Starting the Long Weekend

I've always known I'm not a morning person (really, I think mornings should start about 10 am!!) but it seems this week has been a bit worse than regular weeks.  I had thought the changes that I made would be helping the situation.  I'm still going to bed around my normal time - between 10 and 11 most nights - but in the morning I just can't seem to find enough energy to get much of anything done.  Most days I've been doing a workout of some kind, whether it is going to the gym, doing my Wii Fit (Free Step is my FAVORITE if you can't tell!), or I've also been going walking with my Opa. 

But I'm still having a really hard time sleeping.  I wake up several times at night, then in the morning I don't have any energy until around 10 or 11 and usually end up dozing off in my recliner :(  I'm tempted to talk to my doc about if I can take anything to help me sleep - just for a little while.  I'd prefer home remedies, but none of those have been working so far either.

My daughter has a 4 day weekend from school.  We've been getting a lot done today -the first day off.  The kids insisted on making me 'breakfast in bed' except I don't eat breakfast - I usually have a breakfast shake, so that's what they made for me :)  Then, being the nice mommy I am, I put them to work.

I have started an allowance system for the kids, but they have to earn the money, and they can only earn $0.50 each per day.  For Beau, she can do things like help with laundry, take out the garbage, do all her homework with out us nagging her to do it, put dishes away, and take care of the recycling.  For Scrappy, he can earn his by practicing writing his letters, doing quiet reading with me or daddy through 2 books, clean up his toys, and put the silverware away.  I give them what they've earned for the day and they each have a jar to put it in. 

Once a week, the kids have Payday and can take their money out of the jar and divide it up.  Each one has a Save, Donate, and Spend envelope.  Scrappy doesn't earn as much as Beau, so his percentages are 30, 10, and 60.  Beau is a little older and is also working on earning money through helping other people also.  I gave her a little more leeway and let her determine her amounts.  She chose 50, 10, and 40.  When they have enough in their Save envelopes, we will go to the bank to buy savings bonds.  They can choose where they would like to donate their money to.  Beau wants to donate her to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation when we do our annual Great Strides walk.  Scrappy, on the other hand, wants to use his to buy items for our local Humane Society.  (His current ambition is to be a vet.)  The kids can choose what to spend their money on, but they must discuss with us first.  Scrappy had gotten a LeapsterGS from Nana and Papa for Christmas, so he is saving for some new games for it, particularly SpongeBob.  Beau really doesn't have a goal set for hers.  She has mentioned maybe a new game for our Wii system or gift cards for her Nook that Nana and Papa got for her.

Today the kids got a little extra since I kept them busy.  We cleaned the kitchen and started on the catch-all mess in the dining room.  I let them watch a movie for a little while during lunch before we went to the store.  The lady looked at me funny since all I bought was chicken.  I couldn't turn down $0.89/lb for quarters and $1.68/lb for boneless, skinless breasts.  The breasts are for Opa and the quarters are for us.  I cooked the quarters in my roaster for a couple hours this afternoon, then the kids helped to separate the meat from the skins and bones.  That is going to be cooking overnight and part of tomorrow to concentrate it, then will go into the fridge until Monday when we do our next batch of canning.  I decided I just want to do pints since I can do either 7 quarts or 18 pints in a batch.  Easy math.  Besides, a quart of meat is too much to use at one time.

An update on my efforts:

- On my attempt at frugality:  I've been sticking with it!  I really think the meal planning is paying off.  We have NOT been eating out and all of our dinners are done at a decent time

- On my weight loss:  I am down another 1 1/2 pounds this week - yay!!  Keeping busy, walking, and no fast food has really paid off!

The kids wanted pizza tonight, so I made it work in the plan.  We had some pizza crust mixes in the cupboard, so we made pepperoni and mushroom.  I suppose it would be easiest to make a couple big pizzas, but the kids like having their own pizzas.  As a result, we end up making 4 pizzas each time.  But that's ok because everyone gets exactly what they'll eat.  Next time I'm going to try to make bread machine pizza crust.

Making Progress - and trying my hand at frugality (one piece at a time!)

It's been a busy - but productive - week here!!  The kids have been keeping me running (as usual) and I've been keeping myself running!  I've also been doing great with sticking to my resolutions!!!

At my weigh-in on Thursday at TOPS, I was down a full 3 1/2 pounds!!!!  That is about half of what I had gained in the previous 2 months!!!  Honestly, there have been no gimmicks or fad diets or anything like that.  I have a couple of friends who are also on the weight loss journey, but are doing it by taking a lot of medications.  They are losing weight, but I worry about how they will do when they stop taking the medications.

What has been working for me?  Two things, really:

1) I have been writing everything I have to eat and drink (other than water) down.  I'm not tracking quantities or calories or anything like that.  But I think just being aware of what I'm eating helps.

2) Exercise.  I've been doing something almost ever day.  I went walking with my Opa a few times.  Otherwise I have been doing my Wii Fit Step again, for at least a half an hour.  Usually while watching some show of choice, like Grey's Anatomy or something else.

I have been trying to find ways to save money for our family still.  I will be posting various things that I have been doing and how it has helped with our family.  My current projects include:

1) Finding a recipe and making homemade bread that my family likes (after some experimentation, I found my husband likes the recipe for white bread in the Betty Crocker cookbook.  I use my bread machine to make the dough, but bake it in the oven.  He didn't understand why I do that until I explained how the machine leaves a hole in the bottom.  Awesome news on the bread machine - scored it BRAND NEW a the Salvation Army for only $10!!)

2) I have been making homemade laundry soap for over a year now.  (I actually made 2 batches so I always would have some ready.  The recipe I use takes 24 hours until it's ready.  When one bucket is empty, I use the other bucket until it's about half empty, then make another batch in the empty bucket.  I like the leeway it gives me.)  I figure for each 65-load batch I make, I'm saving about $11.20 over buying scent-free, dye-free Tide and getting just as good results, if not better.  If I have a particularly soiled load of laundry, I just set my washer to "heavy duty" and that takes care of it! 

3) Finding more low cost/free entertainment for the kids.  Home Depot offers a free kids' workshop on the first Saturday of each month.  Last Saturday, Beau had to go to make a bird house for Girl Scouts, so I figured why not take Scrappy?  It was free, would teach them skills about using tools and following directions, and would keep them happily occupied for a while. I don't know why we didn't do this earlier!!  But we didn't paint them until today, and they did that at home.... (I had a bit of a headache when we were at HD, and it only got worse with all the pounding!)

She was getting a little frustrated cuz a few nails were bending.

He was so proud - all Mommy did was hold the boards and he pounded
the nails himself(and my fingers a few times!)

They like a LOT of color!

We also got a free night of BINGO last night.  Beau's school had a family night event of Burger BINGO.  

My boys at BINGO

Each person in a family gets a card to play, and each family gets one raffle ticket to start.  For your first BINGO, a family wins a complete meal (hamburgers, buns, ketchup, jello mix, apple slices, 5# bag of potatoes, can of pork and beans, and a half dozen mini Hershey's bars).  After that, a family wins additional raffle tickets.  At the end of the night, they draw for various MOA tickets and for Tiger (school) shirts.  We only won the meal, but that's just fine since they only gave out 100 of them!! (I was the mean mom who told my kids we weren't paying $1 for each slice of pizza and ice cream because we had leftovers at home.  But honestly, our family eats out waaay too much).

4) Starting a price book.  Heather highly recommends it on her site, and has proven over and over again how useful they can be. (Per her recommendation, I checked out and am enjoying a money-savings book also.  I had to get it through inter-library loan, so I have been trying to track down my own.  I found a copy online today in good shape, and should hopefully have it in about a week or so!! I will post more on the book later!)

5) I've successfully learned how to can meat and stock!!!  Found out what I was missing too - it can ONLY be done safely with a pressure cooker.  I managed it - with the help of my Opa!

Meat and stock before sealing.

I'm also keeping a list of all the books I'm reading too.  If someone were to take a look at my Kindle, they would probably laugh.  I admit, I'm a self-help-book junkie!  I'm always reading on ways to help with time management or organization or weight loss or almost anything else you could think of.  I will periodically post my take on the books I'm reading, especially if they are something I find useful!!

The Learning Curve

Ok, so I admit - I'm not very technically proficient.  I can use things - once I'm shown how... otherwise it sometimes takes a while to figure them out on my own.  And I don't like reading the instructions since they're usually written in Greek.  (Ok, so I'm making myself to sound lazy now too)

Like my Blackberry.  I still don't know how all the apps and stuff work..

Like my Wii Fit.  I've had it for quite some time, and just made a discovery in the last couple days.  Notice the + dividers on it?

Well, that explains why I just COULD NOT get the hang of doing Advanced Step.  I could do the regular step and the blue side steps.  I had trouble getting the timing down of the green kicks.  And for some reason I would have "missed" steps on the purple steps, in spite of putting both feet up and keeping time.  I was getting VERY frustrated!!  When doing the step, one is on the top half of the board, and the other is on the bottom half.  Stupid me, I was stepping in the MIDDLE of the board and not paying attention to the lines.  DUH!!  I don't think it helps much having a 3 year old Scrappy-man crawling around on the floor all around me as I'm trying to step up and down and side to side from it!! haha - that's a workout all in itself!!

Another thing I've recently learned is about HOW I do my workout.  I've been focusing mostly on doing aerobics - step and boxing - and maybe a few balance games and yoga woven in there.  It's still hard to get into some positions since my stomach is still infected (I REALLY wish it would clear up :/ ).  I've been doing about 30 minutes in the morning and trying to get another 30 in the afternoon.  My discovery?  I have to do more than 30 minutes, because I don't break a sweat until almost 30 minutes!!!  But today I changed things up a little bit.  I made myself do more of the yoga - about 10 minutes before I started anything else.  I did the Basic Step twice, then went to my boxing - but skipped the 3 minute level, which I usually use as a warm up.  I went straight to the advanced 6 minute, and was feeling more of my workout.  I even got brave after doing some Advanced Step and tried Expert boxing!!!  Whew! What a workout!!!  Talk about working those muscles!  And I had sweat running down my forehead - quite uncommon for me!  I must be doing something right now!  I need to start working more yoga and the strength training in..... I'm just really hoping my work shows on the scale tomorrow.....

And a little update on canning... yes I'm still doing a little here and there - did some bean and ham soup.

*Note to self - check Salvation Army for jars.
**Note to self - make more applesauce next year - and in the quart and pint (not half-pint) jars.
***Note to self - can tomatoes instead of freezing next year so have freezer space for meat.

****Note to readers - DO NOT can the chicken stock unless you have a pressure cooker and can use it to seal your jars!!!  My frozen chicken stock came out just fine, but the canned chicken and stock had gone rancid since I just used a hot water bath.  (I've also been told that the hot water bath works IF you boil the jars for 3-4 hours)

Recipes - P1

A few of my friends have been asking for some of my recipes lately since I've been doing quite a bit of cooking.  So I thought, why not just post a few recipes at a time as separate entries?  Maybe someday I'll post a whole separate blog for this, but this is how it's going to work for now :)

So here are the recipes for this week:

*Note - I cook like Grandma - many of my measurements are guesstimates since I don't measure most of the stuff - I go according to taste.  Feel free to alter any of these recipes to fit your particular tastes.

The base for many of my soup recipes and chicken recipes is chicken broth or chicken stock.  I've become fond of making my own.  I've tried making it using some dark meat quarters I had bought on sale, but it works much better using a whole chicken carcass.  You can buy an already roasted chicken, or roast your own chicken, serve it for dinner using the drippings to make gravy for your potatoes, then cut off the remainder of the meat.  You can leave any of the fat you cut off with the carcass for a little extra flavor. 

Chicken Stock
Ingredients
1 chicken carcass with leftover fat/skin and neck, giblets, and heart
4 stalks of celery
4 carrots, peeled
1 large or 2 small onions, peeled
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
salt, to taste
water

I use an about 8-10 quart stock pot.  Put the chicken carcass and other chicken pieces into the stockpot with enough water to completely cover by about 4-6 inches.  Chop each carrot and stalk of celery into 3-4 pieces.  Cut onions in half if using small, quarters if using a large onion.  Add carrots, celery, onion, and garlic to the pot.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer.  Cook 4-6 hours, covered, stirring occasionally.  Pour through colander to remove all the chunks.  (I usually pour it through a couple times.  Stock will be a little cloudy.  You can also use a cheesecloth in the colander to get a clearer stock, but I like the flavor it maintains.)  To get a more concentrated flavor, you can take the strained stock and return it to heat for another hour on low.  I add about a tablespoon of salt while my stock is cooking.  Then the stock can be canned while still warm, or let cool and freeze.  I add any additional salt when actually cooking with the stock - making soup, gravy, etc.


Cheesy Potato Soup (originally from my mom, but slightly modified)

Ingredients:
1 box chicken broth (I use Swanson or homemade and then don't really measure - think it's about 6 cups...)
6-8 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 lb carrots, chopped into bite sized pieces
1/2 of a large block of Velveeta cheese, cubed
milk (around 1/4 gallon) (as much as necessary - sorry, I don't measure it!!!)
flour (to thicken)
1/2 c chopped onion
1 lb bacon

Chop bacon into small slices and fry until almost crisp. Drain and add onion. Cook until onions are tender. Add chicken broth. Bring to boil. Add potatoes and carrots. Add enough milk to cover all by about 1-2 inches and Velveeta cubes. Cook until potatoes and carrots are almost tender. Whisk flour with some milk and add to thicken. Cook until desired thickness and until potatoes and carrots are desired tenderness. Add salt and pepper as needed.


Creamed Chicken
Ingredients:
6 c chicken broth or chicken stock (I used homemade)
2 tbsp butter
2 c diced fully cooked chicken (I used leftovers)
1/2 c milk
flour (to thicken)
1 1/2-2 c frozen mixed peas and carrots
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring chicken broth/stock and milk to a simmer.  Remove some of the liquid to a bowl and whisk in flour to make a roux to thicken sauce (I've learned doing it in a separate bowl reduces the number of flour clumps in the sauce).  Whisk roux into the sauce.  Repeat as needed to reach just shy of desired thickness.  Add butter and mix until butter is melted and incorporated through.  Stir in chicken and peas/carrot mixture.  Simmer, stirring frequently, until meat is heated and veggies are cooked.  Sauce with thicken as it simmers.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  (You may need a little more salt if you are using a homemade stock.  I don't add much salt to my stock when I make it, so I usually have to add more to the final product.)  Serve over biscuits or mashed potatoes.

Baking Powder Biscuits (this has become a staple in our house - easy to make and goes great with soups or served with gravy over them!)
Ingredients
2 c flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c shortening
1 c milk

Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Cut in shortening (I use a pastry blender - works great!) until well incorporated and mixture has smaller than pea-sized lumps.  Stir in milk until entire mixture is moistened.  Now, the original recipe said to bake at 450, but my oven is old and goes into self-cleaning mode if I turn it up that high, so I bake at 375 for about 18 minutes, then add a few more minutes if needed.  Biscuits are done when they are browned on the top.  This recipe makes 12 biscuits.  I cook them using my Pampered Chef Pizza Stone. (I have the old one without handles, but very similar to this.)

I've also been making this amazing Amish Baked Oatmeal I got from Economical Eats by Heather - my family LOVES it made with the raisins.  They're not so fond of it with the chocolate chips.  I've also put 2 chopped bananas in place of the raisins.  I think next time I do the banana, I'm going to add some walnuts too - I think that would be a good flavor.  This is really easy to make up the night before, storing it in the refrigerator, then throwing it into the oven while the kids are getting ready in the morning.

Be sure to check out a few others that I had posted before - applesauce, spaghetti sauce, and bean and ham soup.

If you want any of my other recipes, just ask!!