Where DOES the time go?

I have been such a slacker lately. I haven't been blogging. I haven't been taking care of my coupons very well. I've been lousy with housework...... okay, so that's kind of normal. I have been busy working, but that's no excuse. I do have to say that there are some BIG changes in the works for this blog. Okay, so I think they are big. I can't even tell you when they are going to happen, because I'm not even sure. Soon, I hope! Do I have you curious yet? Good! :) I promise this blog will be bigger and better than ever....... okay I HOPE it will be. hehe There's only room for improvement here, right?

Spring Cleaning for Normal People

Money Saving Mom is hosting "Spring Cleaning for Normal People over at Biblical Womanhood. This is a great opportunity for you to get motivated to clear out the clutter before spring. I am extremely excited about this because I need the push. We've only lived in this house for a little over 5 months now, but it is full of mess and clutter already. I guess that's what happens when you try to fit 1400 sqft of stuff into a 900 sqft house. Check out Biblical Womanhood for more information and participants. Even if you don't want to participate, you'll find lots of great tips there.

Score some free Valentine photo cards!

Go get your six free Valentine photo cards here. Use the code Valentine at checkout. The code is good through February 1, 2009. I found that even though it is free (yes, even free shipping), it asks for a credit card. I left that portion blank and it went through just fine. I'm so excited to have a few Valentine's to send out. I don't need more than 6, so this is just perfect. They have some pretty reasonable prices.

Thanks Money Saving Mom & Jaycie!

Menu Plan Monday

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

Time for another Menu Plan Monday! Where does the time go?

Monday: Tuna Casserole
Tuesday: Chicken Enchiladas with homemade tortillas
Wednesday: Meatloaf and Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Thursday: Impossible Cheeseburger Pie with homemade biscuit mix
Friday: Meatloaf Sandwiches
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Roast Chicken


Visit here for more Menu Plan Monday. Happy planning!

Menu Plan Monday

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

Wow, another week gone and another Menu Plan Monday! I think we'll utilize some goodies from the freezer this week to help clear out for my grocery trip on Wednesday.

Monday: Meatloaf (from freezer) & Mixed Veggies
Tuesday: Roast Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, & Corn (carry-over from last week)
Wednesday: Meatloaf sandwiches (leftover from Monday)
Thursday: Spaghetti & Meatballs, garlic toast
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Chicken Tortilla Soup
Sunday: Leftovers


I'm off to plan my Kmart doubles/Walgreens/Target/grocery trip on Wednesday (I'll post my bargains by the end of the week. I'm pretty excited because it should be kid free!!! :) For more menu planning ideas, head on over to Menu Plan Monday.

Coupon Inserts 1/4/09

There are 5 coupon inserts in tomorrow's paper! You heard that right! There are 3 Smart Source and 2 Red Plum inserts. If you are new to couponing or your supply is dwindling, I suggest you buy a paper tomorrow. It's pretty rare to have that many inserts in a Sunday paper at one time.

Mindi over at Moms Need To Know has compiled a little preview of the coupons she thinks are noteworthy in tomorrow's paper. Check out her site for some great information. She does this every week, so if you're curious what coupons you might see in the paper, bookmark her site.

If you want to see all of the coupons you might expect in tomorrow's paper, check out Taylortown Preview. It took 5 hours for this week's list to be completed. You can also buy coupons there.

Keep in mind that the coupons tend to vary by location, so you may not see all of those coupons in your paper. It's best not to get your heart set on any one coupon. From my experience, the majority of the coupons they list come in my paper, but often the value might be different or some are missing altogether. I know I can't wait to get the paper tomorrow!

Happy Clipping!

Menu Plan Monday

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

 

I've been on an unorganized hiatus for a while, but I'll try my hand at menu planning yet again. I'm hoping to get better at preparing my Menus in advance in 2009. I hope I can finally tackle it. I'm starting a diet this week, so hopefully I can watch my calories and portions in the process.


Monday-Chicken Fajitas
Tuesday- Venison Roast & Mixed Vegetables (I'm not gonna lie, I've never prepared a venison roast and I'm not looking forward to eating it)
Wednesday- Venison Stroganoff (made with leftover Venison roast)
Thursday-Just me and Ash, so we'll probably just have leftovers
Friday- Blackened Chicken Salad (whether the hubby likes it or not we're having salad)
Saturday-Roast Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Corn
Sunday- Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

For more Menu Plan Mondays, check out Org Junkie.

OMG Oreo Balls!

While I was cruising the internet for some fudge recipes/ideas, I somehow stumbled upon a recipe for Oreo Balls. I had never heard of them and they looked simple enough. What a mistake to make these, they are DELICIOUS!

Oreo Balls
1 package regular Oreos (or a store brand if you're watching your budget)
1-2 package(s) Cream Cheese
1 package chocolate chips + 1 T. shortening or Almond Bark for dipping (I used a mix of the two)

Crush Oreos in food processor (or put in baggie and crush). Mix in Cream Cheese (I again used the food processor for this part). Put in fridge to chill for a couple of hours. Once chilled, form into small balls. Dip balls in melted chocolate using a fork, toothipick, or whatever works for you. Place on wax lined baking sheet and chill. Eat and enjoy!

I only used one package of cream cheese, but they may have benefited from a little more. I would really like to try Mint Oreos with this recipe. I also used a mix of Almond Bark and chocolate chips for the dipping chocolate. You could use white chocolate or make any other alterations that suit your fancy.

An Award!!!

My blog received an award!!! Alright, so I received it a month ago and am FINALLY getting around to posting about it. **hides in shame** Better late than never, right?

I received my lovely award from Berleen. She's a fellow Minnesotan and a reason for Thursday Thunks. She has an amazing sense of humor. :) Thanks Berleen. Sorry it's taken me so long to post this!

From Awards

So, here are the rules to receiving this award:

1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.

2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.

3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.



Instructions:

On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then "add image" it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as To add it to your sidebar, add the "picture" gadget. Also, don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.
 
 
Here are my 5 nominations (in no particular order):
1. Tara (Deal Seeking Mom) - Tara has a wonderful blog with lots of ways to stretch your budget. She has great information on getting deals at CVS and Walgreens. I've learned a lot and am still learning from her blog.
 
2. Niki (Free2BeFrugal) - Niki always has lots of frugal tips and freebies in her blog. She also has yummy Meal Plan Monday menus.
 
3. Crystal (Money Saving Mom) - Crystal also has a lot of frugal tips in her blog (are you noticing a pattern of the blogs I visit yet?) as well as freebies. Crystal's on a bit of a holiday blog break, but I'm definitely looking forward to her posts in the new year.
 
4. 5 Dollar Dinners- 5 Dollar Dinners has a lot of frugal recipes and tips. She even breaks down the cost of the recipe so you can see how much each meal costs. She has a lot of fun recipes if you're looking for something new.
 
5. Marcy (Stretching A Buck) - Marcy has  a lot of great tips and loads of printable coupons.


Now, on to the final part of the award. Here are my 5 addictions.

1. Sugar. Any sort of sweet or baked good or anything with sugar in it.
2. The internet. Blogging, Facebook, Message Boards. I spend way too much time on the net.
3. My son. I just love hugging and kissing my sweet boy. He's amazing.
4. Cooking. I love to cook/bake. I hate cleaning up, but I could cook all day if I had a need to make that much food.
5. Starbucks Peppermint Mochas. I no longer live near a Starbucks, but when I get near one my car instantly pulls towards it. :)

YouData

I was reading Free2BeFrugal and stumbled upon Niki's post about YouData. I had seen the site before, but was hesitant to sign up. Today I decided what the heck. I saw by Niki's post that you would be paid weekly to your PayPal account and in Niki's first week she earned $9. Now that is by no means a large sum, but that's 1/4 of our water bill or 1/2 of our Netflix bill each month. Or if you want to relate it to groceries, thats a few jugs of milk. I signed up and tried out the service. I was pleased that you had to give very little personal information. No mailing address, no social security number. An email address and a mobile phone number are the only personal details they asked for. I was also pleased at how simple it is to earn money. In about 15 minutes I earned $5.86. I downloaded their ad player and visited the links they provided. I was pleased to see that they are not an affiliate program where you need to refer people to make more money. So, by telling you about this program, I in no way benefit monetarily. I recommend you go check out their site and consider sigining up. It's certainly worth a try.

Couponing

I have discovered a new obsession. Coupons! I am just starting out, so I still have a lot to learn. The stores that are close to me do not double coupons, so my goal is to make a trip once a month to a town where grocery stores do. I also hope to strategize those visits with Kmart doubles, if there is an even that month. I did my first Kmart doubles a couple weeks ago and I had a blast! I intend to me more organized for the next round, if there is a next round. I'm not normally a Kmart shopper, but they doubled coupons up to and including $2. I got Dove shampoo for $0.79 and the conditioner was free! I got free Diego band-aids for Ashton too. I'm going shopping tomorrow and already have some coupons ready. I hope to post my savings on here after each shopping trip. I'm a little bummed that the next couple batches of newspapers will not have coupons, but look forward to 2009's coupons.

One resource I want to mention is AFC. I have found this site to be extremely helpful in addition to many of the frugal blogs I visit.

Thursday Thunks

1. The election is over... what do you think? Yay!!! It's finally over!!!!!     I think it is just great that we have finally elected someone of another race into the Presidential office. It would have been great to have a woman V.P., but I think this is even better. I just cannot wait until he gets sworn in!
2. Tell us about a snowman. A snowman is made of snow. A lot of snow men have three snow "balls" that make up their body. Aside from that, the construction of the snowman is up to the person building it.
3. What brand of ketchup do you buy? Honestly? Whatever brand is cheapest. I usually buy a generic/store brand.
4. Do you use a cookbook? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I look up recipes on the internet. Sometimes I don't need a recipe. It just depends upon what I am making.
5. Do you blow-dry your hair or let it air dry? If I need to go somewhere and look relatively nice, I blow-dry my hair. Otherwise, if I am just hanging out at home I will let it air dry.
6. When was the last time you were sick? So long ago that I can't even remember.
7. What is the strangest letter of the alphabet? Q It has to have a "u" with it to make a word. It's like it is afraid to be alone.
8. Who was the last person you bought a present for? My niece Katelyn. What was it? Some pajamas, some preschool activity books, and some markers. Will you buy me one? Umm..... I guess if you really think those things would be of use to you.
9. Why are we ending at 9 questions? Because everybody else tries for 10. :)

I've been a little wrapped up in getting things ready for deer hunting this weekend, that I haven't had time to blog. I thought this might provide a little entertainment while letting you get to know me. Thanks for looking. Find more fun at Thursday Thunks

Tackle It Tuesday

I am not the world's neatest person and you've probably already figured that out by the title of my blog and seeing some of my earlier posts. I live in a mess and although I don't like it, I generally do not feel compelled to do anything about it. For some reason, lately I've been wanting to do something about it and I'm just going to keep going with that. My (our) bedroom is a mess. Alot of the mess is my doing and some is my husband's. But in all honesty, it's mostly my mess. In my defense, I am a lot neater than when I was living at home with my parents. Back then you couldn't even tell I had a floor. At least now you could sort of see it.

I know you want to see the before shots. Please excuse the stark white walls and the ugly carpet. This is how we bought the house. We are actually going to be building our master bedroom in the garage, so we're not going to bother decorating this room and then redecorating later.

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

Unfortunately I didn't go and "make" the room extra messy for the pictures. This is the way our bedroom has been for at least a month. Notice the fire extinguisher in the last picture? One day I teased my husband that if there was a fire in the kitchen in the middle of the night that we would not be able to get out of the house any other way than our small windows so he grabbed the extinguisher. haha

So..... (drum roll please) here are the after pictures.

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

From Tackle it Tuesday

You will notice that the bed is still unmade and the pile of jeans are still on the floor. I'm not big on making the bed, neither my husband or I see the point so I didn't bother. The pile of jeans belong to my husband. They are his work pants and he needs to take them to work tomorrow so they can get cleaned. It's nice not having to wash those for him. I didn't vacuum the carpet either. I didn't want to wake my son since our room is next to his. I figured my husband would be happy enough with these results. :) The whole job took less than an hour and now our room is nice and tidy. Even the closet is neat!

For more Tackle it Tuesdays, visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

Menu Plan Monday

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

Nothing to exciting on the menu this week. I am just starting to work on my menu planning. I need to start planning well in advance so I have the ingredients on hand for new recipes.

Monday-Thanksgiving Casserole - I call it my Thanksgiving Casserole because it reminds me of the goodies that we have at Thanksgiving (of course we have turkey instead of chicken, but it's close). There's no actual recipe I use for this, but it's chicken (cooked, I cut it up), a box of chicken stuffing (prepared to box directions), a can of cream of chicken soup and sometimes I use mashed potatoes and/or corn. I basically layer the ingredients potato, corn, chicken. cream of chicken (I add some water to get a gravy-like consistency), stuffing. I bake it in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 350.


Tuesday-Chicken Fajitas - Still looking for a good recipe for this


Wednesday-Meatloaf and mixed vegetable


Thursday-Spaghetti & meatballs w/garlic toast - I like to cook my meatballs ahead of time and then freeze them, so I can just take some out of the freezer whenever I need them. My husband loves meatballs, so even if spaghetti doesn't sound exciting he'll be excited about the meatballs.


Friday-Leftover meatloaf so I can have a night off. :)


Saturday- It's the first weekend of deer hunting, so I'm bringing some Chicken Tortilla Soup over to the In-laws' house and I'll enjoy whatever goodies they have there. :)

Sunday- Deer hunting is still going on, so Ash and I are either fending for ourselves or eating at the in-laws.

Check out other meal planning ideas at Meal Plan Monday.

Adventures in cookie decorating

So since I've become a SAHM, I've wanted to get in touch with my Martha Stewart side in the worst way. I love to bake and I love to cook, I just hate the clean up. I've been just aching to make and decorate cookies. Some women love to shop, I love to eat food! So, Wednesday night I rolled out some cookie dough and yesterday I tackled decorating. The first attempt at making frosting did not go so well. I had found a recipe for royal icing the other day but yesterday changed my mind and decided I wanted to frost the cookies. So, when I started making the first frosting recipe I did not follow the directions AND I tweaked the recipe a little. BIG mistake! I ended up with a royal icing type mix. hehe So, I made a batch of buttercream frosting. That turned out fine, but of course, buttercream is a little tempermental. It gets soft to quickly (I did not have shortening, so I was working with true buttercream) and it gets too cold to quickly.
Imagine a girl who has zero cake/cookie decorating experience working on decorating cookies. Do you have that mental image in your head? Great, 'cause that's me. I've dabbled in it many years ago, but I think I was 10 years old the last time I attempted and the frosting was too runny then too. I do have to say, that deep within me is a cake/cookie decorator. I just need to dig for her practice a little. All in all, the finished product doesn't taste horrible and looks okay, so I'm happy. Now of course, I would have loved to use more than one color while decorating, but I have to remind myself that I need to take baby steps.
I spent most of my day decorating and still have a few cookies to decorate, but I ran out of buttercream so I quit for the day. I do have to say, they are mighty delicious. I've eaten WAY to many. Here are some pictures of some of my favorite from yesterday. I just spent my time experimenting since I wasn't really making the cookies for anybody but my family.

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

Obviously I ran out of room for the word Halloween on this one, but I ws proud of how semi-neatly the writing turned out on this one. As I got to the end I stopped caring about neatness. lol

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

This bat didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to, but I still like it.

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

This cat and the moon below were dipped in the icing-ish concoction that was made with my first batch of flopped frosting. They turned out pretty good.

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

I'll probably mix up another small batch of buttercream and decorate the few cookies that are left. This particular sugar cookie recipe is not the type that should be left unfrosted.

Thursday Thirteen - Things I need to do

Thirteen Things about Shan When I was trying what to do a Thursday Thirteen about, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that I probably have thirteen other things I should be doing. I'm not one for remembering to put together a "To Do List" and well, I am the unorganized momma for a reason. ;) 1) I need to get my Christmas card list put together so I know how many to order. 2)I need to color my hair. My roots are showing extremely bad and it's really quite disguisting. 3)I need to put one last coat of paint on the walls of the bathroom. If I was a better painter, I probably wouldn't need to do this. :) 4)I need to vacuum!!!! 5)I need to figure out what we are having for supper. 6)I need to balance my checkbook. 7)I need to get my little guy's Halloween costume ready for tomorrow. (He's going to be a chicken.) 8)I need to do some laundry. 9)I need to put icing on the Halloween cookies I made last night. 10)I need to do something with the Hamburger in the fridge. (Today is the sell-by date.) 11)I need to get caught up on the shows I missed when I was baking the Halloween cookies last night. 12)I need to organize my freezers. They are such a disaster right now and I can hardly fit anything in them. 13)I need to clean up the kitchen after my cookie rolling from last night. What a mess! So, what do you need to do today? Check out Thursday Thirteen for more fun!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Makeover Monday

Well, it's the start of the new week and I have vowed to tackle the housework that has gotten out of hand lately. My husband and I are not very neat people but we both hate mess. The problem is we both will just throw things somewhere and not put them where they are supposed to be. We gotten used to being lazy about things and it's a pain. It frustrates me to no end because why should I bother cleaning when I just have to tackle not only the messes that my son and I make, but then I have to clean up after my hubby too. So today I decided it was Makover Monday and todays project was the kitchen. Now, I know better than to tackle the ENTIRE kitchen, so I just focused on "The Corner." We have a corner in our kitchen that just collects stuff. The mail, receipts, coupons, garbage, etc. all seem to just get tossed here and it becomes a huge, disguisting mess.

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

Believe it or not, the above picture is actually a "clean" version of "The Corner." I had already moved all of the clutter to the table when I realized it would be an excellent blog topic and photos would be nice. Please ignore the ugly counter/cupboards and white walls. We are slowly picking away at projects in this house and unfortunately the kitchen is not high up on the list. :(

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

Here is the organizer I used for this project. We actually used this in our previous home. My husband wanted to eliminate "The Corner" in that home, but it was unsuccessful. I always said that we needed labels on the shelves and cubbies. How can you have a nice area if there is no organization to where everything should go?! So, this project was entirely free since I already had everything on hand. A nice bonus to go with a clean corner. :)

I happened to have some blank white shipping labels leftover from something, so I used those to organize each shelf. I drew out a rough drawing of the organizer on a sheet of paper and planned what would go on each shelf and then made labels to indicate what area of each shelf was for what.

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

I think it turned out pretty well. The empty shelf on the bottom is for all of my husbands junk that he takes out his pocket every day. His wallet, cell phone, etc. SHOULD all go there. Hopefully he will set it on the shelf, since it's not to far from where he normally sets it. When I was going through "The Corner", I noticed all of the spare change that my husband refuses to put in the jar in our bedroom. I decided to make a mini spare change jar for him.

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

From Confessions of an unorganized momma

I happened to have a small jar that I emptied over the weekend to use. I was going to be all creative and cut a slit in the lid so it was like a bank, but I just didn't have the right tools and I value my fingers to much. :) I took a black permanant marker and wrote "Spare Change" on the jar and placed it on the organizer. We'll see how long the organization lasts.

Who knew I could paint stripes!?

It's official!! We've moved to the middle of nowhere and I can now stay at home with my son. We sold our house in the "city" in a week and a half and bought a $40,000 house in our hometown. So now, I am stuck in a small town. The nearest Starbucks is an hour away. Heck, the nearest fast food is 30 minutes away. But, I get to spend my day trying to be a housewife with a toddler trying even harder to get attention. I now bake HOMEMADE bread!! hehe I bake bars and other treats for fun and to compensate for that, I exercise while my angel is napping. What a contrast. I still do not keep a perfect house, but it's a lot better. I spend my afternoon making sure supper is ready when my husband walks in the door. Only to have him finish supper and either sit on the couch or head to the bathroom. Makes me feel appreciated. He does occasionally tease me about "painting stripes" when he talks to me on the phone during the day. Believe it or not, he is not referring to me redecorating the house. For years, this term has been used on his mother. The woman cannot sit down. She does more housework in the hour after she gets up in the morning, than i ever do in a week! She is amazing! So, for him to tell me I'm "painting stripes" is the biggest compliment I could ever receive. **sigh**