Budgeting for Organic Foods-Menu Planning

The key to a successful budget is planning. My biggest problem is waste and overbuying and you can combat both of these with a great plan. The other thing I notice is that when I plan I am more inspired to make more new and interesting foods.
My first step to planning is taking stock of what I have in the fridge/pantry that needs to be used up. This week I have some leftover beef stock from making crock pot roast beef sandwiches, zucchini and ham that I want to use up.

So lets start from there with the leftover beef broth, I'd like to make Risotto. I found a great recipe online that sounds delicious! Now I'm not using tenderloin for this, I'm using leftover chuck roast. That's another one of my big ways of saving money, really stretching our meat and using cheaper cuts. We really just use meat to add flavor and see it as a side not the main component. Pinterest has been a great source of inspiration and I saw these healthy Zucchini chips that I'd love to try. The ham is just begging to be made into Spit Pea Soup, YUM!!

Saturday-
Beef Risotto-I'll be using some mushrooms we have in the fridge for this, so we have everything in house to make this except for the wine. I'm also using Aborrio rice instead of the carnaroli rice the recipe calls for (Aborrio is also a great Risotto rice). As a side I want to make Zucchini chips because I think that would brighten up the heaviness of the meal, Also I'd like to bring them to the Superbowl party we are going to Sunday but want to try out the recipe beforehand.

Sunday-
SUPERBOWL!! We were invited to a friends house so I just wanted to bring a couple things, the first being the Zucchini chips and the second is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip. These look delicious! For the Cookie Dough Dip I'll bring some apples as well as Graham Crackers to dip.

Monday-
Monday I'll be babysitting so its a great day to use my crockpot for some Split Pea Soup. We have some Ezekiel bread that will hold up nicely toasted with this soup! Another meal we don't need to buy anything for.

Tuesday-
Spicy Honey Chicken, Brown Rice and Broccoli. For this we buy our Chicken from Trader Joes and get Organic Cage Free thighs for 4.99 lb. It is a bit pricy but this will be the only meal this week that is featuring meat and using more than a lb.

Wednesday-
Another Pinterest find is Coconut, Shrimp and Corn Chowder. This looks delicious and we happen to have some wild caught shrimp in the freezer and all the ingredients in the pantry.

Thursday-
Dahl with Spinach served with brown rice. One of the hubs favorite foods is Dahl, which is awesome because its cheap and nutritious! We often do vegetarian nights to save cash. Thankfully the hubs will eat everything! If your family isn't big on the vegetarian bandwagon try to cook foods from other cultures, they might be so fooled by the new flavors that they will not even realize that they are eating vegetarian!

Friday-
Pizza! Pizza crust is cheap and easy to make yourself. Pizza is also a great fridge emptier; take your veggies, leftover meats, cheese ends and use them up! One of my friends parents instituted pizza night at their house when we were younger. Everyone was invited and they just made pizza after pizza. It was so fun and delicious and everyone ended up there on Friday nights! Something I definitely want to start doing in our house!

So as far as our menu plan goes here is what I need to buy: Garbonzo Beans, Graham Crackers, Onions, Garlic, Broccoli, Spinach, Chicken Thighs and Corn. As you can see I'm relying heavily on what is in my pantry so I really only need to pick up a few things to make our dinners. Now I go through and add in some of the other things we'll need this week: fruit, yogurt, milk, eggs. For our breakfasts we either eat eggs, oatmeal or smoothies so I try to have those things in the house at all times. Lunches generally are leftovers. Now that I'm all done figuring what we are eating this week I go through my house and see what needs to be re-filled. I like to keep a well stocked pantry (flour, sugar, oatmeal, beans, coffee, butter, peanut butter, tuna, jelly, baking needs, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chicken broth, olive oil, etc). Once I see what I need to replenish I check the sales and see if there is anything there that I can buy in bulk. This week my groceries I need will probably only cost $40-45 so I have about $30-35 to restock my pantry or stock up on sales items. Sometimes I'll use this extra if I see good sales and sometimes I will roll it into the next weeks budget to save up in case there is a good sale on meat or I'm close to needing a high priced item (maple syrup, oils, etc). I'll also use the surplus to sometimes treat us to takeout.

What are you making this week?

Grocery List
Garbonzo Beans-3 cans (1 for the dip and 2 for pantry as I used mine up this week on hummus)
Graham Crackers
chicken thighs
Onions
Garlic
Broccoli
Spinach
Corn
Apples
Bananas
Oranges/Clementines
Yogurt
milk
eggs
tuna


Extra
Red Wine

Budgeting for Organic Foods-Step 1 Taking Stock and Prioritizing

A few of my friends have been asking me how we afford to eat organic foods after they watched Food Inc. After some discussion I was a little shocked to know that we had almost the same grocery budget (mine was $5 more a week). I was asked to tell how to eat clean foods on a budget. Let me give you a little background on this, I started on this lifestyle shortly after we got married and have gradually gotten "crunchier". We make some choices that have been viewed as extreme in order to be able to fit this into our budget. I view our budget as a game of "Would You Rather", lets dive in a bit.

In our home we:
cloth diaper
use rags for cleaning
use cloth napkins for food
clean with vinegar and baking soda
line dry whatever clothes that we can
change our own oil and do car repairs that we can (well the hubby does these)
mend our own clothes
try to learn new skills rather than paying someone to do them for us (plumbing, electrical, etc)
buy used "beater" cars with cash
stockpile food either by buying in bulk for better prices or by buying the max amount of a sale price
shop at multiple stores for best prices
buy used clothing for the whole family if possible
bake from scratch instead of buying convenience foods
turn off lights like freaks
I cut my husbands hair
we don't have premium channels (and our cable is free)
we don't watch tv until the evening
we drink water for beverages
we don't have netflix or hulu plus

This is not an exhaustive list but it gives you an idea of the types of ways we cut back on our budget in other ways to accommodate the things that we find most important. What's most important to our family right now is for me to be home with our son and for all of us to eat nutritious REAL foods. Now don't think we are complete misers here. We do allow some luxuries into our life. My husband and I have a slight Starbucks addiction, we both have smartphones (his company pays for his and because we don't have to pay for a cell phone for him we use that savings for the data plan for me) and other things. We live a rich full life that we enjoy by taking stock of what's important to us and cutting things out that we don't care about. I would rather do these things and eat well than have some more conveniences and not be able to eat this way.

So I challenge you to take a look at your spending and write every single blessed thing down that you spend your money on. Once you have a month of that take a look at what you are spending your money on and figure out if there are things you can do to reduce that number. Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day and you don't need to make complete and drastic changes overnight but just little steps in the right direction. Figure out what the most important change to you is (for me it was buying organic milk and cage free organic eggs) and make that change this month. If you have questions or scenarios that you want to know more about let me know and we can address them in future posts. I'm not the authority on this but whatever knowledge I have I'd be happy to pass on.

On menu planning

Generally the best way I have found to follow our budget and eat real foods is menu planning. While I have been faithful to following weight watchers recently, I admit I have let this fall by the wayside. I haven't been inspired in the kitchen and so we have been eating out more than I care to admit or just eating boring foods. I'm going to try to break this rut by at least making one new recipe a week and menu planning. This week we did go over budget by about $20 but our menu also includes a special fathers day meal of grass fed steaks.

I have been pretty disgusted with what I am learning about much of our food supply, so in general we buy organic; and our beef must be grass fed. I want to incorporate at least one fish meal as well a week and that must be ocean caught. Its so important to me right now that I would rather eat vegetarian rather than conventional beef or farm raised fish, it really just doesn't seem safe to eat any more. I have been called a food snob before because of this but honestly I feel it's a question of safety. We eat like this at home knowing that while we are out we can't employ the same practices but at least we know the vast majority of our diet is safe.

This has been a challenge as far as the grocery budget so I will be working on following our budget strictly and incorporating vegetarian meals to offset. The fish cost has been offset by buying wild alaskan salmon in a can.

This weeks Menu:

Sunday-Father's Day! Grass Fed Steak, asparagus, roasted potatoes, salad and for dessert Cherry Pie (from the 50 lbs of cherries my friends and I picked and processed). All favorites for Schmoops first father's day.

Monday-honey lime enchiladas made with homemade tortillas (I will be subbing coconut oil for the shortening).

Tuesday-Pizza- store bought crust, store bought sauce. Easy peasy

Wednesday-.Crock Pot Black Bean Soup-served with Greek Yougurt instead of sour cream and flavored with fresh cilantro from our garden

Thursday-Quiche with sausage, onions and peppers

Friday-Alaskan Salmon Chick Pea and Mint Patties served with cous cous

I'm hoping that Wednesday can be a beach day and we can bring leftover pizza for lunch and then come home to some wonderful crockpot soup. Also, did you notice the two low cost vegetarian meals that I snuck in there?

Are you menu-planning? What helps you?

The kindness of strangers (and husbands too!)

So today I put the Bug in his baby carrier to go outside to shovel the driveway. This was completely by choice because I wanted a doughnut and had to shovel the driveway to get it. It also killed two birds with one stone because I wanted to work off said doughnut before I ate it. I've been trying to make better food choices and lose some weight lately so this seemed like a good way to do it.

So while I was out shoveling two young guys (one was probably mid 20's and the other mid teens) walked by with shovels and asked if I would like them to shovel for me. I thanked them and just let them know we didn't have any cash on us but I appreciated the offer, then I told them of my doughnut plan. Before they walked off I just asked if Bug looked comfortable because its harder to see him in the back carry. He said he did and was asking me a little about his stitches from his surgery and commented "What beautiful blue eyes he has" (aww how sweet, stranger guy!). I started shoveling again and the two guys start shoveling as well; I thanked them and said they didn't need to help and again that we didn't have any cash on us. The older guys then said to me "sometimes its just not about the money, you seem like a really nice lady and we'd just like to help you". How kind of them! So we shovel together for about 20 min and get my driveway done and I asked them if they would like some hot chocolate (hubs was working from home would not have offered if he wasn't there) they declined but did ask for some water. I brought them out glasses of water and they went on and on thanking ME for the water, what wonderful selfless people!

Then we finished and I came in to show the hubs the sleeping Bug on my back and he asked what I was doing. I told him I shoveled the driveway and he said "You didn't have to do that, that's my job!" I said that it was fine I did it because I wanted to (and wanted a doughnut). What a wonderful thing to have a choice whether I want to shovel or not!

Just a little part of my day but it has had me smiling for the rest of the afternoon :)

Cloth Diapering so far

pic of my Bug's cute little cloth diapered tush!

Some of our parenting decisions were made automatically for us; cloth diapering and breastfeeding being the biggest. It was VERY important to both of us for me to stay home to raise the bug and for that to happen we had to lessen the cost of having a child. Diapering a child comes with an obscene cost, cloth diapering seemed like the best way to cut that and it has been. Thankfully we had purchased some cloth when we took care of my nieces twins and one of my friends handed me down some of her cloth diapers as her kids outgrew them; so even the cloth diapers didn't really have a significant impact on our budget. Even if we did have to purchase them it really just does make sense financially to go cloth. There are other bloggers who have gone into the cost analysis so I'm not going to do the math, I'll just link up a few here, here and here. I also like the environmental aspect of cloth diapering and appreciate how my frugal choices also tend to be green.

What we didn't realize is that when we left the hospital they would give us TONS of disposable diapers, we literally left with 5 packages. These 5 packages proved to be a great incentive to start with the cloth, we both HATED them. The bug some how leaked so bad that every time we changed him at night we were changing the sheets and his clothes too (some times ours as well).

It was so irritating, and both brands that they gave us let to the same effect. The hubs and I were so happy when we started using cloth because they really held the business in. We honestly haven't even noticed the laundry part of it too much, it works out to be an extra load every 2-3 days and you don't have to fold them!

So yeah, we cloth diaper and it isn't at all horrible like everyone insisted it would be when we were pregnant (all while giving us knowing looks and saying "we'll see how long that lasts"). It just works for us and for the boy, although I could see how if you were working full time or didn't have a washing machine cloth diapering would be hard. Also breastfeeding has its own advantages on cloth diapering so if I was formula feeding I might be singing a different tune.

The one thing that bothers me when people talk about cloth diapering is that they believe you have to buy the fancy expensive diapers. You can go crazy with cloth there are many many different options and some of them cost over $20 a diaper but you can go way cheaper than that. We opted to purchase prefolds, cheap prorap covers
and snappis to secure. Diapering with those options it costs about $50 per size and you can reuse for subsequent children, super cheap!

So what do you do? What made your decision for you?

Cloth Diapering Amazingness!

So this little lobster is getting cloth diapers, way more for frugal reasons than for any other but the environmental issues did weigh in in our decision making. The hubs is totally on board with it, I think it made it easier that he learned how to do cloth with the twins and realized its not that difficult. Thankfully I have some IRL friends that use cloth on their tots that have totally helped me decide what I do and don't need. When we had the twins we purchased about 2 dozen prefolds and about 6 covers in medium size; which is awesome now cause that money was long ago spent and doesn't impact our current budget. In the past week or so I've gotten awesome gifts and loans of more cloth diapers. One of my former doula clients and friends gave us on loan 32 Swaddlebees with a bunch of newborn covers, woolies and fleece. Another friend who is on her last babe passed along a bunch of prefolds. My dear friend, Mama K, has said she would help me organize my stash and see if there are any holes (as well as pass along on loan some of her small ones). I also won the most adorable medium cover from Deb at Made By Mama by being her fan on Facebook.

As it looks now we pretty much are set for diapering our babe in October. I'm just so incredibly thankful that this is working out so early in my pregnancy and I don't need to worry about it later on. I'm also so thankful that I have friends and family that already do alot of the things that the hubs and I would like to do with our child. What a wonderful support network already in place.

I am blessed.

No TV?!?!

Yeah we're thinking about it. Thats right taking the plunge and getting rid of our cable and possibly our tv. Its just a thought right now but one we're giving serious attention.

Our current contract is up on Jan 14th and as it looks now we'll be getting rid of the cable. I found a high speed internet and phone bundle thats $55 a month, currently we're paying $125 for our Phone, Internet and Cable (plus a DVR). So just by cutting the cable we'd be able to put $70 more a month towards our mortgage which adds up to a whopping $840 for the year. We do have our laptops so we'd be able to catch some shows on Hulu and we do have Netflix (for now) so I don't think it would hurt too badly. The main thing would be that the hubs wouldn't be able to watch sports.

As far as the tv, we have one of the flat screen wall mount jobs and I think its just too much for us. If we don't have high definition channels I don't think its worth it to have the tv either. If we sell it now I think we'd be able to get a good amount of money for it to also put on the mortgage. I have a very romantic idea of not having a tv in the house and how much I would get done in a day. I have crazy notions about a good amount of things though so we'll see if it comes to fruition or not. The hubs is still on the fence so I guess I'll let you know what we decide. We're going to have to figure it out soon!

Anybody gone and rid your house of the tv? cable? What are your thoughts

Happy New Year to Ya!

Hope you guys all had a great and safe new year! The hubs and I did, we were able to spend it with good friends. We made some goals for ourselves as a couple and as individuals this year and posted them by the bathroom mirror where we see them twice a day. I don't want to call them New Year's Resolutions because people never follow through with them but they are our goals and where we'd like to see ourselves by the end of the year.
Our goals as a couple are:
1. We'd like to walk together at least 5 nights a week.

We want to be more physically fit as a couple and regularly walking would be a good
start. It also gives us a chance to talk without getting to distracted by tv or the computer.

2. We want to pay off 50% of the remaining debt in our second mortage

I've been reading so much about setting up a financial plan. Generally, the hubs and I
are pretty good with money and budgets. I tend to be the spendier one in the family but neither of us is a fan of debt. Our only debt right now is our mortgage but we have two of them. I'm praying that we are able to pay off our second mortage within this year but the goal is just for 50% of our remaining debt in our second mortgage to be paid off. Once we have it completely paid off we're going to go aggressive on our first. If I had to do again, I think I would have rented and saved up to flat out buy our first home no matter how long it took. Live and Learn right...

3. We want to read through the Bible as a couple.

With this we both want to grow as Christians and as a couple. This will be a great way to grow and challenge each other. I'm so excited to do it!! It is a pretty aggressive reading to me but I'm excited for the challenge.

Anyone else setting some goals for this year??

Camping Trip

So we left off last week on our way to the campground in the pouring rain. The family that was going with us had a little girl so they weren't so sure they wanted to brave the elements. Well we turned into the state forest and it stopped raining. Wondering if it was just a beneficial fluke we quickly set up camp, worried that it would start raining again. We got the camp set up in record time and the weather held for us. Our friends ended up meeting us a few hours later with their little girl. It was so nice being out in the woods again hearing all the bugs and frogs. I really miss how loud nature can be :)

one of the gorgeous wooded paths

We were pretty much alone at the campsite that night, there were a couple of other campsites filled up but not really anyone that we even saw or heard. It was great spending a quiet night by the fire playing Phase 10, talking and making some smores. We woke up pretty late on Saturday and just spent the day walking around and playing on the playground.

The hubs and his good friend were "super" excited to play on the playground

The hubs caught the fishing bug while we were there and is so ridiculously excited to get back out with his pole.

My hottie

That night was another campfire, more games, more smores and more talking. This was probably one of the most relaxing camping weekends I've had in my life.

There's fish in that there water

A great bonus was how cheap it was, we stayed at the state park so it was $20 a night split by the two couples it was just $20 for the weekend. The campground allows 6 people on a site so it could be even cheaper if we split it three ways. We did pretty frugal meals; Hot dogs and pasta for dinners; eggs, bacon and pancakes for breakfasts and sandwiches for lunch.

Oh boy I love him :)

Quick Fix

I've been going crazy the past couple years because we have about 30 frames in our back room of all different colors, materials, sizes and shapes. Every time I went into that room it bothered me a little bit. Well I found a cheap quick fix, I bought a can of flat black spray paint and painted all of our frames the same color. Not only is this employing what I have already instead of spending $10 + each on new frames. I also never have to worry about getting matching frames. I can pick up frames from the thrift stores or yard sales for .50c to a couple dollars and have them fit perfectly into my room.
Nice!

Frugal Holidays

So one thing the hubs and I do for holidays is make our own cards for each other. The hubs will make a lovely card with what he wants to say in it. I know that he took time to make it and it says what he wants it to so I treasure it. Just a little thing that saves you $8(two cards) a holiday that to me is way way more special than the store bought version. His cards usually are made with some photoshop elements while mine are drawn with each of us using our strengths to show the other one how much we care. I love these cards because he usually will work in some inside joke into it so I'll be laughing out loud while reading.

Making A Mei Tai

So when we found out we were getting the twins I started wondering how you do certain things.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out grocery shopping.  If you put both of them in the cart where do you put groceries?  I figured that making a baby carrier would be a necessary thing and found a Neat Website that gave general directions on how to make one.  The carrier is made from super soft corduroy, I added an extra pocket in a contrasting fabric/color.  I really like the way it turned out, it was probably the first real quality thing that I've made on my sewing machine.  I'll take a pic with me wearing it next week and once I make sure that it works well and that I like it I am going to make another one using some yummie brown corduroy and a funky contrasting fabric for the days I'm wearing earth tones. :)

As far as costs go, the cord cost about $8 and the contrasting fabric $1.

Big News In Dirkey Land

So many of you know that I have a great neice and a great nephew that are incredibly adorable. Well right before we left for our Hawaii trip we talked to their mama and she had some news. She is in the navy and is getting new orders to go to a new city and spend some time on some big ship for 4 weeks at a time. You can imagine that this would be pretty hard for a single parent to pull off, as the twins (who will be at about 13 months when this happens) aren't very good at watching themselves for weeks on end. This is where the hubs and I come in, starting sometime in January we will start to watch these adorable kiddo's for her until she is able to have them with her again. I put in my notice and my last day at my current job is in December to give me some time to get my house in order and do some babyproofing. The babyproofing is necessary because in my 30 years on this planet (as of last Tuesday) I have caught the nasty virus of the knick-knack. I've heard that knick-knacks don't really go well with young babies unlesss they are in the paddy-whack give a dog a bone variety.

I visited with my niece and the baby's this weekend and realized the need of some baby-refreshers before the kiddo's arrive. At one time I was quite skilled with the whole changing diaper and clothes routine but my skills are pretty rusty. My grand niece crawled away from me blindfolded while I was trying to put her shirt over her head(my family is blessed with HUGE craniums so shirts are difficult). My grand nephew and I made some headway and I was able to comfort him when he was crying (a couple of times anyway). I have a feeling that the first couple weeks we have them will be pretty interesting and time consuming until I get this whole twin thing down. They really are the most adorable things coming or going so that will make up for whatever shananagans we get ourselves into.

So if any of you have any tips for me, lay them on me. I look forward to being at home, its a little scary to go down to the one income (ok alot scary) so tips on that would also be appreciated. I'll be updating more on the Hawaii trip and actually add pictures this week! I know, wow, content!!

Update: hawaii and election

So, wow, I just printed my boarding passes. I'm kind of in a state of shock that we're actually going to Hawaii. I made a list of stuff to pack and stuff that needs to get done before we leave. I have all my laundry done and changed the sheets on all the beds for the house sitter (well except for the master bedroom will do that tomorrow morning before we leave). I'm tying up the loose ends at work so my mind won't wander to the things that need to be done as I'm sitting on the beach.
I will be bringing my computer and probably blogging the trip so you can pretend its you sitting in paradise.

I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to do this, its frightening though in this economic climate to spend so much money.

I'm politically burnt out. After watching all the ads and reading up I'm realizing that I don't agree with either canidate or either party. In the past I've strongly aligned myself to one party so this kind of comes as a shock to me. I think we need a drastic change and not one that can be brought about by Republican or Democrat. I think we need to get back to our roots as a country and start pairing back the government to what it was set out to be. I encourage all of you to do your research as to how our government started out. I will be voting but it won't be for one of the two major parties. Maybe my vote won't get someone elected but at least I can vote with clear conscience that I stand behind my vote and don't feel like I'm choosing the lesser of two evils.

Life Got In The Way

So this summer it feels like I lost it and went into survival mode for a couple of months. I lost a good bit of frugalness and by just surviving we saved a good deal less than we could have. I didn't cook nearly as much as I should have, we skated by not going grocery shopping more weeks than I can count, we ordered pizza or went out to eat more than normal. Honestly I don't feel too bad about it, we were busy enjoying life and having so much fun we didn't have time for the normal stuff. Now that the summer is over and things are slowing down and the house is getting back in order I feel like I can tackle this and get back on track with our savings and also prepare more healthy meals for me and the hubs.
This past week we did eat healthy meals that I prepared myself and I'm going shopping today to make sure that we do the same next week. I'm keeping a tighter reign on us as far as spending goes and making sure we're not going too crazy. Any ideas for quick, easy, healthy meals for this week? I love a challenge so leave me a recipe :)

btw as far as weight loss goes I lost another 2 lbs this past week! Yeah!!

A Hint

This makes me laugh :)

I just realized today that how most people act in a photobooth is how the hubs and I act all the time; silly, goofy and completely schmoopy!

The last pic cracks me up, I look awfully proud of myself and the hubs just looks stunned :) LOL!

Its a hint cause I used my new toy to do this little collage.

Simple Living

I was very inspired a couple months ago reading Like Merchant Ships to simplify my wardrobe. Currently the hubs and I share one large dresser and the closet. We have it divided evenly, however, my side is constantly overflowing and threatening the rest of the bedroom. I went through last week and took out things in two piles; one was very gently used to be taken to a consignment shop and the other were things that have gotten a lot of love (mostly stained) to be taken to either a thrift store or homeless shelter. I went through everything and was very strict with myself. If it stayed in my closet I had to start including it in my rotation (which as of the whole summer has been 1 pair of green capri's, 1 pair of grey shorts and 1 pair of jean shorts). When I got through I had two very large lawn and leaf bags full of clothes that needed to leave our house. I did go out and buy a few nice shirts as I really didn't have much other than t-shirts in my closet.

The closet is now separated by color, style (tank, short sleeve and long sleeve). I have several sizes of clothes in the closet organized by size so when I undergrow the clothes I have now I can get rid of them (hopefully consignment shop) and just start on the ones waiting in the closet. When I get down to my ideal size my closet should look pretty minimalistic but even now its definitely 100 times better than it was. It does bring me peace to try and pick out clothes and I feel less slovenly since there is nothing I can pick out with a stain on it. It also will save us money because I can see exactly what I have and if I need anything instead of just trying to remember and hopefully I will spend less money!

Just with that completed I am inspired to try to do the same with the rest of the house to go through with a discerning eye and keep only what we will truly use. The hubs and I try very hard to be cautious with our spending habits to not buy too much clutter, but even so it does find a way to fill up our rooms.

Fun in New Castle DE

Pic of Hannah taken by Dirkey on 8/23/08

Did you guys know that if you google "fun in new castle de" is comes up as no results... well it did on Saturday when I googled it from my phone.

Pic of Park taken by Dirky on 8/23

My SIL, we'll call her R-sis, and I were planning an adventure down to a big antique show down there on Saturday. It ended up that the hubs and his brother were able to go as well, so we all jumped in their minivan and headed on down.

Hannah and Pongo Boy, who is coincidentally a girl, taken by Dirkey 8/23

We got within about a mile away and they had one of those banners up that goes across the road. I started reading it and realized that the Antique Show was SUNDAY, yeah we drove that far away (over an hour) for something that was the next day.. grrrrr... We were determined to make Lemonaid out of the sour lemon situation and had ourselves a picnic and hung out at the cute park the Antique show would have been in had it been the right day. We had Homemade Hummus and Pitas, Cheese and Crackers, PB and J, Fruit Salad, Homemade Sugar Cookies.

Picture of some mini pb and j sandwhiches that were assembled by your favorite Dirkey 8/23/08

After we had lunch we had to burn off all those calories so we did some exploring.

Pic where Hannah reminds me of a pirate 8/23/08

And some Shoulder Riding... Ok only Hannah did this because if anyone else did it would cause some serious injuries

Pic of Hannah and Her Daddy 8/23/08

The hubs and I took the opportunity to take our famous self-portrait or as his brother likes to say our "myspace shot"

Dirkey and her hubs 8/23/08

After the park we went to the Christiana Mall for some tax free shopping, and ended up just window shopping.

It was a great day, made even better by some awesome company.

R-sis, Hannah and J-bro taken by Dirkey 8/23/08

So now when someone googles Fun in New Castle De they'll see us and our
Fabulous, relaxing Frugal Fun Day

My hair, my crown of glory

So yeah, Dirkey's got her some thick old hair. Hair that hairdressers constantly comment on (oh when I say constant I'm talking about the two times a year that I go to a salon to get it cut). When Mama K told me that she washed her hair with a bar of soap I was skeptical. My brain was kind of exploding thinking that a bar of soap could never replace the ever changing amount of products that I put in my hair to make my ponytail look that much better. For one, I had never in my life, gone without conditioner. How does one do that, can you comb your hair afterwards? I've never even gotten it wet without putting conditioner in it before I attempted to comb it afterwards. So despite of my skepticism at how well this Shampoo Bar does, I decided to try it out. Now I stepped in gradually and used the bar in conjunction with a good natural conditioner but the more I read about it the more I saw that the websites said you don't need conditioner if you do this. I took the scary step last week and stopped using conditioner and you know what, I don't miss it. My hair looks and feels great (even though its still not out of its elastic jail of a ponytail).
I normally get mine at Chagrin Valley.

Kitchen stuff is my weakness

Shoes don't do anything for me, I can live without makeup or electronics. Find me in a kitchen store and I'm looking like a five year old in a candy store. I scramble to regain the frugal footing I keep for most of my lifestyle. Recently I got a coupon for One of my favorite stores for $10 off any purchase. I asked the hubs if I could use $20 to just spend there on anything I wanted and he agreed, because it is our joint money we generally check with each other with any purchase. So theoretically I had thirty bucks with which to spend at my favorite store. I walked around with great joy just looking at the gorgeous serving dishes, neat little kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, serving spoons; trying to narrow down my decision to fit within my $30 budget.
I ended up with these

We've recently gotten rid of about 98% of all plastic containers in our house and when we have kids running around I knew I didn't want to feed them off of plastic either. I know, I know you do run into the problem of breakage but you know thats ok with me. So yes I used my $30 to purchase bowls for our future children but can you blame me these are some freaking cute bowls!!!!!
Check out the insides!!!

The hubs convinced me that it would truly be a sin to let these collect dust until we have little ones to feed, so now these are designated for blueberry eating! It makes the berrys taste that much better eating out of the cuteness! :)
Oh yeah, they didn't cost $30 they were $5.95 each. I did buy much more from the store but it was for the hubs birthday so I actually didn't hit my $30 allotment for me.
For the curious here is what I ended up getting the hubs for his birthday. We are big on Miso soup and Oriental cooking so I got him some fun bowls for when I make it at home.