See...that's why I never succeeded with blogging....

took me a while to find where I left my blog!  LOL there's pry one or two more out there in the cyber universe.... I started one before the wedding... never posted again after that... maybe I can keep track of this one....  never was a diary person...maybe blogger?  I guess with the diary it's wierd to talk to yourself....?  but with a blog you think someone might be reading it and it's easier to talk things over with people?  nice to connect with a wider community either way and get ideas and opinions....

So... not much going on here... having a time keeping up with everything.... behind...been tired from fighting off a cold...and said cold finally exploded on friday in the wee hours of the morning.... that was terrible... so spent friday sleeping..... helped... still tired but at least I'm not packing tissues around with me anymore :) 

couldn't get much done yesterday for lack of energy but got kids dressers all gone through and pulled out all the too small clothes.... not sure what to do with them now... would keep them and come up with upcycles to do but NO room left in house for more projects.... and no one seems to need any......

that's as far as I got yesterday.... today doing up the ham and bean soup... last ditch effort to get Bella to eat beans... she says she hates squishy food and beans are the only thing on the squishy list it seems :)   SO I thought if she goes and picks out the beans to go in the soup maybe that will help her decide to eat it..... otherwise I give up... she has to be cajoled into eating just one and that's successful 1 percent of the time.....
so the soup is on.... check bones from yesterday's slow cooker chicken have been roasted and then simmmered and turned into chicken broth :)  and the several pounds of chicken thighs I just bought on sale are roasting in the oven ... will be pulling all the meat off of them to use in meals and vacuum sealing it and then roasting those bones and tossing them in to a new chicken broth batch....  with husband having such bad luck hunting this year... we're going to have to include buying meat into the food budget for the first time in six years.... living check to check (and sometimes not successfully)  I don't know how we're going to be doing that..... and how to do it healthly either, half the reason we were venison only was the history of heart problem for husband and wanted his cholesterol down... other half was trying to have a family of four live on our budget... I've been keeping things under or around $75.00 a week.... grocery wise... I'd like to keep it that way with meat involved.....  so starting with chicken on sale :)

been doing the chicken broth for a year now.... once I found out how easy it was, I haven't bought canned chicken broth since!  and we used it a LOT so it was way better cost wise to make it... and I felt way better with what I was cooking with since I was the one putting it in the pot :)  I knew what was going in  :)

SO......  now I'm trying to figure out how to make two nights a week veggie nights.... with two primal meat eaters in the house :) 

I did a veggie meal one night... spaghetti squash, a side with mexican squash... and then one other veggie side I forget what... boy.... Bugga didn't talk to me for a few days!  LOL  he thought the spaghetti squash was cheese, thought I was rock star mom.... grabbed a huge handful and bit into it... threw it all back in the dish... so he was upset, and we had a talk about putting food back in serving dishes...and listening to me since I TOLD him it wasn't cheese.....  anyhow...he's the meat eater and Bella is the veggie lover... she won't eat squishy / beans and he won't touch something with a red / tomatoe sauce..... ::FaceDesk:: that's 90% of what I cook!

so.... tip on the chicken broth... when roasting the chicken, I forget every single time... use a roasting pan or cake pan etc... if you use a baking sheet you will have all the good juices run over and smoke all over the house... again.....  I need to level my stove too :)  

ok... that's my day.... chicken, chicken stock... hope to clean entire kitchen again since chocolate milk was spilled ... Bugga didn't listen AGAIN and was sitting on the arm of his booster on the chair and wiggling during lunch... he won't sit, won't sit still, and won't stop balancing on edges.... fifty bucks says he'll stop now... he went off in a glorious head first flip, legs swung up high as he spun, took out everything on the table... and he was down... that fast... from the far side of the table all I could do is see it start beyond my reach and cuss him for not listening as I tried to circle the table.... so he's learned a hard lesson... and there's chocolate milk all over my kitchen....  he swears up and down now though he'll sit still on the chair... so we'll see....

oh, found banannas in the discount bin, over ripe :)  so if I get energy I'll surprise husband with bannan bread tonight ;)  he loves it :)  kids love it :)  so I DO get to sneak some fruit and veggies into Bugga ;)  once in a while....

any tips you have?  we only have one store... it's not cost effective to drive an hour or more to get groceries "lower priced" elsewhere....  how do you stretch the grocery budget?  I know we're all getting hit hard, I see the expired bin in the store now more than ever... and I've shopped out of it.... if something is in there with only a week past date I'll grab it and make a meal that night... but it's a lot more expired stuff than ever before in there....  and discounts all over the store... I know part of it is no one can afford stuff like we used to...another is everyone thinks they are saving money buying out of town and killing the local store.....

I shop around the sales... I check the flyer weekly and if something we use is on sale I buy as much as I can fit in the budget and stock pile what I can to use all month or two or three until it comes on sale again. IE the chicken which gets roasted up and stored for putting in meals....

I do the bountiful baskets... I would love to shop local for veggies but so far I've only seen one farmers market and they keep having the dang thing in the middle of the week during work hours... not really smart if you want to catch the shoppers but I guess... so I can't shop with them during the season.... I get a variety in the BB that I can't get locally either... so it's a nice addition to the meals, variety :)  and I buy bread with them since there is no way I can get 9 grain organic wheat bread for $2.00 a loaf otherwise... and tortillas are a great deal too....

I have a garden started again.....  plan to make salsa and figure a way to long term store it until I can afford a pressure canner....

when we do go out of town, every other month if I'm lucky, I do grab the large olive oil at walmart... it's cost effective to buy it large ... $20.00 for what looks to be a gallon... generic... no way I can do that local....

I have the stuff like a case of toilet paper shipped in from amazon, subscribe and save.... cat food, etc... free shipping.... and only if it's a better price than locally....

and 90% of the groceries are all local store and on sale....

I make everything I can from scratch..... pizza, soups, mac n cheese (unless local store had it on sale for 99 cents a box!)  and even then I'll still make it from scratch because I can :)  I save the box stuff for when husband is home with kids and needs a quick meal :)   same for helper boxes, I make them from scratch.... I stock up on the pastas on sale 99 cents a pound bag... ramen noodles too....  and every meal I save out two meals to use for lunches at work the next day or day after for myself and husband...

we don't drink coffee and cut out pop (saved 100 dollars a month at one point!  eeek!  and I'm sure future health bills ) 

so that's all the stuff that everyone tells you to do.... to save money.....   what the heck else is there?  how can you make things stretch more???

what do you do???

I'd love any of your favorite veggie recipes as well :)  I'm always looking for new recipes to try!

ok... off to make a quick lunch and check my chicken!

Weekends over! boo.....or yay?

Weekends over... and it's back to work...  I usually spend all week frustrated that we have so little time with the kids during the week and pining for the weekend when I get them all to myself.... we get home, it's a rush to get supper going for "starving" kids who I know just had a snack and hour and a half ago :)  and then get at least one room of the house cleaned up and in order, get baths taken, get a load of laundry done... maybe folded... we'll be lucky to get it put away.... check our emails.... and then it's time to get everyone heading for bed it seems... there's barely an hour in there to let the kids play, listen to their day, listen to their chatter together.... or if they want, a half hour for them to get on the ipad or watch tv (their choice) .... and we're suddenly cut off... get them washed and brushed and scrubbed and into fresh jammies and tucked into bed.... then a snack and water and back to bed... then answer whatever question Bella has come up with and send her back to bed (Buggy is much easier to get to bed once he's IN it....) and then maybe three more questions, and itch, another drink and Belle stops coming out of her room :)  and is asleep... then it's finish up our stuff, or maybe be naughty and sneak in a tv show (all our own and without inturruption?!?! no way!) and then off to bed..... 

So I spend the week missing my kids and wishing for the weekend.....

and the week end comes :)  and right now it sucks because it is winter and I have summer babies (only one was an actual SUMMER baby but they both would live outdoors if given the chance).... so we try to entertain ourselves inside... argue over how much room cleaning is really necessary... the day is unfortunately sucked up more than I like since everyone insists that they need to EAT.... so cooking and cleanup takes a good three hours of the day :(   and of course Bella and Buggy have been in school and daycare respectively all week and only see each other from 2:00 on during the day so there's always the saturday morning acclimation to get used to being in each other's orbit again :)  the power struggle to see who's the alpha again.... and they get it rather sorted out by noon.... by two they are wearing thin of each other and just hitting their grouchy spots... by four I remember WHY I work LOL   ....seriously though.... some weekends I wonder why i spent all week missing them :)  and some weekends I spend wishing I could be a stay at home mom.... seems to be par for the course with kids.... so everything gets played with, crafts get drug out, a video or two might get watched, lots of snuggling on the couch.... and if we're lucky the sun comes out more and more and we will get to start spending the weekend living outside :)  and soaking up the warm warm rays.... and burn off more energy than inside can handle... seriously...HOW many times MUST you tell people NOT to climb on the back of the couch or hang on curtains? :)

So yes.... I'm starting out my week... and missing my babies already... and no, they are not really named Bella and Buggy....but that's what I call them and that's what they'll be on here :)  they're both my bugga bugga babies :)  and I'd go through everything to bring them that cookie to share too..... yes.... we watched a lot of Dora at one point.... let's not go there LOL