There are few of us who haven ' t been touched in some way by breast cancer... October is Breast Cancer Awareness month... There are lots of ways to support Breast Cancer Awareness this month... One interesting site I found is Pink for October 2008 ... This site invites readers to share their personal stories, get buttons and graphics, or make donations to support the cause... If you have shopping to do, look for sites that are supporting Breast Cancer Awareness... The have set up a mini site with in their site, The Breast Cancer Awareness shop , that helps promote awareness and raise funds for Breast Cancer charities... You can comparison shop stores, get coupons , find free shipping , and make purchases all in one place... … View Post »

We are planning a fund day of laundry catch up today... Clean the house, dye my hair, such exciting stuff, but I guess it is better than treating acne ... … View Post »

For some time I ' ve thought that I should buy the kids individual glasses... They could each have their own glass that looked different from everyone else ' s ... Lydia (6) is my craft girl... She is continually pulling out a giant book of craft ideas she has and picking out crafts that she twists my arm to do... If I tell her, "Maybe we ' ll do it sometime," she will bug me weekly until we actually do it... Then the other day she picked one from the book that involved painting glass... We found just what I was looking for, six simple juice glasses for a quarter a piece... Of course this project also let me do something crafty with the kids and create something practical for the family... … View Post »

Long time readers, know that I ' m a big fan of the library ... It is a source of entertainment in the form of books, movies, and music... They offer fun and educational programs for the whole family... I use the library to test run resource books before purchasing, and I am highly dependent on the library resources for our school projects and curriculum... We look for car insurance and groceries online, why not library books?... If your library has a drive up window you can just pick up and go... Another thing that can be overwhelming is keeping track of the books and when they are due... We limit the books that they pick according to their age... … View Post »

The other day I found myself needing five dollars, and my wallet was bare... I probably could have written a check at the place I was going, but I decided to raid the coin jar... We were both in school, and raiding the coin jar was a common event... We would raid it and go to our favorite ice cream place, and sometimes we would raid it to get a few groceries to stretch us to the next payday... These were the days before the ice cream place and the grocery store took credit cards... The days we did without instead of buying it with plastic... Times were tight, but we had very little debt... Now just about every place takes plastic, and it is all too easy to buy it now and figure out where the money is coming from later... … View Post »

Do you ever have a really great recipe that you just forget about?... This week I rediscovered a very simple recipe that I used to make a lot, Tuna Cheese Spread... Tuna Cheese Spread A frugal and delicious spread for crackers or bread... … View Post »

I try to keep a notebook for the garden and preserving to help me plan for the next year, but somewhere around the beginning of September, I stopped recording the apples... For those of you who aren ' t into the whole preserving the harvest thing, my apologies... … View Post »

My oldest is finishing up the Little House series, and currently is reading Farmer Boy ... Currently he is reading about their harvest... It was interesting to note that Almanzo ' s family made some of the same things we do, though often they used a different process... One that usually involved a lot more physical labor... Even the apple cores were saved for making vinegar . . ... … View Post »

Departing slightly from my normal list of carnivals and festivals, I first want to point you two posts that caught my eye this week... One for fun, and the other a very practical post that has me thinking... Like most gardeners, a greenhouse is on my someday list... The last thing I need to do right now is to max out my credit card limit ... … View Post »