What a Week

This was a crazy week. I spent most of the week wrestling with thoughts, feelings and a lot of emotion. On Tuesday, a family from our church lost their 7 year old little girl in a tragic car accident. She attended the kids program at our church with my youngest daughter, and her younger sister is in the age group I volunteer with at church. I cannot even imagine what this family is going thru having to say good bye to their precious child. I found myself focusing even more on my children this week, giving them extra hugs and NOT saying "just a minute" or "we will do that later or another day". Monday, I will do something I never thought I would be doing, attending the funeral of a small precious child.

We are starting a new sermon series at church this week called "One Month to Live". You can hear the podcast of the sermons at Cornwall Church . The first sermon was tonight, and already, I am giving alot of thought to how I live my life, how I do things, what are my priorities etc. The worship team performed a song by Nickelback tonight If Today Was Your Last Day. If you have never heard it, take a few minutes to find it online and listen to it, hear the words and ask yoursef, if today was your last day, tomorow was too late .........

In other "news"...

Tomorrow I will be meeting up with my best friend to do a big grocery shopping trip. I am going to attempt doing one big shop this month and just shopping each week for fresh fruits/veggies/milk etc. We will make the trip to WINCO about 45 minutes away which I am very excited about. Shopping DURING the super bowl stores will hopefully be empty HA! Pays to NOT be a football fan.

Had a sick little one this week, my youngest son came down with a tummy bug. Thankfully (knock on wood) it did not pass on to everyone else. Last night I was able to go to dinner with some wonderful friends and play catch up on how everyone is doing.

Tomorrow night I will get the February menu/grocery shopping trip etc posted!

Menu Week of 1/25-1/31/09

Sunday- Tenderloin with Garlic Cream sauce, red potatoes in butter/parsley and veggies
Monday- Pork roast, rice and veggies
Tuesday- Spaghetti, hm french bread, green salad
Wednesday- Sticky chicken legs, mashed potatoes and veggies
Thursday- Tacos
Friday- CORD (Clean out refrigerator dinner)
Saturday- Pizza at church

Grocery Shopping Trip Week of 1/25-1/31/09

First the confession. Last week I had an unexpected trip to the store where I spent $24.15 on the stuff to make burgers/fries and a few other snacks for the kids and I. While not expected, it does fit in my $300 grocery budget for the month.

Second, check out my inspiration for this at The Grocery Cart Challenge see what Gail and other bloggers are doing with their grocery budgets!

Now onto this week! I shopped 3 stores today, Wonder Outlet, Haggen and Cost Cutter. Many items I picked up this week are to stock the pantry not necessarily for this weeks menu. However, the prices were too good to pass up since I had the $ in the budget.

Wonder Outlet
Spent: $6.19

2 loaves bread
2 pkg bagels

Haggen
Spent $0!! (used $10 gift card I received for my 4 yr anniversary at work)
6 cans chicken noodle soup
6 cans tomato soup
8 boxes mac & cheese

Cost Cutter
Spent $47.77
These items are for this weeks "needs":
1 bag doritos $2.50
1 Pork sirloin roast $3.18
1# beef chub $2.79
2 cream cheese $1.99 (BOGOF)
1 sour cream $2.79
1.65# baby red potatoes $4.93 (YIKES just realized how much I paid for these :( )
.01 oz peppercorns .13
2 gallons milk $5.78
1 heavy cream $2.69
Sunday paper $1.50

These items were on sale and I got for pantry stock up:
12 oz lunch meat $2.50
2 ketchup $1.94
4 pasta roni $4.00
2 tuna fish $1.00 (store coupon 2/$1 limit 2)
2 2 liters root beer $1.00
2 5# sugar $4.98
3 boxes Kellog cereal $4.00

At Cost Cutter after sale/coupons based on regular price my savings was $122.90!!

My total spent for this last week of the month is $53.96. My goal for the week is $75 so I have $21.04 left if anything comes up this week.

The local paper was also in the store today offering a special to subscribe to the paper. I only buy the Sunday paper, and during garage sale season the Saturday and Sunday paper. They were offering a special $29 for 3 months which is what I would reguarly spend on the paper, however, they gave me $10 in gift certificates to the grocery store for subscribing. I decided to give it a try, that way if I do not go do my grocery shopping on Sundays I do not miss the paper and the coupons!

End of Day Tuesday

I HEART my new Magic Bullet Blender that my mom got me for Christmas. I use it to make one of my favorite drinks Peach Jet Tea . I used to buy these at the coffee place for almost $6 each. Now, I pick up the mix at Cash and Carry for $9.85 and make 10 of them at home YUM!

I am sitting here drinking a peach tea watching Jeff Dunham on tv he cracks me up! Thinking about everything we have going on the rest of this week. Tomorrow I am going on my youngest sons field trip to the Library. My oldest son is going show shoeing and then the 2 oldest kids have Youth Group tomorrow night. Thursday my youngest daughter has ballet and Friday I am volunteering for the read a thon at the school. I also need to get fliers done for the Box Tops for Education for the PTA. Oh this ontop of working 8 hours every day this week. One of these days I will learn to say NO my plate is full.

Tonight I did commercial challenges with my best friend while we watched Biggest Loser. We live 2hours away from each other so we "visit" on Yahoo Messenger and watch BL (our fav show) together. We challenge each other to see how much we can get done during the commercials. During that 2 hours I got the following done:
Emptied the dishwasher, folded/put away 5 loads laundry, took a shower, did pick up of things left laying around the house, hung up the coats in the coat closet, answered some emails, sorted coupons and got a big envelope ready for the coupon train, filled out book orders, wiped down both bathrooms, and started a load of laundry. I also took out the meat for tomorrow nights dinner so in the morning it will be thawed so I can add the marinade and let it set all day.

Sometimes those little commercial challenges are all I need to get a long list of things done and feel like I am having some fun doing it. I finished my 1st scarf last night for my 2009 Christmas gift box (yes I have started on 2009 Chrismtas already) and started the 2nd one. I am off to bed to finish watching Jeff Dunham and work on my scarf have a great night!

Menu Week of 1/18/09-1/24/09

This weeks menu:

Sunday- grilled steak, cheesy potatoes, green beans and salad
Monday- Chicken & rice, veggies
Tuesday- Spaghetti, garlic bread, salad
Wednesday- Carne Asada, rice
Thursday- CORD (clean out the refrigerator dinner)
Friday- Kids choice and they are already throwing out ideas. Its looking like Chili and cornbread is the top choice right now.
Saturday- at church

There is no school on Monday this week so I will fix breakfast (waffles and bacon). The rest of the week will be cold cereal or bagels.

Lunches: Monday will be cheese quesadillas and carrots with ranch
The rest of the week the 3 older kids will eat at school and the youngest and I will eat at home.

Check out Organized Junkies Website and see what others are planning for their menu!

Whatcom Falls Park

After several weeks of snow and flooding we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day today. The older kids were off doing their own things and I decided to take the younger kids to the park. Whatcom Falls Park is a beautiful area. I had never been before but my daughter had so she was excited to lead the way. We walked/hiked the trails and enjoyed the beautiful area. Then we sat and enjoyed some sandwiches and watched all of the people. They also have a fish hatchery which was FULL of fish (Tyler wanted to know if we could come back with our fishing poles HA) Enjoy the pictures!

Weekly Grocery Shopping Trip 1/18-1/24/09

First off, check out my inspiration for my grocery budget at The Grocery Cart Challenge

Second, the picture above is my grocery shopping for the week and a stock up trip I did today (see post below).

I did not need much at all this week. The kids have requested a big breakfast tomorrow so most purchases this week were meat. I had steak in my freezer but it was old and I ended up tossing it. However, I have steak on my menu for Sunday and I want steak!! So I picked some up today.

1 gallon milk $2.89
1 family pack of rib eye steaks $14.49
1 pkg sausage links $3.79
1 pkg bacon $3.50

Total $24.67