Hi y'all! Welcome back!
I will try to catch y'all up with other stuff going on, besides just the finances. I know that can get super boring. This ended up being SUPER long, sorry!
Let's see, my second oldest daughter, Rhiannon just announced that after nervously sending in applications to grad schools and waiting to hear back, that she has been accepted into the Master of Science degree program at the University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences for Spring 2019!!
I'm so proud of her! I wish she could do this without student loans, but hopefully she and her husband will get them paid off quickly. He's going into finance, and has a very well paying job already, so I have high hopes!
My oldest daughter, Corina called me...
...
and said they were moving managers of stores around in her district at
work, and she ended up finally getting promoted to Co-GM of her store,
and she doesn't have to move to another store! She gets to stay right
here! :)
Our "son" unofficially, but completely in our hearts, Who we all call Ducky, is actually Donald, and he has made us all very proud as well!
He's the tall good looking one in the back :D His University recently posted this photo congratulating the students who had won awards at Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature. Donald won the Carlisle Award for outstanding achievement and commitment. Some day he'll be writing speeches for a future President of the United States, I am sure of it, and maybe even be President himself! He's got my vote!
My 3rd oldest daughter, Faelyn, is in her third year at Berea college...
...and getting amazing grades in some seriously hard classes that she's taking all in the same semester! AND she is getting married in 14 days! It's going to be kind of a laid back ceremony. She is getting a gorgeous dress, and it's going to be a sand ceremony. But the reception is pretty chill. They're providing main courses, but it's also a covered dish party, so folks will bring their favorite dishes to share, and we'll just have fun, eating and talking. Knowing my kids, there'll be dancing too. They wanted to do a full blown Willy Wonka theme (if you knew them, you would not be surprised lol), but decided to just have candy everywhere. There will be all sorts of candy all over the tables.
Since Rhiannon will only be able to come home for the wedding and then head back to VA, we're just going to do our Christmas on the 21st, which is the night before the wedding. Corina is buying the groceries and cooking the meal! At first, I though she was doing it on Christmas day only, so I'd have to do the 21st, which I don't mind doing, but she called and said they were gonna spend the 25th with her husband, Nathan's family (it's his birthday on the 25th too), and wanted to know if she could just cook on the 21st. So yay! So, that'll be Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner that I don't have to do anything for! I might make a dessert, but our family tends to eat so much, that dessert hardly gets touched. Actually I think I'll just get a big bag of mixed nuts for the nutcracker bowl for snacking before dinner. They get such a kick out of that, and by the end of the day most of the nuts are gone and there's a huge mess LOL!
Our youngest, the kiddo, Ren, went to the youth group of the church we went to Sunday. It was our first time visiting that church, but Ren and I both felt very comfortable there, and she's been starved for other human interaction since she's going to high school online. She said she didn't really make any close friends with the other teens yet, though she knows some one them. One of them was one of her bullies actually, who told her she'd burn in hell for being gay. So, that may turn into an issue. But she did make really close fast friends with the worship leader. After Sunday service, we all agreed, she was very "intense", but not quite scary at least. So, I was surprised when she told me they hit it off so well, but Ren tends to make friends well. I think she's a very empathic person, which is what makes her so sensitive to other people and her own mental health can suffer for it... and the worship leader lady seems to be just like that. So they are a lot alike. I am so glad she made such a good friend and enjoyed it and wants to go back.
Also, Ren is graduating from Rural Resources tomorrow (well later today now). If you've been reading my blog for a while, you're likely familiar with these kids from when they were all small, and they all went through the Rural Resources program. My older ones were in it from it's very beginning days, and now it's a pretty impressive program with a brand new building (where the wedding is being held), with a summer Farm Day camp that Faelyn works at for her summer job while she's home from college.
We were even their "poster family" one year! Check out their page here where they talk about Rhiannon writing an article for Grow Appalachia about how Rural Resources has enriched her life.
It's been such a huge part of our lives, but things change and life moves on. Miss Debbie, who has been the director of the program from the beginning and practically helped raise our girls is moving on as well. She's got a new job, and will be leaving after this season. We'll surely miss her and the whole program. But knowing my girls, they'll stay active in it as much as they can. They had even wanted Corina to come interview to replace Debbie, but she didn't want to leave her current career where she has room to move up. So that's understandable.
So, yeah, Ren is graduating the program tomorrow evening at a ceremony they'll hold in the new building, and they'll serve dinner (so hey free meal LOL)! And show photos from the past year. I'm sad that none of the other girls could be there tonight, but they were there last year and some of them got awards for things like Rhiannon doing the charity for her birthday and Faelyn helping out with Farm Day Camp etc.
Before we head to the dinner, we're going to go to the thrift stores and do a little clothes shopping. Ren and I are both pretty excited to see what kinds of bargains we can find. It's kind of a challenge to see how many thing we really like that we can get for $20 each. I've also got money for Hubby to go shopping for more shirts as well, and also get a hair cut. I got a coupon from Great Clips for a $7.50 haircut! So, I budgeted $10, and that should cover it. So, it should be a pretty fun afternoon. I think we may get a few groceries as well, taking into consideration that it'll be taking from the first Dec Paycheck budget. We're supposed to get 6-8 inches of snow, with possibilities of up to 16" nearby in the mountains. So depending on how the clouds decide to sit, we could get more. So, while I don't plan on making milk sandwiches LOL, we could do with a few more things, like a loaf of bread (haha) and I seriously need a bottle of coconut creamer before I go nuts lol. I might get some chocolate chips and bake a batch of cookies too. Probably need more iced tea bags and sugar. Don't want to run out of that! Oh, and eggs! Apparently when Ren made omelettes, she used a LOT of them.
So, as far as dinners have been going this week, here's how we stand:
Mon 11/26: Mom's homemade veggie soup with ground beef and corn bread on the side
Tues 11/27: Mom's soup beans, mustard greens and corn bread
Wed 11/28: Sloppy Joes (with ground beef), hamburger buns, and potato wedges
Thurs 11/29: Sweet Potato Hash (from Stacey Flowers YT channel) and salad (decided not to do since we ate out that Thursday)
Fri 11/30: Broccoli Alfredo and any leftover salad
Sat 12/01: Spinach and Beet Buddha Bowl (From Stacey Flowers)
Sun 12/02: 7 Ingredient black bean tacos
Mon 12/03: Mom's Veggie Soup with ground turkey (still have in freezer) and corn bread
Tue 12/04: Black Bean Burgers (Stacey Flowers)
Wed 12/05: Rice Buddha Bowl (Again from Stacey Flowers, seriously check out her channel)
Thurs 12/06: Omelettes with cheese, spinach, onions and green and red bell peppers
Fri 12/07: Red pasta with cream cheese (totally not healthy, but I wanted to change things up)
Sat 12/08: Soup beans, mustard greens, cornbread
Sun 12/09: Quinoa Buddha Bowl (from you guessed it, Stacey Flowers
Mon 12/10: Crockpot Red Beans and rice - using this recipe base from Stacey Flowers :)
Tues 12/11: Thai peanut sauce over sweet potatoes and rice with salad
Wed 12/12: Omelettes with cheese, spinach, green peppers and onions
So, you can see we skipped around some, but that's totally my fault. I kept forgetting to prep the black beans! But when I finally did, OMG they are SO GOOD! That recipe is amazing!
We haven't had the black bean burgers yet. I didn't have quite enough out of one bag of black beans to do both the black bean tacos and still have 2 cups for the burgers. But since we love how the beans turned out, and I got 3 bags of the beans (just $1.38 for the 1 lb bag that made over 5 cups of beans), I've decided to just make another batch, so we can make more of the burgers and freeze them, and any of the leftover beans we don't use, I can freeze. Also, the beans that are leftover from that first batch would be perfect for the rice Buddha bowl. I totally forgot it called for some black beans too.
The 7-ingredient black bean taco recipe made a TON of taco filling and it's SO GOOD (you can click on the recipe above to see her make it). I didn't think to get a photo of ours (sadly), but ours looked exactly like Stacey's in her video. Hubby said it's serious keeper and he wants it again. We didn't use taco shells, we used a bag of tortilla chips and made individual taco bowls instead. All three of us made huge ones, and Hubby took another one for work the next day, and there was still enough to freeze for probably a good size lunch or add to breakfast burritos if we do them next time. We actually used a fajita seasoning packet instead of taco seasoning because we had one in the pantry from when the kids were here this summer and they left random groceries they'd bought in my pantry. We added shredded iceberg lettuce and some shredded cheese and sour cream. Man, I'm craving them again, just thinking about it lol!
I was not a fan of how the red pasta turned out. I think it's because I got a tomato and basil sauce. it was just way too tomato-y. It was just basically shell pasta cooked and mixed with spaghetti sauce and lots of Italian seasonings and added a pack of cream cheese. I totally should have added the box of frozen spinach I have in the freezer. I had not though of that. I might try it again and do that, but I'll pick a different spaghetti sauce for sure.
Hubby LOVED the Thai peanut sweet potatoes and rice. I wasn't a fan of the texture, but that was due to the rice. I don't like non-instant brown rice. It's just a fact. We used that because we had a big bag of it, and I was determined to use up stuff and not buy anything. Then I found a box of instant brown rice in the back of the pantry. I am totally cleaning that pantry out before the next shopping trip! The recipe is actually messed up, but we didn't realize it til we were deep into cooking it. The ingredients call for carrots, but the instructions mention red bell peppers. We read it and re-read it, and determined it was supposed to be one or the other, but no idea which. After eating it, we decided it should be carrots. They gave it a nice crunch, and the red bell peppers would not add to it. I didn't add peanuts to it this time, but totally will next time, and I may actually add red pepper flakes. It felt like it needed some heat, but I can't usually have anything spicy due to IBS. But if I'm gonna be home all night, good tasting food is nice to have, regardless of the repercussions.
So, we definitely have to do the Thai peanut sweet potatoes and black bean taco salad bowls again. I'm kind of craving bbq meatballs, so I am going to scour the sales papers and see if I get lucky and some store has the bags of them on BOGO. I can make a big crockpot full of those and add a few to Buddha bowls or just have them with potato wedges and a salad.
We're getting a free dinner tomorrow at the graduation ceremony, so one of the ones from this week can go on next week's list, although to be honest, we couldn't really do omelettes again now anyway because they used up all but 2 of the eggs and all the green peppers. I guess I didn't tell them we were going to do omelettes twice. But that's fine. It worked out. Also, with the next pay period, we won't have to cook two of the nights at least because we'll have Corina making Christmas dinner, and then at the wedding we'll be eating as well. I guess we'll be bringing a lot of leftovers home too. Faelyn and Austin do not have their own home, so they'll be coming back here.
This is how amazing of people Faelyn and her fiance, Austin are... they are paying for hotel rooms for Faelyn's best friends (who are twin sisters) from college, and their mom, to come down for the wedding and stay because no one has room in their house for guests unfortunately - and so Faelyn and Austin will just come back to our house and spend their wedding night here, instead of getting a hotel in like Gatlinburg or something like most folks do. I wish we had the means to get them a mini honeymoon. But they'll want to spend time with her friends who are in town anyway. They don't go to the same college anymore, so don't get to see each other often. Besides, Faelyn and Austin have been together since she was 13 years old, and she'll be 21 in February! They're basically married already. I've called him my son-in-law for years.
Let's see, what else is going on. OH! I did our Christmas shopping all online. Since we got the HSA reimbursement, we decided to go ahead and shop online and use whatever promo codes we could as well as the Amazon gift cards I had etc. I'm glad we were able to shop now, because with our Christmas party on the 21st, we need to get stuff shipped and here and wrapped in time! So, I had asked all the kids in our group chat what things they really liked, what were they interested in and would actually like to open on Christmas. Most of it was geeky stuff of course, which made shopping really fun. I found some awesome things, and got such great deals! One of them had asked for two makeup things (like asked a lot), so on a whim, I checked to see if I had any Ulta emails with promo codes, and I did. So I went to the site to see if I could at least get a travel size something, but it turns out, I had a $33 credit because of my Platinum rewards! Yeah I spent a LOT at Ulta last Christmas so I had Platinum status sheesh! So, I was able to get a travel size of one and a full size of the other, and got them both for only $5 out of pocket! I did make sure the travel size was not a rip off. I checked prices and fluid ounces to make sure it was a good deal, and the travel size only cost a quarter more per ounce, and it was a good size container. So I am happy with that purchase, and it freed up a little more money in the Christmas budget. At Hot Topic, it turns out I had a $5 reward as well, so that helped a lot too. Got one person's gift there. Got several more on Amazon and used the $25 in gift cards we'd racked up on rewards sites. Then the last things were at Red Bubble. They have amazing stickers, and stuff in fandoms you can't really find anywhere else, because it's independent artists and fan art mostly. I ended up having to take $3.44 cents from the Miscellaneous budget (the money we had left from November), but I was able to get all the ones I wanted. By the way, if you get stickers on Red Bubble, if you get 4, they're all 25% off, and if you buy ten, they're all 50% off. Excellent deal. They're usually good size, and if you saw these stickers at like Hot Topic you'd easily pay 3-5 times that much.
So, I am all done Christmas shopping. One gift per person, limited number of people I'm buying for, and I'm happy. None of the normal "Did I buy more things for this kid than this one" type thing. I can just relax and wait for stuff to come in and wrap it.
Speaking of which, we put up our tree! We got a new one with the money we got from the loan renewals before we made the December budget. It's only a 4 ft tree, but it was only $20. It's flocked and so pretty, and pre-lit. We put it on the round coffee table in front of the game shelves, and it's perfect.
Before we got much of a start on decorating it, Merlin decided it was his new playhouse. So we sat and played with him for a while. He killed that candy cane fair and square lol!
Ren commented that it seemed weird to be just the two of us decorating the tree.
And she's right. It has been a long standing tradition on our house that on Black Friday, we'd go out early and do some shopping together, then people would go spend time with other families or whoever, while my son and I would go pick out a tree at Lowes and tie it to the top of the vehicle (of course I usually had either an Explorer or Suburban) and bring it home and get it set up and get the decorations out, then all the kids would come back to the house. We'd either play White Christmas the movie on Netflix or just do a Yule Log video with Christmas music and we'd all decorate the tree together. It got really crowded and so much fun..
But this year it was just Ren and me, but we did turn on a Christmas music channel and the pets got involved. And finally we had a decorated tree...
You know, it looks better without the angel. I think I'll leave it without a topper until we get one that fits the tree.
I'm glad we were able to pack on a bunch of ornaments. We put everything except our glass ones on it. Since Merlin seemed so interested in the tree this year, we figured it might be best to leave those off.
There's some hand made ones the kids made as well as ones we've been buying for them in recent years. If you haven't been following my blog for a looong time, you would not know, that due to being STUPID with money and being too lazy to go pay a bill, we lost all of our family heirloom ornaments and keepsakes and all Christmas decorations we'd collected all through our marriage about 4-5 years ago, when I didn't pay the rent for the storage unit and they auctioned all of our stuff off. I will feel guilt and remorse over that for my entire life. But life isn't over. We're adding new ornaments each year. Of course this small tree can't hold much more, but one year when we can get a big real tree again, we will have room for them all. Maybe we'll go by Dollar Tree and get them each one for this year. I'll take money from my clothing budget to do that I think, just so there's one for each kid every year. I call them kids, but they range in ages from 16 - 29 LOL!
We did get to add a new one for ourselves this year. Back in June before everything happened, when we were in the Great Smokey Mountains, we stopped at one of the visitor centers near Cherokee and we bought a Christmas ornament that's carved wood with bears or elk on it (I forget right now which it was) and it has the year 2018 on it.
I'm happy with it, and all the kids said it was cute and perfect when I sent them pics in the group chat. It's going to be a very good Christmas. Just 2 months ago, I would have never believed I would say that and actually mean it and feel such peace about it. But I do.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I'll try to post again sometime this weekend, but it might not be until Monday morning after work again.
Thanks for reading!
Patty
I will try to catch y'all up with other stuff going on, besides just the finances. I know that can get super boring. This ended up being SUPER long, sorry!
Let's see, my second oldest daughter, Rhiannon just announced that after nervously sending in applications to grad schools and waiting to hear back, that she has been accepted into the Master of Science degree program at the University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences for Spring 2019!!
 |
| Forgive me for stealing this off Instagram, Rhiannon and Joe :P |
I'm so proud of her! I wish she could do this without student loans, but hopefully she and her husband will get them paid off quickly. He's going into finance, and has a very well paying job already, so I have high hopes!
My oldest daughter, Corina called me...
Our "son" unofficially, but completely in our hearts, Who we all call Ducky, is actually Donald, and he has made us all very proud as well!
He's the tall good looking one in the back :D His University recently posted this photo congratulating the students who had won awards at Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature. Donald won the Carlisle Award for outstanding achievement and commitment. Some day he'll be writing speeches for a future President of the United States, I am sure of it, and maybe even be President himself! He's got my vote!
My 3rd oldest daughter, Faelyn, is in her third year at Berea college...
...and getting amazing grades in some seriously hard classes that she's taking all in the same semester! AND she is getting married in 14 days! It's going to be kind of a laid back ceremony. She is getting a gorgeous dress, and it's going to be a sand ceremony. But the reception is pretty chill. They're providing main courses, but it's also a covered dish party, so folks will bring their favorite dishes to share, and we'll just have fun, eating and talking. Knowing my kids, there'll be dancing too. They wanted to do a full blown Willy Wonka theme (if you knew them, you would not be surprised lol), but decided to just have candy everywhere. There will be all sorts of candy all over the tables.
Since Rhiannon will only be able to come home for the wedding and then head back to VA, we're just going to do our Christmas on the 21st, which is the night before the wedding. Corina is buying the groceries and cooking the meal! At first, I though she was doing it on Christmas day only, so I'd have to do the 21st, which I don't mind doing, but she called and said they were gonna spend the 25th with her husband, Nathan's family (it's his birthday on the 25th too), and wanted to know if she could just cook on the 21st. So yay! So, that'll be Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner that I don't have to do anything for! I might make a dessert, but our family tends to eat so much, that dessert hardly gets touched. Actually I think I'll just get a big bag of mixed nuts for the nutcracker bowl for snacking before dinner. They get such a kick out of that, and by the end of the day most of the nuts are gone and there's a huge mess LOL!
Our youngest, the kiddo, Ren, went to the youth group of the church we went to Sunday. It was our first time visiting that church, but Ren and I both felt very comfortable there, and she's been starved for other human interaction since she's going to high school online. She said she didn't really make any close friends with the other teens yet, though she knows some one them. One of them was one of her bullies actually, who told her she'd burn in hell for being gay. So, that may turn into an issue. But she did make really close fast friends with the worship leader. After Sunday service, we all agreed, she was very "intense", but not quite scary at least. So, I was surprised when she told me they hit it off so well, but Ren tends to make friends well. I think she's a very empathic person, which is what makes her so sensitive to other people and her own mental health can suffer for it... and the worship leader lady seems to be just like that. So they are a lot alike. I am so glad she made such a good friend and enjoyed it and wants to go back.
Also, Ren is graduating from Rural Resources tomorrow (well later today now). If you've been reading my blog for a while, you're likely familiar with these kids from when they were all small, and they all went through the Rural Resources program. My older ones were in it from it's very beginning days, and now it's a pretty impressive program with a brand new building (where the wedding is being held), with a summer Farm Day camp that Faelyn works at for her summer job while she's home from college.
![https://www.facebook.com/ruralresources/posts/10155684455289758?__xts__[0]=68.ARCHnERNByO1SmMKpLGUD6H4KAUt7P9IrisC6H_b2lyPRCL-J4_fqYqGXp1kLoHJTaawqyOHrd-jdTmSWw6lXtB4lVjEN14UyuPk6ByrK2rUJYexFK_-7X7SD_1Y_gVat-9lUjxlminspgl5FImXhya0oxlqWteu_-qyoKI08fkJsRE2Zx7ND41GVkqIirNo16jypZZbwa7Ya8SLngbpIWPCKIrkdltjtcPcC7JccKItrHCXyaGYVhwdxyK_yFmvd6OWfKHo3vNysu4ehje_ENiTbpAtySm8ToDqjX3JkOIEwoW9T8wQdfjcwxo&__tn__=-R](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IP58klbJJVDXG4ACm8MMDSaS88kIscnYkZpGZPb6kHamwsVVPNRymjFGgMTCafKZO5G9Y2TNl0NDmCmg4749v9jvGcOBrKHVZH9ispdB9PPMiBHKmrpMLHGNJpq3-Le5_KSKyM7nPQU/s640/Campbells-with-building-pic-1200x900.jpg) |
| This seems so long ago! |
We were even their "poster family" one year! Check out their page here where they talk about Rhiannon writing an article for Grow Appalachia about how Rural Resources has enriched her life.
It's been such a huge part of our lives, but things change and life moves on. Miss Debbie, who has been the director of the program from the beginning and practically helped raise our girls is moving on as well. She's got a new job, and will be leaving after this season. We'll surely miss her and the whole program. But knowing my girls, they'll stay active in it as much as they can. They had even wanted Corina to come interview to replace Debbie, but she didn't want to leave her current career where she has room to move up. So that's understandable.
So, yeah, Ren is graduating the program tomorrow evening at a ceremony they'll hold in the new building, and they'll serve dinner (so hey free meal LOL)! And show photos from the past year. I'm sad that none of the other girls could be there tonight, but they were there last year and some of them got awards for things like Rhiannon doing the charity for her birthday and Faelyn helping out with Farm Day Camp etc.
Before we head to the dinner, we're going to go to the thrift stores and do a little clothes shopping. Ren and I are both pretty excited to see what kinds of bargains we can find. It's kind of a challenge to see how many thing we really like that we can get for $20 each. I've also got money for Hubby to go shopping for more shirts as well, and also get a hair cut. I got a coupon from Great Clips for a $7.50 haircut! So, I budgeted $10, and that should cover it. So, it should be a pretty fun afternoon. I think we may get a few groceries as well, taking into consideration that it'll be taking from the first Dec Paycheck budget. We're supposed to get 6-8 inches of snow, with possibilities of up to 16" nearby in the mountains. So depending on how the clouds decide to sit, we could get more. So, while I don't plan on making milk sandwiches LOL, we could do with a few more things, like a loaf of bread (haha) and I seriously need a bottle of coconut creamer before I go nuts lol. I might get some chocolate chips and bake a batch of cookies too. Probably need more iced tea bags and sugar. Don't want to run out of that! Oh, and eggs! Apparently when Ren made omelettes, she used a LOT of them.
So, as far as dinners have been going this week, here's how we stand:
Tue 12/04: Black Bean Burgers (Stacey Flowers)
Wed 12/05: Rice Buddha Bowl (Again from Stacey Flowers, seriously check out her channel)
Sat 12/08: Soup beans, mustard greens, cornbread
Sun 12/09: Quinoa Buddha Bowl (from you guessed it, Stacey Flowers
Mon 12/10: Crockpot Red Beans and rice - using this recipe base from Stacey Flowers :)
Wed 12/12: Omelettes with cheese, spinach, green peppers and onions
So, you can see we skipped around some, but that's totally my fault. I kept forgetting to prep the black beans! But when I finally did, OMG they are SO GOOD! That recipe is amazing!
We haven't had the black bean burgers yet. I didn't have quite enough out of one bag of black beans to do both the black bean tacos and still have 2 cups for the burgers. But since we love how the beans turned out, and I got 3 bags of the beans (just $1.38 for the 1 lb bag that made over 5 cups of beans), I've decided to just make another batch, so we can make more of the burgers and freeze them, and any of the leftover beans we don't use, I can freeze. Also, the beans that are leftover from that first batch would be perfect for the rice Buddha bowl. I totally forgot it called for some black beans too.
The 7-ingredient black bean taco recipe made a TON of taco filling and it's SO GOOD (you can click on the recipe above to see her make it). I didn't think to get a photo of ours (sadly), but ours looked exactly like Stacey's in her video. Hubby said it's serious keeper and he wants it again. We didn't use taco shells, we used a bag of tortilla chips and made individual taco bowls instead. All three of us made huge ones, and Hubby took another one for work the next day, and there was still enough to freeze for probably a good size lunch or add to breakfast burritos if we do them next time. We actually used a fajita seasoning packet instead of taco seasoning because we had one in the pantry from when the kids were here this summer and they left random groceries they'd bought in my pantry. We added shredded iceberg lettuce and some shredded cheese and sour cream. Man, I'm craving them again, just thinking about it lol!
I was not a fan of how the red pasta turned out. I think it's because I got a tomato and basil sauce. it was just way too tomato-y. It was just basically shell pasta cooked and mixed with spaghetti sauce and lots of Italian seasonings and added a pack of cream cheese. I totally should have added the box of frozen spinach I have in the freezer. I had not though of that. I might try it again and do that, but I'll pick a different spaghetti sauce for sure.
Hubby LOVED the Thai peanut sweet potatoes and rice. I wasn't a fan of the texture, but that was due to the rice. I don't like non-instant brown rice. It's just a fact. We used that because we had a big bag of it, and I was determined to use up stuff and not buy anything. Then I found a box of instant brown rice in the back of the pantry. I am totally cleaning that pantry out before the next shopping trip! The recipe is actually messed up, but we didn't realize it til we were deep into cooking it. The ingredients call for carrots, but the instructions mention red bell peppers. We read it and re-read it, and determined it was supposed to be one or the other, but no idea which. After eating it, we decided it should be carrots. They gave it a nice crunch, and the red bell peppers would not add to it. I didn't add peanuts to it this time, but totally will next time, and I may actually add red pepper flakes. It felt like it needed some heat, but I can't usually have anything spicy due to IBS. But if I'm gonna be home all night, good tasting food is nice to have, regardless of the repercussions.
So, we definitely have to do the Thai peanut sweet potatoes and black bean taco salad bowls again. I'm kind of craving bbq meatballs, so I am going to scour the sales papers and see if I get lucky and some store has the bags of them on BOGO. I can make a big crockpot full of those and add a few to Buddha bowls or just have them with potato wedges and a salad.
We're getting a free dinner tomorrow at the graduation ceremony, so one of the ones from this week can go on next week's list, although to be honest, we couldn't really do omelettes again now anyway because they used up all but 2 of the eggs and all the green peppers. I guess I didn't tell them we were going to do omelettes twice. But that's fine. It worked out. Also, with the next pay period, we won't have to cook two of the nights at least because we'll have Corina making Christmas dinner, and then at the wedding we'll be eating as well. I guess we'll be bringing a lot of leftovers home too. Faelyn and Austin do not have their own home, so they'll be coming back here.
This is how amazing of people Faelyn and her fiance, Austin are... they are paying for hotel rooms for Faelyn's best friends (who are twin sisters) from college, and their mom, to come down for the wedding and stay because no one has room in their house for guests unfortunately - and so Faelyn and Austin will just come back to our house and spend their wedding night here, instead of getting a hotel in like Gatlinburg or something like most folks do. I wish we had the means to get them a mini honeymoon. But they'll want to spend time with her friends who are in town anyway. They don't go to the same college anymore, so don't get to see each other often. Besides, Faelyn and Austin have been together since she was 13 years old, and she'll be 21 in February! They're basically married already. I've called him my son-in-law for years.
Let's see, what else is going on. OH! I did our Christmas shopping all online. Since we got the HSA reimbursement, we decided to go ahead and shop online and use whatever promo codes we could as well as the Amazon gift cards I had etc. I'm glad we were able to shop now, because with our Christmas party on the 21st, we need to get stuff shipped and here and wrapped in time! So, I had asked all the kids in our group chat what things they really liked, what were they interested in and would actually like to open on Christmas. Most of it was geeky stuff of course, which made shopping really fun. I found some awesome things, and got such great deals! One of them had asked for two makeup things (like asked a lot), so on a whim, I checked to see if I had any Ulta emails with promo codes, and I did. So I went to the site to see if I could at least get a travel size something, but it turns out, I had a $33 credit because of my Platinum rewards! Yeah I spent a LOT at Ulta last Christmas so I had Platinum status sheesh! So, I was able to get a travel size of one and a full size of the other, and got them both for only $5 out of pocket! I did make sure the travel size was not a rip off. I checked prices and fluid ounces to make sure it was a good deal, and the travel size only cost a quarter more per ounce, and it was a good size container. So I am happy with that purchase, and it freed up a little more money in the Christmas budget. At Hot Topic, it turns out I had a $5 reward as well, so that helped a lot too. Got one person's gift there. Got several more on Amazon and used the $25 in gift cards we'd racked up on rewards sites. Then the last things were at Red Bubble. They have amazing stickers, and stuff in fandoms you can't really find anywhere else, because it's independent artists and fan art mostly. I ended up having to take $3.44 cents from the Miscellaneous budget (the money we had left from November), but I was able to get all the ones I wanted. By the way, if you get stickers on Red Bubble, if you get 4, they're all 25% off, and if you buy ten, they're all 50% off. Excellent deal. They're usually good size, and if you saw these stickers at like Hot Topic you'd easily pay 3-5 times that much.
So, I am all done Christmas shopping. One gift per person, limited number of people I'm buying for, and I'm happy. None of the normal "Did I buy more things for this kid than this one" type thing. I can just relax and wait for stuff to come in and wrap it.
Speaking of which, we put up our tree! We got a new one with the money we got from the loan renewals before we made the December budget. It's only a 4 ft tree, but it was only $20. It's flocked and so pretty, and pre-lit. We put it on the round coffee table in front of the game shelves, and it's perfect.
Before we got much of a start on decorating it, Merlin decided it was his new playhouse. So we sat and played with him for a while. He killed that candy cane fair and square lol!
Ren commented that it seemed weird to be just the two of us decorating the tree.
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| We know the angel is way too big for the tree and looks weird. We're going to get a small tree topper at Dollar Tree later |
And she's right. It has been a long standing tradition on our house that on Black Friday, we'd go out early and do some shopping together, then people would go spend time with other families or whoever, while my son and I would go pick out a tree at Lowes and tie it to the top of the vehicle (of course I usually had either an Explorer or Suburban) and bring it home and get it set up and get the decorations out, then all the kids would come back to the house. We'd either play White Christmas the movie on Netflix or just do a Yule Log video with Christmas music and we'd all decorate the tree together. It got really crowded and so much fun..
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| This was taken on my old phone right before it died for good, in 2016. I have no idea why it made the tree purple lol |
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| This was 2015, and taken by someone with a much better phone than I had! BIG tree that year! |
But this year it was just Ren and me, but we did turn on a Christmas music channel and the pets got involved. And finally we had a decorated tree...
You know, it looks better without the angel. I think I'll leave it without a topper until we get one that fits the tree.
We did get to add a new one for ourselves this year. Back in June before everything happened, when we were in the Great Smokey Mountains, we stopped at one of the visitor centers near Cherokee and we bought a Christmas ornament that's carved wood with bears or elk on it (I forget right now which it was) and it has the year 2018 on it.
I'm happy with it, and all the kids said it was cute and perfect when I sent them pics in the group chat. It's going to be a very good Christmas. Just 2 months ago, I would have never believed I would say that and actually mean it and feel such peace about it. But I do.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I'll try to post again sometime this weekend, but it might not be until Monday morning after work again.
Thanks for reading!
Patty
There are times when "just enough" is more relaxing and peaceful than stressful overabundance that is more time consuming and costly. I think it's wonderful that you've turned your perspective around. More people should appreciate what they have instead of stressing over what they don't have. You have a pretty (paid for) home, a husband who loves you, wonderful, successful children (who are going to cook for you!), and an adorable tree!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Crystal! Definitely, changing my attitude about things has helped so much! Money has been such a huge stressor in our lives for so long. We just gave it way too much power over us. I am so thankful for what we have, especially each other and family.
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