Feeding The Fish Sticks

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, but close to it. 
This blog hasn't been what I had intended it to be and I've dropped the ball in many areas. 
Right now, I'm contemplating closing shop over here at Feeding the Fish Sticks and just focusing on our family blog.  Still not sure yet, but thinking....

So in the mean time since it's been over a month since I've posted, here's a post I planned a while back but never actually wrote.

My blender jar was broken by a Fish Stick putting dishes away.  The company that I ordered the replacement from sent the a jar with no lid that my old lid didn't fit.  Then they sent another jar with no lid instead of just the lid.  Then they finally sent the lid.  During all this rigamarole that I had to deal with, we were without a blender for a LONG time.  Too long for this family.

My son remembered that a long time ago we had seen on Pinterest that you can use a Mason jar as a blender jar.  The mouth is the same size for most blenders. 

It was perfect...especially when I was making a 1 serving smoothie.  I just drank straight from the jar.

So just in case your blender jar breaks and the company messes up your replacement order....now you know you can just use a Mason jar.  You're welcome.  :)

First buy your waxing kit (sorry it's sideways but you get the picture).

Here's what the wax looks like.  Microwave it until it's pasty and warm, not runny and too hot.

Here's my beautiful "before" photo.  They don't look that bushy because over time of waxing, they actually never come in as bushy as they once were.  It's more touch-up waxing after a long time of waxing.

Using a popcycle stick, spread the warm wax just where you want it - CAREFULLY!

Cringe and yank in the opposite direction of the hair.  Then use tiny tweezers from the box to get any scragglers.  It also comes with a nice lotion that has some pain reliever in it.  Put your make-up on and voila!  You've saved yourself over $10!!  So easy!  Wanna see a photo of my bushy eyebrows?  I'll consider posting it....maybe.

Sorry it's not the best "food photo."  It tastes better than this photo looks.  :)

recipe

I took a break from couponing for a few weeks just to limit my running around.  Yesterday I picked it back up and swung by CVS and Walgreens while my daughter had dental work done.  I was pretty happy with the deals that I got.  I didn't separate my photos based on stores like I normally do but I will separate telling you about the deals!

Walgreens:
3 Edge Shaving Gel for $1.25 each
3 Purex detergent for $1.50 each
Nice Water bottles for $2.49 (we use these to take to ball games)
Skittles for 50 cents each (I plan on passing these out to my kids at the football game today and saving from the concession stand)
Softsoap for 99 cents a pump (we were out of soap!  Need to stock up!)
Large Softsoap refill BOGO for $7.79 for both
Dial Foam Soap BOGO for $3.29 for both (this is a larger bottle than the regular pumps and foam usually lasts much longer - trying something new)
3 Capt. Crunch Cereal (a favorite) for $1.76 a box
Cornflakes for $2 a box (saw a recipe for cornflake cookies on Emeals blog this week that I plan on trying.  Only peanut butter, corn syrup, cornflakes and sugar - no bake!)
2 Domino 4 lb. sugar - $1.61 each
CVS:
3 boxes Cheerios for $1.38 each
3 boxes of Truvia for $1 each
Ajax for 49 cents
Charmin for 2 for $9 (we were out of TP!)
Nestle spring water for $2.49
I found these at CVS in the 90% off bin.  They are little cosmetic purses, coin purses, mirrors and notebooks.  I got enough for 8 stockings for girls!  The notebooks were 19 cents each and the bags were 49 cents each.  A steal!!

I am a broken record.

I tell my kids this but that means nothing to them in the age that they are growing up in.

My Disney Peter Pan record had a big scratch right when the Indians captured Wendy.
"And a band of indians....
And a band of indians....
And a band of indians.....
And a band of indians...."

Over and over until we knocked the needle a bit to get past the scratch.

I don't know if they will ever understand that analogy but I find myself repeating myself over and over.

Pick up your clothes off the floor.

Put your shoes in the mudroom bench.

Who left their socks scattered in the kitchen?

Put your school folder in your backpack.

Don't forget to clear off your cereal bowl.

I drive myself crazy so I'm SURE I drive my kids crazy.

I know what my problem is.  Say it once.  Expect obedience.  Punish disobedience.  Obedience the 2nd time is disobedience.  It sounds so simple, but for me....well, I must be hard-headed or just extremely merciful which is coming back to bite me.

I'm the queen of new systems to maintain order in my home.  Charts.  Stickers.  Reward systems.  Prizes.  Praise.  Ask the Fish Sticks.  (Rolling of the eyes...."Mom's got a new chart, everyone.")  They are fleeting and it's because of me.  I just can't seem to keep them all up.  OR they lose their motivation with my Fish Sticks.
 
So what's new in the Fish House?  The Lost and Found Box.  New Rule:  Every night after kids are tucked away, I pick up the house....all over....bedrooms included.  Anything OUT OF ITS PLACE gets put into my Lost and Found Box.  No daily reminders.  No repeated directions.  No mercy.  I'm not nagging.  I'm not aggravated.  Just a happy sweep of the house at 8:30.

So how do they redeem their prized possessions that they neglected to put where they belong?  They have a choice:  pay 25 cents per item (that would be 50 cents for a pair of shoes) OR do a chore that is equivalent to 25 cents (I keep a list of pay-worthy chores in my home management notebook.).

This is week 2.  I think 95% of the things you see in this box were collected on Days 1-4.  I think that means its working.

Call me mean, but the needle has been pushed off "And the band of indians...." and I think I've become sweeter because of it.  And what's better than a sweet Mama.....with a picked up house?  :)

Lost and Found Box

I have come to LOVE herbal remedies.  They work for us and I've enjoyed learning about the healing nature of herbs that God gave to us and I think it's fun making the concoctions....call me crazy...it's o.k....you won't be the first.

So with cold season fast approaching, I'm getting prepared to make some herbal remedies.  My son, years ago, teased me and called my herbs Witches Brew.  My Man liked the term and it's tossed around in the house regularly.  I'm not sure if I should laugh, pout or make them the most bitter concoction I can and make them drink it! 

My friend said that Nettle Leaf Glycerite works well for seasonal allergies.  My Man has such a rough time with allergies that I was interested in trying that.  I have run out of the amazing, homemade vanilla extract and made up another quart of that.  I decided to make a healing, first-aid salve and sell it in small jars to help with our adoption fundraising.  I call it Boo Boo Better.  It's great for cuts, bruises, bites, stings - all things first-aid.  Each jar is $5 and I have only sold half of my stock, so let me know if you want some.  It's great to keep in your purse, your kitchen, your bathroom and pass out to friends and family.  And last I am making an immune boosting tincture.  At the first onset of symptoms, I give it to all the kids.  It helps knock out the symptoms and prevent it from spreading to everyone.

My 4 jars of Witches Brew

For my Boo Boo Better Salve, I had to heat the oil-infused herbs in my crock pot for several days until the oil was pretty and dark green.  Smelled so nice!...at least to this Herbal Girl.

Perfectly ready cooked on slow in the crock pot

Here's the recipe I use.  Hope you can read it.  It was taken with my phone.

Glad for this recipe - it saved my soup!

I found myself this time without taco seasoning.  Have you ever done that?  I grabbed one of my cookbooks and found a great and easy recipe for Taco Seasoning.  Perfect!  Google is great for that too.

We enjoy the soup with chips and homemade salsa as a side and a dollup of sour cream and a sprinkle of Mexican cheese on each yummy bowl of soup.  It'd be the perfect meal to share with company or when someone else needs a meal.  Try it!

I'm sorry this is late.  I know it's too late for you to run get these deals.  I took photos of my loot on my phone and totally forgot to post. 

Here it is anyway.  Hope you all grabbed some great deals too.

Dentel Picks - 50 cents each
Candy - 49 cents each (stocking up for a candy bouquet I make for gifts)
Jack's Pizza - $1.59 each
Bagged Candy - $1 each (great for treat at football games)
Pantene - $1 each
Herbal Essence - $1 each

Walgreens Deals

Root Beer - 69 cents
Dawn - 67 cents
Colgate Toothpaste - 49 cents
Colgate Mouthwash - Free!
Colgate toothbrush - 49 cents

I planned on getting Sundown gummy vitamins for $1 and Rescue Gum for FREE! but I was in a rush and couldn't find either.

CVS Deals

One of our 2 apple trees had the best harvest we've had so far.  We did find a disease on one of them and google told us it was a disease from an evergreen tree in our front yard.  We will have to address it aggressively next year with pesticides in order to prevent the problem again, but for now, don't they look yummy?
After hours and hours of peeling, coring and cubing, I made 3 big bowls of applesauce which have already been totally devoured by the Fish Sticks.

Homemade applesauce always reminds me of my Mimi Blair.  She kept a freezer full of it!  YUM!

For some reason there have been super deals on cereal the last couple of weeks.  Like deals I have not seen in FOREVER!!  When cereal is under $2 a box, snag a bunch!

Walgreens was a bit hit yesterday.  I got Chex Mix (6 bags - perfect snack for football games) at 75 cents a bag.  Nivea face cleaner and shave gel for $1 each.  GM cereals were $1.67 and I had a coupon that brought it down to $1.33 a box.  I got 9 boxes.  Even without the coupon, it's a great deal!  Oscar Meyer hotdogs were BIGI with a free pack of buns so 2 hot dogs with 1 pack of buns totaled $3.49 - another great meal for football games.  Scope mouthwash and Crest toothpaste both came to 49 cents each and Charmin toilet paper was $3.14.

I plan to go to CVS today.  There is another cereal deal there.  Time to stock up!

Great deals!

We altered tee shirts this summer from a pin on Pinterest. My girls love them. What a cute alternative to the plain ole tee. 

Have you eaten a terrific dish at a restaurant and wished you knew how to make it?  I do all the time and love to come home, google it and try to prepare it myself. Sometimes it tastes perfect, sometimes it needs tweaking and sometimes it sends me back to google. 

I know August is almost over and I'm just now posting our meal plan, but I wanted to show you what I did this summer.  I have loved my meal calendar so much!  I wanted to add recipe cards to the system that are tried and true that I use over and over.  It led me to the site, where I have shared before, that has a monthly meal plan for Aldi grocery store, another one for Aldi in the fall and a last one of all Crock Pot meals.  I cut and pasted from the www.momadvice.com site and put into a document.  I made small cards for my calendar for each meal, using the guides that the web site gives for side dishes.  I tried my best to color code them based on the cardstock I had.  It didn't take me too long and I'm so glad I did it. 

For August I planned for us to eat 1 week from each new menu.  I left a week open for leftovers, breakfasts meals and meals on the run.  These are tried and true recipes that my family has loved for years.  It was well worth the effort.

Now that school is in full swing, our schedule is looking a bit crazy.  Beginning next week we will have a cross country meet every Monday, a middle school football game every Thursday and a high school football game every Friday.  That means 3 days a week we will either eat really late dinners or dinners that I need to pack on the go - otherwise we could have some huge eating-out expenses.  I'm hoping to go through my recipe files and find great recipes that I could pack for the games.  I plan on making a list of these recipes and then filing them together for On-The-Go menus.  It requires that I stay on top of my game, but it's essential to get us through the  next 10 weeks....until wrestling & basketball.  :)

Recipe cards

August  meal plan

There are only a few toys that I would recommend to other moms. Toys that stand the test of time. Toys that invite creativity. Toys that include a wide age range. Toys that don't break the budget. Toys that don't break either. Toys that even the parents enjoy. Here's one we have loved. 

Do you have a recipe that is your go to when you bless others with a meal or when you host company?  One of my favorites is Creamy Chicken Burritos. Add a bag of blue tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream, maybe taco sauce and a salsa. Yummy and easy. Guess what's for dinner tonight?

Walgreens has Post cereal for 1.75. Match it with a $1/2 coupon from SS 7/28 and that makes them $1.25 a box. I grabbed 16!!

School is in full swing and menu planning just kicked back in gear.  I wanted to start off the year with organization for breakfast, lunch AND supper - not just supper.  I've been trying to mix it up with breakfast so we are not just having cereal every morning.  I have also tried new things for lunches because my Fish Sticks are not peanut-butter-and-jelly-every-day kind of kids.  I don't blame them.

So I came up with a guideline to help me keep lunches creative.  This guideline helps me in my grocery planning also.

Mondays:  Sandwiches
Tuesdays:  Wraps
Wednesdays:  Soups
Thursdays:  Frozen packaged
Fridays:  Finger foods / Kabobs

Here's what we've tried so far in the last 2 weeks: 

M - peanut butter and Nutella, turkey & cheese, tuna salad
T - leftover chicken salad in a wrap, bacon bit and cheese quesadilla, and salmon & cheese quesadilla
W - leftover beef stew, canned ravioli
Th - Bagel Bites & Pizza Rolls (I'm not one to buy the frozen packaged stuff but we don't do any of the lunch meals at school so this a treat for my kids)
F - the picture below left today in their lunch boxes - It's pizza in a bowl with a side of crackers- they had it last week too and it was a big hit!

I'm always on the lookout for good lunches that don't hurt my grocery budget and don't take too long to prepare.

turkey ham, pepperoni, bell peppers, cheese cubes, olives & cherry tomatoes

I bought this calendar at Walmart for our schedule. My daughter came up with a color coding system and I love it. Now all the Fish Sticks know what we are doing and when. Along with my meal planning calendar, I'm hoping to keep our crazy, big family running as smoothly as possible. 

I love vegetables and one of my very favorite is spaghetti squash. This was my first year to grow it in my garden.

For lunch we made these yummy salmon quesadillas. Served with sour cream and homemade salsa made a delicious and easy lunch!  

A couple of years ago, I read a blog post about a company called Zaycon Foods.  They provide quality meats at excellent prices in bulk.  I checked to see if they made deliveries in my area and they did not, so I signed up to be notified if they were to ever head this way.

Last year I received word that my town would now have drop offs.  Every couple of months, Zaycon notifies me through email of the meat sale that they will be running.  You purchase on line in large quantities (usually about 40 lbs. or so) and then they let you know when and where the pick up will be. 

This morning I got 93% lean ground beef.  The cattle were grass fed until a few weeks before slaughter and then given corn to fatten a little bit.  I paid $3.49 per pound.

So far, I have purchased boneless, skinless chicken breasts, bacon, spiral ham, breakfast sausage links and now ground beef.  I have been so pleased.  I love keeping my freezer stocked with quality meats at reasonable prices.  It helps me not have to constantly be looking for sales at my local grocery stores. 

The pick-ups are very convenient.  Mine is in a church parking lot in town.  The pick-up time is a 45 minute range.  I meet a refrigerated truck, they check their iPad for my order and load up my van.  It's so simple.  The meat is cold and not frozen, which allows me to freeze it in smaller portions when I get home.  This is one of the 3 food co-ops that I am involved in.  I can't wait to share the others with you.  Check out Zaycon and see if they are available in your area too!

I got 4 of these in my box.  Each is 10 lbs. of ground beef

Before freezing, I cut each log into 1 lb. (approximately) sections and put in freezer bags.

Got a few good deals at CVS this week. Soda was 69 cents, Herbal Essence was $1 each and Oral B Action Toothbrush was 99 cents. The store ad mentioned coupons in the Sunday paper so those were the only match ups I checked. I threw the ad and the coupons in the car and tore them out in the parking lot. Sometimes couponing doesn't have to be time consuming or planned in advanced. Oh yea, and the Starbucks iced coffee was free...and yummy!

I started my summer going nuts making maxi skirts. I bought a stack of solid jersey knit flat sheets at Goodwill for $2.99 a piece. I used a simple pattern from Pinterest and made about 6 skirts, half of them long and the other half calf length. They r much more comfortable than shorts and cooler too. I'm hooked. 

Need a good recipe for summer squash or zucchini?  Here's my favorite from my cookbook. 

Want a fun summer activity for all ages?  Homemade play dough. Took me 20 minutes for hours of fun. 

CVS:
Kleenex - 82 cents each
Shaving cream - 44 cents
Toothpaste - 50 cents
Toothbrush - 50 cents
Nail Polish - 99 cents
Playtex - $3.99
Gobstoppers - 75 cents



Walgreens:
Duracell - FREE
Deodarant - 2 for FREE
Listerine - FREE
Kleenex - 72 cents each
Nestle candy - 39 cents each
Orange slices - 69 cents each
Pencils - 39 cents each
Scissors - 49 cents each