Checking your calendar, making dinner and pie.

Yesterday was my hubby's birthday. It was also the day I scheduled an appointment for my daughter, a must run to the feed store and an outing that took us an hour away from home. We left the house at 9:30 and did not return until 2:30. Which I  know isnt terrible late but that gave us 2 hours to get birthday dinner and coconut cream pie done by 4:30 when hubby gets home from work and gives the pie enough time to set. I also forgot to say since this is the summer of home makeover my daughter is trying get her room painted and back in order before the end of the week so she can go visit her aunt. You may think painting a room isnt too terribly hard but we switched room with her so she inherited a room with barn red walls. its taken some serious primer and paint! I love the color she chose and told her it looked like she was painting the room with butter.

When its your birthday in our house you can have what ever you want for dinner and of course dessert. There is no complaining when someone picks something thats not your favorite. My husband always wants a steak. So I grilled a steak with baked potatoes and made salad from our garden. It was really hard for me to buy baking potatoes when I had potatoes at home that we grew ourselves but they are not giant monster potatoes and I was trying to go for the look of Logans Roadhouse. The meal is pretty easy with just setting your steaks out about 30 minutes before putting them on the grill and season them with salt and pepper. Grill a few minutes on each side until your preferred doneness.  Unless we have a fire going outside I always cheat with potatoes.  I love to wrap them in foil and put them in the hot ashes to cook. Since we did not have a fire going yesterday and that we do not own a microwave to cook potaotes in,  I boiled them until they were done and put them on the grill to crisp up the skin. I did make a compound butter. That was the most technical thing I made for dinner and thats okay with me.

Compound Butter

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of fresh chives
2 garlic cloves
salt to taste

Put cream in food processor and turn on and let the magic happens. This can take up to 15 minutes. The cream with start to thicken like whipped topping, then will start to look like liquid again, finally the little clumps of butter start bonding together and you are left with butter and milk. Strain the butter milk out if the butter and save for baking. With the butter run iced cold water over it to get any milk still in there. You can use a spoon to kind of squish it around. Add your seasonings, wrap in parchment paper or plastic wrap and roll into a log and chill.

I am super lucky to have amazing kids who have always been great at helping out. My son is on a baking kick and I am not going to stop him. He wanted to make his dads pie. That was a huge help while I was doing all the prep work for dinner. I think he did an amazing job considering this is his first ever coconut cream pie. You can fine the recipes he used under the picture.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-roll-pie-crust-recipe

https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/easy-coconut-cream-pie

One of my recent goals has been to use the reminders and calendar on my phone. Even though everything I wanted to get accomplished yesterday did happen it was kind of tight. I had a quick morning outing planned today that just got cancelled so I think I am free for the rest of today. I think it would have been wiser to have moved some of my things yesterday to today. Just like with anything new you try it takes time to work itself out. Cut yourself some slack, dont give up and learn to laugh at yourself.

Last night I was brushing my teeth when someone needed in the only bathroom we have. So I came out and finished brushing in the kitchen. Then that person started taking a shower.  I wanted to put my toothbrush somewhere safe so I chose on top of the fridge. This morning I have been hunting all over the place for my toothbrush. Maybe I didnt survive yesterday as well as I thought.

Puppy mishaps, cleaning recipe, cheap eats and even cheaper dates

My husband had to work this past weekend so we didnt get to go on our usual adventures. Our adventures usually involve at least one trip to Lowes, a lunch date, a seed or feed store and at least some sort of movie. A few weeks ago I snagged a $25 Groupon Deal for Mellow Mushroom for $5. Saturday night we ordered a pizza, started a little fire in the fire pit and listened to Old Radio Mysteries podcasts. It was so nice to not have dirty dinner dishes, to just hang out at home and laugh about how the commercials from the old radio show was telling us how good cigarettes were for you. I think this date idea will become a regular thing.

Our intentions before our weekend got so busy was to go to a little Cuban restaurant that my husband loves. He always gets the cubano sandwich.  So yesterday I surprised him when he got home from work with a homemade one. It normally costs us around $20 dollars to eat out so I was much happier with my cost being around $7 to feed 4 or us at home. I would like to add that our daughter is a vegetarian and she had a homemade veggie panini instead of the cubano so we had an extra sandwich for the hubby to take to work for lunch today.

Cubano Sandwich

First I mixed together 2 Tablespoons mayonnaise and 2 Tablespoons of dijon mustard. Next I cooked and shredded 1 pound of pork tenderloin. You dont have to shred it I just normally buy a large pork tenderloin and cook it whole, shred it and keep in the freezer for quick meals. You also need 1 pound of sliced ham. Once again this is something I buy in bulk when I can get it for 99 cents of $1.49lb and freeze. You also need a few slices of swiss cheese, a soft french bread loaf and pickle slices. 

If you are like me you do not have a panini maker. I put two cast iron skillets on a burner and turn them up to high for 7-10 minutes. While they are heating up I assemble the sandwiches. Spread the mustard mixture on your bread. then layer your tenderloin, on  top of that add a slice of cheese, then your pickles, then ham add the squish your sandwich. Once  you have all the assembled turn off your cast iron skillets, put sandwiches inside one of the pans and place the other skillet on top of the sandwiches. Using a towel so not to burn yourself press down on the top skillet to mush your sandwiches down.  Kind of peek at your sandwiches after 5 minutes to see if your cheese is melting.  Serve with french fries or chips.

Once I was done cleaning up the kitchen after dinner I was going to sit down and knit. I am working on some dish clothes. Unfortunately our 5 month old beagle puppy had other plans.

He must have remembered I had intended to try out a new all purpose cleaner yesterday but hadnt gotten around to it. So I mixed it up and got rid of the paw prints. While cleaning the tub I also used it to clean the sink and toilet. I think I will be using this stuff all over the house.

All Purpose Cleaner

8 oz white vinegar

4 oz lemon juice

2 oz liquid dish soap

2 tsp baking soda

10 oz water

Mix in a large bowl. It will bubble up. The container I used barely contained it once it started foaming. Once it stops reacting and the bubbles die back down your can pout it into a spray bottle but pouring it causes it to start foaming again so be careful and patient. I store the extra in a glass canning jar. It makes about 3 cups of liquid. To use to squirt, scrub and rinse.

Today is the day or errands and its my hubbys birthday. Somewhere in all the craziness a coconut cream pie has to get made.

Lots of Love

Mrs Ladybug

Someday is not a day

My day actually started out pretty productive. I awoke at 5:30 got dressed, made the hubby breakfast, packed his lunch and scored two chairs to transform and sell. Then I made myself a cup of tea, my favorite peanut butter on toast breakfast and sat down to blog. Only my page wouldn't load and my computer was running so slow. Good morning Monday.

Last week was a mess! My son had a root canal and another appointment, my daughter had an appointment, my car was in the shop for 2 days so I was driving and picking up my husband so I could have a car during the day. I didn't have a good meal plan for the week. Getting loose ends tied up for my son to start college and still planning to start a way for me to continue to stay home and make money.

Several years ago my sister and I would watch a show on HGTV called Decorating Cents. A designer would transform a room for less than $500. There was a part of the show called From Trash To Treasure. That was actually our favorite part. My sister and I dreamed of having our own little business selling our trash to treasures. We even had a great name. Dumpster Divas. I had three young kids and my sister moved to southern Alabama. Maybe someday.......

Fast forward back to today. My life is changing fast, no more car lines, PTA meetings, marching band practices, concerts and all those other things I have been doing the past 20 years. I think "someday" has arrived. Honestly it could have arrived years ago. I was just too scare, tired, afraid of failure and a much longer list of "what ifs".

What's holding you back from achieving your goals or dreams? Someday is not a day of the week at all. It will never come if you don't step out of your bubble and make it happen. This doesn't have to be about a business. Someday we want to be more organized, thinner, have more money, travel, entertain more, start a new hobby or read a book. Someday is now. What plans can you make to reach your goals?

This week I have all my meals planned. I even grilled extra chicken last night to have a faster meal prep for Tuesday night because Tuesday is a day of running errands for me this week. I sat a goal and I may not achieve it but I will make progress to get there. Which is better than nothing and letting another week go buy waiting for Someday.

I mentioned yesterday about liking to read about frugal tips. One of the things I see a lot are articles about only spending something like $50 a week to feed a family of four and then there really isnt a meal plan. If there is a plan it consists of oatmeal for breakfast all week, peanut butter for lunch and a very limited dinner. There isnt anything wrong with that. If thats your thing go right ahead. Sometimes they give the low budget and will say this is assuming you have staple items on hand. Then there is a list that would cost you $100. Then you have the people who have a huge farm thats been in their family forever who raise their own cattle, chickens and can their own produce for the year and they are trying to tell you a lifetime city dweller that you too can start your own homestead. Ummmm no thank you. I love city life and dont plan on leaving it anytime soon.

 Budgeting isnt easy for everyone neither is meal planning, meal prepping, finding deals and so on and so on. Its not something that you can just pick up and start saving tons of money at once. Unless you are just one of those really awesome people which I am not.  This week my grocery bill was $46. That will feed 4 adults for the week. My menu is a 1/2 a piece of toast for breakfast for each person, a cracker with a  grape and a cheese stick for lunch and 4oz chicken breast grilled with 5 green beans and a small red potato. I hope you realize that was a joke. I actually have alot of meat in my freezer and I have a standup freezer about the size of my refridgerator. I also have tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, potatoes,  carrots, garlic, herbs and chickens for eggs in my backyard. Its taking us 6 years to get to this point. Its alot of work but we actually enjoy it.

It started with chickens. We bought our baby chicks, made our coop, bought all the things for food and water and spent around $600. Once you start getting eggs the cost of feeding the chickens and the eggs you get balance out if you consider your eggs at the free range, cage free organic cost of eggs of $4-5 a dozen. If you are someone who normally buys eggs for around $1 and I actually saw eggs for 58 cents yesterday at Aldis then your are not going to be happy with the cost of raising your own eggs. We considered the $600 start up and an investment that would take about 50 years to break even. We love watching them peck around in the garden. Never leave them unattended. They will mess your garden up! When your chickens get to be around 6 years old they are not going to live much longer. You will want to think about getting some new ones. We actually waited until spring this year when we  lost our last chickens so we have been waiting 21 weeks for egg production to start again.  Fortunately I found a family who sells eggs to get mine from. I must make a mental note to start looking a new chicks in about 5 years and not have gap this time.

As for the garden its been about the same timeline as the chickens. We started with two 4 foot by 4 foot raised beds. Bought the organic dirt and wood. we realized that they didnt need to be that tall so we cut them down and made 4 raised beds for the next year. Then we thought about the wood be bought and how it had been treated to not rot as fast and we wondered what chemicals was getting into our food so we tore them down the next year and built new ones. We have battled squirrels. opposums, raccoons, cats, too much rain. not enough rain, which is how we came to have 6 rain barrels and have definitely spent more on our garden produce than on our chickens. There is a great book at the library called The $64 Tomato. There is some truth to that.

I share all this to be honest. Its not easy or cheap to raise your own food. You should definitely appreciate those who do this for a living and not complain about the prices when you have no idea how hard it can be. You should also watch a few documentaries to see where your food comes from. I share this in hopes that if this is something you have thought about doing that you know it can be done. Just start small and know what to expect. Learn from our mistakes and ask for advice. Share your experiences with others to help them out too. Dont be like those people I mentioned in the beginning.

I will speak more about getting a garden started later. You can grow so many things in pots and containers and not have a lot of start up costs.

If you will excuse me I am going to go scramble two eggs and chop up a tomato for breakfast all free from my backyard with a total cost of about $40. What a bargain!

Lots of love,

Mrs Ladybug

Its really not all about you or me.

I love to read about how other people are frugal.  I usually end up thinking "why didnt I think of that". Sometimes thought I end up thinking "what kind of lunatic would do that"? The article I was reading was about what you do with those little plastic bags like your newspaper come in or produce type bags. I usually use the few I get to pick up dead mice or birds my cat leaves as a present at the back door. I have used them to clean up dog business or when cleaning out the ferret or guinea pig cage. A friend of mine keeps a few in her car for little trash bags. One comment on the article I was reading said she uses the ones that come from her newspaper to keep her hands clean when mixing meatloaf. I was a bit disgusted by that. But is that really any of my business? I am sure some people find my compost pile, worm bin, mealworm farm, chickens, raising my own meat rabbits, using the rabbit poo in my garden and a whole bunch of other things I cant think of right now disgusting.

Why is it when someone does something thats not like we would do it we assume its wrong? It drives me crazy to drive down the street and see things that are recyclable hanging out of peoples garbage cans thats headed to the landfill. Dont even get me started on people who litter. Even though these things are important to me and the environment I dont think I should be putting these people in the same category as Hitler. But sometimes I do.

Depending on my mood I do not always check my spelling or punctuation on my blog. I know thats going to be a real shocker to some. My oldest child is an english major. Maybe my terrible grammar made her want to be better. I am pretty sure that my point comes across in my posts. Just as I am sure that some people think I am a nut job and move on. Its okay. We are all different and we all are passionate about different things.

Here is where I am going to stick my nose in where it may not belong. When you come across someone who lives differently from you, dont get all bent out of shape or tell them what they are doing wrong. You do not have that right. They are not going to listen to you anyway. I could have replied to that ladies post about using the disgusting bag that lays in your driveway for mixing up your meatloaf but its none of my business. I did not know her. I dont eat at her house. Sometimes my husband or my kids come home drinking out of STYROFOAM. It freaks me out but I move on. I still kiss my husband. I still love my children.

When we cross paths with people who are different from us or have different views from us its not our job to fix them. Sometimes its actually we who need fixing. You dont have to be friends with them.  But you may actually be missing out on a great friendship. Its easy to point out our differences but I have found out that the more you get to know someone the more things you find out that you have in common. Just maybe that crazy lady that enjoys blogging, has the worst grammar than anyone you  have ever met and has run on sentences that lasts for days might just have some interesting posts sometimes. Or maybe not its really none of your concern because this world isnt really all about you or me.

Lots of Love

Mrs Ladybug

I am one of those people who can get lost leaving her neighborhood. I have lived in my neighborhood for about two thirds of my life. So its kind of pathetic that I get lost so easily. It use to really bother me. My father was a truck driver for goodness sake. I am sure he was pretty embarrassed that I never learned anything from him about not getting lost. Fortunately I married a man who loves to read maps. was in the military and never gets lost. When we first got married he thought it was kind of funny, I think he thought that he could teach me and all would be fine. Boy was he wrong. After 27 years of marriage I think hes come to realize I am a lost cause and he probably fears one day I will venture out past our city limits never to be seen again. Getting lost all the time actually has it plus side. I see things I never intended. I get to meet new people when I have to ask for direction and I assume that I am going to get lost so it never flusters me. As my my husband and I make the transition from having school age children to having college kids who dont need us as much its kind of scary. I am feeling a little lost in life as well. But I know it will be fine. As I transition from a stay at home mom to whatever it was I wanted to be when I grew up I know that I am going to get lost along the way, I am excited about the new places I am going to see even if its on accident and even more excited about the new people I get to meet who have to point me in the right direction. Dont fear change or getting lost, enjoy the journey. Lots of Love Mrs Ladybug

When all hell breaks loose.

I would consider myself a pretty flexible person. I dont mind change, or at least thats what I thought. Seven months ago something happened inside my family that has changed lots of things. To the point that most days I do not know whether I am coming or going. I wont go into great detail. We all have things that come at us in life at some point and we just do what we can to survive. I made my circle very small and isolated myself from the world. Oh, I made it look like everything was okay and those closest to me knew it was not and were there for me. Things have gotten better and I never had any doubt that we wouldnt survive this but sometimes I did wonder. Sometimes I still wonder. To quote Forest Gump 'Thats all I got to say about that". With my oldest daughter getting married and then she and her husband purchasing their first home, my youngest graduating high school and getting ready to start college, my middle child is starting her junior year of college and its the first time in 20 years I will not have any children in public schools I thought it was a great time for a new start to our new lives. We decided to change rooms around, paint, declutter blah blah blah blah. All it really looks like is that I have made a huge mess and maybe a mistake. Then my phone died and I lost all my contacts. Did I mention I was going to try to start a little business? All the while the crazy thing I mentioned in the first paragraph keeps popping into the picture. So here we are today. I make plans to blog, this was my new years resolution for petes sake! All hell breaks loose. There is no other way to put it. They say what doesnt kill is makes us stronger. If thats true that I am freakin wonder woman! But I know that I am not alone. I know there is at least one person reading thats going through their own mess and I am here to tell you that you are not alone. Its okay to be mad, its okay to be a mess and its okay to swear if it makes you feel better. You just do what you gotta do to survive. Dont beat yourself up with "what if's". Its okay to cry, scream and question everything you have believed in. Just dont give up. None of my problems are going to go away with me holed up in my bedroom drinking my earl grey, thats tea for those of you who do not know. I have no idea why it bothered me to have anyone thinking I was boozing it up at 10 am. I am going to sign off, wash dishes, start laundry, throw away a bag of clutter, plan dinner, make arrangements go get my car to the shop tomorrow, tape off a room to paint and do at least one crafty thing that will make me smile. When life comes knocking on my door with those stinkin lemons. I am going to throw them back at them and tell them its almost apple picking season and I am ready to make cider for a while. Much love Mrs Ladybug