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Apr

Curly’s older cousin, Moe, gave her a Tshirt recently that is bright yellow with a hot pink graphic on the front that reads, “My Mom Rocks!” (I’d post a pic, but it’s in the dirty laundry at the moment…) I read it to her the first time she wore it, and now every time she puts it on, she says proudly “My Mom Rocks!” and does a little happy dance. I don’t even pay her to do that – somehow she just knows!

One great thing about moms – among the myriad of great things about moms – is how most of us are on the lookout for the best deal, the best product, the best program, the best idea for our families. That is not to say that dads don’t – but I think moms (or at least the moms I know) are always looking to get the most of something for the least (time, money, effort, etc) ! Call it opportunistic, call it clever – Moms are very resourceful and the world wide web certainly showcases their skills!

Since most moms are looking for ways to save money and time, there are a plethora of websites (I love the word Plethora) offering advice and help to meet this growing need. It just so happens that several of these sites are organized by one or two or several moms who put their heads together and came up with some amazing ideas:

Once a Month Mom. This blog is designed to teach anyone how to cook only ONCE each month! Can you imagine? The idea is to get with a friend and spend one day cooking meals together that will last for a month. With pre-made menu plans, recipes, and shopping lists – these two moms really make it sound possible! I’ve copied some of their recipes to try because they sound so yummy – and they even offer recipes for making baby food. Not only that, but they have a lot of posts linking to online coupons and savings for your shopping needs! Because meals are already prepped, it’s easy to just pull one from the freezer to thaw for dinner, and the idea is that you’re less likely to spontaneously splurge on dinner out (which can cost so much more than cooking at home!) I am starting off slowly – partially because I have a fairly small freezer, but I am looking to move to cooking only twice a month on a regular basis in the next few months.

Do you Coupon? My mom is a serious Coupon Queen! I have been slower to get on that bandwagon, but I’ve been signing up with several free coupon vendors lately and finding some great coupons on things I normally buy. Most of these coupon sites have been linked from great Mommy Blogs focusing on saving money, living frugal and being thrifty! Some of these coupons are available to print from online, some offer coupons for groceries and other items, and at some you can find coupons and you can enter your shopping card information (e.g. Kroger Plus Card) for special coupons & savings at your favorite stores. Then, there are communities (Like the Consumer Queen Message Boards or the Coupon Cupboard Coupon Forum) where members share their expertise in finding the best deals and savings (seriously – one gal bought over 100 boxes of cereal for only $10!!!) and share links to great coupon finds. There are coupon sites like Coupon Suzy (free registration) and The Grocery Game (small membership fee) that also offer tons of savings! Are YOU a coupon expert? Feel free to share great coupon websites or blogs in the comment section!

For all of you gardening types – this website has really inspired me. You Grow Girl is just BEAUTIFUL – and if you need advice or tips for gardening (of any kind) this is a great resource to have. Urban and back yard gardening is making a serious comeback as people are looking to eat better and save money. If you need any help getting started (or expanding your garden) , this site has a lot to offer!

Are you interested in locally grown produce but don’t know how to find it? Check out Local Harvest. After searching on their website, I was thrilled to discover several small family-owned farms nearby that I was only vaguely familiar with (in that – “oh look, they have a farm” kind of way). Not just for fresh, organic produce, but also for eggs, dairy, meat, and more – if you want to save money and support local business, plug in your info and see what you can find. (If you’re looking for heirloom seeds for your garden, they have some recommendations there, as well!)

Moms Budget. This is a site I visited recently for some printables – that I bookmarked to spend more time with later. Tips to manage cooking, cleaning, bills & expenses, as well as health & beauty, recipes, and more, this is a site loaded with information to help any mom with just about any thing.

5 Minutes for Mom. This site by and for moms, which recently featured the Ultimate Blog Party 2009, has so much to offer you really have to visit it yourself. Giveaways, contests, a blog directory, practical tips for just about everything you can think of and several different newsletters – it’s a website worth visiting and subscribing to for a number of reasons. Janice & Susan, twin WAH Moms, built this website to showcase and support moms of all kinds. Resources for working at home, parenting tips, links to mom-owned stores – seriously, I couldn’t list everything they have to offer. So hop on over and check it out for yourself!

Food Storage Made Easy. So you’ve done your shopping with coupons, bought local produce, tried some new recipes, and you just want to do more? This is a blog by 2 moms who are attempting to store a full year’s worth of food as part of an emergency preparedness plan. This takes some serious thought! While I’m not sure I could manage a full year’s supply, for us even an extra month’s supply could be helpful. I don’t think it’s entirely out of the question that in times like these, we should think about being prepared for any kind of emergency, and having even a few weeks’ supply of food stored would be beneficial. This site is FULL of information that can guide you into having a plan for an unexpected event. You can sign up for their newsletter, which delivers a series of “Baby Steps” guiding you into the process of storing food long term. They are also having a giveaway these steps in a new All-in-One Binder – you can enter by clicking on the logo below:

Hopefully you can find something useful at one or more of these sites. If you’re looking for something specific and can’t find it – feel free to leave a comment or contact me and I will see what I can find.

Until next time,

have-a-blessed-day

Category: Coupons, Family, Food, Home, Life Tags: baking, budget, budget-friendly, cooking, coupons, emergency preparedness, food storage, frugal, gardening, home management, home organization, local business, meal planning, Moms, Recipes, saving money, saving time, shopping Leave a Comment

Feb

Woot! Woot! Wednesday

queenmommy

Still fighting the sickies, I’ve not had as much time on the computer for several days as I like. But I’ve just gotta tell you about some fun things going on this week.

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Bakespace - a great food-recipe-community-networking site that also happens to be giving away one Kitchenaid appliance every day in February – Woot! Woot! My mom joined this morning and already connected with a mentor for some specific kinds of recipes she’d like. You can post recipes, search recipes, connect with a mentor who specializes in a certain type of recipe or cooking, create your own “kitchen” and more. They even have recipes for bath & body, home care, & pets. It’s all free – and when you upload a recipe or an invited friend joins, you’re entered in the drawing for the free appliance. Come for the food. Stay for the conversation…

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Teaporia. They’ve got a great special for February. You can order 25 sample bags of tea (mix & match) for $10.00 (regularly $12.50)! Each sample bag makes 1-2 cups, and you can order 25 different flavors if you’d like. Select from a wide variety of English, Black, White, Oolong, Rooibos and even Children’s flavors. (Due to the SICKIE invasion at my house for the past week, my mom (Queen Martha) ordered some special for me – I’m SO excited! I’ve been drinking lots of tea, and having many different flavors to choose from will be so nice!)

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Mineralicious. I’ll admit it – I’m a BIG fan of makeup. My mom didn’t wear makeup and I didn’t wear much at all growing up. As an adult – it’s one of my favorite things. I appreciate good makeup. My skin deplores bad makeup… So mineral makeup being what it is, I’ve tried a few different brands and have not found much that didn’t irritate my skin or MAXIMIZE my fine lines & large pores. Dry, sensitive, aging skin doesn’t generally get along well with powder formulas. Enter Mineralicious Samples. Inexpensive, fun colors. And they are wearing well. Hand blended by Chelle Barnett, the ingredients are simple and the costs are low, so savings are available! Monthly specials, giveaways, new products on a regular basis, and even custom blending – if you’re looking for mineral makeup – Mineralicious has a LOT to offer (and the consultant program has very affordable kits with NO quotas or minimums!) Right now you can save 10% off full-size products through February 20, 2009.

Category: Family, Favorites, Tea Tags: bakespace, freebies, mineralicious, Recommended Websites, shopping, Sickies, teaporia 2 Comments

Feb

TA-DA!!! Tuesday

queenmommy

Trying to be efficient, I wrote this post on Monday to give myself more time on Tuesday to do other things – and sure enough I accidentally posted it and earned 2 comments before it was supposed to be posted. =) Technology can be so awesome – if you use it properly. =) LOL

I decided to make Tuesday my “TA-DA!!!” day every week. That way I can post some great online finds to share with you. I’m working out a daily theme, so bear with me. =)

Blogs & Websites

Passionate Homemaking is such an awesome blog – she’s my favorite blogger at the moment. This post she had over the weekend had some really great links, and I’m going to try one of the natural shampoo recipes… And – Queen Martha – she has a link for Sourdough Bread & starter!!! (I did wash my hair this weekend with Dr Bronner’s peppermint soap – wow. It smelled SO good. Now you should know that using less chemicals on your hair is going to change the way your hair lives. It can take several washings to adjust to the new way your hair feels and moves.)

Journey to a Gracious Woman is right up there in my top 3 bloggers!!! Christin is SO awesome. She’s on one of my Christian mom sites, and that’s how I discovered her blog. I subscribe to it and am always touched, moved, convicted, motivated, etc. by what she writes. She has some memes, and some Bible Studies, too.

Exemplify Online is a magazine for Christian women. I’ve downloaded the February edition but have yet to read it all. Their blog is a good daily blog to read, too.

Through Exemplify, I discovered The Kettle Club. For you bloggers who are looking for something new to do, or new bloggers who don’t know what to write about all the time or aren’t sure about being active in a weekly blog, The Kettle Club may work well for you. Not only does this give you a little focus, but also underscores your daily walk with God. AWESOME!

Blissfully Domestic. An online magazine (and community) with almost anything & everything a wife & mom needs. Numerous channels that offer practical tips & advice for every day matters. When you can find some quiet time, this is a website worth exploring! Blissfully Domestic – Your life. Your bliss.

Moms in a Blog. They’ve had some awesome giveaways, and now they have a Recipe Club – FREE!

Organization

List Plan It. Totally cool. I’ve joined for a year and have already started using some of the lists!

The Grocery Game. This is a new site for me, and I’m enjoying my first week of the trial membership. I think this is something my mom, Queen Martha, could have started herself. You can find out more about how it works here. Basically, I’ve subscribed to 2 local grocery stores. As well as offering print coupons, links for other free coupons, etc., Teri makes a list to go with coupons in newspapers, store specials, etc., and then provides a list for each local store so you know what is on sale and what to stock up on. At $1 for the one-month trial (and then only $10 every 8 weeks after that, $15 for 2 stores – still less than $2 a week), this could be a real time saver. You can customize the list that prints so things you wouldn’t buy won’t print. Gonna try it this week and will comment again – but I’m hopeful and excited about using this resource!

So that’s what I’ve got for TA-DA!!! Tuesday this week! Please feel free to comment and give me some feedback about these resources!

Category: Faith, Family, Food, Home Tags: Life, Mommyhood, Monday Memes, Organization, Recommended Websites, Resources, shopping, TA-DA!!! Tuesday, Women's Topics 2 Comments

Jan

Weary Wednesday

queenmommy

We girls have been in the house together for 5 days now. More snow coming down. The babies are restless and I’m ready for some kind of nervous breakdown. It’s a good day for online shopping!

Donna Young – oh my word. LOVE this site. So many great printable planning pages – and they are so user friendly!!! And she has a blog to go along with it!

If you, like me, are in the mood for some hot tea or coffee, don’t forget to visit Teaporia, Miss Ellie’s Coffee, Rogers Gourmet Coffee & Tea, or Honeybean Coffee. If you can’t find something you like at any of these sites, I think you should schedule a check-up…

On cold days like these, I really feel the urge to cook & bake. Herb Trader, Frontier Co-op, and Mountain Rose Herbs offer organic & natural herbs, spices, teas, and other great items. Watkins sells the BEST cinnamon I’ve ever tasted, and also has some great organic & natural products available online, too.

***My pictures won’t upload today so I’ll try to get Curly’s Snow Angel pics uploaded tomorrow.

Category: Food, Home, Life Tags: Coffee, Family, going green, kitchen herbs, natural, organic, Organization, Recommended Websites, shopping, snow days, Tea 2 Comments

Dec

The Busy Woman

queenmommy

Have you visited The Busy Woman website??? As well as selling some really cool planner pages and formats, she has tons of great organizational products for your home, your car, your life!

I found so many fantastic inserts for my Classic size daily planner – and in recent weeks, some planner pages have been reformatted digitally so they can be downloaded and printed as you need them- others are on closeout prices! No more worrying about storing a year’s worth of unused pages – and you can print them as you like, so if you only use a few pages a month, you won’t have a lot of waste!!!

Susie is having a great End-of-The-Year sale – so be sure to check her out!

Category: Family, HomeKeeper Notebook, Organization, SAHM, WAHM Resources & Sites Tags: Organization, shopping, work, Work at Home One Comment

Dec

December is HERE!!!

queenmommy

I have ALWAYS loved the month of December. Well, it starts with Thanksgiving, but just rolls right on through December and continues into the New Year. FAN-TAS-TIC!!!

I don’t want to take it for granted that people will know I love December because it IS the time to celebrate the birth of Christ. Our family celebration tradition was very simple: Christmas morning began for us when my dad would read Luke 2 (which always made me cry) and we’d sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. It always made me stop and think about what Christmas symbolizes and all the “fluff” of holiday shopping and everything that tries to distract us from the REAL meaning of Christmas would fall away… I always thought of Mary and wish I could have seen the REAL nativity even for just a moment.

more…

Category: Family, Holidays Tags: crafts, Holidays, kid-friendly, shopping Leave a Comment

Jul

Family Restrooms

queenmommy

For the faint of heart, please do not read this – I’m a mom and dealing with pee & poop in any form and at any time is apparently one of my responsibilities… Seriously – I am not sure what lesson God is trying to teach me, but being up to my elbows in pee & poop is NOT fun.

In the past 10 days, I have had to take Curly to a public restroom after she has peed all over the floor / shopping cart / miscellaneous items in the cart, etc., FOUR separate times. Four. The most recent occurrence took the cake and I literally almost went psycho-pregnant- hormonal-crazy-lady on someone…

We are attempting to potty train Curly. She will tell us (on occasion) when she wants to go – she will go several times without needing a diaper or pull up – and then she gets busy playing or watching TV and doesn’t mind relying on her diaper. Cant’ blame her – she’s not quite 2, so we’re only pushing lightly – and she’s getting the hang of it.

HOWEVER – going into the public realm seems to beg for other disturbing and traumatic events. Keep in mind that I am now 35 weeks pregnant. Also keep in mind that Curly is very tall and built very solidly at her young age so carrying her is really not an option for me at the moment.

Twice now at Wal-mart and once at Joann fabrics, I have been on my way to the women’s or family restroom in the very back of the store to change Curly’s diaper, and we have found it necessary to call for the “Spill Team” to clean up either a trail or a puddle that has collected underneath the cart Curly is sitting in.

I have found myself BAWLING in the restroom because the baby wipes &/or extra clothes that I thought were packed in the diaper bag are not to be found, and I get to improvise…

The last and fourth time was Friday evening. Curly & I were at Wal-mart after I’d gotten my hair cut. She had just filled her diaper with an unpleasant substance, and I headed back to the FAMILY restroom. I stopped by the baby department to pick up one of those travel packs of wipes, because AGAIN, the travel pack in the diaper bag was missing.

The family restroom seems to always be located at the VERY back of the store. I arrived to find the restroom occupied by a male, considering the voice who responded when I knocked.

Now, I know the reason they have these family restrooms is for such an instance when a parent, male or female, requires a little more room and some kind of privacy to handle theirs or their childrens’ bathroom needs. I pushed the cart into the game aisle and we walked around for several minutes waiting for the aforementioned occupant to exit. I returned, knocked on the door again – still locked.

In the meantime, 2 other SINGLE individuals attempted to enter said restroom (while I am standing RIGHT THERE) only to find it locked. By the second person, I was pretty well calling my place in line OUT LOUD and staking my claim to the family restroom.

While standing outside the locked door, Curly grabbed at her stomach and started saying “Owie” and proceeded to pee ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Bless her heart. She couldn’t stop if she wanted to.

So now, there is a pee puddle all over the floor – the cart is wet, and I am really at my wits’ end. I knock AGAIN on the door – no response – and start to think that I should call for a manager to check on the bathroom in case someone is unconscious, OR if somehow the door was locked as the last person exited.

The “cherry on top” experience came, when a Wal-Mart associate – a single female – attempted to walk into the family restroom – while I was standing at the door waiting.

I thought I was going to scream.

My child is soaking wet – she is poopy – the floor is wet – the plastic wipe case I’m going to purchase and haven’t even opened yet is wet – and this lady thinks she’s going to use the FAMILY restroom while I’m standing right there??? I said to her – “I’m in line for that restroom.”

She didn’t even look at me and just went into the women’s restroom.

Just when I was ready to start crying – ONLY because I am 35 weeks pregnant and hormones are wreaking havoc on my body & emotions – the door to the family restroom opens. Out walks a young male – probably 16 years old, who cranes his neck and GLARES AT ME – most likely assuming that I’ve been the one who kept trying the locked door to get in.

I’m telling you right now, if he had opened his mouth to say one smart-mouthed thing to me – I would have gone psycho-pregnant-hormonal-crazy-lady on him right there in the back of walmart with my child sitting in her sopping wet cart and diaper and clothes, and would have welcomed a light jail sentence – in isolation – free of poopy diapers and inconsiderate morons who think the family restroom is to be used by anyone at anytime.

Can I be honest? The length of time the young man spent in there, had me thinking I’d better take a DEEP breath before I walked in because he MUST have been having some issues. But no – no malodorous presence was waiting. So then I started wondering what took him so freakin’ long in there and then I figured I probably didn’t really want to know…

So I’ve decided as much as I love being with Curly and shopping with her, in order to save my sanity, I may have to avoid – at all costs – trips to Walmart with Curly.