At a loss for words...

...and I just don't know what to write about! I'm just doing my best to try and keep up with everything and nothing exciting is going on.

I was going to take a picture of the disaster area that is my kitchen. There are dirty dishes everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE!! I was going to show you that I am not perfect, no where near it! HA! But, my camera batteries are dead and I don't have any charged to put in it, so I can't even do that.

I am getting things done now, just slowly. Very slowly. I spent the last two days doing laundry (over 2 weeks worth!), hemming pants, mending things and going through a very large pile of unread magazines. If you'll notice, that was mostly done from the couch :) I have two more days off and I'm hoping to get the kitchen caught up and the office cleaned up. Those are my not-so-lofty goals.

Though I do have much more energy now than I did in the first trimester, I'm still dragging. I'm not falling asleep at 8:30 to sleep for 11 hours, but I don't have the energy to be up on my feet all day quite yet. Needless to say, this is not how I thought pregnancy would be for me. But, I love it nonetheless!

Food and meal planning has definitely been an area of slippage for me. Big time. Most mornings I'm eating cereal. Eggs just still aren't sitting right with me first thing. And cereal is quick, easy and delicious. I craved it big time for a while in the beginning. I know it's not the best nutritionally, but the way I see it, it's better than not eating, and right now those are pretty much my choices! We've been eating out quite a bit more than I would like to. And it's mostly just because I don't have the energy to think about dinner, and that I'm hungry, now! I'm hoping these few days off work will allow me to catch up a bit more with the house so that I feel like I can use the kitchen and think clearly in there. A cluttered kitchen makes for a cluttered mind in this house. I'm not going so far as to make a meal plan this week, but I at least know what's in the freezer now :)

Adding to the difficulty is that Hubby is working nights. He leaves before I get home most days when I'm working, usually by 5pm and gets home when I'm getting up for work. Which means the only cooking I'm doing for him is occasionally packing his lunch (he's actually been doing it himself, which amazes me!) or leaving leftovers for him. Coming home in the dark to an empty house and cooking is just not appealing, especially when I know it's just going to make more dishes to wash!

As you may have noticed, dear readers, I'm in a bit of a funk. I'm working my out of it, I hope. Tuesday is my next appointment. They should be doing an ultrasound. I'm hoping that seeing our little one will motivate me to get off my butt and do something!

Oh, and Merry Christmas :)

Oh my! It's been a while.

And I do apologize for that. But believe me, I've had my reasons :)

Hubby and I are expecting our first little one in June of next year! We've been keeping it a secret until just about a week ago. And I've been sooo tired. I'd come home, take a nap for a while before I make dinner and then, if I'm lucky, maybe clean up a bit before I head to bed...at 8:30! That hasn't left a lot of time for much of anything.

My house is a mess and I'm entirely unprepared for Christmas! I have finally started to get my energy back the last few days and I'm hoping to be able to catch up a bunch this weekend. Hubby' just got called in to work tonight, but he's off tomorrow and Sunday. So hopefully I'll have some help from him too!

He's really been working quite a bit lately. Anything over 36 hours is overtime for him, since we works 12 hour shifts. And he's had at least 12 hours over every week since he started on shift work. And the 12 hour shifts means he comes home, showers, eats and basically goes to bed to start over again in the morning. It's been a bit of an adjustment for us.

As for the garden, well, I didn't quite get it put to bed as well as I'd hoped. I was just too tired. No fall or winter garden for me this year. The hoses are still out and connected, despite it being constantly below freezing now and about 4 inches of snow that isn't going anywhere. The trees didn't get trimmed, and I still only have one apple tree planted. I'm hoping I will have enough energy to make up for it in the spring. And I may just have to buy new hoses, but such is life! I will be asking for my rain barrels to be set up for my birthday in April, so I'm hoping to not have to need the hoses on the spigots much next year!




I guess that's it for now. I'm hoping to be able to have the energy in the next coming months to keep updating. Wish me luck!

What I've been up to...

As I type this, I am taking a short break from making and canning a bunch of tomato sauce. I got a bushel from the farm stand (didn't pick myself this year since it's raining today) and then a few more quarts of my own when I got home. I know you're not supposed to mess with wet plants...but I couldn't let all of the beautiful red tomatoes go knowing I was making sauce!

My sauce recipe is really simple. I usually just clean and quarter the tomatoes (or maybe more pieces, if the tomatoes are huge like some of these) and then heat them for a bout 20 minutes. Then I process them through the foley food mill and simmer them for a while to thicken the sauce. I usually add a little salt then process in my water bath canner, according to the ball blue book. This way I can turn the sauce into whatever I need it to be when I need it.

Tomatoes from my garden! Finally, I am growing beautiful red tomatoes.
The pepper on top is one of my Sweet Chocolates.

I also got a dehydrator. I'm so excited.
It has helped so much with processing the harvest this year.

I've already made two batches of lacto-fermented salsa from Nourishing Traditions. I haven't had whey, so I doubled the salt. Makes the salsa a little salty for my taste, but Hubby loves it. And so does my boss. She bought a quart from me and added black beans and corn and said it was really good.

Swiss Chard all dried out for winter soups. I'm still a little scared to eat it fresh...

Zucchini shredded for some yummy bread. (Recipe coming soon!)
This entire food processor cup is filled, probably way too much, with zucchini
from one fruit. I got it from someone at work. Literally the size of a t-ball bat!

Meat marinating for jerky. I bought a large roast from the local butcher and sliced it up.

The rest of the roast was ground up and browned. This will be chili on Monday!

Just Checking In

Wow, I have been CRAZY busy lately. Working way too many hours and I just don't have the energy to blog when I get home! Sorry guys. Things should settle down soon, I hope.

This is an example of what NOT to do.

I hosted Thanksgiving at my house this year for my in-laws. It all went pretty well, but I ran out of room in my fridge! Do NOT go to the store the weekend before and buy all your groceries PLUS a 20lb turkey that needs to thaw and then come home and make 18 pints of chicken stock before you have your mom's pressure canner. Don't do that, it makes life difficult. Thankfully I did fit everything in, just barely!

But we did have so much food leftover that the first night some things lived on the front porch. Thankfully it was nice and cool the whole time :) After having a dinner of leftovers with the neighbors Friday, I managed to get it all in the refrigerator.

Things are going well with the low-carb thing. Some days are harder than others, that's for sure, but overall it's not bad! I've lost about 15 pounds so far, which is great, and feel much, much better.

I haven't shared any recipes like I had promised, but I really don't have anything exciting to share. I've just been eating the some stuff, just without the carbs. I have a few yummy tricks, like whipping cream and a teaspoon of sugar-free chocolate pudding mix whipped together, YUM!

Since I'm past the two-week induction phase, I've started to add a few more carbs in. I'm sticking at 25 for the moment because I've really seemed to slow down in the loss category. I think Dr. Pepper is to blame. I was doing really well with soda, only drinking the occasional glass of diet orange with cream and not 2-3 cans of diet dr. pepper a day like before. But then my mother-in-law brought a case for Thanksgiving and left it hear. It was delicious and wonderful, but got me pretty much hooked again! Not as bad before, but I crave it again. The good news is that I just finished the case off yesterday, so I guess I drank it more slowly than I used to (and I wasn't the only one drinking it on Thanksgiving Day, just after...).

Since upping my carbs to 25, I've been able to add in strawberries and cocoa roast almonds. Even though I'm paying almost $4/quart for strawberries shipped from California, right now I think they're worth it. Here in Ohio, we're all about the root veggies right now and the only remnants of fruit are apples. And of course when I made all of my jam this summer, I was not thinking low-carb at the time, so West Coast berries are my treat now. It's not ideal, but I'll take it!

I did make a yummy pumpkin cheesecake (sugar-free) for Thanksgiving that turned out great, and I've managed a ketchup and bbq sauce. Those recipes should be up when I can get back to blogging regularly. But other than that, I've just been omitting the carbs. Like homemade beef-a-roni, only I used cauliflower instead of macaroni. It works for me!

I am, however, getting a little sick of eggs for breakfast. They're good, but sometimes I just want a really quick prep breakfast, no cooking involved. So, I did end up buying a few Atkins shakes and Atkins bars for when I'm desperate. This morning is only my fifth shake since I've started and I'm half-way through my second box of bars. So I'm in no way reliant on them, but they do come in handy once-in-a-while.

This is a picture of three eggs about to be scrambled.

Can you tell which came from my mom's chickens

(the new ones are laying now, woohoo!)

and which came from the store? Mom's are still a little small,

but the color alone shows you how much better they are!

Lastly, I am starting another new adventure. I can't say much about it yet, but I hope to help other people learn to be frugal (and a little treehuggy too!). My first step is complete, I've made my own shopping bag! I used the Charlie pattern at BurdaStyle.com and I think it turned out pretty well. I don't have a serger, so I used french seams and bias tape. I think I will tweak it a little bit for the future, but overall I like it!

Charlie Bag

And one last thought to leave you with...our first snow!

And no, not all four of those recycle bins are mine, we share pickup with the neighbors :)

Monday blues

It's Monday and I'm not happy about it! I didn't get nearly as much done this past weekend as I had hoped. It was gorgeous all weekend and I really didn't have the opportunity to take advantage of it. Hubby and I did an afternoon's worth of yard work in about 2 hours last night and that's about it.

We still need to finish cleaning out the pond and have to get the net over it for the winter, but just about everything else is done. And I do have lettuce growing, albeit very slowly. It made it through the freeze we had the other night, so I'm hopeful for some fresh lettuce soon!

Here's a pic from some of the canning I did earlier this fall. I got a quite a bit put up. And I'm super excited that I am able to can chicken stock. It's so much easier to use and store out of the freezer. I was running out of room in there.

I am still hoping to get some applesauce made this fall. Hopefully this weekend.

Happy Monday everyone!

Adventures With Food Preservation

So this weekend Kira and I were worker bees. Saturday would blanched and froze 5 dozen ears of corn, made 3 gallons of chicken stock and made jam out of 6 quarts of strawberries and 2 pints of blueberries.

5 dozen ears of corn, fresh from the farm stand Saturday morning.

shucking away!

corn mountain!

Cutting it off the cob to freeze.

The weatherman told us it was going to be in the low 90's with 95% humidity and above. Luckily it was rainy and overcast all day and maybe hit 85 later on, maybe. We definitely struck gold that day!

6 quarts of strawberries destined to be jam!

Lots of freezer jam cooling in the fridge!

Chicken Stock!!

And, we finally found a source for some inexpensive 55-gallon food-grade barrels. Rain barrels, here we come! If they would've been set up Saturday, I'm sure I'd have all three of mine full already :)

The pumpkin plants still seem to be alive for the moment, and it appears as if my efforts have done some damage to the powdery mildew. I think it's gone now, I think. After hacking away, I sprayed with a baking soda, water and dish soap solution that is supposed to kill it and keep it away. So far so good.

On a very positive note, I would like to report that Hubby is now back to work! Today is his second day on the job with Molten Metal Products, working as a contractor in a local steel mill. And it's only 13 minutes away!

Adventures in Getting By...part 2

I sat down this morning and while reading my blog roll, I thought I'd check in and see where we are on our budget this month. Our total grocery bill for this month comes to a total of...$171.79!! Yeah me! I couldn't believe it!

I think I may have spent another $10 from my pocket money on groceries...but still! Less than $200 and it's the 29th, not bad. And I don't feel like we've been depriving ourselves either too much. It's awesome.

And we've only spent $150 on gasoline. We've only gotten $80 our for pocket money (of which I still have some left!) and we have gone out to eat, but that has only been a total of $57 and included a pizza I bought for us before Hubby got fired.

We also went to TGI Fridays with some friends this past weekend to celebrate that Hubby found a job! (and I had a BOGO coupon). I don't know a lot about it, but I'm happy for him. He should be hearing from them soon where and when to do the drug screening and then he starts!

He also got his truck running well again. One of the new spark plugs was bad and was causing it to misfire. So, after finding out we don't qualify for cash-for-clunkers because you can't owe anything on your clunker...we have fixed the truck and will continue to use it. (That is unless anyone wants to by and F150 V6 with a third door and 120,000 miles for $4500? :)

It looks like we'll survive this afterall.

Adventures in Getting By

I am here, I am still alive, and yes, my bills are even all paid up.

We have been blessed with a few unexpected influxes of cash these last few days and it has been a big help. Bills are now paid and there is at least something in the savings account again!

Hubby is still on the hunt for a job and toying with the idea of going to school...we'll see.

But the garden is doing great. We've been eating salads and beans. I kinda wished I would've started weighing things, but I guess I'll wait until next year to start that.

What I thought was my Stevia plant turned out to be a weed, but I couldn't be sure until it got big enough, so the stevia is a no go so far. I planted seeds again yesterday...but tomorrow is going to be a whopping 70 degrees (F), so I don't know if it'll germinate this weekend or not. I am also pretty much convinced that the lady I freecycled oregano from gave me to oregano plants instead of a marjoram plant as well. So lots of oregano!

I have a few baby pumpkins already, and they're really making me wish I would've planted watermelons. Oooh I want a watermelon. Maybe I'll stop at the farmers market tomorrow and get one...yum.

I've decided to definitely add more beds next year. Yeah!! I can grow things outside, just not inside I guess :)

And last weekend I took a full inventory of the pantry and freezer in the kitchen as well as the basement freezer and pantry. We have plenty of food to be able to just get the basics at the grocery, but we'll definitely have to cut back on what we've been accustomed to eating. No more Kashi Cinnamon Harvest and no more Diet Dr. Pepper for me...and no more Monster for Hubby. Though, I was able to get a really great deal on Kashi at Target this week, so I did get a box :)

Heading to a huge garage sale in my mom's hometown tomorrow and I hope to get some pictures of after that. The garden really is doing well. I have trees for potato plants. Let's just hope there are potatoes under them!

Thanks everyone for bearing with me as I spend my time trying to save money instead of talking about it! I will be back, I promise :)

Adventures with Rain

So this morning I was doing dishes and thought I heard a dripping noise. I couldn't pin-point where it was coming from, but it was raining outside and I just figured it was a noise from out there as my house is not very sound-proof. WRONG. A few seconds later I heard drips landing on the kitchen floor.


There used to be a wood stove in our kitchen and the area where the chimney is has been capped off. It is now dripping from three different places (you can almost see one in the pic above). The dripping noises I heard earlier was from inside the chimney. Awesome.

I put a bucket down and I'm praying that the kitchen won't be a mess when I get home. Sounds like I'm getting up on the roof this week. Woohoo!!