I have added a video to my blog. We are trying to memorize the books of the Bible and I thought it may be easier if we had a catchy tune to sing them to. Shame on me, I don't know them either. I used to know the Old Testament, but I can't name them all anymore. Good for me, because I'm changing that!
I found a recipe for oven-roasted chicken on Tammy's Recipes blog. IT IS DELICIOUS! And extremely easy!! Usually, when I try a new dish, there's at least 1 family member who doesn't care for it - not this one! I roasted 2 whole chickens for dinner, the only leftovers were a small amount of dark meat, which everyone wanted for lunch today! They've even asked for it again! Definitely a keeper!! You should try it!
You can read about it here. To enter my giveaway, just leave a comment (1 per person please) making sure I can get in touch with you (e-mail or blog address). This giveaway is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike, but I can only ship to those living in the US. I'll be using this random number generator to select the winner on Friday. Good Luck! :o)
I've made 3 trips to W*algreens to get my free goodies (read the previous post to learn more) - I cannot believe all that I got!! I didn't have ANY trouble using my coupons either, which that part had me nervous because most stores around here won't accept internet coupons. Here's a pic of all I got:
That, my friends, is a LOT of stuff!! Oh, and can you guess how much I spent? I'll tell you - I spent $31.46, but let me show you how much I saved (brace yourself):
Yes, you're seeing things right! I saved $125.55, $134.51, AND $135.96 for a total savings of $396.02 WOOHOO!
This was passed along to me via e-mail. I didn't really get it until I read the bottom, then I lost it! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! I can't believe this really happened (ok, yes I can).
This is how I imagine the conversation went:
Store Employee: "Hello, dis (Store Name), how can I hep you?"
Customer: "I would like to order a cake for a going away party."
Store Employee: "What you want on the cake?"
Customer: "Let it say, 'Best Wishes Suzanne' and underneath that 'We will miss you'"
Now, go back up and look at the picture again. This is hilarious!
It is 9am and I have dinner ready to go! Ryan is over there now chopping things for the macaroni salad! This has been getting harder and harder to do since I've returned to work. We'd get up, do school, fix lunch, then I'd take my shower, and once that was done, I'd trip all over myself trying to get dinner to a point where Jim could finish it up when he got home. I know I keep rambling on about this. I've even been running out of time for me to eat. There's even been a time or two that we had to stop school early because it was time for Jim to come home for lunch. Any suggestions on what I could do to make things run more smoothly? I'd really appreciate them. Here's what I've already thought about:
Get up earlier - UGH, I'm not sleeping as it is.
Tell Jim not to come home for lunch - we have leftovers for lunch, so it's cheaper for him to come here than eat out every day.
Have Jim do more of the dinner cooking - Jim's cooking abilities are SpaghettiOs, and hot dogs. I try to get dinner to a point where all he has to do is bake it. Then I have to leave detailed notes on what to do to finish it up.
Have Jodi help with the cooking - Jim is more of a cook than she is!
Use the crock pot - This interests me, my mil gave me a recipe book. I tried using it last night, but the dish had rice in it and it was all mushy. Looking for more recipes to try.
Just a short post before I head off to work. I've been reading Dave Ramsey's financial books and I'm really energized! Jim is all for being out of debt, he's just not liking the idea of 'no new stuff' until we are. But I've been talking to him and explaining that it wouldn't be forever as we haven't had any credit cards or car payments for several years now. That alone has been a HUGE relief for the both of us! We only have a couple small bills and the house payment. Now that I've gone back to work (even if it's only part-time), I can't wait to figure out how much money we'll save in interest on the mortgage alone!! Jim is a visual-type of person, so I'm going to make some charts and things to hang on our fridge - maybe that'll help with the "stuffitis". LOL
Have you seen that movie? It is about a man who relives the same day over and over. That's exactly how my life is feeling right now. We are getting back in the swing of school, between that and working, it seems like the exact same things happen at the exact same times EVERY day. I know, some people would love to have it worked out like that - and really I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, it just means there's not time for anything to happen for me to blog about. Maybe I'll have something tomorrow.
Not sure if there is such a thing as 'normal', but we are as close to it as I think we are going to get. Christmas was wonderful! We decide to do a small Christmas every year, but somehow it always ends up bigger than we planned. That's ok, because over the years we have gotten better at celebrating the true meaning of the holiday. My brother, sil, and nephew made it home from Hawaii safely (PTL!). It's always nice to see them! I took down the decorations and got them all boxed up and ready to go back in the attic. I love to put them up, but once Christmas Day is over I'm done with them. People say you should leave them up until after New Year's Day - but to me that's starting a brand new year with a lot of clutter. New Year's Eve we went to Jim's parents for dinner and games. Because my children get a little crazy without schedules, I decided we were going to go back to school today - Ryan caught a bug and was throwing up all evening! Scratch those plans. Now I need to jump off here and get lunch going so I can get their dinner ready (Jim worked all night plowing the snow, so I want to get as much done as possible to make it easier for him) and I'm back to work today! I was lucky enough to get a 4 day weekend for New Year's! Hope your holiday was great!
