Kitchen Sink

It seems like I spend a fair bit of time at my kitchen sink, I guess all wives and mothers seem to. In each home I have been blessed, the Lord has given me a view from my kitchen sink.

Here is our current kitchen sink...with a window ledge!


It looks out into the backyard, so the girls could be out playing while I was doing dishes!

While it looks like I just look out into our yard and then at our neighbor's house, if I look out and slightly to the right I see this:


Are you wondering about all those bottles you saw by my sink? Let me explain. Let's start with this one:

We have to wash our recyclables, and it seems so silly to wash out an empty dish soap bottle! So I fill it with water, give it a shake and then use it to wash my recyclables. Once it is empty I recycle it too. The flower is a dish brush I found at Bed Bath and Beyond that the girls loved, and we needed a new one!


On the other side is Dawn Direct Foam I got ages ago free after coupon (by the way, if you know how to adapt dish soap for the foam dispenser, please let me know), and an oil bottle with my dish soap. Next to that is an extravagance, a simple human sensored hand soap dispenser. While it was an extravagance, I have to say that when I am working with meat and my hands are filthy it is wonderfully practical!

This kitchen sink set up is great because every cool and damp day I want to make bread....good thing we have a secondary freezer in the garage!

Bible in 90 Days FAQ

Are you reading along? Still thinking about it?

Here are a answers to a few frequently asked questions.

My favorite? Yes, we really are going to read the whole Bible cover to cover, not the abridged version!!

Front Window Views

When we moved here, we moved fast, and we opted to rent for a year so we could move as a family. It occurs to me that I have said very little about our new home. Time to fix that. This week I will share a couple things that are ready to share, and hopefully have more to share in a couple weeks.

We have a very nice house in a small development that is still being built. In fact, the lots directly across from us have not even been sold!

When we stand in the front yard and look out and slightly to the right we see this:



Love seeing rainbows again!

Straight out we see this:


Although this picture was taken from the upstairs window. On a clear day we can see the mountains in the break between the stand of trees on the right and the next pine tree. It is beautiful.

If we look out and to the left we see this:


If you notice, that street that beings in the bottom corner and runs up diagonally is blocked off. We call it the runway and it is perfect for children to play with bikes and scooters! Such a treat to have that after living on the main street into our development for 3 years!

Read Aloud Handbook

This book is foundational to how we read in our house, I cannot recommend it enough!

Lindsay has a great review of it this week, and I left my comments.

Bible in 90 Days

...is starting next week...

go here for details and you can sign up on the sidebar!

I am totally in and looking forward to it - I even have my programmable coffee maker ready to go...we signed up together....

Would you like to join us?

CSA Box # 3

When we moved here one of the first things we did was look into CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and found one for vegetables and fruits that could handle potato allergies, let us pay as we go rather than buy a whole share up front, and was picked up close to our home. And we can get a box every 2 weeks. After enjoying two boxes we are hooked! Did I mention we can order extra stuff too?

If you are wondering about CSA's there is a great post here.

This week we get our third CSA box, and the contents are as follows:

• carrots
• kale
• broccoli
• escarole
• yellow onion
• snap peas
• avocado (2)
• lettuce
• black plums
• yellow peaches
• valencia oranges
• yellow nectarines

With our CSA we can swap stuff out, but to be honest I am trying hard not to. I grew up eating a small repertoire of fruits and vegetables, and we are trying to branch out, to try different things!

Over the next 2 weeks I will be trying my hand at guacamole, and enjoying some of my favorites.

But there are 2 things in the box that have me thinking hard.

The first is kale. I tried cutting it up and then sauteing it in garlic oil, but we found the texture to be a bit too chewy even though we liked the taste. Do you have any great ideas on how to prepare it to get around the texture issue?

The second is escarole. As far as I know I have never tried this, but I am game! We are being adventurous you see! Is this something you like? How do you prepare it?

For both kale and escarole I would appreciate any advice, thoughts or links you have.

If you are interested I could share more on our CSA adventures as we are enjoying this and Miss Pear calls it the box of yumminess.

Sneaking In...

...and for the record, it is all Donnetta's fault that I had to do this. (Hi Donnetta!)

She is giving away a WHOLE SET of Seed's Family Worship CD's. And if you have not heard them, you are missing out, they are wonderful! It is scripture set to music, and is instant encouragement and scripture memory. We put this set into the car when we moved and I still have not managed to get a single CD into the house! Our 5 year old requests them over and over again....we happily oblige!

Be sure to head over and comment to win so your family can be blessed to!

By the way, of you are not reading Donnetta I highly recommend that you do, she is very encouraging and such a sweetie.

I now resume my break! Blessings to you.

Wednesday Wanderings

I spent all my blogging time yesterday reading about Scott Niedermayer retiring, and if you are not a Canadian or a hockey fan you probably don't care, but he played for my hockey team, both the NHL one and the National one. So that was big.

But I am finding this week that there is lots to be caught up on, ducks to get in rows, and plans and schedules to make. I also find that the things I want to post about require more prep than I have time for this week.

And did I mention that I really need some extra Bible time?

So I will see you next week.

But while I am gone can you please help me out and answer a couple questions for me?

1. What is your family's favorite weekend breakfast and fast breakfast?

2. How do you manage to get lunch on the table on Sunday when your family walks in the door about half an hour after you usually eat lunch?

3. What are your summer plans? (Okay, I confess, I am just curious)

4. And while I am being curious.....what are you reading right now?

Multitude Monday 16

157. Ordinary Time. According to our pastor we are at the time in the church calendar called ordinary time. It is not Advent, Lent, we are not waiting for Pentecost. It is ordinary. And God is in it.

158. Miss Pear explaining scripture this morning. A little heart that gets it, it was sweet, it was funny, and I am pretty sure God was smiling...unless He was laughing really really hard!

159. The chance to talk to a couple at church whose unborn baby needs lots of prayer and offer some love and encouragement.

160. The chance to share my homemade bread with a family at church where the wife is having chemotherapy.

161. Being able to look out my windows and see the snowy mountains.

162. The little nose and finger prints of little people who were curious to look out too.

163. Celebrating Father's Day with my husband who really makes me want to celebrate.

164. Being encouraged to try new things by my husband who is my biggest cheerleader and when I ask if he is really sure about trying this he always says that he is because what is the worst that can happen? I always think that is a great point and go for it.

165. A bookshelf JUST FOR HOME SCHOOLING STUFF! Such a blessing.

166. A bigger shelving unit that is also stronger to hold my pantry items in the garage (we live in the Pacific Northwest where no one even has A/C, I don't anticipate it being a problem!)

167. New friends who are happy to see us and miss us if we are not there.

168. Old friends who miss us and call.

169. A God who is older than time, who is always there, and whose mercies are new every morning.

170. Being able to listen to my oldest sing Holy, Holy, Holy and my youngest do her best to sing the chorus of Jesus Loves Me...while she dances.

A Long Week

For some reason it is always a very long week the week after visiting extended family leaves. We try to get back on track, but no matter what we do or how I plan, it is just a long week.

I have learned to accept this, but just keep trying to find a way to make it easier or better or something.

My attempted solution for today? I made pound cake, we have whip cream in the fridge and strawberries came in the CSA box...yum. Strawberry shortcake is a favorite around here. Actually, any thing you can put strawberries and whip cream is big with the girls in our house.

Bloggy Goodness

There have been two posts I particularly appreciated last week and I wanted to share them with you.

I enjoy Penny Pantry because while she loves a good deal, she is also careful to put her family ahead of her quest for savings. Great post about Are You Too Frugal! (We shoot for living prudently and spending wisely!)

I enjoy Life as Mom because she loves a good deal, cooks on a budget and still serves her family all the good stuff. Plus I can relate to a lot of what she says because we lived in Southern CA too! She had a great post about stockpiling and how that helps her save money in her grocery shopping and HOW TO DO IT. I wanted to share it with you because it is such a great balance of saving money and giving your family what they need and love! Plus it is what we do and how I keep our grocery budget down! She also had a great post about menu planning! She calls it meal planning for the beginner, but their are great tips and reminders in there that I found helpful and I have been doing a plan weekly for over 11 years!

New Shopping Strategy Part 2

Some of the best advice I ever received for being a good home manager was to run my home like a business, but with a lot more love! After being raised in the business world in my family's business, attending business school, and working in the world of supply chain management for 5 years I find this advice very practical! I take the tools I used in supply purchasing and planning and apply them to my home management practices!

Last week I talked about the importance of a strategy, my new shopping strategy, and focused on groceries. But with no CVS in sight, Babies R Us and Target being much further away, and no double coupons I have had to rethink how we purchase toiletries, medicines, diapers, and other household things. So this week is part 2 focusing on my shopping strategy for all household and toiletry purchases.

When we lived in Southern CA, before I smartened up, I would just go to Target 4-6 times a year and buy what we needed. While this was certainly cheaper than the grocery store or drug store, I could do better, which I eventually worked hard on. At our last home in Southern CA we had exceedingly close 2 CVS drug stores, Babies R Us stores, and 2 Target stores, so popping in to each whenever there was a good sale on one or two things was no big deal, no extra time, and always on the way to somewhere. So I was a bit sloppy in my planning, I just popped in when there was a good sale! But it worked.

That will not be the case anymore!

Babies R Us and Target are far enough away to be their own special trip!

Time for a new plan. Here it is:

One thing I have learned is that if Costco has a coupon on something it makes it very hard to beat their price. So I am looking through their coupons carefully and buying what I can and what we need. Also, gone are the days of cheap and free toothpaste as our dentists have said we need certain things in our toothpaste...sigh.

I am watching the Walgreens flier to see what is available there, but to be honest it is not great yet as I am missing weeks of coupons. (Even though it is on the way to most things).

And we try to pick up at the grocery store whatever we see that we use and is a good price.

This is working great for everything but diapers and wipes!

When Jen commented about diapers last week too I figured it was worth talking about!

In Southern CA the best deal I could find on Pampers diapers was usually if I bought the big box at Babies R Us with a box of wipes and used their $7 off coupon and manufacturers coupons. Due to sensitive skin we stick to Pampers (we tried others, it was not fun). Recently we discovered Costco sensitive wipes which were a great price and we can use! This made the Babies R Us deal not so great any more. After some research I found the Diapers.com price to be the best for us, especially considering they take coupons (via mail), have ecoupons, and free shipping over $50. This ends up not only being a good price, but it saves me a trip (remember the 1 car thing) and saves me time. For me it is an all around good thing! Not to say that I will not keep my eyes pealed for a good deal, but my options are more limited, and the Target sales have been more limited too!

If you want to try Diapers.com, you can use my code KRIS3192 to get $10 off your first order of $49 or more, which is also where the free shipping starts. (I will get a credit too, I think $5)

These may not be the most rock bottom cheap methods of doing things but my strategies maintain an important balance of saving money, saving time, maintaining the quality my family wants, and meeting my family's needs. Those were the key factors in making our decisions for our shopping strategy, and also a big part of my stocking plan...but that is a conversation for next week!

Is this a series you are interested in? What would you like to see covered? (Clearly we take requests!)

Series:
Part 1: New Shopping Strategy

Monday...night

More and more I find time slipping through my fingers. Somehow a morning gets away from me and next thing I know the day slipped away. I find I notice it more as I try to be more deliberate in my use of my day, as I am more deliberate and purposed in my teaching and training of the girls. And as this is the first day in a month it was just me and the girls, which was nice.

That being said, the day may have slipped way, with much of my to do list incomplete, but my family is loved, they were fed, have clean clothes, and were well cared for today.

Clear marks of a successful day.

Note to Self

When you see the grocery flier you need for the week with all the great sales involving an in flier coupon, and the flier will not come in the mail, it will only be available in Sunday's paper, don't leave it laying on the kitchen table with the rest of the paper.

Tuck it away somewhere safe!

Otherwise you will look all over the house to no avail...

...and realize you took the recycling out yesterday morning...

...and have to end up pulling it out of the recycling bin.

Just in case this happens again...

A Fun Supper

Tonight is my MIL's second last night here, so we are having a fun meal tonight. She has informed me she is ordering pizza....obviously I did not protest one bit! We love pizza around here and it is a treat for her because she never orders just for herself. By informing me and not asking me it eliminates any question or argument of who is paying!

So my contribution is dessert.

Crepes stuffed with strawberries and chocolate pudding and topped with whip cream.

Yummmm

What do you stuff your crepes with?