Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Importance of Modesty

The Importance of Modesty

Menu for 1-29 to 2-12

Most of these are rice and bean menu because I need to get back on track for my Debt Snowball. If you need any recipes, just email me or some you can get from Allyou.com or hillbillyhousewife.com

Breakfast
1. Yogurt, fruit and granola parfeight
2. Eggs and toast (protein smoothie for mommy)
3.Pancakes and sausage
4. Poptarts and fruit
5. Cereal or hot cereal
6. Oatmeal

Lunch
Sandwiches and carrots or chips (if I break down and buy them)
2.Soup
3. Mac n Cheese and Tuna
4 Ramen soup.
5. Leftovers

Dinner
1. Beans and fried potatoes
2 Pork Chops and Veggies
3. Chicken fried rice, nix the egg
4. Potatoe soup and salad
5 Beans and corn bread
6 Superbowl Sunday chow down food. (this is always pot luck except for guests)
7 Slow cooker slaso chicken over rice
8 english muffin tuna melts and homemade potatoe wedges
9 Hobo stew and biscuits
10 Ham ,Grits, and red eye gravy, eggs
11 chili Lime Chcken wings with Vegtables
12 Red Beans and Rice with Sausage
13 Bean and cheese Quesdillas with Homade Chips and cheese.

I got a lot of these from All you.com
Enjoy!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

My son is heading into a new phase of life.

What happens to a kid when they turn 7? I understand 3, you become a preschooler. At 13 you are turning into a teenager and 21 is an adult. However, 7 seems to be a new era for kids too. My son has gone from a little boy to a big boy overnight. He is now unable to kiss and hug his mommy (or call me mommy but mom) in public. He is understanding things in the big kids class and enjoys it in church. He is growing up, fast.
We are giving him and extended birthday celebration this year. In fact, he has three days of celebration. Once and a while, Zack and I will give the kids a long celebration instead of just one day. This weekend, we took Dayson to his favorite restaurant, Long John Silver. He went to the movies and saw Gulliver's Travels. Don't tell him it was the cheap $2 theatre. He had so much fun, I don't think he will care. He even got a whole box of candy and pop with out having to share. Then we let him play at the mall. But when I asked him to give me a hug in the play area, he said, "Mommy, can I do that later? I love you but don't wanna hug right now." He did hug me later, but not in front of the big boys. I chuckle at that thought but I do miss hugging and cuddling with my boy..

Thursday, January 13, 2011

two weeks menu 1/14 to 1/27/10

Breakfast (these are ussually the same and rotate)
Oatmeal and cinnamon apples,
Cold cereal and milk,
Toast, eggs and bacon or sausage
whole wheat waffles or pancakes, and eggs (I do cinnamon and sugar, th kids do syrup)
Homemade poptarts,
English muffin pizza

Lunch (these also rotate)
Ramen soup (with veggies)
Sandwiches, chips or veggies
Leftover
Mac and cheese with tuna and peas
soup

Dinner
Sausage stir fry and brown rice
Ham, potatoes and beans
Rice roni casserole
Spicey Shrimp angel hair pasta (chicken for the kids)
We are eating out for Dayson's birthday 2 days this week
Tacos (big sunday dinner)
Turkey, green beans, potatoes, biscuits (sunday dinner)
Grilled cheese and soup
Pork Chops, vegetables, Corn muffin
Corn bread chili casserole (leftover frozen meal from two weeks ago)
Beans and rice
Chicken noodle soup
Spaghetti or pasta with meat sauce or salt and butter
Citrus chicken, vegetables, biscuits

Snacks
Cinnamon toast, boiled eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, Dark Chocolate, pop corn, Hot dogs or pig in a blanket.

Now these things  will last me two weeks. It will come to about $200. I had been buying extra items when they are on sale so most of the meats are already on hand. I am still buying meat this week because country mart is having a bogo sale. so in two more weeks I won't need any meat at all. This list will also include milk x4, eggs 18ea, yogurt and cottage cheese twice. We also have a birthday part for about 30 people and we are eating out twice. I do have to buy snacks with kids. If you want recipes for anything, let me know. Some of them are fro my collection and some are from other websites. Good luck.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Praying in the shower.

Lately I have been sad. Lately I have felt failure. Lately has been just in the new year. 2011 is not suppose to start like this. Here is why it has felt bad for me. Although being a lover of God, I shouldn't allow these feelings to set in.
1. I can't even harbor a child. I lost two. I haven't been able to conceive since. It may not be in God's plan for me and I need to accept that.
2. I lost 8 lbs. I turn right around and gain back 4. It is going to take me forever to lose the same 4 I had originally lost. I don't loose at a normal rate. I am lucky to loose 1 lb a month.
3.. My house is always dirty and always broken. I live in it about 98% of my time. I am sick of it and can't seem to tackle the problem or make it go away.
4. I can't seem to get everything done in a day. Enough said.
I have always been a tough love kinda gal. I seem to wanna just deal with it when sometimes I just need to give it to God. I want to just get off my hind end and do something about these problems. However these problems never go away for me. I am really a tough love kinda gal on myself. As a matter of fact, finding love for others isn't something I have a huge problem with. Although I am constantly working on coming across in a more loving less harsh way. Goodness, I prayed about this and it seems the opportunities to practice this ability have triple and quadrupled. Thank you Lord. I am just not sure that I am passing this task.
I love my family very much and even find that loving my enemies isn't as hard as I once thought. It gets a bit easier everyday. God helps me through this. Loving myself, however, is not something I have been able to do. This battle has been fought and lost year after year.  Can I truly love God if I can't love myself? He made me after all. The Bible says "Psalm 139:14 (CEV)14I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me. Everything you do is marvelous! Of this I have no doubt." I also know that God gave his only son because he loved us so much.
 I feel that everything I do, Satan is laughing at me and saying, "hahaha, you didn't finish that one did ya. You have to start all over." I hate starting all over. When I have to start all over, I feel like everything I did was for nothing. I feel like a failure. But I know this is a lie.
A funny thing about my life. I always talk to God best in the shower or in my bed. Several weeks ago, I was told to go to my secret place and find God. He will meet me there and comfort me every time. I know I can pray anywhere anytime but my most fervent prayers are always in those two places. The other day, Sunday to be exact, I was feeling another failure day. This time my clothes were uncomfortable and my belly was tender. No excuse but it is what was going on. I took a shower. I stepped into the shower and let the hot water rain on me. I wanted the worries and discomfort to wash away. I began to pray. I felt the Lord tell me He loved me. He also told me that He is always giving out do overs. He never sees them as failures. He gives them to the least of people; drug addicts, drinkers, prostitutes, liers, abusers, thieves.....OK you get the point. So why is my little problems so big? If God can give so many second chances, why can't I give my self another shot. I can start over. It is ok. and by the way, He loves me.! Romans 8:5 But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful
This is what happens when you pray in the shower. Then you go to church and hear how God loves us. Then you get blessed so much that you dance, cry, laugh, and clap. I just couldn't control my praise. Nor did I want to. He loves me. I can start over. My failures are gone. They are just learning experiences. I will start loving myself. He deserves all my praise. There will be no more room for my self destruction because He loves us.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Don't be confused!

Don't confuse weight loss with fixing your world.
A woman's struggle with food brought down man kind.
We were made to crave.
Fill the void with a happy thought and prayers to God.

An encouraging note I found this morning. I had a tough night last night. I was feeling pretty crummy about my weight and my slow thyroid. I felt ugly. I went to the Lord in prayer. I know he gave me comfort. He sent the person closest to me and gave me encouraging words. I will look at them every time I feel this way. Thank you God for my husband.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Menu planning

In my endeavour to become debt free, I had started to plan my meal out each week. Because Zack is the bread winner and was able to pull extra shifts and deliver pizza, I had to make a dent somewhere. My job is to take care of the family and the home. I had to find a way to cut cost in my "career." One of those ways is menu planning and food bill cuts.  It started out as a weekly meal and I am just now up to the monthly menu. I have gotten pretty good at this but there is always room fro improvement. Take yesterday for example.  I was fretting over the fact that I had stuck to my menu and grocery list and the bill was still more than I wanted. Still haven't figured out what went wrong. Anyway, I wanted to share my tips and tricks. So here are some websites that I like to use.
1 http://www.momadvice.com/ She has free menu templates for a week. This includes snacks and extras that you may forget.
2.Tip Junkie She also has printables,
3. http://www.kraftfoods.com/  Tons of inexpensive meal ideas. It even has a weekly meal plan with a grocery list already for you.
4. http://www.allyou.com/ Same as above. Tons of budget friendly meal ideas and cleaning on a budget tips.
5.These two websites I came across just this week. The first is a great site from a stay at home mom. It is called http://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/ She post her weekly menu with recipes each week. ( I may start doing that) On her website I found a website called http://www.saymmm.com/ On this one, you enter your weekly menu and it prints a grocery list for you. It is dummy proof and free.

Some other tips on cutting your food bill is to eat out less. This was a hard pill for my family to swallow. We love to sit down at a restaurant and be served our food. This little luxury can destroy your wallet faster than a fire. So I have learned to eat out once every two weeks and start making some of those things at home. I haven't cut that out of my budget completely because doing so will make me crash and blow the budget anyway.
Convenience foods (lots of packaging and lots of preservatives) will break the bank also. Many of the items you purchase can be made at home for a fraction of the cost. Biscuits, instant oatmeal, rice mixes, cake mixes, ok most of the items in the center isle of the store. Google recipes for your convenience foods. It does take more time. This is where you need to sit down and weigh the cost and time. Keep in mind that made from scratch is so much healthier than bought from the grocery store shelf. I still by Kraft Mac and Cheese, occasionally Ramen Noodles and Almond or Rice milk. Those three convenient foods have yet to make it out of my house. We even kicked hot dogs out unless they are all beef and come direct from the factory. Not everyone has the inside scoop on hot dogs ya know...=)
I hope this helps. Feel free to comment with your own tips and ideas. I will appreciate it and hope others will too!

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