Please Excuse the Dust!

Please excuse the dust while I am working at changing some things on my blog.

Hopefully come next week it will have a new look! Also next week, I am planning on sharing what direction I am going with my blog!

Stay tuned to see and read about all the changes!

Works for Me Wednesday--Puzzle Art

I love doing puzzles! I could sit for hours just working on a puzzle. I like to do the outside of the puzzle first and work my way around the inside. I like to keep my pieces in the box and work to find the pieces that way rather than sorting them out by colors or laying them out on the table. However, I am one of those people who once I do a puzzle I don't want to take apart and do it over again at a different time. All that time, energy and work isn't going to be wasted to do it again. So once we got our house, I have purchased puzzles to put together specifically for hanging as art on the wall.

Here is a puzzle of all the different United States flags. I put it together in about 3 hours. I used puzzle glue on it to preserve it. Then I framed it in a poster frame to protect it and make it easier to dust. I now have it hanging in my red, white, and blue kitchen/eating area.


Here is one of the two Thomas Kinkade painting puzzles I have done recently. I got the puzzles as a gift from my parents and decided to hang them in my bedroom. These were a bit trickier to frame as they were circular puzzles. My hubby decided to take it to Michael's and have their custom framing department frame it. He used their 60% off sale as well. He got one of the them just matted so that we could interchange them in the frame. So to get 2 puzzles matted and one framed. It cost $230. This is alot cheaper than just purchasing a framed Thomas Kinkade painting.

So doing puzzles to relieve stress and to hang on what would be bare walls otherwise works for me!

To find out what works for others, head over to Rocks in My Dryer for Works for Me Wednesday!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday--Freezing Mashed Bananas

You can tell that fall is here because the weather in my neck of the woods can not make up its mind as to whether we are going to have 80 degree days or if we are going to have 60 degree days!!

With the "yo-yo weather" and us in our 4th week of school it has been hard to plan my baking days. So this past weekend instead of letting 9 bananas go bad on my counter, I took the time to mash them and stick them in the freezer for making banana bread when the weather is a bit cooler.
Here is how I prepared them...

I mashed 6 bananas and stirred in about 2 TBSP. lemon juice to the bananas to help them not to brown in the freezer. Then I put them in a freezer bag and labeled the bag with "bananas 6" that way I know it is a bag ready for a double batch of my banana bread. I did the same with the last 3 bananas...mashed and bagged them but a "3" as part of the label...this will make a single batch!
Oh and notice how I stuck the bag in a container and folded the top down. I did it that way so that I didn't have to try to hold the bag, dish and get the bananas in the bag without making a huge mess. Folding the top down on the bag helps to not get banana mush in zipper part of the bag!

Here is the bag after the bananas have been frozen for two days! See how yellow they still look!
I like doing up the bananas this way rather than some of the other ways I have read that bananas can be frozen, because they are a flat rather than odd shape like throwing them in the freezer as a bunch. Think....space saving!!

As for thawing the bananas, I set them in a dish on the counter for a couple of hours and they are thawed enough to use in the banana bread batter.

Oh and just in case your wondering if they end up being too watery for using in banana bread...not for my recipe which calls for whole wheat flour. The batter ends up being just the right consistency.

This is how I freeze mashed bananas! For more great kitchen tips and recipes from others; head over to Tammy's Recipes!!

My Shopping Methods

Two weeks ago, Kristin over at BeCentable contacted me asking if I would share my shopping "story" because according to her "your monthly process would be a good counter to the typical weekly shoppers most of us are!" I chuckled when I read that and felt honored to share my story. This past Saturday, I had the privilege to share my "story" in how I do the shopping for my family over at BeCentable's Centsable Savings Stories & Struggles. Here is my story...

Background: I have been married for 12 ½ years and for 11 ½ years I have been a stay at home mom. I also home school my 5 children—ages 12yo-22 months. So far in our marriage, my hubby has had 7 different jobs along with four different times of unemployment (two times of unemployment were over 6 months). Usually the unemployment would come as a surprise to us, he would go into work one day and the manager calls him to tell him he can pack his belongings and go home. When those "surprises" have come we might not have much in our bank savings account BUT we have food on our shelves to last us at least a week (basically long enough to get our last paycheck and get filed for unemployment). Knowing that a "surprise" could come upon us again, I work at having a consistent stockpile.

Struggles: Hubby grew up eating lots of pre-packaged foods and I grew up eating from scratch and garden fresh cooking. Once we were married, I fell more into the pre-packaged food route along with very little from scratch foods to please hubby's way of eating. However, about 3 years ago, my hubby was diagnosed with high cholesterol with extremely high triglycerides along with high blood pressure. He has gotten his numbers down tremendously through medicines and me changing cooking and shopping habits. I am slowly (read ever so slowly!!) changing how I cook to more from scratch cooking rather than pre-packaged foods. However, I have to be careful as to how much I change and how many new things I cook or bake at once because I live with a bunch of picky eaters! Yes, I have picky eaters who only like certain veggies and not much in the way of fruit. I also have a bunch that doesn't like to eat beans or meatless meals! They like their protein in the form of meat!Aside from hubby's health problems and picky eaters, the other thing I have struggled with is not getting every deal I see "advertised". This struggle started when I started reading other blogs, I started thinking that maybe changing my method of grocery shopping and following other's ways would start saving me even more money. Well after 3 months of trying a "new way", I found that I didn't have any more room to put anything and I had spent way more than I had in the past! I had more items (shampoo, vitamins, toothpaste to name a few) than what we would be able to use in 6 months! My pantry was full! My linen closet was full! My freezers were full! One would think that would be a good thing—having a huge stockpile but when that stockpile is using money that you might have been able to use elsewhere or your marriage is suffering from it. Once my hubby talked to me about our stockpile, I realized that I needed to stop getting every deal that I saw on the blogs or in the ads. I needed to get back to a method that worked well for my family not someone else's!

Monthly Method: Each week, I clip coupons for only the things I know we will use and keep them in a coupon organizer. I shop the weekly sales at 2 different stores and stock up on good deals using coupons. I also go to Aldi's or Save-A-Lot to pick up any other things that I might need that were not in the sales. Then the following day after updating my "food inventory", I make weekly menus for 3 meals and 2 snacks from what I have on hand in the pantry and freezer along with doing my version of once a month cooking. I have tried making a menu before I shop and it just doesn't work!! I usually will find some markdown meat or something else on sale rather than what I had planned. So I shop this week for what I am going to use next week or the following week for meals. Shopping this way has helped me during those weeks where the good deals are slim or just not there. I also do a monthly shopping trip to Sam's club. My hubby only gets paid twice a month so recently I started trying to a major shopping trip twice a month and then the other two weeks getting stockpile items and essentials to finish up meals for the week.

Budget: If someone were to ask me what is my monthly grocery budget, I would have to say that I do not have one at least one that is set in stone. Some months I only spend around $300 for food, paper products, toiletries, and cleaners while other months it can be close to $900. However, when I do year end averages, I find that my grocery/non-grocery category averages around $500/month for the year.

Singing Sunday

Jesus Messiah
by Chris Tomlin


He became sin
Who knew no sin
That we might become His Righteousness
He humbled himself and carried the cross

Love so amazing
Love so amazing

Chorus:
Jesus Messiah
Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer
Emmanuel
The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all

His body the bread
His blood the wine
Broken and poured out all for love
The whole earth trembled
And the veil was torn

Chorus:
Jesus Messiah
Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer
Emmanuel
The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all

All I hope is in You
All I hope is in You
All the glory to You, God
The light of the world

Chorus:
Jesus Messiah
Name above all names
Blessed Redeemer
Emmanuel
The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all