It's Time for a Plan...

I've had a couple of down days from crafting and it's been kind of nice to just regroup. But...it's time to get back to work and get this blog back on track. In order to help me do that, I've decided that I need to get a little more organized and come up with a 2014 plan for EPJ.  New year, new EPJ!

First up...it's time for a new logo!

I needed something simpler and brighter. It seems to have more pep.

And now for other changes.

Last year, I didn't post nearly as much as I really wanted to. I let all the other little things that happen in day to day life get overwhelming and then spent a lot of time spinning in circles. My biggest obstacle to getting things up on the blog was often my photos. Typically one of two things happened with craft photos. A lot of the time I had photos of projects taken, but I had so many different things on the camera waiting to be uploaded to the computer and edited that I never got any of them ready to go. Other times, I'd get so caught up in the projects themselves that I forgot to take pictures along the way. When it came to recipes, I'd often be cooking after the sun went down, resulting in no natural light and photos that looked less appealing than I wanted them to. So...new plan.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be editing all of the project photos I have stored and will start placing them into the blog as drafts. This will get them off of the camera and out of editing as well as help me figure out which projects need new photos and which crafts were made without photo documentation. For my food posts, I'll be focusing on making recipes for the blog on weekend days. This way I can start earlier in the day and take advantage of the light when it's available.

In 2014, I'll be pushing myself to get back into crafting...especially scrapbooking, which has fallen by the wayside over the last year. I'll be playing catch up so my scrapbook pages won't always be super current, but the memories will be getting put together - which is what counts.

I'm going to start out by aiming for 3 posts per week, including one Summary Sunday post each week (I've missed those). During the week, I'll be mixing it up a little. So what should you expect?

Books :  2014 Book of the Year is already underway! I have set a goal of 64 books for the year. I'll be posting reviews of books rating 4 or 5 stars and will occasionally give updates on where I am in the BOTY process. Darian will also be sharing occasional posts with reviews of his 4 and 5 star rated books. I'll be taking part in a couple of read-a-thons to keep myself working towards my BOTY reading goal.

Crafts : I have a bunch of projects to share from the past couple of years and I have some others in the planning stages that I'll be working on as the months go by. My Pinterest boards are bursting with things I want to try. I'll be sharing at least two finished crafts each month. I'll also be working on getting finished projects together to finally post things up on my Etsy shop. I've been stalling long enough. It's time to get some finished product out there.

Food : After a short hiatus, I'm getting back on the meal planning wagon. I'm going to be redesigning my meal planning process as well as sharing some great recipes, including both new and old favorites. I'm going to be working on our family cookbook throughout the year and hope to have some progress to show as the year continues.

Scrapbooking : I've kind of let scrapbooking fall by the wayside over the last year and I've decided that it's time for a revival of sorts. I'll be reorganizing my scrapbook room and then getting back to it, so I should have some finished pages to show for it. I'll be sharing both traditional scrapbook pages and completed pages for Project Life.


I've enjoyed doing some theme posting in the past, so I've decided to implement a focus for each month. Alongside the topics listed above, I'll be focusing on one item during each month and will have at least one post each week spotlighting that particular theme. Here's what's coming up...


January : Well...the month's not over yet! January has been a lot about regrouping for me and it's about new plans and resolutions for a lot of others, so the remainder of January will be focusing on organization. Among the things in store, I'll be getting my blog planner ready, updating my meal plan, reorganizing the scrapbook room, making plans for my family recipe book, and drawing up the plans for the redecoration of my sewing/craft room. Organizing and planning is bound to run over into February, but I'll get a big jump start before month's end.

February : February is the month of love. My parents will be celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary and Collin and I will be celebrating our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. I'll be sharing some of my favorite memories of my parents and my family, our engagement and wedding photos, our love story - including the story of our wedding day, and some of the DIY crafts I completed for our wedding.

March : March is all things spring. It will be time for spring break and spring cleaning. I'll be undertaking the sewing/craft room reorganization and tackle some other house projects to share. I'll also be doing some spring themed crafts to help balance out our holiday decor stash and keep it all from being just Halloween and Christmas.

April : April is the A-to-Z Challenge. It's "26 posts on 26 days of April, with Sundays off for good behavior". I'll still be posting Summary Sundays during the month, but the rest of the days will be posts themed by sequential letters of the alphabet. It could get a little crazy.

May : May is the first of two book months. Bout-of-Books 10 Read-a-Thon runs from May 12th to May 18th. I'll be doing some serious reading, posting some book reviews, undertaking reading challenges, and seeing if I can keep up with my 2014 BOTY goals. I'll do my best to get Darian involved since he seemed to have a good time with it last year.

June : June is my Pinterest challenge month. I'll be picking projects from my Pinterest boards and actually accomplishing them! Recipes made for the blog and books read for reviews will come from things I've pinned.

July : In July, it's time for vacation! We'll be talking all things travel. I'll be sharing some favorite family vacation memories and showing you how I organize my vacation memorabilia, as well as posting some complete vacation scrapbooking from over the years.

August : August is reading month number 2! The month will be filled with book reviews and updates on my 2014 BOTY goals. Bout-of-Books 11 Read-a-Thon runs from August 18th to August 24th. It's back to reading for a solid week with daily updates and challenges.

September : September is all about scrapbooking. It's time to hit the books...scrapbooks, that is. I'll be sharing how I organize my supplies and photos, what products I like best, where I like to shop for my scrap stash, and of course showing off some scrapbook pages (including Project Life). I'll be working a lot on mini-albums during the year and hope to have a couple to share.

October : If you've been around the blog long enough, you know that October is our favorite month of the year around here. I'll be posting our Halloween Pumpkin Project plans, sharing pumpkin carving progress and debuting the final results on Halloween night.

November : It's time for NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month. I'll be working on writing something every day and showcasing a few tidbits here and there on the blog. I'll also be starting the 2014 Christmas Present Project Countdown and checking off those presents as I finish.

December : I'll be crafting up a storm in preparation for Christmas, but there will still be blogging! It will be time for some year end wrap up posts, including how things went for my goals this year and how the bracket is looking for the 2014 Book of the Year. I'll be sharing some ideas for the following year as well as keeping up with the Christmas Present Project Countdown.


Well...that should be enough to keep me busy! I may be adding a few challenges to the schedule here and there to keep things interesting, but it's good to have some goals set out. I'm looking to a fun and productive 2014 here at Erratic Project Junkie. I hope you'll join me!

Tex Mex Calzone

Today was the Boise State vs. Fresno State game. We had a great time, I got sun burnt (but only on the left side of my body), and we won. After the game, we had dinner with the family and I popped over to Patti's to pick up the first batch of pumpkins for this year's Halloween festivities. I'm super excited and I think this year may even be better than last year's pumpkin massacre.

With all of that good fun in my day, I just rolled in the door. I had grand plans for an easy project for tonight, but to be perfectly honest...I'm pooped. But never fear...I have something to share with you.

I've been trying out all sorts of new recipes over the last few months. I managed to force myself into them by building as many as I could into our meal plan. (By the way...we've done fairly well with making the food last. I did lose a few fresh items early on, but we're still rocking it. In fact, what was originally a 4 month meal plan...is going to last even longer! We'll probably be able to go nearly six months before we run out of the planned recipes. We're still going to the store for the perishables, but our food budget is very close to nil. It's nice.)

As with everything new to try, some are hits and some are misses. The Tex Mex Calzone was a freaking huge hit. It was delicious. I was a little intimidated to try it...a calzone just seemed like something that would be rough. I was wrong. It went fairly smoothly and I ended up with a dinner that we will absolutely be having again. Oh...and I have no idea where I found the recipe. It was just one I had scribbled down. So I assume it must have come from a magazine. That's my best guess... Regardless of where it came from, this one is totally worth trying!

Here's What You'll Need:

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 c. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 tsp. cumin
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 c. green bell pepper, chopped
3/4 c. salsa verde
1 can Pillsbury Grands biscuits
1 c. cheese, shredded
1 egg white, beaten


Here's What You Do:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Adjust your oven rack to the upper third of the oven. This will help the crust of the calzone cook crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add your ground beef and cook for about 5 minutes, until most of the pink is gone. Add in your onion and garlic and continue to cook for an additional 4-5 minutes until the onions are translucent.

Add in your spices and peppers. Cook for 2 minutes.

Remove mixture from heat and stir in the salsa.

Roll out each biscuit to a triangle approximately 6" at the base. Divide biscuits into pairs. On biscuit one, place 1/2 cup of the meat mixture and top with 2 tbsp. of cheese. Brush egg whites on the borders of the dough. Place biscuit number two over the top and press the edges with a fork or spoon to seal. Make sure you get all the way around nice and snug so your insides don't leak out during cooking.

Place the calzones on a greased cookie sheet. Brush egg whites on the top of each calzone for a crispier crust.

Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

And that's it! You can serve them whole or in halves. They turned out fairly large, so one half would probably be a decent portion for most...though it didn't stop me from eating the whole thing. I'm telling you...YUM!

Oh...and it doesn't hurt that it takes fairly decent pictures. The camera loves Tex Mex Calzone almost as much as I do.

This post is part of a series. For the other posts, click here.

Every Day Should Be Vacation

Well, my hiatus is officially over. I went back to work today. It was really nice to have a pile of days when I didn't have to do a darned thing.

We took an RV trip as a family and more or less toured Oregon. We hit up a pile of museums, saw the ocean, the Redwoods and Crater Lake, and visited a super cool animal safari.

I am currently uploading my 1425 photos...no joke. Maybe I'll share a few later on this week.

The relaxation does still continue somewhat. I have to go to work, but my duties at home have been lightened. Darian is spending a couple of weeks with Grandma Carole. It's nice to come home and fix dinner whenever I darned well feel like it. (And I don't have to share the Wii.)

I was really hoping that my pictures would download super fast while I was typing this so that I could at least share a couple. Umm...nope. It's currently at picture 283. The computer might need a little "me" time.

An update on the 4 month meal plan...I am sailing along. In fact, I have "added" an extra two weeks' worth of meals since I am apparently a horrible estimator of how much we will have in leftovers. Our fridge is constantly stuffed. So...I've frozen some veggies and moved a few things out until the end. (I am experimenting with some of the freezing, so I may give out some tips on that in the next couple of months.)

At the current rate, our 4 month meal plan will end up extending through most of November. (That's six months!!)

There have been some casualties. I've learned that I got too greedy on my produce and didn't space out the purchasing enough. I have lost a few tomatoes, pieces of green peppers, an avocado and some green onions. I figure it's about $5-7 in lost produce this far. Drat. But hey...I'm learning. Next time I'll be a total rock star at this.

Well...I've blathered on as much as possible, but the photo uploading isn't even at 50% yet. So...I guess I'll save that for another day. Now...I'm off to play Zelda. With the kiddo gone it's all mine.

Oh! I almost forgot. There was a bit of a catastrophe a few days before we left. I got sick of my dirty dishwater blonde and decided to dye my hair. Collin has worked for years to get me to dye my hair black. I finally relented. But...the black I bought was actually violet black. I decided I wanted a little shiny tint. Uh...ya...I got a LOT of shiny tint. Apparently my hair decided that the black portion of the dye should be omitted. And so...purple hair. Seriously. There was panic.

The color has now tamed down slightly - I'm now at kind of a dark reddish brown - but it's still not what I would consider "normal". I'm not sure what I want to do next though...so I guess it will stay this way for a while. I'm debating on a major cut.

And now...for your viewing pleasure...purple hair. (The picture was taken with my iPhone and then posted to Facebook, so it's not the hottest quality. But...you get the gist.)

Summary Monday: Because I'm Just That Lazy Edition

So I haven't blogged for a few days. You're thinking, "Wow...she must be really busy." Ya...not so much. I'm really just uber lazy and flat out haven't felt like it. It was quite nice really. I took a couple of naps, finished a book...lovely.

The meal plan is plodding along successfully. I made a couple of recipes earlier than intended simply because my berries were getting "iffy", but they are safely refrigerated and ready to go for their days this week. I've also managed to freeze some leftovers from one meal, thus adding another day at the end. We'll just keep going...

The good news is that I'm piling up with recipes to give you. The bad news is that my food photography needs a little work. I think this is a good reason to now need a macro lens. I guess I'll have to put it on my wish list. My birthday is in four months...maybe I'll get lucky. Perhaps something like this...

Nikon 105mm 2.8 VR
Source

Any who...

What did I do last week?

Posts I Posted : Well the big post of the week was the 4-Month Meal Plan. It took off a little for a while on Pinterest, which is pretty cool. I'm kind of hoping that things start moving along even better as I start to post the recipes. Oh...and shameless plug here, if you like the blog please follow it on Facebook or via Google Reader. Also...I totally don't mind if you tell your friends. Hint, hint. Okay...plug over.

Last week, Darian also made a return to the blog. He chatted with you about his experience on a two-day field trip. It was a pretty neat adventure for him. He was especially psyched to get a comment from his teacher.

And, finally...I gave you a tour of our food storage in order to show you what it takes to keep a 4-month meal plan on hand.

Books I Read : I finally finished East of Denver. It wasn't an easy task. I'll be reviewing it soon. I always feel bad when I get a book for free and then it turns out that I don't think it's all that great. The down side of reviewing. They can't all be winners. I am now reading The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve. I am loving it. She may very well become a favorite.

Projects I Finished : After five years of griping I finally did something about our disastrous utility shoe closet. It's all nice and pretty now. I'll be sharing it's renovation soon.

Recipes I Tried : Oh it was a busy week for new recipes. We had Greek Turkey Burgers, Crockpot Chicken Caesar Sandwiches, Ranch Chicken Salad, Toasted Sesame Ginger Chicken, Chicken Rollatini w/ Spinach and Grilled Flank Stead with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce. Don't worry...I took pictures. I'll be sharing it all with you.

And that's about it...phew... And just a little gem to leave you with...

Photo Failure. So Now You Get to Hear More About Food.

Well...tonight's post was supposed to be on a recipe I found/altered/bastardized last week. But...I failed in the photo department. I had the best of intentions, I swear. I took the before photos and thought I had taken some afters. Turns out...not so much. Apparently the whirlwind of Darian's week o' field trips caught up with me and I had photograph amnesia. So...I will be making it/them again soon. And no...I won't tell you. I'm not wrecking the marvelous (I think it's marvelous anyway) surprise.

So...instead...I'm going to explain to you why I said in my 4 Month Meal Plan post that you should not attempt this without multiple frozen/refrigerated storage areas. Or rather...I'm going to show you. You get to take a little tour...

In order to not completely bore you with pictures, I've just taken a few. I think you'll get the point rather quickly.

I'm going to make a disclaimer here that we did have some things already purchased. Our cupboards and fridge/freezer were not bare. That's how I made it out of the store without a single pound of hamburger or any butter. So...maybe you could do this with a full sized fridge and a full sized deep freeze. But I so wouldn't want to try.

Just a little sample here... This is the top shelf of our indoor refrigerator.

Yup. Stacking them sky high. And yes, I know that tomatoes supposedly store better at room temperature, but I don't like them on my counter. Fridge. And they taste fine and last just as long if not longer. I've never had an issue with a mealy tomato. So yes...top shelf. Why not the produce drawer, you ask? Wait for it. There's a reason.

This is why the grape tomatoes are on the top shelf...

Oh...and this...

Right? The first picture is of the produce drawers of my indoor side by side. Tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, carrots, salad, green onions, green peppers, red peppers...and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. The bottom picture is the produce drawer of our garage side by side. Totally saved my bacon. Or in this case, my lettuce and cabbage. This baby barely shuts.

I didn't get you a full shot of my indoor fridge. For a couple of reasons. (1) You get to see what needed to go in overflow. (2) There were too many leftovers in there. It was almost embarrassing.

So, this is our garage fridge in full view. Ignore the snow cone syrup and maraschino cherries in the side door. They are irrelevant. Delicious, but irrelevant. The rest? Totally relevant.

Top shelf? That blue container is the salmon that we will be having tomorrow night. There are also three jugs of milk. I'm kind of dumbfounded how we fit all three up there if you want to know the truth.

Second shelf? Behold. Tortilla heaven. Though I will say, I totally kicked myself in the butt when I realized that the tortillas at Costco are not only still local (my typical criteria for the brands I will purchase), but freakin' cheaper! Drat. Alright. Costco for tortillas next time. They share their space with my ricotta...which will be gone in a week or two.

This fridge is pretty much cheese heaven. Other than the produce drawer you've already seen and that pretty obvious bag o' lemons, the rest is all cheese...delicious, delicious cheese. Could you fit all that cheese in your fridge and have room for the rest of your stuff? I think not. Unless you live off of milk, lettuce and cheese, in which case this might actually be a picture of your fridge. Oh wait, nope...snow cone syrup. Yup, it's mine.

On to the glory that is the deep freeze. We don't need to talk about the side by side garage freezer because it currently only contains ice cream, pureed pumpkin and some wayward loaves of zucchini bread.

I've already shown you the deep freeze before. It's not much different now as far as how packed it is. The contents have changed. Much less pizza, the top shelf is full of ground beef and the bottom shelf is full of chicken, shrimp and some barbecue meats.

But I had to show you this. This is the part of my freezer that I love right now. Behold, the meat drawer...

Why do I love it? It's organized. You don't think so? Look again. Left side: Pork. Right side: Beef and deer. For those of you freaking out...deer is yummy. The "not for sale" packages are deer roast and deer burger. I'm looking forward to them. The other nice part about this drawer? My Ziplock bags. I love that they are all pretty and labeled. Ignore the NY Steak at the top right. I promise it's not freezer burnt. I had just stuck it in the freezer when I took this picture. It's fine now.

And finally...I've shown it to you before, along with the convertible pantry that houses our spices and baking supplies, but this is what our pantry looks like as of this weekend.

The old house had a bigger pantry, so I feel a little squashed in here, but it works.

Top shelf is the cereal. Rule #1 in our house: Eat the cereal in the order it's lined up or you will be taken out to the yard and shot. Rule #2: Don't pay more than $2 for cereal. Ever. (I typically pay $1.88 or less.)

Next is the baking and breakfast followed by pastas (which you can't quite see), rices and currently in use cereals. Then shelf potatoes and rice mixes (again hidden by the wall), my premade (or what I call "quickfire") meals for when I don't feel much like cooking, nuts, vegetables and canned fruits.

Fourth shelf: pasta sauces, condiments, soups. We have a crapload of condiments. This includes our salsas, salad dressings and barbecue sauce. Bottom shelf is...well...let's face it...junk and snack foods (crackers, popcorn, etc.), canned meats, broth and beans. Canned meats, you say? Yes. Canned meats. Chicken, anchovies, tuna fish and the all important SPAM. We like it at our house.

And finally, the floor. Juices are against the wall, then chips, tomatoes and the random Ramen box. I blame that on Collin. He has a weird affinity for Cup O' Noodles.

See? I asked him...he said I could use this. There is a backstory.

Someday maybe I will tell you the story. For now, you get this much. This picture was taken in 2009 at a cabin in Island Park and references an event from 2008 in the very same cabin. Owen & Patti were witness to both of these years and Patti thinks it's hysterical that I'm using this photo on the blog. (Me too, Patti. Me too.) Ah, good times...

See? Told you. You need to be a master at Tetris and have multiple locations to store your food. This would so not have flown in my old house or in my old apartment. Oh, boy. I shudder at the thought. Pretty sure I would've been having to use that Cup O' Noodles box as a footrest or have it stored on a bookshelf.

The BIG Haul: Shopping for a 4 Month Meal Plan

That's right...for once I've was productive on a weekend. I worked most of the afternoon Thursday and Friday and prepped the grocery list and coupon binder for this quarter's BIG shopping trip. And oh boy was it big! Like 3 shopping carts big!!

Okay...so kind of like this, but with one extra cart. Plus...groceries, not just pumpkins. Yes...these are the pumpkins from last year's Pumpkin Massacre. I forgot to take a picture at the store. Give me a break. Use your imagination people.

Last time we did a big plan like this I hoped to be able to provide for meals for about two months. Well...that was on January 29th. We ended up making it 3 1/2 months instead! I lost two tomatoes, a cucumber and a green pepper due to spoilage, the rest made it through. So I wasted about $2. Not too shabby. We also restocked on the dairy and a few produce items during that time. Subtracting out what I spent on a cereal restock trip, we spent an additional $100 on food items during that time. (I got some really good deals that cereal and paid about $1 per box. I couldn't resist the extra trip, but I'm not counting it since we didn't eat it.) This put our overall per meal cost at $1.25. And in case anyone is wondering, we are still WalMart free.

I figured that, since I planned for 2 months and got 3 1/2, I would go ahead and plan for 4 months based on what I had learned. It's a bit of a risky journey, but I'm kind of excited to see how things turn out. I'm going to try a few new things along the way (preparing meals ahead of time for freezing as well as freezing any large batch leftovers when possible for duplicated meals) and I'm trying a boatload of new recipes.

Just a little disclaimer here...a reminder to everyone that we have more space than most for our food items. We have an indoor side-by-side refrigerator/freezer as well as a full sized deep freeze and side-by-side in the garage. Don't attempt this with one fridge/freezer or even a fridge and deep freeze. Trust me. We're packed to the gills around here.

I did things a little differently this time and I'm hoping that it will turn out well. I have been marking recipes using Pinterest and I also gather recipes from Sparkrecipes. I grabbed a bunch of those as well as some home standards and put together the list of recipes I wanted to make.

Once I had my list, I went through each recipe and figured out what ingredients I would need. I just typed them into Word as I went. Once I finished, I sorted them A-Z and paired everything together to get a tally of what I needed.

After that it was off to my favorite part (this is laden with sarcasm)...inventory. I have combined my inventory/coupon binder lists to make things easier. But...again...I did things differently. I took my A-Z list and went item by item, checking things off. Surprisingly, I already had a good majority of the items...minus meat, dairy and produce. I do still have a pile of hamburger left from the November run so that helped out a bit, but it was counteracted by the fact that we blew through all of the chicken that I had. We needed 40 lbs!

With my reduced list in hand, I marked up the coupon binder, highlighting the items we needed. This trip was highly different from my previous runs when I have tailored my recipe plan to the items that I had on hand plus those that were on sale. Luckily, the chicken was on sale, but for the most part I had reasonable prices on everything else. There were a few things we picked up where I paid more than I wanted to and a couple of items were priced so horribly that they were left for later.

This one is from my original series on meal planning and doesn't show the combined inventory/coupon binder, but you get the idea.

It was a crazy haul. It took us over two hours to finish up the list and we ended up with two overflowing carts. Once we processed through checkout we ended up with three fairly full carts. We also ended up with: a GOB of produce, 4 gallons of milk, 6 lbs. of shrimp, 4 lbs. of flank steak, 10 lbs. of pork chops, 10 lbs. of NY steak, and our whopping 40 lb. of chicken. The total was higher than I had planned, but I also hadn't originally planned on that much freaking poultry.

Cart #1 - The meat & cheese cart. Anyone need some chicken?

After we got home, I separated the meats and bagged them. They are stored nicely in the freezer (which by the way is packed).

I don't know...I think we might need more...

I took my list and highlighted each recipe based on how soon the produce would become a problem. Pink for use ASAP, yellow for moderate risk of spoilage, green for mild risk and blue for no fresh produce needed.

I then arranged all of the recipes on the calendar, allowing one "leftovers" day each week as well as blocking out the days where we will be on vacation.

Turns out that I over-calculated. It works out okay since I arranged the calendar based on the expiration of the produce and dairy that I have already purchased. But...instead of getting 4 months that would get us by until around mid-September, my meal plan has us making it until October 15th before we'll need to shop again! This doesn't account for any remnants that I can make into additional meals or the frozen leftovers that I gather along the way.

All in all, we ended up with $700 in food to cover 127 different dishes, not including breakfasts and lunches. Without accounting for any of the frozen leftovers or the remnant meals, this works out to under $2 per meal! That means that our weekly food budget will remain around $40.

I have printed the menu plan calendars and have hung them in the kitchen. I'm hoping to stick to things as closely as possible. I will be taking pictures of our meals daily. I'll be sharing our weekly meals during each Summary Sunday as well as posting the recipes to the blog. (Tonight's meal was Greek Turkey Burgers. They were quite yummy.) Hopefully it will be a good time for everyone. Just don't give me too hard of a time if this doesn't go as planned.

I plan on watching the ads during this period as well. Based on what I learned this time, I'm going to keep my eyes out for the really good deals on nonperishable or freezable things we use a lot of (like chicken...which I got at the lowest price of the year - yay!). If I see something that I know is a low price that doesn't come along very often, then I'll be stocking up as I go in order to plan for next time.

Fingers crossed people! The meal plan started...today!

Summary Sunday: Prepping Edition

BIG post coming tomorrow. The big shopping trip has been completed and I'm going to share all of the details with you. Because I'm saving all the info for tomorrow, today's post will be somewhat short. (And by short I apparently mean kind of normal sized. Geez.)

This week was hectic as usual, with Collin working weird hours and Darian having three days of field trips. (I'm going to let him do a post about his trips next week, but I haven't told him that yet.) I spent the majority of the week prepping for the shopping trip as well as the shopping trip aftermath. This evening I also managed to repair our dryer and located the problem with our washer...which I'm hoping will be a cheap fix.

Now on with the other stuff I did...

Posts I Posted: With all my time being used up, it was a quiet week on the blog. But...I did share a review of the best book ever by the woman who has become my girl crush. I also finally got around to showing another week of Project Life...a project which is haunting me from the corner of the scrapbook room. The guilt of being behind is killing me.

Books I Read: I finished reading The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty and will be reviewing it soon. I have to say, it surprised me. I am now reading East of Denver by Gregory Hill. Both of these books were Goodreads wins.

Recipes I Tried: I did some crazy work with croissants this week that I'll be sharing in a few days. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier!

Projects I Finished: I fixed the flipping dryer people! It has been getting worse and worse, taking more and more cycles to get our clothes dry. Collin and I pulled it apart once before to try and repair it, but my hand couldn't reach far enough in the vent to pull out what we assumed was a lint blockage. Carole sent us a brush kit a couple of months ago and I kept asking Collin to help me...but he's rarely home. Tonight Darian informed me that he had NO pants for school tomorrow. Apparently half of his jeans are missing. What the crap?!? I knew I didn't have time to deal with our crap dryer so I pulled it out, took it apart from both inside and outside and cleaned the vent from both directions. Voila! I just pulled out a dry load of jeans after ONE cycle. I'm pretty proud of myself right now.

And that's it. That's all you get. Well...that and this...

I saw these yesterday while Darian and I were at Target. I was sorely tempted to buy them. Now normally I'm pretty boring and conservative about my clothes - nothing too flashy. But these spoke to me. I tried them on with my jeans. So much fun. I think they just might be on my wishlist.

Summary Monday: Couch Edition

I've been super lazy today. I'm not going to lie. It was a fun weekend, but I woke up this morning not feeling so hot. Thank goodness I didn't have to work today. I had a pile of plans for things I was going to accomplish. Instead, I got the dishwasher emptied and completed one load of laundry. *sigh*

At least I wasn't the only lazy one...

But I had to get a post finished. It's going to be a busy week and I have at least three other posts planned for the next couple of days.

Darian has a week full of field trips, so it's going to be fun for him, but busy for me. He'll be doing the regular zoo/museum field trip on Wednesday followed by their special two day field trip on Thursday/Friday. Not only does this mean getting things together in order to pack him up for an overnight stay, I have two sack lunches and a sack dinner to prepare. I'm going to have to get creative...especially since...it's time to go shopping again.

Remember that big shopping run I did back at the end of January? Well, it has lasted until now...a full five weeks longer than the original plan. Some of this was due to eating out and some due to using leftovers, but a lot of it had to do with simply using my stash more creatively. Including that trip, groceries for the last three and a half months have ended up costing us about $600 (after adding up the produce, dairy and extra cereal stocking up I did during that time). It works out to about $175 per month or $40/week. But all good things must come to an end. So...I'll be spending a good chunk of time this week prepping for my next run. I'm not sure when I'm going to hit the store, since I'm working Friday. I have a bad feeling that it will have to be Saturday, since Collin will be working on Friday night. I will definitely need two people for cart wrangling.

I'm getting nervous about it now. Let's not talk about it any more. Instead, here's what happened last week:

Posts I Posted: I started off a lot stronger than the week before, but quickly petered into nothingness as Collin's mom came into town and we spent a lot of time hanging out together, celebrating her birthday and preemptively celebrating Mothers' Day. Before I disappeared, I posted a crazy, rambling post from my phone about my badly behaving dogs, as well as two book reviews. I warned you about the drudgery of Girls in White Dresses. Don't be suckered in by the cute cover. Remember how that worked out with Lift? I also played compromise with my rating of the clever, but complicated Ella Minnow Pea.


Books I Read: I finished reading Philippa Gregory's The Lady of the Rivers, her third book in her Cousins' War series. I really enjoyed it. Its review will be one of this week's posts. I think I might also have to update the bracket with that post. But before I get to that, I will be reviewing (drum roll please) Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend this Never Happened. I am still giddy about this one. I am currently reading The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty.

Recipes I Tried: I made Crockpot Pineapple Chicken. Not too shabby. The best part? It took me all of 5 minutes to throw in the pot. Very little prep required. I also revisited Peanut Sesame Noodles and Cheap Korean Beef. Total prep time for both of those recipes done together: about 20 minutes. Yay for easy. I made some pretty darned good chocolate/butterscotch pancakes, but forgot to take pictures. So...I guess I'll be making those again. I'm sure Darian will have a good cry over that one. They were delicious. I paired them with some crack bacon. Not the healthiest dinner we've ever eaten.

There. I have done my duty for the day. I'm going to go see if I can get my second load of laundry in the dryer. After that I think it might be some iPhone gaming and a little more reading before bed.

The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Cookie Edition

Okay...so maybe I'm patting myself on the back a little here...but I'm telling you, these cookies are ridiculous. Let me back up and tell you the story before I share the recipe with you.

As I mentioned last Sunday, I went on a huge cooking spree last week. Many of you already know of my addiction to Pinterest. Well, I've been gathering recipes here and there from the blogs I read and pinning them to my Pinterest boards. I've also been finding some great ones through repins. As I was putting together my meal plan for February and March I made sure to put a bunch of these new recipes in the mix.

The trek to these fabulous cookies began with Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake.

My picture isn't as pretty as hers because I totally forgot about taking pictures until we'd eaten up half of it. I meant to take more of just single slices before we finished it, but that didn't happen. Let me tell you...delicious. We snarfed this up like it was going out of style. And just to make it that much better...I put butter on top of mine to melt. Holy crap it was good. Needless to say, it's a keeper.

Well...the next day I was working on making my very first homemade pasta. If you remember, I have just a tiny bit of pureed pumpkin stored in my freezer. I decided it was time to do something about it. So I busted out this recipe for Pumpkin Sage Ravioli from Bad Mama Genny. (By the way, she is hilarious and her recipes are awesome. You should check her out.)

I thawed out some pumpkin, made some dough in my handy dandy Kitchenmaid Mixer and then went to work rolling out pasta sheets through my pasta roller (FYI...I have owned this item for about seven years. This was the first time it's been used. Sad.)

There was a lot of cursing and some very ugly initial results, but ultimately I learned to make ravioli. I'm super proud of myself for that.

Well, part of the recipe for the raviolis calls for ricotta cheese. Great. No problem. I had already bought some. The issue? Half of the tub was left over. What was I to do? I had no other recipes in mind for it and I knew it would go bad if I didn't put it to use immediately.

So I made Siri find me a recipe using ricotta. I quickly decided that I didn't want to make another pasta dish (or any main dish, for that matter). I wanted something sweet. Now, you may be thinking ricotta? like the stinky gooey cheese? Yes. That stuff. It smells like sweat socks, but it tastes awesome cooked. Trust me.

And then it happened. I found the recipe that shall have it's name shouted from the heavens, the Italian Cookie. Plain name, yes. Plain taste, no. I'd share the link if I knew where to find it. Google Italian Cookie. Your head might explode. So I'm just going to share it with you...in a minute. I'm not done telling my story. If you want this recipe, you will read this. Trust me, you want this recipe.

As I mentioned earlier, I had made the blueberry breakfast cake. Minus the small handfuls (read: crazy armfulls) of blueberries that Collin and I had eaten while I was making it, I had a decent amount of blueberries left. I decided (because I can't just leave well enough alone) that I was going to punch the recipe up a notch. Blueberry frosting was born.

So this is what I ended up with...

Don't judge them by their looks. These babies are addicting.

If you want to enter your own state of bliss due to cookie ingestion, here's how you can do it :

Italian Cookies
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. white sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 tsp. vanilla
8 oz. ricotta cheese
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Blueberry Frosting
1/4 c. butter, softened (Don't judge me. I like butter. Call me Paula Deen Jr. No diabetes yet.)
2 c. confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. milk
1/4 c. blueberries

Ready to get to work? Let's do it. It's simple.

1. Heat your oven to 350F degrees.

2. Start with the batter. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and ricotta.

3. Separately, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the cheese mixture.

4. Place tbsp. sized balls onto a greased cookie sheet at least 2" apart. Bake for 10 minutes until the edges are golden. Cool on the cookie sheet for at least 20 minutes before icing.

5. While the cookies are cooking/cooling, make your icing. Place the blueberries, milk and vanilla in a blender or food processor and puree. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the blueberry mixture to the butter mixture and blend well.

6. Frost your cookies.

7. Try to stop eating them. Good luck with that.

Summary Sunday - Superbowl Sunday Edition

Superbowl Sunday has now come and technically gone. I'm not really one for professional football and I typically watch the game just for the commercials, but I have to admit that the game was a pretty good one. As for the commercials, eh...not bad. A couple of good ones in there. I enjoyed the bribing Doritos dog, the first Acura owner and of course the Matthew Broderick CRV commercial. Also, high five to NBC for using Betty White in their commercial for The Voice. Anything with Betty White is an automatic win.

Now...let's take just a moment to discuss the halftime show and then we'll move on. I like Madonna, really...I do. I like her older stuff better than her more recent works, but I think she's a good singer. I thought she had the potential to put on an amazing show. But...when you lip sync the entire thing in a way that becomes obvious ten seconds into it...I lose interest and, quite honestly, some respect for you. Oh Madge, I held you to a higher standard.  Also, maybe you should've discussed with MIA how to behave properly during a Superbowl show. Thanks for the cursing and middle finger salute. You really brought maturity to the table there. Thanks. Heaven knows we're now going to hear about that for the next week. Pathetic.

Okay...that part's done now. Moving on...

I busted out my huge shopping run and got enough groceries to get us through the next two months and then some (excluding the produce and dairy we may need to replenish along the way).  I'm pretty proud of myself. My meal plan includes a bunch of new recipes and a large portion of crockpot recipes. I got quite a lot of food, including a ton of meat and cheeses. Plus, I estimated really well. Once I figured out my recipes and the special items I wanted to buy, I expected to walk away at around $400. Our final total? $398.78. I'm happy with that. If things work out like I expect them to, that will put us at around $175 per month. That works out to less than $2 per meal and most of those meals will leave leftovers.

Collin worked a lot this week and I spent a good chunk of my time trying to fix his office books for the accountant (there were some issues with how inventory has been being entered). All in all, by Saturday morning we had spent about four hours together this week. We did however get to relax yesterday evening and spend some time together on the couch. Thanks to Costco, we also had some yummy red velvet cake. But...back to work he went today. He may be home on Wednesday. If not, we won't see him again until Friday. It's a completely nutso schedule, but we just keep plodding along. One of these days we'll be rewarded by having our debt paid off.

I also made a couple of noteworthy purchases this week. Using the money I had left on my Barnes & Noble giftcard, I marched right out to their website and preordered Let's Pretend This Never Happened...the memoir written by Jenny Lawson (you know, The Bloggess, my girl crush). I'm super excited for it to get here, but I have to be patient. Delivery is expected around April 17th. And yes, that's right...I gave you a link...because I know you all will want it too.

The second purchase...a new carpet cleaner. I've been absolutely distraught since my Hoover Agility took a dive back in November. It's been hard to part with that loss. It was such a good little trooper. So...after much time and patience, I finally worked up the nerve (read: had a complete mental breakdown and became obsessive when it became evident that everyone around here was out to destroy my carpet) to go out and find a new one. My new Bissell should arrive next week. I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm pretty sure it will be amazing.

Here's what else I was up to this week :

Posts I Posted : I busted out not one, but two tutorials. I'm pretty darned proud of myself. I taught you how to make bottlecap coasters for the men and decoupaged paper & photo coasters for the ladies. I'm inclined to like both of them, but the photo ones make me particularly happy.

I also received the Liebster Blog Award and passed it on to five of my blogging friends.

Darian also posted a review for you on Fever 1793. This was his first review of an assigned book. I think he did pretty well, but he obviously doesn't have the appreciation for historical fiction that I do.

Projects I Finished : Because I am apparently not the type to think while I work, I was forced to make new models for my tutorials this week in order to get the photos I needed. So...I busted out a few coasters. They're not technically finished yet, but they're pretty stinking close. I also finished a scarf for a cute little girl. You may remember that I gave this purple scarf to my friend Erin for Christmas.

Well...her adorable daughter decided she loved it and was modeling it around their house shortly after I gave it to her mother. I decided that maybe the little diva needed her own. So hers is basically a reverse of her mother's. Whereas Erin's is purple with a hint of fuschia, hers is fuschia with a hint of purple. I know, cute right? I did make one mistake and made it slightly wider than I should have, but I made the length slightly shorter so it will fit her fairly comfortably. We'll see how she likes it when I give it to her tomorrow.

Books I Read : I finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It was fantastic! I'll be doing a review on it later this week. I am now reading Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie. It's a bit of a departure from what I normally read, but it is technically historical fiction. It's been a challenging read, but I hope to be able to finish it either tonight or tomorrow so that I can stay on task with my BOTY goal.

Recipes I Tried : Meh. I didn't make anything new other than the Crockpot Sesame Chicken that we tried last Sunday. I did make one of our easy family staples, though. For lack of a better term, we call it goulash. Now don't get all technical with me...just go with it. It's super easy to make. Cook one box of Macaroni & Cheese according to the box directions. Add in one can of chili and one can of diced tomatoes. Tada. See...easy. And it's good...I promise.

I don't have any favorite blog posts for you this week...for two reasons. 1 - I spent a good portion of my evenings getting ready for my grocery run...and 2 - I forgot to star the ones I liked. Oops. I warned you, my memory is crap. Oh well, maybe next week.

Summary Sunday - Chore Day Shmore Day Edition

Well...I have a ton of stuff on my "to do" list today. I'll be honest...stalling by writing this post? I'm totally okay with that.

Here's what's on the list for now :

1. Laundry : 1st load is in the dryer, 2nd in the washer. I'm thinking another 2 loads and I can call that done. We're just going to pretend that putting the clothes away isn't part of this task...

2. Coupon Cutting : So, I'm slightly anal about how we go shopping. But - it pays off! Other than picking up the essentials like milk and cheese, our family has been able to avoid grocery shopping since November! (And, if you're wondering...we've now been Wal-Mart free for over a year!) That's right. When I did my shopping last fall I was able to stock us up so well that we've had meals for three months! Honestly, we could probably make it for another two weeks if I just went and got eggs and cheese, but the natives are getting restless for some new snacks.

I'm cheating. I'm dividing up the tasks over the next few days so that we can be ready for shopping either Thursday afternoon or Friday. Today, I'm cutting coupons. Tomorrow, I'll be taking inventory. Tuesday, I'm gathering up my recipes and doing the meal plan. Based on what is going to be on sale, I'm going to aim for two months worth of meals. I'm also going to attempt to do more crockpot cooking over the next few months. It's highly convenient and it seems to stretch my dollar further. In fact, I currently have some sesame chicken in the crockpot thanks to Pinterest. We'll see how it goes.

But, I digress. Wednesday will be my wrap up day. I'm going to put everything together and build my binder for the trip. I'm expecting a $200-300 run if we end up with two months of meals. I'll keep you posted...

3. Project Life : I've totally been slacking on this. I'll admit that right now. I have the photos all together for the last three weeks, but I'm behind on journaling. So the goal for today is to get caught up on journaling and prep the pics for my post on January's pages (finally).

I'm pretty sure I had other stuff on the list, but I think I've already hit burn out. I can't remember anything else at the moment. Oh well, let's move on to wrapping up the week instead.

Posts I Posted : It was a slow week. Darian wrapped up his reviews for the Percy Jackson series and I went slightly postal on my feelings for stupid parents.

Recipes I Tried : Other than today's foray into Crockpot Sesame Chicken, it stayed pretty low key around here. The nice thing about making big Pinterest meals is that we tend to have leftovers for a while. Oddly enough, the boy loves him some leftovers. He always cheers when I say that's what we're having for dinner.

Books I Finished : It's not finished yet, but it will be by this evening...I'm currently reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's really good. Thank you to Patti for her suggestion!

Projects I Finished : Nothing got finished. Let's face it, it was kind of a lazy week. I did do some things in preparation for a tutorial I'll be posting next week, but other than that, the only thing I finished was editing the photos I took at Kirsten's birthday party last week. Some of them turned out quite cute. I even managed to get one that makes my guys look photogenic.

Best Blog Post : I've taken to cheating and starring my favorites on Google Reader. My memory is crap. I'll just go ahead and throw that out there. So, even if I find something wildly hilarious...I completely forget what it was by the time Sunday gets here. I need all the help I can get.

This week, it isn't something funny, but rather something that I found pretty poignant. It's Ali Edwards' post of a video based on Ira Glass' "Ira Glass on Storytelling, Part Three". She found it on Sabrina Ward Harrison's facebook page. I found it fairly inspirational...and I'm not very sappy, so that's saying something. Oh, and I initially watched it with the sound turned off. I found it even more powerful that way.

On that note...I'm going to go be creative...with coupons...and Project Life...

Buildin' the Binder...It's Craft Time!

It's time to continue explaining how I cut my family's grocery budget in half. If you're just now getting here...here's the steps you've missed.

1. Inventory
2. Meal Planning
3. Coupon Cutting

So now you have a pile of coupons and nowhere to put them. Well...this is where THE BINDER comes in (did you hear the heavenly music that was just playing?). That's right, it's that fantastic.

If you've seen the Krazy Coupon Lady's website or watched TLC's Extreme Couponing then you see that those hardcore couponers all have big fatty binders they carry around full of their coupons. I will admit, when I first saw them I thought that this was crazy. But I quickly learned that it is something of a necessity. Now...that being said, I don't have binders as big as theirs and I do my system a little bit differently (let's remember - I'm a lazy couponer).

On our first couponing trip I tried to just put my coupons in an envelope, sorted by department. This was a disaster. I still found everything, but it took WAY too long. If I hadn't changed things after that trip I don't think we would still be doing this. I'm pretty sure my family would've either mutinied or had to commit me.

Most binders shown are just full of coupons sorted into baseball card holders. While this is a good idea, it's just not OCD enough for me I guess.

Creating my binder gave me the chance to BE CRAFTY! Yay! Get out the scrapbook supplies baby!

I have built my coupon binder so that I have things divided by department and/or aisle (based on my store). Each section has a space for coupons as well as the list for that department.

I went through a couple of versions before I got the list to be fully functional. I will admit, it's still not perfect, but I know where things are now so it totally works. I've cut a lot of time off of the envelope trials.

I busted out my handy dandy Stampin' Up tag punch (it's one of my favorites) and created some label tabs on  my printer. I adhered them to clear sheet protectors using my Xyron. These tabs used to be in a nice even order down the side of the binder, but after a few revisions, they're now a little off-kilter. I tried to move them, but that Xyron adhesive is not kidding around when it says permanent.

Then I took the poly pockets that got ordered in the wrong size at my office and adhered two of them to the back of every section's page protector. These would hold my coupons. I love them.

In designing my binder, I didn't just want a pile of coupons in each section. Sure, I'd be able to find my coupons easier, but what's the point of buying something with a coupon if it's at a higher than average price? I'm out to save as much as possible without making it difficult on myself. So I created a set of spreadsheets that allow me to track the best prices. I don't use a coupon unless the product is priced at, below or very near my lowest recorded price.

You probably already know this, but let me clue you in...the stores lie to you. Their ad may say that this week's price on hamburger is the lowest of the season, but that's not necessarily true. For example, a couple of weeks ago my store was having their annual anniversary sale. Everything was supposed to be at it's lowest price. Bologna (or is it boloney? I admit I always hear the Oscar Meyer song in my head. But I digress). I am currently in need of restocking my ground beef so I thought this would be the perfect time. Ha! The current price on ground beef (80% lean for those curious) was at $3.97/lb. WHAT?!?! In January I purchased the same beef for $1.89/lb. No way I'm spending more that $2/lb more. Don't trust the store. Watch for yourself.

Each item list page is in alphabetical order and has three separate sections for listing my coupons. This lets me use each sheet of paper for 3 trips. It saves me time (I just transfer over the unused coupons) and it saves paper. Look at that, useful and green.

The column next to each item shows the best price I've purchased that item at. For some items I have also included the lowest price after coupon. (e.g. $1.99/$1.49 - This would mean that $1.99 was the lowest shelf price and $1.49 was the price I paid after the coupon.)

The two columns are used to track how many of an item I need to buy (based on the meal planning and inventory I completed earlier) and what coupons I have available.

I sort each section's coupons by item and write them down in my little code. It's really not that fancy. $0.50 means I have a $0.50 off coupon. BYG1 means buy one get one free. $0.50(2) means get $0.50 off when you buy 2 and $0.50x3 means that I have three of the same coupon for $0.50 off that particular item.

One last step and the binder is ready for the store. Highlighting. Yay for adult coloring!

The yellow highlight is something that I need to buy for the next couple of weeks' planned meals. If the price of that item is close to lowest then I'll buy it. If it's crazy out of whack then I'll wait and readjust my meal plan when I get home.

The pink highlight tells me that the coupon is going to expire before my next planned trip. So again, if the price of that item isn't necessarily at it's lowest, but close enough...I get it. That is, unless I have a pile of coupons for the same thing that will still be good next time.

I move through each category and get things assembled. If it's the first run on that sheet then everything gets typed into the spreadsheet and printed. If it's the second or third run then I just write it in with a pen.

After that, I'm ready to hit the aisles!

Lazy(ish) Sunday

It's getting closer to Halloween and we're getting all prepared at our house. We've spent the last few days getting things ready to go. Darian has finally decided what he wants to be so I spent Friday and Saturday sewing part of his costume. I still have one element left. What has he chosen to be? Finn (with Jake as his trick or treat bag) from Adventure Time. Algebraic!!

So far I have his hat and backpack complete. We had to pick up fabric for Jake last night so I'll be working on him during the upcoming week. (I'll be sharing some tutorials for the costume elements in the next couple of weeks.)

But that's not all we'll be working on next week...we're also getting ready to start assembling our yard decorations. We went out today and spent our set aside "pumpkin cash" in preparation for the event. I still have to go pick up the needed mini-pumpkins, but today we got our twenty, yup...twenty regular sized pumpkins. It's going to be magnificent. I'd tell you the plan, but that would wreck the reveal. I'll share some pics during the week as things move forward.  There is a LOT of carving to do. Tonight I will be wrestling with wire hangers, needle nosed pliers and crepe paper...I'll share those results tomorrow. And don't worry...those pumpkins won't go to waste. I will be keeping the seeds for roasting and the uncarved pumpkins will be broken down for future pies, cookies and bread.

Here's what else I've been doing this week :

Recipes I Used: Tonight's meal is my jambalaya - one of my absolute favorites. I'll be sharing it as it's own post for you tomorrow. This week I was fairly lazy and we did a lot of leftovers and lazy meals (like the makeshift nachos I made a couple of days ago). On Tuesday we continued to break down the leftovers in order to return my stew pots to rotation. I finished off our Peanut Sesame Noodles, a really easy delicious recipe that can be eaten cold or hot. (I found this one on Spark Recipes about six months ago.)

Ingredients :

2 cups cooked spaghetti
1 tbsp. sesame oil
3 tbsp. smooth peanut butter
1 tbsp. fresh ginger (I use 1 tsp. ground ginger)
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
3 tbsp. hot water
1 garlic clove, chopped (I use 1 tsp. garlic powder)
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

Cook spaghetti according to package instructions. In a separate bowl, combine all remaining ingredients - except sesame seeds. Mix until peanut butter is fully dissolved. Blend spaghetti and sauce until noodles are coated. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

I more or less tripled this recipe when I made it last week. That used up a full box of noodles so that I didn't have open ones hanging around. It also provided us with two dinners and two lunches.

Books I Finished: I finished reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. It was fantastic! I read it really quickly and it should do well in the brackets. Speaking of which...the next round will be up this week. I started reading Mercy by Jodi Picoult - so far also good.

Projects I Finished: We completed couponing in preparation for November. Our local store was having their "anniversary sale" so there were some really low cost items that made me go out for groceries a couple of weeks early. Collin was busy working so Darian helped me. We did really great and ended up with about a 35% savings margin.

I finished sewing Darian's hat and backpack for his Halloween costume.We also picked up some other craft supplies for five other projects that are on the burner. I am proud to say that I did manage to save 50% on everything purchased thanks to my sale/coupon shopping savvy. In the end, Darian's costume will end up costing me less than $15. Each of the other crafts will work out to about $5 each.

Posts I Posted: We completed two phases of Frugal Meal Planning, including how I lazily clip my coupons. I showed you how Bailey prefers to spend his evenings and I told a tale of home auto repair by Crazy Neighbor only to discover that you all apparently only enjoy Crazy Neighbor when he has the potential to kill someone in the process of his neuroses. (You're all demented and very sick puppies...I respect your dedication to high expectations.)

Favorite Post of the Week: A post from my favorite blogger of all, The Bloggess involving this :

(Tell me you haven't already laughed.)

The Best Thing I Found on the Interwebs: Thanks to my brother Tyler I was introduced to Chuck Testa.

You're welcome.