A few more Easter preparations

Tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday. We will celebrate in the morning at church.
Then the afternoon will be family fun.
I am guessing most of you will be doing very similar things.

One Easter food we always have are stuffed eggs served on my grandmother in law's Frankoma pottery plate. I had already covered it with plastic wrap before I remembered to take a picture.
The big basket of candy is another tradition that I got from my mom. The Easter Bunny always brought baskets of candy for my brothers and me. As we got older, those individual baskets were swapped out for one basket on the dining table for everyone to share.

The big round basket is plastic eggs, ready to be hidden in the yard for the grands to hunt. I fixed them each a very simple basket to collect eggs in. I am sure they will all fancier baskets from their parents and other grandparents so there is no need for me to over board.

Several years before any of the grands were born, I made the plastic canvas squeeze-ems. They can each hold a chocolate kiss. It is fun to play with them and "squeeze my cheeks and I'll give you a kiss". My children had so much fun playing with squeeze-ems and I think my grands will too. I made 4 pair of them years ago, and isn't it amazing that we now have 4 grands.

The last picture is the German chocolate cake I baked with some of the Dollar Tree Baker's Sweet chocolate.  

.

Jesus said to her, 
"I am the resurrection and the life. 
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
~ John 11:25-26

Coupons at Dollar Tree

Dollar Tree stores started accepting coupons a few month ago and I finally shopped there with coupons. It was easy, just like using coupons at other stores.

I used $1/2 coupons on the bakers chocolate and $.50 coupons on the dish liquid.

The green tissue paper will go in the bottom of the simple Easter baskets we are making for our grands.

I also shopped at CVS yesterday and got 3 big jars of Hellmans mayo, Splenda, liptons tea, 4 more bottles of dish soap and 4 bags of Easter candy. I did not take pictures of it before I put it away but can show you the receipt. Coupons and ECBs deducted $21.25 and I paid $11.39 and got back a $4 ECB for my next shopping trip.

I better dig out the German Chocolate cake recipe, I think I can bake a few of them with this much chocolate!
and No, I did not plan all the purchases to be green, but aren't they pretty?

CVS receipt  

Do you think they look like bunnies?

I found 2 pair of little silicon tongs at Big Lots in December. They only had 2 left or I would of bought more.
Some of my children have strongly mentioned they want their own mini tongs but they were hard to find. I finally found some more on Amazon. They look a bit like rabbit ears so here is what I did with them
I made a batch of seasoned up oyster crackers and put them in quart jars. Then I topped them with a circle of cute Easter fabric and tied the tongs on to the jars with Easter ribbon.

Liebster questions answered

Last week,  2 bloggers gave me a Liebster award.  The recipient is asked to give 11 random things about their selves and to answer some questions.  

My answers are in this post.

Do you like blog awards?  I do but I know everyone doesn't.  So I am not going to nominate anyone.  But if anyone wants to use this and do the same thing on your own blog,  I hope you will!    so,  here is a bunch of stuff about me.  But a warning, it may bore you to tears!  

Eleven Random Things about me

1.   I am a homebody.  I really could stay home 99% of the time and never get bored or restless.

2.  My 3 babies were all born in military hospitals with no anesthesia.

3.  I have never been seriously ill, had surgery or been hospitalized except for the stays when my babies were born.

4.  My feet are flat

5.  Before I read a new magazine,  I go through and rip out all those pesky little ad cards in it.

6.   I never liked school much,  I usually preferred to be home and loved to watch game shows when I was young.   I made good grades but I sure never got a perfect attendance award.

7.  I had some odd jobs when our children were in school- I worked at a plasma donation lab,  as a greeting card merchandiser, a substitute teacher,  a sample lady at Walmart and cooked for 2 fraternity houses.  

8. We lived in the country, on 80 acres, for 11 years.  I really tried to be a country woman but I never got used to the mud, dust, snakes, skunks, packs of dogs, neighbors that practice shooting their guns for hours, dirt roads, coyotes, etc.  Living in town now suits me fine.  

9.  My favorite subject in high school was home economics.  I took it all 4 years and once in summer school, just because I liked it.  

10. I wasn't sure we would have any grandchildren but we've had 4 in 4 years and one more due any day.  

11. I really miss our dog Theo but am not ready to get another one.  

from Lessons on the Cheap

My simple Questions for them:
1.    In 5 words or less, why do you blog?  to reach out to other like-minded people, especially homemakers

2.    Are you a spend-thrift or a cheapskape?    neither,  I just spend carefully

3.    I follow your blog, do you follow mine?  :-)  yes 

4.    most productive time of day to blog?   this is different everyday

5.    Do you want to have a big money-making blog one day?  that would be nice but I don't want to work at it that much

6.    What is your favorite comfort food?   pie

7.    Do you have a piggy bank and where do you hide it?  Ha ha just kidding  I prefer a savings account at the bank

8.    Do you have a garden?  not really.  I would love to garden but it just never works out

 9.    Are you one of those preppers??????   no, but I do like to have extra supplies and a couple months food on hand.  

10.  Just how cheap are you?   I don't think  I am cheap.  But we live only on my husbands income,  and I don't want to be employed so that income has be watched wisely.  

11.  What color are your eyes?   blue with yellow specks.   My male cousins,  the ornery ones,  called me Fish Eyes.  

From Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life 

My Questions for the Nominees:

1. If repair is possible, do you repair or replace?  most of the time  

2. What's one thing you intend to do this year which will make you/your family better off four years from now?  hmmmm,  don't have an answer for this one

3. Within the limits of your family budget, do you mind spending a little more to support local business as opposed to global corporations?  local businesses are great but I have to admit I shop at chain stores the most because that is what is in my town

4. What was your last impulse purchase? I usually think about purchases before I make them.  The only silly purchase was nade on a recent trip to Joann Fabric.  I wanted to buy some flannel for burp cloths for 1 baby.  The flannel was on sale and such cute prints,  I bought 20+ yards.   Not sure what I was thinking.   But I have cut most all of it into burp cloths, and when I finish sewing them, will be set for baby gifts for quite some time.  

5. Do you miss the 100 watt incandescent light bulb?  I miss that buying light bulbs used to be a lot simpler but I am OK with LED and LCD bulbs as they have helped lower our electric bill.  

6. Do you resent that you, as a "free" citizen, can no longer readily purchase 100 watt bulbs?  maybe

7. What is your favorite power hand tool? I am not much on hand tools,  but I do like my sewing machine, bread machine and mixer 

8. Which of the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution is your favorite?  the first one as I think most of the amendments hinge on our Freedon of Speech, Religion and Press. 

9. What is your overall view of the Sovereign State of Mississippi? Positive? Negative? Neutral?  positive, I always try to look at the good points of anything

10. Which do you think provides the most reliable weather forecast, National Weather Service, The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, or Weather Underground?   none of those,  I like Gary England and David Payne,  2 Oklahoma meteorologists with KWTV.       

11. Of all the technological "progress" that's been made during your lifetime, what do you value most?  the internet

Join in if you want to!  thank you 

From Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life 

and 

Lessons on the Cheap

Supper tonight

Our supper tonight is a big salad and small taco ring. I have been making Pampered Chefs taco ring for years. It is an easy recipe and everyone I've ever served it to likes it.
Just 3 of us here for supper tonight so I made a half recipe with just 1 can of crescent rolls and a half pound of ground beef.


http://www.food.com/recipe/taco-ring-from-pampered-chef-81160

It is tasty with name brand crescent rolls as well as the reduced fat crescents and the  store brand crescents.  

Out my front door.....

Snow for Palm Sunday morning.

Lamentations 3:22-24
New Life Version (NLV)
22 It is because of the Lord’s loving-kindness that we are not destroyed for His loving-pity never ends. 23 It is new every morning. He is so very faithful. 24 “The Lord is my share.” says my soul, “so I have hope in Him.”

Sewing and bananas

Life is getting back to normal. Husband's knee surgery was 3 weeks ago and he requested a light duty work release and went back to work this week.
Not sure how normal things are ever are around here though!

I've done a little sewing.
One small project to alter Elizabeth's Easter dress. Her momma ordered it from a company called Southern Tots. It was a little big so I shortened the elastic in the neck casing and added a casing with elastic at the waist to make the dress more fitted.


Grandbaby #5 is due in April and his mom requested a stack of flannel burp cloths shaped like 8s. The snuggly flannel was on sale at Joann's. I had fun picking out some prints and fun sewing them up.

Somewhere in the past, I heard a tip that keeping bananas in a bag keeps them from ripening quickly. Well, it works! At least first time I tried it.
We bought a bunch of bananas at Aldis on Friday. They were just ripe enough to eat that day. I have kept them in a sealed bag at room temperature. We've been eating one or two each day. The last 2 were eaten today and they were only slightly riper than on Friday but still  just right for eating.
Usually our 5 day old bananas are too ripe for eating and ready for banana bread.
I hope this was not a fluke. Bananas are one of my favorite fruits and it would be wonderful to keep them at our preferred ripeness longer.

Burp clothes- reversible

5 day old banana after being kept in a sealed bag

Easter decorations inside

I just found this free app to make photo collages and I may already be addicted to it. It was easy and fun, and I am not so smart about fancy computer things.

These collages show our inside decorations. Most of the ceramic pieces were made by an old friend or bought at thrift stores.

The tree is decorated with Christian symbols. My mom made the crocheted egg covers and I made the rest.

Hope you enjoy them. We are.

Saving 4 Six
Linking to Think Tank Thursday at Saving 4 Six

Front door Easter decorations

We have not been on a normal routine here for several weeks and when I started seeing Easter decorations on other blogs, I thought I was too busy and lacking enough energy to decorate our home this season.
Then I thought about my grandchildren and how they like fun and pretty things, so after I cleaned house this morning, I got out the storage tub of Easter things.

It's funny how when you start doing things, it just makes you want to do more.

I remembered I have been wanting a big Easter egg wreath for years. We had to go the bank so while we were in town, I bought a wreath form and plastic eggs.

I used new eggs and old eggs, can't say how many but takes lots. Hot glue seemed to be the perfect adhesive.

The living room is decorated too and I will show some pictures of it tomorrow.

Our front door

Thermal photos

My laptop would barely work so as a replacement, my husband bought an IPad.
 Isnt he sweet?
I don't really know my way around it yet but I am having fun with the camera app. These photos are taken on the thermal setting.
I think they look rather Andy Warhol-ish. As enlargements they might be fun in a modern room.

little girl aprons

Me and my mom
Christmas 1962- I would of just turned 5
Wearing an apron made by my great grandmother.  

My mom kept that little apron and I got it from her a few months ago.

My sewing project last night was copying that apron and sewing one for grand daughter Elizabeth. I just folded the old apron In half and laid it in on my fabric on the fold and carefully cut around it. I also cut out ties and a pocket, just eyeballing it.
Can you see the new fabric is printed with tiny tomatoes? Elizabeth loves eating May-toes!

The edges are all covered with narrow bias tape and a little button fastens the neck.

It took me less than an hour to sew it up. I am not sure it will fit Elizabeth right now as she is just 2 1/2.
I'll just hold on to it until it does fit her. And I better sew up another one for grand daughter Andie who just turned 1.


linking to
Think Tank Thursday at Joyful Homemaking

Keeping it real

I've slept soundly and all night 2 times in a row and am almost feeling like myself again.
Husband still seems tired but is walking short distances and able to do most things on his own.
Yea!!!!!

I intended to make veggie soup for supper last night but only managed to make a big salad and heated up 2 frozen meals instead. Marie Callendar made husband's pork chop. I had a Top Chef steamer bowl. Good enough but I sure glad I know how to cook and don't have to rely on these all the time.

My plan for today is to do some straightening in my craft room, catch up on that ironing and then do some sewing.

We are home!

Hello everyone. Well, it was a crazy week but not because of the weather. Husband's surgery was scheduled for the day of the blizzard so we went to Oklahoma City the night before and got a hotel room with indoor parking and that was just 2 miles from the Veterans hospital. Much of Oklahoma got more than a foot of snow but we were on just the edge and only got much needed rain.

The surgery and his first day of recovery went so smooth. Then we had news about a big problem and all the ways it had to be treated and we were anxious about that for 3 days.

By Friday afternoon, the problem was not a problem any longer - I believe because of prayers by us and many others.

We are home! Husband is still on several medications, will have some physical therapy and will be off work about 4 weeks. I think he is doing great.

Me? I will be taking care of him as he needs it and resting as much as I can too.

Thank you all for your sweet comments and especially for your prayers.


This is Husband resting at home in his recliner with an ice pack on his knee.
The staff at the Oklahoma City VA Hospital were wonderful.
But HOME is so much more comfortable.

It's gonna be a crazy week and I don't like crazy

My husband is scheduled to have some much needed knee replacement revision surgery this week
And this is our weather forecast!

We have made all the winter travel precautions and are just waiting to see what happens, not only for us but also for the hospital staff.

I may be offline for awhile and am just praying that the week ends with better health for my husband and calmer weather.

Some make, do and mending

 

I have not found much time to sew in February but I will show you what I did.

Remember that storage tub of patchwork I got from my parents back in the fall? I used some of the scrappy 9 patches to sew up some much needed pot holders for my kitchen.
I used 1 layer of Insulbrite and 1 layer of cotton batting in each one and they work great.
But after I finished these, I saw where another blogger used a square from an old terry bath towel to fill her pot holders. I may try that next time as I have a stack of fairly new bath towels that the side bindings gave away.
 

 

 

In that tub was an almost finished child size quilt- soft flannel and machine quilted. I added some bias binding from my stash, had to use 2 colors as I did not have enough of 1 to go all the way around. My grand daughter has been napping with it.

February has been a very busy month here- I really enjoy sewing and hope to do a lot more of it March.

lower water and electric bills

Below are our utility bills for November, December and January. 

We are billed for electricity, water, sewer, trash pick up and an ambulance fee on one bill by our city. 

Your may have to click on the picture to enlarge it if you want to see the numbers clearer.

 

The November and December bill are pretty much the same. 

 

 

The January bill is much lower.

Our water and electricity both decreased significantly.   
Nothing much changed in the way we do things except for 2 things.

 

1.  I changed from using our dishwasher to washing all dishes by hand. 

 

2.  Husband bought a LED tv for the living room that says it uses very little energy- I think the energy star tag on it said $17 a year~!

 

I am sure you all have heard that hand washing is less energy efficient than machine washing. 
But this is second time I have stopped using my dishwasher and documented the results-both times our bills went down. 

on my old blog where I wrote about it

My dishwasher is a 5 year old Kitchenaid. 

Lately,  our dishes were just not getting clean and the dishwasher seemed to run for so long.

 So,  I just quit using it. 

We have low water pressure in our neighborhood   and I think the low water pressure and the new phosphate free detergents are why it does not clean right anymore.

 I want clean dishes!  

I have no plans to replace it,  but I will just keep handwashing. 

 

 

Our old TV was a flat screen, also 5 or so years old.  I think it was plasma but am not sure.

Whenever it was turned on,  it let off lots of heat, almost like a space heater.  

This new LED tv feels room temperature whether it is turned off or on. 

 

I am not suggesting anyone buy a new TV just to save on your energy bill.  But if you are shopping for a new tv,  check out the energy use tags on them.  They really might "pay for their selves" after a few years if your electric bills decrease. 

 

 

 

Linking up the party at

Think Tank Thursdays

hosted by Saving for Six

 

A few bargains

Colgate toothpaste is 3/$6 with a $3 ECB refund this week at CVS. I used 50 cent coupons on each one, made each box about 50 cents with tax.
Planters nuts were 2/$8. I used $1 coupons on each as well as a $1 scanner coupon. I got a $5 ECB refund, made them about $7 for all 4 cans. These will be great snacks to take to the hospital for husbands surgery stay.

At Walmart, I used a buy 1 Pantene shampoo and get a styler free coupon that was in a Sunday paper . Made both hair products $2.97 total.

A new grandson will join our family in April. I found this too cute shirt for him at my favorite thrift store. It is Mud Pie brand and appliqued with a puppy with floppy ears. If it fits him in the summer, I can do a quick sewing alteration and make it short sleeves. The shirt and jeans were 50 cents each.

This weeks list......

I make a list every week of what needs done and what I hope to do

Monday was a very productive day
besides some weekly tasks like laundry and cleaning the floors,
the following happened....

spray painted this little wood dining set with black spray paint.  

Painted some plastic eggs- hoping they will look like realistic speckled eggs when finished but it will take some more  work.

Got started with some Spring decorating

And organized the drinking glass cabinet so I could fit in the new set of 6 insulated tumblers

straightened the Pyrex cabinet

I crossed a lot off of my list before I went to bed Monday

But not today.......

linking up to Tweak it Tuesday

at Cozy Little House 

Breakfast room turned kitchen wing- full reveal

Our  home has a normal size kitchen and 2 eating areas.

We have had both set up with dining tables and they looked pretty that way

but it was just not functioning for us.

Just 2 of us live in this home but we have lots of company and serve lots of meals

so,  we have changed the breakfast area from a dining area

into an extension of kitchen space.

We did not do any major construction- just adding some pieces of furniture and moving appliances.  

it started when added this Coffee Bar to the kitchen.  We put it in the space where the fridge originally was and moved the fridge over into the breakfast room.  

We are still so happy with the coffee bar.  Having all the coffee makers in one spot frees up lots of work space in the kitchen.  

the breakfast area
it has a big fridge, a chest freezer and a smaller fridge.
The white armoire was bought about 10 years ago for our daughter's bedroom.
Putting the toaster oven and bread machine on top of the armoire frees up even more counter top space in the kitchen.
It also adds lots of storage.  

The toy kitchen- just on the other side of my kitchen sink
the grands really like playing here and I can see them if I am cooking.

this breakfast area has very pretty bay windows
and I would prefer they were not covered up but I am so enjoying the extra kitchen  space.

my husband built this little bookshelf way back when we lived aboard Camp Pendleton- about 1989.
My cookbooks just fit on it
along with a few Longaberger baskets.  

another oldie but very special.
my son made this from a coat hanger- I think he was about 12 years old when he made it.
he is 31 now 

We spent almost nothing on this change- just the money on the coffee bar.
One of my goals for 2013 is make this home work for us with a little redecorating and rearranging.
Getting this room done makes our home much more functional and I am really happy to have it done.

linking to

Sunny Simple Sunday