A Day In My Life

Recipe Box: Slow Cook Ribs

angelsong214 — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:01:22 +0000

beef or pork ribs

favorite seasonings

barbecue sauce (optional)

Cut the ribs so that they will fit into your slow cooker; season them on both sides as desired. Stack them in the cooker; do not add any liquid. Cover and cook on low for five or six hours. If desired, finish cooking on the grill when you add barbecue sauce during the last half hour of cooking, or just keep it in the slow cooker to finish.

Filed under: frugal, Recipes

Recipe Box: Hearty Split Pea Soup

angelsong214 — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:36:25 +0000

1 pound (2 and 1/4 cups) dry split peas

1 ham hock or ham bone

1/2 cup diced onion

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced

1 carrot, peeled, thinly sliced

3/4 teaspoon garlic salt

1 potato, peeled, sliced thin or diced

3/4 teaspoon marjoram

1/2 teaspoon thyme

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for two hours. Reduce to low and simmer for four hours. Refrigerate leftovers promptly. This is a very thick soup that is good when it is chilly outside.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: slow cooker, soup

Consolidation

angelsong214 — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:19:16 +0000

We are beginning to prepare for our annual Thanksgiving open house. Toward that end, we have just spent some time getting our “emergency” food supplies organized. I combined multiple packages (one pound plastic bags) of black beans, split peas, lentils, pasta, brown sugar, and powdered sugar) into labeled, covered containers that will fit more easily into the cabinet. No more plastic bags of anything will be stored in the cabinet. It is much easier and more frugal to combine the small bags of foods into the covered containers. We used a glass container, plastic, gallon-sized ice cream containers, margarine tubs and other containers we already had on hand. We do plan to purchase more containers eventually, but we will do so only after we decide how they will be used.

Filed under: frugal, organizer, Repurpose, reuse

Time Passes . . .

angelsong214 — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:05:21 +0000

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of my grandmother’s death. Hard to believe it’s been that long, but I still remember the phone call from my Aunt with the news. Shock. Loss. Huge, crushing grief. All of those emotions and reactions have given way to peaceful and happy memories of her. She gave me the gift of childhood, and taught me a lot of practical skills that have carried me through well. I miss her; I always will, until we are reunited in God’s kingdom one day. We had her funeral on our fourth wedding anniversary. At the end of this week, we will celebrate thirteen years of marriage, longer than either of our first marriages lasted.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Taming Our Paper Files

angelsong214 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:50:43 +0000

I ordered and received Maria Gracia’s My Oh-So-Organized Filing System. Yesterday, Jay and I completely emptied our filing cabinet, and took everything into the dining room. He got one of our plastic packing crates for trash, and one for items needing to be shredded, and we set to work. We put the filing system’s labels on file folders, according to our specific needs. Then we went through every single hanging file, file folder and sheet of paper we own. We discarded enough to fill our trash crate, and put some into the shred bin. Everything else went into appropriate folders. The process took six and a half hours, and we were exhausted by the time we finished…but now, we can literally put our hands on any single piece of documentation in seconds. It is so worth it to have spent the time. The system is easy to use, as we discovered today when we had a few stray items to file. I put labels on three drawers of the filing cabinet until we know where each category is by practice/use. The fourth drawer is for notebooks for my job, which were taking up floor space until this morning. I felt a huge sense of relief when I realized that nine years of tax documents are arranged by date order, newest first, in one single folder that is not bulging, with paper falling out of it. That was when I knew this system is a keeper. The extra file folder labels that we do not need currently are stored for future use, as our needs change. This is one more area of disorganized clutter we no longer have to deal with, and it is so welcome.

Today, we took a complete, paper and pen inventory of food items, cleaning supplies, paper products and toiletries in the entire house, and I’m going to use that information to compile a master shopping list, and a price book for grocery shopping; it will also be turned into lists of the contents of pantry and cabinets for easy reference and tracking. We will mark items off as they are used, to avoid buying duplicates of things we don’t need. For instance, we have 8 bags or other containers of pinto beans. This supply should last a few YEARS!

A VERY Handy Piece of Software

angelsong214 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:35:57 +0000

Like most people who surf the internet, I have a list of sites I visit frequently. The other day, I found WebMon. This little gem helps me stay sane, already. I simply added my list of frequently visited URLs, and each time I start my computer, it checks for updates to those sites, and I double click each one to open it in my browser. I can add new sites any time.

Since I am interested in organizing and frugality these days, I am finding a wealth of new sites on these topics, and reading new content is a breeze with WebMon.Incidentally, I ALWAYS read blog comments….I am discovering there is as much useful content in the comments as in the main articles. I also welcome YOUR comments here. What are your all time favorite organizing and frugal tips?

Quick Tip…

angelsong214 — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:22:57 +0000

This tip is hardly new….but it is new to me. I actually found this yesterday online, but I discovered it for myself this weekend. I have never liked folding contour (fitted) sheets. They always ended up in a ball, were never neat, and were awkward to store. So I did a quick Google search for a video on how to fold them, and found several. Once I had the contour sheet folded, I decided to stack it with the flat sheet and a single pillowcase, then I put the entire stack into the second pillowcase and folded the open end of the second pillowcase over. Now, our linen closet has ample room for storing six complete sets of linens on a single shelf, and there is no need to search for matching pieces of each set…and the contour sheets no longer fall off the shelf. Inspired, I think. To keep your linens fresh, place a fabric softener sheet in each of the containing pillowcases. The really nice thing is that I can grab a single case and have the complete set of linens to make the bed. I can also easily store extra linens in the guest room without using much closet space.

The 13th Juror…?

angelsong214 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:22:53 +0000

I was reading a news story on CNN yesterday, and noticed a “survey” called “The 13th Juror. The question asked was, “Is (name of person) guilty of murder?” This bothered me greatly. How on earth is anyone supposed to be able to make such an assessment when no evidence has been seen by the person asked the question, and no testimony has been heard, (excluding what is found in the media, which is sometimes biased)? The whole idea gives me the creeps. Maybe I’m old-fashioned.

Confessions of a (Former) Packrat

angelsong214 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:21:23 +0000

I am the first to admit: I have always hated to get rid of anything that might be remotely useful. I have referred to myself as “the queen of making do.” I grew up in a fairly large family, and one just never knew if “things” discarded would ever be replaced. Then, for a decade, I was a single mother of two with a very limited income…and again, there was that feeling of “what if I need it later?” This began to change when I met my current husband, and he came over to help me move some living room furniture one day. It started small, as these things often do, and has gradually taken hold in my life, and, by extension, my husband’s (although now, I am more likely to sell, toss, or donate unneeded items than he is). We bought a new home in November, and the desire to keep the environment clean, in good repair and free of clutter is becoming ever more central to my way of living. It is joined by a growing desire to “go green” in small ways I am just beginning to grasp and incorporate. More about that later.

I am discovering that clutter is debilitating. It just saps my energy and overwhelms me. So…I have begun to take my life back. A few years ago, I got rid of outdated and worn out clothing (with the “help” of my daughter who decided to clean my closet when I was not at home one day. It made me so angry…but she was right.) I had so many clothes, I could lose garments in my own closet.

This desire to de-clutter really began to take hold last summer with one of the simplest projects. I have written here about my household notebook, and it remains a very useful tool. I also watched (and still enjoy) episodes of a television program on the Discovery Home Network called Neat. My husband is emotionally attached to some things from his childhood that the professional organizer on Neat, Hellen Buttigieg, would advocate discarding, and he reacts strongly to the program at times. He has said that he wants to see what her home is like. I look for organizing tips on the program, as well as in books and of course online. Do a Google search for “home organizer,” “frugal,” or similar terms sometime. The results are amazing. I am convinced that eventually my whole life is going to be better organized. I already know there is a huge reduction in stress, and it is much easier to keep things clean and well ordered when they start out that way.

Another benefit to my new “get it together” approach: I have found ways to make my own cleaners, and they are less expensive and better for the environment than almost any of the commercial cleaners on the market. I know our grandparents had to do a lot more physical labor than most of us do, but they did have some good ideas for using what was at hand. They had to: money was tight, and it sometimes meant a trip from the family farm into town (a major event) just to shop.

What I am discovering about de-cluttering is that it gets easier over time, it is making my life a lot easier, and it really is enjoyable.

Hello world!

angelsong214 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:54:52 +0000

I have moved this blog to WordPress after almost four years with Blogger. I have been wanting to make this change for a while, and I have to say I’m impressed with what I’m seeing thus far. Eventually, I plan to get a paid webhost account for my own website, and will then be using WordPress there, but this makes a good bridge. I’m looking forward to getting established here. I was very nervous about changing to WordPress, but I found a good tutorial with a little research, and it has been easy to do. I did have trouble importing my blogroll, but I will get it sorted out as I go along.