Odd Household Tasks

Every Wednesday I do one of the oddest household tasks I might ever have to do. I have to defrost and scrape ice out of our refrigerator.


This is our trusty refrigerator. It's about a thousand years old, but still works like a dream. Except that ice builds up around the "ice box" part. I've tried to ignore it, but then it just gets so bad that the door will barely close. And when that happens, it's a real pain in the derriere to defrost. You have to scrape, chip, bang, and even pull out the hair dryer for hours.

So, to avoid having that big mess, I've just decided to clean it out every Wednesday. This is what it looks like before I begin. Lovely!


Here I am with the necessary tools. I'm thinking of purchasing some gloves to help in this process. My hands sure do get cold!

I scrape.

I chip.

And 30 minutes later......

And now I must mop the floor!

Living Vicariously

I was working on some sewing projects today and remembered that I never got around to posting about a few sewing projects I finished a while back.

On days when I don't feel like mopping the floor, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, or chipping ice out of the refrigerator (more to come about this later), I sit on the couch and browse the lovely world wide web for crafty projects. I'm not ashamed to admit that I "stalk" a few handfuls of blogs. Most of the projects that I end up falling in love with involve making things for children. Well, since there definitely aren't any of those around, I just make things for other people's children.

One of my dearest, sweetest friends has 2 adorable little girls. Adorable little girls deserve adorable little gifts.

First, I made a crayon roll. I had seen these around on different blogs and just thought they were genius. I used this tutorial to make mine. It was a lot of fun to make, even though I had to take out a few seams here and there!

Here it is all rolled up. I used a hair-band and a button to hold it closed.

Here it is opened up. I wanted to use crayons in a variety of sizes, because it was for a toddler.

Then, I made this little taggie giraffe. Do you know about taggies? They are mostly seen as blankets, but I thought this giraffe was cute. It's simply a stuffed animal (or blanket if you choose to make that) with different textured ribbons around the edge. Apparently, babies love to touch the different ribbons. It's a great sensory toy! I used this tutorial for my taggie giraffe. This took me a while to make. The first one I put together had a really skinny neck. So, I made another one, but it's body was really skinny. Finally, I was able to make one that was reasonably proportioned and somewhat resembled a giraffe.

The fabric on this side is a knit and the other side is a minky micro-fiber fabric.

Ironically, while I was in the middle of making these two projects, my dear, sweet friend asked if I would make her a bag to go over the handle bars on her stroller. I was a little bit intimidated by this, because I couldn't find a tutorial or directions. I overcame my fears and set to work creating something. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned it out. Now I'm thinking of how I can change it a little to make it a purse or bag of some sort that I could use.



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The Girl Creative

Menu Plan Monday - Sept. 13

Reviews from last week:

The jalapeno popper chicken was awesome! I've recently found the pleasure in jalapenos and have this strange desire to put them in everything. The jalapeno popper chicken was a good combination between spicy, creamy, and salty. Perfect!

The crockpot peppercorn steak was pretty good. I wouldn't say it was my favorite meal of the week, but it wasn't bad. I put red, yellow, orange, and green peppers in it and I think the peppers gave it too much of a sweet taste. There was a lot of the sauce part left, which I froze to use as a base for soup later.

The stuffed shells were very good. The recipe calls for a 9X13 pan. I made two 8x8 pans and froze one. It took me about 30 minutes to prepare and cost around $5.50. That's pretty good for two meals!

I didn't make the crockpot buffalo chicken lasagna last week, but I will try it soon!

I made tuna salad for lunch one day last week and made the most delicious tuna melt out of mine. I toasted tuna and shredded cheese on some bread, then added extra mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Topped with fresh spinach leaves and red onion. The tuna salad also had jalapeno in it. It was amazing!

Breakfast:
Granola and yogurt (Didn't make last week)
Eggs, fresh pears, toast
Bacon and fruit
Cereal and fruit
Toast and fruit

Lunch:
Leftovers
Chicken salad
Frozen pizza
Sandwiches

Supper:
Monday: BBQ Chicken Quarters, green beans, okra

Tuesday: Crescent Taco Bake

Wednesday: Fellowship supper at church - taking Buffalo Chicken Rice casserole (make Buffalo Chicken Dip and add to rice)

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Spaghetti

Saturday: Pork Spare Ribs, black-eyed peas

Sunday: Leftovers or Pizza

See more great menus and recipe ideas here.

Menu Plan Monday - Sept. 6

I tried several new recipes last week. Some we liked and some we didn't. I would highly recommend these breakfast cookies. I mean, who doesn't like eating cookies for breakfast? These were so yummy! I also made this baked oatmeal that was very tasty. I'm actually having some still this morning.

For suppers, I made ham kabobs and country ham and macaroni casserole one night. They were both very delicious.

One new recipe that we didn't care for was smashed potato cakes. I didn't like the flavor of the greek yogurt in the potatoes and making them cakes was one extra step that I didn't think was necessary.

I didn't get to make either of the quinoa recipes last week. The grocery store was sold out when I went shopping! I couldn't believe it! So, I'll try again another time and hopefully make it soon.

On to this week -

Breakfast Options:
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins and fruit
Eggs and toast
Cereal and fruit
Bacon and eggs
Oatmeal and fruit
Granola with yogurt (*I found out last week that Grandma does not like yogurt! So, I will be making this for myself!)

Lunch Options:
Leftovers
Tuna salad
Sandwiches
Frozen pizza

Supper:

Monday: Jalapeno Popper Chicken, black-eyed peas, cornbread

Tuesday: Crockpot Peppercorn Steak, corn

Wednesday: Brats, grilled potatoes, okra

Thursday: Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Lasagna, green beans

Friday: Chris is going to the football game, so Grandma and I will probably just do something easy.

Saturday: Dinner at church

Sunday: Stuffed shells, garlic cheddar biscuits, peas, lima beans

Go here for more menu ideas!

Only in Texas...

As I went out to check the mail this morning, I questioned whether I was having hallucinations. No, I was indeed seeing a massive Longhorn in the road. But that wasn't the extent of it. There was a lady riding the Longhorn down the road. With a calf tied to it. I couldn't believe my eyes!

In true Northerner fashion, I quickly went inside to grab my camera. I did my best paparazzi moves and snapped a few pictures.



A few weeks ago I saw a goat walking down the road in front of our house. That was unusual, but not too surprising. This, however, really had me speechless. I wonder if it's a pet? Or maybe it's going to be supper sometime down the road? Either way, it would save on gas!

Welcome to Texas!

How I Plan a Menu

I'm a bit crazy about making lists. I make them all the time. It's just how my brain works. It helps me to be more organized and productive. I make lists of things to do, things to buy, things I want, things I don't like, and even lists of things to make lists about. It's an obsession.

For me, menu planning involves a lot of lists. It's a bit of a tedious task, but one I enjoy very much. Here's a little look into how I go about planning a menu and grocery shopping.

First, I make a list of all the meals that I want to make. I've been planning for a month at a time, but this month I decided to only do 2 weeks at a time. I make a list for breakfast, lunch, and supper, sides, and snacks. Some of these are new recipes and some are old tried-and-true recipes.


Once I have my list compiled of all the recipes I would like to use in the two weeks (or month), I start planning them out by day. Sometimes I use an actual calendar, but this time I just use a scratch piece of paper. I try to include a variety throughout the week: chicken, beef, pork, grilled food, etc. I also try to plan the meals so we don't have the same kind of meat two nights in a row. That doesn't always work, but I do my best.



Once I have the meals assigned to specific days, it's time to make a grocery list. I go through each meal, check the recipe (if I need one), and write down everything I'll need for that meal. I do this for each meal and just keep a running list. If something is a repeat, like cheese or meat, I make tally marks by the item on the list to indicate how much of it is needed. You can see this next to the cheddar cheese on my list.

Now, I could call it done at this point. However, if I did, I would be one disorganized, stressed, and chaotic woman at the grocery store. (Please be aware that this is usually the case regardless.) Once I have my master list of groceries needed, I start organizing it into categories. I created this handy-dandy shopping list that is broken down by aisles at the grocery store. This took a few weeks of going to HEB to get everything in the right category, but it makes life at the grocery store so much easier!

The final step is to go through my coupons and highlight the items on my list for which I have coupons. I have found that once I'm in the store and focused on trying to get everything, I usually forget that I have coupons. By highlighting the item, it causes me to pay extra care to actually use that coupon. I clip all my coupons to my list and as I put the item in my shopping cart, I put the coupon with my wallet.

And that, my friends, is how I menu plan and make a grocery list. Aren't you glad you know a little bit more about how crazy I am?

CVS and Walmart Deals

I love a good deal! My sweet friend, Liz, has been telling me about all the good deals she gets at CVS, Walgreens, Target, Walmart, etc for quite some time now. I've read about other people getting those good deals as well and it always excited me. However, I had this idea in my mind that it took a lot of work to cut out coupons, plan the shopping trips, and go to the store. Well, last week I finally decided to join the bandwagon!

I was so excited to see the newspaper out on the driveway Sunday morning! I eagerly started looking through the ads and coupons. With the help of Liz, Money Saving Mom, and Common Sense with Money, I created a plan of action.

I set out yesterday afternoon to shop at CVS, Dollar General, Walmart, and HEB. All in all, I'm very excited about my good deals!

CVS

2 bottles of Dawn dish soap, Phillips earbuds, Venus Embrace razor, 2 Energy Chews, 2 King Size Snickers
Total Spent: $11.34
Total Saved: $21.54
Total ECB earned: 5

Wal-Mart


2 bottles of Gain dish soap and 8-pack magnets
Total Spent: $0.48
Total Saved: $3.46

I won't post a picture of everything I bought at HEB or how much I spent. I will tell you that I saved $49.81 just by using coupons and shopping sales!

Menu Plan Monday: Aug. 30th

Last week I followed my menu pretty well. The only exception was Friday. Chris had to go out of town, so Grandma and I just had an easy supper of PB&J and soup.

With Grandma living with us again, I'm taking extra care to plan breakfast, lunch, and snacks in addition to supper. We have to be sure to keep Grandma eating several times a day to keep her weight up.

Breakfast (no particular order, I just pick something each day):
Cereal and fruit
Breakfast cookies and fruit
Eggs and bacon
Yogurt and fruit
Baked oatmeal and fruit
Bacon and toast

Lunch:
Leftovers
Quesadilla
Soup
Chicken salad
Sandwiches

Supper:
Monday: Tacos, refried beans, guacamole
Tuesday: Ham 2 ways (Ham Kabobs & Country Ham and Macaroni Casserole), green beans
Wednesday: Cheeseburger Turnovers, oven fries, peas, lima beans
Thursday: Chicken and veggie packets on the grill, grilled potatoes
Friday: Pork steaks or pork chops (depending on what is on sale at the grocery), quinoa risotto, broccoli
Saturday: Chicken pizza
Sunday: Crockpot peppercorn steak, smashed potatoes, corn

If you're interested, I'm planning a post for later this week on how I go about planning menus and organizing a grocery list.

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas!

Peanut Farming at 12:30 a.m.

Our days caring for Grandma are often filled with laughter. There are hard days and nights, but we try to focus on the moments of laughter to help us get through the hard times. A lot of the funny moments revolve around the bathroom. I'm not sure why. Maybe we just have a weird sense of humor.

There are also a lot of funny moments that come about in the middle of the night. Except, they don't seem so funny when I'm half asleep, stumbling around trying to keep Grandma from stumbling. It's usually the next morning when I think back on what happened and then I find it funny.

Last night Grandma woke up around 12:30 and wanted to talk about peanut farming. Yes, peanut farming. I like peanuts and all, but I wasn't really in the mood to talk about peanut farming at 12:30 a.m. She was having a dream that her Granddaddy was talking to her about peanut farming. He was telling her about how the first people who lived in this country survived on peanut farming. According to her, he went on and on about it, "like old men tend to do."

You see, most of the time when she wakes up in the night she's been having a dream and thinks that the dream is really happening. For example, she wakes up many nights thinking she's on a train. Or, one night last week she woke up and thought one of the members of church was there with her. Earlier this week she wanted to know what happened to the birthday cake. (Birthday cake in the middle of the night DID sound like a great idea!)

So, last night she thought her Granddaddy was there with her and still telling her about peanut farming. She thought I was a little girl who wanted to hear about peanut farming too. So, while trying to get her to the bathroom and get that business taken care of, she filled me in on Granddaddy's lesson on peanut farming. She was still talking as I put her back in bed, turned off the light, and crawled back in my bed. She was done with peanut farming by morning.

I have no idea if her Granddaddy really was a peanut farmer. I will find out about that.

Bathroom

Did you get tired of waiting? I did. I figured that the bathroom might not ever get completely finished, so I should go ahead and post about it. It looks finished in the pictures (unless you look very closely). There is just some touch-up painting and a few pieces of trim to put up. Otherwise, it's great and I love it!

Here's looking into the bathroom before.
The sink was directly to the left of the door, with the water heater next to it in the corner. The toilet was across from the water heater. The bathtub was straight inside the door.

Here's another shot looking at the corner of the bathroom. You can see the cabinets hanging above the toilet. This was basically the only storage in the bathroom.

This is another shot of the bathtub.


You can't see the floor very well in any of these pictures, but it was a cheap blue linoleum. It was coming up in most parts and just looked nasty, regardless of how much I cleaned it. The paneling was white with pink and blue flowers.

And looking into the bathroom now:
This technically is looking towards the back corner where the bathtub was before. We put up white beadboard about 5 feet up and painted the rest a smokey blue color. Because the bathroom is so small, we decided to go with a pedestal sink. I love the glass shelf above the sink! The toilet is directly in front of the door and the window is in the same place as before. The hardwood floor is the same as what we put in the laundry room.

Another shot looking towards where the toilet, water heater, and sink were before:
As you know, the bathtub was in the bathroom before. We did buy an attachment to make it into a shower also. The shower curtain was a bit of a splurge, but we had trouble finding one that Chris and I both liked.

For storage, Chris found this piece at a used furniture store. It was an antique white color, but I painted it bright white. It works really well in the bathroom. It's to the left as you walk in the door, across from the sink. (So, if you're standing at the sink, the cabinet is to your back.)
And that's the new bathroom, folks!

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Decorating on a Budget

Slowly but surely, we're pulling our belongings out of storage. A couple of weeks ago we got out most of our home decor items and went to work decorating the house.

One of my favorite decorative items are these apothecary jars. My lovely husband purchased the biggest two for me on a preaching trip a while back. I picked up the medium-sized one at Old Time Pottery and the small one was here at Grandma's house.


I kind of liked the way they looked empty on top of the TV, but Chris thought they were too boring. We've had them filled with fruit, pine cones, Christmas ornaments, acorns, and other various decorative items according to the season. However, I wanted to try something new.

I headed to my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, Dollar Tree, and Michaels and gathered the necessary materials. For less than $20, we now have filled jars!

The little jar has sea shells that I bought at Dollar General for $1 for a big bag. The medium jar is some moss and painted eggs. I bought the moss at Dollar General for $1 and the eggs came from Hobby Lobby for 3 for $1. I'm not entirely happy with the way the eggs turned out. The paint color I chose was a little off and the eggs were a bit bigger than I wanted, but I might change them out in the future. The other medium/large jar has plastic pears. These were on clearance at Hobby Lobby for around $5 (I lost my receipt and can't remember exactly.)

The biggest jar is filled with paper-covered balls that I made. I recently made some and sent to a friend for her birthday. After a vague and apparently intriguing post, some have asked about how I made them.

Paper-Covered Ball Tutorial

First, you need a ball for the base. I found these raffia balls at Dollar Tree (8 for $1), but you could also use Styrofoam balls.

Next, you need some scrapbook paper cut in strips. I used 4 strips that were 1 1/2" x 5" and 4 strips that were 1" x 5". (Note: Mine are different lengths in this picture because I was using scraps.)

Start gluing the paper onto the ball, starting with the 1 1/2" strips. Using hot glue on one end of the strip, stick in the center of the top of the ball.
Glue another 1 1/2" strip touching it.
Wrap the strips around to the bottom of the ball and glue both ends.
Repeat with the other two 1 1/2" strips going the opposite direction.

Now you will have little gaps between the strips.

(Sorry for the blurry picture. I was trying to move quickly.)

This is when you use the 1" strips, following the same procedure.
Sometimes the gaps are wider than the paper. If this happens, you just have to get over your OCD tendencies and embrace the uniqueness.
Once you are finished, you will have a pretty paper-covered ball (and probably a few burn marks from the hot glue)!

Just to sum it all up and emphasize how easy this project is, these are the only materials you will need for this project!


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Menu Planning Monday

A lot of the blogs I read participate in Menu Plan Monday hosted by I'm An Organizing Junkie. I thought I would join in the fun!


Monday: Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, carrots

Tuesday: Mexican casserole, refried beans, chips & salsa (homemade salsa from our neighbor...it's yummy!)

Wednesday: Grilled pork chops, grilled potatoes, spinach

Thursday: Smothered Chicken Yumminess (Named by yours truly), rice, broccoli

Friday: Ham Steak Kabobs, corn

A Girls' Weekend

This past weekend our niece came to stay with me and Grandma. Chris had to go out of town for a preaching appointment, so we took the opportunity to have a Girls' Weekend. It was a lot of fun, but I was exhausted by Sunday afternoon! Katelynn is a sweet girl with A LOT of energy!

Saturday morning we took a trip to Target. Uncle Chris had asked her to do some chores for him in the morning and she earned $4! She couldn't wait to spend it! We loaded Grandma up and took a trip to Target. It was quite a lesson that all the "good stuff" costs a lot of money!

Once we got home, we painted this little wall hanging that I found on clearance at Michaels. We took turns painting and I helped her with all the 'hard' parts.


I think it turned out quite cute! She was very excited to hang it in her bedroom!

After we were done painting, Katelynn wanted to help make supper. She wanted to make it all by herself, but needed a little help with the oven. Here she is making a surprise appetizer... skewered hot dog bites with cheese! YUM!



She even decorated the table for us! Here's the yummy spread. Hot dog kabobs, Doritos and cheese, pepperoni pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and cherry kool-aid. It was quite the gourmet meal!



After we cleaned up from supper, she wanted to give me a make-over so I could look younger. I pulled out the make up and hair accessories and she went to work. After she got done, she wanted me to make her look older.



When we were both done, we tried to take a picture of us together. It was kind of difficult!



We spent the rest of the evening watching the movie "Princess Protection Program." Sunday morning we went to church. She was very good at church and even got really excited when we sang "Amazing Grace," because she knew some of the words. After church was over Katelynn said, "I want to come to church with you again. Your church is fun!" It was cute!

We had a fun weekend together! I meant to get some pictures of Katelynn and Grandma together, but never did. :( Here's a sweet picture of Grandma with Wesley. She likes to have him get in her lap so she can talk to him. It's so sweet!