Act Your Wage

It has been quite a while since I last blogged. To catch up - the big thing that David & I have been doing since the middle of September is taking Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. It has made such an incredible impact of us. WOW! It has been absolutely amazing.

Dave teaches 7 baby steps to financial freedom.
Here are the first 3 I'll include the last 4 at a later date.

1. Establish a $1000 emergency fund.
2. Debt snow ball - get really serious about paying off all debt a fast as you can! (except your house that comes later)
3. Save 3-6 months worth of your income.

There will be great rejoicing when we get these first 3 steps completed.

We are now in month #2 of working our budget. It really has been quite easy.

Mini Victories along the way!
(Actually these were huge for us and have energized us to keep at it.)

1. Within the first week we were able to complete step one due to a great job that David got.
2. Within the first month we paid off two small credit cards.
3. First months budget came in UNDER budget. $60.00 - we are putting it towards a new camera.

This may sound strange but simply having a plan and being disciplined enough to stick with it has been fun. We may be living like no one else for right now, but later we will be able to live like no one else!

Practical application:
Menu planning for the week on November 2-8

Monday: Leftovers - we have a lot of stuff from last week and the weekend that needs to be cleaned up!
Tuesday: Chicken Parmesan. w/ snow peas
Wednesday: Cheese & veggie Quesadillas
Thursday: Pork medallions sauted onions w/ brown rice and salad
Friday: Tuna Melts
Saturday: Chili and hotdogs
Sunday: Stuffed Baked potatoes w/ broccoli

Grocery list for this week is simple because we have most of this in the cupboard or freezer.

5lb bag of coffee beans - IBIS Roasting Co. (this is a once a month purchase) $24.95
Some things are non negotiables!
1 doz eggs $1.00
2 quart of 1/2 & 1/2 $2.72
1 gallon of milk $1.89
brown rice $1.99
(seriously this is all I need to buy this week. How cool is that?)
Total $32.55

That leave us with $22.45 that we could still use for gorceries this week, but I don't think we need to, so into savings it goes!

GOD IS GOOD! I want to make sure that He gets all the credit for this victory in our lives. We will no longer be slaves to the lender!

Where do You Live?

You have heard the saying, "you are what you eat?" I was wondering about starting a new saying, "are you like where you live?" A friend of mine post a picture of himself standing infront of a church sign "HALFWAY BAPTIST CHURCH" no joke, Halfway is an actual town in Southwest, MO. Shortly thereafter came a down pour of posts about unusual names for towns. Tightwad, Normal, Fairplay, Peculiar, yes these are all real names of real towns/cities. Of course you can imagine the jokes. Then I remembered I live in Paradise. I have often said, Since I'm going to be spending eternity in Paradise I desided to go ahead and move there now while here on earth.

Love, Honor & Cherish

I was listening to Dr. Laura on the radio the other day and she was talking to a woman whos husband had an affair. Dr. Laura pointed out that yes the husband had broken the wedding vows but the woman for several year had also broken the wedding vow by not Love, Honoring or Cherishing her husband.

I do not for one fraction of a second fear David having an affair. But it made me stop and think. Yes, I Love and Cherish him with all my heart. But how do I honor him? I asked him if I honored him and how? He mentioned obedience..... Whoa let me stop you before you get upset.....I knew what he meant, he does not demand my obedience of him. David however is the head of our home and leads us with love, "as Christ loves the Church." We discussed this for a while but I still didn't feel I had a good grasp on how to honor my husband even though he assured me that I do. This morning I read a blog where a woman is taking a 30 day challenge to honor her husband each and every day. The one thing I got from the portion that I read was doing something special for him each day. My first thought was yay! I do this ...easy, I'm off the hook! But, I think God had me read on for a reason, I wasn't off the hook. This woman was talking about how she knew her husband loved her even if she had put on some weight but she didn't like herself. (Yikes, thats me.) God really opened my eyes that to honor also involves sacrifice. I don't want to get up early to go exercise. Hmmm does The Bible say that "Obedience is better than sacrifice." Yes, but for me to honor David I'm going to need to sacrifice some of my time, and by doing so I'm being obedient to God and David by taking care of my body. I will do it! I want to be a wife that David is proud of at all times, I want to honor him.

Menu Planning & New Recipes

I Love Cooking! If you know me at all you probably know this. I love trying new recipes and experimenting with old favorites. I use to jokingly say that cooking was my therapy. There is probably a lot of truth in that statement. Cooking help me to feel creative and productive. I relax and process the days experiences while cooking. I have been cooking since I was around 8 yrs old (that is cooking solo) at 2yrs of age my mother was very sick, so Dad would sit me on the edge of the counter and we'd fix dinner together.

Last month I was reading about ways to save money and cut expenses. One suggestion was grocery shop once a month, WHAT! okay they say you can start out by shopping just once a week until your ready to take that bigger step. That is somewhat better. I have always been one to make short quick trips 3-4 times a week. This book suggested planning monthly or weekly menus and shopping list from those menus. I was concerned that this would greatly stifle my creative juices. I did not want to be stuck in a rut, bored and end up saving money but disliking cooking.

Suprise I'm really enjoying it. I think I spend less time in the kitchen which is a good think this time of year with yard and garden work that needs to be done. I'm trying all of those recipes that I thought sounded good but never go around to trying. I think David is enjoying this aswell. He often ask, "Oh, are we having _______ tonight!?"

Here are some of my menus that I have whipped up over the last few weeks.

BBQ Pork Sandwiches w/ Green beans
Swiss Steak, Mashed potatoes & Chili cheese corn
Spagehetti & Salad
Homemade Pizza
Baked Potatoes w/ Broccoli & Cheese
Baked Salmon w/ Asparagus
Steak & onions w/ potatoes & Salad
Steak (leftover & sliced) Quesidillas
Taco Salad
Chicken Dijon W/ sugar snap peas
Roast w/ homemade egg noodles & Green beans
Tuna burgers
Korean BBQ brown rice & Stir fry veggies
Sausage, Kale & Cheddar bread pudding
Ham & Beans
Homemade Mac & Cheese

Every Wednesday night is our Mustgo night - everything in the fridge must go. Also know as leftover night. I have never figured out how to cook small amounts. I grew up in a family of 5 but we almost always had extended family or friends joining us. So I cook as thought there are at least 4 of us instead of just the two. This gives David plenty of leftovers for his second breakfast, 11:00'es, lunch, 1:00'es & 2:00'es, right before bed fridge raids. How does he eat all the time and not gain an ounce??? That is the subject for another blog!

Looking forward to more fun and creative meals in the future. But for now I must go for a hike or bike ride to burn off some of these calories.

More than I could ever hope for

Some friends (that live further south - a bit warmer climate) gave us a couple bags of walnuts. I eagerly started cracking the english walnuts and baking bread. Last week I annouced that I wanted to plant English walnut trees on our little farm. We started calling nurseries and researching on line. I was starting to get a bit discouraged that we might not get walnut trees to grow here in a colder climate and if we could, could we afford them at $85 a tree and you need two for pollination.

Saturday David & I went garage saling. As we walked up to one house He said, Look! this is an English walnut tree. It was in this ladies front yard and it was big and beautiful, very full canopy/ lacy cover. I jokingly said wonder how much they want for it.

We found a couple little item we wanted to purchase from the sale, as David was paying he jokingly asked the lady, "My wife wants to know how much you want for your English Walnut tree." She didn't bat an eye and said, "I have several young tree would you like some."

We dug up 6 young starts for FREE!!!!! plus they are climatized to this area. Thats over a $500 dollar value and she has another larger tree she said we could come get in the fall or spring when its dormate, and that we could come this fall an collect nuts from her tree. WOW!!! Oh and we got a 5 ft maple and some little hens and chicks (the plant)

God is so good! He knows our desires and blesses us above and beyond all we could ever hope for.

MORE BLESSINGS: Update! I just found out that the irrigation pipes that we bought come withthe risers and rain birds attached. We thought we were only getting pipe at $50 apiece vs the store pipe at $100 apiece. We thought we would have to purchase the risers and rainbirds seperately. WOW Bargain blessings!!!!

Lawn & Garden update

Advance Warning! This blog probably won't have cute or funny little lines. I simply wanted to have a written record of what we have planted in our garden so far. Oh by the way, we have been adopted by the local LDS ward gardeners. Scott & Floyd have brought us 8 bags of fertilizer and last night they brought us 8 tomato plants.

Let me back up, after days and day of tilling ( and he still has more to do) David has reduced the size of our garden from the original 6600 sq ft. down to a mear 5000 sq ft.

We needed to buy irrigation pipes in order to water everything. We priced the value opener, 3 40 ft. links of pipe with risers and rain birds and the end cap and it was going to cost around $450. David found a guy on craigslist selling a set of 4 40 ft. pipes for $50 apiece.We will still have to buy the valve opener, risers, rainbirds and the end cap. We have a friend with a trailer that will pick them up for us. The cost has been reduce to around $370, pluse we have an extra 40 ft of pile that we can either use or resell. I love a bargain!!!

Ok back to the actual garden, I keep getting distracted. We currently have planted 46 tomatoes, 39 peppers, 4 tomatillas, 4 egg plants Along with the list of things in my last blog "Planting in the Rain". I just realized that I haven't counted everything else. I'll have to update this later. We also planted a large patch of spinach, a lettuce mix, arugala, swiss chard, and radishes.

The irrigation water is on and Farmer Dale came back last night and hooked up our irrigation for the front yard! YAY!!!! He should be bringing David's new friends #769, #324, #468 & #503 soon. (The Cows)

Happy Gardening !!!

Planting in the Rain

Planting in the Rain, Just planting in the rain. What a glorious feeling.....to have mud caked to my shoes.

It is a beautiful Spring here in Northern Utah. Sure people are complaining about the rain but come on folks remember where you live, it won't be long until it is so dry that we'll be begging for rain.

I've found over the last several years of gardening that you really can't wait til it stops rain to put your garden in, by then it is to late. We have been running out for 15-30 minutes a day digging in the mud, planting in the rain & between rains. People are surprised when I say we have peas about an inch up out of the ground. Our onions and garlic growing happily. Cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, bokchoy and red & russet potatoes planted. Indoors we have tomatoes , zucchini, squash, a wide variety of beans, and peppers waiting a few more days before they can go out. (We will still get at least one more freeze &/or snow) Again, people we live in Northern Utah, are have you forgotten!

My dear, sweet, ambitious husband has tilled at least a 1/3 of an acre for our garden. We have had so much fun planting in the rain & between rains. I have already started enlisting help from church friends to come help weed and pick produce, I fear that we will have far more that we can possible handle, even with us canning, dehydrating and freezing.

I am going to try and keep track of what and how much we have planted.
8 fruit trees: 2 pears, 1 apricot, 1 apple, 2 cherries, 2 peaches.
35 raspberries
18 blackberries
40 strawberries
Peas
100+ onions
a whole bunch of garlic
8 cabbage
brussel sprouts (who knows?)
20+?? broccoli
cauliflower ????? you just lose count somewhere after . . . to many!
Bok choy (pick a number any number???)
22 red potatoes
22 russet potatoes

Things that still need to go in the MUD.
I still have a half million Yukon gold potatoes to plant
16 pepper plants
17 tomatoes
3 zucchini - one is all any family could possible need (and then darn things never die)
3 yellow squash
A wide variety of beans, green, purple, romano, black beans lima beans, wax beans . . . . the list goes on, and on, and on.

We haven't even thought about watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and corn yet. . . .not to worry we have plenty of garden space.

Heaven help us, if half of our garden dies off we will still have to much.

If you can't find us this summer just look out back Throught the gate and across the bridge, we will be living in our garden for the summer. If you need fresh produce please come help yourself, I'm serious!