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These are the notable things I fell upon this week.
Instructables has an awesome tutorial for transferring your photographs to fabric. I see so many possibilities with this one!
How cute are these Halloween jeans? Check out this etsy shop to see the whole outfit. Precious.
Check out this lampshade topper from Oriental Trading Company. I bought some spidery Halloween fabric when a local fabric store was going out of business. I loved the fabric, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Now I do!
Look at these egg crate pumpkins Mommy Guru made! I am definitely going to be making these with T-Rex in October! What a perfect idea! Go here to see her detailed instructions with great pictures. *One of which I shamelessly stole and cropped here to entice you to go see!*
 Coming Home
It’s such a busy of year for both my husband and me at work. After a full day of work, dinner, and the kids, we don’t have much time for change. We are stuck in an exhausting pattern.
The current state of our fixer-upper home is the major delay in opening a daycare in our home. The top three projects that come first are 1) tearing down our attached garage, 2) turning the bathroom toward the would-be “daycare center”, 3) replacing our pocket doors with real doors. The list goes on, but that’s the start point. Oy.
Budget
I feel very satisfied with the budget this month. We’ve had numerous unexpected expenses: new tires, 2 pet illnesses; our yearly phone bill is due this month, but I still feel ahead of the game.
I’m going to have to revisit my couponing strategy. I’ve always been a “clipper” instead of the type who keeps the whole insert filed somewhere. This has allowed me to really take advantage of clearance and unadvertised savings. If I see something at an unbelievable price, I can quickly scan my clipped coupons for a matchup. This is impossible to do “on-the-go” unless my coupons are already clipped and organized. I find myself much too busy these days to 1) stay on top of clipping and organizing and 2) to peruse for unadvertised deals. As a result I’m now missing out on regular coupon savings for sake of time and energy. I need to meet myself in the middle somewhere. I’m going to start clipping those coupons (mostly baby related!) I know I will need and have no excuse for not using and leave the rest filed for advertised deals and the regular grocery list.
Related Posts:
The Answer! End of August
In Pursuit of the Answer: Beginning of August
Deciding Whether to Stay at Home
Excerpts from Associated Press and Reuters:
Children under 10 years old “…aren’t having nearly as robust an immune reaction to the swine flu vaccine, and it appears they’ll need two shots 21 days apart, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
That’s not a surprise, since the very young often need two doses of vaccine against regular winter flu the very first time they’re immunized against that version of influenza, too…”
“With seasonal flu vaccine, children under 9 who are getting a flu vaccine for the first time need two doses … so … young children who have never had a flu vaccine before will need four doses this year — two seasonal flu doses and two swine flu doses.”
“This H1N1 strain sickens younger people more frequently than the over-65 population who are seasonal flu’s main victims. So children are among the priority groups who are supposed to be first in line once swine flu vaccine starts arriving next month, and many schools around the country are expected to offer mass vaccinations.”
The CDC says you can get one dose of the seasonal flu shot in one arm and one dose of the H1N1 flu shot in the other arm on the same day.
 One year from now, the shuttle Discovery will blast off on the last planned space shuttle mission. Current chief astronaut Steve Lindsey has been selected as part of the crew. When Lindsey begins his training next month, Peggy Whitson will step up to become the first female chief astronaut.
From Space.com:
“NASA on Friday revealed the six people who will blast off on what is currently the last scheduled space shuttle mission. The list includes the agency’s top astronaut and two others that are in orbit today.”
“Lindsey and his crew will begin training for their mission next month, when he will hand over his chief astronaut position to veteran spaceflyer Peggy Whitson. Whitson, who became the first female commander of the space station in 2007, will be the first woman to hold NASA’s top astronaut job.”
Awesome.
Here is what’s on the table at our house this week:
Sunday
Crockpot Night: One Working Mom’s Soup
Monday
Leftover Night: One Working Mom’s Soup
Tuesday
Breakfast for Dinner Night: Denver Omelet Casserole
Wednesday
Stove/Oven Night: Mexican Casserole
Thursday
Sandwich Night: Leftover Mexican Casserole
Friday
Pizza Night/Dough Night: Pigs in a Blanket
Saturday
Grill Night: Pork Chops
Related Posts:
How I create my meal plans
Browse my previous Menu Plan Monday posts
Browse more menu plans at I’m an Organizing Junkie.
This is one of my favorite meals. It’s so easy and so versatile!
Put 2 cups of liquid (either water or stock) in your crockpot.
Next add either a bag of frozen stew vegetables that has onions, carrots, potatoes, and celery OR add a pack of onion soup and a can of mixed vegetables.
Next add a lb of meat. You can use stew meat or cut up sausage (quickest), cooked ground beef (cheap), or a combination. (You can also leave out the meat if you just want a hearty vegetable soup.)
Next add 4 cans of whatever vegetable you want. I usually put 2 cans of black eyed peas, 1 can of field peas, and 1 can of corn. I always drain the veggies with clear liquid (like the corn and mixed veggies), but I add the dark liquid (like the black eye peas and the field peas).
Cook on low all day.
* I keep a plastic container in the freezer, and I toss in all of our leftover veggies. When it comes time to make soup, I can often use what I have on hand for the veggies! This soup is also a great way to use up your leftover meat.
I’ve been “radio silent” so to speak because I . have . been . busy!
To report on the month of August, things didn’t go as well as I had planned or expected. I’m having a hard time being as strict as I want to be on the budget. It’s something I’m going to have to keep working on.
I do have some exciting news, though. I’ve decided I want to start a daycare in my home! I’m so excited, you have no idea. It makes so much sense for me and feels very right. It’s not something that can happen right away. We still have a few small financial goals to meet and a LOT of work to do on the house, but my husband is 100% behind the idea and working right along with me to make it happen.
We originally purchased our house as a fixer-upper. It was built in the 40s and needed not only a lot of changes, but a lot of repairs. We’ve never wanted to borrow money for the improvements, and we’ve done most of the work ourselves so it’s been an extremely slow process for us. Now that I want to watch kids in our home, we are kicking it in to high gear and we have a lot of work ahead of us.
I plan to share our progress each week. Hopefully I will have lots to report!
Related Posts:
In Pursuit of the Answer: Beginning of August
Deciding Whether to Stay at Home
This past week I stumbled across an awesome idea for feeding kids: fill up a muffin tin with various foods that all relate to a common theme. There are so many reasons I love this idea, but most importantly my son can see how much I really care about his meals. As moms we spend so much time planning and worrying about their nutrition, but our kids don’t “see” it. What a wonderful way to make him feel special and get him excited to try a variety of different foods.
I found this idea at “Her Cup Overfloweth“. Every week Michelle hosts Muffin Tin Monday. Most weeks have a theme, and every third week is a “no theme” week where you come up with your own. This week was the no theme week, so I chose to do the ocean. I’m surprised at how hard it is to design these muffin tins!
(You will have to excuse my craptastic muffin tin. He’s been serving us well for many years!)
On the bottom row we have pretzel and cheddar goldfish crackers for the fish. I know… super creative. And strawberry oatmeal for sand with crustaceans. Above the “sand” is blueberry yogurt for water or sky. I realized as I was putting it in the tin that blueberry yogurt is actually purple… Oh well, a purple sky at the beach is ultra cool, right? Also on the top row is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich dolphin.
It was hit for all of us! Thanks, Michelle, for hosting this!
Here is what’s on the table at our house this week:
Sunday
Crockpot Night: Italian Beef Roast
Monday
Leftover Night: Italian Beef Sandwiches
Tuesday
Breakfast for Dinner Night: Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Biscuits; Orange Sweet Rolls
Wednesday
Stove/Oven Night: Chicken Fajitas
Thursday
Sandwich Night: Crockpot Barbeque Sausage Links
Friday
Pizza Night: (Either leftover links or) Springing for Little Caesars
Related Posts:
How I create my meal plans
Browse my previous Menu Plan Monday posts
Browse more menu plans at I’m an Organizing Junkie.
 My favorite find this week is a gorgeous Halloween banner over at NannyGoat. I really need to pull out my scrapbook box and get started on this gem!
You see more about how to create this banner by reading NannyGoat’s Banner Tutorial.
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