Frugal Friday Tip

I am a member of our local Freecycle group and last summer a lady posted that she had a box of old gourmet cooking magazines. I love to be in the kitchen so I knew I could put those to good use. I was dreaming of all the fabulous recipes I'd be trying out in my new kitchen. I knew that I would tear out the 'good ones' and create a notebook of my new found favorites. What I didn't expect I'd receive was this...

Kitchen decor! The Cook's Country magazines have beautiful full-color photo's on the front. I cut out 6 of my favorites (trying to vary the colors utilized) and took myself to the nearest Dollar Tree. I found this burgundy wood frames and they happened to have 6! Bingo!

Now I have unique & colorful wall decor in my kitchen for a whoppin' $6!!

Check out more Frugal Friday tips at Biblical Womanhood.

Easter Fluff

I can vividly remember the Easter dresses of my childhood. Mainly because each one is permanently documented in the traditional photo...

(let's not talk about the mullet hairstyles! :-))

I can also remember coloring eggs at my grandparent's house, hunting eggs in their yard on Sunday afternoon and the candy-trail left by the Easter Bunny from my bed to my basket. But...I can only recall one specific religious memory of Easter past. I can remember, in broken segments, the youth group at our church doing a passion play for the sunrise service. One particular young man, Todd, (whom I thought was quite cute - he was 16 or so...I was 7 or so!) played the part of Jesus and he hung on the cross they erected in the yard behind the church. It was quite realistic (at least to the 7 year old eye).

My point (and I do have one) is that the vast majority of what I remember was completely "fluff". I don't think my parents did anything wrong by spending a fortune buying us dresses, shoes, hose/tights, purses, hats, and pounds of candy, but I do think there's another way.

I'm striving to live a more simple life. A life with less fluff. I admit that it's not always easy. The girl with the most stuff wins, right? To voluntarily take yourself out of the game is contradictory to society as a whole. It frustrates me to think of myself as a pawn in the game of consumerism, but apparently that is what "they" intended all along.

from SortaCrunchy...

Annie Leonard quotes Victor LeBeau's statement that in order for the consumerist model to work, as we "make consumption a way of life," we must "convert the buying and selling of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption . . ."

ugh. It is sooo irritating! "make consumption of way of life"...well, they've succeeded. We associate stuff with nearly every holiday. Halloween (something like #2 holiday for retail sales), Thanksgiving (do we really need all that food?), Christmas (need I say more?), Valentines (created for consumers I believe), St. Patrick's Day (can you say public intoxication?), Easter, blah, blah, blah. If we're not comsuming large quantities of food, we're consuming even larger quantities of stuff. What do we do with all the stuff when we tire of it? when we outgrow it? when it breaks?

Exactly how does all this stuff at Easter remind us of Christ's resurrection? I know Saucy would love to go shopping and pick out a new something for Easter, but today it's not a priority in our house. She can look cute & frilly in a dress that's already in the closet. Trust me, I'm all about the girly thing - bows, sweet little patton shoes, precious bucket hats with flowers on it - but who says I NEED to go buy new stuff for this particular Sunday?

So, this year I will rummage through the giant bucket of hand-me-downs that have been given to Saucy and I'll let her choose a dress. She will look as beautiful as the others. I pray Christ's light shines through her precious smile.

The bucket o'stuff

Our casual options...

Our fancy options...

A Goodwill find...$2 & Brand
New!

Her choice...

Happy Easter, Stranger-Friends!

Menu Planning

Stranger-Friends: "Two weeks in a row? What? "

Me: "I know. It seems a bit out of character. I'm doing something - dare I say it? - consistently."

Monday - Chicken & Rice w/Green Beans
Tuesday - Spicy Beans & cornbread
Wednesday -Chicken Quesdadillas
Thursday - BBQ Baked Potatoes
Friday - Homemade Pizza

Be sure you check out the other great menus at Org Junkie!

Makin' My Menu

I've not participated in Menu Plan Monday in quite a while. I'd love to say that it had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn't actually menu planning, but.....Here's to gettin' back on track!

Here's what The Coach & kiddos will be munching on this week.

MONDAY

Breakfast...Blueberry Pancakes

Dinner...Spaghetti w/Meat Sauce, salad & garlic bread sticks

TUESDAY

Breakfast...Banana Bread

Dinner...Hamburger Pinwheels, green beans & steamed carrots

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast...Oatmeal Muffins

Dinner...Red Beans & Rice and corn muffins

THURSDAY

Breakfast...French Toast

Dinner...Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, edamame & corn

FRIDAY

Breakfast...Cereal

Dinner...Homemade Pizza

Be sure to stop by I'm An Organizing Junkie for other great menus.

Stuff

I have not always been the minimalist that I am today. The Coach sorta forced me into that role when, shortly after we married, he inadvertantly threw away several boxes of keepsake things (old piano awards, an entire box of piano music, yearbooks, etc) and even broke my mom's childhood piggy bank. I know it sounds really bad, but I must admit that nearly 10 yrs later I really haven't missed that stuff at all. Mainly, because that is what it was...stuff.


I was quite pleased with the fact that we are minimalists (by my definition anyway) everytime we've had to move and again last night. We needed a new couch for the living room since our IKEA futon/couch thingy was showing it's age and, frankly, horribly uncomfortable. The Coach was to bring home a new 45-degree sectional and I had to empty the living room all. by. myself. I've never been so happy to only have one cabinet full of stuff. Ok, there's that word again! Stuff.


Inspired by Megan's conviction (I'm still in denial regarding my stuff...because did I tell you? I'm a minimalist!) and Meredith's cheerful frugality, I searched Craig's List for days and found several pieces I'd love to have in my home, but not for the low-low price of 2K! But look what a couple of coaches brought to my house last night!



I was so excited about this piece for many reasons...1) it cost us $150 + $30 for the coach's gas and 2) it was re-upholstered in the last year and steamed cleaned before we picked it up.


Alright, stranger-friends I must admit that I'm feeling pretty good about buying a secondhand sofa. :) I didn't contribute to the consumerism conspiracy and I've kept a very large item from a landfill near you!


From The Story of Stuff...


"Buying used items keeps them out of the trash and avoids the upstream waste created during extraction and production."


"The more we visibly engage in re-use over wasting, the more we cultivate a new cultural norm, or actually, reclaim an old one! "

The Story of Stuff

Calling all Stranger-Friends! This is a must see video!

The Story of Stuff

Click on the "comments" link below and let me know what you think.

Did You Keep Track & Other Christmas Questions

Well, now that it's all over (around here there are several stops before Christmas Day even arrives!) and I've had a chance to sit back and reflect on it, I have one word...Wow! Even when we try to pare it down it seems so overwhelming as I sit amongst so much stuff. Next year, I want to be more like Meredith at Like Merchant Ships or Milehimama at Mama Says!

So, my question to you. Did you keep track of your spending? Did you stay in budget? I'm a little afraid to actually sit down and tally it up at this point. As usual Meredith did a fabulous job and I'm truly in awe of her abilities to acquire such fabulously frugal finds.

Which brings me to my next questions. How do you organize your kids gifts? Does Santa bring everything? Are some wrapped and some not? Are some from Mommy & Daddy? I'm curious how others do it. We've tried to stick with one from Santa and three from us and it usually works.

One last question, do you and your spouse exchange gifts?

Ok stranger-friends, let's hear it! How was your Christmas?

Who Made This List??

We've been shopping all week for school supplies...Veggie Boy is entering 3rd grade and Saucy Girl is starting Kindergarten. Maybe I'm frugal (read...cheap) or maybe I'm getting older, but I don't know when teachers started adding their school supplies to my child's list. My husband has been a public educator for 10 yrs and we've always had to buy his chalk, dry erase markers, red pens, etc., etc. Now it seems the students provide this stuff for the teachers. On Veggie Boy's list we had to pick up 4 dry erase markers and Ziploc bags. I can't quite think of a time when he has brought home something in a Ziploc? (Oh, did I mention that they specified Ziploc brand??) Saucy Girls Kinder list actually specified, "2 Black Chisel Tip Dry Erase Markers" in addition to the, apparently standard, Ziploc brand bags.

I know elementary schools still have a clinic, right? Yet we are providing band-aids from our school "supply" list. Surely, the school can afford band-aids in the budget?

I must be getting old because I remember going to school with the little cardboard "pencil box" with the flap lid. You would bring your box full of pencils, crayons, scissors & a bottle of glue, some construction paper and kleenex. Geesh, times have changed! Saucy Girls list is sooo big that her stuff wouldn't fit in my little cardboard pencil box. What 5 yr old needs 4 boxes of crayons, 2 packs of 10-count markers, 8 glue sticks and 2 bottles of glue - oh yea, and 6, yes six, packages of manilla/construction paper. I know she's not coming home with 6 pkgs of art by the time the year is up. It all seems a bit much to me.

Am I off-track on this one? Please set me straight if I am, but this seems to get more excessive each year.