Things I Love Thursday--Pioneer Woman!

Have you heard of the Pioneer Woman? Go ahead, check out her blog for a few minutes. I'll wait.

Did you see this section?

Or this one?

What about this?

Yeah, there's even more than all that. I don't know how the woman does it all and manages not to be pronounced insane. But if she's not sane, she at least distracts you with tons of inspiring and motivating articles.

She drove me to make these the other night. And split a whole batch with my husband. We ate them all. Maybe I should do some sit-ups or something now.

She's got a book, too. I bought it for my good buddy for her birthday. Now my good buddy loves the Pioneer Woman, too. I'm just sharing the love, here.

Find more Things I Love Thursday over at the Diaper Diaries!

Works for Me Wednesday: Large-Scale Laundry

With a growing family, comes a growing mountain of laundry! One tool that helps me so much in the War of the Wash is my laundry sorter. Our old one recently bit the dust (i.e. succombed to the terror of the three year old), so I decided to see how we could get along without it for a little while. You know, in the name of saving money.

That didn't last long.

Without my trusty sorter, there were constantly piles of laundry all over the floor. I'd get one day's laundry all sorted, but maybe wouldn't get it finished that day. Then the next day, the kids would come and dump all their mixed-up dirty clothes on top of my 'piles' and......well. It drove me crazy.

My kids all have chores, and one of the kids brings down the dirty laundry from upstairs (The Kid Zone) each morning. Another kid has the chore of sorting the clothes into the 3-slot hamper. Then when I'm ready to start a load, I only need 2 minutes to turn on the washer and grab the duds from the fullest compartment.

It works for me!

For my information....

I know I haven't posted in ages. No excuse but the usual busy-ness with some writer's block thrown in. Anyway, I came across a few websites that I'm going to 'bookmark' here for my own reference, while sharing them with you. Even if you don't have a large family, I'm sure you'll find some interesting and practical information. :)

In A Shoe (I heart the name of this one!)

Larger Families

Large Family Logistics (a recently rediscovered, old favorite)

Mommy Life

Happy Reading, everyone!

Williams-Sonoma style for $3.00!

Check out this blog post for a beautiful craft that won't break the bank and would make a wonderful gift. It's so pretty, I want to make a million of them and give them to everyone I know. And keep a set for myself. :)

Thank you for sharing, Melissa!

Stockpile Secrets

A friend recently asked me, "Where do you keep all those groceries?" When you buy 36 boxes of cereal, they don't exactly all fit on the top of the fridge. :) So, I've had to get a bit creative, and I imagine I'll have to hunt up some more 'hiding places' for my stockpile as it continues to grow.

The first thing to do when starting a stockpile, is to clean and organize the spaces you already use. My cabinets and pantry had become so disheveled and cluttered that I didn't think I could fit much more in them. But re-organizing and throwing out things that were unusable or unwanted, made a world of difference! It's amazing how much space you can free up after this step.


I also paid my dd (with video game time :) to clean off the big shelf my husband built for me in our laundry room.


And then there are a few things just shoved wherever they'll fit. :)

A few tips I've gleaned from others:

Items do not have to be stored in traditional locations. Canned goods can fit under couches/beds/other furniture. Try putting your bed on risers and using under-bed storage boxes.

Do you have unused cabinets up high or down low in your house? Stash extras there, then replenish your 'regular' cabinets as needed.

Can you or your spouse install some extra simple shelves in an out-of-the-way location in your home?

What about a garage or storage shed? If the garage is attached, that would be perfect for canned goods, or bottles of laundry detergent, shampoo, bar soap, an other items that animals wouldn't be tempted by. You just want to make sure that liquid items wouldn't freeze. Dry goods would be fine in these locations as well, as long as they were sealed up in plastic totes or buckets to keep pests out.

If you have a basement, that's another great place for a shelving unit to store items.

If you don't have these extra spaces available, what about finding an extra corner or shelf in a closet in your home? Can you declutter unneeded items to make room for your stockpile?

These are just a few ideas--get creative and work with what you've got! Stockpiling is an important part of saving as much money as possible on groceries and household items. You'll be seeing the savings add up in just a few weeks.

Excuse me, computer--could you work now?

I hate computer problems, and when it rains it pours.

We were just getting a chuckle a couple months ago out of the fact that we have no less than 4 working computers in our home. Now, granted, we have 8 kids, 4 of which use/have used the computers to do school via a software-based curriculum. And two of the computers were given to us by my brother-in-law (who is a computer/video game guy and is constantly upgrading). A third was bought on clearance at wal-mart, so no big bucks shelled out or anything. :)

Within the last week, 2 of the computers pretty much died. Another computer is an 'offline' setup, pretty much only good for the kids' school. So I'm working on the lone internet-accessing computer in the house, and it feels weird. My 6th grader uses this computer for her schoolwork, and dh has stuff to do online as well, so all of a sudden this spoiled family is sharing one computer.

In addition to that, I didn't have a printer installed on this particular system, so no printing my beloved internet coupons. I tried installing our printer over here the other day, but I couldn't find the original disk and had to download the software. Well, there's a problem somewhere because it's just not working. I went through the manufacturer's website, following every step of it's troubleshooting documents, and no dice. I thought I had it fixed at one point, actually getting something to print, but the next thing I tried, it locked up again. *sigh*

The good news is that my favorite brother-in-law (Hi, Darin!) spent some time over here the other day, diagnosing 'my' computer and ordering parts for it. Well, the parts arrived today (woo-hoo!), so I'm hoping I'll be back in business again soon.

As for my dh's laptop, well....it doesn't look good. We think the processor is fried and BIL didn't have time to look at it the other day, so it awaits it's diagnosis and (hopefully) cure. Soon. :)

What I've been up to....

I realize that I haven't been blogging regularly, well, ever. But I've been especially neglectful lately. I plan to do much better in the future. I've finally figured out how to schedule posts (yay!) so perhaps I can write up several in one sitting when I get a chance, but you can all have something to read throughout the week.

I've been reading TONS of great blogs about being frugal and saving money. I feel like our family has always lived pretty frugally, because we've never had much money to begin with--we just had to! But I'm slowly learning that there are ways to save money which I've been neglecting.

Once upon a time, I was quite the coupon queen. However, when a special-needs child came along, everything got put on the back burner, and couponing was one of those things that I just never really picked up again. Well, a friend has been doing great in this area, and she inspired me to jump right in! There are SO many more printable coupons today than there were 5 years ago. I see a huge potential for saving a load off of my already-low grocery bill. I do not buy many pre-packaged, processed foods, but what I do buy, I can find coupons for. My 'scratch' ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, eggs, etc.) are harder to save on, but there are ways, which I'm slowly learning.

There are also tons of coupons out there for non-food items, which are easy to get free after coupons at drugstores such as CVS and Walgreen's. I figure if I can get all/most of our non-food items free or at a great savings, then it's worth my time to try to keep that money in our pockets. I'm trying to be organized about money-saving/making activities I can do to benefit our family without me leaving the home--viewing it as a part-time job that I can do right here at my own desk. It's hard to discipline myself to do this, but it will be worth it if I can just form the habit.

I'm going to list here a few websites/blogs that have helped me navigate my way through the beginnings of this journey. Hopefully this can be a benefit to others as well!

• Frugal Coupon Living
• Frugal Living and Having Fun
• A Full Cup
• Money Saving Methods
• And Freebies For All
• Freefly's

That should get you all started. If you all have some favorite money-saving/couponing/frugal living sites or blogs to share, please post in the comments!

Cooties, CraftLit, and Canning

Some random thoughts...

We've been sick. Some kind of virus-plus-strep throat (for at least one of us). Doc put the whole lot of us on antibiotics which has helped the strep-py kid. The dh and I though? Not so much. Still have sore throats and dh has been very achy and tired. Better today, though--finally! Really not looking forward to winter sickness. We've stayed pretty healthy this summer, but it seems like when the cold weather hits we're sick a lot. And of course, we pass everything around to the whole house, so. Fun. Last winter wasn't as bad as usual, though. Don't know if it's because the older kids have learned to wash their hands more (cutting down the cooties brought into the house) or if it was all the Emergen-C we took. (You can get it at your local health food store or wal-mart.) Anytime we went somewhere, we all took some. Anytime one of us started feeling bad, we all took some. And I think it really helped. Not terribly expensive compared to a trip to the dr. and subsequent prescriptions.

Do you listen to CraftLit? It's an amazing podcast that I started listening to about a year and a half ago. It's done by an English professor, who taught high school for years in New York before moving to Arizona. She does some crafty talk--she knits, spins, draws, paints, etc. Then she teaches about the chapter(s) of the book for that show which is just SO wonderful. I've learned sooo much, which has been an incredible blessing for my dormant-bookworm brain. I used to read ALL.THE.TIME. before I started having baby after baby. I let the urgent everyday stuff fill in all that time that I should have been keeping my brain sharp. Anyway. Gift this podcast a listen. It's a good thing. OH, and she's got CD compilations off all the podcasts, divided by book, in case you've got dial-up or can't otherwise listen to the downloads. You may need to e-mail her for those--I know she's taking some to SOCK SUMMIT (where she's teaching a heel techniques class and a couple podcasting classes). BONUS for listening--her gramma's banana bread recipe. Oh yeah. Made two loaves last night. Let's just say it's a hit for breakfast.

Also, Librivox. In case you want MORE BOOKS! (Sometimes one or two chapters a week on CraftLit just isn't enough.) All public domain, recorded by volunteers. Some good readers, some not so good. But FREE!

Now, canning. I've only canned a few pints of salsa a couple years back. I always think I'm going to do it, I'll can whatever produce I can find good deals on. But I never do it. I chicken out. Right now I've got pint and quart jars that I bought, lids, rings, canning salt, vinegar, a pickling mix, tons of tomatoes and cucumbers exploding all over the vines, and.....um......a freezer salsa recipe that I've already made two batches of. What's my deal? I think it's the intimidation of cooking all the salsa/slicing the cucumbers, then trying to get everything hot at the same time, jar it up without burning myself, and the really scary part? Thinking that I have to keep things STERILE in MY HOUSE. I just don't think it can be done. Too many littles. Too many older kids who like to stick their fingers in things for a taste. I dunno. Maybe I'll get the salsa all ready today, put it in a pot in the fridge, then cook and can after bedtime. Think that would work? We'll see.

In other news? A knitting-related post--coming soon!

Crawling

Well, I'm officially the mom of a crawler. At 7 months, he now thinks he has full reign of the house. Just a month ago, baby H was barely sitting up, and just at his peak of rolling-around-the-room-ness. Then his rear end flattened out so he was a pro sitter, he scooted himself around the room backwards, and finally took his first real forward-crawl last week. The next day, I went into the room to get him up from his nap, and he was holding on to the side of his crib in a semi-stand! Why do babies have to grow up so fast?

So, he's been eating solids for about 3 weeks and is doing wonderfully with that. I start my babies on fruits and veggies, skipping the grains for as long as possible, usually 10-12 months. I think this general philosophy has its roots in Nourishing Traditions, but honestly, I can't remember for sure.

Which leads me to a frugal baby-food tip. You thought I was going to say make your own, didn't you? While this would be ideal, and something I aspire to, I just can't right now. There's no produce in season in my area (yet), and I just haven't gotten it done with store-bought stuff. So yes, I'm using the evil jarred processed stuff. Anyway, the tiny stage 1 jars (2.5 oz) are 48 cents and the stage 2 jars (3.5 oz) are 53 cents at my local grocery store. The only real difference is thickness, which can be remedied if your baby needs something thinner, by simply adding some water or br3astmilk. So I get the stage 2 jars, and just dump the small amount needed into a bowl.

I got the May 2009 issue of Better Homes and Gardens, and on the cover is a fabulous photo of fresh strawberry bars. I tried out the recipe last week and thought it was super yummy--but I think a more appropriate name would be peanut butter and jelly bars. The base is like a thick peanut butter cookie, then it has a thin layer of strawberry jam topped with fresh sliced strawberries. I loved it--just delicious!

Dishwasher Drama

Our dishwasher is dead.

It's a long story, but to sum up: we ended up with a lemon, and a poorly designed one at that. Due to some, um, unsympathetic 'service' people at the place we purchased from, we never could get service (Tracey can relate, I know). So we're looking for a new one. We're not taking this mission lightly, no sir-ee. I've been online investigating for a couple days, and we scoured 4 different appliance centers just today. No one has my perfect machine in stock, so kind and patient salespeople have been looking things up on their computer systems for me all day. I think we've got it narrowed down to two different models/brands. Each has been recommended to me by a friend or relative, but I've also read some negative reviews regarding each one. One has a better service record, the other is a much more reasonable price. The pricier one is from a store with a better reputation for service and repairs, though, so that's the way I'm leaning. They've also got a satisfaction guarantee, which means a lot to me after the last experience. Off to do some more investigating before we make a commitment--pray for us! :)