9-9-12

8:50am

Today is Grandparent's Day.

Me, both kids and grandma and grandpa 

are going to spend the afternoon

going to a Clintonville Homes Tour. 

If you bought tickets ahead of time they were

$12 and today they are $15.

If you get the early showing of the homes

then it's $50 a pop, yowza!

Kids 12 and under are free.

They also have trolley buses to take you to

and from each house on the tour or you could

drive if you wanted.  We are doing the trolley bus.

I've got my camera fully charged to be 

able to share pictures of the homes when

we get back.  Tony won't be going since he

has the on call pager for work and will be
staying home and working on the yard.

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Got to tighten up the money belt notches around here

to the point of cutting of circulation.

From hear say the next big bonus at hubby's work

isn't til sometime in November.  That's 2 months
and maybe a couple weeks away.

Shopping trips will have to be just

bare necessities and I'll have to get creatvie

with making meals from what I 

have in the fridge, freezers and pantry

making most things from scratch.

No eating out at fast food joints.

Here are a couple meals I plan to make
this week from my A Man, A Can, A Plan cookbook.

The only thing I don't have to make this is lettuce.
1 large can Busch's baked beans $1.67
(was actually cheaper than Kroger)
1 can diced tomatoes .39 cents
(found marked down)
1 bag Kroger corn chips $1.67
1 pound deer burger - free
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese $1.15 cents

TOTAL COST TO MAKE $4.88

2 chicken leg quarters cooked in crock $1.50
Kroger FMV brand cream of chicken soup .94 cents
1 can Kroger biscuits $1.34
1/2 can peas - free
fresh carrots chopped and cooked .25 cents

TOTAL COST TO MAKE $4.03

 TUNA PASTA SALAD

-1 box colored spiral pasta .69 cents
-Italian dressing .50 cents
-cherry tomatoes - free
(from garden)
-1-2 shredded carrots .10 cents
-mayo .10 cents
(bought a couple bottles of mayo at
flea market for .25 cents each)
celery .10 cents
(found bags marked down at meijer for really cheap)
-1 can tuna .79 cents
-1/2 can peas free


TOTAL COST TO MAKE $2.28



MASHED POTATOES MEATLOAF

-2 pounds deer burger - free
-1 can cream of mushroom soup .97 cents
-onion powder .02 cents
(kids don't like onions and I sneak in some
onion powder that I got at flea market 3 large 
bottles for $1.00)
-1 egg .15 cents
-old bread crumbs
(from heels of loaf bread)
-mashed potatoes .25 cents
(bought a couple boxes for .50 cents each at flea market) 
Ketchup mixed with brown sugar for top .10 cents


TOTAL COST TO MAKE $1.49


Breakfasts will be-

-Egg sandwiches.
Eggs will be cooked up ahead of time
so that way I can reheat in microwave.
Add 1/2 slice of american cheese and mayo
to each sandwich.

 -Cereal

-Doughnuts

-Poptarts 
(I bought about 20  Meijer 16 count boxes
of pop tarts after Christmas last year for only 
.50 cents a box!  Sure they are christmas flavors
like gingerbread and some kind of berry but who cares.)

-Ham or turkey and biscuit sandwiches



I stretch everything around here.
If you want american cheese on your sandwich
I have now started putting only half slices
of cheese on them unless I make grilled cheese sandwiches.
If you want cheese on a hot dog I'll 
slice each hot dog with a knife down the middle
and take a piece of american cheese, fold it in half,
then in half again to have 4 pieces.
One piece of cheese goes into the slice
of each hot dog along with condiments.
Unless I find buns marked down we use
regular bread to put hot dog or hamburgers on.
Cheese slices are a kids favorite, easily accessible, 
and they will eat them as fast as you buy them if
you don't figure out a way to hide them
in the fridge.  I hide cheese slices
in a reused cool whip plastic bowl with lid.
I have also found by splurging and buying
the kroger brand velveeta style cheese
for $4 to $5 goes a looong way with making
meals and using it on sandwiches. 
Ain't quite figured out how to hide that cheese though.


I'm trying to take advantage of yard sales every
Friday with mom while the kids are in school
to buy Christmas gifts.  For this coming week
I only have $6.00 cash plus any change I can
find to yard sale with.  This is where the wheeling
and dealing momma will come out.
It never hurts to offer someone a lower price
at a yard sale and most of the time they usually
accept my offer.  Way back when I would only
have literally $5 to go to yard sales with and
could come home with a car full.  This is how
I learned to ask if the person at the sale would
take less.  That $5.00 could go a long way!
Sometimes I'd buy a bunch of things and
offer a price for everything a lot less than
what they wanted.  Most of the time they would
say yes to my offer rather than adding up
all the items I wanted.  But there have been a few
that will add up everything to see how much
they would be losing out on.


12:15pm


Getting ready to leave soon.
Been helping Tony work on the yard
then decided to work on making
a pillow wedge for my step-dad.
Might give this to him for his birthday this month.
I found two couch cushions and removed
the outer fabric.  I saved the cushion
and the batting surrounding them.
I actually only ended up using one cushion
because the slanted part I cut of the one 
I was able to turn around and use on 
on top of the other part that was cut.
I found my electric knife (yard sale find for $1)
and got it out.  Tony thought I was nuts for
wanting to use it on the foam cushion to cut it
because he had never heard of that before.
Well, I said, I pay attention to some of
those HGTV shows and saw them using it
so thought why not.  And ya know what?
It worked!

I did not cut through the batting and only
peeled that back on the one side and left
the other side intact.

 Here I folded the batting back over
the top that I cut and pieced together.

 Next I cut out triangular sides of the batting
and will eventually hand sew all the
batting pieces together then make
a pillow case out of an old flat sheet.

I am trying to save my step-dad some money of
having not to buy one of these pillows
that his doctor recommended for him
to keep stomach acids from coming
up in the throat while sleeping.
The cost $40 on up to $100 for one of these pillows new
while this one didn't cost me anything to make.



5:00pm


Just returned from the Clintonville Home Tour.
We're all walking zombies with many aches
and pains.  Too much walking to some houses
and too many steps to walk up and down.
It was interesting to go see but I'd
probably wouldn't go a second time.
It got a bit crowded at times touring houses
rubbing elbows with the next person.

 Well it's almost 6:00pm and while I'm
whipped I still have some laundry to do,
clothes to lay out for everyone tomorrow &
lunch money to round up for the kids
for the week.  Seems like I just got up not long
ago and the day is over with almost.
I hate weekends that fly by too fast.
I called Tony on the way home from
the homes tour and had him fire up the grill
and start cooking some brats for supper
and boil a pot of pasta.  When I got home
I made up some pasta salad to go with our brats.
Everyone's belly is full.

Oh, I had to take note of this
Peanut Butter Rice Krispies recipe before I forget!
One of the houses on the home tour had these
treats sitting on the counter for guests to eat.
Oh my goodness!  Either I was hungry or these
were soooo good!  Had to find the recipe for them. 
Ours had a little more of a layer of chocolate
on them than the ones below.  oooh oooh,
wouldn't this be sooo good with a fudge top?!
Melt a bag of chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave
and stir in a can
of fudge or chocolate frosting to make a quick and easy fudge
to put on top!