Happy Mother's Day!

Years ago, when I started a streak of walking every day, I did it because it seemed like if I missed a day, suddenly one day missed turned into 7 or 10 or more. It seems like it's the same with blogging. It's been 8 days since I've blogged. I'm going to get back to working on a streak.

Today was Mother's Day and it was a great day. It was an unusual Mother's Day because we had nowhere we could go thanks to the pandemic - but that was okay. I talked to my mom in the morning and had a great visit. The rest of the day was great too. 

I know that a lot of people have trouble with Mother's Day. They don't like the "pedestal-ing". They feel inadequate. I've never really felt upset by people talking about how perfect their mothers are or were. I guess I really don't believe that they were that perfect and maybe it's also because I'm okay with my imperfections. Perhaps it was because I never felt like my mother felt that way. She just seemed to enjoy the day. It wasn't until I became an adult and realized some of the women around me truly hated Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong. I had those awkward years where I felt like a fraud taking the the flower or the chocolate at church when I wasn't a mother. There is some kind of strange idea at church that all women are mothers. They're not and the push we have to seem to try to believe that is weird. All that being said, I love my children's and husband's efforts to make it a lovely day for me. Their efforts are appreciated. 

This morning I woke up to a gift bag of fun beauty products from Allen, which was quickly followed by a "Welcome to Mom Spa" from Jill. She brushed my hair, massaged my scalp, gave me a pedicure and a back massage while the boys made breakfast. What a breakfast it was! Scrambled eggs, granola, yogurt and apple turnovers. Yum! 

Allen made an amazing lunch of French Onion soup and garlic toast. Yum!! I spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. Peirce got me some new oven mitts. He's been disturbed lately by my ability to burn my inner arms as I take things out of the oven. Really, it isn't the oven mitts fault, but I appreciate his concern!

Tonight we had a French style dinner. I'm starting to really enjoy this Sunday tradition. Really, it isn't that different than a regular dinner, we just do it in courses. I like having a salad course first. We all eat many more vegetables as a result. And of course, my favorite is always the cheese course. I love cheese!

We had a "Zoom Devotional" tonight with Elder Evanson where he talked about motherhood. He tied it in with the nature of God and how mothers give us physical birth so that we can one day return to God and God gives us spiritual birth. We can't get back without both.

Summer Vacation Day 1/54 Happy Canada Day and Southern Alberta Tour

Yesterday Jill and Peirce took off for southern Alberta. Zoe is graduating. The Christensens are up from Utah. There is a reunion in Taber....and they planned to do it all! They were back in Calgary by 7 pm so they could continue Canada Day festivities with their Calgary friends. They have some serious party stamina, those two! 

 

 They went to the Raymond parade. After that, they took off to Lethbridge for an appearance at the Day reunion.

 

Allen and I went to the Hawryluk's this morning for their traditional Canada Day Pancake Breakfast. Allen thought he`d rest in the hammock. The Noblet`s thought differently about what he should be doing.









This afternoon we had the missionaries over for dinner and I made some amazing chicken called Skinny Bruschetta Chicken as well as roasted zucchini and carrots and potato wedges. For dessert we had passion-fruit and mango sherbert. Delish!

Today I read A Cage Went in Search of a Bird and The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Day 46 Family Day

Swim practice was scheduled for a leisurely 8 am today. Nice!

Jill got her special hoodie from Coach Dave for Westerns.

Nicest hoodie ever, I'd say!!

While Jill swam I read Bridge to Terabithia again. I am starting to really appreciate the value of re-reading books. I think this was my third time with this one.

After, Jill and I went fabric shopping. We should save about $900 by sewing her dress ourself. Wowza!!

"Don't make me carry it mom. It will wreck my taper."

We bought the fabric at Fabric Warehouse. What a place!!

Then we went and volunteered at the Flames game. Jill stays in the car and reads as long as possible.

 After, we celebrated Family Day with dinner out at Smash burger, Peirce's favourite place. I should have taken a picture of Peirce in his fancy new cardigan he bought today. He looks totally scholarly in it.

Finger lick-in' good!!

Day 30 Grandma's Pencil Cases!

My poor math class has not had pencil cases. The other cases got some that had been made out of duct tape. I thought they were very cool..but they ran out of duct tape before they got to our class. These ones, however, are going to rock!! I am really excited about them. Thank you Grandma!! These are going to last way longer. I intend to use them for years.

I often spend a little time at school on Saturdays. I seem to need that time to clean up the past week and really get ready for the next week. I did that today too. I love being there, actually!

Mr and Mrs Fix It

We have been going through quite a spell lately...stuff keeps breaking.

Allen is working on the toilet and the cupboard door.

Me: With the help of YouTube, I just fixed my garbage disposal. Myself. 

Was a little irritated as DH ran out the door to go HTing just after I asked him to look at it because it wasn't working.

Did.it.myself.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without

I have a new mission in life - that is to incur NO debt! (Well, okay...that's not the whole story....it's to pay off the debt we have and NOT accumulate anymore)


It's not easy. Things seems to happen all the time that seem to justify pulling out the credit card. Today was a great example. Our washing machine died this week. It was a slow death, and we knew it was coming. We would love to buy a beautiful new, perhaps front loading machine. But alas, I don't have an extra grand to do it right now. So I decided to get on kijiji and find a used one. I found one that was free! The couple giving it away bought a house that they're renovating. All the appliances are being replaced. She said that they were probably all 30 years old. So we took the washer and dryer. It's definitely a relic! It works like a charm though. I don't know why they don't build things now like they used to. Appliances used to last for generations. Not anymore. I'm thrilled with this old beauty. And when we're finished with it we'll probably be able to donate it to a museum! You can tell this came from a totally different era just by the dials on it. One of the buttons is for saving the suds, and one is for draining the suds. ...You can save suds?? Totally different thinking!

My other great deal was in our spare bedroom. One of the student's we had stay with us previously was a bit of a stinker. He broke the blind over the window so we needed new window treatments, and he also melted wax all over the cloth that covered the bedside table. I found a curtain rod on freecycle that worked perfectly, and then last night someone posted these curtains! They were way to big for the window so I cut them down and hemmed them. There was enough left over that I could make a new cover for the bedside table that matches!! YAHOO!

Looks like I really should iron them. I'll do that later!

I have enough fabric left that I could make some throw pillows and maybe a quilt with this fabric as the accent. Looks like I should find something for the walls too. It's pretty boring in that room.

All things in time I guess!

Total Savings:

Curtain Rod about $40 at Sears

IKEA Curtains about $60 (found the exact ones on their website!)

Top Loading Washing Machine, about $500

Throw Pillows: $15??

New duvet cover: $50 (that'd probably be a steal of a deal too)

Ladies and gentlemen, that is $665!! All for free. No smokin' credit card either. PHEW!

I think it's a miracle that we could even do this for no cost. We are so blessed!

Pickles!!

Pickles are easy!! I love doing them. Aren't they beautiful?!

I got the pickling cucumbers through our co-op. I ordered way too much dill so now I'm going to try drying some dill so that I can use it for other things.....should be interesting!

Crazy Bread!

I've heard a lot of mom's complain about how they hate to make lunches. I personally figure it's a small price to pay for the peace and quiet I enjoy all day while they're at school, and for the good times they have at school. Plus, I have to make lunch when they're home too - so I'm not quite sure how packing a lunch is such a burden. I've decided I'm going to start blogging about the benefits of home made. The cost savings, and the taste usually can't be beat!

I have found that my kids really appreciate lunches that vary from day to day. If I send a sandwich every day they start to not eat. I've worked hard to find a variety of things to send in lunches: wraps, pitas, muffins, cheese and crackers and pickles, etc.

One thing we really love is Crazy Bread from Little Ceaser's and today I was doing a little surfing and found some copy cat recipes and decided to give it a go. This is going to definitely be something for us to add to our lunch repetoire!! It's really easy, costs pennies, and tastes sooooo good! It tasted just like the real thing. I also put a little mozarella cheese on them, but I don't think I'll do that next time.

The recipe I found said to use Pillsbury Dough pizza dough - but I made my own. I mixed it, let it rise, laid it out in the pan, and let it rise again. Before baking it I cut it into Crazy Bread strips the size Little Ceaser's does it. After it was finished baking I used a brush to brush on melted butter with garlic salt, and then sprinkled grated parmesan cheese on it. Seriously! You have to try this!

The restaurant by us charges $3.14 for 8 breadsticks. I actually made 24 breadsticks with this - so to buy that would have cost $9.42.

Ingredients for pizza dough:

• 3/4 cup water
• less than 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups flour

Melt and mix together:

• 2 tbsp margarine
• 1 tsp garlic salt

sprinklings of parmesan cheese

It costs me about $6 for 10K of flour, and so my guess is for the 2 cups of flour this took it cost pennies to make this, but let's say the cost of the ingredients added up to $1.00. If I make this once a week all through the school year instead of buying it:

148 days of school divided by 5 days of the week is about 29 weeks of school

If I did that every other week that would be about 15 bread stick batches

If I bought those 15 bread stick batches that would be $141.30

To make it would be about $15. I just saved about $126 on those!

(That's enough to go get my hair done 3 times! Wow!)

....next I'm wondering if I could pull off some really good little personal sized pizzas for lunches. Hmmmmm.......