Month: October 2009

Monday: Chicken Patties & Buttered Noodles Tuesday: Baked Rotini w/ garlic bread (based loosely on this recipe) Wednesday: Hamburgers/hot dogs on the grill w/ rice Thursday: Short ribs in the crockpot (I think I’m going to try this recipe and alter it for the crockpot) Friday: Sirloin steak & roasted potatoes (I inventoried our freezer and we have 8 packages of sirloin steak!) Saturday: Steak sandwich & chips Sunday: Leftovers A lot of these are carried over from last week since we had some late nights and just snacked when we got home. I have a knitting class after work this Thursday and next so I’m going to try to use up some of the cuts of beef that are hiding in my freezer. I’m making a point to post more of the recipes that I use here on MPM, whether it be my version or a link to the original. What’s on your plate this week? See what’s on cooking over at this week’s Menu Plan Monday.

I saw my Mom today and she was telling the ladies at our knitting group how busy I am. Like crazy busy. I guess she’s right, and I probably do tell people I am busy a lot, but it still surprised me to hear her say it. When I was in high school I was close friends with my cousin in the same grade. She was in every sport there was, went to church, etc., etc. It seemed like every time I asked her to do anything she said, “I’m really sorry but I’m just so busy… I have practice… I have a game… I have ____”. It sort of drove me crazy. I never understood why she would let herself be so busy. What about enjoying life and having fun!? Now I get it. 100%. Sure, people might think I’m busy and I agree. However, I am really enjoying the things I’m doing. Even when I get tired and burnt out I still feel like this is all worth it. For example, here’s what I did today: made 6 loaves of bread, knitted for several hours including 1 hour at class, posted twice on here, completely emptied out our

I didn’t mean to be “away” so long. I spent my day off trying to help my cousin out with her new baby. It went pretty well but that on top of not sleeping well the night before I had to take the sheep in means I’ve been very tired! I’ve got a knitting class this afternoon but wanted to sneak in an update about how things went. Brian worked in the soybean field until after dark on Monday night so we got up at 5 on Tuesday morning to load the sheep before he went to work. The loading went pretty smooth, almost too smooth. That darn sheep has only had a halter on him 2 or 3 times but he walked on a rope like a pro and jumped right in the trailer. Figures! 😉 I memorized the little map Brian drew me so I knew exactly where to go and where to park at the slaughterhouse. Normally, with cattle, you back the trailer right up to the gate. Since I just had the one sheep it was quicker for me to just park and walk him in. As I was driving in I could see in through

I went to college with a bunch of animal loving vegetarians. “How can you eat your animals!?” they would ask. My response? I’m not ready to stop eating meat so the next best thing I can do is make sure the animals I eat have the best life possible and that their lives are ended in a humane way. Even my classmates could respect that. And blah blah blah. I know what I told them is true. I do. It is my responsibility to raise our meat, raise it well, and well… decide when it is time for them to go. If I have a bunch of pampered farm animals and buy my meat at the grocery store that doesn’t make much sense. But it isn’t always easy. What’s making me think of this? Well we have that one lonely ram lamb and his date with destiny is scheduled for tomorrow. We’re going to “try a lamb” ourselves as in eat one to see how to cook it so we can share our experience with any of our customers who may want to buy some lamb. The lamb has to go to the same place the cattle go to. Brian

Monday: Hamburgers/Hot dogs on the grill w/ rice Tuesday: Chicken patties & buttered noodles Wednesday: Homemade chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes w/ chicken gravy Thursday: Baked Walleye w/ Alfredo shells Friday: Baked rotini w/ garlic bread Saturday: Pizza & breadsticks What’s on your plate this week? Check out what others are eating over at this week’s Menu Plan Monday.

This is my post for the Harvest of Friends blog party hosted by Lynnette Kraft over at Dancing Barefoot on Weathered Ground. Lynnette has come up with the following 20 questions so that we can get to know each other better. I thought it would be fun to try to answer all 20 so here goes… 1. What is your favorite thing to snack on while you’re blogging? Lately it is apple cider or, more recently, homemade bread made in to garlic toast. 2. What is one thing you wouldn’t want to live without? My family. That is kind of general but for me it includes my husband, parents, sister, extended family, and our pets (of course!). 3. Beach, Mountains or Farm? Where would you live if you had a choice? Umm… since we have the farm covered already I’m going to say the beach! 😉 4. What’s your least favorite chore/household duty? Cleaning our back room/entryway. Lucky for me hubby will usually do it if I do almost all the other chores. Maybe I’d be better off just cleaning that room myself… 5. Who do people say you remind them of? My aunt. No one famous, sorry! 6. Prefer

I told myself I was going to “take the day off” and relax completely. Yeah right! 😛 I did some lounging around the house this morning, then we went to see my cousin’s new baby. He’s such a cutie and so tiny! While we were “in the city” (we’re such hicks) we stocked up on some groceries. More about that in a different post. We got back home and I was torn: lay around for the rest of the day and feel like a loser because I didn’t get anything done OR go do something and kick myself later because I didn’t relax before going back to work tomorrow. I chose the latter and went outside. Since I tend to ramble I’ll put the tasks completed in bold… First I planted some :::ahem::: flower :::cough::: bulbs. Yes, that is not a typo, I really did plant flowers. Up until now I could never bring myself to put much effort in to cultivating anything that I couldn’t eat. Luckily, flower bulbs don’t take much effort. I only bought one package so I put a few around our mailbox and the rest in that big metal pot in our front yard. I’m

If you have time hop over to Hulu and watch this video. It is an episode of the Dave Ramsey show from last December. It is all about giving and being helped by others’ giving and it is very inspiring. I can’t wait to get to a point where we can give more. Of course, there are small things we can all do to help people who need it. Some of the things my Mom had us do include giving to various food drives and donating coats. She also gives all our old toys, clothes, etc. to various charities. My favorite was when we picked an ad out of the newspaper when they run those ads for people in need. We picked a single mom with a brand new baby and other young children. It was fun to shop for them and we got to deliver the gifts ourselves and see them unwrap them. I haven’t done much giving in the last couple years. I try to be generous with money when I can and send homemade goodies to friends and neighbors frequently. There are many more things I could do if I set my mind to it. There so

This tip comes from my husband. A week or so ago he was trying to shift the older Ford pickup in to 4 wheel drive. Some part of the shifter lever broke. How convenient with winter coming, right? He called the parts dealer and was quoted $425 for a new shifter. Greaaattt. Make room for that in the budget! Then he talked to a friend who talked to a friend who had the same problem awhile back and managed to make his own shifter replacement. Brian sent ours over to the guy because that would cost a lot less than $425. In the meantime he started calling junkyards just for the heck of it. Guess what!? He found that shifter for $25!! That is even cheaper than that guy could make one so we’re getting ours back and replacing it with the $25 one. In this case I think Brian can do the repair himself. I doubt that a dealership would use junkyard parts for repairs but I know the little hometown mechanics around here don’t have any objections about using those parts. Sometimes it is hard to find certain parts. If it is a part that tends to break

I’m not going to thump my Bible or anything, and I’m not sure that I have ever even mentioned religion or God here before (not sure on this). I’m not even going to go in to the whole topic very much now. That being said, God is working in our life in a big way. He continues to amaze me daily. I’ve heard Dave Ramsey say that when you work hard and manage your money well that God seems to bless you in ways you never thought possible. That has sure been true over and over again for us. Last night we had a little “budget meeting”. We had a $1700 bill and a $600 bill come in the same week and I wanted us to decide together how to manage them. They were both bills that could be paid next month just with a little interest tacked on. We decided to pay half of the total amount now and half next month. Plus, I know the life insurance bill is coming anytime and we need to cash flow that. All of these bills would make things really tight and pretty much stop the progress on our construction projects for