Lovin’ All of This Saving Money

Well I did it again! Our little grocery was having a sale on a gallon of milk for 2/$5.00 today. I had a coupon for .75 and then I also had another coupon for a FREE half gallon of chocolate milk when you buy a gallon of white milk. Had it not been for these ladies I am learning SOOOO MUCH from online here, I’d never gotten these deals! So I wound up paying less than 2.00 for my gallon of white milk and got a 1/2 gallon for free! Then they had large eggs for .68 today so I got one of those as well. Then their bananas were .69 a pound so I got some of those, they were $1.62. So I wound up saving 3.09 on the half gallon of chocolate milk, .81 on the eggs, .79 on the milk, for a grand total of $4.60!

ALSO a little note here! I checked with the manager to make sure I could use my printed out coupon off the internet before I got to the cashier.

 

Gallon of milk $1.75

1/2 gallon chocolate milk- free

large eggs .68

bananas 1.62

Man this is so nice to save a little money!!

 

GET YOUR COUPONS NOW or they wont be there to get tomorrow. OK from what I am understanding after today you wont be able to get any of the coupons for this month online because there will be NEW coupons online since tomorrow is August. All the July coupons will be gone after today they said on one of the sites I visited. I learn something new everyday! :)

 

Hey check this out! For those of you that do not have a CVS bonus bucks card, you have to have one to get this. Anyway check out what ABUNDANT FOOD SAVINGS had to say about a FREE GIFT FROM CVS in August!

HERE is a link for loads of coupons.

 

CVS DEALS 8/2-8/8 from COUPONS DEALS AND MORE

Idea

Was sharing with Beeb (Super Coupon Girl) how I do quesadillas and while fixing me some lunch awhile ago I thought about sharing this idea. She is doing a meal challenge trying to watch how much money she spends in a week on groceries. Sometimes for lunch I just am not hungry and don’t want much, just something simple. I buy those Maruchan Ramen noodle soups at Wal-mart, 12 packs to the box for like 1.44. I really like them and there is 0 trans fat BUT they are very high in sodium which I have to watch because of my blood pressure! SO this is what I do, I put mine in a little water in a cereal bowl and cook it in the microwave for 2 minutes (ours is a large one). THEN when they’re done I add some of the seasoning packet that comes in the little pack with them. NOW this is the deal, DON’T ADD ALL of the seasonings to it so you don’t get all that sodium! I know, I know, it’s NOT quite as good but hey, I want to be around to enjoy some more of them in the future and I also want you to be around as well. I assure you, you WILL get used to it and it will be much healthier for you! THEN I also buy the UNSALTED crackers as well and I eat those with my soup. I like the chicken flavor better than the beef but you might enjoy the beef better. Anyway this is simple to make, cheap to boot and good. I have also when I had deboned chicken in the fridge left over from another meal, I have added some of it to the soup and that is very good. PLUS I have added chicken broth, my own of course, not the boxed kind that is full of more sodium. Anyway I use the chicken broth instead of the plain water and that makes it better as well. NONE of my chicken broth gets thrown out around here. I put it in ice trays and little butter bowls and freeze it.

Opps I forgot to add, you can put the left over seasoning in a zip-lock and save it for the next pack of soup so you wont have to use the one that comes in that pack, since you have one already opened. You can use the unopened seasoning pack in some homemade soup you make, to season it later on. 

ALSO…….One of my friends goes to another country every year to help with mission work and she buys these Ramen noodle soups and that’s what she uses as a starter base for her homemade soup. I thought that was a really good idea. If you make a smaller pot of soup you might not want to add the whole pack of seasoning so you wont have soooooo much sodium in your soup.

 

So that’s just another really inexpensive way to eat.

Free Wisk HE

Money Saving Mom says there is free washing powders here. Free bottle of Wisk HE laundry detergent

Looks like you have to leave a comment on her site to get a free Wisk HE. Goodie. I left one and wanted to share it with my friends and family on here. So go check it out and see if you can get a free one as well. :)

Cleaning up in Chicago- Says, By leaving a comment on the blog, you agree that Wisk® may contact you tell you about new products, special offers and promotions.

See what Money Saving Mom has to say about it in the first link. Sure would be nice to get something for free huh? :)

Light Bulb

I know I am talking about CVS-ING a whole lot but I am trying to learn it and also wanted to help someone else get it. I found a site last night that made it click for me. The light came on so to speak. I don’t know if it’s HOW she explained it OR if it’s that I have read and read some more trying to understand it. BUT I finally got it last night. OR I think I did lol.

“CVSing” Guide At Southern Savers Blog

FINDING BALANCE Notice CVSing- Getting free stuff on the July 14th thread she has.

THAT is WHY they do the multiple transactions! So they don’t have any out of pocket (OOP) to have to spend! In other words, say you have $5 you want to get started with. A few days ago with all the school supply sells at CVS you could get pens or paper or whatever for .98 and get .98 back in EBC’S. You buy 5 of those that give you the same ECB’S back, then you have $5 dollars to spend in another transaction without having to have any more money in your pocket. You can do this until you get the limit they say you can have because each thing has a limit. Then you can walk out of CVS with loads of stuff and you only had to pay $5 for it all and you probably still have $5 more CVB’S to use the next time you go to CVS.

All You Magazine

Oh my goodness, for you coupon clippers you need to run to Wal-mart and get you one of these magazines. lol DD took us out to eat this evening and afterwards I told them I wanted to go and get me one of these magazines. I have read soooo much about them online since I started clipping coupons. There is over $72.00 worth of coupons in this magazine and I got mine for $2.43. Let me share some coupons that are in this thing!

Cottonelle bath tissue, 12 pack- 1.00 coupon

Cottonelle moist wipes tub .50 coupon

Purina Dog Food (bag any size)- 2.00

C&H brand granulated sugar(any 2) 2 pounds or larger .65

Birds Eye Veggies (any 3)- 1.00 coupon

Dole All natural fruit jar .75

Splenda Sweetner fiber- (any size) 1.00

Baked Lays- 1.00

Free Weight Watchers Smart Ones Dessert with purchase of any four W.W. smart ones frozen products.

Peter Pan Peanut Butter and get 24 count crayons free

And there’s wayyyy more. That’s just a few good ones I saw that I would use. There is also a Sally Hansen Coupon for LaCross Beauty Tools- 1.00 coupon for that.

Just bunches and bunches of them. I had to go back and count how many I clipped out and there is 51 coupons!!!!I have no idea if they have lots of coupons in each issue but IF they do, I am going to subscribe! It’s a really neat magazine and for US WOMEN! :)

I also wanted to share something I found in the magazine with you about myself. Before I go on though I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not believe in astrology or reading my horoscope daily. :) The Bible tells me it’s wrong so I do not think it’s right to do. But I do believe they have something in the fact that the month you were born in has lots to do with your personality. I really don’t know enough about it to go any farther with it because I don’t get into the stuff. I was born in June, a Gemini. It says I live life at a much faster pace than some folks. Says I am in September, lol,  on course to cram more progress and experience into each moment than some people can pack into a year. Inwardly I am traveling quickly. lol yep soooo true and wearing myself out in the process to! You are growing out of ideas before others have even grown into them. If, however, you end up feeling lonely because you are so far ahead of the game, try to slow down a little! WOW TRY is right! shooooooo totally hard to do! Remember yesterdays post? OR was it day before yesterday? LOL TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME on the CVS-ING! :) Anyway sometimes I feel like I meet myself coming and going I have SO MUCH stuff going on all the time. There is sooooo much that I can’t get them all finished. ARG THIS has gotten very stressful for me since menopause to!

Anyway talking about this astrology stuff, I do believe in planting by the Almanac and stuff like that. We just got our tomatoes in the ground today because this was the last day for a few days to plant them by the Almanac.

Recipe

I noticed on one of the sites (Super Coupon Girl) I’ve been visiting she has a Grocery Challenge Meals each day and I thought it would be neat to share one I have that is fun and easy to do. I usually always have some sort of flour or meal tortillas in my fridge or freezer. And always have some sort of veggie in there as well AND cheese. LOVEEE CHEESE! lol You are making quesadillas.

Quesadillas

So what you do is….. if you have left over chicken or boiled pork or boiled beef or steaks off the grill etc. cut whatever sort of meat you have up in small pieces. I had chicken yesterday and some beef roast I had done over the weekend.

In a skillet put a couple teaspoons of canola oil. I even just spray it with Pam sometimes and don’t use the oil. Put a few toes of chopped up garlic in the skillet. If you have some broccoli or spinach you can stir fry that in there as well. OR I have even used stewed squash, and you can even toss in a chopped up onion and or bell pepper if you like that. I usually cook each individual  veggie with the onion or bell pepper.

Then take the corn or flour tortilla and put the veggie and meat and cheese in it. You can make several different veggie quesadillas but put the meat in each one along with the cheese. I use my George Foreman grill to cook them with but before I got that I used a skillet with a small amount of oil so the quesadilla doesn’t stick to it. You are basically just browning it because all the insides are already cooked. Well AND melting the cheese inside. You can serve these with baked beans or with some salsa or a salad. They are SO GOOD! We made some with broccoli and cheese and chicken the other day. Then we made some with the stewed squash and chicken and then some with the beef. Then I also made some with  spinach, cheese and chicken. Basically you can already have everything ready to just throw this together when you get home from work, if you work outside the home. It’s soooo easy to do!

YES! I DID IT!

 

I feel SOOOO MUCH BETTER NOW!

IT might not be as good as some of the other ladies but I think it’s MUCH BETTER than the last time I did “IT”. lol I guess you want to know what I am talking about huh? ;)

DH wanted to go eat some pizza this evening so we went to eat and then after we finished I wanted to go to CVS. I had my 15 ECB’S (Extra Care Bucks) on my receipt from last time I went so I knew I would have something to play with. I knew I needed to have some ECB’S from this purchase today for my next trip I visit there. So this is what I did…… Well first off I need to say my total was $32.33 and my OOP (Out Of Pocket)was $6.63. Yep, it was soooooo nice not to have to pay 30 plus dollars for what I got this time!

Since I didn’t have any $/$$ CVS coupons nor CVS in store coupons and only had the manufacturer coupons and my ECB’S on my receipt from last time I went, I handed them my card to scan and then I let them ring up my purchases and then handed them my manufacturer coupons and let them scan those which there was only 2 of them, then I gave them my receipt with my ECB’S from last week to scan. Then he told me my total I had to pay and it was only $6.63 I wanted to say YES! LOL This is what I got…….

 

Copy paper (2) 5.00 each- But I knew they would be basically free since I had the 15 ECB’S from last week on my receipt. And then I was also getting (5 more ECB’S for buying them!)

Arm and Hammer washing powder (2) 2/$6.99 (Got 2 ECB’S.) Then had -1.00 manufacturer coupon

Cal. composition books (2) .99 each and (got .99 ECB’S for each of them. Limit was 2. So that’s 2 more ECB’s.)

Colgate toothpaste (1) 2.88 (got 2 ECB’S) -.75 coupon

-15 CVS MFR coupons (on last times receipt)

= $6.63

Says on the bottom of my receipt that I saved $32.33. That I don’t understand. lol

Actually I had to pay 1.53 in sales tax which was part of the $6.63.

So far I have only spent $65.32 on 3 different trips to CVS. Last time I went I got a free washing powders. This time I got 2 free Cal. comp. books, 2 copy/printer paper, and the toothpaste basically for free. In fact I had the .75 coupon and it said it was like I was giving .88 for it since it had 2 ECB’S on it. So I gave .13 for the toothpaste. lol

NOW let me tell you this story which I thought was sooo neat! I am NOT trying to toot my own horn here or brag or anything like that so I just wanted to make sure you understand that! Just want to show you how God can use you and maybe you’re not even aware of it yet! Last time I went to CVS I bought the little emergency kits they had on special and you get 5 ECB’S back on each 10 you spend. So I bought 3 of them. I wanted to donate the other two since I didn’t need the other two to a local thrift store that helps a lot of people. When I went in there this morning I also had a lot of DVD’s and VHS videos to donate along with some other things. She was going through the bags and I had noticed she had hurt the top of her hand and she had a small piece of Kleenex on it to stop the blood. When she got to the little emergency kits she said, I was just telling (the other girl that works in there) that we needed an emergency kit for the store and God has provided one. She opens it up and gets a band-aid and puts it on her hand. I told her then it has always amazed me HOW GOD works and it’s just SO FASINATING to me how He works!!!! See He knew before I did what was going to happen to those kits!

THEN I found a glass candle holder in there with no price on it and asked her the price and she wants to bless me with it and just give it to me. So see HOW we bless each other all the time, and He blesses us all the time and we may not even know HOW He’s going to go about it. All He asks is we have a willing heart. He’s sooooo good ALL THE TIME! And He is ALWAYS there, He is closer than a brother and is ALWAYS faithful! ALSO wanted to add, He ALSO STILL ANSWERS PRAYERS TO! LOL Thank you God for answering our prayers for Hannah!!!!

NEXCARE BANDAGE COUPON 1.00

WEIGHT WATCHERS POTATO CHIPS COUPON 1.00

GOT MILK 2 different ones IF this link doesn’t work, check out Madame Deals link in my side bar to the right. One free with $100.00 grocery purchase and the 1/2 gallon one free with purchase of the gallon of white milk. Don’t think it matters where you use this coupon.

Scrubbing Bubbles Coupon Automatic shower cleaner $7/1

Baked Lays Coupon 1.00 (Click on the floating $ sign.)

 

 

THANK YOU MONEY SAVING MOM! Sorry, I was SO EXCITED about sharing all this with everyone that I forgot to give credit where credit is due! I am so sorry if I missed giving credit to anyone! I didn’t mean to, I was just so excited to share what I found.

ALSO check out the link in the side bar to the right…… OR click below on Kerry’s Treasure Chest.

Kerry’s Treasure Chest- CVS Sales Paper for Aug. 2-8th.

Also I just clicked on an RSS FEED link at the bottom of a page and I can’t remember which one it was. I put it in my favorites. Ah ha, here it IS Maybe you can also go to this site and see all the coupons there are to print here!!! WOW There are loads of coupons on this link. I didn’t know what a RSS FEED was until I clicked on it.

Hormel Coupons 

Krazy Coupon Lady

Stretching A Buck

Just found this on the CVS SITE! - CVS/pharmacy In-store Coupons.

The ALL YOU magazine seems to have lots of coupons in it from reading on all the ladies blogs. One said Wal-mart has the magazines.

Want to see more CVS savings? Check out Centsible Sawyers Blog!

CVS and More Coupons

 

Wanted to share this with you all as well. After I posted the other post I found these. If you will notice, the underlined words are links just in case you’re like me and hadn’t noticed this before on some of the sites.

 

 

Del Monte Pineapple coupon .50 off

Several coupons here

Heinz Vinegar Coupon

 

Check out Madame Deals! BOGO on Jambo Juice (BOGO mean= Buy One Get One Free OR Buy One Get Two Free)
Wanted to also show you this! Notice under where she says, You can also use CVS coupons in conjunction with a manufactures coupon. VERY IMPORTANT, the BEST ORDER to give them your coupons after they scan your card. CLICK HERE!

KRAFT COUPONS

 Cascade Coupon The site says, you will receive a booklet by mail of over $30 in savings on 6 great  brands on great home care products we think you'll love.  I found this coupon searching on Google because I LOVE this dishwasher soap! I also love Dawn and am searching on there for a Dawn coupon now. ;)

 

 Organize Your Coupons Link on organizing your coupons.

Super Coupon Girl -How she organizes her coupons.

 

Also you can go HERE and possibly get a DISCOUNTED NEWSPAPER. Type in your zip code and see if you can get it.

 

ONE STEP AT A TIME!!!!! As usual I have dove in head first trying to learn it ALL yesterday! It is VERY hard for me to take it one step at a time on anything! I have been so stressed out that I was miserable!  I have been printing coupons like crazy and then it hit me last night, there is NO WAY I will be able to use all these coupons before they expire. I will use what I can use and that will be ok to. I have noticed most all of these coupons, even the ones in the Sunday paper we bought on Sunday, all expire this month or next month. So I am going to have to chill out there as well as spending ALL my time on here trying to learn about it because I really NEED to have some fun as well. IF you have coupons that have expired do not throw them away. You can send them to the troops, they can use them it says TROOPS HERE! NOTE there are certain places to send the expired ones and certain places to send the ones that hasn’t expired. She has a FAQ on the link above as well as her email to find out where to send them.

I have researched and looked around on sites trying to learn what I could and I thought it would be nice (as I find the info that helps me) to put it all together so it can help others and just maybe save you all some time as well. You can spend hours and hours and hours digging through blogs and websites reading all this stuff. It will all be there later for us to learn, so we have to remember that. We don’t HAVE TO get it ALL today! That’s WHY the ladies say just buy 2-3 things at a time so you can learn how it works and not go crazy right off the bat so you can learn it a little at a time and not get overwhelmed and stressed out. IF that happens, then you’ll quit and it’s not going to help you at all then.

If you will notice on those links, at the bottom of some of them, you will have other ladies sharing what they’re doing or what they found out, or what they bought and got for free or for almost nothing, or something didn’t work for them etc. Each one of the links you can spend hours on if you’re like me, with a dial up internet service. It even takes me loads of time trying to get the coupons with this dial up.

More on CVS-ing

I wanted to share this with you all. I am in the learning process but I see how all these ladies are working together to help each other and sharing all this info on their blogs. SO I thought I would do the same and try to help someone as well.

Here is a link to a $5 off $25 purchase at RiteAid for those of you that shop there. 

NOTE this IS a RiteAid coupon not CVS.

Here is scenarios on how to do some purchases. Money Saving Mom

For beginners on July 25- Aug. 1st  LIFE AS MOM 

Make sure and read Money Savings Moms CVS 101 AND

her post on MAKING CVS WORK FOR YOU. AND then

How to Accumulate a Nice Stash of Coupons.

I’m well on my way to a stash of coupons now. I have clicked on the links they give on their blogs to coupon sites and most I had to register for and some will even send some to you in emails they said. I had to download a few coupon printer things but that’s ok to. Especially if I can save money on groceries or paper towels and bath tissue. Heck the way I figure it is this, IF I can just get those items for free, do you know that will save me like 60 bucks every two weeks. When I say these things, I mean washing powders, dish soaps, hand soaps, bath tissue, paper towels etc.

I didn’t really want to get into the manufacture coupons because I didn’t want to have to keep up with all those coupons! UGHHHHH But then I saw how they used them to save more money AND make money on their CVS bucks. Lots of items these ladies are getting on sale, they’re getting bonus bucks for, so they are free, PLUS they have coupons for some of these items so THAT coupon goes toward their purchase so therefore, well lets just say it like this……. say you are buying some pens that are on sale at CVS for 1.99. They are giving you 1.00 bonus buck for that purchase. So that means they were .99 after the bonus buck. Ok then you have 1.00 manufacture coupon, so they wound up paying you a penny for those pens. Now I KNOW a penny is NOT MUCH MONEY but this IS an example. I’m not good at math at all. In fact I hate it, BUT will have to learn it better doing all of this. I know I will have my calculator with me as well. I bought one at Wal-Mart the other day, it’s a little Casio name brand that will fit into my pocket on my zippered notebook and it wasn’t but 3 something. Just a small simple one, nothing technical. 

IF I am getting this, I am to try and make more bonus bucks each time I make a purchase so I will have bonus bucks to use each time I go to CVS. On Sat. I went because I wanted to see IF they had those CVS coupon booklets out yet (by the way for those Hattiesburg folks, I think we have LOTS of CVS-ER’S in this town!) Anyway I wound up getting a bottle of washing powders, the kind I use, for free and then had 4 bonus bucks left on my receipt to put toward my purchase. Anyway when all was said and done I spent 33 something and came out with 15 more bonus bucks for my next trip to CVS. I am spending money on things I wont use that I will just donate (helping us with our taxes for next year) I didn’t have any manufacture coupons, nor CVS coupons except for my bonus bucks. I am collecting coupons now.

Oh something else…… I am printing lots of coupons online, so there is the paper and ink for the printer. Do like I did a few years back, find you and older Epson stylus printer, mine is a 740. I go on Ebay and get enough ink to last me a whole year for about 20.00. I’m sure it will be more now since I’m printing out coupons but you can set the printer so it prints out in black and white and not color. I think I paid like 5.00 for my printer a few years ago at a garage sale. Keep your eyes peeled. I have TWO printers on my computer and I use this Epson for most all my printing because the inks cheaper on E-bay for it. The other printer, the ink is over 60 bucks for only 2 cartridges, color and black and white. OUCH! SO this will save you money on ink.

ALSO Wal-mart right now has printer paper for $2.50 a 500 sheet pack because of back to school. I just stocked up on that as well.

 

Freebies 4 Mom on Coupon Stacking

Edited to add: Some of the bloggers are having a spend $5.00 challenge and I wanted to share that because some of them are getting free things right off the bat with just spending $5 and with the kids going back to school this would really help out a lot of families.

Also ROCK BOTTOM DEALS!

Also COUPONS

 

 

Edited one more time to add: Check this out!!!  Make sure you go over and sign up to win. Coupon Organizing System, and it ALSO says…….

If you buy one within the two weeks of this contest we will refund your money.

This contest end August 9th at 10:00 PM. Rock bottom deals from CVS by Madame Deals!! See link above for more details.

WOW

 

 

Thrifty Florida Mama- Intimidated by CVS? Read on.

Keeping the Kingdom First- CVS-ING- Don’t take it too seriously. Alyssa shares her heart here about taking it too serious, which is very touching!

 

Happy CVS-ING

CVS Info and Bargain Shopping

Susan had posted a reply on my comments to the post I made about CVS-ing. Yeah it is pretty bad if you don’t get organized. I hate no despise to hunt for stuff so I KNOW I have got to get organized with it. The ladies on the blogs I’ve been visiting tells us to use the baseball card collection organizer. One said she got hers from Wal-mart but ours didn’t have a zippered on like she suggested. Only the notebook type. The notebook type one was 19.97 and then I’d had to bought the zippered notebook and that would have made me be spending 19.97 just for those plastic things to put the coupons in. So I said, hmmm let me get the zippered notebook they have on sale right now because of school and then I can go to office depot or somewhere and see IF I can find those plastic things the baseball cards fit in for using with the coupons instead of baseball cards.

Edited to add: I found the baseball card plastic sleeves at Hobby Lobby and used their 40% off coupon to get them. There are 30 sleeves to a pack and I'm thinking they were like 6.99 and I got like 2.80 off with the coupon.


I’ll have to post a pic of it, They had several different kinds to choose from and this one was only 10.00 and it has a pocket on the outside of it that is ALSO zippered that holds your calculator! :) I chose black and red because maybe it wont get to looking so nasty looking with all the use. 

I’ve just got to show you this precious little Tupperware cake taker I found my niece, Hannah at the Flea Market today. It was only 3.00 and I just could not pass it up. I got her the little easy bake oven awhile back and this will be perfect with it. PLUS a couple days ago I found this little bitty flour sifter to for her. Just too cute!

First, this is my coupon organizer. The zipper part for the calculator is on the front there where the red is.

Then here is the little flour sifter and the cake taker.

Next is the 3.00 coffee pot I bought. I like the curves! I use one of these every Christmas time to make my spice apple cider with that we call wassle. I have one already but it’s not as shapely as this one. lol

Last but not least is the pretty bottle I found at the Salvation Army yesterday for only 2.59. I want to put some of those lemon drops in it like Cindy did over at the Romantic Homes Blog.

I  just love glass things like this!

CVS-ing Today

Well I went and signed up for my very own CVS  Extra Bonus Card in short…..  EBC. I’m just starting out and I KNOW that I have to IGNORE the higher prices if I am to get anywhere with this. Man that’s the hardest thing ever! LOL I am a bargain kind of gal and do love to get a deal on EVERYTHING! I am very frugal and feel like I am wasting our money if I don’t get a bargain. Especially since my DH has retired! My brain was fried when I got out of CVS today. Just trying to remember all I have read, then ignoring the higher prices, oh dear, and then trying to find those bonus bucks because I NEED some to get started with. Then trying to not look at those buy one and get one frees’ that are in there because I NEED some EBC’S! LOL And THEY didn’t give me any and I was focused on getting some. I spent 31.48 and got 6 EBC’s. The receipt I got said I saved 14.46. I do feel like I saved some on their bath tissue because the kind I get at Wal-mart is like 6 something and it lasts for 2 weeks. It’s the 12 pack that are double packs and is very heavy so it might just last us a whole month! Imagine that! Can’t remember which name it is right off hand. But anyway CVS had a large pack like that and it was only 5.00 but with no EBC’s. :( Seems like they said you get 2% on the dollar that you spend? NOT for sure on that! STILL trying to get all of this. Just can’t wait until I can get 245.00 worth of groceries and stuff for 10-20.00 bucks! LOL OR even less would be nice to! ;) Heck it would be nice to only have to pay a dollar or two for 60-70 dollars worth of groceries. lol

I’m still trying to remember what rolling them over means and how to keep going next week so I will have more EBC’s than I have this week and not go bankrupt. lol  Had DH in there with me today and oh dear, lets just say I think I might need to do this alone or get him focused on what we’re in there for. ;)

I sure did want one of those foot scrubby things though but never could find it and forgot what the thing was called! My brain was fried when I got out of there just trying to remember what all I had read and what I was SUPPOSE to do to get some bonus bucks. Lots of the things I wanted to get, naturally they were out of. Those made the higher bonus bucks. Then I was like, hmmmm I didn’t even have my manufacture sp? coupons today since I am just trying to get started with this. I was like oh dear, throw in ONE MORE thing and I am totally confused. Going to KEEP AT it though. They said at least try it for 3 months before you throw in the towel which I wanted to do before I even got to the cash register today! LOL Being in menopause doesn’t help the situation I’m sure and then ya toss in the diabetes and ya talk about NO PATIENCE?  Y half the time I can’t even remember how to spell let alone EBC’s or what to do when and where. Let’s see she said to give them your card first when you get ready to cash out. Then you give them your CVS coupons, then your manufacture sp? coupons, then last but not least your bonus bucks. I sure hope I have got this right because I have went over that in my head jillions of times now TRYING to get it. She explains it all so well but there is sooooo much to learn and I am a very impatient soul and am very hard on myself when I can’t seem to grasp something very very quick.

Check out all the savings you can get from Money Savings Moms Site!

My problem is also a slow dial up because we can’t get fast speed out in the country. We’re ONLY about 7 miles out of town but it’s not here yet. lol So with the slow dial up getting the online coupons is really really fun! I’m not meaning to complain it’s just soooooo annoying and frustrating. Oh and the HUGE question IS: WHERE and HOW am I going to keep up with ALL OF THESE COUPONS? My DD is VERY GOOD at organizing things, but me, nope, not in my blood at all. So I’m like, oh deeeeeeearrrrrrr. HOW to organize these so I don’t have to hunt them? I don’t do hunting stuff. arggggggg

What I HAVE found out online is that most all of the coupons I have found are the same ones on all the sites I am looking at. I have signed up to receive bunches of them but I’m afraid all of them are going to be sending out the same coupons. DH is going to start getting the Sunday paper so we will have a larger coupon collection. OH BOY! (grin) I can see a rather large plastic box with some homemade index dividers in our future. lol Don’t think they make those large enough for a plastic tub.

Well that’s all the news for today. Come back and see how I do at CVS-ing. ;) Sure is easier to bargain shop at the thrift stores. Oh by the way I did score a goodie today. Will have to tell you about that later though. ;) So come back to see me.

Rose

I’ll Give Ya A Guess ;)

Yep check out the produce! Aren’t these peppers pretty? I was washing them in the sink thinking, I just got to get a pic of these! They are SO PRETTY! Our friends called us again to come pick the okra and she said get all the peppers to if you want them. I was like OK, those are SOOO PRETTY! I can just SEE them in my jars!!! They are banana pepper and jalapeño pepper. I should be able to get 2-4 quarts out of them if I’m guessing right. Anyway I got on here to post the pix and then I’ve got to get started cutting up the okra.

I’ll tend to the peppers tomorrow. I’m going to cut up the okra and will cook it tomorrow or the next day. I can cut it up and put it in zip-locks in the fridge until I can get it cooked and in the jars. I was looking at my Mother In Laws soup mix recipe she used to can last night. It had tomatoes, okra, corn and some other things in it. I was like, hmmmm I have most of what she used, I might just have to can some. So some of these might go to that project. She always made the BEST SOUP!!!!! I am SO TICKLED to be able to be canning all this stuff this year. I think this is the most we have ever put up in one year. But it sure has been fun, that’s for sure! EXCEPT for having to battle with the heat to get it. lol

Corn Chowder

I found a recipe online for Corn Chowder and made it for lunch today. I had some crab meat I had bought for some soup so I threw it in there to. Oh my goodness it was sooooo good! I know it’s hot weather and really hot and muggy here but I just wanted some of this anyway. lol

Here is a recipe Here and it’s something like the one I made today in case you would like the recipe to.

THIS is the recipe I made all except I didn’t add the bacon. I also used non fat dry milk for my milk. I also mashed up my potatoes and I had cooked them before so they wasn’t in the chowder until after I mashed them. I also added 3/4 stick of margarine and cooked the onion in that before adding my home grown sweet corn to the mix. Can you say YUMMY? I had celery salt so I just added that instead of the celery but it was still good! I used Tony’s seasonings for the all purpose seasoning. It’s nice and creamy even with the potatoes mashed up in it. Oh I also added the 4 cans of crab meat to it as well.

I have the crock pot full of the Crock Pot Pizza now. I also added a little “extra” to it as well. I have wayyyyy too many jars of stuff in my fridge so I’m trying to get some of it out of there. Some of my extras on the canning wound up in the fridge because it wasn’t a whole jar. So I had 1/2 quart of the hot sauce we made in there so I added it to the pizza. I also used ground turkey instead of ground beef. I thought I had more shredded cheese in the fridge but I didn’t so I don’t have near enough cheese in it. But maybe it will still be good. In case you missed my earlier post on the crock pot pizza, you can find it on the first link on this post. Tammy has it on her recipe site. Man she has loads and loads of recipes on there and bunches of them look really good.

It’s got to cook until 4 p.m.

Recipes

Yeah another post about food. lol Today we cooked a large meal for lunch because my DD’s boyfriend was coming over and I drug out an old recipe I haven’t made in many moons. He (DD’s) boyfriend, loves all things starch. lol He’s not a veggie sort of guy. Anyway so I made this recipe my sister had given me many years ago called corn casserole. I wanted to share the recipe with you AND tell you of an idea I had for it as well. I had also cooked the chicken poppy seed casserole and some stewed squash and some of our awesome spicy pinto beans. While I was dipping my corn casserole in my plate I thought hmmmmmmm, I bet that squash would be really good in the casserole. Rather than using the corn, use the stewed squash in it. You’d have to drain the squash some though to keep it from being too wet. So now I have got to get some more jiffy cornbread mix to make some with squash in it. lol

This recipe is sooooo easy AND fast!!!! You could even brown some hamburger meat and throw in it for a full meal. Then eat salsa with it. lol Anyway the corn casserole recipe.

Corn Casserole

2 cans cream style corn (no not drain)
2 boxes jiffy cornbread
1 stick butter (melted)
1- 1 ½ cups cheddar cheese

Mix all together and bake at 350 degrees until nice and brown. Resembles cornbread when done.

Lunch and Dinner Menu’s

Do any of you have trouble figuring out what you’re going to have for lunch or dinner at any given time? I don’t know about you but I am tired of cooking. I guess I’m just getting old and worn out and am just tired of cooking since I have been doing it since I was say 12-13 years old. lol Been married for 33 years going on 34 years and am married to a man that loves to eat. lol I’m the main one that cooks although he does cook ever once in a while. Sure wish it was more though. Is nice to eat some ones food other than your own pretty often. Anyway the reason I am making this post is because I have been reading on the Once a Week Cooking Forum.

One lady was saying she cooks chicken, say boil it, a large amount so you can use one portion of it for one meal, another portion for another meal and then the last portion for yet another meal. She called it C.O.S.T. cooking ideas cook once, serve twice, or even more times. She said say you’re making enchilada chicken you can boil the chicken and use some for that and then use some for a rice meal, or chicken enchilada soup, or a great chicken taco salad. You could even use some of the chicken to fry up some quesadillas with veggies stuck the them along with the chicken. Then just serve it with some salsa. This is one reason why I wanted to do some of the things I am canning is so I will have this stuff on hand when I decide that’s what I want to make for a meal. I will have the salsa, the tomatoes, the beans and the other things I am canning. We love Mexican dishes and I never tire of eating them. I could eat them every day.

I like dishes that are easy and doesn’t have several items in them. Or at least items I keep on hand most of the time. Since menopause the easier I make it for myself the better off I am and everyone else is.

I wish I could be more organized when it comes to our meals and know what I am going to cook from one day to the next, but I’m not.

I really like the idea someone had about boiling their chicken and making broth or stock which ever you want to call it. Then she took the meat off the bones and canned that up as well. I want to do some of that so I will have the chicken ready to do what ever I want to do with it and make a really quick meal. Same with the canned ground beef. If you don’t have anything thawed out, you wont have to worry because you have it canned for a really quick meal. I usually keep tortillas on hand most of the time so I can throw in some of the meat in the tortilla and add some veggies and cheese and either bake them or do them in the George Foreman grill. Then I have the salsa that I/we canned to eat with them.

While browsing around on the O.W.C.F. I found this Eat Real Good on meal planning.

Did you see the Crock-Pot Pizza recipe on the link I gave in another post I made? It was the Tammy link. She had loads and loads of neat recipes! I printed that one out to cook. I have even already written out my grocery list from all the recipes I got from her site.

I know I am talking about food an awful lot these days but I am trying to get myself more organized so I can stay out of the kitchen a little more. My DH is retired and is basically with me 24-7 and wants to eat 3 meals a day and thinks I am the one that needs to cook them. So this way he can throw a jar of our canned stuff in a pot and warm er up! lol Even a 7 year old could do this pizza in a crock pot if the ground beef was already cooked and in a jar.

Would love to hear from all of you on the meals you serve that are short and sweet. ;)

Canning

I was just cleaning out my favorites and came across a whole bunch of canning links and I figured I’d share them with my friends on here. Took me loads of my time finding all these and I thought it might be nice to have them all in one place. Plus I really need to do something to get my mind off things that hurt me if you know what I mean. Just going to turn those over to God and let Him handle them because I sure can’t handle them!  I think my hormones must be way out of whack because I am letting things really really bother me these days. Plus I’m tired and not feeling good to boot, not a good combination if you know what I mean.

From what I am understanding from lots and lots of people there is loads of people canning this year. Don’t know if it’s up north mostly or just all over, but there is much more canning going on this year.

Before I go on there is also something I need to share with you. I have been studying on all of this for a little while now trying to learn the proper way to can with a pressure canner and just canning in general. I have a Presto pressure canner that I have had for many years now and from what I am understanding some of them are coming from the Presto company at least 4 pounds off. In canning most of my recipes I have canned I am suppose to can them with 10 pounds pressure. IF my Presto canner is off by 4 pounds then I am only canning at 6 pounds which is very dangerous. There is something called a 3 piece weight set that I ordered that will solve this problem and keep me from having to stand guard over the canner when it’s in operation. You can find out more about this at the Harvest Forum if you have a Presto Canner. Presto 3 Piece Weight Set 

NOTE: Also you really need to do your own research and make sure these canning links I am posting here are canned the proper way to keep from harming yourself or someone else. I can’t take responsibility for them all being right because I am also new at this and still learning. The food has to be canned right to be safe and we can’t make our own recipes or change ones that have been tried and tested! The folks at the Harvest forum are very helpful when it comes to this.

Mississippi State University

Canning Food Recipes

Canning USA

Balls Site

Canning Pantry

Preserving the Harvest

National Center for Home Food Preservation (The site the Harvest Forum really believes in)

Lesley’s Canning Recipes

Pick Your Own All About Canning

Noll’s Home Canning and Freezing

Home Canning Pure and Simple

Bella Online Successful Home Canning

Canning as a Method of Food Storage

Astray 500 Recipe on Canning

Culinary Cafe’

Cooking Forum Canning and Preserving

 

I have enjoyed looking around on these sites myself. Some of the recipes I have gotten from some of them I have had to check to make sure the canner pressure time is correct because some folks want to shorten the length of time something is suppose to be in the pressure canner. So please do double check these sites to make sure they are correct!

CVS

I was doing a little researching online last night trying to find some canning recipes I didn’t have and found several neat sites. I wanted to post about this in case some of you might just be interested in it because it looks like she saves quite a bit of money doing this. And who doesn’t want to save some money. You have to get the card but every time you go here and get your drugs filled or get their specials you can make money so to speak to buy other things in there with. They have specials each week she said. It sounds interesting and we want to try it. IF I don’t like it I can always just stop can’t I? Don’t know about you but I sure would like to be able to get my bath tissue and washing powders and stuff like that for free. I wind up spending something like 60 bucks or more on all this stuff every two weeks and I am sick of putting that much money in this stuff. So this MIGHT be a way I can  get it for free. I’m going to try it anyway. I am in town at least 2 times a week so it wont be like I am going there making a special trip since gas is so high now.

So check out CVS 101 to learn more. Also check out all the comments at the bottom of the post she made.

ALSO check out WALGREENS 101. In case you don’t like CVS or may want to try both?

Recipes

Was searching online for some canning recipes I didn’t have and found this really neat site I thought some of you might like to have. I know most of us HATE to buy the cream of chicken soups and the cream of mushroom soups. Well she even has a recipe on here for making cream chicken soup for your recipes. I also just found the Poppy Seed Chicken casserole I just gave the recipe for on here. Hers is a little different than this one is though. She used asparagus in hers. I even thought it would be good with snap beans after seeing this one.

Anyway check out this site, Tammy’s Recipes. Also make sure you check out her Peanut Butter Squares! Can you say YUM?????? ENJOY!!! :)

Name This Plant?

Do any of you know what this plant is called? My daughter has them where she works. Or should I saw several of the ladies have them because they have seeds and plants they have repotted etc. so they have them all over she said. They don’t like the really hot weather but like the sun or partial shade she said. She just don’t know what it’s called. Figured someone on here might know. One of the girls calls it a pickle plant because the stem looks like a pickle.

Chicken Poppy Seed Casserole

Oh my goodness you gotta try this casserole. Man it’s soooo good I could have made myself sick off it. I really could have!!!! As you know we went to pick our friends okra this evening and we visited afterwards. She had made this casserole and got me some in a dish for me to try. Later she kept on wanting us to eat some because she didn’t have room ;) in her fridge to put the left overs she said. ;) Anyway I finally got me some more of it and I just LOVE the stuff. Needless to say, I WILL be fixing some of it before the weeks out. Wanted to share the recipe with you all. This makes one of those large square glass casserole dishes.

 

Chicken Poppy Seed Casserole

Ingredients:

1 can cream mushroom soup  1 can low-fat milk

1 can cream chicken soup

1 family pack of chicken thighs (boiled and deboned)

1 sleeve of Ritz crackers (crushed)

1-1/2 sticks margarine (use 1/4 cup instead)

1 TLB. Poppy Seed

16 oz. sour cream

Directions:

1.)  Spray casserole dish with Pam and put the boiled chicken all in the bottom of it.

2.)  Mix the soup, milk, and the sour cream together and pour over the chicken.

3.) Crush Ritz crackers and spread over soup mixture. Sprinkle the poppy seed over the crackers. Then melt the margarine and pour over the crackers and poppy seed.

4.) Bake at 350 degrees, about 30 minutes or so, or until it bubbles and the top is brown. She said she puts hers under the broiler at this point to make it really good and brown on the top. Just watch it and don’t let it burn. lol

NOTE: This could be one that you boiled the chicken ahead on and kept in the fridge until ready to throw it together and bake.  You could even have your crackers crushed as well. She said she’s used soda crackers but it’s just not as good as the Ritz are.

Enjoy!!!

 

NOTE #2……….OK let’s make this a little more healthy! I found it online last night and it’s much more healthy! I was worried about ALL THIS sodium in these cans of soup as well as TWO SLEEVES of Ritz crackers! Oh my word….. I mean I KNOW that makes it MUCH BETTER probably BUT I want to be AROUND to enjoy eating it more than once! LOL

Let’s just use ONE sleeve of Ritz crackers

Let’s use 1 can of cream chicken soup, the healthy request kind that’s less sodium, AND then use the can to put your milk in. Use one can of milk in place of the other can of soup. That ONE CAN of cream mushroom soup is 880 mg. in sodium. And get this, FIVE of those Ritz crackers are over 100 mg. THAT’S ONLY FIVE!

Then lets use 1/4 cup margarine instead of 1/1/2 sticks.

Sweet Pickles

Canning sweet pickles today. Someone online gave me her recipe and she said she sells them, and sales bunches of them. So I wanted to try them. I usually like sweet pickles in some of my things I cook so I thought I could use them for that as well as eating with a sandwich sometimes. I am using Splenda and Stevia though since I am a diabetic instead of the sugar it called for. I sure hope they turn out OK. I had all the ingredients to do them with so I said, why not? Plus they’re simple to make as well. I got 8 pints and a partial quart but didn’t water bath the quart since I was going to stick it in the fridge anyway.

I need to count and see just how many jars of stuff we have canned this summer so far. I haven’t kept a count on it all.

We are going to pick the okra this evening. A friend asked if we wanted it and we said yes. I think she has basically canned all she wants or wasn’t able to do this batch herself.

We had a nice rain this evening and it’s a little steamy out there now from the humidity.

Picking Blueberries

We went to one of our friends house yesterday evening to take him a cover he wanted me to fix him for putting over his boat motor. We got there and the table was full of blueberries. I ask, where did you get all these? She tells me of another friend of ours where she got them from. They usually sell to a guy but the guy said the bottom had dropped out on them and he didn’t give him but .25 a pound for them after he was having to pay the picker .50 a pound. So the rest he is letting friends get. She told us to call him so DH did. So long story short we went this morning and picked around 4 gallons of them. We just got finished putting them in the bags. I got 17 quart bags of them and they are packed bags. lol My plans are to make some jelly or jam with them and make it with Splenda. :) We have eaten our fill of them. Dh stated we should have gotten our antioxidants for today. lol Wanted to show you a pic of how pretty these things are. I hate it for them though that they didn’t get the money they should have gotten for them. We gave them some money for ours but I have no idea how much these things go for these days, so it may not been enough. ?? She didn’t want to take it but DH put it in her pocket. lol

After we got done picking them which didn’t take long at all, we were heading back to their house for a little visit when we spied these little Bob Whites. So we stopped to smell the roses one more time and took some pix. lol They are SO CUTE scooting out across the grass.

 

 

There was 5 of them but I don’t see the 5th one on this last pic. He may be hidin’ in the grass. ;)

Beans and Tomato Salsa

DH and I have been canning again today. I found a recipe for pinto beans I wanted to try. I am SO GLAD I did to because it’s very good. We ate some for supper and were sitting there talking about how they would be good. We decided that some sausage with some cooked rice would be great with the beans. Then we also decided they would be good in a quesadilla with some cheese and some fried onions and bell peppers. We were very well pleased with the taste of them as you can tell.

We also wanted to can some more of that awesome Salsa we had canned a week or two back. We bought some gallon cans of tomatoes so we could make some more of it. It’s THAT good! I got 6 cups of the eight cups I needed for the salsa out of the first gallon can. That was so nice not having to peel them. lol And you know what, I can’t tell the difference in these than the home grown fresh tomato one we made.

We canned 18 pints of pinto beans today and 12 half pints of tomato salsa and 2 tall pints of tomato salsa. These aren’t as big around as pints but they’re taller than half pints so I don’t know what to call them. Then we also got 2 pints of the salsa as well. I added more tomato juice to the salsa this time and we like it much better. The other was too dry for us but we LOVVVVVE this salsa recipe! We have also decided this year that we love the taste of Cumin. I’ve never used it before and the tomato salsa called for it as well as the beans. I had probably 6-7 more pints of the beans when I got done and had only soaked 5 pounds of beans overnight. So I just took the others and made dinner out of some of them and put the others in the fridge for something else maybe tomorrow. I’ve got some flour tortillas I might use with them and some salsa. These beans are really good. Let me tell ya a funny! lol I found a recipe and it said 14 pounds of beans made 7 quarts I believe it was. So here I was buying bags and bags of beans. Guess what we will be canning lots of? Then I found this other recipe that had much less beans to have 7 quarts. When you soak them overnight they swell and then when you cook them they also swell so you have to only put about 3/4 full so they will have room to expand. Then you just finish filling the jar with water and just leave a 1” headspace in the jar. I pressure canned mine so they will be safe to eat as well. But anyway later on maybe toward the end of the week or the first of next week I need to can some more beans! lol

We have finally quit for the day because both of us are mega tired.

Pic of the Salsa.

Pix of the pinto beans. Aren’t they pretty in color? They have chili powder in them.

I hope you’re all having the start of a great week!

Rose

Bill Withers

My daughter heard a song the other day and she thought to herself, who is this singing? I’ve heard this song for years but don’t know who sings it. So she got home and did a little googling and found out it was Bill Withers. I was like I have NEVER heard his name before that I can remember but have heard several of his songs. So she went online and bought one of his CD’s.

Bill only sang for like 8 years and he calls this a small window of time and calls it a small miracle because in that brief time in which he created an enduring piece of work. As a singer he is in the same company as Ray Charles, Al Green and is a simple person (I can relate big time because I am as well) and likes the simple things and wrote about them as well. The simple things ARE the most important things in my opinion. Let me explain….. He wrote a song about his Grandma Hands, and I am here to tell you, it is awesome! The meaning to that song, oh my goodness, gives me chills and reminds me of my MawMaw, my Daddy’s Momma. I’m looking online now to see IF I can find the words to it and here they are.

Grandma's hands
Clapped in church on Sunday morning
Grandma's hands
Played a tambourine so well
Grandma's hands
Used to issue out a warning
She'd say, "Billy don't you run so fast
Might fall on a piece of glass
"Might be snakes there in that grass"
Grandma's hands
Grandma's hands
Soothed a local unwed mother
Grandma's hands
Used to ache sometimes and swell
Grandma's hands
Used to lift her face and tell her,
"Baby, Grandma understands
That you really love that man
Put yourself in Jesus hands"
Grandma's hands
Grandma's hands
Used to hand me piece of candy
Grandma's hands
Picked me up each time I fell
Grandma's hands
Boy, they really came in handy
She'd say, "Matty don' you whip that boy
What you want to spank him for?
He didn't drop no apple core"
But I don't have Grandma anymore
If I get to Heaven I'll look for
Grandma's hands

You can go to this link and hear the song.

http://www.last.fm/music/Bill+Withers/_/Grandma's+Hands

Anyway during the time he was a singer he had children and he realized (GOOD FOR YOU BILL) he was missing out on his children’s lives and he quit his singing career and went home to be with  his children.

He wrote the song Lean on Me, he also wrote Ain’t No Sunshine (when she’s gone), and Just the Two of Us. Bill is 61 at the time of this CD. He didn’t wear the flashy clothes, he didn’t play games or do double deals. He’s just plain folk. You know the song Charlie Pride sings, I’m Just Me? That’s MY song, I LOVE the words to that song!! BUT back to Bill……

OH GET THIS!!!! Whoa you GO BILL! He says on the paper that came in this CD, “I worry about the direction of the world. I worry about a culture where only the physically or materially dominant have the right to speak. Each generation needs and art form to license male vulnerability. If maleness comes to symbolize raw competition, how do males learn to offer love, brotherly support and simple humanity? You can call me a senior citizen. A serious guy. I’m serious about tweaking myself. I’ve always been serious that way, trying to evolve to a more conscious state. Funny thing about that, though, you tweak yourself, looking for more love, less lust, more compassion, less jealousy. You keep tweaking, keep adjusting those knobs until you can no longer find the original settings. In some sense, the original settings are exactly what I’m looking for--- a return to the easy going guy I was before my world got complicated, the nice guy who took things as they came and laughed so hard the blues would blow away in the summer wind.”

Check out what Rhoda has going on today on her blog at Southern Hospitality!
Thank you Rhoda for that explaination on how to do a live link! :) Maybe this will work now.

Garage Sal-ing

Well I didn’t get up with the chickens like Rhoda over at the Southern Hospitality blog does, but I got a few bargains. lol I had planned on getting up with the chickens but wound up staying up really late watching an awesome movie and just couldn’t make myself get up that early this morning.

I also went to a couple thrift stores in the area and got a couple of things. One of the thrift store items was this little package of table napkins and rings and placemats. Notice the price on it. Hasn’t ever been opened. The little bottle I have some taller ones like it and thought it would be neat for in the bathroom with cotton balls and cotton swaps in them, it was .50. Or I might even fill them with sea shells who knows? The stainless steel bucket was 3 at the thrift store and I want to use it to put my spatula and large spoons in for the kitchen. The little blue fish there by the napkins was 6 or 7 dollars I can’t remember which. Got it and the other little fish on the stand for our beachy bedroom. Then the tall glass candle holder was 1.00 at a garage sale. The little pen and note card holder was 3.00 and from the antique store. I thought it was too cute and is sort of like the Old Country Rose pattern.

I really like this fish with the seaweed and seashells on it. That’s going to be neat in our bedroom with all the other beachy things. hmmmmm I MIGHT need to add onto this room! LOL...... OHHHH I didn’t tell you……. I found me one of those life rings the other day at a local antique store. It was 2.00, can you believe that? I’m undecided if I am going to paint it or not. I’ll have to get a pic of it to show you as well.

So that’s about all for today. Stay tuned for more garage sales and thrift store shopping. ;)

Have an awesome weekend!

Rose

Stopping to Smell the Roses

This evening DH and I were going out to eat some catfish. I have been canning okra most of the day. Got online doing some research on how much water to add to my canner etc. so I will get it done right. Anyway then had to get back putting my okra up. Anyway in between canners I stopped so we could go eat. He needed to pay a bill while in the little town so we did that. As I was driving home I saw something just as I passed by it. I started backing up and you know how men are…….lol you got to keep going straight and not back up. ;) He wanted to know WHAT was I doing? This little bunny rabbit just so happened to jump out of the fire hose just as I passed and I saw it. So I backed up to get a better look. It was SO CUTE as you can see. I was scared if I got out of the car it would run back up in the fire hose so I just sit in the car and took pix.

As you can see by the pix it is a very small baby. DH said only a few weeks old. It looks larger in the last pic though. Played a little while taking the pix and then headed back home to finish those jars of okra. I got 7 quarts out of the first batch and then a whole canner full of pints are in there now. I think I counted 8 pints in the canner but not really sure. This is the first time I have ever done okra in jars before. I will have to get a pic and show you all later.

Edited to add the pic of the okra. The little white balls in the okra is a purplish color and you can’t tell that in this pic. These are some of the quarts.

I hope you all have an awesome weekend. I plan on trying to hit some garage sales myself.

Rose

Meditating Today

I’ve been doing a lot of meditating today on several things I want to share with you. First off on the state I live in. I am from Mississippi and I am VERY PROUD of the state that I live in. There are loads and loads of nice intelligent folks in this state. Loads of them have became very popular. One day I am going to do a post on all of them I can think of that is FROM this GREAT STATE I live in. But to name just a couple that is right off the top of my head, Elvis Presley, Oprah Winnfrey, not sure on her last name spelling, but you get the point, and last but not least is the wonderful Charlie Pride! There are loads and loads more people. The state of Ms. has gotten REALLY BAD raps and I am SO SICK of hearing them all. My daughter and I feel the same about this subject. We like our state. There are folks that think we are idiots and rednecks here but let me tell you, there are idiots AND rednecks EVERY WHERE YOU GO unfortunately. I was born and partially raised in Alabama and I do love Alabama but MS. is just an awesome place to live. The people here are nice on the most part and they don’t stick their nose up at you. When you’re driving along the roads, several folks are just as liable to wave at you as not and they don’t even know you. That’s HOW friendly folks are! 

Alrighty, got this to add so you can have MORE info about this wonderful place I live in! First off, you know that song by Merle Haggard, Fighting Side of Me? It says, when they’re running down our way of life our fighting men have fought and died to keep. If you don’t love it, leave let this song that I’m singin’ be your warning. When your running down our country man you’re walking on the fighting side of me. That’s how I feel about Mississippi. :) http://www.mississippibelieveit.com/ Check this out for some great info about my state.

Then secondly on things I’ve been meditating on today, is folks attitudes, not just MS. folks either. This is every where, not just in the state of MS. because every where I have been I have seen this. You can’t even sit in a place to eat without hearing folks fussing about something or talking about someone. Today while I was at KFC I had to sit and listen to a bunch of folks fussing about their cell phone bills and there was a large group of them and they got louder and louder and louder. I was in a tizzy by the time I finished my lunch. Ones bill was 250.00 for a cell phone bill. I was like OH MY WORD that is a power bill! I’d be getting rid of me a phone! BUT that is beside the point, either you have to listen to their bad language or fussing and being negative about something or listen to them TALK on their cell phones! For petes sake can’t they even eat in peace without their phones stuck up to their ears? I had TWO people nearly run me over yesterday because they had cell phones up to their ears when they were driving not paying attention to what they were doing. I had the right of way on one of them and the other one was in a parking lot and the woman litterly came on the WRONG side of the road driving. I had to completely STOP! WHATTTTTT is happening to this world? Is cell phones THAT important? More important THAN HUMAN LIFES???? When you can’t even visit with your family for texting and talking on the phone, something is wrong!!! I am sorry if I offend anyone but we really need to pay attention to what we are doing here. I read a book awhile back and the woman is SOOOOO RIGHT ON with what she was saying! She said when you have company at YOUR HOUSE, THEY, the company is more important than anything else. They should be your focus! She said if the phone rings, do not answer it unless it’s an emergency because you have company and they are what’s important right now. I TOTALLY AGREE!!! THAT my friend makes people feel VERY IMPORTANT that you think enough of them to spend the time they are there at YOUR HOUSE, with them! AND NOT ON SOME PHONE OR TEXTING! We are to be servants to others, we’re not serving folks when we can’t even visit with them for staying on the phone or texting. Anyway this is some things I have been thinking about today and I have one more.

3rd thing, SELFISH PEOPLE……. I know that we are ALL selfish at some time or the other. But I think that is what a lot of the problem is now is that everyone is thinking of self and not anybody else. Used to you didn’t hear every ones dirty laundry so to speak because it was kept at home and no one heard it when you were talking on the phone. NOW, you hear every ones because they carry their phones around while they shop, EVEN TO THE BATHROOM! I am sorry, well no I’m REALLY NOT but when you go to the bathroom, THAT should be the LAST PLACE the things answered! I was in the restroom awhile back and I was plum embarassed because some woman was ON THE PHONE in the stall next to me!!! I was taught to be considerate and to have some modesty. HOW can I HAVE modesty when the woman in the next stall from me is on HER CELL PHONE! WHAT has happened to BEING CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS? This REALLY bothers me!!!! What do we have to do, ASK them to please get off the phone? There is something wrong with this picture. I am NOT trying to be mean here, or critical but I live in this world to and my rights are being stomped on like crazy and I know I am not the only one that has problems with all of this stuff. I KNOW there are other folks that were also taught modesty!

Carolyn

WHY YES I remember you Carolyn! You didn't give me your new blog address. You can email me with it if you want to. I had emailed you awhile back because I was worried about you. You had been so faithful at making comments on my blog and then poof you were gone. I emailed you a couple times trying to make sure you were ok but never did recieve any emails. So all I could figure was your computer tore up and you hadn't gotten it fixed yet. Or that you had gotten offline for some reason. Anyway I am just happy you are back! And with a NEW blog to boot? I tried your old blog but it didn't work. I thought it might take me to your new one but it didn't. Anyway so happy you are back and don't forget to give me your new bloggy link. :)

Antique Mirrors

I found a couple antique mirrors this evening at the local thrift store. I had a bunch of stuff in the back of the car that I had put there yesterday evening to take to them. So DH told me today I needed to mail our Netflix DVD and to go by the thrift store and take that stuff I had in the back of the car. I was like, OK. lol So anyway did all that and found these mirrors. I think the very same person must have had these that had the dresser I bought last week because it was ALSO covered in cat hair and spider webs. Here they are before I wiped and cleaned them up. Quite a difference with them after they are cleaned up. I think I am going to put one maybe two of them over my dresser.

 

I think I am going to paint them the country white to match my dresser. They are wood and the paint is flaking off pretty bad. On the back they had a sticker and it said Permaflect Mirror, J.A. Olson Company Winona, Mississippi. Oh I haven’t said what I gave for them yet have I? ;) 16.00 for BOTH of them. They are mega heavy to.

Annie’s Salsa Recipe

Well I made the last batch of tomatoes in Annie’s Salsa Recipe and man can I say that her recipe is AWESOME with ALL caps! I even used Splenda in place of the sugar and it’s still awesome! I sure am hoping I can get some more tomatoes to make some more of this because I KNOW this is NOT going to be enough to last us! IF I can’t get anymore I will be buying some gallon cans of tomatoes to make this with! It’s THAT GOOD! I’ve got all the other ingredients to make a couple more batches of it so I’ll just get me a couple gallons of tomatoes to make it.

I found the recipe on the Garden Web Harvesting forum. You can read all about it here at the links below. You might need to do a search because it’s changed several times to make it better so I understand and to make it more safe. They have several threads where they have discussed her recipe. Just in case these links doesn’t work. Go to www.gardenweb.com and click on forums and then Harvest Forum. You can then do a search for Annie’s Salsa Recipe.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/harvest/msg082200459418.html?131

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/harvest/msg1122365628967.html?24

I hope you all had a great 4th! I know I did.

Tomatoes

Got my last tomatoes in the water bath now. We got 11 pints of tomatoes. Then we canned some Chile Hot Pepper Sauce and got 14 half pints and 1 whole pint of those. Then I have some left in the fridge to make some of Annie’s Salsa tomorrow. I’m really not wild about the hot pepper sauce but I think I can throw in some hot Tabasco sauce in with it and make it better. I just seems like it needs something and I couldn’t mess with the recipe for fear of making it unsafe to eat. It’s good it’s just NOT what I was looking for. The recipe I have tasted seemed like it was more tomato tasting but yet hot, but not so hot you can’t eat it.

It’s about time I got into bed. Got to get those last ones out of the bath so I can get in the bed. I sure hope the salsa turns out better than the pepper sauce did. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful fourth!

Rose

Dresser

YES I FINALLY found me a dresser that will go with my chest and it wasn’t but 50.00! It’s very nice to has some scratches but I was going to paint it anyway (country white) to match my chest and head board. Let’s see, I bought the chest for 30.00, the headboard for 10.00 and then bought another headboard that was messed up so I could use the curvy post on it for mine, and that one was 5.00, then my dresser was 50.00. So I have what 95.00 in my WHOLE BEDROOM SET! lol

Got to show  you some pix of the dresser! Just went and got it today. Some of the pix I took at the place I bought it. Isn’t it weird how the light makes things different? I have most of the curtains closed in my living room so it’s a little dark in there right now.

It didn’t have a mirror with it but that’s no problem. I will find one or use a gold framed one I already have. I can paint it to match it as well if I need to.

Here’s a pic of the chest right after I got it painted. I know some of you are going to freak out because I painted old furniture. :)