A Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you've had a lovely Thanksgiving. George and I had a wonderful time at his cousin's house today. I love holidays; happy sigh.

George is still so very busy with his contracting work and while we are so thankful for the work, sometimes we both wish he could have a little bit of time off now and then. Turns out this was the week we've both been waiting for. This week he came home early on Tuesday, took Wednesday and today off and will come home early tomorrow. It's been such a treat to have him around more.

Yesterday we went into town on a "date" to the dollar store and Tractor Supply and run some errands. I'm still smiling at the thought of how much I looked forward to doing that. We looked all around the dollar store for a pair of reading glasses for him and then browsed all of Tractor Supply and ended up picking up some suet and rawhide. Normally when we go to a store of this type (oh heck, who am I kidding; this is the only kind of store I've been in with George) I trot right behind as George looks over all the tools and picks up work supplies. This time he seemed really interested in making sure I got a chance to look at anything I wanted to. Finally, after enough encouarging I went to look at the country Christmas cards; when I came back, there he was eyeballing the air compressors.

We are blessed beyond belief to not have one of those families that gets bogged down in drama at holiday get-togethers. Oh, wait, let me say that a little more accurately -- we don't usually get together with the more dramatic ones -- that branch of the family tree usually likes to keep to themselves (or in jail). Probably because us non-drama types aren't very exciting : )

Anyway, back to our happy Thanksgiving: one of the aspects about any holiday is the chance to enjoy the fellowship of our family. We're not a family (on my side or George's) that gets together en mass very often. Usually just around the holidays -- and it's so nice to have the opportunity to catch up with everyone at one time. Again, we are so blessed, I think we all actually like each other.

This was my first official holiday meal, since having weight loss surgery in August. For those of you following my updates about how that aspect of my life has been going; you can read more, here.

Tomorrow starts the first day of the Christmas season for us. In the coming week, I'll put up the Christmas decorations, select the 4 varieties of Christmas cookies to bake, update our Christmas card list for personal and business clients (and get started writing those suckers out early), and compile a list of what gifts we are planning to buy this year. This ranks as one of my favorite times of the year.

Our $359 Caledar

We received a very nice calendar yesterday ---- from our propane company. This calendar is filled with the heartwarming, nostalgic artwork of Ken Zylla. I can't wait for the new year so I can hang it up next to my desk.

We also received a $359 bill.

As nice as this calendar is, it's not worth $359. I always dread seeing the propane truck pull up our drive. It usually means a $600 or $700 bill. Each year on the last visit before Christmas, they try to sweeten things up a little by giving us a little calendar and sometimes even a pen. Last year I got a notepad too.

I'm trying to look at this positively. Because we've had such unseasonably warm weather for so many week now, and propane has dropped dramatically in price, the bill is half of what I was expecting.

Here's Where I Tell You All My Failures

I've been enjoying Crystal's work at home mom series tremendously. Today's post is all about failure. Failure's not something we like to talk about much is it? After all, it's nowhere near as thrilling as wild success. It's also a lot more exciting to share our successes rather than our failures.

Being an entrepreneur, I've had my fair share of failures and while failure is definitely not something I enjoy, it is a great learning experience. In all honesty I've learned much more from my failures than I ever have from my successes.

Just for fun, I'll share some of my failures or as I prefer to call them, "Growth Experiences".

I Want to Sell Chickens and Own my Own Bank

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to run the show (oh, my poor parents!). Seriously I wanted to own/run/manage or lead everything I ran into. I don't mean that egotistically; it never occurred to me to work for other people as an employee. As a young child, I wanted to be a farmers' wife and own a very large, neat as a pin acreage with a wide variety of crops and animals and run it all. In addition I wanted to own a feed store and elevator and make sure everyone had access to the best feed and all the baby chicks they wanted. When Daddy took me to open an account to deposit my egg route money in our small town marble palace bank I wanted to open my own bank. I also had grandiose visions of my egg route being the biggest in the county and being able to support my whole family on it. Now, promise me you are not laughing yourselves silly.


I Want to Own the Best Supermarket, Ever

Then, later, when I started clerking at a grocery store, I had visions of opening my own store one day and knocking out the competition with my superb customer service. Um, yeah, do you have any idea how much capital it takes to start up a grocery store? That never worked out. Failure after failure and here I was only 16.

About the same time I realized that I would need something other than minimum wage to fund all these business ideas that would someday make me a tycoon, so I went to school to study Accounting. I also started studying finance magazines the store owner let me read for free. I did my best to learn all about stocks, finance and money because I planned to become a skilled investor. (Hat tip for you: there are very few skilled investors in this world. I am not one of them. You will get more success from being a consistent saver and investor).

I want to be a Day Trader

In my early 20's I started trading stocks. This was during the heyday of all the new found "day traders". Everyday the tv stations were celebrating a guy or gal that quit their job to be a day trader based on the results of a few months of high returns playing in the stock market during one of the craziest, most exciting times in stock market history. Everything was going up, up and up. The .com bubble was inflating faster than anything I'd ever seen. I wanted in on it. I wanted to quit my job and make big bucks from doing something so exciting, but I was too scared.

The biggest reason I was so scared was because the money never seemed real to me. It was sitting in a bank account that I seldom touched and I almost felt dishonest. I grew up thinking the only way to earn money was by physical effort. As a result the money didn't feel like it was really mine. I was worried that someday it would all just disappear. So, of course I couldn't quit my job.

At the time I felt like a gigantic failure. Here I was cashing in on something big with more money than I had ever dreamed of (which is not a whole lot by most people's standards -- it was just a whole lot to me) and I still had to tell people I was a grocery store clerk. In retrospect, I can't express how thankful I am that things worked out like they did. Betcha there aren't many day traders today.


I Want to be the Next Dave Ramsey

While I was learning about stocks and such I started a tax preparation business and branched of into budget counseling. I charged $50 a pop and was so excited about all the opportunities to help others. I wanted to help everyone set up a budget, pay off debt and start saving for retirement. Looking back I cannot believe grown adults twice my age would have ever paid some 21 year old kid for financial advice. I certainly would be reluctant to do that today! But, I didn't know any better -- being an entrepreneur equips you with courage and boldness if nothing else.

Miraculously the clients came, so I started working. I thought I'd found my life's calling helping people get in better financial shape. Then the fights started. Husbands and wives fought like cats and dogs at my dining room table. Whoa! I had know clue what to do; it bothered me tremendously and it happened often. It's amazing how many fights debt causes. I felt like a world class failure. All I wanted to do was help people, but it felt like I was causing their problems. So, I stopped doing budget counseling. Was anything ever going to work out for me?

I Want to be a Real Estate Tycoon

Oh yes, there's more. We might even need to make this a two part series : ) After cashing in my .com bubble gains I signed on the dotted line for a cute little cape cod style house that needed more help than you can imagine. You can read a little about it here. Once I got some remodeling experience under my belt I wanted to buy every broken down fixer upper there was, and remodel it. I still love this kind of work. I looked for years and could not find any houses that were worth the asking price (even foreclosures). Remember, this was before the bottom fell out of the real estate market. Even junky houses were selling for a mint then; I could not find a single solitary house that would've made a good investment. I felt like I screwed up big time and I would never get a chance to do something I loved.

Now that houses can be bought for a song and a dance, I'm not sure this would be a good business for us to get into. Primarily, because it is a lot of work. Not that George and I are shy of hard work, it's just that we don't have any time to devote to more of it. In order to start another business, we would have to give less attention to our other businesses and they would suffer. Right now that doesn't seem like a good plan.

Dear me, I thought this would be it. But, I've got enough failures for a whole 'nother post! Looking back has been such a good lesson for me today. At the time of each one of these "failures" I remember being so disappointed and feeling like I would never be able to do anything right or be "successful". Now, I can see God's hand in everything. Every single aspect of my life -- even the parts that weren't so great have worked out perfectly. What a good God we serve!

The Brown Time of Year

All the leaves are down, leaving a drab, brown landscape. Until we get some snow to brighten things up I'd better learn to like brown.

The interesting thing is, that late fall is beautiful in it's own unique way. I bet you are wondering why I don't have any interestingly beautiful late fall photos in this post. Well, the fact is, I don't have any at my fingertips. You have to look a little deeper to get some great photos with all the seemingly drab scenery. Spring and summer with their abundance of fresh green splendor just beg for a photograph.

I've been going through my digital photos and this morning and was hit with just how green spring and summer are around here. Such a contrast to what we've got now.

Here's a few photos from around our place in greener times.

10 Ways to De-Stress Your Life

Do you have certain things that just drive you nuts? Things that if you just took a few minutes to get straightened out would simplify your life and make you feel more peaceful?

Here's my list of things that are irritating me and the plan of action to make sure they never irritate me again:



1. Too many banks (or credit unions in this case)

Those of you that remember reading about how I opened 23 bank accounts in order to get all the free money they were giving away last year are probably laughing yourselves silly about now. Ahem. Yes, we deal with too many financial institutions. All of those accounts for the free money have been closed (except for a new one I just opened; too hard to pass up free $ : )What remains are three local credit unions.


We have George's business accounts and our main savings and emergency fund with the credit union he's done business with since forever. Then there is my old credit union with one business account and personal checking and savings -- I can't remember the last time when I routinely received such poor customer service. I can't even stand going into the place -- it bothers me that much. I'm in the process of closing everything out and getting all of our direct deposits switched over to our favorite credit union. You know, the one with the best customer service ever, our mortgage and the other business account.


2. Clip all coupons 1x per week



I'm always snagging a hot new printable coupon. I tend to print these off and tuck them away in my planner, on top of a little stack of papers on my desk or the counter. Then I forget where they are and can never find what I'm looking for when I need it. A month or two after the coupon expires I'm guaranteed to find it in a stack somewhere. To fix this, I made a bottom drawer in a small chest of drawers my "coupons, ads and deals" drawer. All Sunday coupons, ads, my grocery list and printable coupons go in here -- nothing goes into a stack somewhere to expire. On Sunday evenings I clip all the coupons and file them in my coupon organizer.



3. Get, make a new coupon organizer


My coupon organizer is an old taped up envelope box with more tape than box. It's falling apart and coupons fall out half the time. Drives me nuts to even carry this thing around. I'm going to either make or buy a new one.


4. Get gasoline once per week



I used to do this religiously years ago. Some time ago, probably when gas was $4 a gallon I got into the habit of getting it only when I could find it at a cheaper price. Now, I find myself having to get gas at a really inconvenient time so I'm switching back to filling up once a week and keeping my sanity.

5. Have online companies start paying me electronically

Okay, I will readily admit this. When I first started earning an income from blogging I was thrilled. I was so thrilled that I set up all my accounts to pay me with a paper check. At first it was so exciting that I nearly ran screeching into the house with my little paper checks every time one came. Kind of like little kid Christmas morning excitement. Well, now that the checks are monthly and there are several of them; it's kind of a pain in the behind dealing with all these paper checks (although no less exciting). I find myself making several trips to the credit union or atm, when I would rather be doing something else. So, I'm going to set up all my accounts to pay me electronically.

6. Throw away all old/unused make up and beauty products

I don't have a lot of these, probably 10 or so. They've been sitting in my medicine cabinet for 3 years now. I even moved some here from my other house. Why can't I let this junk go?! I guess it feels like I'm not wasting it if I hang on to it.

7. Pay off debt

Oh, how I hate owing money. We've been working towards paying off our mortgage early since we first got it three years ago. I'm not sure why, but lately it's been really bothering us. My husband is going to be slowing down his business in a few years and ease into semi-retirement. We sure aren't thrilled at the idea of holding a mortgage with reduced income. This coming year we purpose to make a concentrated effort to pay it off quicker than we are on target for now. Gosh, I'm excited, scared and nervous all at the same time. While our mortgage is a modest one, it is still a big number to us.

8. Clean the kitchen sink regularly (well more than once a week)

I remember what life was like before I got married. I had a pristine white cast iron sink. It hardly ever needed to be cleaned because I hardly ever used it. Fast forward to married life and a very dirty sink, (and a very grateful wife to a wonderful hubby). A dirty sink is one of those things that bugs me every single time I use the sink, but do I take the 5 minutes and clean it frequently? Guess not, otherwise I wouldn't be adding this to my list. I just took a quick break and cleaned the sink -- boy does that feel good!

9. Set up a plan for handling emails and stick to it

I get hundreds of emails every day. It's a real challenge to not become overwhelmed by them all; as a matter of fact, I can count on one hand the times I don't feel overwhelmed by email. I remember when I got my first professional email. I was so thrilled! Now it has me rolling on the floor laughing/crying at the irony. Now I have so many I wish my inbox would crash and everything would disappear.
Until that happens, I'm going to be heavy handed with the delete key and set up folders for organization and get unsubscribed to as much personal email as I can.


10. Take 10 minutes for me

I'm one of those kind of people that's always doing something. I move from one thing to the next to the next, usually without any kind of a break. When I start to feel stressed out about my workload and life in general I re-evaluate what's going on that's got me so frazzled. Almost every time it's because I'm doing too much, and feeling pressured that it all has to be done right now. Life will not stop if I take a break for a few minutes. Each evening when I get home, I've been trying to take a break for 10 minutes before diving in to what's going on at home and getting supper ready.

Sometimes I sit in the recliner with a cup of tea. Sometimes I lie down on the bed or couch and force myself to not think of anything in particular and let the day roll off me. What a great feeling; it's amazing what 10 minutes of relaxation can do!

Creative Pantry/Freezer Dinners

Goodness, is it even possible for my grocery store to have crummy sales for three weeks in a row?! I'm counting on some very good deals next week. In the meantime, this is yet another week of buying mostly fresh produce and dairy and preparing the bulk of our meals from freezer and pantry items. Here's what we're having:

Sunday

Chili and Cornbread. (For some reason, I'm not in the mood for chili two nights in a row. I froze the leftovers to eat some other night when we want a quick supper)

Monday

Walleye, with lemon and dill, Homemade Mac & Cheese, Garden Salad

Tuesday

Shepherd's Pie, Coleslaw

Wednesday

Oven Fried Pork Chops, Baked Potatoes, Green Beans, Left Over Coleslaw

Thursday

Turkey Dill Sandwiches, Pasta Salad

Friday

Homemade Pizza

A Week in the Life of Me

My, that was a humdinger of a cold last week (bronchitis and strep throat). I'm finally feeling 100% back to my old self today. Boy, you sure don't realize how great it is to feel good every day until you wake up not feeling good.



We are still having unseasonably warm weather, for which I'm thrilled beyond belief. (I suppose typing this jinxed the whole deal; tomorrow we'll probably wake up to snow :) Every day I'm out and about with just a light jacket -- if that. Normally by now I'm fighting the urge to haul out the big puffy 30 below zero coat. It just doesn't seem right to need that much of a coat before December 1st so I brave it with a turtle neck, two sweaters and then the light jacket. Silly, huh?



While I was wallowing around sick and not doing much of anything for the past week, I got a few things done that I'd been putting off for awhile that were driving me nuts. Earlier in the week I started a list of all the little and not so little things in and around our house, businesses and life in general that are not as I would like ie: clutter of all kinds, filing, items we use all the time placed in a less than ideal spot, dusty plants, etc. You know, all those little things that drive you batty every time you notice them, but we don't seem to have the motivation to follow through on correcting the matter? Yeah, I have way too many things like that. I'll put up my list a bit later. I betcha we could all make a list a mile long of the undone things that are driving us nuts.



Here's to a week of getting back on the track of life.

Josh & Anna Duggar

I've been a long time fan of the Duggar's show. Growing up in a large family (although not large at all compared to the Duggars) was a delightful experience and I love watching other large families. Well, okay, this large family. There are some large family shows that just about put me in tears.

For those of you that are fans of the show and like to keep up on their latest adventures, Josh and Anna have updated their website with photos of their daughter, their first year of marriage, the wedding and some other family photos. I had a ball going through all of these. You can see them all here.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday

Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells, Garden Salad, Garlic Toast

Tuesday

Beef, Bean and Cheese Enchilada's topped with tomatoes, salsa, lettuce, onion and sour cream

Wednesday

Smoked Sausage, Homemade mac & cheese, Beets

Thursday

Broiled Lemon, Dill Walleye, Sweet Potato Fries, Broccoli

Friday

Homemade Pizza

Glorious Fall Weekend and Then Some Sickness

This weekend might be our last glorious fall weekend. It was sunny and unseasonably warm -- in the low 60's both days -- just perfect for some outdoor enjoyment. My hubby took his canoe and went fishing. I felt like I was coming down with something so I stayed home. Sure enough, I awoke with a sore throat Sunday morning.

It's Tuesday and I still feel crummy. Things might improve if I could just take my head and neck off my shoulders and put on a new one. The voicemail box for the receptionist at my doctor's office is full. Hmm... that's not a good sign.

In other exciting news I washed my watch. My non-waterproof watch. After getting confirmation from a watch doctor that it would cost more to fix than the watch cost, I ended up tossing into the bathroom vanity door anyway. Why do I do stuff like that? Am I hoping for a miracle healing? Yes, a miracle healing for every broken thing I've stowed away over the years because I can't bear to part with it. Perhaps I do need a new head.

Since there is not a single show worth watching on daytame satellite tv (and we've already watched all the Beverly Hillbillies and Leave it to Beaver we've got) I've been doing other exciting things the past couple of days. Like:

• Clipping coupons and organizing my coupon box

• Shredding old paperwork

• Organizing/Purging all 3 million of my shopper's cards, gift cards, old medical cards, drivers licenses, voter registartion cards, etc.

• Making a list of all the things that I don't do or give enough attention to in and around my life, and house that drives me nuts (like the watch) that would make me feel more peaceful if I did. I'm afraid once this list is done, I'll stick it in a drawer with all the other junk and somebody will get a good laugh when I die. Poor Trixie -- all she ever wanted was to get out from under her clutter; she had to die to get away from it. The file room in Heaven is probably only separated from hell by a milimeter.

• Cuddling up with my fat, lazy beagle. When you're sick, there's nothing better than a beagle that's so lazy he has his own wallow mark in the couch.

• Organizing my digital photos-- this has been fun. I love to look through photos.

Well, I'm off to have a cup of tea and take a nap.

Home for the (Stress Free) Holidays

The holiday season brings numerous occasions for us to gather with friends and family to share fellowship and a meal or some delicious homemade treats. By the 3rd invitation, finding time to make yet another potluck dish or treat for work feels pretty overwhelming!

I love getting together with friends and family to share a bite to eat and all the festivities of the holidays. And, as much as I love to cook and bake, it can be a bit much at times to make our regular meals and foods for special events. After all, I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen!

One of the ways I make the holiday season a little less stressful is to pick one or two favorite dishes the freeze well to bring to get togethers. I then make up a big batch all at once and pop them in the freezer and take them out as needed.

One of my tried and true freezer recipes is Carrot Cake. Carrot Cake mixes up easily, thaws and serves beautifully. This weekend I made up 4 carrot cakes for the freezer. These 4 should* last me through the season. I'm a little nervous though, my husband saw me frosting them and was eyeing them pretty closely. I might get up one morning and find one half eaten in the fridge.

Here's my recipe for Fabulous Homemade Carrot Cake

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups shredded carrot

15 oz can crushed pineapple (well drained)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Icing

1 8oz pkg cream cheese

1 lb powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Enough milk to make spreadable

Cake Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9X13 pan. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and cinnamon. In a large bowl combine sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs; beat well. Stir in flour mixture; mix well. Stir in carrots, pineapple raisins and nuts. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Cool completely, frost and freeze (or eat).

Icing Instructions:

Soften cream cheese. Beat in vanilla and 2 Tbsp milk. Add powdered sugar. Mix and add in just enough milk to make the icing spreadable as you are mixing.

This post is linked to Tempt my tummy Tuesday and WFMW.

The Beauty of Frugal Grocery Shopping

I normally grocery shop once a week with a budget of $50 for the two of us for each week. I make this money stretch pretty far by mostly picking up the sale items and combining the sale price with coupons when possible. I then use these sale items to keep our pantry and freezer well stocked with the ingredients that we use most often in cooking. With the well stocked pantry and freezer, I can easily whip up a number of our favorite meals without a trip to the store.

Because the last couple of weeks grocery sales haven't been very good I only spent $15 of our grocery money last week for fresh items like milk and produce. This week I estimate spending around $20. That leaves me with me with $65 extra dollars to take advantage of the good specials when they finally do come along. In our area it's pretty rare to go two weeks without many good deals. Maybe the stores are saving them all up for closer to Thanksgiving?

We are not hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, but I still plan to buy a turkey at the deep discount Thanksgiving prices and prepare it for us to get a couple of good meals and all those yummy leftovers. I'll also use the "extra" grocery money to re-stock some of our canned goods, frozen vegetables and to buy some ground beef and chicken to add to our freezer stores.

How do you prefer to do your grocery shopping? Once a week, every two weeks -- once a month?


Sign up here, for Afullcup.com to find out about the hottest grocery deals and coupons. This is how I find out about some of the better printable coupons and weekly deals.





For more frugal tips, visit Lifeasmom, the home of Frugal Fridays.