March Budget Update

Homemade pasta is one of our new favorite things and only costs 50 cents per pound to make.

We have are doing pretty well with the budget this year. Usually after three months in it sort of gets thrown to the wayside but not this year. We rented nothing from redbox this month so that kept us right on target for the $20 a year, the library helps keep that on track too.

The fuel budget for the 2 cars was over budget this month but we had to drive to West Virginia twice this past month and Mr Ladybug had to drive out of town two days for a class. Our budget is set at $100 and we spent $131. We were $31 under in January and $40 under in February so it balances out with some extra still saved up. One way we keep this in check is using Kroger Fuel points. I grab those gift cards like Lowes and PetSmart whenever they off 4X fuel points. We easily knock $40-$60 off our monthly totals with that. We also grab any dining gift cards we may use. It all adds up.

We are keeping totals of our garden for the year too. We have spent $101.36 so far. Thats for about 45 packs of seeds, at patchouli plant I had to have, some organic seed starter, some organic fertilizer and cow manure. We have also harvested $20 in lettuce and sprouts too. Thats organic prices since we are growing organic veggies.

We did purchase a Professional KitchenAid mixer with a meat grinder and pasta making attatchement. I have been on the fence for so long over this its not funny. We are like talking 10 years. I know lots of people who have them who have admitted that they hardly use it but do say when they do they love it. They can take up a lot of room plus they arent cheap. Mr Ladybug and I discussed this and he came up with the perfect plan, Our anniversary is in April as is my birthday and Mothers Day. we decided that the mixer would be our anniversary gift and they pasta maker is for my bday at the end of April and the meat grinder for his bday. We got such a good dea. The lowest price we could find for the Professional mixer was $319 but then we looked at Sams Club and they had one for $249. We found the other things cheaper on Amazon. In the past 3 months I had managed to save $150 on groceries so we put that towards it too.

It is cheaper to make your own pasta at home but it would take more pasta than one should eat to make up for the purchase. Making our own sausage will be a huge saving as well as the other things we decide to do. Dont worry we will keep those records too. We plan on making some sausage this weekend.

Budgeting like everything else takes time and patience and is most helpful if everyone in your house is on board. You will overspend sometimes but thats okay learn from your mistakes and carry on.  There will always be unexpected things pop up not matter how many categories you make. Just keep moving forward and before long you will see the saving rise and those little emergencies seem less scary.

To save $30 I use a vintage laundry rack to dry my pasta on. It will hold more than the ones you can buy in stores too! 

The First Day of Spring

This is definitely one of my favorite days of the year. Its so nice to have winter but by the time March rolls around I am ready to move on. I am tired of being cold and I need to get outside and dig. Mr Ladybug was off last Thursday-Sunday and thats exactly what we did. The peas, onions, lettuce and radishes have all been planted. The potatoes are chitting, that just means they are growing those eye thingys. The chickens are laying at least 3 eggs a day not each but out of the 6 we have 3 are laying each day. The bees are out everyday unless its raining and bringing in lots of pollen. I apologize to all you allergy sufferers but the pollen is out there.

I have still been focusing on Lent just keeping it personal. I think Spring is perfect time for anyone to reevaluate things and start making goals to move forward. Thats about as deep as I am going to get with this post today.

With the first day of Spring comes the start of my Big Year. I am pretty sure I talked about a big year this time last year. In case you missed that one a big year is where you try to view and document more birds than you ever have before. I am pretty sure last year was our biggest year and we didnt even try that hard. So this year we are going to try for more and keep a better record. That crafting project will come later.

Top left is a female downy woodpecker, top right is a dark eyed junco, this little one will not be here much longer. They visit here for the winter and then head back north. Bottom left is a red breasted nuthatch, bottom middle is a common grackle and a common nuisance as is the bottom right starling. 

There are so many exciting new things going on its hard to know where to start. Here are a list of some things to be expecting in the coming days, weeks and months......

Our second child is graduating from college at the end of May. Seriously, where did the time go?

Mr Ladybug and I purchased a Kitchenaid mixer, pasta maker and meat grinder. We are so in love with it. I have made desserts, pizza dough and pasta in the 3 days I have had it.

We will be starting a garden at my moms little farm.  We will be headed down there this weekend to start planning and getting her ready for her own chickens. We are also going to check out all the trees on her land and hope to harvest enough maple syrup next year to last us all year. We may even try to sell some of you are willing to pay $200 a pint. Thats not even a joke its hard work folks. Buy local syrup and hug your supplier for their very reasonable prices.

I am hoping to have some things for sale and classes getting started.

We are really trying to eat better and so lots of new recipes hitting the blog.

Our second hive will be getting started a month from today too. Mr Ladybug is going to work on learning to make another hive from our bees this year to put down at my mommas next year. You can never have too much honey.

I am sure there will be many more thing pop up and we can not wait. Spring has sprung!

Impatience, Lent Day 3

Today we are going to get rid of impatience. I actually thought that I was a pretty patient person. That was until I woke up to snow this morning! What the heck?

Its still snowing, someone shoot me please!

I am suppose to have peas and onions in the ground. Guess what happens when the snow quits. Melted snow and rain is just going to make the ground all yucky and on Sunday when its not suppose to rain or snow the ground will probably be too wet to work with.  I think its actually pretty funny that I get so bent out of shape over this because its not like if I dont have a pea or an onion crop we are going to starve to death. Some peoples lives do depend on what they grow and I should consider myself blessed that even though growing all my food would be so exciting my life goes on regardless.

There was a high school baskeball tournament going on downtown yesterday and it put me 5 minutes behind schedule picking up Mr Ladybug so we decided to try a different route on the way home. Since we have both grown up and lived in our area most of our lives we had multiple options and weighed each one as we drove. Every turn just lead us to another backup. We really didnt mind except for the rude people honking their horns, people getting out of the lane and flying past trying to cut in closer to a a light and fun stuff like that. Then there were people trying to make u-turns and stopping traffic because those big SUVs and minivans do not turn on a dime. I think our commute time on the way home was 10 extra minutes or 15 at the most. Honestly the extra 20 minutes did not bother me at all. I do have to admit I was wondering why people were being so impatient. It was super easy for me to keep score and a little convicting when I gave it a little more thought...

Why the extra commute wasnt so bad for me                          Why it may have been for others
1. My dinner was already in the oven on warm                      1. Some people were just getting off work.
    because I had been home most of the afternoon. 

2. My adult kids drive.                                                            2. Some people were trying to get to their
                                                                                                    kids still at school or in childcare.

3. I had just filled up my gas tank.                                          3. Some people were driving on fumes
                                                                                                   with payday not until tomorrow.

4. When I got home my plans were to eat dinner,                   4. Some working parents still had after
    watch tv with my man and look at my library books.              school activities, feeding their crew,
                                                                                                     making sure homework was done,
                                                                                                     baths were taken and would be happy
                                                                                                     if they got 5 minutes of peace before
                                                                                                     had to start all over again tomorrow.


I could seriously have kept going but you get the picture. I read a quote and it was something like this, you dont plant a seed and expect to see a full grown plant producing the very next day. That is sort of a definition of what patience is. You are at point A and you are going to point B. Its not always going to be instant. I knew I would eventually get home yesterday. If my car had quit working I could have walked home within an hour. Of course I could have called a number of people to come get me too. Not everyone you meet have the same options as you do. Even if you think they do. You have no idea whats going on with them or what they have been through just to get where they are right now. You may think you know them but you do not so stop being a jerk and just be nice. Please!!!


1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)

1 Corinthians 3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end. (The Message)

Anger, Lent Day 2

I have to confess that I didnt get the ashes out of the stove on ash Wednesday. Todays not looking too good either. Maybe I will keep my ashes in there until this time next year. I was able to get rid of a few things around the house though so I did do some decluttering. I was talking to my sister about where to purchase a good heavy duty door mat that would take the abuse of lots of  mud scraping off ones shoes. She told me to not go terribly expensive on the one at the backdoor because there is a good chance that one of my dogs will chew it up. I hadnt even thought of that and she is 100% correct. She speaks from experience! She said she had a nice one and every time you let her pitbull out the backdoor he took off with the door mat. I have a beagle that acts just like her dog and I am guessing he will do the same. So we will get a less expensive one and work on leaving it alone. This is why you should bounce your thoughts and ideas off others. You never know what valuable information that have.

Last night Mr Ladybug was getting ready for bed. He pulled back the blankets, got under them and started complaining that the blankets were in the wrong order. That man is so silly. I assure him that it would be fine but he was not having it. After a few minutes he even said I dont think I can sleep like this. What am I going to do with him? Its sort of funny because on the weekends he usually makes the bed when I get up and start making breakfast and it drives me crazy when he doesnt put the blankets in the right direction.  We each have a favorite blanket and in his defense I did put my favorite quilt first and his blanket second.

Next there was this morning when I drive him to work. I do this most Thursdsays because its my grocery and errand day. We are driving out of the neighborhood and he said its feels weird with you driving because you drive so slow. I drive the speed limit. We have went over this a million times. We have even used a stop watch to time our routes. Speed or routes do not matter at 6 am in our city with all the traffic lights. We got to work in the same time frame as he does when hes obviously speeding.

I am not telling you all this to make my husband look bad,these are just two things that he does that drive me crazy and I am sure if you asked him what I do that drives him crazy he would have a pretty long list as well. I remember early in our marriage when we had three young kids and were sleep deprived these things would sometimes lead to some pretty heated arguments. Which usually led to us not talking to each other. So the thing I am wanting and have been glad to have gotten rid of mostly is anger.  Do we still push each others button and get angry? Of course we do,  we have just learned that most of it really doesnt matter and dont stay mad all that long.

I dont actually get angry all that much unless it involves someone messing with my kids. Even though they will each be 27, 22 and 20 years old within the next month I will mess you up if you  mess with them. I even woke up so mad that other morning because I had a dream that my daughters ex boyfriend was calling her and saying mean thing to upset her. In my dream I was on my way to Walmart to buy a baseball bat to bust up his knees. I told Mr Ladybug that once I had woken up that I hadnt gotten the bat and he told me not to be silly that we didnt need to buy a bat that we had a whole bag of them in the garage and that we wouldnt just go bust him up we would start by slashing all his tires. This is why our marriage is so perfect and healthy we get each other so well.

In all seriousness I have spent lots of wasted time being angry over things that dont really matter and angry for way to long over some things that do matter. Anger isnt necessarily bad if it makes you take action and I dont mean taking baseball bats to people. I am talking about it makes you want to make things better. I recently seen a man being very  mean to a lady. I am sure she was a prostitute and he was her boss. I make sure to keep up with a womens shelter in that area and donate things they need because they give that lady a safe place to go and help her and others like her.

Here is my verse for today..

Ephesians 4:26-27 [Full Chapter]

Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.

Mud, Lent Day 1

For quite a while I have working on some bible devotions with the intent to share them soon. I really love reading the bible and do consider myself a believer. I wont go on a rant on why I dont call myself a christian anymore, thats for a later date. I have never studied the bible at a college or anywhere other than church, with friends and at home on my own. So sometimes I feel like if I write something its not legit or someone will dispute my thoughts. Thats actually pretty funny since in most areas of my life I dont really care what others think. So anyway the next several posts will be how I am observing Lent. You dont have to be a follower of Christ to get something out of this. I love to share my thoughts with everyone and I enjoy hearing others thoughts even if they are nothing like mine. I just love people, well nice people. Mean people make me angry but thats for another post as well. I hope you enjoy.

As I was looking up bible verses this was the first one I came across that addressed why I dont post scriptural things. FEAR its the very reason why we dont do many things that we want.

Mark 6:50  Jesus was quick to comfort them: “Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

I have talked about fear many times. I do find comfort in this verse because like the disciples when I am afraid I just have to call out and I know Hes there. I also have so many great family and friends who I can call on too. So if you are wanting to do something and are not sure just reach out to a few people that you trust. Ask their opinions and listen to their feedback, the positive and the negative.

For many years I gave up something for Lent. I have given up meat, chocolate, social media, tv, murdering people. You know the normal stuff. It seems a little odd to me that you give something up and then the day after Easter you like eat all the chocolate out of your kids Easter Baskets of something. So I decided to focus on decluttering for Lent. I have done this before with getting rid of things around the house but this time is different. The need to declutter comes from bringing in stuff you dont really need or keeping stuff longer than its use. This isnt just physical items. We have beliefs and ideas that that should not be there or that have had their day and we need to just move on. I think its so odd that we stay updated on gadgets, house decor, clothes but when it comes to new thoughts we are just not budging. Mr Ladybug and I dont always agree on music. He will not listen to anything new. He was listening to some of his favorite songs last night and I asked if he could please just listen to something made since 2000. Seriously he doesnt think that there has been a single good song produced in the last 19 years? We would not have had that conversation had he been listening to jazz. Jazz is always the exception. I think you get my point about decluttering not just physical items in our lives.

As I was looking up some info on Lent I was on Acts 40 website and they had this question and answer on their website

For quite a while I have working on some bible devotions with the intent to share them soon. I really love reading the bible and do consider myself a believer. I wont go on a rant on why I dont call myself a christian anymore, thats for a later date. I have never studied the bible at a college or anywhere other than church, with friends and at home on my own. So sometimes I feel like if I write something its not legit or someone will dispute my thoughts. Thats actually pretty funny since in most areas of my life I dont really care what others think. So anyway the next several posts will be how I am observing Lent. You dont have to be a follower of Christ to get something out of this. I love to share my thoughts with everyone and I enjoy hearing others thoughts even if they are nothing like mine. I just love people, well nice people. Mean people make me angry but thats for another post as well. I hope you enjoy.

As I was looking up bible verses this was the first one I came across that addressed why I dont post scriptural things. FEAR its the very reason why we dont do many things that we want.

Mark 6:50  Jesus was quick to comfort them: “Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

I have talked about fear many times. I do find comfort in this verse because like the disciples when I am afraid I just have to call out and I know Hes there. I also have so many great family and friends who I can call on too. So if you are wanting to do something and are not sure just reach out to a few people that you trust. Ask their opinions and listen to their feedback, the positive and the negative.

For many years I gave up something for Lent. I have given up meat, chocolate, social media, tv, murdering people. You know the normal stuff. It seems a little odd to me that you give something up and then the day after Easter you like eat all the chocolate out of your kids Easter Baskets of something. So I decided to focus on decluttering for Lent. I have done this before with getting rid of things around the house but this time is different. The need to declutter comes from bringing in stuff you dont really need or keeping stuff longer than its use. This isnt just physical items. We have beliefs and ideas that that should not be there or that have had their day and we need to just move on. I think its so odd that we stay updated on gadgets, house decor, clothes but when it comes to new thoughts we are just not budging. Mr Ladybug and I dont always agree on music. He will not listen to anything new. He was listening to some of his favorite songs last night and I asked if he could please just listen to something made since 2000. Seriously he doesnt think that there has been a single good song produced in the last 19 years? We would not have had that conversation had he been listening to jazz. Jazz is always the exception. I think you get my point about decluttering not just physical items in our lives.

As I was looking up some info on Lent I was on Acts 40 website and they had this question and answer on their website


For quite a while I have working on some bible devotions with the intent to share them soon. I really love reading the bible and do consider myself a believer. I wont go on a rant on why I dont call myself a christian anymore, thats for a later date. I have never studied the bible at a college or anywhere other than church, with friends and at home on my own. So sometimes I feel like if I write something its not legit or someone will dispute my thoughts. Thats actually pretty funny since in most areas of my life I dont really care what others think. So anyway the next several posts will be how I am observing Lent. You dont have to be a follower of Christ to get something out of this. I love to share my thoughts with everyone and I enjoy hearing others thoughts even if they are nothing like mine. I just love people, well nice people. Mean people make me angry but thats for another post as well. I hope you enjoy.

As I was looking up bible verses this was the first one I came across that addressed why I dont post scriptural things. FEAR its the very reason why we dont do many things that we want.

Mark 6:50  Jesus was quick to comfort them: “Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

I have talked about fear many times. I do find comfort in this verse because like the disciples when I am afraid I just have to call out and I know Hes there. I also have so many great family and friends who I can call on too. So if you are wanting to do something and are not sure just reach out to a few people that you trust. Ask their opinions and listen to their feedback, the positive and the negative.

For many years I gave up something for Lent. I have given up meat, chocolate, social media, tv, murdering people. You know the normal stuff. It seems a little odd to me that you give something up and then the day after Easter you like eat all the chocolate out of your kids Easter Baskets of something. So I decided to focus on decluttering for Lent. I have done this before with getting rid of things around the house but this time is different. The need to declutter comes from bringing in stuff you dont really need or keeping stuff longer than its use. This isnt just physical items. We have beliefs and ideas that that should not be there or that have had their day and we need to just move on. I think its so odd that we stay updated on gadgets, house decor, clothes but when it comes to new thoughts we are just not budging. Mr Ladybug and I dont always agree on music. He will not listen to anything new. He was listening to some of his favorite songs last night and I asked if he could please just listen to something made since 2000. Seriously he doesnt think that there has been a single good song produced in the last 19 years? We would not have had that conversation had he been listening to jazz. Jazz is always the exception. I think you get my point about decluttering not just physical items in our lives.

As I was looking up some info on Lent I was on Acts 40 website and they had this question and answer on their website....

Why is Ash Wednesday called Ash Wednesday?

Ash Wednesday begins Lent. The day gets its name from the traditional blessing of the ashes taken after the burning of Palm branches (or crosses made from Palm leaves) from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebrations. In some churches the ashes are used to draw a cross on the head of people to mark the beginning of their Lent fast. The drawing of a cross is often done while repeating the words “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15) or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

My first thought was that I really need to clean out my wood stoves ashes. I will probably do that later today but not for religious purposes. I was looking for the Genesis 3:19 verse and first found Psalm 103:14 which where this whole idea came from as I was pondering Lent.

He knows us inside and out,
    keeps in mind that we’re made of mud.

How special does that make you feel? I will post the whole Psalm at the end of this. Its really a good one. We are just little mud pies but He loves us anyway.

I am not sure how your brain works but this is how mine works. Mr Ladybug will say something like "buy ice cream at the grocery the next time you go". We will be watching tv or something and 10 minutes later I will say " I need to buy some lavender essential oil". He looks at me so weird and asks where did that come from since we had both been just sitting there. I roll my eyes and explain that ice cream reminded me of popsicles which reminds me of my favorite flavor, orange, which reminded me of lemon essential oil which is one of my favorite scents which reminded me I am out of lavender. How hard is it to understand the brain of the woman you have been married to for 29 years?



This little verse that mentioned us being mud made me think about our crazy Kentucky weather we have had this winter.  Mud is something we all know. I have a love for cute flat shoes and have not been able to wear the many colors that I have because of rain and mud. Snow I would be more understanding of but all this rain and mud have pushed me over the edge. Anyway to stop all that mud from getting in the house through our shoes and our pets we have to stop the mud at the door. This is where the decluttering begins as well. If you feel like you are like 10 items away from being on that tv show hoarders maybe you need to think before you bring something in.

At the beginning of the year when I decided to really tighten our grocery budget and was taking stock of what we had in the house already I had to toss several things that had expired. Things I bought on sale to save money on but that we didnt really need. I have really thought about this as I shop. I have a good friend who is a firm believer in not buying clothes without getting rid of something. Needless to say her closets are quite organized. Anyone else need to work on closet organization?

Several years ago I taught a girls Sunday School class and this verse was the focus of one of our lessons,

14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Matthew 10:14 NIV

We started a little traditon of shaking off before we came into our class room. We were shaking off things that were bothering us so we didnt track that dust into our class. We had some great conversations and some great laughs about how people in the hallway would look at us like we were crazy.

Sometimes I still shake off before walking into the house from having a rough day out and about. I even tease my husband sometimes when he is grumpy that he needs to go outside and shake off that negativity and come back in in a better mood.

Even if you dont observe Lent I think we all would agree there are things in our life that we need to work on. Some easy and some hard. The easiest way to address  those things are is to think about where they came from the begin with. Like my fear. I need to leave that outside when I get ready to blog about something that I think someone may not like. I even have said before I mostly blog for me. So why does it matter? 

On my to do list today is to find two really good door mats. Ones that are not cute but practical to catch the real mud that comes into our house. I may just make a cute little sign though to hang on each entrance to our home to remind us that the physical dirt isnt the only thing we have to worry about bringing in with us.


So here is that whole Psalm that I said I would post. Enjoy you little mudpies.

A David Psalm

103 1-2 O my soul, bless God.
    From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name!
O my soul, bless God,
    don’t forget a single blessing!

3-5 He forgives your sins—every one.
    He heals your diseases—every one.
    He redeems you from hell—saves your life!
    He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
    He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
    He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence.

6-18 God makes everything come out right;
    he puts victims back on their feet.
He showed Moses how he went about his work,
    opened up his plans to all Israel.
God is sheer mercy and grace;
    not easily angered, he’s rich in love.
He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold,
    nor hold grudges forever.
He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve,
    nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.
As high as heaven is over the earth,
    so strong is his love to those who fear him.
And as far as sunrise is from sunset,
    he has separated us from our sins.
As parents feel for their children,
    God feels for those who fear him.
He knows us inside and out,
    keeps in mind that we’re made of mud.
Men and women don’t live very long;
    like wildflowers they spring up and blossom,
But a storm snuffs them out just as quickly,
    leaving nothing to show they were here.
God’s love, though, is ever and always,
    eternally present to all who fear him,
Making everything right for them and their children
    as they follow his Covenant ways
    and remember to do whatever he said.

19-22 God has set his throne in heaven;
    he rules over us all. He’s the King!
So bless God, you angels,
    ready and able to fly at his bidding,
    quick to hear and do what he says.
Bless God, all you armies of angels,
    alert to respond to whatever he wills.
Bless God, all creatures, wherever you are—
    everything and everyone made by God.

And you, O my soul, bless God!