Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Meals from the Cupboard

When there is no money for groceries then it's time to start taking a serious look at what is in the cupboards, freezer, and fridge.  That's the week we've had here.
Most of the time we are always thinking, "there is nothing to eat", when in reality, our cupboards and such are pretty packed with food.

My husband had shopped for one meal the Sunday before.  He chose to buy all the fixings for soft tacos/burritos.  I commented to my daughter about how I could have shopped for a few days on what he spend for one meal, but as it turned out, we ate tacos/burrittos for 3 days on what he bought.  In fact, we even threw in a night of chef salad with the taco ingredients and adding hard boiled eggs and some lunch meat cut up. (We did end up on the 3rd time just with refried beans in our tortillas and no meat with the fixings.

Another night my daughter got to looking in the freezer and she found 2 of the thin pork chops from Dollar Tree.   She cooked those up and cubed them.   She then added a packet of onion soup, a can of beef broth, a can of black beans, a can of pinto beans, and a can of kidney beans out of the cupboard.  She also added in what was left of the onion from the taco nights and some cubed boxed commodity cheese.
It was a really good soup and 5 of us ate it for 2 nights.

One night there were 3 tortillas left.  There were also 6 eggs left.  I got out the Eggtastics, and cooked us each 3 eggs, splitting up the little bit of shredded cheese that was left, cutting up a package of Buddig Bull lunch meat that was still left from our camping trip, and cutting some of the onion that was left, I fixed us nice breakfast burritos.  I dig in a drawer and found sauce packets from Taco Bell too.


You Can Get Free Gift Cards For Shopping, Searching and Discovering What's Online at Swagbucks.com

I was paid $25 PayPal by Swagbucks so that gave me a little grocery money.  I used $5 for gas leaving me $20 to spend at the store.  I opened up the ibotta app to see what I could see there.
I spent $19.25 and I bought:
My husband and I each a 2 ltr of Dr Pepper
gallon of milk
package of tortillas
dozen eggs
4 packages of Buddig Bull meats (with $1 ibotta rebate)
Sargento sliced cheese (using 55 cent coupon and 25 cent rebate from ibotta)
Martha White Muffin mix (25 cent rebate from ibotta)
ground turkey (on sale and 50 cent store coupon)
3 bananas
I think I did pretty well with $20 plus I received $1.75 into my ibotta account too.

My daughter made us some good sliders for a meal too!  She used the slider buns that I had brought home left over from the quilt retreat, some of the Buddig Bull meats, and some of the cheese slices.  She topped them with melted butter with garlic salt.  That was an extra yummy treat for a meal!

Last night I had forgotten to take my pound of ground beef out of the freezer, but I got to looking around and I uncovered a package of sausage links from Dollar Tree.  I then seen tater tots that were left over from a time when we had made tater tot casserole.  I used those and made scrambled eggs for a nice breakfast for supper.

All in all we ate really well this week. I wish I had thought to take pictures of our meals throughout the week, but alas, I didn't.   My lesson for this week is to eat out of the cabinets....at least if yours are like ours, and full.  We will be doing this for awhile yet as we get some financial things straightened out.  I know there is still at least 10 lbs of chicken in the deep freeze so it's looking like we will be having chicken several ways this week as well as using up some of the many bags of rice and beans that are stacked in the kitchen too.

No, we didn't have a cat for supper, but I found this picture of Moo in the skillet in my photos and thought I would just share it for fun.


Did you get tired of reading all of that?  LOL  I hope I did give you some "food" for thought today!!
Until next week, have yourself a Frugal week ahead!

Frugal Friday With Marsha Week in Review

This has been an interesting week. Monday was my middle daughters birthday and I said I would keep the 3 children overnight.
Their 3 plus my oldest daughters 5 meant 8 children overnight. Gluten for punishment that I am, (LOL) I offered to also keep them the next night as well.

Of course I love having them, but they do require a lot of energy, especially that many at once. Food was provided by the parents though. Pork chops, cucumbers, strawberries and bananas for the first nights supper and pizza and watermelon (with popsicles for later) for the next nights supper by one daughter. The other daughter brought Icee treats, fruit snacks,Kool-Aid, 3 boxes of cereal, and milk.

My middle daughter also paid me some dollars for keeping hers a second night which enabled me to buy some lunch and other household items. My oldest daughter put some gas in my van.

All of this adds up to what I posted a couple of weeks ago.....that things work out.
Hubby and I did spend a little on groceries, but under $20. Actually, he let me shop. I chose to buy bologna, cheese slices, bread, potato salad, a bag of chicken fingers, tomatoes, a head of lettuce, mayonnaise, salad dressing, bbq sauce, and a gallon of milk and paid $19.51. I think I did well and didn't even use any coupons.

How was your week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday with Marsha -- Week in Review

I intend from now on for my Frugal Friday posts to be a week in review.  This will encourage me to really be watching for the things that I do, even the little things.  Hopefully it will not only motivate me, but others as well.

I can't say that we've had a frugal week this past week.   Hubby took it upon himself to go grocery shopping and spent close to $100.  Sigh....he obviously didn't understand the deal.  The deal being that he is to not spend any money outside of paying the bills and keeping gas in his truck.

He's not even supposed to be willy nilly spending on food and drinks while working.

As I said, he did not keep up his end of the deal, and, I've been pretty upset with him all week!

Don't think that I am not appreciative of the groceries that he bought...and not only bought, but did most of the cooking all week as well.  However, what he bought was: 3 packs of hot dogs, large can of pork and beans, large tub of potato salad, gallon of milk, box of Lucky Charms, 3 dozen eggs, 2 packages of bacon, pound roll of sausage and quite a lot of 2 ltrs or Dr.Pepper.

I think you will see the theme that we've had a lot of breakfast meals all week.  Not complaining there either really since that is my favorite meal foods.

And, my complaint is that he shopped BEFORE paying bills to see if that money he spent was really spendable money.

I have once again not been keeping up with my coupons.  In fact, I owe my friend for at least 3 weeks worth on insert orders.  Money is an issue....I don't have the money to go pick up my coupons and pay her!   It does no good whatsoever to pay for extra coupons and then not keep them cut and organized and actually use them!  I will be contacting her to get them picked up.

I did a review this past week of The Gnome Project, which talks about the importance of regular routine.  Starting today, not only is working on sewing/crafts each day, working on coupons is also going to be a daily must for me!

I hope to have a nice list for you to read next week.  In the meantime, please do link up some frugal/money saving/DIY type posts and motivate me to keep going.

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Things Work Out

Sometimes I am amazed how things work out. How the Lord does provide just as he promises he will.

I, myself, did very little grocery shopping last week. Just a gallon of milk, a jar of pasta sauce, a dozen eggs, a box of Hamburger Helper, a cantaloupe, and 4- 2 ltrs of Dr.Pepper.
Yes, all of it had rebates from ibotta.

My mom gave us a package of sausage patties, which with eggs and toast made a nice breakfast for supper.
I cooked up the last 2 turkey patties and cut them up for the meat in our spaghetti another supper.
I cooked a huge whole chicken in the crockpot that made chicken sandwiches the first night and then a pot of chicken and noodles that we ate 2 nights in a row.
We did splurge one evening when my daughter and her family were in town for my granddaughters 4th birthday, and we went and bought 3 of the $5 Little Caesar's pizzas.

I've been so grateful for the $50 amazon that I cashed out for with the Lucktastic app, along with earnings from my amazon affiliate. It's paid for 80 lbs of cat litter and 66 lbs of cat food for our animals. It's time now to get it added back up though so that I can order more...hopefully before what we still have is gone. Amazon Prime is awesome with the free shipping!

I don't know yet what this week's shopping will bring. It's been a whirlwind week and I don't even know what gift cards I have available. I spent one of my $5 Target gift cards buying Zelda some gifts from the Spot for her birthday last Friday.

How has your week been?

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday with Marsha 6/20/14

I am actually writing this post early and scheduling it to post as I am at a quilt retreat.
7:30 am to get there to help set up.  We sew from 9 am to 11 pm today and 9 am to 4 pm on Saturday.

The retreat costs $65.  It's in town so not an overnight to have to cover a motel too.  The $65 helps to pay for the small amount we are paying for the building, 3 meals, and a little towards some of the door prizes. 
Most door prizes were donated by a few quilt shops and then members of the guild.

Is this frugal?  Probably not....I could just set aside this same time and sew at home.  The problem is that I won't do it.  I will allow people to call and be taken somewhere....think I need to be on the computer....or any number of other excuses.
At home I won't have the socializing with other quilters either.

Let's just say it's frugal to save my sanity!

Hubby and I did shop at Aldi this week.  We spent just over $200.  I feel good knowing that we have plenty of food for suppers for some time.
Aldi is the cheapest place to shop, in my opinion.  We got a very nice variety.

We also bought 4 jugs of scoopable litter.  You might remember that I've been cutting up newspapers for the litter boxes for lots of months now to save the money of buying litter.
This does do the job, but I had a hard time keeping up with the papers, even picking up free papers here and there.  It also doesn't cover smell too well.
Aldi has the jugs for just $3.99.  I feel this is cheap enough to buy the litter over spending the time to cut up papers.  I can now find other things to do with the time that I was spending cutting them.
The grocery store has their store brand of the same size litter on sale for $5.89 this week.  PetCo offers you to refill this size jug for $5.49.  So, $3.99 really is a good deal.

One other thing hubby bought this past weekend was a new steam cleaner for the carpets.  (The income tax refund came in).
We ended up buying  Hoover Power Path as I wanted a smaller more portable machine.
It's been over a year since our other steam cleaner bit the dust.
I can feel that buying our own machine is frugal.  It's a lot cheaper than paying a company to come out to shampoo the carpets or to rent the machine at the store 2 or 3 times a year.
I'm very pleased with the Power Path.  It does a really good job....and especially with over a year of grandchildren, children, and pet stains!

I think that is all for me this week.  I do hope you have some posts to share this week.

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday with Marsha 3/28/14

It's hard to believe that March is almost over. A month ago today I was off to a weekend quilting retreat. It was here in town at a building at our state fairgrounds. It was my first retreat and I hope more to come.
I'm still kind of reeling from spending the $75 to go but I know it was important for me to get away from it all for a bit. I had a great time, completed 2 projects, and came home with $69 retail in prizes and goodies too. Of course we also were fed all of our meals and snacks.

This has felt like a rough week. There has been NO money to spend. Yesterday I did get in a $12 check for doing surveys and was able to buy milk. I'm expecting a paycheck in the mail today from my merchandising job.
I have a smallish list made out of essentials.
I'm actually going to shop at Aldi where I know that items are cheaper. I need to make shopping there a habit since I can't keep up with my coupons, and it's rare to have a coupon for milk, eggs, etc anyway.

Speaking of coupons.....I've not cut out the coupons from the Sunday papers for 4 weeks now! I'm having a hard time working that back in to my routines.
I've looked through them and taken out ones that I wanted to use right away. I have used coupons that I've printed from the internet too.
Not saving much this way.

I'm still reading Lean Body, Fat Wallet: Discover the Powerful Connection to Help You Lose Weight, Dump Debt, and Save Money It's such a good book and I highly recommend it. I'm working more on the health part and changing my diet....next comes exercise.
I still need to get my husband on board on the wealth part of the book since he is the main money earner and bill payer.


Motivate me!

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday With Marsha 3/22/13

It's Friday already??  This week hasn't been near as busy as last week, but there were a few things thrown into my schedule that I didn't expect.  
Again the paycheck didn't last the week----here's your shopping tip for this week:  Don't send your hubby to the store!   Wait, I think I've warned you about that before.
I did just that Saturday evening because I was working the whole day at our church helping with pictures for the church directory.
He picked nutrionally (sort of)--pigs in the blanket made with turkey hot dogs and reduced fat crescent rolls, pork and beans, low fat cottage cheese and sugar free peach slices.  However, other than a gallon of milk, that is all he bought.
Again, I called him at work and asked him to pick up a few things on his way home---he came home with nothing.  There wasn't enough left in his account to pay for the groceries!  Thankfully we still had enough supper type foods to make it through the week from my stockpile.  In fact, we still have a few meals worth.  It is nice to know that some of my massive coupon shopping of the past has paid off.

So......this week, I am going to ask that you comment with suggestions on how I can get hubby to stop over spending and to actually keep track of his checking account!!   I have already had him sign up for an online account, the problem is that he checks and sees there is a balance and spends.  He doesn't keep in mind the things that I have told him will be coming out automatically.  We've had $90 is overdraft fees this month and that could have been a LOT of groceries!  HELP!!!  (Admittedly, this taking the mom's out to eat on Friday nights has been a mutual decision and an expense we really can't afford.  I'm rethinking how we had went to it before, which was me doing all the work and having them to our house for supper)

This week I got in a few freebies:  Soft Scrub Advanced to try and review,  Dial Kids Hair and Body wash to try and review, sample of Tide togo stain eraser, shampoo and conditioner samples and several magazines from free subscriptions.  

Your turn!  Share away please.

 

Frugal Friday With Marsha--Linky Party

It's been a full week again since I've blogged!  Life is so full for me and I sure have some catching up to do.

We've had snow, a LOT of it, these past couple of days.  More snow than we've seen at one time in Kansas in a decade.  It's sort of nice, past the fact that I have to go out to work today.

I cheated one night this week for supper....and it wasn't frugal.  I ordered pizza from Papa Johns.  Sure, it was a special for $9.99 for a large.  I ordered 2 though and we did eat them for 2 nights.

I only went to the grocery store once this past week!

I spent $7.83.  I saved $14 with coupons and had a total savings of 74%.
There were printable coupons for $1 off any pork.  I used those to get the pork riblets that were marked for quick sale.  One package  for .87  and the other was $1.37.  Yes, we had those for supper that night.

We were able to get 2 loaves of bread and 2 packages of hamburger buns from the warehouse free. (If you don't know, my husband is a route driver for Sara Lee).  We then did have to buy a gallon of milk to finish out the week as well.  It was on sale for $2.99.

What have you posted this past week?  I really do enjoy reading posts that are linked up.  The learning and the motivation are great!


 

31 Day of Tracking Spending--Day 7

Day 7 and let's just say this was a bad day.
First of all my husband came home with 2 bags of groceries.  This is never good.  It means that he was hungry and picked up whatever he was hungry for at the store.
Yep...just over $18 of food for just one meal.  Mind you, we fed 9 people so if you break it down per person that price doesn't seem bad.  But....did he have to get 2 different kinds of sliced cheese?  Did he have to buy the most expensive rolls of 1 lb. ground beef?  Was the parmesan cheese a must?  (It didn't even go with the meal).  sigh.....

Then he proceeds to tell me that we aren't getting my daughter the cell phone for her birthday after we've promised her we were.  She would be crushed, whether we can afford it or not.  She's already been asking for one of her own for the past 2 birthdays.  We got in to a huge argument over it, not good.  Especially since we've only been officially man and wife for just over 2 months.

I got paid $20 today from gather and a big .11 cents from matesgate in to my paypal.  I restrained myself from buying something in the online party today.  I know we need the money, maybe towards the cell phone, or for groceries.

I really must figure out how to have the time I need to dedicate to my earning sites online and to making my crafts to sell and start bringing in more money on my own than what I am.

It's late and I need to get on to some other things before heading to bed yet, so this is my report for today.

Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE 

Frugal Friday's With Marsha 7/1/11

Happy Friday!

This has been another week of not much grocery shopping and a lot of eating from what we already had in the house. Hey, we aren't out of food yet, but I'm sure hoping we can squeak out a little bit of grocery money after the bills are paid.

In the garden....the cantaloupe seems to be doing well, it's flowering now. The tomato plants are growing, but not producing. The peas I planted have sprouted, not sure if they will produce in this heat. The few potatoes seem to be growing fine.
I pulled what was left of the onions out of the garden and cooked them with a pork roast. The onions I planted otherwise didn't grow. I also used the chives that Steve's sister had brought me in the roast as well. I should say a little bit of those chives. She brought me a bunch that I clipped and dried and put them in a ziploc bag. Also for the roast I bought a bag of baby carrots at the store on quick sale for .79. And, I bought strawberries on sale for $3.98 for 2 lbs, using a .50 coupon doubled making them $2.98.
Here is a pic of the cantaloupe from the other day---ignore all the grass and weeds that should be taken out please:

I was able to pick up a bag of blankets from freecycle this week. I had hoped I could use them for the inside of quilts. One blanket I can use for the inside of a small quilt. The other 2 we will use. There was also a king size pillowcase in the bag.

We've had temps in the triple digits this week and no rain, so hanging clothes out on the line to dry hasn't been a problem. I took last week off from doing laundry, except putting away what I hadn't from the week before. Still, I only did 4 loads this week.

My other items are shared in my linky for this week. Please link up below.

Check out KitchenMonki.com!

Tools to help you combat the soaring price of groceries

If you head-up the grocery shopping effort for your family, you’ve probably noticed the soaring price of food – especially perishables. Even though your grocery list isn’t getting longer, it seems like you’re spending enough to feed the entire block. Well, you’re not imagining things. It’s a fact that we’re paying almost 70 percent more over the past two years for common kitchen staples, like eggs, bread, milk and chicken – and prices are expected to continue their upward trend.

Unwilling and unable to scrimp on quality foods needed for creating healthy family meals, many parents are turning to the web to help off-set their grocery costs. One popular strategy is pilfering online coupon sites like Coupons.com, SmartSource.com and ValPak.com. Online coupon use is skyrocketing and companies are issuing twice as many as they did just three years ago – so you’ll likely find a larger variety of savings on the web than in your newspaper insert. And make no mistake – you can certainly save big if you’re willing to put in the time to hunt. Another emerging strategy is using the web to help build a smarter grocery list. 

Recent studies show that in-store marketing can drive up to 50% of the total grocery purchase – so you could save significant money simply by being more organized.

Lastly, there are also a handful of mobile apps that can help you scan bar codes and compare prices on the same product at various stores. Check out apps like Frugal, RedLaser and Grocery iQ to name just a few. Comparing prices at several different stores and figuring out where to buy what can be a lot of work – but these technologies aim to eliminate that headache – and the savings are well worth it.

With escalating food prices, it’s smart to put technology to work for you. Yes, you may have your own tried-and-true methods for capturing grocery savings – but adding these high-tech strategies into the fold may be a nice compliment to your current efforts and help reveal additional savings that you might not know about otherwise.

In an effort to help busy home cooks get more out of the monthly food budget, they can now turn to KitchenMonki.com, a website that allows shoppers to organize their recipes in an iTunes-like fashion and have an e-grocery list delivered to their mobile phone via text message or email. But here’s the cool part: Kitchen Monki’s grocery lists are broken down aisle-by-aisle. When it comes time to shop and you’ve got a detailed “plan of attack”, you’re more apt to bypass the lure of in-store marketing (and in turn, spend less money). Peripheral items and junk foods are specifically engineered to capitalize on unorganized shoppers who browse each aisle for meal and snack ideas as they go. (Recent research shows that in-store marketing can drive up to 50% of the total grocery purchase.)  Kitchen Monki also scales your recipes, which can help frugal shoppers ensure that they’re not purchasing more than they need of pertinent ingredients.

Again, groceries are a capital expense in most households, but using tools like Kitchen Monki can help you save in areas that may otherwise go ignored. Plus, it's an excellent complement to the art of "couponing". 

With so many using apps on their cell phones now, I think this sounds like such a great thing to add!   The best part is that it's 100% FREE and takes only seconds!

My Frugal Week--April 25-May 1, 2010

My frugal week:

We ran out of trashbags.  I've used large bags from the second hand stores and things that I've saved back until I am able to buy more.

Walgreen's Shopping  Walgreen's Shopping 4/25/10

I cooked pork roast in beef broth previously frozen from other beef I had cooked.  This is something I just recently started doing over buying broth in a can to cook in.

Was able to get a $20 bra from JC Penney's for just $4.50 shipping using the $10 off $10 coupon code.
The bra was on clearance for $10 and I saved $1.45 on the shipping cost by having it shipped to my store since I knew we would be in that area to pick it up.
The code is 4BESTMOM and is still good at http://www.jcp.com until May 9!

I also got to make a coupon shopping trip to the grocery store.  Although we were going to the store for specific ingredients for supper, I was able to grab up some coupons and get some good deals.
Grocery Shopping 5/1/10

That's it for this week....see you next week!

Grocery Shopping 10/28/09--Savings 72%, Spent $15.26

I only had a little to spend, in fact, I came so close to what I had that I came home with .26 left in my pocket!

The store (Kroger) is having the special of when you buy 10 of the certain products you get an additional $5 off your grocery bill. I did this twice today (plus bought 1 1/2 gallons of milk)

I used coupons on every item (except the milk) I am going to list the sale price, then the price minus the .50 for the bonus, and then the price after coupons. My store doubles coupon up to $1 in value, meaning a .50 coupon is $1 off, coupons over that are taken up to the $1.

4-Brown N' Serve sausage, on sale for $1.39 making them .89 each, I used 4-.35 coupons making them just .19 each!

2-Tombstone Pizzas, on sale $2.99 each, making them $2.49 each. I used $1.50/2 coupon making them $1.74 each. And, I have 2 of the 17 UPC's I need for the Help Pay Your Bills mail in offer.

4-Chex Mix at $2.19 each, 1.69 after discount. I used 4-.50 coupons making them .69 each bag.

3-Keebler cookies on sale for $1.49 each, .99 after discount. I used 1 coupon for $2/2 packages and 1 .55 off one. Making them just .49 each!!

4-Sunny Delight, on sale for $1.49 making them .99 after discount. I used 4-.25 coupons making them just .49 each! (we need the vitamin c right now!)

3-Betty Crocker boxed potatoes on sale for $1.49, making them .99 after discount. I used 1- .40 coupon and 2-.25 coupons, making them .19 and .49 each!

Milk is not on sale and has risen some in price. Gallons now are $2.69 and half gallons are $1.79

I saved $15.10 with coupons, plus the additional $10 off for buying the 20 products.

My receipt shows that I saved $12.76 on sale prices for a total of 72% saved :)



I am very happy with today's shopping!

Wednesday May 13

Good Morning! Looks like we might have some days now without rain. I wasn't chilly when I walked out the door this morning so that is a good sign for me.

Looks like the grocery store has some great deals this week. I've busily been printing more coupons. I hope you will check out the coupons that coupons.com has to offer right here from my blog. Oscar Mayer bologna is the stock up I am going to do. It's on sale for .88 and the coupons are $1/2. We will have quite a few packages in the freezer! Go to kraftfoods.com to print even more. Another good coupon is the $1 off Kraft bbq sauce. Here is only sells for $1.08.

I usually go to the store on Thursdays but I think I will go ahead and go get the deals today. He never brought that car back to me, which tells me that the brake lights not working was yet another electrical problem. I hate to call him as he's getting upset over how often I check in, but I need to know what's going on with it. I don't want to ask him for my money back on the van, I'm in hopes he will, or can find me something else decent to drive.

Hey! I actually got my other books listed on homeschoolbuy yesterday despite hours and hours of playing that mahjong game at iwon.com. Marsha's Homeschoolbuy Auctions I also updated my Homeschoolbuysquidoo lens. I hope you will check it out. We need more than just myself selling there! As of right now I have the only listings in the homeschool category. I would love to see more of you list. It's totally free unless you choose to put in extra features. Please check it out.

I am off now, it's laundry day plus I have so much more cleaning to do otherwise. I told Jasmine if she even sees me open iwon to come kick me!

Marsha

Thursday April 16

Good Morning! I actually got out of bed on time this morning but then got busy on a bunch of stuff as usual. I'm waiting for Jasmine to get ready so we can take our weekly walk to the grocery store for shopping. Not much on any good sale this week and I didn't even come close to getting all my coupons cut out yesterday either!

I rec'd my bzz kit in the mail yesterday for the L'Oreal Revitalift campaign. I did my first bzz about it through a gather post, including a photo of the products as well as a before video of myself. Rec'd My L'Oreal Bzz Kit In the Mail Yesterday. I also finally got videos to load again for me, thank goodness!

I feel like today will be a productive day, and that is a nice feeling! I will be smoking my last cigarette today...PERIOD! Therefore send good thoughts on that for me.

I think that's it for this day...until tomorrow, have the best day possible.
Marsha

Sunday April 5

Good Morning. I wanted to get my blog written before heading out to church. I am on altar guild this month. I am having Steve get me there this week. Next week for Easter we will ask church members to get the whole gang there.
I woke up, went upstairs, looked out the back door, and what did I see? It's snowing! shoot....
I hadn't done my grocery shopping for the week. Last night I got to thinking about how today's high was only to be 40 so at 7 pm last night I gathered up a few coupons and Jasmine, Allen and I walked to the store and back. I spent more than usual, although I did have a plan for meals in my head.

I didn't get as many books at the sale yesterday as I usually get, but I have 2 piles to finish getting photos of and then get listed. I want to try to get them all listed between today and tomorrow evening before I do my online party. Then, of course, hope that we can get some people in to the party.

I updated Our Unschooling Journey 2 squidoo lens yesterday. I also updated my Traffic Galore lens.

I have a daughter not getting up and around for church, so I am going to close for now. Have a very blessed Sunday.
Marsha

Wednesday March 25

Good Morning! I haven't been on the computer much this morning, concentrating more on the housework and now ready to start schoolwork with Jasmine.

On the way to take the girls to school Elizabeth had to call us. About half way there that rod went all the way out on the van. Now it's still sitting down there and I have no idea when we can get someone to pull it home for us. I also need prayers on coming up with the $300 we need to buy another engine for it.

I posted a book on blujay yesterday and have another one to post today. Both are new books that I've written book review squidoo lenses on. Yesterday's was With Violets

I didn't get anything extra into gather yesterday other than an article on the van breaking down.

I'm sad that we will have to now miss the Lenten service at church tonight, and once again I have to call and get a ride for the girls to Awanas. I think Jasmine and I will walk to the grocery store this afternoon for a few things. I think the weather will hold out for us today, but tomorrow is a real cool down with a chance of rain....Friday they are calling for even more of a cool down with a chance of snow. Oh boy....

I guess that's it for today's news. I need to check real quick to see what's supposed to be good deals at the grocery store. I looked at the ad but didn't see anything exciting.

Have a good Wednesday!
Marsha

Wednesday March 10

Good Afternoon! I am late getting this posted today. I've been back and forth between the computer and cleaning. I am feeling like I am actually getting somewhere on the cleaning, but have a long ways to go to be happy for the day with it.
It went and got COLD here. Yesterday it never got above freezing, today's high is supposed to be 36, but right now it's still just 19. BBRRRRRR!! At least the cleaning is keeping me warmed up with the moving down here in this basement.

I won't do go my grocery shopping today, and possibly not until Friday. For one thing, I am far from having my coupons prepared. For another, a kind follower on twitter has offered to print the ones I need from smartsource and mail them to me. For some reason I just can't print the smartsource coupons. And for a 3rd reason...maybe it will possibly be warmer on Friday?

Guess I better get that load of laundry going and then move on to other things online.

Happy Hump Day to all!
Marsha

Marsha's Sunday "Musings"

I woke up at 9, which would have been 8

But even that was kind of late.

Hey! I'm a poet

and I didn't even know it


I read this last night in the Lutheran Digest and thought it was cute, so true, and probably a much needed morning prayer for us all:

Morning Prayer

So far today, God, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, haven't lost my temper, haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over-indulgent. I'm really glad about that.

But in a few minutes God, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on I'm probably going to need a lot more help.

Thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen


In other news....we had tornadoes touch down only 4 miles from our house yesterday evening. That was pretty scary. We were all outside on the porch and in the yard when the man across the street came out and yelled across that tornadoes were heading our way in 5 to 7 minutes. Oh wow! One hit just south of us and the other east of us, but it was pretty scary all the same.

I got a lot of things done yesterday. I got the rest of my new things (incense) listed on blujay. I did my group work here on gather. I'm attempting to go through my email and get rid of it backwards. I got up to February 28. I hope to clear the box today and start fresh and try to figure out how to keep up with all that comes in in a day. I'm in the process of making my business bookmarks. I had run out. I put one in every order that I send out. I had to remake the file since I lost the original file in my computer when it crashed.

My plans today include finishing up what is above, getting my coupons cut out and doing some grocery shopping. Hopefully also to get my living area here in the basement pretty well cleaned up too. It's spring break this week, which is great. It means I don't have to hurry to bed, or set my alarm to get up and make sure Allen is up and getting ready for school. On the down side...no quiet time while three of the grandkids are at school.

The kittens are a week old today and their eyes are opening. I need to get more pictures. It's sure going to be hard to give them away when it's time. We've not had an orange cat in a long time. I especially like the one that is white with the orange spots.

Well, better get busy on all my projects, and my group work. Have a great day my friends!
Marsha

Thursday January 22

Good Morning.
Today's plans include going to get commodities this morning if my daughter will wake up to give me a ride. Last time they had run out of food to give out by the time we got there. (this is done, stopped typing when they got up, so we did get our food)
I am volunteering in Ariel and Araya's classroom at Headstart today.
I will sort coupons this evening while I watch Gray's Anatomy. I actually have them all cut out and in my sorting box.
I just have the straps to get made for the plarn shopping bag. I should be able to get that finished today too.
I am also hoping they will take me to do some grocery shopping after school is out. I have my list and coupons ready for the sale.

I joined The Bar yesterday through Marketing Pond. It looks very interesting and Valerie talks up the possiblities. With only a $10 minimum to get paid you can earn quickly without any referrals, but get referrals and the sky is about the limit on what you can earn with it. I hope you will check it out and join. Join The Bar to Earn!
This may or may not work, I am getting a redirect error. If you are interested in joining under me, please leave me a comment and I will send you an email referral. Thanks!

For today I will feature the squidoo lens that I built on gather. Take a look see. I list what I've redeemed for, gotten free, or won as a prize in the lens. It is truly the best site out there. Gather--the Best in Social Networking

Woo Hoo! Tomorrow is Friday and the start of the weekend. I'm going to wish you all an early good start to the weekend.
Marsha