It has certainly been awhile since I have popped in. Thought I would say hi and Give an update.

 Dh and I did get moved into our new to us house and we are enjoying it very much. We still all miss the other house but I am sure we will be just fine, especially once we get painting and all of that.

 I started up another blog with blogspot. http://bee9984.blogspot.com/ . I named it Not Keeping Up With The Joneses.

  I am going to start blogging here more as well as I really miss you guys!

  We had a great Christmas, I am still plugging away with finances/savings. I want to start trying a few new to me frugal things like making my own hamburger buns lol, things like that.

    Has anyone heard from Autumnlynn?

  Hope everyone is well and had a great Christmas.

  Now, time to catch up on everyones blog! :)

  14 days and the packers will be here. Because dh is retired military and had x number of years in the forces we had up to 3 years from dhs retirement date in order to have a paid move.

    We also had to move up our move in date so now we will be moving into our "new" to us house on Sept 6th.

    We have been eating up the meats etc in the freezer as we have no place to keep it while our furniture etc is moved and kept in storage. I am having withdrawl seeing really good prices for loss leaders in the grocery flyers....I have to wait and start stocking up again once we are settled.

     We wanted our mortgage to be the same as we are paying now. The house we bought is a tad more $  because of the location so we needed to come up with an extra $11,000 more. We sold dhs van, have his overtime to cash in from work, commission due to him from work etc.... I found the money here and there but at first I was like "where on earth are we going to find $11,000? Funny how when the crunch is on one can think a bit more clearly lol.

   It is odd however , knowing that at the moment we are living in "someone" elses house. Even though we have been in this home for 5 years now it just doesn't feel the same. We have so many memories here but, we will take them with us and make new memories in our other home.

   I am really looking forward to getting back on track with our savings etc....We have basically used every access to our money with buying the investment property and now this other house. We do however have access to a few hundred extra $ in case of an emergency, not the greatest but it sure beats using the credit card and I have no doubt that with planning and living frugally we will have the baby emergency fund back up to $1000 before Christmas.

    Christmas! Oh boy....that is just around the corner isn't it? I am going to pretty much do the same as last year only we will be cutting corners a bit. I have to find my blog on here from last year for a few reminders/ideas :).

     I just wanted to touch base with Everyone. I hope Everyone is Having a Great Summer!:)

     One day shy of 3 weeks since putting it on the market. That was so stressful. When it came time to signing the papers yesterday I actually got teary eyed lol. I really do love our house but the location isn't working for us with all of this driving.

    We will be moving in 4 to 5 weeks. We bought another bungalow but this one has a carport and the yard is much bigger and private, although we are going from 2 baths down to 1 but over the winter we will add a full bath to the basement of the other house.

     I just can't wait till we are finally settled once again lol.

     Have a great day Everyone

 So, I am going to start this 7 day challenge. I am not sure if I caught this on frugal village or if I just happened upon it. I was doing this before but since falling off of the frugal wagon I have to make this a habit yet again.

  I find that alot of frugal habits are easy once you get into the routine but once you stray for whatever reason it is like starting over again. For me it is like playing a game, one that I love to win at lol.

    Here is the link to the 7 day challenge, common sense really but it is nice to have that reminder

  www.bankrate.com/dls/news/pf/20070501_spending_money_challenge_a1.asp

   On the second page you will see close to the bottom of the page the 3 rules, as I mentioned it is common sense lol.

      Thank you all for the well wishes with dd. It sure means so much to me 

       Blessings To Everyone

 I havn't been spending much time on the computer at all over the past couple of months. We have had so much going on.

 The investment property finally closed this past week, it seemed to take forever. We needed a lawyer here and he is french as well as we needed a lawyer down in Nova Scotia and he is english, needless to say there was a bit of miscommunication going on. We had extra fees here and there so now our savings etc is zilch so we are having to start over from scratch. Was it worth it? Yes, my parents now have a real home to live in which is much better than the house they owned. They are getting their house ready to sell so that will give them hopefully a few extra $ to tuck away although they had refinanced a couple of times in the past so it was far from being paid off. Once they sell their house they will pay the mortgage on our investment property which is less then what they were paying for their home.

     Ds moved back home, he is waiting for his unemployment to kick in, his 22 month contract with honda had finished and he is hoping to get called back for full time employment with them. We are helping him with his bills etc until then.

     We had a "crisis" with dd 15. What a nightmare that was, I didn't even reconize her with her behaviour. Hopefully we won't have to ever go through anything like that again. All I will say on that is I had not cried so many tears in my life at one time and I had lost 9 pounds. Seems to be going ok now though but I seem to be on guard constantly still.

     So, our savings between the investment property,helping Ds and everything else  is now zilch,nadda,gonzo. It is ok though, with our frugal ways etc we will be just fine.

     We also put our house up for sale. We put an offer in on another house closer to our dds school. It is only a 15 minute drive but where we live it is hard for me to drive up there in the winters especially around the river. I find that we are driving anywheres from 2 to 5 trips a day to take the girls to their friends,sports,school etc.... it is a 1/2 hour round trip so it works out to 1 to 2 1/2 hours of driving every single day, not very frugal. So, here is hoping that our house we live in now will sell so we can get the other one....the mortgage will be the same as we are paying now.

     I am going over our finances again, havn't done that in 2 maybe 3 months. I need to cut back and find out what bills we can get rid of or cut back on. Insurances are a big thing, we have soooooooooo many. We have our regular life insurance plus seperate life insurance on each house. Dh and I have been discussing getting rid of his van. We have my car and only need one vehicle, especially if we live closer to the girls school as they also have transit bus service to take us into the city if need be in that area whereas here they do not.

    Well, guess that is it for now. I am hoping to start blogging more as it is good for the soul lol.

    Blessings to All  

 Well, Dh and I have been busy. We found an investment property which is in my hometown in Nova Scotia. My parents will rent the house for the cost of the mortgage and we will pay the taxes and insurance . The basement is a walkout and we will be making that into a one bedroom apartment to rent out to a senior. The house needs cosmetic work which isn't in need to be done immediately. The asking price for the house was $95,000 and we managed to get it for $82,500. We have had a house inspection done already which went great and the property is assessed at $124,000. We need to get an appraiser next this coming week. The owners we bought the house from are retired and are going to travel in their RV for a year.

    Here is the listing with some pictures  http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=5613045

     Well now with all of that going on I also had a chance to meet with my father for the first time in almost 30 years! It was wonderful. The girls and dh really enjoyed meeting him too. We went for a Sunday brunch this past Sunday and spent about 3 hours together. We met him at the walmart in the city , he left his car there and we drove in our van to a nice restaurant for our brunch. I had forgotten to ask him what he was wearing so when we got there to meet him I said to dh "Where is he?" Dh said that there was a man standing by himself by the doors and that was probably him, I wasn't sure but went to go see while dh parked the van. I stood to the side of him for a second and he turned to look at me, as soon as I saw those big brown eyes of his I said "Dad?" He said "Yes!". The last time I saw him he was in his 30's and now he is 68 years old so I guess that kind of threw me on why I didn't reconize him lol. I gave him the biggest hug! When it was time for him to leave after everything I hugged him again and said "I love you so much! I am so thankful for this time together." my dad said "Yes, this has been a long time coming". He also invited us to visit with him anytime, we can stay with him.

    Also, my son called and said that his contract is up June 1st with Honda in Ontario and he might be moving home, so that is exciting as well!

     Well, I have to sign off for now, just had to share all of the excitment around here lol.

     Hugs and Blessings to All

  Lately I have been doing terrible with spending, my weakness are my two dd's. It just seems like everytime I turn around dd 15 is saying Mom, I need money for this or that. My other dd 14 isn't too bad but when I give to one I have to give to the other and it is adding up like crazy!

    I never use to be this bad, where did I go? Who am I becoming, what about my dd's? How will they be with their money when they are out on their own?

     I have come up with a solution, well, sort of. I am going to write down every penny in which they get so that I can go back and refer to it and show them.

     The bank of Mom and Dad is now Officially Closed!

     Still waiting on dhs commission....his boss went to Flordia this week on holidays and said he would pay dh when he gets back........UGH!!! I need to get that Emergency fund fully funded and the verandah up to par. Not to mention he is slack when it comes to paying dh his Pretaxed retirement money to put into our retirement plan. We are losing "Compound" interest while we wait and wait The thing that really upsets me is that if dh hadn't of had that taken off of his pays to begin with his boss would have had to pay the gov't taxes and dh his pay right away.

      I work for him once in awhile and I am going to go in there when he gets back and let him know how I feel about this. I have to or else I will go completely insane!

      Well, I am off to read a few pages in a financial book.....

      Happy Thursday Everyone

 There really isn't much to report of late. It has been snowing here and I wonder how late I will be in getting my veggie garden started.

  I think that I do however need to focus on one goal at a time. There is so much in which I want to accomplish but I am starting to feel like I am all over the place. Saying that, I am going to focus on the emergency fund, get that fully funded and then I can move on and focus on another goal. Dh is getting some commission next week so part of that will be going towards the emergency fund. Not sure how much he will be getting but we also need to get our verandah up to par.

   I am thinking that $10,000 to $12,000 would be a nice goal. That amount would keep us going for quite sometime.Dh feels that we have enough now with the $5200 and with his military pension that amount would last us for about 5 months of living expenses but I just keep thinking if anything were to happen and if we ever needed to get out West to dh mother we will need that extra for flight tickets etc. I just want to be prepared.

    After that I think that we are going to focus on paying down the mortgage. We still however have to keep adding to our retirement as well. Every bit helps that is for sure.

    So that is my goal , to focus on one goal at a time until it is completed from here on out....At least financial goals

    Happy Easter Everyone

 So, I picked up this book and started reading it last night. Some interesting thoughts to ponder in this book. I had read his book the Canadian version "Start Late Finish Rich" and really enjoyed it. The Automatic Millionaire book is the American version, I forgot to check before I picked it up however, still a good read and I found that the only part I skipped past was regarding the retirement funding which was ok as I had already picked up on that in the other book of his.

  I found interesting on page 75 The "Pay Yourself First" Formula . He mentions how over the years he has received a number of e-mails asking him for a  Pay Yourself First formula. People would ask him if 10% was enough, some people would say that they had heard that they should save 12% and wanted to also know about saving even more then that.

   Here is David Bachs formula which he uses now and he mentions how everyones life is different, but this should give a benchmark to shoot for or plan around;

    Dead Broke: Don't Pay Yourself First. Spend more than you make. Borrow money on credit cards and carry debt you can't pay off.

     Poor: Think about Paying Yourself First, but don't actually do it. Spend everything you make each month and save nothing. Keep telling yourself, "Someday...."

    Middle Class: Pay Yourself First 5 to 10% of your gross income.

    Upper Middle Class: Pay Yourself First 10 to 15% of your gross income.

    Rich: Pay Yourself First 15 to 20% of your gross income.

    Rich Enough to Retire Early: Pay Yourself First at least 20% of your gross income.

    Another part which I found interesting was on page 65.

   It wasn't Always Like This. He mentions how the government didn't always grab a chunk of your paycheck before you even saw it. He says that up until 1943, people got their money when they earned it and weren't asked to pay their income tax until the next Spring. The gov't found that there was a problem with this system and that People coudn't be counted on budgeting enough money to be able to pay their taxes when the bill came due.

     Basically I am reading that the gov't changed this system and made sure that they (gov't) got paid first Automatically out of Peoples paychecks.

     Bach says that we need to do the same , "You need to set up a system that guarantees you'll get paid---a system in which you Pay Yourself First Automatically."

     When I read Bachs book "Start Late Finish Rich" he had mentioned about a "Pretax Retirement Account" , dh and I had never heard of that before so we did some checking around and sure enough, like in America, Canadians have that option too, even our Boss had no knowledge of that at the time, his accountant found out all of the information so that we could get it set up.The only problem which I do have is that because we do not have direct debit for our pays, dh gets a check once a month to take to the bank to deposit into our retirement fund and sometimes our boss is a bit tardy so he might not get it for a couple of months thus we are losing some of that compound interest but all in all Since doing this,and we have been doing this for about 1 1/2 years now, it certainly does add up quickly and we are having fun watching our money grow.

   I will post more on his book later as there are other topics which I find interesting as well.

     Happy Tuesday Everyone

      I have put in my freezer: leftover veggies in my container,a leftover cooked roast beef bone with roast beef to make homemade soup, homemade leftover Yorkshire Pudding to go with a future Roast beef dinner, terriyaki pork ribs, another meal of veggie rice. Last night I made Sheperds pie and I cooked up enough hamburger for two more meals. Tonight I am making homemade Pizza and I will do a double batch of dough to freeze 1/2 for future rolls or pizza etc....I have also been making sure that their are homemade cookies for lunches and after school snacks. I think today I will bake up a cake for over the weekend.

      Dh took our old van to the garage where we had originally bought it and we are getting $400 for it today! Yup, that is great considering that the van was giving us heartache with having periods of not starting etc...and it was 17 years old. Out of the $400 we will put an additional $250 towards the mortgage (Principle ) sooooooooo by next week we will have put additional on our mortgage this month a Grand Total of $750! The $150 that is left will be $50 fun money and $100 towards Ds birthday. It seems like alot for his birthday but he lives away from home in another province and I know that his car registration/plates are due.

      It is so nice to get extra money to help pay towards ones debts.....Next week we will be $750 closer to freedom.

       Dd 15 has a basketball game tonight so we will be heading off to watch the game at her school. Dh won't be able to go however, he is Vice President of the Soccer leagues here in our Town (plus he has been coaching for 5 years) and he has to go and help with registration this evening, actually he has been there every evening this week except for Tuesday night. He has been Vice President now for 3 years, he puts alot of time into this and I am so proud of him......Because the board/commitee volunteers, and puts so much work into keeping soccer going etc...the board members as of last year have free registration for their children up to two children......this saves us $190 a year for both of our girls. Talk about frugal for us! When we have games we always pack a homemade picnic lunch too.

        Happy Frugal Friday Everyone

   Our goals are really helping us along. Next week is payday and Dh will be calling our Mortgage Company on Monday to ask them to take out another $250 on Friday to go towards paying down the Morgtgage, this will be 2 paydays now in which we will have done this....I am really excited and with this being our 2nd time doing this I can see how very doeable this is........by the 3rd time(which will be 6 weeks by then since starting this) it will become a habit.

     The problem is, my Dh doesn't think that we can do this , not every payday anyhow, I on the other hand am Optimistic! I Know in my hearts of hearts that this can be done! You see, I really have caught on to this "make it automatic" way of thinking.....along with knowing that: (1) Pay ourselves first, even just a little is a Wonderful feeling (2) Pay our can't live without bills like Mortgage, hydro etc(3) cover our food and transport for work (4) Finish covering all other bills eg: cable,phone etc....although ours is automatic debit, they are a "luxuary" to me as I know that if worse case scenario we can cancel these. (5) Look at what will be left over either from that pay or for the whole month and this is when I start dividing it all up! I have a pretty good idea on what can go into: Freedom account,emergency fund,fun money etc...

     Now, some months I put more $ into say the Freedom Account opposed to the Emergency fund etc.... but it all works out in the long run.

      Dh and I don't always make the right choices, but when we do make the right choices for us it outweighs the bad, if I dwelled on the wrong choices I don't think that I would have any hope for the future and would revert back with thinking, we will never acheive our goals...there is just no point. I always get so excited knowing that we are still not living from Pay to Pay like we did for so many of our precious years. There is always something there for a rainy day, emergency,and for when those irregular expenses come upon us.

      This works for us, what works for You? I would love to know as I can always pick up more ideas.

      Blessings to All and Happy Thursday too

 This is definately one of my families favorites! I usually double the sauce recipe and have made it with ribs as well as the chicken. You could also make up the sauce and I would bring it to a soft boil on med/low heat in a pot on the stove stirring regularly for about a minute or so then simmer for a couple of more minutes, cool and put in a jar/bottle for future use for stirfrys etc.......

                             Chicken Terriyaki

3 to 3 1/2 lb. chicken, cut up

1 tbsp. oil

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp. water

1/4 tsp. ginger

1/2 cup soya sauce

      Place chicken single layer in baking pan. Mix next ingredients and dissolve sugar. Pour sauce over chicken. Cover and let stand 30 minutes in fridge (turning regularly). Bake skin side down and covered at 350 for 45 minutes. Turn meat and bake uncovered another 20 minutes.

     Recipe from; St. Maurice Catholic Church

                          Morris, Man.

    Just a quick note to say that I havn't actually tried this bread recipe yet but it should turn out fine as it is so close to the recipe in which I have been using for years......I would do up a weeks worth of bread say 3 or 4 loaves and then a couple of pans of rolls with this recipe. I have also frozen bread dough, I usually will let it rise for the first hour, punch it down and then wrap it in saran wrap and then put in a freezer bag. The dough will rise as it thaws but I would take it out of the freezer bag/ saran wrap as it will expand and lightly coat the dough with a bit of oil and set in a bowl with a tea towel covering the bowl. I am guessing that you could probably freeze it immediately prior to the first rise and once it thaws punch it down and put into your bread pans for the second rise I always lightly grease my dough before it starts to rise and I also always cover my bowl with a tea towel as well as when the dough is in the bread pans rising.

                           Six Loaves Of White Bread

2 tbsp.yeast

7 cups lukewarm water

4 tsp. white sugar

14 tbsp. powdered milk

7 tsp. salt

4 tbsp. fat (melted margarine is fine)

16 cups flour

      Pour yeast and white sugar in one cup lukewarm water and let stand for about 10 minutes. Pour in a large dish, stir with powdered milk, 6 cups lukewarm water, salt and fat, then add flour one cup at a time. Leave stand in warm temperature, well covered, for about two hours. Knead the dough and cut in six pieces. Knead each piece and allow to lie on table for abut 1/2 an hour. Knead again; grease each loaf pan , put  the dough in; leave on table for one hour or until high enough. Put in hot oven to bake. Bake at 350 for one hour.

        Recipe is from : Notre-Dame de la Delivrande

                                  Chesterfield Inlet, N.W.T.

   ===============================================

           My homemade Bread Recipe  . I had gotten this recipes Years ago from Dhs Aunt. This recipe is also Great to use for homemade pizza dough!

4 cups warm water

1 cup powdered milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp yeast

1/2 cup of cooking oil or melted butter/margarine

1 1/2 tbsp. salt

1 egg (optional) I usually make this bread without

10 cups flour ( might need more or less depending on dough texture, if too sticky add more etc...)

         In a big bowl put warm water, milk, sugar and yeast, let stand till foamy then add 4 cups flour, salt, egg and oil and stir then add rest of flour and Knead well.

         Let rise 1 hour. Cut into loaves, put in pan and rise for about an hour.

         Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes.

       When I take my bread out of the oven I use wax paper and rub some margarine over the top......this helps to keep the crust soft opposed to having it hard and crusty.

 I tried this recipe last night and it is definately a Keeper

                               Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 lb. margarine

1/4 cup oil

3 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 tsp.soda

1 tsp. baking powder

12 oz. pkg. chocolate chips

1 tsp. vanilla

4 cups flour

  Mix fats and sugars, thern eggs, beat well. Add rest of ingredients. Spoon or roll. Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 400 on middle rack in oven. Optional: add 2 cups oatmeal.

 Recipe is from : St.Pierre Roman Catholic

                          St. Pierre Jolys, Man.

      So far I have in my container left over peaches and cream corn nibblets and tonight I added to it 1/2 a can of peas and carrots with the juice....I am thinking that by the way I am going maybe next week I will have enough food in this container to whip up a tacco soup of sorts although I have never made that type of soup yet it does sound good! If all else fails it will be homemade veggie soup, next time I will go for a stew or pot pie.

      Well, I hauled out my Complete Tightwad Gazette today, I am soooooo going to go through this. Right now I am going back over her pantry staples and tomorrow I will check out again what all she keeps in her frugal fridge.

       I was also going over an old cookbook of mine and there are some recipes in which I want to try. I have my own bread dough recipe in which I use but there is one in this cookbook which makes 6 loaves of bread, I will post it here tomorrow , it is really similar to the one I use , just adding a bit more of everything lol.

       The snow is finally starting to melt here......we still have about 3ft plus everywhere "Ugh", I just want it to hurry up and leave, I want to get my veggie garden started!

       Tonights supper I made terriaki (Sp?) pork ribs and veggie rice.....it was soooooooooooooooo good, I hadn't made it in awhile. If anyone wants the recipe for the sauce let me know and I will post it......the recipe came out of my old cookbook and boy is it ever easy and Good. I also made homemade chocolate chip cookies from this book tonight, they are also really good. My dh at first said "why are you trying a different recipe when the one you always make is great?"  I am funny that way, I like to try new things and usually you can tell anyhow by the ingredients if it should turn out of not lol! I will post that recipe tomorrow too as it is right up there with the top 10 :).

      Well, it is starting to get late, I will post tomorrow or maybe I should say later today , gosh, it is after midnight here already.

       Have a wonderful Evening Everyone

    My Goals for the Month of March are;

    (1) Put an extra $250 a pay towards paying down the mortgage

    (2) Put an extra $300 in our Freedom Account

    (3) $325 for groceries this month

    (4) Be more concious of spending and have more "no spend days"

    (5) Make up the frugal mixes in which I usually use but havn't replenished in awhile.

         Ok, it is one week into March and so far I have accomplished;

    (1) Dh called the mortgage company yesterday to take an extra $250 out of this pay towards paying down the mortgage.

    (2) I transfered $202.48 into our Freedom account yesterday. I have had that money since the 1st of March but kept it in our account with our fast cash emergency fund, sort of scared to let it go lol. Well, it has been put into our Freedom account so it is done :)

   (3) Groceries---- I am not doing too well on this but now is the time to become creative if I ever saw one. This is only the 7th of march and I have left only $82.63 left. I can do this!

  (4) Our dd's are on their March break and this has been a toughy, I have only had 1 no spend day so far, hoping for another no spend day today. It isn't even that I am spending alot, it could be $2 for that one day but it is still money spent and it all adds up quickly.

  (5) I wanted to do up some frugal mixes yesterday but it didn't get done, hoping either today or tomorrow.

    With all this we have in our account $6.11 till this friday payday( the grocery money already set aside), and whatever is left from payday after putting extra on the mortgage, retirement plan, etc has to last for 2 more weeks.

     I know that we refinanced our house and took some equity out ,a good size portion of that went into our retirement plan , bought ourselves a few things, put $3700 into the emergency fund. So, with what we already had in there and what we have put in over the last month ,our emergency fund is up to $5135.45. The Freedom Account now has $957.90.We still have $500 from prior in our regular bank account incase of a fast cash emergency, we have our change jar too which is building up nicely. We also still need to have a few extra $ in the house incase of power outages/no ATMs available etc.......

     I need to start beefing up the emergency fund too. All is good though, it sure feels G-R-E-A-T  to start saving and planning again

     Happy Wednesday Everyone

   I am really excited, I picked up seeds for; Green onions, Carrots, Lettuce, Green and Yellow beans, Sunflower Seeds and I also picked up some Pumkin Seeds! We are also going to plant Potatoes this year but we will do that with potatoes we have at home, I want to pick up a tomato plant too. This list is actually ongoing as I want to pick up a couple of blueberry bushes along with a blackberry bush and some strawberries to plant even though it might take a year or two to actually get any fruit, I think anyhow.

   I might also pick up a herb starter kit for inside the house and keep it outside on the front verandah once the weather is warmer....I will have to study up on that as well!:)

     I am soooooooo excited as it has been awhile since I have planted a veggie garden, I have $ signs in my eyes with just thinking of the money we will save.....I can't wait for soccer season too, nothing like having a picnic with homemade bread , your own grown lettuce ,Potato salad with your own potatoes etc......Oh yes! I will pick up some merrigolds to plant in the garden to help keep the ants/bugs away.....I have heard this works and notice the Oldtimer down the street from us does this every year as well.

     Our garden is about 15'x 25' so I might be adding a few more things to it like cucumbers. The sunflowers I line around the garden between ours and our nighbours fence and on the front end of the garden towards our driveway.

      Happy Monday Everyone

  I read on a message board where someone keeps around $200 in $50s and other smaller bills in case of an emergency such as if an Ice Storm or any other natural disaster etc strikes and the ATM machines will not work. For Some reason, I had never thought of that! I don't know why as it makes perfect sense.

   I have taken pride that Dh and I have a $500 "fast cash" emergency fund at our regular branch....our debit card does not work for this account but I can transfer the money into our chequing or savings account by either using the internet or phone. However, what if the power went out and the phone lines were down? I just wasn't thinking about that.

    So what I am going to do is this......I havn't worked in a bit but every now and then I pick up a couple of shifts here and there. This coming week I have been asked to go into work for Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday soooooooooo, there will be our Emergency Money to keep at home! Hidden of Course .

      Also, I would like to fill up my car everytime the gas gage goes down to 1/2 full, I don't drive it everyday so this should also be very doable

      Happy Saturday Everyone

 For Autumnlynn and anyone else looking for a Lemonade Recipe.

 I found this recipe at Amazon.com from a cookbook called " The Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook". I am going to order this one as it has lots of Wonderful sounding recipes in which I would love to try!

                                Old Time Lemonade

3 lemons                                

1 quart of water

1/2 cup of sugar

Wash lemons. Squeeze juice from lemons into a large pitcher. Add sugar; fill pitcher with 1 quart of water. Chop rinds into 8-10 pieces and let soak in lemonade.

   Stir well until juice gets syrupy. Strain rinds out of juice and refrigerate. ( The chopped lemon rinds make all of the difference!)

    I really can't wait to try this recipe , it sounds so good

    Today went by like a shot! I also spent sometime on amazon.com and looked over the recipe books for Amish and Mennonite recipes. Does anyone else ever do this? Where you can look inside a book and go to the surprise me pages? I found recipes today for the following:

      Chicken Rodeo

       Baked Chicken

       Crisp Baked Chicken

       Old time Lemonade

       Chicken Salad

       Brocolli and Cauliflower Salad

       Cucumber Salad

       Old Fashioned Sour Cream Dressing

      Salmon (or tuna) and Egg Salad

     Baked Potatoes ( I had found a couple of tricks in which I had never thought of lol)

     Delicious Baked Sweet Potatoes

      No Bake Granola Bars

      Perfect Pumkin Bread.

     I already of course cook baked chicken etc but thought I would try a different approach with some new ideas . There is however one of the books in which I am going to order called "Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook" that is where I found alot of those recipes.

      Anyhow, I had fun!

     Happy Monday Everyone