My wish to do list

1. Clean up the back yard. Here’s hoping the good weather holds out making this possible.

2. Clean out & reorganize my pantry.

3. Rearrange my office. Gotten nowhere on this.

2012 Projects List

I thought making a list of projects I want to do might make me more motivated for actually completing those projects.  So here goes!

1. Finish the advent calendar I let slide last year.
2. Make a taggie blanket for the baby.
3. Finish the baby bib I started last year but haven’t sewn up yet.
4.  Make a sock animal from the book I got for my birthday.
5. Make the mustard I didn’t get done for Christmas.  This should actually be easy-ish.  December 2011 was a bear of a month for me.
6. Do my Insurance license.  Possibly a maternity leave project, not sure yet.  I have the study guides and work is paying for it.
7. Rearrange my office.  This is another put off due to pregnancy project.
8. Put up shelves in the girls’ room.
9. Get the big antenna installed and connected to the TV.  It’d be really nice to have CBS & ABC back.
10. Red Pear & Lavender Jam!  It’s been almost impossible to find red pears, so I had to punt on this too.
11. Take 2 at a garden.  The drought last year just killed everything.  Hopefully 2012 will be better weather wise!
12. Clean out the garage.  For real.  This bugged me for most of last year.
13. For the love of all that is good & holy, get the toy box fixed and in the girls’ room.

10 things I’m thankful for, because it is Thanksgiving

I’m thankful:

1. For my beautiful daughter. She is a delight every day. I will make everyone I know listen to her say “cock a doodle doo” repeatedly as it is the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.
2. For my unborn daughter, who though a surprise is extremely welcome and a complete blessing. In two months I will get to see her face to face and for that I am indescribably thankful.
3. For my husband, who takes on the tasks I refuse – including cat duty and bug removal. Who agrees with my longing to become more self-sufficient. Who thanks me when I cook him dinner. Who does laundry and watches our daughter and works all night. Who is in home tech support and in home moral support.
4. For my family and for my friends.
5. I have a job when so many do not.
6. Learning new skills – I made jam this year and have managed to can enough salsa and spaghetti sauce for my family for the next year. It’s not easy work, and would be more convenient to buy, but I have a great sense of pride in opening something I made and giving that to my family.
7. We have all been relatively healthy – and pray that my father continues to stay mostly healthy as we wait for his new kidney.
8. That even when things don’t turn out the way we want or plan, they still turn out okay.
9. That I have been so blessed to travel and I truly hope we continue the tradition with our girls.
10. That we have everything we need and aren’t truly lacking as so many people are struggling with these days.  I will continue to remind myself of that every day.

Things I’d like to Learn and do Revisited

Things I’d Like to Learn/Do

This list has taken more consideration than I initially thought it would.  But here it is:

1. Make my own jelly/jam.
2. Grow a vegetable garden. (We tried this & failed due to the drought.  We’re going to give it another shot next year.)
3. Can my own veggies.
4. Learn to sew.
5. Learn to crochet.
6. Compost.
7. Learn to knit.

I originally wrote this post in August 2008 and nearly 2.5 years later, I can cross something off it!

In November, my sister and I canned 50 pounds of tomatoes.  While they weren’t grown in our own garden (thank heaven for Farmer’s markets), since I’ve never canned anything and she’s never pressure canned anything, it feels like a huge accomplishment. We made 8 jars of spaghetti sauce, 8 – 10 jars of salsa and (I think) 12 jars of just quartered tomatoes.

I have also gotten closer to the Learn to Sew goal.  I have a sewing machine now and I actually made a pillowcase.  But I don’t have the workspace to really use it the way I want.  Hopefully that “De-clutter” portion of my Resolution List will get that issue resolved too.

This weekend I’ll be tackling that goal of getting things listed on eBay.  I have pulled some of the things I’m going to list and will start with that pile.  Brand new baby clothes with the tags still on.  So my goal is to get the photos done tomorrow and start working on the listings.

Canapalooza 2011

I got a 25 pound box of tomatoes from my father this week. So of course, I had to can salsa & tomato sauce.  We’ve used up all our tomato sauce from November, so it was timely.  Canning tomatoes is hard work.  Seriously.  Just prepping the tomatoes & other ingredients took me an entire day (with a few breaks, I am pregnant after all).  Prep work took most of my Saturday.  That left the cooking & canning part on Sunday.  I started with the salsa, since it cooked shorter & processed shorter. I used the Fresh Vegetable Salsa recipe from the Ball Book.  I got 8 1/2 pint jars from the recipe.

Price Breakdown:

Jalapenos                           $0.64
Green Bell Peppers           $0.75
Extra Roma Tomatoes     $3.24
Onion                                  $0.77
6 pint jars                           $3.66
2 lids & rings                      $0.56

Total Cost for 8 1/2 pints = $1.20 each

For my tomato sauce, I used this recipe from Pickyourown.org.  I needed a water bath recipe, so although Ball has some good ones, but they require pressure canning. I’ve added a pressure canner to my wish list so maybe for Christmas.   This one is more time consuming in that the sauce has to simmer for 2 – 3 hours and it has to process for 40 minutes in the water bath.

My sauce ended up yielding 9 pints plus an extra 5 – 6 cups that I’ve put aside for the freezer.

Onion $0.77
Pints jars $6.12

Price per pint = $0.77

I didn’t count the 25 pound box because my father bought it and never told me how much he paid.  I offered him a jar or two of salsa & sauce in return.  I do know he bought it at the market at Canino in Houston, so likely he got it for a good price.  I left them a few of the tomatoes, which is why I bought some extras from the store.

(un)Adventures in Gardening

Well, we picked what could possibly be the worst year ever to start our vegetable garden.  You may have noticed that record levels of heat in Texas.  Combine that with a near complete lack of rain and you’ve got a bad combination for gardening.  I tried.  I really did.  Then my water bill jumped – significantly. We just haven’t had enough rain to compensate.

So I think I’m call it done for this year.  Maybe I can plant in the fall.  Maybe these constant high pressure systems will finally stop hovering directly over Texas.  I’ve even given up on my grass, which is also dying.  Our yard is a rather sad sight.  But there are things I’d rather spend money on that water to keep my grass alive.

The benefit of using Ebates

I’ve posted about Ebates before, but I’m going to keep posting about it.  It really is a great service.  It’s easy to use, and you do get paid.  I’ll show you:

That is a screenshot from my account.  I’ve been with Ebates since 2003.  I use it every time I shop online.  Now, not every store is on there (unfortunately amazon is not!), but enough are that I’ve gotten a total cash back of $2000 so far.  Honestly, you have nothing to lose by using it, especially if like me, you already do a lot of shopping online.  It’s one extra click to get cash back.  The site also has coupons, deals run various times throughout the year, and there’s the Daily Double.

Here’s how it works.  You sign up.  You click on the Shop Now button to go shopping at the store of your choice. Once your order is processed, you’ll see the cash back pending in your Ebates account.  Once a quarter, they’ll either send you a check or send money to your PayPal account.  Easy peasy.  Just make sure you click through Ebates to get paid.  I’ve been using the service for 8 years. I promise you, it works.

In full disclosure, I do get a bonus for referrals who sign up and spend $25.  But – you will also get a bonus if you sign up via my referral – it’s a win-win situation.  Seriously, if you buy anything at all online, please sign up.  I’ve had nothing but a great experience with them.

How we use a whole chicken

We recently joined a meat CSA & last month we got our first delivery.  It included 3 whole chickens, sausage, bacon, pork roast & pork chops. Since we should be getting another delivery shortly, we decided we should probably cook one of our birds.  Everything came frozen and we will likely be getting more chickens in our next delivery.

First of all – it was a beautiful bird, even before we cooked it.  We are definitely sold on farm raised chickens now.  We roasted our chicken in the oven after having defrosted it, and it turned out perfect.  We could have eaten it like that (Jonathan did snag a few bites), but we had already planned to make meals with it.

Out of our 1 chicken, we got about 2 cups of chicken salad, 2 deep dish chicken pot pies (currently in my freezer), 2 pans of chicken enchiladas (one for dinner, one for freezer), & 8 cups of chicken stock.  I think that’s a pretty frugal way to use 1 whole chicken.  We had the chicken salad 2 nights for dinner on toast.  I adapted Baking Bites chicken pot pie recipe.  I adapted this recipe for chicken & refried bean enchiladas.

To make my stock, I stuck the chicken carcass (with most of the meat removed) in my crock pot, added 1/2 an onion, celery tops, a carrot, & 8 cups of water.  By that point my pot was full, but you could also add more of the vegetables if your pot is bigger.  I cooked it overnight on low.  In the morning I pulled everything out & threw it away.  I put the remaining stock into containers & refrigerated them overnight.  We skimmed off the fat after a day & froze 6 cups of it.

For my chicken salad, I shredded about 1 cup of chicken, used up the few Medina apples I had before they went bad, & used up the rest of the celery I had left after making our pot pies.  I put it all in a bowl, mixed in mayonnaise, a splash of lemon juice, & fresh pepper.  I just eyeballed it all, so no measurements to pass along.

It’s happening again

10 weeks pregnant and already my pre-pregnancy pants don’ t fit!  Add in the fact that my company is doing a merger with another firm, and I’m in trouble.  I have to step it up a notch at work in the wardrobe department.  But that means buying pants. And lately, nothing fits.  I really didn’t want to buy maternity clothes this soon, mostly because the fit is always slightly off.  I’m just not finding appropriate clothes, in my size, that are inexpensive.  I shouldn’t be too shocked – this happened to me during my last pregnancy too. So now, I’m off to find at least 2 pairs of work appropriate pants that won’t kill my budget.

This was rather unexpected…

If you’re having a hard time reading it, that’s due to me taking it on the camera phone, having no flash and having bright over head lights.

I’m pregnant again!  It came as kind of a shock considering we thought we’d only have Islay, but we’re happy!  I’m still reeling from the thought of being a mommy to two kids under the age of 2, but hopefully by January I’ll have recovered.