4 Sweet Sisters

I've used coupons here and there ever since we've had children. As I mentioned before we do most of our shopping through co-ops and warehouse stores, but there are some things I just can't get there or I have to buy to much of said item. That's were coupons come into play. With coupons, sale prices and BOGOs sometimes its a better deal at my neighborhood grocery store. Last week I had the privilege of attending a free True Couponing seminar. It was wonderful timing with our buying club taking a break for the whole summer! Basically I learned that I need to be getting more papers so that I have more coupons to work with. I don't have the time or inclination to go dumpster hunting for extra coupons, so having extra papers delivered to my door step at 50 cents a piece is a much better option for me. I also learned a super easy way to store these piles of paper. I had all the needed supplies to make my storage unit an immediate success ! That's one of the things ...

Does anyone remember my lovely craft room that Superman created for my birthday a couple of years ago? Click here , if you need a reminder. Well today my lovely room that has been continually abused and misused is changing. It's becoming the School Room. Superman still isn't sure about all of this...the house is torn apart and quite frankly I'm a bit nervous myself. I'll post the finish projects (there are 3 intertwind) next week or so. My goal is to have the two and 1/2 basics done by Saturday! See you Soon. Julie

I've deciced to link up with the Shabby Nest for this post. Read here and fly over and enjoy all the frugality there ! I started thinking about this post months ago and have just not gotten around to it. Back in winter sometime our 2nd microwave went on the fritz (we've had 2 in 7 years-different models). Maybe it was due to poor quality or maybe it was because of all the rice bag wraps we were heating up before bed. I tend to think it was the first though. Our first thought when this happened was google it up and check the best deal on a microwaves. We did and found one for about $160 new from one of the box store. We would have to take the money out of our emergency fund and we were okay with that. I mean not having a microwave is an emergency in the biggest way! Right? Uh, no. I'll admit for about 5 minutes or so it was (ya know when we were googling). But then I decided to try and live without a micro. for a week and see how we did. The week turned into two and I star...

I was reading over at Heavenly Homemakers yesterday about using coconut flour in place of whole wheat. Hmmm . I am wheat grinder from way back and the thought of trying new lower carb flour substitutes wasn't very appealing to me until about a year ago. (I mean why fix what isn't broken right?) Then some close friends of ours had some of there children diagnosed with wheat gluten intolerance and now I've been thinking of ways to make healthy treats for them. I'm a baker at heart. Anyway, Laura at HH was discussing how much she loves Coconut Flour. (She's a wheat grinder also) So I was wandering if I could take my unsweetened coconut shreds and grind them into flour? I googled it and found some amazingly looonnng process. Not for me! So I went for it ( because I really didn't want to go and clean the school room out). Here's what I did: -I place about 1 cup of shreds into my blender and blended and blended. *I had thought about my wheat grinder because...

Ugh! Can I just say it gain? Uuuugghhhh . This what our garden looked like last fall. If you look at the top of the picture you can see the girlies swing set. The "ladies" coop used to be there. We moved it to the back of our garden now that we have more room. (We bought a section that didn't come with our original lot.) To be fair the area above is so barren because that is where the swimming pool sits. It's back up now but the "ladies" did almost the same thing to the rest of the garden over the winter and spring. Any ideas on what we should do with this site in the fall? I had planned a fire ring, but I really don't think it will be used much. Still thinking this idea through. We purchased this fence almost 2 years ago when one of the do-it-yourself stores had them on sale. The ladies love going onto our neighbors property but they also liked to wander up the next street. We had a long term plan for this fence. We knew eventually our neighbors-to-...

Today over at Smockity Frocks she's asked the question of what mistakes we've learned from in our gardens this year. After you're finished here jump over there and read all the link ups! ( I wish I knew how to put her cute garden picture up.) The biggest lesson I've learned is that our tomatoes need acid! See look at how gorgeous and green these plants are but there are no blossoms or fruit. I think the problem is this from all the research I've done and the soil testing. I mean we did add about 2500 lbs of composted horse manure last fall. We've large tomato plants and out of the 10 plants we have gotten 2 tomatoes. Ugh! Very frustrating..... We plan on adding lime in the next month or so before fall planting in September. Which is like spring planting for those of you who live up north. Are seasons are fall/winter and winter/spring. The other thing I noticed today were the blue jays landing in the tomato bushes. I need to find out if they may be eating the ...

I really enjoy how the English use the English language. My favorite right now is the use of the word garden. It sounds so much prettier than backyard, although I do like a good back yard b-b- q ! If any of you have chickens and live in the city or suburbs you know that they pretty much take up all of your garden space. They love to hunt frogs and lizards , scratch for bugs, worms and dig holes. Oh no one told you of the holes they dig? That's so they can lounge in a refreshing dirt bath. Yah . Know one prepared me for that part. Consider yourself warned if thinking cute fuzzy chicks. In all seriousness we love our girls (the hens and the girlies that live in the house). I just have gotten soooo tired of walking out onto the back deck or anywhere else in the garden and stepping in slimmy poo. So this will be the first installment of taking the garden back. Superman (remember the guy and his shirt from yesterday?) built and put this screened room up for me two Mother's Day...

First off I rarely say much about this handsome man. He is an extrovert living in an introvert's body. If that makes any sense. He is the one who keeps me sane, picks me up when I'm down and breaks things into bite size pieces when I all I can see is the huge snowball ready to plough me over! Ah, snow... sounds nice about now. Anyway this man is the perfect for me. (He can be pretty romantic too.) But this post is not about him. It's about one of his favorite shirts. Please Read Here's a close up in case you missed it. Our two oldest girlies bought this for him on our Tennessee trip two years ago. He brings it out when he feels like making a statement. Sometimes at youth group meetings, the beach, trips to Costco and most recently to the Florida Homeschool Convention. Anywhere there may be many young men around and our daughters are about. ( Yep, he loves them a lot :) Here's a close up Well everywhere he went at the convention he got stares, people asking hi...

It's time to get crafting! I find that my younger girlies really like to craft almost anything. My older girlies do it with more purpose. They need to be motivated. Hopefully they'll have clutter free homes. We decided that every Friday would be Craft Day here at our home. Opening the house to friends and practicing a bit of hospitality. This is a very laid back event. Other than the fancy punch bowl and dessert. What we've made so far: rosettes, rings, headbands and pin cushions. Here's a few pictures of our pin cushions. Very simple project: Scraps of fabric, elastic, pillow stuffing, needle and thread. Cut 2 rounds of fabric. One the size of a bowl and the other the size of a drinking glass. Stitch around each circle on the outer 1/4 inch edge. Make sure you're smiling it makes it more fun! Stuff larger circle with pillow fluff and pull ends of thread together tying it off. At this point I sewed more stitches to make sure it would stay. It doesn't have to ...

Whew! What a day. I've haven't been doing much baking lately. I've just needed a break. I've made the occasional batch of cookies and granola bars but nothing like today. Yup, my family has been eating bread from the bakery store. I've been able to get the $4.50 loaves of good bread for a dollar per loaf. So I took a much needed break. But alas the prices are going up and my Husband has really needed some home baking. His favorite, whole wheat chocolate chip cookies. He really likes the with dark chocolate. I used to make up 14 dozen raw cookie dough balls and freeze them, but I found that we(I) like to eat frozen raw cookie dough. hmmm A small batch of whole wheat banana chocolate chip muffins. I want to get some millet ones done and coconut. Bread rising in the background and breakfast biscuits. Here's a list of everything I accomplished: 7 dozen chocolate chip cookies 1 1/2 dozen banana chip muffins 6 loaves of whole wheat bread ( about a 50 cents per l...

Here's my curriculum plan for this up coming school. My goal is to get everyone organized and planned in the next 2 weeks so that I can have 6 weeks to play and have fun. We will be starting back to school on August 1st. Yippee! 12th garde: Alpha Omega Consumer Math- 1 credit Notgrass Economics - .5 credit Notgrass American Gov't - .5 credit Movies as Literature - 1 credit Body by Design, The Reproductive System & Children's Apologia Anatomy -she is surveying this course and teaching it to her younger sisters. she doesn't need the credit. Rosetta Stone French year 2 - 1 credit 8th grade: Tapestry of Grace year 3 (literature, Bible and history) Alpha Omega Consumer Science - 1 credit Artistic Pursuits - 1 credit Rod and Staff English Rod and Staff Reading Apologia Physical Science - 1 credit Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra Rosetta Stone French or Sign Language (class) - 1 credit 5th grade: Tapestry of Grace year 3 Rod and Staff English Rod and Staff Reading Rod and St...