Day 55 and my Church Socks

Well, I finally replaced my church socks aka my "holey" socks last night at Wal-mart. It seemed like all of a sudden, every pair of socks I owned had a huge hole that left my big toe sticking out. LOL. Not only was it annoying, but quite a source of amusement to my little kids. One of them (a school-ager) looked at my sock one day and said "WHY do you have a hole in your sock?". I said that I didn't know, I just did. Then asked him if he had any socks with holes in them. He looked at me like I had a hole in my head and said "NO". Another child (coincidentally, the first child's younger brother) thought it was hilarious to mess with my toe during Quiet Time before he fell asleep. He would reach over and tickle it or mess with it, then giggle gleefully. So I guess now they will have to find new sources of amusement because all of the church socks are getting thrown out. LOL. I know socks aren't that expensive, but I had put off replacing them because I just hated to spend the money. It seems I wear out socks way faster than anyone else in my family. Do you have certain things that you put off replacing just because you hate spending the money, even if it's not that much?

Day 54 and Surprise Soup

One of my favorite cheap meals to make for my family is "surprise soup". I keep a container in the freezer that I add bits of leftover vegetables to (I drain the juice off first) until it is full. Then I take leftover roast or chicken, put it in the crockpot with water and/or tomato juice, the veggies, and the appropriate spices and you have "Surprise Soup". Sometimes I add a few more potatoes to it, depending on how many potatoes I had in my leftover bowl. Add homemade bread, biscuits, or cornbread and you've got a very satisfying meal.

Today we made the car payment (on time again!), which with our house payment that we made last week brings our total debt paid off in the last 8 weeks to: $1987.88! We also are going to be adding $75 to the emergency fund to bring it up to $275.

Day 53 and the Economy

So I keep reading how the economy is in danger and how the price of things are going to keep going up. I've even seen something that said that a loaf of bread could be up to $5 by the end of the year. Now these stories just really annoy me, I think because I worry that they'll become "self-fulfilling prophecies". Then there is the whole tax rebate thing, which as nice it will be makes me wonder where our government (who is already billions and trillions of dollars in the hole) is going to get this money. I used to stick my head in the sand and ignore these kinds of issues, but with my college classes and all the writing and research that I am doing for them, I can't really do that anymore.

Tom gets paid tomorrow and I'll have a debt paid off update. I'll be getting the gas bill paid on time for the first time in months. That should get all of the regular bills caught up to date. That is a great feeling!

Day 52 and Fighting off Sinus Stuff

I have been fighting off sinus stuff since before I got bronchitis a couple of weeks ago. It got better for a day or two last week, but it is back in full force this week. I just feel so run down! Anyway, one to other stuff.

A true confession: I keep forgetting to confess that Tom & I ate out (sort of) on Saturday night. The kids were gone and we went to the convenience store and got subs. They were very good, and we had a nice relaxing evening together at home.

I am currently wrapping up my first two classes for this semester at OU. I will finish them up this week and start two new ones on Monday. The new ones are another humanities class and a class called "study-in-depth prospectus" which helps me prepare for the final paper I have to write before I get my degree.

I've been working on my menu and grocery list for shopping this weekend when Tom gets paid. I went to Medford the other day and stocked up on some hamburger meat. They had lean hb meat for $1.79 a pound. Not a bad price for the lean hb meat, and the best price I've seen in a while, even for the not lean stuff. I am really proud of myself for how I've been doing with the menu planning and meals. I think maybe I've even lost some weight from not eating out so much. Of course, that could be wishful thinking. LOL.

Day 51 and my kids are going to break me

I swear my kids are going to break me! It is time to do something about this. Tasha had a band trip last Tuesday, had to send money with her to eat. Josh & Tasha went to Winter Jam (a Christian music concert) in Wichita on Saturday, had to send money with them to get in and to eat. Then Tasha had a vocal trip today, guess what? Had to send money with her to eat. In all fairness, the kids did some work around the house to earn some of the money to go to the concert on Saturday. But it was still money that came from my pocket. I've also been buying the gas for Josh's car since he does not have a job. I can't complain too much about that as he mainly only drives to church or over to a friend's house. But still, now that basketball is over, I wish to heck he would get a job! What I'm thinking about (and need to talk over with Tom) is deciding on an amount to give them each month. They have to budget it and save it for their various expenses. If they run out, they are responsible for figuring a way out of it. Serenity has always been pretty good with her money, and she always got babysitting jobs and then "real" jobs when she got old enough to drive. I kind of feel like I've not done as well with Josh & Tasha, maybe because their personalities are just different so they didn't take to the money handling as easily as Serenity did.

I wanted to share a favorite recipe of ours:

Crockpot Chicken & Stuffing:
4 chicken breasts (or whatever your family likes)
1 box instant stuffing
1 can cream of mushroom (or celery or chicken) soup
1/2 cup water

Layer ingredients in crockpot in order given. Cook until done. I usually cook it on high for an hour or so, then turn it down to low. I started this yesterday around 11:00 a.m. and it was done in plenty of time for supper.

Day 50 and Less than Inspired

I realize with being sick last week and being snowed under with homework that my blog postings have been less than inspired lately. I finally seem to be somewhere close to normal again so hopefully I can get back to writing better posts.

Yesterday at church, we had a guest speaker. He taught from Isaiah and the story where Isaiah gets his commission from God. Isaiah answers "Here I am, send me". Then this morning, I was reading a story in the Baptist Messenger about a man from El Salvador who felt God call him 3 different times for the ministry and the first two times, he ignored God. The third time, he was on a guerrilla hit list and finally obeyed God. Now he's in Oklahoma planting churches in Hispanic communities. That got me to thinking about how often I ignore God when I feel he's calling me to do something. For a long time, I ignored God's call to start going to church again. I regret that now so much, I lost so much time that I cannot ever get back. I'm sure there are other things where I've ignored or not heard God's call. Hopefully I can be a better listener now.

Day 49 and week 8 of FPU

Well, tonight we had our 8th FPU class. It was on Buying Big Big Bargains. Now Tom & I are not really good at the art of negotiation. It is definitely something that we need to work on. I think we need to take lessons from Tom's brother-in-law. LOL.

I am almost feeling back to normal, although the cough hasn't quite let go of me yet.