When my kids were young, they loved all of the "Bernstein Bears" books. I still have all of the them in hopes that my grandchildren will enjoy reading them. "The Messy Room" book was their favorite. As I look at the cover picture for the book, I think that the pictures should be reversed for me as I am the one with the messy room.
Over the past month I have been busy taking on new volunteer responsibilities. Perhaps I should give this another name as "responsibilities" gives the connotation of "work" and the idea that I'm not having fun with what I am doing with my time. I am having fun with all of the activities that I am involved in.
The problem is that I have neglected my housework. I have been "putting the fires out" throwing a load of underwear into the wash when we are about out, and thankfully with a full freezer and pantry I have been able to throw a meal together in the last minute until about a week ago.
Last night we ate a frozen pizza for supper as I was too tired to make a homemade pizza. Now, that is not going to kill us and actually it tasted pretty good, but my disorganization has made it's way to the budget. I am over budget in my spending on groceries and a few other places in the budget because I haven't sat down to actually make up much of a grocery list.
Aside from the money aspect it has led to the frustration in my life of trying to find things and just the mental anxiety of living in a home that is messy and disorganized.
I don't like to clean but I love a clean house. How many of us admit this? I want a clean home with the yard work all done and everything put together with those beautiful fall mums in planted pots on the front porch, the yard trimmed and looking good and then when you open the door to the house you look into a livingroom that is clean, uncluttered and inviting. The kitchen is always put together with a few little flowers in a bud vase. The beds are made and everything smells so clean and wonderful.
The house that I know that looks like that is one that is on the market to be sold and has to look like that in case someone stops by at any time to go through it.
So what to do. Today I am decluttering the downstairs of my home. By decluttering I am talking about simply picking up stuff and putting it in it's proper place. The majority of the clutter has been caused by me. I can't blame any other family members. It is mine. I will then spend some time getting as much of my "desk work" done and organized.
My family is willing to help clean if they know what I need them to do. It is easier to give a task to do when things are put away. My husband will vacuum and my son will clean the downstairs bathroom. I will do a quick dusting and then tidy up the kitchen and wash the floor. That is all it will take to bring the house into some order. Then I can organize a deep cleaning day.
I haven't had time to just sit down and get my calendar out and get organized. When I do that, my house and life run so much smoother.
I don't want my days filled with work. I love to have time to sit down in the evening to read or watch a movie on Netflix or to be able to read the blogs that I follow. Life shouldn't be all work, and there are times when you serve frozen pizza for supper or you get take out or hit the fast food restaurant for a quick meal. It won't kill you and because it is rarely done in our house, it is a special treat.
It will just feel good to be able to find a pen when I need it or that stupid to do list that I wrote and I lost and had to start over again two or three times.
I started being weaned off Paxil last week and today I noticed that I am thinking more clearly, have more energy and I feel as if I am getting my old self back. That is good.
I took a couple more days off from blogging as I was experiencing some side effects of withdrawal. It wasn't really that bad, but I was glad to be home so that I could nap whenever I needed to.
Yesterday I had a major cooking disaster. I baked 8 dozen homemade blueberry muffins for my husband's cross country team. My recipe calls for 1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries per dozen. I was in the kitchen happily baking these muffins, sprinkling the tops with a cinnamon sugar mixture and then baking them. By the time I was ready to make supper, the muffins were done and cooling on the counter.
I'm not sure why, but I decided to take a couple of muffins and set them on the table for supper. It is a good thing I did as I measured the wrong amount of baking powder for those muffins - by the wrong amount, I put in too much. Those were the worst tasting muffins I have ever put in my mouth. As soon as I bit into the muffins it tasted like a mouthful of baking powder and they sucked my mouth dry. I couldn't even swallow them.
So, 8 dozen beautiful looking bursting with blueberries muffins were dumped in a garbage bag and put in the trash. There was no way to resurrect anything like that. Ugh, I can still taste those muffins just thinking about them.
After supper I baked 8 dozen more blueberry muffins and they turned out fine. I think I went wrong with the first 8 dozen by trying to watch a movie while I was measuring. Next time, I will definitely be more careful as this was an expensive mistake.
The weather has already turned cold and we have had frost warnings. On Monday I had the air conditioning on and last night I turned on my electric blanket to get the bed warm. This weather is ridiculous but it does put you in the mood for homemade soup or chili.
The economic news has not been good for a long time. It's starting to wear on me. The only good thing has been that in our area they have really been running a lot of sales to get people into the stores. For the past 3 months I have received a coupon from JC Penney for $10 off an item valued at $10 or more. I have been using these coupons to buy anything that is close to $10 so I am not spending extra money. I can always find something on clearance that I can use or buy for a present for someone else.
Other things that have been going on in my life is that I've been planning the meals that I help cook for our youth group when they meet on Sunday evenings. We have to keep our costs down as much as possible and so far we have been doing pretty good. It can be a challenge but the one thing that I am finding out, is that these kids like home cooked food. In a couple of weeks my helper, Marcia, and I are going to make homemade baked mac and cheese. Velveeta has been on sale for only $3.99 for a 2 lb. block and macaroni was on sale this week for only 66 cents for a 1 lb. package. We are cooking for around 60 (hopefully the numbers will increase) so that is going to be a cheap main dish for us.
I like when the weather turns cool, but it is about a month early for us. So, what has the weather been like "in your neck of the woods?"
I'll be back to normal posting tomorrow. My 18 year old son just won a seat on the local school board. I've been spending time helping with his campaign so tomorrow I go back to "normal" whatever that is!!!
I'm watching the 9/11 memorial services as I eat my breakfast before church this morning. Wonderful tributes.
I have been busy in the past few days and come tomorrow, I will have a few projects completed and ready to move on to more. I am now a volunteer at my church coordinating the ministries - that is I am working to help improve communication between the committees. In that capacity our church staff is brainstorming ways to reach out to our community and help others. We are being guided by Christ's mandate to love one another.
Here is what we have been working on: reaching out to our local college students by delivering 1 dozen of homemade cookies to any student that wants them; trying to coordinate a potluck at our church a couple of times a month for the college students and young adults that attend our Sunday Morning Worship.
And there is more that we are working on related to men's and women's ministries, children's ministries, ministries to our senior citizens and so on.
It is a lot of fun working with our church staff and others to bring ministries to our community. Yes, it is fun.
Today we have invited some college students to eat with us for lunch and I have made plenty so that I can invite others as well. This afternoon I will be at the church around 3:30 to make sloppy joes as I am cooking for the youth group. Our middle schoolers and high schoolers meet each Sunday evening for their own worship service complete with band and then they break into their small groups. We are on a very limited budget for food and that is where I come in. We are making simple food, but plenty of it.
Tonight we are having sloppy joes, chips, corn and bar cookies. Next week I am planning on homemade baked mac and cheese with the sides being provided by parents. We will be feeding around 40 to 50 youth along with 15 adults.
If any of you have recipes to feed a crowd on a budget, please let me know. Serving at church is fun when you find a place to serve that is in line with your talents and gifts. Yes even frugal cooking is a talent that can be used in ministry.
What's the lesson here? Find what you like to do and then do it for others.
Thanks for your kind comments. The antibiotics are working but they do make me drowsy. I am also slowly being weaned off of Paxil which is great. I'm looking forward to being off of it and having more energy.
Tonight I baked 8 dozen banana muffins for my husband's cross country team. I, as the coach's wife, have baked muffins for their breakfast on Friday mornings for 12 seasons. It always is surprising to me how much these kids (grades 7 through 12) love muffins. I have a list of muffins that I bake for them: pumpkin, bran, banana, donut style, blueberry and applesauce. They practice for 6 weeks so I just rotate them my repertoire.
Muffins are a treat for these kids as moms don't bake muffins much anymore. These kids are always telling me how much they love these treats and I am always being thanked. I find that even though they are being made from scratch, it doesn't take that long to make muffins and they are really pretty frugal.
I have a huge metal bowl that I get out for a big baking project. From start to finish I can make 8 dozen muffins from scratch in about 90 minutes. I baked banana muffins today as I was able to get some slightly overripe bananas for only 29 cents a lb.
The next time you want to take a treat to someone, try muffins. They are quick to mix up and bake and when you deliver them still warm, they are extra special.
I am going to keep this post short. I haven't posted lately as I have been sick - have a U.T. infection and I am on some strong anti-biotics. As I type this I am feeling a little "loopy" but the drugs are working. As the nurse said "you have a raging urinary tract infection." I have been ignoring the pain in my side and my back for a long time thinking it would go away. Well, it didn't and then I was doubled over in pain one day which means - it isn't going away!!!
I'm sure I will be better by tomorrow and will be on the meds for another week or so. Best part -- I have plenty of food in the freezer so I don't have to worry about going out to the grocery store and I can hang out at home and sleep on the couch.
Lesson One (the one I never seem to learn). Take care of myself. Don't be like me and be a martyr feeling like you can keep going and going and ignor what your body is telling you, because sooner or later you will have to deal with it. If I would have dealt with it sooner, I wouldn't feel so yucky right now.
Lesson learned (for the umpteenth time).
Have you ever found something that you would like to buy at a garage sale or auction but your spouse says absolutely not? Well, sometimes I get these crazy decorating ideas and my husband looks at me and shakes his head. Normally he goes along with many things such as the colors we painted the exterior of our house and the colors I painted in our living room, but last year he put his foot down about something I wanted to buy.
I really wish he would have said yes as I had a place for this item in our yard and I imagined what it would look like. I tried to explain to my husband that this item would look very “Kitschy” and then I had to try to explain what that was.
We were riding our bikes one evening and I saw what seemed like a wonderful purchase. We drove by this house for the next few days and I kept gawking at it until I finally told my husband that we should buy it. For $100 we could have been the owners of a 1950’s little trailer.
It looked very much like this but it was yellow instead of red and a little smaller. I wanted to put it in our backyard and then put a little awning in the front of it. My plan was to store our garden supplies inside it or I was going to make it look old again with newer cushions and pretty little curtains in it and we could sit in front of it and read or sit in it and read and relax on rainy days. It was just something cutesy that I thought would be really cool to have in our backyard.
But my husband was a definite “No way” to this idea. I regret not working on him a little longer as I really wish I had this. Oh well – perhaps there will be another one on sale in a couple of years when I have worn him down.
This is the only purchase I have ever regretted not making. Usually it is the other way around in that I will buy something and regret purchasing it later on.
Now some tips from Amy Dacyczyn of the Tightwad Gazette III.
When Amy was a child her mom shopped at a grocery store that had a bin full of imperfect fruit, brown bananas and grapes that had been separated from their bunches. These items were sold at a reduced price.
With all of the upscale type of grocery stores that became the new trend, (and still are), it is very hard to find sub-prime fruit or vegetables at a reduced price. One day a reader made a comment to her grocery store manager about wishing there were some reduced priced produce to purchase. He told her to come back on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays and she could have all of the over ripe produce she wanted. Well, she did just that and found herself bringing home bushels and carts of produce for about $1.00 a bushel or cart.
Amy sent a staffer out to several different grocery stores ranging from high end stores to small Mom and Pop stores to investigate any opportunities to purchase reduced produce. Each store had their policies regarding selling over ripe produce. Examples of these policies were selling this type of produce every now and then, donating all of it to a food pantry or a farmer bought it, being careful not to order too too much produce in the first place or throwing it all out. One store did sell over ripe produce at a reduced price when it was available.
So what does it come down to? Being bold enough to ask a store manager if they sell any over ripe produce at a reduced price.
Last year I was canning apple butter and I needed some more apples. When I went to my grocery store, I asked the produce manager if they had any bruised apples to sell. He told me to wait and he would be right back. He came back with a paper sack filled with apples that were in pretty good shape. I purchased these apples for $1.00. Many of the apples were perfect so I picked those out for eating and the rest I used to make applesauce. Now if I want to bake banana bread and there aren’t any over ripe bananas for sale, I simply ask if they have any. Usually the produce manager is able to find some to sell me at a reduced price. It always pays to ask.
