What Has Happened To Sunday Best?

I grew up in a conservative church where women wore dresses and men wore suits to church on Sunday.  As an adult, I've found many churches who don't hold to a "dress code".  We spent 14 years at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale where the message was expressly "come as you are".  I enjoyed our years there tremendously but once I had kids, I really wanted to dress them up for church.  Outside of church, there are so few formal occasions to attend that it's nice to get in the habit of dressing up at least once a week.  We only do this on Sunday's.  Wednesday nights the kids wear school clothes.

With young girls 0-4, I found plenty of options but right around 5T the dresses got shorter and less "dressy".

Recently, we went to Target, Kohl's, JCPenny, Bon Ton, Macy's online and Old Navy - not one appropriate dress for Charlotte, our 8 year old, or Violette, our 4 year old who is wearing 5T because she's very tall.

I asked other people at church where they shopped and they all said consignment shops.  I'm just about fed up with shopping and most of the consignment shops in our area are on the other side of town where I rarely go.

Husband volunteered to make skirts but we have enough big projects to finish.

Then I found ThredUp through MoneySavingMom.com.  ThreadUp is an online consignment shop, currently offering 40% or $50 off (whichever comes first) for new customers when you follow the prompt from MSM.  I was surprised at the large quantity of dresses and low cost for what appears to be gently worn items.  I can see many of these costing far more in our local consignment shops.  I quickly made a chart highlighting what dress categories and sizes I wanted to fill and spent several evenings browsing until I was able to fill every spot but one for three seasons!

This is not a paid endorsement, I'm just a super happy customer. The final thing that sold me on buying from ThreadUp is the free returns with store credit.  If you just want to return the merchandise for money back, there is an $8.99 processing fee.  I made sure there were enough items I would be interested in if the dresses I selected did not fit.

Finally, here are the charts I made to give husband a "hint" as to what to put the girls in on Sunday if I'm preoccupied.  The pink stars represent what we already had and all other items were bought on ThredUp:

Travel Tips on Southwest

Southwest - where people pick their own seats after being sorted into groups.  This is a FUN airlines where the Flight Attendants sing and tell jokes but that doesn't stop some people from being very annoying.

1.  To the person seated in the aisle - don't hop up on your seat and expect the person wanting the window seat to squeeze past your bulging knees, that's just awkward, unless it's your plan to dissuade anyone from sitting next to you.  It certainly worked on me as I moved on quickly.

2.  Get your suitcase into the overhead bin by yourself or check in your luggage.  It's just rude to expect the flight attendant to wrestle your bag in - Southwest offers 2 free luggage check in's - which in this day of travel is almost unheard of.  Please don't write to me about people who need help putting their bags up - have you seen how long the airports are to drag a suitcase around?  I sometimes walk 2 miles.  If you can manage to drag your bag that far, changes are you are strong enough to put it in the overhead compartment, unless your arms are ready to fall off from over-packing your carry on and the walk has stressed your arm beyond it's capacity to lift your bag, which if so, I hope you learned your lesson and will check your bag in next flight.

3.  If you check in exactly 24 hours before your flight, you are highly likely to get in the A or early B range.  Southwest does give preference to those who pay the extra $15 for early boarding but even they are subject to early check in times for higher status in the line.  If you are in line A your chances of finding the seat you want and putting your bag in overhead are awesome.  If you are in line B, your chances are pretty good.  If you are in line C, get ready to check your bag at the gate.

4.  If you are flying with several plane stops, you had better take all your stuff with you if you are getting off the plane to shop.  I once had a flight to LA where I got off in Phoenix and came back to find someone sitting ON my scarf and hat.  I don't understand why someone would put their butt on someone else's things but they sure did and acted confused when I asked why they sat in my seat and had the nerve to state Southwest's open seating policy.

5.  Do NOT wave your crotch in someone's face who is seated in the aisle seat.  I don't care if you are male or female, to have a waving crotch in ones face is just weirdly disturbing!  You can move your body about two feet in front of the person and still reach your bag, or you could make sure your crotch is facing the seat area, like behind the persons face.  Or just wait until there's more room on the plane to reach in and get your stuff.

1st Day of School!!!

Is there anything more exciting than a first day of school?  It's Violette's first day of Pre-school!!  

Sam is in Montana with his Grandparents so his first day of 1st Grade will be next week.  

The Facebook Brag

Have you ever written a post in your head while doing something you deem as extraordinary?  Well, if you haven't, I'm sure you've seen others who do.  Facebook has given us a platform to list out our accomplishments, growth, and milestones. 

I think it would be hilarious to put up a super braggy post that says, "Rachel takes the gold in summer kitchen Olympics by baking X# loaves, X# canned pints along with all dishes done while the girls played in complete and utter harmony.  #blessed".  

But alas, some humor does not translate well, particularly if someone is having an especially hard, unproductive day.  So I'll keep my silly post here.

On Saturday, I found myself writing a post in my head as I tallied all the things I hoped to accomplish.  I worked furiously from 7:30 - 8:30 to wash all the dishes, bake 2 loaves of sweet potato bread, drain soaked black beans and set up for 3-4 cook time, and get prepped tomatoes out of fridge and set up for their final salsa ingredients and 3-4 hours cook time - all while NOT eating breakfast or drinking coffee.  What a horrible idea, to do all that work on an empty stomach.  Sometimes my Will overcomes my Sanity.  

After breakfast, I took the girls to grandmas house to see about getting a squirrel trap (see last post) and afterwards we stopped by our house, the one we bought 8 months ago and have yet to get a contractor to commit to fixing the roof.  I was shocked to see our yard had turned into a massive jungle.  I shouldn't be too surprised given our 3 week vacation and subsequent 2 weeks of truck trouble but I guess I didn't expect to see one foot tall grass.  How embarrassing, we'd become "those neighbors".  

As we headed home it occurred to me that we could remove the back row of seats in our van to make room for the lawnmower and equipment.  Not sure why this hadn't occurred to me sooner, I guess we kept thinking we'd get the truck back.  Husband promptly agreed to the plan and left for the rest of the day.

I got lunch on the table for the girls and ate while canning the salsa from earlier.  After lunch I put on "Beauty and the Beast" for the girls and spent the next hour making another batch of salsa and two loaves of banana bread.  Just as I was finishing up, Evie came to me asking for a nap and I realized she had a fever.  At this point my day literally stopped, right around 2pm and I didn't put her down until 7pm when I parked her in the highchair for dinner while quickly draining the black beans and putting them into 3 quart bags.  Yes, my beans sat there since lunch!  This is what happens when you have small ones,  She reclaimed my lap right after dinner, of which she ate nothing and I finally put her in bed at 9.

I think she's teething because I couldn't find anything else wrong with her.

Finally, here's my brag photo:

Our Squirrels Are On Notice!

While we were on our three week vacation, squirrels got into our truck and chewed through wires in the electric panel. It caused $280 in damage as we had to replace the entire instrument cluster.  On Friday, we went to pick up our truck and found the engine light was coming on so we promptly returned the truck and it was then they found the chewed wires.  Not sure how much this next round will cost.

These squirrels have had free reign of our property with no predators so we're planning to put out traps and re-home them.  I'm sure more will move in, but I just want to get the ones who chewed our wires off the property so they don't do it again.

Blog Refresh 2016

It's time to say goodbye to a header that I love so much.

I love seeing my kids at the top but I'm not good at keeping the photos updated and when considering a refresh I realized it's probably best to go with something that requires less maintenance.  Life with four kids, a full time job with travel, and life outside a computer keeps me on my toes.  I love my blog and would never consider ending it but there comes a time when less is more.  My kids will still be highlighted in the blog, just not on top.

Buzz Away Extreme - A Natural Insect Repellent

My oldest daughter is a magnet for mosquito's and we've used OFF! family care spray products until now.  I recently had a chance to try Buzz Away Extreme, which is a natural insect repellent spray, and the results were great.

The reason I dislike OFF! is because it's usually sold as an aerosol can and I worry that the over spray gets into places that a spray just doesn't need to go like breathing it in.  I also don't feel comfortable using the chemical Deet.  I have small children, two of which still suck their thumbs and it's hard enough keeping their hands clean.

This summer I was contacted by Buzz Away who asked if I'd like to try out their natural product in exchange for a blog post.  Well sure, I call that fortuitous timing!

We received a 2oz travel size pump spray bottle in June and we used it until leaving for our family vacation in July (forgot to pack it) then used again when we got home in August.  Upon our return, we found the mosquito's had gotten really bad in our backyard.  We live in Maryland where August weather is hot and humid, perfect conditions for mosquitoes.  First day back my oldest ran outside without any protection and promptly got bit all over.  I then found the Buzz Away spray and made sure she was covered every day since and I'm happy to say she's reported no bug bites!

The spray ingredients are listed in this order:
Active ingredients:
Castor Oil (8%), Geranium Oil (6%), Soybean Oil (3%), Cedarwood Oil (1.5%), Citronella Oil (1%), Peppermint Oil (0.5%), Lemongrass Oil (0.25%).

Inert Ingredients:
(79.75% total):  Purified Water, Coconut Oil, Glycerin, Lecithin, Sodium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Wintergreen Oil, (Patented base HOMS(r) formula).

I find the spray smell to be a bit strong but not unpleasant.

This product can be found in a 6oz size on Amazon for $10.86 with Prime (which includes free shipping with account), or on Amazon sold direct from Quantum for $6.79 for 4 oz with $2.95 shipping.

Wild about Canning and Reducing our Footprint

This year our tomato plants have gone crazy with growth.  Next year husband plans to build scaffolding because these plants have outgrown Lowe's tallest tomato cages.

August is going to be a busy month for canning tomatoes!

The only question is what should we do with them?  As of last week I still had 20 quarts of tomatoes from last summer and about 10lbs in the freezer!  Our kids stopped liking Spaghetti and Chili so I guess we slowly stopped making these parental faves over the past year.  No more!  When I was a kid my mom had staple meals on the menu that never changed - Spaghetti every Friday night and Hamburgers every Saturday night.  This left only 5 days to plan meals and I'm going to do the same.

After making a giant pot of Spaghetti last Saturday, I now have 16 quarts of canned tomatoes (I use 4 quarts in my recipe).  I figure if I make this once a month then I'll have 4 months left.  I will therefore need 32 quarts to get through next August on Spaghetti alone.

Other things we can work into the canning schedule are Salsa and Stewed Tomatoes - which just adds bell peppers and onions to plain tomatoes.  We've got red peppers in the garden but very few onions so I'll need to get those from the store this week.

This week we did our first batch of Salsa (4 pints), more on that separately so I can post our recipe and we canned Pinto Beans (12 pints).  The Pinto's are to replace store bought cans of Pinto beans.  Here is the savings:

10lb bag bought for $10.00 in Odessa, TX at Albertsons.  We soaked 3lbs of beans which made 1 batch of refried beans and 12 pints of canned pinto beans.  My math shows we can make 36 pints of pintos and 3 batches of refried beans (which is equivalent to 6 cans) out of 9 pounds of beans.  We find a pint is about equal to a 15oz can so this replaces 36 cans of pintos and 6 cans of refried beans.  These cans cost roughly $0.69 at Aldi so with 42 cans the cost is $28.98.  Let's just round off and say the savings is $20.   

The BIGGER savings is 42 metal cans that would need to be recycled.  I'm big into recycling but I believe the more important thing is to REDUCE our intake and with this process we are only throwing away one plastic bag and reusing our jars over and over. This makes me feel better than saving $20.  

To bring this back to our garden, we did manage to grow about 1lb of pinto's but we supplemented with the 10lb bag because Tex Mex is on our menu once a week and these are a staple in our diet.

Strawberry Cream Pie - Recipe

My mom used to make an amazing strawberry cream pie when I was young.  She'd make it mid-winter with frozen strawberries and in the summer she'd make fresh strawberry pie.  I like both but for some reason the strawberry cream stands out as a fonder memory - it's a Mac and Cheese kinda comfort food.

This pie could not be easier to make.  I start by thawing frozen strawberries over a strainer to get the ice water out of the berries, overnight seems best to get the bulk of the juice drained or you could start in the morning and then make the pie in the afternoon.  It's super important to drain correctly because here is a photo of a time when I got too anxious to make the pie.  When the strawberries have too much water the pie will not set up properly.

This is how the pie should look.

Ingredients:

• 1 pie crust
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1lb 6.5oz frozen strawberries thawed (should be 5 cups when finished thawing)
• 1/4 cup flour

Preparation:

Blend all ingredients in blender.

Place pie crust into pie pan and then pour ingredients into the crust.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Printable Recipe Link

Apple Cashew Butter Cookie Recipe - Updated!

Today I learned that a project I have been working on 60+ hours per week for the past 3 months has been postponed indefinitely.  I decided to make cookies before going back to work.  That's what one does when one works from home.

Cashew Butter is a splurg and it's wonderful when you first open the jar, smooth and creamy like peanut butter but the last 1/4 of the jar seems the hardest to eat because the oils run out and it gets dry.  This is the point when a cookie recipe is needed to use up the last 1/2 cup.  

Today I modified my last recipe slightly and it made a much better cookie in my opinion:

Ingredients

•   1/2 cup sugar

•   1/2 cup brown packed sugar

•   1/2 cup unsalted butter softened (1 stick)

•   1/2 cup Cashew Butter

•   1/2 cup Unsweetened Apple Sauce

•   1 egg

•   1 teaspoon cinnamon

•   1 3/4 cups White Wheat Flour

•   1 teaspoons baking soda

•   1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Heat oven to 375.

In large bowl, cream sugar, brown sugar, and butter until fluffy.  Add cashew butter, apple sauce and eggs until smooth.  Add flour, baking soda, and salt until just mixed.  

Use cookie scoop to create small cookie balls, approx. 1" diameter.  

Bake for 10 minutes.  

The cookie dough freezes really well.  I like fresh baked cookies so I use the cookie scoop to make small round cookie balls and put them into a gallon bag.  They can be baked frozen for 10-11 minutes and make an excellent evening snack.  

I totally thought they would be an "adult snack" but all 3 kids at home quickly scarfed them down (4th kid is in Texas).  The minor changes made this time were to eliminate 1/4 cup Flax Seed flour (mine had gone wonky), cut cooking time to 10 minutes rather than 11, and I didn't try to finish them like a Peanut Butter cookie with criss cross fork marks and powdered sugar.  The end result was slightly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside - the perfect cookie in my opinion!  

Printable Recipe Link