In The Refiner's Fire

Well, welcome to the last few days of 2015! Is anyone else just complete befuddled as me as to where this last year went?  I feel like I blinked and the year was over!  It's been a year of change at our house and a year of medical issues and several other things as well. The children are growing up, our parents and John's siblings are getting older, and I guess that means we're getting older too.  John and I have all sorts of plans for 2016 that I'll be sharing with you in a few days but for now, we're going to work on frugal things from the last couple of weeks: *  Ate most of the meals at home.  My parents have treated us to a couple of meals out and we each had a free meal at work - me for a co-worker's retirement party and John for the annual holiday meal. * We made all of the following things at home food-wise: French Bread, Lesfe, Swedish Meatballs and Mashed potatoes, cream of chicken wild rice soup, seafood chowder (this is my Dad's specialt...

  Joy to the World! Test: Isaac Watts Tune: George F. Handel, adapted     Joy to the World! The Lord has come! Let earth receive her King; Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room And heav'n and nature sing, And heav'n and nature sing, and heav'n and heav'n and nature sing.   Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let all their songs employ, While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.   No more let sin and sorrow grow Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse if found.   He rules the world with truth and grace And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love, And wonders of His love, And wonders, wonders of His love.       Merry Christmas to you and yours!...

Oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel Text: Psalteriolum Cantoinum Catholicarum Translated: John M. Neale Tune: French Processional, 15th Century   Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel And rasom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O, Israel!   Oh, come, oh, come great Lord of might, Who to your tribes on Sinai's height In ancient times once gave the law In cloud and majesty and awe.   Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O, Israel!   Oh, come, strong Branch of Jesse, Free Your own from Satan's tyranny; From depths of hell your people save And give them vict'ry o'er the grave.   Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O, Israel!   Oh, come, blest Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits by your advent here; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark shadows put to flight.   Rejoice...

I added the above photo because potato soup is the closest thing I have in my photo arsenal to Chicken Wild Rice Soup, which is on the menu this week.  I think I need to take more photos! We have company for three weeks starting on Tuesday and we are EXCITED!!!!  We also have events Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings this week so we have to make sure that we have enough leftovers for lunches this week too.  So, Chicken Wild Rice Soup in the crockpot to the rescue!  Yum! John made one trip to the store this weekend and bought eggs ($1.79/doz), grapes ($1.88/lb), apples ($1.29/lb) and a whole chicken ($1.29/lb) to round out our $100 for the two weeks.  A co-worker gave us 5lbs of Halo Clementine's after realizing that he was the only one in the family that was going to eat them (he had bought two boxes 5lb boxes) and another co-worker gave me a 1lb bag of carob powder.  I think I'm ready for baking and for company!  We'll have to buy potatoe...

I feel like 2015 is just flying by - it's hard for me to realize that December is almost halfway done!  Yikes!  Where has the time gone? We have company coming for Christmas starting next week for three weeks and then we're into 2016 and John's Birthday.  The semester is ending and I need to get grades done and all the other paperwork "stuff" that comes with end of the semester.   John is super busy with all the Advent and Christmas "stuff" and ministering to several ill and dying people and their families. I'm very grateful that the semester is almost over and the children and I can rest for a few days!  I'm hoping that John gets a few days too. Frugal is still the name of the game here so here's what we've been doing the last week: *  Ate all meals at home or brown-bagged except for one meal that was provided during a work meeting and another that was at a church event. * Picked up a free loaf of bread with a punch card from a l...

Bagel Pizzas, Salad and Sliced Apples from a few weeks ago I've been remiss about taking photos lately - of everything.  So, I may have posted that photo earlier - it was a tasty dinner and a bit of a surprise since John brought the bagels home from a breakfast at work.  I sat down on Saturday morning and put together a menu plan for the rest of the month.  I only have a couple of things to buy to finish off the menu for the month - bacon, potatoes, yogurt, eggs and milk are the things that I anticipate needing before the end of the month.  I'm happy with that! I spent $61.93 of my $100 for the two weeks at one store this last weekend on a whole bunch of things - many of which are on sale right now and will last us until January at the very least.  Here's what we bought: 5lbs Yellow Cornmeal $3.69 5lbs Unbleached Flour $1.77 3lbs Dark Brown Sugar $1.29 3lbs Light Brown Sugar $1.29 1lb Coffee $5.99 32oz Vegetable Oil $2.39 4 cans Wh...

Happy Advent everyone! It's that wonderful season of waiting and preparation for our Savior's birth and I'm super excited for this season to be here!  Why? Well... We only have three more weeks until Christmas. We only have two more weeks until my parents are here to visit. We only have a few days until the semester is done! I'm ready for some family time, a break from work and a chance to slow down and rest a bit for a while.   Honestly, taking this season of Advent and slowly decorating the house for Christmas as we usually do (so far, we only have the Advent wreath and the Nativity sets up so far) has been really therapeutic for me. I've been trying to figure out how to purchase gifts for my husband's family (we draw names, but now we have 4 more people we need to buy gifts for!) and not go over our non-existent Christmas budget, have all the delicious goodies we usually have while feeding more people than usual and make it through all my other ...

These are from our Christmas Day Tea from last year.  Since Advent starts in just over a week, we're doing a little planning around here! We've been pretty busy the last two weeks. I still feel that I haven't "caught up" yet and I probably won't until the semester is over.  I did put together a calendar with all the things that I want and need to do before Christmas Eve all planned out.  I'm not sure how it will work, but I'm giving it a try, anyway! We redid our budget a couple weeks ago at the beginning of November and basically found out that things are far tighter than we had initially planned. Some expenses have been higher, some income has been lower, and there are some unanticipated expenses that have popped up. So I scrapped any plans to buy anything other than food and gasoline for the cars between now and at least January (probably longer) unless we have gift card.  I have plenty to keep myself busy so it should be perfectly d...

Another week!   Here we go! The last week has been crazy busy - I spent the entire weekend resting and trying to catch up.  I'm glad and feel blessed that I can do that occasionally without huge penalties in other areas of my life. We have a quiet week and I'm grateful that this week is slow before the week of Thanksgiving, which is always so full.  We spent our entire two-week grocery budget this week and stocked up on several things this week.  I'm hoping to find the money to purchase a turkey or two this week but I'm not planning on buying more groceries between now and Thanksgiving unless I can find that money.  We have plenty of everything so I'm hoping that's not a problem.  Some of the things we stocked up on: Potatoes, carrots, canned beans and fruit, ground beef, soda crackers, and baking supplies.  I also bought some tea and nuts, which I don't buy very often but are on great sale around here right now. Here's what we're eating: ...

A full rainbow arc a few weeks ago - food for the soul! We're supposed to have beautiful weather this week - I'm so excited!  I feel like we've had rain for the last month.  My head knows we haven't, though we have had quite a bit.  I'm hoping to get some more yard work done this week even though we have gotten enough done that we would be just fine if the rest didn't get done.  I'm amazed at how much quicker things go now that the children are old enough to be a real help.  Time to rake the giant amount of leaves we get in our front yard: 1 1/2 hours.  Unbelievable.  When they were toddlers, we had to take turns or "work together" while the children "helped" and it would take a day or two.  I think I'm going to be totally spoiled by their help in the next few years! We have another quiet week this week.  My son is having a friend sleep over on Friday and John is on call on Friday also but that's it for "excitement...

My son took this photo of a lone little red tree a few weeks ago out of our rainy car window.  I'm already missing the fall colors - our weather is glorious and being outside is fun but I feel like I missed the "real" fall! Friday was a bit of whirlwind and so was Saturday so this got written WAY too late on a Saturday evening.  We had a thankfully quiet week and I'm hoping for another quiet week before a couple of busy weekends and weeks ahead and the rush of the holidays. Here's what we did this week in the frugal realm: * Redid the budget for the next 10 months. Ouch.  We had some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication about what John would be earning while in residency this year and needed to revamp everything .  It was really difficult and more than slightly disheartening to see those numbers in black and white. We have several costly things that we really need to complete this year and now we're not sure how we're go...

Hello everyone! I have no photo this week either - mostly because I'm feeling TERRIFIC after weeks, and weeks, and weeks (literally 6 months) of being in constant, awful pain.   I'm feeling great and have spent the last few days tackling project after project of things that I've been putting off because I just haven't been feeling well enough to do them.  I'm so glad to be feeling like myself again!  I'm not sure if it will last but I'm hoping that if it doesn't, the downturns are short-lived and rare.  In the meantime, I am going to enjoy it as much as I can. We redid our overall budget as of November 1, and we're budgeting $200/month for all groceries, toiletries and paper products that we need. What that means on a day-to-day (week to week?) basis is that we'll have $80 in hand every two weeks for shopping and the other $20 set aside for our CSA and any bulk purchases we decide to make.  So, having spent $60.81 this week, we have $19.19 ...

* Sooo, I totally wrote this post and saved it instead of publishing it!  It's only Tuesday but it's been that type of week around here already....   SIGH. I was going through my photos and found this one of some of the last produce we picked from the garden - tomatoes and some very small peppers - I LOVE the colors! We're into fall here - but we're supposed to have a warm week.  I'm hoping "they" are right and we can get some much needed yard work done.  It's always amazing to me how fast the yard fills up with leaves once the trees start to drop them.   I think lots of raking is on the agenda this week! We don't have anything extra or special in our calendar this week - just our normal weekly activities - so we're pretty excited about having a more quiet week than the past few.  We tried three new recipes a little while ago for the crockpot and they were all delicious.  This week we're trying one more new one and resurrecting one ...

Living where we do, there aren't very many options for grocery shopping without going out of normal driving patterns or making a special trip somewhere.   This week was low for deals, so we did a little shopping and that was about it. The side effects from my shingles have been really bad this week in some ways and far better than others.  Either way, I spent most of today (Saturday) at home with a foam roller and a heating pad.  So John went to the store for me (love that man!) and spent $40.95 today. Here's what he purchased: 1 lb Bacon $3.99 (store coupon) 12oz Pork Loin $6.99 (store coupon) 3.99lbs Braeburn Apples @ $0.99 = $3.95 2.94lbs Bananas @ $0.67/lb = $1.97 Two bags fresh Spinach B1G1 = $3.29 (store coupon) 1.08lbs Red Delicious Apples @ $0.77/lb = $83 Two frozen Pizzas @ $2.88 ea = $5.76 1 Gallon Skim Milk $3.79 6 containers Greek Yogurt @ $0.88 = $5.28  (store coupon) According to our receipt we saved $11.73 or 22%. The kids went T...

Goodness - it's that time of the week again, isn't it? Heave a big sigh of relief with me that we're threw midterms and on the home stretch for fall semester!  I know, I know; it seems like it's way too soon for all of that.  From here on out though, it will go FAST.  And then it's the holidays - and you all know how busy that is!  We only have about 8 more weeks to go until finals and then Christmas. John and I stopped at one store after a rare dinner out on our second actual date out this month.  We're at an age where the children have events for church or school and parents don't need to attend with them. So we went out for dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall cheap café we like and then stopped to buy groceries at the end of a Saturday afternoon and early evening event that the children had.  We were all home and tucked in for the evening by 815pm too!  Love that. We spent our last $24 that we had for this week and we bought t...

We finally had a hard frost here so we're done with the veggies from outside now.  Whew!  I was starting to think we were getting overrun by tomatoes and crook-neck squash!   I dehydrated all the crook-neck you see here and made another large batch of salsa.  I *think* we're set! Other frugal things this last week have been: * I enjoyed a free meal at work during a faculty meeting. YUM!  Our chef at work has us so spoiled! * A coworker brought in doughnuts one morning to celebrate her birthday. I enjoyed one gourmet doughnut - delicious. * Went to the apple orchard and bought two carving pumpkins and a peck of apples.  I dehydrated the apples for snacks.  We had a great time - we enjoyed their large playground, a magic show and a hayride as well as the joy of the pumpkin hunt and apple picking.  This late in the season the prices for both pumpkins and apples are far cheaper than we could get in the stores. * I cleaned out our...

Over the last year or two as it's become clear that I'm never going to always be healthy and able to do what I want or need to every single day, I realized that many of our household absolutely have to be delegated. While I've always known that this needed to happen, especially as the children get older, it has been very hard to put into practice.  Partly because it's just easier to do it myself.  Partly because John comes from a family where Mother did very literally everything, so having me do things was "normal" for him. One of the things we stated this fall that I am so pleased with is what we call "A Four Song Tidy".  The children have a playlist on my iPod so each evening sometime between dinner and bed we play four songs and everyone tidies up, starting with the main room(s) of the house - kitchen and living room, which are one open, L-shaped area. Our pattern for these four song tidies is like this: Put on the music Everyone gets the...

I was sorting through the photos on my computer the other day, and this one just made me laugh!  It's my children's birthday cupcakes from this last May - complete with pop-up aliens!  Everyone loves the pop ups and they can actually play with them rather than having them lay around.  Our trees here are going from colorful to bare, which is making me just a bit sad. I love the fall colors! It's cool enough that we've had frost a couple of times this week and we finally had to turn on the heat.  We'd hoped to hold off until November but it just gets too cold at night right now.  The heat really doesn't run during the day because it's warm enough but we do need it at night. We're trying a few new-to-us recipes and reviving a few we haven't done in quite a while.  We were starting to feel like we were in a rut and wanted something new without breaking the bank. Here's what we're eating today: Sunday, October 18:      Breakf...

No photo again today - John put everything away before I could take a photo since I was in the middle of cleaning all the odds and ends out of the fridge and inventorying the freezer.    And now I can't find my receipt!   Yep, I guess it's one of those days around here. I went to one store after spending about 1 1/2 hours at the dance supply store trying to find split-soled tap-shoes for my very large-footed tap-dancing 10-year-old boy.  We managed to find a pair but they have the wrong taps on them so we'll have to replace those.  At least we've got them!  I guess men's tap shoes don't have a split sole as a general rule. Who knew?  (And, yes, I had to ask what a split sole was, too! I didn't dance when I was younger and had no idea that there were a variety of types of tap shoes.) Here's what we bought: * 1 Gallon Skim Milk $2.50 * 1 Dozen Eggs $3-something * 1 package Go-Gurt $2 * 1 Loaf White Bread $1.99 * 6 15oz cans ...

I finally have a Frugal Friday post on a Friday!  YAY!   I think I'm finally getting back on track here (or something!). We're still busy here - I think this fall is just going to be a busy one.  That's okay.  We've been getting into a routine and making sure things get done with a few new additions to our evening routine and I'm loving that!   I'm hoping to write about that one these weeks. Anyway, here's what we've done the last week as far as "frugal" things go (I apologize for any overlap with last week - these days all seem to run together for m!). * We had our garage sale and made $96.  *  I used some of that $96 to order Christmas presents.  We now have at least one present for everyone we need  a present for.  Now, I just need to get myself in gear and finish the homemade ones! * I started the Christmas gift I'm making for my mother.  I'll finish it closer to Christmas since part of it can be easily damage...

Kranskaka - I'm dreaming of Christmas baking right now!  I probably shouldn't be thinking about Christmas baking when the weather is so lovely outside - very fall, beautiful color and just cold enough for soup and stew (we'll ignore the 40mph wind we had today - yikes).   Our church is starting the baking for the holiday fair which will happen in about a month - Krumkaka, Lefse and a few other Scandinavian goodies are in the works.  It got me thinking about what to make this year.  I'm thinking Kranskaka is definitely on the menu!  We haven't made one for a few years. Fall foods abound here this week.   Here's what we're eating. Sunday, October 11:    Breakfast: Toast with Peanut Butter    Lunch: PB&J, Potato Chips, and Cut Veggies (we were gifted a bag of chips leftover from a youth event)    Snack: Apples    Dinner: Soup from the Freezer, Bread, Sliced Vegetab...

What a week! Lots of shingles pain, grading coming out my ears, parent-teacher conferences, running all over to find tap shoes for my now man-size-footed son, and then we had our garage sale this weekend too.  I'm really am ready for a nap this afternoon. It seems like I didn't do much frugal this week, but here's what I did: * Bought 1 yard of lace on sale to my make daughter a crown for her Halloween costume.  If it turns out well, I'll make sure I post about it. * Used up leftovers to make dinner and/or lunch a couple of times this week. * Enjoyed a lunch brought in by a co-worker this week.  Another co-worker brought in doughnuts for a treat one afternoon. * Returned an overdue library book before the fine kicked in. YAY! * My children went in for well-child checkups and we discovered that the pain in my daughter's foot that we thought was a pulled tendon is actually a bone spur.  The doctor gave us several ways to deal with it now so it doesn't...

Sorry folks, no photo this week - I wasn't that on top of things! My son and I ran to one store and bought the following with our $40 grocery budget - I definitely had the pennies in my purse so the one cent over wasn't going to break us!   We had a yard sale on Saturday, so the $10 in frozen pizza was for dinner that night since we were all wiped and nobody wanted to cook.   Everything else will last through the week.  We had plenty of apples and pears and a whole package of grapes from last week that will be good through most of this week too and we have sausage, chicken and pork in the freezer as well as a couple of venison and bear steaks (Thanks cousin Bo!) so we're good to go for meat for a while.  Here's what we bought: 42oz Vegetable Oil $2.49 (store coupon) 64oz Apple Juice $0.99 (sale) 6 10oz cans diced tomatoes @ 3/$2 = $4 3 10oz cans black beans @ 3/$2 = $2 5lb Russet Potatoes $2.49 3.37 lbs Yellow Bananas @$0.67/lb = $2.26 10oz Fr...

It's been a really long couple of weeks.  Our freezer is almost cleaned out for defrosting so we've been eating a LOT of soup - so much that we're getting tired of it, in fact (which I never thought would happen).  A good problem to have, I guess. I also have postherpetic neuralgia, a complication of shingles, and I've had it for about 3 years now.  This last week I broke out in full blown shingles again (second time in three years) and this time in new places on my torso.  Needless to say, I've been miserable and had to miss several events because I just couldn't stand to be out and about.  I'm only 40 so this is discouraging to say the least.   Fortunately, I have some new strategies for managing going forward but it means we're going to have to make some big and hard changes around here.  Can you pray for us please?  It's going to be another emotional year here, I'm afraid. On to better things.... The weather has been perfect after w...

I'm not sure what we'd do without Lego at our house - these provide hours of entertainment to all four of us and I'm so grateful that we have so much fun with something so simple! It's been a couple of weeks since I posted a Frugal Friday post - I'm writing more on that tomorrow - but for now for the frugal things in the last couple of weeks. *  Picked three butternut squash and three acorn squash plus a bunch of tomatoes from our yard this week.   I set the green tomatoes out to ripen indoors.  We have had frost a couple of nights and I don't want to loose that many tomatoes! * Received a bonus box from our CSA containing green peppers, a butternut squash and pears.  YAY! * Enjoyed a free lunch at work one day - delicious food!  We're so spoiled - the chef at work is fantastic.    A co-worker brought in a loaf of homemade zucchini bread for snacks a couple of days this week as well. * The children have an hour a week at church ...

Produce from our back yard a few weeks ago. It's been a couple of week since I posted a Frugal Friday post - I had the flu, including having to miss a day at work, and then, after catching up everything that didn't get done that day I missed, I have had a raging head cold.  Thankfully, it appears we're all on the mend (Missy caught the head cold too - way worse than I had it, poor thing). It's been a pretty quiet couple of weeks with me being sick and everyone getting into the swing of all things school around here. We've done some frugal things: * Ate most of our meals at home and brown-bagged almost all the lunches.  Enjoyed lunch at our church on Rally Sunday (last Sunday) with the rest of our congregation.  I had a free lunch at work one day too - I guess that's a perk of having to go to meetings... * I paid cash for 3/4 tank of gas rather than getting a full tank with my credit card. * Used a gift card to get ice cream after the first day of...

Heart-shaped potato! I think we're officially starting to slide into fall here.  I'm excited - fall is my very favorite season and my daughter is getting all excited about fall decorations around here.  And, since she's 10, it's all about glitter too. (When I washed the throw rugs last week, my dryer's lint trap was FULL of glitter!  At least the decorations look good!)  I'll share some of the decorations with you as we go through the next few weeks but today it's all about what we're eating! Saturday is BUSY for us this week - Missy and I have a girls' morning and John and Buddy have a Scouting event that will take most of the day and then we have the Harvest Party for our CSA in the evening.   Other than that, it's a "normal" week - if we can call any week normal that is! I didn't get the freezer cleaned out and defrosted this summer, so I'm hoping to do that in the next few weeks so we're eating soup (I had four tu...