Making it Through a Barebones Week

When things were extremely tight for our family of 8, no matter how things looked, we always found a way to make it through.

Some things which helped were making pancakes for breakfast.  Who doesn't love a good pancake breakfast, and it costs pennies per meal.  Nowadays there are discount stores like Aldi and such that really can help things along all the more.  When my kids were real small we didn't have those.  Another idea was breakfast for dinner once every week.  No one complained about that one, which helps.  ;)

Homemade breads, biscuits, bread sticks or rolls are always a hit and help fill up with a portion controlled meal (AKA 3 oz of meat and any available veggies)

From scratch soups with a fresh bread nourish, warm & comfort, and allow a family to fill up pretty inexpensively (compared to more traditional meals)  One night was always soup/bean chili  night, and definitely for lunches, too.

Here is the link to the bread I first learned to make: 

Bread Making 101

				Also tortillas are a nice change, and can be filled with lots of rice, some beans and whatever else you like and have on hand.  Rolled up and topped with some tomato soup or homemade enchilada sauce can really beat the suppertime boredom.

When I was able to make a ham, or any other larger cut of meat, I definitely had to use some "up-front" portion control or the whole thing would have been gobbled right up and cost a fortune.  Instead I sliced enough for dinner, and set the rest aside to be diced and frozen in baggies as a base to other meals to come.  You can fry some up alongside eggs for breakfast, or use some for soup.  You can even make a sandwich spread by processing along with some mayo and a bit of relish, onion and celery. 

Potatoes can usually be had for a cheap price at this time of year and everyone loves potatoes.  Mashed, diced, baked and fried can be a friend to breakfast, lunch or dinner. 

Other cheap staples right now would be cabbage, carrots, apples that are just in season now, rice, (beans of course). 

Also, at times frozen veggies will be a better deal, dollar wise, than fresh.  They are picked at the peak of freshness and then snap frozen, so nutritionally they are a great deal. 

Diced apples fried in butter with some brown sugar make a sweet topping for pancakes as well.   It can make eating inexpensively seem like a treat.  Don't have brown sugar?  Molasses mixed in with some regular granulated sugar will do the trick (got that trick from Connie). 

A whole chicken can be stretched into 3 meals.  Here is a link that can explain that idea in more detail: 

Denise’s 3 Meals From One Roast Chicken

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Whenever you may have a couple extra dollars, even if you think you should hold onto it, think about purchasing a few staple grocery/pantry items more than you need right now (depending on what you already have currently).   Doing this helped me lower my grocery bill other weeks, and build up a pantry stock so that when there was no money, we still had food to work with.  I did this with canned items, and baking items especially. 

Back in the day there was a program where if you did a couple hours of community service a month, you could purchase a food box for like half price of what it would cost normally.  There were a variety of items in the box that you could plan your meals and other shopping around.  I cannot remember the name of the program anymore, but a little research could uncover whether there is a similar program in existence today. 

Also, at Farmers Markets you can buy "seconds" where I live for cheaper than the perfectly picked apples and tomatoes.  These are fruits that had fallen to the ground, but still very good, just not perfect anymore.  This is definitely what you want to buy for any canning you may want to do as well.  

Eventually I learned to make my own laundry detergent so that I could put that money into our mouths instead.  Here is a link to learn to do it the new fangled (and not dangerous) way: 

http://www.diynatural.com/homemade-laundry-detergent-soap/

I devoured books from the library like The Tightwad Gazette for example that really uncovered some unusual and fun ideas for saving money and for making use of items you already have, and extending the life of items you already have as well.  It made for both entertainment as well as practical help to make it week to week.

I almost forgot!  Depression era searches online and books at the library can teach you to make desserts and such for a fraction of the price because they used alternatives to expensive butter and eggs.  Please check that out!  My kids thought we were doing alright during what were some pretty trying times when I could turn out a dessert like this.

One more thing before I close, price matching is a great tool for getting the most out of your dollar without having to cut coupons or drive around all day.  I will direct you to Jordan's blog to read a success story from a reader that lays it all out very well in an easy to understand way with helpful tips, just click here for price matching info!

Where is this all going?

I've been doing some thinking about this blog, and whether I should begin a new one, and let this one just end, or if I should continue and let it evolve as life goes on the way that it does.  I've been thinking about the theme of this blog, it seems it's been kind of all over the place...which is how my life has been.  Life has a way of doing that.

My true love and heart is with homemaking and frugality.  Yes, I am a woman, with many complicated facets, and I want to share myself with my readers.  I want to celebrate homemaking on a budget and memory making, so that is where my focus will remain.

Our life is easier in some ways these days, as is the natural progression of how life goes often times. I still remember the early struggle just trying to keep food on our table for eight, really getting into the homemaking spirit to inspire myself in the day-to-day.  I really want to support and encourage others along the way, as others had done for me.

To celebrate the re-opening of my dusty little blog, I will be posting my tips on how to make a home on a bare bones budget.  I will be welcoming a guest post as well on the subject by my friend, Cindy Miller.  Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Draws Near

How do you like this meat, cheese and cracker platter for a festive Thanksgiving?

I think it adds such a fun and memorable touch to have a couple stand-out centerpieces among the rest of the more typical spreads.  I like to dress our table simply .  I have a long vine garland with fall berries and a few fake pumpkins and gourds I lay through the middle of the table over the tablecloth. It's so simple and almost no effort, yet looks elegant.  You could also just cut bittersweet if you have a source for that available to you and do the same type thing with some pine cones, acorns and whatever else speaks celebrating the Autumn season to you.  Maybe some preserved brilliant leaves. Once you start, your creativity will kick in.  

I think preserved leaves would also be a colorful touch to your table!  Try to preserve some brilliant Fall leaves using the wax paper method:

You will need some of your prettiest collected leaves, wax paper, piece of paper or a thin tea towel, along with your iron and ironing board.

Place a leaf between two pieces of wax paper and a towel or a piece of thick paper over the wax paper.

Press on the towel or paper with a warm iron to seal the wax sheets together. This takes about 2-5 minutes on each side, depending on how moist the leaf is. Once you have finished one side, flip the leaf over and do the other side.

Once the leaves have cooled with the wax paper on them, try to peel the wax paper off the leaves, leaving a coat of wax behind to protect the leaves. 

What are your Thanksgiving plans this year?

Bloom where you are planted

Going through some of these posts, it's seems unreal in a way.   I'm not even the same person who wrote this blog, for the most part.  There are bits of me I recognize,  yet our life is so different today from when I started blogging.  My children are all grown up!  One is 23, an RN and married with a little boy on the way.  One is a sophomore in college for Illustration here in WNY.  The 4 babies are ages 11, 12, 14 and 17.  It's just unreal to think about how my life used to be when I was writing these posts.

Some things are similar, I am still at home.  Every time I think about perhaps going to college and starting a career I realize how much I am actually needed.  I mean I am kept busy!  I am constantly driving my daughter to college now that she is commuting this year.  That alone is ridiculous, especially when her classes are hours apart from each other.

Sometimes a boy will miss the bus and I am able to solve it easily, or someone is sick and needs to be picked up.  Imagine having to be late to, or miss work over it.  ugh...I don't have to imagine that hard.  I was a single mom to two tiny girls,  and everyday just to make it on time to work within the lousy 30 minute allowance and back to the daycare after work was so difficult.  I didn't work in town after all but a good ways away in North Hatfield (day care in Holyoke).

All I ever wanted in those days was to be able to take care of my babies and not leave them with strangers, or anyone else for that matter.  To take care of my home.  To have a God-loving man to share my life with.  I have been blessed with all of these hearts desires.  In some ways I grieve, knowing my failings and wishing I had done better with all I've been given.  I wonder why I still struggle with self-worth and loneliness, why I feel so stuck, instead of just being able to settle into my role and this life I've been given.

I very carelessly and hurriedly took this photo this past August right in our driveway.  A flower doesn't strive or struggle it just does what it was meant to do, even in the unlikeliest of places and sometimes hostile environments.  It doesn't over-analyze, question and doubt itself to death.  It simply blooms.  It was an inspiring message to me and I'm glad I didn't miss it.

Sometimes looking forward requires a look behind, to remember from whence we've come.  I'm extremely grateful to my mom for lending me her car in order to work back in 1997.   She's always been a sacrificial giver.  I don't know anyone else like her.  Her generosity to me, helped me to help myself and my girls.  It was also what allowed me to meet Mike in the first place, at work.

I am forever grateful to Mike as well, for everything he's done for me.  For loving me so well, and believing in me.  For believing in my value enough to want me for himself and his children at home. It makes me want to do and be better.  

Time to get real.

I am kind of devestated.  It's a kind of feeling that may just wake one up from their status quo slumber.  Today I began looking at my posts here at my long neglected blog.  It was fun to see some of our old memories, some of which I would not have even remembered had they not been documented here, which totally reminds me that I need to get back to doing this as the memory maker I aspire to be for our family.  I digress....

I came upon a post from 2012 where I had finally fit into this dress I adored for my 14th wedding anniversary.  I was elated, glowing, healthy and alive!  Yes I still had a way to go, but I was doing it!!!  I was meeting goals!!!  I was newly pain-free!  My world was widening as I was able to finally go horse back riding.  It gave me a focus and much needed community at a time when I was in a new place, with no family or friends around me, attempting to make a home.

It brought me deep sadness to see how I have backslid since that time.  I had been a fitness coach.  I know, I was one of those positive thinking coaches that just knew it best to begin my coaching at the beginning of my journey so others could watch my transformation in real time and be inspired regarding their own.

These pics from just 3 years ago seem like a lifetime away as I look at them right now.
This past Summer we had my daughter's wedding.  Not only did I gain 50 pounds since my celebratory dress picture in 2012, but I had to have the dress I was measured for actually taken out 7 months after I had purchased it.  I was not my best at this monumental moment in my family's life, and in fact, even though I am normally a photoholic, I haven't even asked, begged or cajoled for a portrait of my daughter and I, or of the family shot the photographer snapped.  I am highly embarrassed over these remembrances that can never be changed.

How did I let depression, lonliness and who-knows-what-else do this to me?!  I am the one who suffers.  I am the one whose world gets smaller once again.  I am the one who pays the price.  Why did I let this happen?

I will tell one thing in my own observation.  I need social support in my life, be it in person or online. I need to be around other healthy people on a regular basis.  I need something to focus on that will bring good.  Another really cool concept is that when you are helping others, you are reinforcing your own journey.  I found myself in a really good place and felt really accountable when I had others counting on me.  When I was a fitness coach I had all of that.  Then I quit.  I quit because I had an issue that the company wasn't able to solve for me.  You see my coach became inactive, and so I was coachless myself.  There was a broken link and it bothered me.  I wanted to switch to another high profile coach that was very successful, active, positive, and actually running her coaching as a business.  I was not allowed  to do so as it would screw up the people over and under me.  So I quit. Figured I'd join back in 6 months when I could re-join under the super awesome coach I had began following.  Only I never did.  It was easy to just keep on keeping on, and not start paying the small monthly business dues again.  Then it became easy to just stop paying for and drinking my nutritionals which had benefited my husband and I so much.

Was the savings worth the cost?  Definitely not!  Look where it has gotten me.   I went from an unhealthy sedentary lifestyle, weight and diagnosis of MS to where I was just 3 years ago.  And now I am right back where I started.  The work to do it again from scratch seems so daunting.  And yet.....

How many more monumental weddings do I want to attend and cringe at the pictures of?  How many more activities do I want to turn down?  Do I want to be the grandma (first time grandma this coming February!) that sits on the sidelines or that can actually be physically active with her grandbaby? This is just reality.  This is not me beating or shaming myself.  I am mentally healthier than that.  I have become very good at finally being loving toward myself and appreciative of my life.  Because of that reason I have decided to get back to it.  It's the obvious choice for me.  The alternative is not good for me in any way, shape or form.

I will get back within a framework that supports me with my goals, motivation and socially.  I will get back to pushing play on our living room TV and to heck with anything that may make me think twice.  I don't care about those silly things any more, I care about me.  I care about my husband.  I want him to be around a great many years to come.  I don't want his body to cave while under pressure or stress because he's not healthy.  Although many things are not in our direct control, being good steward with what we've been given sure is.  Someone once said to me that it can be done without being a coach, or using a coach and proven framework.  Sure, and for those people maybe their social needs are met because they are deep into a fulfilling career, or are surrounded by family and friends.  Maybe they are naturally driven physically. For those who are not in those shoes, like myself, I am grateful for the online and local support of this organization, and I'm eager to get back to it.  I will do it the right way, the healthy and loving way.  I will feed myself nourishing food to help my body heal.  How would I treat a small child in my life that I want to nourish and help gain to fitness?  I will treat myself accordingly.

Please join me at my newest blog which I am building from scratch at the moment:

Remaking Me

Don't forget to bookmark it!
xoxo
Jenn

Celebrating 14 years

Hello friends!  It's been awhile!!  We changed our wedding anniversary plans.  Each year we go out to a dinner or a movie and dinner......boring!  This year since we have been working on our fitness I had the idea to schedule a photo shoot, to give us a tangible memory as well as celebrate our weight loss.

Something I've always wanted to do was ride horses, so we opted to change our plans from the photo session, which would have also cost a lot more also in the end, to an adventure date consisting of a night at a bed and breakfast of a working horse ranch, followed by a breakfast, a 20 minute lesson,  and 90 minutes of trail riding.

Our cabin for the night

We arrived in the dark, after Mike's full day at work, so we couldn't appreciate the beauty of the drive or the ranch until the next morning.  We did arrive armed with some organic dark chocolate and wine to see us through the evening.  ;0) 

The next morning at 9am we showed up for breakfast which was set up outdoors on the porch of the main house.  A nice long table with pitchers of water was set up and then another area where the food was lined up, covered.  There was cereal and milk, yogurt, coffee, a ham, cheese and egg casserole as well as pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream.

Beautiful boy

Some of the horses

A couple more beauties

We then walked down to watch the horses be prepared.  We had our short lesson, practiced in the arena and the lined up in formation to take to the trails!  Mike was third in line and I was behind him.

I rode Blade

Mike rode Casey

 What a wonderful memory we made that day.  I much prefer activity like this to the same 'ol same 'ol.  This is something I have *always* wanted to do but could never afford as a child or young adult.  Then, I simply was too heavy.  It is a wonderful freeing feeling to be able to have choices and not be held back from doing what I really want to do!  I still have a way to go with my weight loss, but I would not have DREAMED of doing this last year.   Correction:  I could have ONLY DREAMED of doing this last year.  This year after gaining some fitness I was able to DO IT!

Progressing Right Along...

Where to start?  Where to start??  I guess at the beginning.  Ok, I bought this dress in April of 2011 for my cousin's May wedding.  I ordered it online and when it came from David's Bridal, I quickly found and later confirmed that their sizes run small, so I couldn't squeeze into the size 16.  NOT.  EVEN.  CLOSE.

No problem, I'd wear it for my 13th anniversary in August, surely by then it would fit.  Ummm.....NO.  Not only didn't it fit but I actually gained 30 lbs between then and Feb of 2012.  How did I do this?  By eating any crap I wanted, when I wanted it and by not working out.  Plain and Simple.

I started my fitness journey Feb 26th of 2012.  In the first 8 weeks I ate perfectly clean without a hitch,  and did the Turbo Jam program as well as half of the P90X program.  Then in the last 6 weeks or so (losing count here) I have done well but with a few hiccups along the way of missing workouts for a week at a time or eating off here and there.  I've lost 36 lbs total and 17" despite all the hiccups.  Even though I've felt like I've stagnated, my dress proves otherwise.

I tried it on weeks ago, and I actually got it on.  I was elated!  I couldn't zip it up AT ALL in the back, but it was on and I could actually believe that it would fit me soon.  :)

Today for ha-ha's, out of feeling kind of blah about my progress and effort as of late,  I tried it on.  I had to take steroids last week and gained a few lbs, and ate some junk to make it a complete pity party...so I am feeling off kilter and behind as I get back on track.  SOOOOO the news is that IT FIT!!!  Not only did it FIT, but I could ZIP IT ALL THE WAY UP!!!!!!  Now, it was very tight, not wearable out yet.  If i had bent down, I could have split the seam.  BUT IT actually FIT!  Wow what a gift of motivation to wind myself right back up and stop messing around.  WOO Stinking HOO.

Oh I've got a way to go but I am getting there.  Beachbody fitness programs work.  They don't concentrate on one aspect, but the whole person.  Fitness, yes, but also nutrition and mind/spirit.  4 more sizes to go to be at my ideal BMI.

8 more weeks until my 14th Anniversary, and no doubt that I will wear the dress this year.  I just wonder if I will need it tailored by then....EEK!