In The Refiner's Fire

Potato Soup (with bacon and cheddar), biscuits and fruit salad. Yum! We're hopefully warmer this week.  The snow is basically gone and it's starting to feel like spring. Hurray!  My rhododendron is budding out and the irises next to the house are starting to stick their little green tops out of the ground.  We took the insulation off the roses and hopefully the tulips and paper whites will poke through this week too.  I'd love to have them blooming by Sunday for Easter, but that may be way too ambitious! Either way, it's Holy Week and I'm pretty optimistic that my children will not be hunting Easter Eggs in the snow this year.  I'll take it! We went to Sam's Club on Friday night to buy toilet paper and ended up spending our grocery money there instead of the regular store.  We bought milk ($1.98/gallon!), apples, oranges, bananas, and canned corn at prices cheaper than our regular grocery.  We also bought the toilet paper and onions at the same p...

Wow - what a week. I think my brain shut down on Monday and never woke back up.  I've been pushing for so long that I think I just hit the wall. Having both a nasty virus and then bronchitis earlier this spring I'm sure didn't help. Either way - the week is done and we have a blessedly quiet weekend before the busy-ness of Holy Week takes over.  John and I both did a happy dance when we realized that we have nowhere to be tonight (Friday) or the whole day Saturday either.  We're hoping to run out and get groceries tonight so we don't have to go anywhere at all tomorrow (perhaps even indulging in a full-fledged pajama day! Whoot!). My frugal list of things this week is short because I didn't have time for much else, but here's the highlights anyway: * Made homemade biscuits, potato soup, cornbread and waffles (both to eat and for the freezer).  * Accepted a bag of hand-me-down clothes for my son including three pairs of jeans, two pairs of...

Our taco salad from last week - do you see the refried beans and tortilla chips hiding in there? So my week started with me standing in front of my office door at work pressing my car key unlock the trunk button on my car key and wondering why my door wouldn't open.  My next thought:  "I sure hope Eric made coffee today because I guess I really do need it today!" So, yeah. I managed to feel wide awake about 3pm and by 9pm I was completely wiped out.  So that's why we're posting today!   Today has been much better, by the way.  We had a busy weekend and I guess I was much more tired than I thought by the time yesterday morning rolled around.  Add to that that there was three inches of that fluffy white stuff all over everything outside, and I was ready to go back to bed on Monday morning. Today has been really good though, so here we are with the Menu Plan post! John ran to store quick on Saturday and bought $42 worth...

SOOooooo... I have three posts halfway written from the last week.  Unfortunately, this week just seemed to fly by and I am completely wiped out. We had three nights where we didn't get home until 8pm or later (one night it was 945pm!) and posting was the very last thing on my mind. Hopefully I can get those finished and up this week!  It looks like this week is a little quieter so I'm hoping! That said, we did do some frugal things this week so here goes: * Returned books to the library and renewed a couple of others.  Then, of course, we brought home more! * Ate most meals at home, ate one at church (Lenten dinner) and John and I get a date out at the school fundraiser on Saturday - it's a silent auction, dinner, and dance to raise money for the school's scholarship fun and usually a few other specific things (text books, gym equipment, etc.).  The last one was not really frugal but our children benefit as do many, many others. * John brought home two lo...

Breakfast one morning - scrambled eggs, pan fried diced sweet potatoes, and spinach in a tortilla. Tasty and filling! I've been trying to take photos of our meals more again.  We tend to be pretty boring and repetitive with what we eat, so sometimes it seems fruitless but we've added a few new things in the mix so we'll give it a shot!  Here's what we're eating this week: Sunday, March 15, 2015:     Breakfast: Cereal     Lunch; Waffles from the Freezer, Plums     Snack: Crackers     Dinner: Scrambled Eggs, Biscuits, Bacon and Strawberry-Melon-Grape Salad Monday, March 16, 2015:     Breakfast: Peanut Butter-Banana Smoothies     Lunch: Salad with Leftover Chicken     Snack: Girl Scout Cookies (the children bought a box after church on Sunday)     Dinner: Vegetable Stir Fry, Rice, Apple-Grape-Strawberry Salad Tuesday, ...

Another photo-less post for Super Savings here - we are busy getting ready for company today so the groceries just got put away right away. I stopped at one store on my way home from a Jazzercise Strength 60 class and bought the following: Tide Detergent $3.99 Quaker Life Cereal 2 @ $1.88 = $3.76 Two Bags Store Brand Wavy Potato Chips 2 @ $1.79  = $3.58 Calber Girl Baking Powder 2 @ $1.59 = $3.18 Old Orchard Apple Cranberry Juice 2 @ 10/$10 = $2 Hunts Tomato Ketchup $1.39 Refried Beans 2 @ $1.00 = $2 Progresso Soup 2 @ $1.00 = $2 (John likes to take this for lunch at work) Bacon  1lb 2 @ $3.99 = $7.98 Famous Dave's BBQ Sauce $2.99 Fresh Express Salad 2 @ 2/$4 = $4 Radish Bunch $0.79 Cameo Apples 2.59lb @ $0.99/lb = $2.56 Large Black Plums 1.62 @ $0.99 = $1.60 Large Green Bell Pepper $0.99 Green Cucumber $0.69 Grapes 2.64lb @ $1.99/lb = $5.25 1 lb Strawberries $2.99 White 12ct buns $2.99 Wheat 12ct buns $2.99 Old Home 32oz Plain Yogurt $3.00 Smart Balan...

The snow is finally all melted and the green is just barely starting to poke through.  I'm so excited about this, I can hardly stand it!   The sunshine, after such a gray and dreary winter, is marvelous and I'm really happy with our quieter schedule right now - we're all done with swimming classes (they passed through the top level) and we rearranged our schedules a little bit so we don't have so much running in the evenings.  I'm hoping to use that time to get the garden going and spend some time outside, which I think my brain just desperately needs. This week I was also diagnosed with bronchitis and we have friends coming for dinner tonight so I wanted to really take it easy and not do much "extra" so I can get well.  ICK.  Feeling much better today but still just dragging. Hopefully I can hold out until after our friends head home tonight! Anyway, frugal stuff? Some things from the last few weeks when it's been so quiet here: * John brou...

My daughter made this breaded chicken for dinner for us one night a week or so ago.  It was super yummy and we knew we needed to make it again!  It's a recipe from a cookbook she got for her birthday last year and has been wanting to try. It's been a long week or two for us - busy weeks, busy weekends and I'm still totally sick (heading into the doctor finally tomorrow - hurray!).  I'm hoping to get back to at least a couple of blog posts a week this week again.  John spent the weekend at a nearby church camp with the Confirmation students, the youth director and a couple of other adults from the church.  The children and I spent $41 on groceries this weekend including tater tots and corn dogs for dinner on Friday night.  Since Daddy was out of town, we decided to have a treat for dinner and watch a movie together. Quiet evening and a good one.  The rest we spent on fruit, cheese, bacon (it was on sale!) and cereal.   Saturday...