Me
7/15-16 Space Chimps
7/22-23 Hotel for Dogs
7/29-30 Bees
8/5-6 Happy Feet

Not sure how many we'll make it to but I'm interested in Kung Fu Panda and Tale of Despereaux.

Price Cutter deals 5/20-5/26

2009-05-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Price Cutter had quite a few deals that I wanted to take advantage of this afternoon. Sadly, I apparently lost my list while at Dillon's this morning. But here's what I managed to get. (I'm posting today so you have time to grab some of these deals too.)

Kraft cheese, including 2%, is on sale for $1.59 for 6-8 oz packages.
I used my $1/1 coupons from here and my $1/2 coupons from here and here.
Final price ranged from $0.59 to $1.09 per package of cheese.

Nabisco crackers - Wheat Thins and Triscuits were 2/$3.49 and I had $1/1 coupons from here. I bought 4 boxes at $0.75 and 0.74 each.

Reser's (potato salad, coleslaw 3 lb) is on sale for $2.50 and I had $1/1 coupons from here.

Corn on the cob is 10/$1.

And I found Large eggs for 0.69 dozen.

Roma tomatoes are also on sale for 0.89 per pound.

I totally enjoyed my shopping trip! I hope you enjoy your's.

WFMW - Wii My Fitness Coach Review

2009-05-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how many great ideas I have for a Works for Me Wednesday post until Wednesday comes and I go blank. But what I'm sharing about today is My Fitness Coach for Wii.

I never seem to have time to workout. I tried a 3 month gym membership this winter and it worked for a while. Then my 2 y/o got sick, immediately followed by me being sick. That lasted for a month to 6 weeks. So we started back up, with one month left in our membership. And I went regularly. Maybe not every day but 3-4 days a week. And then for the last week of our membership, an ice storm hit and that was that.

My husband had been suggesting that with some tax refund funds, we purchase the Wii Fit. So I looked into and in the process saw the My Fitness Coach. I compared the two and really liked My Fitness Coach better. Several reasons... 1) lower cost 2) per review comparisons, has a warm up and cool down, better than Wii Fit 3) seemed to have more no- and low-impact exercise and 4) I liked that it regularly evaluates your fitness and helps you set goals. So we ordered it and I anxiously awaited it's arrival - to only get sick again for a few weeks.

Once I tried it, I immediately loved it! Here's what I love...
1) I can set my workout time for as low as 15 minutes and still feel like I've worked out. So even on my very busy days, I can usually get some kind of workout in.
2) "Maya" is encouraging and never mean (a friend who has Wii Fit says it can be quite rude to you).
3) I earn new environments to work out in as well as new music as I work out per my commitment calendar.
4) Every time I workout it's different. The exercises change as well as how long you do each one. The recommended type of workout varies each day (I always choose what "Maya" recommends for the day but I could pick differently if I wanted to). As I progress in my abilities, new exercises are added and existing exercises become more challenging.
5) Periodic evaluations of an individual workout. After each segment of a workout, "Maya" asks how I felt during the segment to make adjustments for next time. So when the "corkscrew" exercise was too much, the next day's workout was a little less intense.
6) There is a 3 minute warm up for each workout and some cool down.
7) It asks what equipment I have that I want to use for workouts. You can change this daily if you need to.
8) If I could convince my husband to workout with me, there is a group workout option that looks at his profile and mine to give us both a decent workout together.

What I don't like or wish they'd improve...
1) There's isn't an option to make a workout low impact. Fortunately, I'm comfortable in knowing how to convert a higher impact move to low impact. I have bad feet (manufacturer's defect) so I don't jump or run (except if my child is in danger).
2) I wish the cool down was longer with more stretching.
3) You create your profile, generally your name. As a great feature, it would be nice if "Maya" used your name in her motivating comments. (Wish list but not a necessity)
4) At the beginning of a workout, I wish it told me whether or not it was going to use my available equipment. It's a pain to get out my exercise ball and then it's not used.
5) I would like to add resistance bands to the list of equipment and use in the exercises.

Overall, I LOVE this exercise program! It was affordable. Because of the constant change, I'm never bored so I want to do it every day. It allows me to choose how long I want to work out for. Although 15 minutes may not be much, it's something and something is ALWAYS better than nothing. I highly recommend this program!

And if you want to see something really fun, have a group of kindergarteners do the workout with you :)

For more Works for Me Wednesday posts, go to We are THAT Family and enjoy!

Just for Ashley

2009-05-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

I mainly post to give ideas of what works for me rather than what I'm struggling with. But just for my friend Ashley (no one else should read this post) who posted about being Honest on our blogs late last night, I'm going to tell my struggle with depression and anxiety.

My senior year of high school, I had my first anxiety attack but didn't know what it was but knew it was triggered by the stress of too many responsibilities. During college, I had one or two anxiety attacks, still not knowing what they were. I remember the attacks but not what triggered them. I also had several bouts of depression that were successfully treated with the appropriate meds.

Then in the fall of 2001, I went to the doctor because I felt another depression coming on and he started me on meds again. A few weeks later, I had a major anxiety attack at work. My arms and legs started shaking uncontrollably (I can still remember how this felt). Adam brought me home where I proceeded to veg in front of movies and cross-stitch with some comfort foods - cheese curls, ice cream and chocolate (not mixed).

I went back to my doctor and described how I had felt and what had happened. He decided that instead of being depressed, I was actually having anxiety due to the extreme stress at work . I ended up being off work for a month then came back part-time for another month. I was still on the same project at work but no longer in charge of it. I saw a psychologist to help with stress management and she suggested I might have had a stroke during the attack (remember for later in my story).

One of the things I learned... Depression meds take the serotonin your body naturally produces and helps prolong it. The anxiety med I was on actually helped create serotonin because I wasn't producing enough myself.

As I went back to work, I couldn't multi-task like I used to (one of the reasons I was so successful). And I definitely couldn't handle major projects as being the one in charge. My boss and coworkers who witnessed the attack were all paranoid that I would have another attack and almost tiptoed around me.

This is the real reason I quit working, not because Kaylyn was born. I actually turned in my resignation months before we even heard about a baby coming (he fell through and we found out about Kaylyn came a few weeks after I stopped working). It was time for me to be at home. Work was too much, at least that job. If Kaylyn hadn't come along, I probably would have eventually gone back to a job, more task oriented than responsibility oriented though.

When Kaylyn was 6 months old, I started having tingling sensations in my hands and feet. After many tests and years of research, my doctor and I decided I have peripheral neuropathy. This year, we were watching NCIS and they mentioned that peripheral neuropathy can be a result of a stroke. Remember my earlier note about a stroke. Combine that with the fact that I still can't do multi-tasking very well, maybe I did have a stroke but who knows.

I still have anxiety attacks but can see them coming and work to head them off. I give Adam a head's up and he helps by taking on some additional responsibilities to give me some more down time. We are constantly evaluating what things I am involved in and do I need to be (and do I have a choice).

So Ashley, I may not have panic attacks of fear but I struggle too. Depression and anxiety are a constant battle and are harder to overcome than my natural tendency to be an introvert (I can be extroverted if I need to be). The Gospel helps but it can also create the stress with all the "responsibilities" and "should do"s we take on as women in the Church. But it is my rock and reminds me of the eternal perspective. Christ suffered all these things for us and with us. That's how I survive.

WFMW - dry skin remedy

2009-04-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

I was thinking I wanted to do something profound for Works for Me Wednesday over at We are THAT Family. But profoundness is not to be found :) So you get how I fixed my dry skin.

For several years, I have had such severe dry skin on my right hand that almost every day my thumb was cracked and often bleeding. The same thing with my knuckles on other fingers. My doctor gave me some special cream and told me to put it on my hand and then wear a latex (or plastic - I don't remember) glove for 30 minutes afterwards. It worked, for a week or so. But it wasn't practical. The doctor had also suggested I keep my hands out of water as much as possible. So I started wearing gloves while I wash dishes. But that wasn't practical for giving my daughters' their baths.

Finally, I had a friend start selling Mary Kay and through her I discovered their Extra Emollient Night Cream. It really worked but I still couldn't get rid of my eczema/dry skin problem. Finally, I switched lotion to St. Ives Advanced Body Moisturizer. After a few weeks of applying the lotion several times a day, plus the emollient at night, it went away. I also convinced my husband to be the primary bath giver/supervisor for our daughters.

Now I only have to use the emollient rarely, like when I've had to catch up on a kitchen full of dishes and give my daughters a bath. I can't endorse these two products enough! They have saved my hand from misery.

WFMW - Traveling with Young Kids (Backwards Edition)

2009-04-01T18:33:00.001-07:00

So today is Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family. I LOVE WFMW! Especially today - it's backwards edition and I've been hoping for one of those. So here's my request. We are taking a LONG trip this summer to Southern California (from the Midwest) so my girls will be in their seats for a LONG time (caps are fully intended). I want to keep them entertained, using the DVD player only minimally.

Here's my plan. We are getting a triptik from AAA. On each page of the TripTik, I want to have an activity written on it for the girls. Examples are Sing Silly Songs, Watch a video - K's choice, ABC game, color a picture, open a present (toys/activities they can play in the van).

So what I need from you are your inexpensive to free ideas for activities both my girls, ages 6 y/o and 2 y/o, can do in the van as we drive. I'm figuring I will have 100 pages to write on and some can be duplicates but I want a lot of variety. Although my 2 y/o is brilliant, she can't write and it's difficult for her to see much outside of the van. The 6 y/o is reading but isn't ready for the state license plate game (although DH and I play it most long trips).

So let's see what you come up with....

WFMW - Housekeeping for the non-housekeeper

2009-02-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

I am not good at housekeeping. I never have been. Just ask my sister who had to share a room with me growing up. Of course, she's always been a neat freak. She would be grumbling as she picked up my clothes and took them to the bathroom hamper before I even finished putting on my pajamas at night. Her house is always still perfectly made up at all times. Anyone who's been to my house knows that is not the case here. Add to the fact that I am not a natural housekeeper that I get tired easily and distracted/overwhelmed by all that I need to do, I have to have a system. Sometimes I forget to do part of my system but when I do it, it really works! Ask Adam how much better the house looked on Monday when he got home from work!

So what's my system? First have a plan. I have a master list that hangs up in my kitchen of my daily chores. I use it to keep myself on track. I don't have a time schedule, it's an order schedule.

1) start laundry
2) Kitties - litter boxes!!! and food/water
3) Kitchen AM
4) Master bathroom
5) Master bedroom
6) Guest Bathroom AM
7) Living Room
8) Weekly chores
9) Kitchen PM
10) Guest Bathroom PM

Almost everything has a detailed how-to posted in it's appropriate room. I think I've only made it through the entire list a few times and sometimes when company is coming #7 gets done after 3. But each day I start some laundry and take care of the kitties first. Then I do the Kitchen AM chores. Now in between I can get distracted by phone calls, the computer, my daughters.

Looking at the list, you may wonder why if it's seen by all guests, the living room isn't first on the list. A number of years ago, President Monson gave a talk about cleaning out the corners and then the rest takes care of itself. His point was if you focus on the corners, then the middle of the room will naturally become clean. If the living room is constantly seen by our family as well as guests, it is automatically kept cleaner. If my bathroom was at the bottom of the list because no one but our family sees it, it would probably NEVER get cleaned.

How do I deal with getting tired or distracted by my want to dos? I set a timer. I "work" for 20 minutes then I get 10-20 minutes depending on the day to do other things. Morgan tags along with me to do the chores. For some reason, she especially loves being with me as I clean out litter boxes and sweep around them. And even more of a love for her is the dishwasher. Now if she would only let the dirty dishes stay in the dishwasher to get washed.

This system Works for me (when I remember to do it)! For more Works for Me Wednesday, go to Rocks in my Dryer.

WFMW - School Birthday Treats

2009-02-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

My daughter turned 6 last Wednesday. But it was a snow/ice day so no school. We finally went back on Friday, but Kaylyn complained about her tummy hurting, so she stayed home. So finally on Monday, she got to go to school. She was so excited because she had me bringing in birthday treats for her class.

Our public schools do not allow you to bring homemade items for treats. They must be store bought. Ugh! Expensive when you are buying for 24 kids. Last year for preschool (also part of the public schools), we got the idea of buying the ice cream sandwiches from Sam's Club. They were a major hit so this year we decided to do a repeat. It's 36 sandwiches for $6.74! When they saw ice cream, all the kids were excited.

Simple. Less expensive than alternatives. Delicious, with leftovers! Works for me!

For more, Works for Me Wednesday, check out Rocks in My Dryer.

WhyI love TOFW

2008-12-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Apparently DeseretBook has started posting videos. I was sent a link to two of them from TOFW. They show exactly why I love TOFW and why I love Hilary Weeks, not just her beautiful worshipping music, but also her fun music. Here are the two examples. You HAVE to watch them.

http://deseretbook.com/video/view/61

http://deseretbook.com/video/view/62

WFMW - Being frugal with our resources

2008-07-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have been reading quite a few blogs lately that are giving me ideas on being frugal. So I thought I'd share a few of the things that we do to make wise use of our resources. These are not in any order, other than what I thought of as I wrote them

1. Check out movies from the library rather than the video store.

2. Rent movies using free rental codes from Redbox

3. Ride bikes rather than drive - Adam rides to work most days and we ride to church most Sundays.

4. Buy bread at bakery outlet.

5. Buy milk at Braum's.

6. My friend Rachel helped me yesterday to put up a clothesline to use my dryer less.

7. Coupons, coupons, coupons. And match to ads.

8. Turn up the thermostat for summer and use ceiling fans. We've turned it up a degree at a time but I think we've hit our max for comfort, even when using ceiling fans.

9. Turn off the lights. (I follow Kaylyn around and turn off lights.)

10. Use envelope system for budget. We take out cash each payday for groceries, household items, date money, "allowance"/whatever you want money, healthcare, and food storage. This helps us be very aware when we're nearing the end of the money and helps us not go over budget (at least not too far).

Deals I'm doing this week

2008-07-22T06:54:00.000-07:00

I've been really focused on deals and coupons for the past few months. I generally get 6-8 sets of coupons each Sunday so that I can stock up when I find a good deal. I keep thinking that I'll post what coupons I am willing to give away - so keep an eye on this blog.

Here are deals I spotted in the Sunday ads. Note: Q=Coupons

Walgreen's
PaperMate Mechanical Pencils 5 cents
Chex Mix 2/$3 (I have 50 cent Q)
Dentyne Ice 3pk 2/$3
(we generally buy at Sams Club in 12 packs for 7.86 but this deal is cheaper)
Expo Dry Erase Markers 1.99
(Target has these on sale too but they're much more than this and they're on Kaylyn's Kindergarten Supply List)
Puffs 2/$3 (I normally buy in 3 pack at WalMart for about 1.68 a box)

KMart
Suddenly Salad 10/$10 (Q for .50 off 2 = final price = .75/box)
Betty Crocker Brownie Mix 10$10 (Q for .75 off 2 (Supreme - need to find out if these will work)) (Also have Q for .50 off 2 (again Supreme))
Kraft Salad Dressing 2/$4

Happy shopping :)