January Spending Freeze, Day 17: Rainbow sprinkles

On Sunday the 17th, day 17 of our official spending freeze, I was ordained and installed as an elder at our church.  I'm very excited about serving on session!  After church we had a potluck luncheon, so I made gluten-free cupcakes.  I actually made these the day before, along with some brownies.  We packed them up and carried them out to our van that evening so we wouldn't be scrambling on Sunday morning.  We arrived to church on time and much more relaxed than usual.

In this process I realized two things.  First, we have so much more time than we realize.  Most of our Saturdays are spent shopping for one thing or another.  We go to yard sales, or thrift shops, or maybe decide to run to Lowe's and pick up a few things for a home improvement project.  Without any of that, we had plenty of time to be lazy for a while and get some things done on our Saturday.

Also, I noticed once again--and I hope the kids will, too--that a spending freeze doesn't have to be completely austere.  We have so many wonderful things we can already enjoy.  Board games we haven't gotten around to playing, favorite movies we haven't watched in forever, cake mix we were saving for just such an occasion, and of course, sprinkles.  

A spending freeze is a great way to simplify, relax, and rediscover the little joys you might have forgotten in your life.

January Spending Freeze, Day 12: Pumpkin spice cake for breakfast!

I realized yesterday that there were several items in my kitchen that I needed to use up:

1) Frozen pumpkin puree.  A while back (embarrassingly far back), we baked and pureed some pumpkins after Halloween.  Then we filled a few freezer bags with 2 cups of puree each, labeled them, laid them flat, and froze them.  It's pretty awesome--all you have to do is thaw it, snip the bottom corner of the bag, and squeeze it into your favorite pumpkin recipe!  Some of it was forgotten in the bottom of the chest freezer, though.

2) Gluten-free yellow cake mix--two boxes.  I picked up several boxes of this from our local discount food store.  At 99 cents a box, it was too good of a deal not to!  But like many of the items at the discount store, this had passed its expiration date and I didn't want to leave it sitting too long.  Besides, we really prefer chocolate cake.

3) Buttercream frosting...  From the football game cupcakes!  Usually leftover frosting just clutters up the fridge until fridge clean-out day, when we finally toss it.

I decided to make a big bundt cake with all of this.  I had no idea if it would work, but figured as long as it was somewhat edible, I'd be happy.  Because I added 2 cups of pumpkin, I was able to use a little less butter and one fewer egg than the recipe called for.  I could have used less than that, but I can't stand dry, crumbly cake and wanted to be sure this one was moist (sorry if that word offends you--haha).

The cake popped out of the pan beautifully.  I put it on the cake stand and frosted it before it could cool, so the frosting would melt down the sides.

We had some for breakfast.  It's delicious--and I'm not used to this much dumb luck in the kitchen!  What do you have in your kitchen that you need to use up?

January Spending Freeze, Day 11: Snacks for the big football game

In case you're not a big sports fan, there was a pretty important football game last night.  It was a huge deal to my husband, and I was a little sad he didn't get to go.  But of course, we watched it on (Sling) TV.  Before a football game, especially one that's this big a deal, we usually run to the store for snacks and beer.  We did not do that this time!  I'm proud of us.  But I still wanted to have some fun snacks, and Suzi "had a dream" of eating pizza while she watched the game.  So here is what we had.

1)  I actually had to make more cupcakes, because we made some the other day but then ate them all!  We had everything to make them except for the butter, which we picked up at the store on Sunday.

2)  For Suzi's pizza, I used this quinoa crust recipe.  It's not the same as a thick, sweet crust made out of wheat, but it's gluten free.  Also much easier to make from scratch than a regular pizza crust, and full of protein.

3)  I used what we had on hand to make Chex mix.  No pretzels and no wheat chex, but extra cashews and pecans!  This snack with last a while too.

4)  No picture, but Jordan made himself a homemade version of Takis using masa flour.  He has a tortilla press and also makes corn tortillas whenever we have tacos.  It's very cost effective!

5)  We drank the alcohol we already had.  Because we only drink occasionally, certain bottles tend to just... sit.  We are still finishing off a bottle of rum that we purchased on our honeymoon 11 years ago.  There was no beer, but there was plenty of other stuff to choose from.  We both had a couple of drinks and I don't think either of us suffered.

Suzi enjoyed her pizza and cupcakes and curled up with a couple of kittens to watch the game!

(Then she fell asleep.)

January Spending Freeze, Day 8: Cupcake Reflections

We've made it a week!  I'm feeling great.  Yesterday, after spending some time at my mom's house, Ivey and Robert and I came home* and found our kitchen counter clear.  There were a few crumbs here and there, but it wasn't covered in junk the way it so often is--and that is significant.  Because the counter was clean, I asked the kids if they wanted to make some cupcakes.  We have lots of gluten-free mixes purchased at the discount store that we need to use up anyway, and I always have the stuff to make frosting on hand!

While we wiped the counter and gathered our cupcake ingredients, I talked to the kids about the difference the spending freeze had made in our home.  You see, our large kitchen counter is a "hot spot."  Dirty dishes end up there, of course, but it also collects toys, mail, half-finished projects, and all kinds of random junk that doesn't really have a home.  If we buy something new, the bag ends up either there or on the dining room table.  If a box arrives from Amazon, it ends up on the counter to be cut open and the items dispersed to where they belong.  If we don't stay on top of it, the counter gets buried.  And when it's buried, do you think we can make cupcakes?  No.  Before we can do anything at all we have to spend half an hour dealing with clutter, and by the time we're done, the opportunity for fun baking time (or whatever we had in mind) has probably passed.

Because of the spending freeze, we haven't shopped--not even at a thrift shop or yard sale.  Because we haven't shopped, there has been very little to put away.  So, even though we spent the entire morning at my mom's, we came home to a clear counter.  (The dining room table in the background is pretty clear too--also a big deal for us!)  It was ready for us to use, and we did use it.  Ivey and Robert were excited to surprise Daddy with cupcakes when he came home!

The whole house seems to be enjoying a break from the influx of new clutter.  Obviously, the lack of regular grocery shopping means our kitchen cabinets are emptying out and we're discovering we have more food to use up than we ever imagined!  But sometimes it's good to take a break from even the sensible bi-weekly trip to Goodwill.  $10 spent at Goodwill can add quite a few items to our home.  On a Sunday, $10 can buy 20 articles of clothing from the clearance section!  It feels like our home is thanking us for doing this spending freeze, as it breathes a sigh of relief...  And we aren't even a third of the way through the month yet!

*Suzi spent the night with Grandma; it was her turn.

January Spending Freeze, Day 3: Using up the fridge treasures (and saving $$$ on groceries)

As I mentioned on Day 1, I have a bad habit of forgetting about items in my fridge (or anywhere in the kitchen, but it's usually the fridge) until they spoil, and have to be thrown out.  I feel so terrible when that happens!  So the first thing I knew I needed to do during this spending freeze was to find those things and figure out how to use them.  Here's what I have found so far, and what we did with it all.

1) A turkey carcass.  We boiled this, simmered it for about a day, then strained it and threw in some small pieces of turkey that were left on the bones.  I make turkey noodle soup with some of it--easy lunch, plus leftovers for dinner!  The rest I froze to be used later.

2) Rotel/sausage dip.  I reminded my husband to eat it, and he did.  Easy!

3) Overripe bananas.  This is something we waste regularly, and I need to quit.  They are so easy to save and use that there's no excuse not to!  I used about six bananas to make these mini-loaves of gluten-free banana chocolate chip bread.  I wrapped them in plastic while they were still warm (it forces moisture back into the bread) and am storing them in the fridge to be used for breakfast and snacks.  There were still several bananas left, so I peeled those, broke them into pieces, and froze them.  I'll tell you what I used them for later.

4) A whole pomegranate.  This one must have gotten shoved to the back, or we would have eaten it sooner.  The outside was dry and hard, which worried me a little, but it was still beautiful on the inside!  The kids love these, so they had some with their lunch.  We'll eat the rest soon.

Ivey decided to photobomb, eggnog mustache and all!

5) Eggnog.  I didn't like this when I was a child, so I hadn't tried any in a decade or two.  A few weeks ago I thought I'd try it again, and bought myself a carton.  Turns out I was right the first time.  Even with alcohol added, it is much too sweet and thick for me!  I started googling for ways to use it in a recipe, and found that it can be used as coffee creamer.  Alcohol optional--it's good either way.  The kids didn't seem to mind drinking it plain, but I don't think they'd be able to drink much of it.  Either way, I'm happy it's getting used up--and since coffee creamer is NOT an essential grocery item and I can't buy more until February, it's nice to have a little bit extra!

6) Cottage cheese.  After years of thinking it was gross, one day I was out grocery shopping and had a strange urge to buy some.  I'm so glad I did, because cottage cheese is a delightful, affordable, protein-packed food that can be eaten lots of different ways.  I enjoy having it with vegetables, chips (especially spicy ones) or crackers.  I also eat it with quinoa or dirty rice.  At least two of my kids will even eat it!  The problem was that I accidentally bought extra cottage cheese, and this was a nearly full forgotten container that didn't have much time left!  So, I decided to use some of it to make "milkshake" smoothies for the kids.  This is where the frozen bananas come in, too.  I didn't measure anything, but here's about what I used:

~3 frozen bananas, in pieces

~1 cup cottage cheese

3+ tablespoons cocoa

~1 cup milk

honey (kept adding until it was sweet enough)

I threw it all in the Ninja, blended until it was smooth, tasted it, and adjusted the honey and milk until it was the right flavor and consistency.  When it was done and I tasted it, I was worried the kids wouldn't like it.  I think using sugar instead of honey would make it taste more like a conventional milkshake.  But I served it to them and they enjoyed it!  The lumpy bits were pulverized, making the cottage cheese unnoticeable as an ingredient.  There was some left over, so I poured it into these little popsicle molds my mom gave me.  The kids are already asking when they will get to eat them.

As for the bit of cottage cheese left in the container, my husband plans to mix it with hot sauce and eat it with chips.  Such a versatile fridge treasure!

7) Spaghetti sauce.  We opened a new jar of spaghetti sauce a few days ago when we made quinoa crust pizza.  It was lovely.  Next time I'll make the crust a little thinner.

Sometimes when we make pizza and use just a little spaghetti sauce from a jar, the rest of it gets left for too long, or we can't tell how long it's been left, and it goes to waste.  Fortunately, we are having spaghetti tonight and will use it all up!

Confession:  We did lose most of a jar of salsa that had been shoved to the back of the fridge for an indeterminate amount of time.  It was just too late for that one.  I'm going to try to do better from now on.  It's amazing how far groceries can be stretched when you're careful to make sure they get used!

15 months today (and other miscellaneous thoughts)

The girls love Grandpa

I've been meaning to blog but the opportunity hasn't presented itself. Actually, I did blog Tuesday night, but I didn't publish it. It was a horrible day and once Suzi was in bed I wrote a long, irritated post that I knew I'd probably never publish. Here are some excerpts:

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I had to drag the girls to Suzi's dance class after nap. The car ride there and back was heaven, because the girls were strapped into their car seats the whole time and there weren't too many shenanigans they could get into. Well, I take that back. I'm pretty sure Ivey ate half a yellow crayon on the way home. We shall see in a day or two.

Upon arriving home from dance I so stupidly thought I could take both the car seats out and adjust them and put them back in before dinner. I unhooked them successfully, and even adjusted them and vacuumed all the nasty crumbs out. Things were going great. Then, while the girls played "airplane!" on the back seat, I tried to hook one back in. But the car seat company must have decided that it would be a real shame for a mom to be able to install a car seat all by herself, so they made the strap that hooks to the latch system too short to hook to both sides without superhuman strength. Now it is really dark outside and both car seats need to be put back in. At least it will have to get done now. Getting Ivey into her seat has felt like a wrestling match for weeks.

I was once a silly little college student who thought I had no time to do anything. And now I want to go back in time eight years, run up into my dorm where I didn't have a bathroom or a kitchen to clean and slap myself.

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It's funny how things can seem so horrible one minute and then three days later you've almost forgotten about it. It's one reason I blog, so I can remember. Oh, and it turns out I was putting the car seat in wrong. Of course. I'm pretty sure it's Britax's fault somehow.

Today Ivey is 15 months old. She's decided she doesn't like wearing diapers any more than I like changing them, and for the past few days has been going in her potty most of the time. I've tuned in to her signals better, and she's gotten much better at telling me when she has to go. One time yesterday she removed her diaper all by herself, sat down on her potty and peed. Using the potty seems to fascinate her. She sits down and pees or poops (or both) and then stands up, points at it, and says "pu-uh." Right now I am letting her run around diaper-free because she'll usually just go sit on the potty when she needs to use it. It's about lunchtime and she hasn't had a miss yet.

Ivey just before she woke up this morning

I've been meaning to add Ivey's new words on here, too. She says apple and points to the Mac logo on the laptop. Daddy is so proud. She has been saying thank you for a while, but it sounds like deh-duh. So polite. And my favorite is that she's recently taken notice of belly buttons--her own and those belonging to others. She points to her belly button and says "butt-butt!"

Tuesday we are going for our ultrasound! I called earlier to see if they would record it and to find out what to bring (DVD-RW) and found out they don't really want us to bring our kids. We are bringing Suzi anyway. There is no way I'm letting her miss this. She already loves Baby Robin so much and I want her to be there when we find out if it's a boy or a girl. Ivey probably wouldn't be interested anyway, and at least we'll have the DVD to show her later. We don't have a DVD for Ivey's ultrasound.

I have to mention the new supplement I am taking. I called my midwife Carey the other day as I was walking through the vitamin section of Earth Fare and she told me to pick up some ChlorOxygen. You add 20 or so drops of it to a glass of water. The extremely dark green color scared me at first but it wasn't bad at all. I've never had much energy, especially not while pregnant, but these past few days I've felt great. I've started to crave a dark green glass of ChlorOxygen instead of a hot cup of coffee. It's actually better than coffee. Seriously, you've got to try this stuff. It also reminds me to take my prenatal vitamin and helps me drink more water.

Because I have been feeling so great, I've had the energy to do things I wouldn't normally do, like bake pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie all in one morning. I'm currently trying to figure out the perfect recipe for cute 6-inch pumpkin bread loaves. You know what I mean--dense, moist, the perfect pumpkin-to-flour ratio, with absolutely no regard to what would be healthier. We are making nearly all of our Christmas gifts (I'm getting scared) and edible gifts are part of this! I need to get to work on some of the things I'm planning to make but have never actually made before. Waiting until the last minute won't work this year!

I can't wait to find out if we're having a boy or a girl, but most of all just to see that little Robin is doing okay. I should have some pictures of him or her to share next week!

Gather ye blueberries while ye may

Last weekend at Nana and Papa's...

Suzi had her picture made!

We bought her a pretty pink potty.

We had a 10 PM donut run. The people eating donuts inside saw the camera flash and thought, WTH? Jordan was embarrassed.

Suzi and her sweet Daddy. That picture over Jordan's shoulder is of him at Suzi's age. I wish you could see it better--his chubby little knees were adorable!

Suzi took a ride on the Wonder Horse her daddy used to ride.

I picked (and ate) lots of blueberries off the bushes in the back yard.

Then yesterday I made blueberry muffins!

Lots of them.

Coming soon: Our Saturday treasure hunt (yard sales) and a monthly contest proposal!

Our new mei tai and a jubilee of little treasures!

This past week has been a blur and I haven't had time to blog. Here's my catch-up:

1) Last Friday we went to see Aunt Laura belly dancing, and it was amazing. She's third from the left in the picture below, in the dark blue. I wish I had learned to do this before I had Suzi (and the stretch marks that ensued). Laura is a mother too though, and she looks great--so maybe one day I will just go for it! Um, never mind that I was a dance class dropout at five years old. Do you think they might offer remedial classes?


2) We went to our town's craft fair on Saturday and again on Sunday. There were loads of awesome finds, most of which we couldn't afford. But I did pick up a bread bowl and baked pumpkin bread in it Saturday. Suzi loves pumpkin bread!


I also got a bug repellent stick for Suzi and these neat wooden toys made by Grandpa John, who does excellent work at reasonable prices:

Suzi's Nana bought her this grasshopper and a classic toy: the duck on a stick. The duck flaps his feet as you push him along. Jordan and his brother had one. It's adorable but it'll be more fun when Suzi can walk.

And I bought her this because I think little girls should play with cars and trucks, too.

3) Suzi had a good time playing peekaboo in the curtains...


4) And last, but definitely not least, we got an Ellaroo Mei Tai. It's my favorite. Period. And it was worth the money. It distributes baby's weight across both shoulders and your whole back so it hardly feels like you're carrying anything! I saw Kelly from babywearing meeting carrying her son in one. He makes nearly two of Suzi, so I knew if it was comfortable for her it would be for me and my tiny little girl! Luckily Kelly sells them. Let me know if you need one and I'll get you in touch with her. This afternoon I took Suzi for our regular sunny-day walk, but instead of using the stroller I put her in the Mei Tai. I thought I'd get uncomfortable, but I didn't! There's a flip-up headrest in case baby gets tired, and the straps are padded so they don't cut your shoulders or get twisted. Here is a five-point rating of it (5 is the best, 1 is the worst):

I can safely get Suzi in without help from another adult: 5
It's versatile and can be used for different ages/sizes: 4
I could use it for a long time without getting a back/shoulder ache: 5
It looks cool: 5
I can breastfeed Suzi without removing her: 2

I haven't figured that last one out yet, but it can probably be done. We just learned to do this in the hotsling hip position! Yay! I still love my hotslings for quick runs into the store.

Daddy is such a good sport. He took Suzi shopping in Bi-Lo so I could go next door to Goodwill. Whoever put Goodwill next to the grocery store should be given a medal, because I'm always finding good deals there and I normally don't have time to make a special trip to the thrift shops.

Suzi and I are in love with our new Mei Tai!