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Thursday, November 5, 2009

No Spend November: A Couple Yummy Recipes

Here is one of my husband's favorite breakfast dishes, actually I'm pretty sure he'd eat it anytime. :)

Egg Burrito Casserole

1 lb.
turkey sausage
2 c. hashbrown potatoes
8 eggs
3/4 c. sour cream
1 c. cream of chicken soup
8 whole wheat tortillas
1 c. cheese

Mix sour cream and cream of chicken soup in bowl.

Spread one half of mixture on the bottom of 9x13 pan.

Prepare turkey sausage and cook potatoes thoroughly.


Scramble eggs until stiff. Add sausage and potatoes to eggs. Stir.
Put egg mixture in tortillas and wrap. Spread remaining sour cream mixture on the top of rolled burritos.
Cover with cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.


Simple Apples
Peel, core, and cut 7 medium to large apples. Add 1/2 c. of butter, 2 tbsp. of rapadura, and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Bring to a boil and then simmer until desired consistency.


How about y'all do you have any yummy, simple and frugal recipes?






Think For Myself Thursday: My Role

*Disclaimer: I know that not all people will agree with my views. These are my views. I am a messenger of what I believe God wants me to share. Therefore, opinions and comments are welcome but please in a loving manner.*
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; ... Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. [Can’t submit to husband if don’t submit to Christ.] For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Eph 5:18, 22-24
This might surprise you (okay... please just appease me!:)), but submission is not my strong suit. I am not a woman that takes being told what to do well. In fact, if you tell me to do something in just the wrong way, I will probably do the other just in spite of you. I'm not proud of it, but I have proclaimed honesty on my blog.
God has called women to be helpmeets to their husbands, submit, and be a loving mother. God calls us not only to submit to our husbands but to submit to Him first. Without God, it is almost impossible to submit to our husbands (or at least I know I struggle). If you put God in your front most focus, loving your husband and submitting comes easier.
Now when people used to say the word submitting, I would picture this "seen and not heard woman" and I would just roll my eyes. After much prayer and seeking God, I had a new prospective on submitting. Now when I think of submitting, I think of placing Andy's needs and desires in front of my own.
Now, I'm going to be honest, I struggle with this a lot. In this post, I talk about how I struggle with it being all about me. My friend and fellow only child, Rick, calls it "only child syndrome".
Putting Andy's desires and needs in front of mine is really hard. So many times, I just want a break from the boys by the time he gets home. I "drop and run". Here's the kids- BYE! I have really been working on taking care of the boys all evening.
Another issue I struggle with is intimacy. I so often find myself exhausted and after a long day not wanting to be touched or messed with. I find myself often just wanting to "be". Then, I go to bed feeling guilty and Andy feeling unloved and unappreciated. I hate that often I am so wrapped up in how I feel that I often forget Andy's needs.
Now I have to be honest, it's funny to me that when I seek after the Lord and His will for my marriage and myself, I feel more willing and closer to Andy. Often times in life I find that I search and search for answers and happiness in other things and after I have exhausted all over options, I seek the Lord. He fills me up immediately! So why, I must ask, is the thing that I am searching for always the last resort?
Okay... Removing on with my rant... I know that sometimes, it is necessary for the mother of the home to work also. But, after a long of struggling with being a wife, mother and homemaker, I have found that my place is in the home, taking care of the blessings the Lord has given me. I know that that isn't always the opinion of everyone else but it's mine. I feel the Lord has called me to be where I am.
I find it funny that a lot of women go back to work when their kids get back in school. They think that it is vital for them to be home when their children are young. I have a different opinion on that. I think that it is vital for mother's to be home when their adolescents and teens are coming home. Trying to get through high school was one of my hardest times. I do not want my children to be coming home to an empty house. I want to be there to answer questions, wiping tears, and giving out hugs and kisses.
In my opinion, women should be a huge part of the homemaking tasks. In my opinion, the majority of the cooking and cleaning falls to the mother/wife in the home. My husband goes to a long day of work. Working hard to bring home money and take care of our family, I feel that I should not ask a lot of him when he gets home. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a foot bath ready for him when he gets home but I try to have the things he likes in place (a semi-clean home, dinner on the way, the kids and I dressed and looking presentable). I cannot imagine working a long day at work and then coming home and Andy still be in his PJ's and the kids not taken care of. I would lose my mind! Now don't get me wrong, there are some days when we are sick and no one wants to get dressed and we just lay on the couch. Those days are few and far between!
So if y'all are still with me after this long post, I appreciate it and I hope you see some of my points. AND I hope you're not mad at me!

Things I Love Thursday: My Favorite Kitchen Gadget!

Going with the theme of food this week, I wanted to share a Thing I LOVE in the kitchen.

I think this handy, dandy kitchen gadget is much more than something to help you prepare meals, it is something to help you save money!!


Would anyone like to take a ponder and guess?!?

Ok... ok... I'll tell you... Drum roll please....ddrrrrrrrrrrd...

Whoever invented this suckers should have won a Nobel Prize (is that possible for kitchen gadgets!?)!

I don't know how anyone could have ever worked (lived) in the kitchen without them! There is not one kitchen task that I do that does not involve a spatula.

I have found also, a spatula saves our family a lot of money. When you use a spatula to remove food from bowls, I find that we "spatula out" an extra serving. AN EXTRA SERVING?!? That is lunch for my husband tomorrow.

The lesson of this post, if you do not own a spatula... RUN! to the nearest store and grab yourself one of these handy, dandy kitchen gadgets!
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This is linked to
Things I Love Thursday.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Organic Garden Carnival

I know that I really should not be taking part in this carnival this week, I just have so many posts going out but I wanted to share my gardening experience with you all from this past summer.
This was the first summer we had a "sizable" garden. My grandparents offered us a plot of their land. The only catch was that if it wasn't taken proper care of, they were going to plow it under.

Here are the vegetables we planted:
  • potatoes
  • carrots
  • beets
  • broccoli
  • green beans
  • tomatoes
  • cucumbers
  • peppers
  • onions
  • various herbs
  • corn-- family combined and did multiple acres and divided work.
And here are a few things I learned this year:
  • Potatoes-1)I need to put my potatoes in earlier. I didn't get them in until around July. By the time it was starting to really get cold and wet around here, they were not as big as I would have liked. 2) Do not dig as closely to the potatoes. I speared a lot of them when I was trying to dig them out. 3) When harvesting them, do not stack them on top of one another (if one goes bad, all that are around it go bad).
  • Carrots- Weeding is vital especially in the beginning. The weeds suck the nourishment right out of the ground. Also, plant with radishes in between. I don't like radishes so I kept telling my Grandpa "no", but it would have been oh so much easier to see them.
  • Beets- See carrots.
  • Broccoli- I really needed to use nets. The broccoli got some kind of bug/worm in them. I tried soaking them in salt water but by the time I was done (and there were STILL inhabitants), I was so grossed out, I couldn't even eat them.
  • Green Beans- I really don't like to put anything on my garden but the Japanese beatles were eating my green beans alive. I went to Lowe's and though it's not organic, I bought Sevin-5. I sprinkled it as lightly as possible, actually I used hardly any at all, and the insects RAN as fast as the could. I've never seen anything like it.
  • Tomatoes- OH tomatoes... I bought out too many tomato bushes. The lesson I learned this year, don't put out as many and take better care of fewer. I put out 47 plants. That is way too many to stake and they fell and they rotted and I was so upset. I still got a lot of tomatoes off but I just felt so wasteful. So next year, I am being more choosy with my variety and I am taking better care of less. Here is a post on how to easily cook-down tomatoes.
  • Cucumbers- Cucumber plants bear a lot of cucumbers. I would say cut back on the number of plants (I had 9). I have way too much relish and pickles.
  • Peppers- I never have much problem with peppers. I would like to put more out next year.
  • Onions- I did not plant enough (believe it or not, I didn't plant enough of something!). I would have liked more onions to keep for through winter but I just didn't plant enough. Maybe next year?
  • Various herbs- I am still learning and could use a lot of help in this area. Any takers? :
  • Corn- We got our own corn planter so next year we will be spreading the planting out. This year all the family rushed to put out like 4 acres of sweet corn in like three weeks. It was raining like crazy. We had our big ol' rubber boots on and were tromping through the mud. I think that was the three most unhappiest weeks I've ever seen from my children. Oh does anyone want to sure how to get all those blasted silks off corn?!? UGH!! I'm still finding silks everywhere!!
I have shared here and here how blessed we were by our garden. We not only put up a ton of food for ourselves but were able to give to others in the family(a lot of our family has been laid off) and others in the community who cannot afford fresh produce. It was truly amazing!

Now I am going to re-run some pictures from this summers canning. If you've seen them all, go ahead and "hit the x". :)

Here are just a FEW of my jars, click here to see them all.

For more hard-earned wisdom, head over to Stephanie's blog.

No Spend Novermber: Eating at Home


So can anyone tell me the point of spending all that hard earned money on groceries if you're not going to use them? Do YOU know where your kitchen is?

I remember when my husband and I first got married (and I am still guilty of this), I spent all this money on groceries and had the best of intentions but I NEVER used the groceries.

Reading Mary Hunt's book Live Your Life for Half the Price: Without Sacrificing the Life You Love , was a great resource that challenged me to actually use my kitchen and not just intend on using it.

I am not an incredible cook, but if you give me a recipe, I can pretty much follow it. At our home, I do not make big and extravagent meals. They are healthy, hearty and simple.

I don't want to waste a bunch of time making a big meal and only my husband eats it. With having small children (who are not picky eaters), I am just not at a place in life where I have the time or the patience to try and get them to eat dishes that are fancy. I hope that one day, I will get the chance.

I use the crockpot a lot! I love getting up in the morning when my energy is higher and getting dinner out of the way. It also gives us flexibility in when we eat.

Eating at home not only saves money, but many, many of my favorite memories are made around the table.

When we go out to eat, the boys are ususally loud and I feel like the whole time I am embarassed or frustrated. There is just something about being at home to eat that keeps my kids more calm and me at ease.

So today, I challenge you to try to find Mary Hunt's book at the library, find your kitchen and make some simple dishes for meals.

Later this week, I will be sharing some of my hard-earned, simple, yummy recipes.

(For today, I am not even going to get on my soap-box about how much more healthy eating at home is for you and your family. We will leave that lecture for another day! :) )

Here are a few pictures of my kids eating. There are a lot of Lincoln because he is only happy when he's eating, therfore I take lots of pictures when he's eating! :)


















































Wordless Wednesday: Warmth

This is at my family's annual big farm bonfire and hayride party. My dad is trying to keep warm with a lot of help from the fire. Shortly after this, the guys throw like eight pallets on and everyone went running away from the fire. I love the look of the fire in this picture!
For more Wordless Wednesday click here!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

No Spend November: Days 2 and 3



Day 2- November 2, 2009

I did not spend anything. We were at home all day. However, I was very close to buying some of Laura's e-books, but I didn't. That is the first thing I am going to buy when we have money!

Day 3- November 3, 2009

-Impromptu play date at BK (ugh!) $9.57
- Kroger (milk, cheese, frozen pizza) $10.99

So I'm not doing too bad, but my impromptu spending is quickly leaving. Oh well! I'm spending great time with friends!