Yesterday afternoon my husband picked up my oldest son from school and headed straight to South Carolina to spend some time with his parents who are visiting down there.  I was invited but chose to stay home.  I haven’t been sleeping very well and I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up on some sleep and do some things around the house.

Well, I still had trouble sleeping and still woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep.  So much for that!  But I did get several hours completely uninterrupted which is always helpful.

And now, instead of doing the cleaning I’d planned on, I’m meeting a friend for lunch in Carthage.  Oh well…this is more fun, anyway!

So while the goals I set for myself are not being met I’m still enjoying the blissful peace of the house.  They’ll be home this afternoon and I’m glad…I miss my boys, all 3 of them!

My garden is finally starting to really produce some fruit and veggies for us, so I’m looking for easy ways to use this bounty! Even better if it doesn’t involve cooking inside, as we’ve turned our a/c down to save some money. So here’s some of my favorites!

Probably my favorite is to slice up cucumbers and/or tomatoes and cover them with balsamic vinegar and water. Plain white vinegar works, too, though the flavor isn’t quite as good. Still, white vinegar is an inexpensive substitute. You can adjust the vinegar and water balance to suit your taste…I like it with a lot of vinegar but I realize I’m a freak. Super simple, and it can stay fresh for several days in the fridge. I like to use this as a substitute for tossed salad. Very healthy!

My second favorite does involve some cooking…boil some tri-color rotini or similar pasta, rinse well and allow to cool. Chop up carrots, cukes, tomatoes (I like cherry or grape tomatoes for this, but large ones work, too) and celery. Put them in a large bowl with the rotini, then add some cheddar cheese and Italian dressing to taste. If there’s anything in particular you don’t like, feel free to leave it out. The pasta and dressing and a few veggies are the only musts for this one. I usually leave out the celery and we occasionally leave out the cheese. It still tastes great and it’s also a good substitute for tossed salad. I occasionally serve it as a side and skip the bread. It’s even better the 2nd and 3rd days…I’ve been known to get a huge bowl of it for lunch and have nothing else!

This summer, we’ve discovered the deliciousness of grilled eggplant. My husband slices it into thick, round pieces, then marinates it for a little while in olive oil and seasonings to taste. He throws the slices on the grill while our meat or chicken is cooking. It’s so good with grilled chicken or steak. Even the kids eat it happily as long as we take the skin off their pieces.

We also like to grill ears of corn. Lay out a piece of foil large enough to wrap the entire ear in. Add a pat of butter or margarine, lay the corn on top, roll it as you shake some seasoning salt or other spices to your taste on it, then wrap up tightly and put on the grill while you cook your meat. The foil and corn will be very hot when you take them off, so allow to cool a bit before eating. We cut the corn off the ears for the kids so it cools faster and they can eat it a bit easier, but this isn’t necessary.

And for dessert, I love love love strawberries and whipped cream. Cap and slice the strawberries, add a little sugar and stick in the fridge for the day or overnight. When you’re ready for a sweet treat, dip some out and add a bit of whipped cream…not Cool Whip, but the real thing. I’ve been told this works well for blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, too. I’m not growing those so I haven’t tried it but it sure sounds yummy. And I don’t feel guilty about letting my kids have fruit and real whipped cream, even with the small amount of added sugar.

None of these are very labor intensive. The pasta salad especially is a big hit with our extended families. I frequently get asked to make it for holiday meals or potluck style dinners. I’m going to be sad when I can’t wander out to the backyard and pick some veggies for dinner every night!

I’m feeling much better these days and I’ve started looking around and seeing all of the stuff that has been neglected while I coped with first trimester sickies and exhaustion.  It’s overwhelming, and I really don’t know how I’ll ever get it cleaned up.  But a friend sent me this, and I had to share it!

Some houses try to hide the fact
That children shelter there,
Ours boasts it quite openly,
The signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows,
Little smudges are on the doors
I should apologize, I guess
For toys strew on the floor.

But I sat down with my child
And we played and laughed and read
And if the doorbell doesn’t shine,
His eyes will shine instead.

For when at times I’m forced to choose
The one job or the other,
I’d like to cook and clean and scrub,
But first I’ll be a mother.

Author Unknown

When I have to pick and choose which activities I can manage on any given day, the house always comes last.  My kids are so much more fun, anyway!

And now I’m off to clean my master bathroom from top to bottom.  Bathrooms are my least favorite chore, but I’m going to start with the smallest rooms and work my way up.  At least one room a day until I get this house back into presentable shape!  Of course today is Friday and I’ll probably lose steam this weekend, but it’s a start.  With any luck, I won’t be embarrassed for people to see this place by the end of next week.  And I’m thinking about picking back up with the Weekly Challenge.  You may have noticed that it stopped right around the time I found out I was pregnant.  OOPS!  Needless to say, I need that motivator.

Our savings is starting to dwindle, so it was time to figure out where we can save some money in our monthly budget.  We’ve already stopped going out to eat for the most part and are making weekly meal plans which helps us avoid the “what do you want for dinner?” trap that usually ends in us going out.  Since we’re upgrading our super cheap, bare bones cell phone plan to add a lot more minutes as well as data, we thought we might drop our land line.  So I called Windstream this morning to figure out how much that would save us.

Unfortunately, not enough.  If we drop our phone service, our Dish network bill goes up by $5/month, plus our DSL goes up by $20/month.  There goes that savings!  Ugh…it’s so frustrating!  And we HAVE to add minutes to our cell plan…our bill last month was more than double it’s normal rate because my husband is using his cell exclusively for business calls.  So if I can pay double the bill we have now and either pay an insane amount for overage or pay a bit less than double and get 1500 minutes + unlimited data, then it only makes good sense to do that.  We’ll eventually be billing it to the business, but since there’s no income there yet it does present a minor obstacle.

I did drop some of our phone services, as well as dropping our Dish plan down a notch.  I wonder how long it will take before people start to notice the missing channels and I get complained at?  (Yes, I know that’s terrible grammar.  Deal.)  It will save us $30/month.  Which really isn’t much when your income is zero, but it’s a start.  Our electric is currently on an equal pay plan, so I can’t do much better with that, and we’re already pretty conservative with the water use.  I guess if the income doesn’t start in a month or 2 we’ll have to get really crazy…maybe drop Dish completely (I think I might die if we did this!) and eat the expenses involved with dropping our land line.  We wouldn’t save a ton, but it would save us a bit anyway.  We had really gotten spoiled with the good income and when it suddenly disappears, it hurts.

I’ve been feeling so bad lately that we’ve been going out to eat most nights.  And sometimes lunch as well.  With our financial situation being what it is, this HAS to stop.  So, today I sat down to make a list of meals that I’d like to have and looked up recipes.  I’m making my grocery list and expect that the 5 meals I’ve chosen will feed us for the week.  With school starting next week for my *kindergartener* (Gack!  How do I have a kindergartener???) it’s going to be crazy.  We’ve got Open House on Monday where we meet our teacher, t-ball practice on Tuesday, and Parent’s Night on Thursday, so we need to have some easy leftovers those nights.

We decided on these meals:

Buffalo Chicken — This is something I’ve been craving, and even cutting it in half should leave us plenty of leftovers!

Red Beans & Rice — My husband and I love Cajun food, and we’ve done this one many times before but it’s been a while.  Our 2 year old has been loving beans lately and he’s always been a rice lover, so we thought we’d pull this one out and see if he liked it.

Chicken Enchiladas — I was reading a book last night and the character made chicken enchiladas and that was all it took to make me wish I had some.  This is a new recipe, so we’ll see how it tastes!

Lasagna — Again with the book reading making a craving.  I love lasagna but haven’t found *the* recipe yet.  I’m taking a shot with this one.

Southwestern Polenta Casserole — A tried and true recipe at our house.  My husband created this one and it is SO yummy!  Sort of a Southwestern lasagna, but with polenta rather than noodles or tortillas.

I don’t know what we’ll make when, but I’ll try to recap how the new things turned out.  I’m really hoping that I can add a couple of new things to my (somewhat limited) repertoire!

For those of you who live in a cave, it’s been FREAKING HOT here in Sanford the last several days. We’ve hit 100 a couple of times now and it’s barely the first week of June. I foresee a loooooooooong, hot, miserable summer.

Growing up, I spent my summers on the lake. My dad bought a boat the summer I was 6 and we spent weekends swimming, skiing, and enjoying the water on beautiful Lake Tellico. Sometime during my middle school years, my parents bought a condo on Watts Bar Lake and we often spent entire weeks down there during the summer. Of course, it rarely gets quite as hot in East TN as it does here, but it was so nice to spend those hot summer days on the water.

Before we moved to Sanford, we lived in Florence, SC. We had some pretty hot summers down there, too. Which is why we bought a house with a pool…I so loved being able to fall out the back door and go swimming whenever I wanted. I’d take my son out for several hours in the morning/early afternoon and then when he got tired and had to take a nap I’d take the baby monitor out and just float and read and enjoy the water. We also utilized it a lot after he was in bed…my husband and I would go out and relax in the pool together almost every evening. Then we had to move here and couldn’t find a house in our price range with a pool.

You don’t realize just how lucky you are until you don’t have any of this stuff. Now I’m just grateful for a sprinkler. But I’d give anything to have my pool back…

This is back after a 2 week hiatus while the kids had pneumonia!

1. Set a timer for 15 minutes and spend that time cleaning/straightening in a room that needs a lot of help. If you can, do it several times this week.

2. Wash all of your comforters, blankets, quilts, shams, and similar items. Pillows, too.

3. Clean your window treatments. Dust the blinds and take down curtains and sheers and wash them, etc. While the curtains are off the rods, dust the rods. Shower curtains, too!

Bonus/Alternate: Make the smallest room in your house (probably a closet, bathroom, or utility room) the cleanest. My small master bath is a disaster because nobody ever sees it, so I’m going to take some time and really clean it up!

With gas prices nearly triple what they were a couple of years ago and our income not going up as much as we’d like it to, I’m having to cut costs where I can. (And yet, I bought a $160 stroller a month ago. Trust me, we needed it desperately and I wanted quality over cost savings this time so it would last until we were ready to give it up.) Now we’re also worried about property taxes going up because the sales tax increase was defeated here yesterday. I sincerely hope that this was not an either/or situation and that they’ll somehow avoid raising property taxes, but I’m not optimistic. We already pay outrageous property taxes here compared to the other 3 places we’ve owned homes, so if it goes up even a little bit we’re really going to be hurting. (Do you hear that, powers that be? I CANNOT AFFORD MORE PROPERTY TAXES!)

For our family, the best way to save money is on food. We’re eating out less, staying in more, bargain shopping as much as possible, and on and on. Today I got the paper and opened it up to see what the grocery stores had to offer. I see neck bones (from what, I ask?!?!? Chickens? Pigs? Cows?) are 99 cents a pound but we’re not that desperate yet. But there are some other great meat specials in town this week so I’ll probably hit several stores in town while I’m out and about for other things and stock up on the sale items. We prefer fresh fruits and veggies, so I’ve started a garden. (If those flipping squirrels will stay out of it!) I stock up on frozen foods when they’re on sale. I buy in bulk at BJ’s when the price is better. I get store brands when feasible. I do a pretty good job of saving money…usually the savings on our Lowe’s Foods receipt is in the 30% range. Not too shabby.

But I know I can do better, so I’m going to start clipping coupons again. (Does anyone know if the Sanford Herald has the Sunday coupons? It seems like a dumb question but I honestly don’t know!) And I’m contemplating trying out The Grocery Game. I don’t have the time or patience to really find the good bargains, so it seems like a worthwhile investment but I hate the idea of spending money to save it. The truth is, without someone telling me where the bargains are, I’ll lose interest when I get overwhelmed in the enormity of looking at ALL of the coupons and trying to match them up to ALL of the store ads. I’m just not that coordinated. It’s only about $5 a month so I think surely I’d save at least that. Does anyone have experience with it? If you’re in Sanford, which lists do you get and are they worthwhile?

And with all of this money saving on my mind, I must remember to call and get our satellite package downgraded. I know there will be grumbling from the male contingent but I’d honestly be happy with only broadcast stations, just as long as I had my DVR. We all have to sacrifice somewhere, right?

A day late, but here you go. If there are specific things you need to work on, let me know in the comments and I’ll incorporate it into future challenges.

1. Find 25 things in your house to get rid of. Give them away, donate them, or just throw them in the trash, but get them out of your way. This can be anything from toys, to clothes, to a piece of junk mail.

2. Clean your kitchen. This includes all dirty dishes, even if they have to be hand washed. Clean off the countertops. Clean the appliances. If you’re really ambitious, go through your cabinets and make sure you don’t have anything you don’t use taking up space.

3. Clean your light fixtures. Dust your ceiling fans. Make sure you take the globes off and wash them to get all of the dust and bugs out. Replace any bulbs that are burned out. (If you use CFLs, be careful not to break them as they contain mercury. If you don’t use CFLs, consider the benefits of switching to them.)

Bonus! Find a new recipe to try. If you want, post it in the comments below. I love to try new things!

When we bought our king size bed a couple of years ago, I didn’t really know where we would be living next or what I wanted to do with our bedroom once we bought a house. So I went with a very boring, solid color scheme with navy, white and lavender. Navy duvet cover, white sheets, lavender shams and bedskirt. No other accessories because we just didn’t have the space OR the cash at the time.

Now we’ve been in this house over a year and I’m ready to make over our bedroom. The walls are a purplish gray, so I have lots of options. Our bathroom has the original tile, which is mostly white with some black/white accent pieces. I was thinking of going with a black and white damask duvet cover with white sheets, shams, bedskirt, curtains, etc. I have the white sheets and curtains but the rest will have to be all new so I’m on a serious budget here.

But I can’t find the right black and white damask duvet anywhere. I love the look of the Michael Miller Dandy Damask, over to the left there. It’s perfect. But I can’t sew and even if I could, I gave my sewing machine to my sister-in-law for Christmas last year. (Though I guess if I could sew, I wouldn’t have given my sewing machine away, huh?) So I am lost and don’t know what to do now. My budget for bedding (comforter or duvet cover, plus shams and bedskirt) is about $100-$150, and everything I find that I like is significantly higher than that. It’s so frustrating that I know what I want, I just can’t find it. And of course while I’m looking, I see lots of things that I really like but none of them will go with the walls…and the husband says repainting the walls is out of the question. *sigh*