Bulk Food Tip September 21, 2015

One of my favorite ways to save money is to shop the bulk food bins at Whole Foods or Sprouts Farmers Market. Both stores have a great selection in dried goods that store well in the pantry.

One problem that I see in buying these foods for the newbie is the pack of cooking instructions for those foods. With that in mind, here is a tip that I am using in my kitchen.

Take a blank book or notebook and write the basic recipes for preparing the food items. Having this information readily available will save a lot of frustration later.

Here is one example.  I recently purchased farina at Sprouts for 99 cents per pound. I filled a quart container for less than $2.00.  When I got home, I realised I had no instructions. Luckily I had a small box of farina in the pantry that I was able to copy the info from.

Having the information not only helps me, but anyone else in the family who wants to cook.  I may know how to cook lentils, but my daughter doesn’t.  

Once you have the basic cooking instructions recorded in the book, add favorite recipes using those bulk foods.  I am using a small 3-ring binder for mine. This way I can add index tabs to make finding each bulk food faster.

I’m Baaack! September 9, 2015

So long since my last post. We have gone through more changes. Hubby is back to OTR trucking. He needed to make the change as the local job was paying less than we needed.  When he started to local job, he had overtime each week that doubled his pay. Then, about 8 months ago, the overtime stopped. Our pay was half what we were getting. He tried getting a job with the oil/gas fields but they were not hiring.  So, the decision to go back over the road was a necessity.

It has been an adjustment. Luckily we have done this routine before so it wasn’t as hard as it could have been. The kids took a bit of adjusting and have been dealing with missing their Daddy, but we are working through it.

I have been without internet up until recently when I bought a smart phone. My app phone was just too outdated to use for internet.  I now have the app for posting blogs, so am planning to be better about doing so.  I also am going to be getting a phone line for the house and dial-up internet soon.

We have been blessed with a local church youth group coming twice a month to trim trees and do yardwork for me.  That has taken a load off my chores list.  I am now planning out the autumn/winter projects for the seasons.

The kids and I were able to take a week long vacation to visit friends. It was a bit of a trial run for us. Little Man doesn’t travel long distances very well and has anxieties when in new locations. This was a good opportunity to get him a little more exposure to the idea.

We are looking at getting a puppy sometime in the next few months. The pup will begin to be trained and socialized immediately to start laying the ground work for him to become a service dog for Little Man.  It takes about 2-3 years to fully train the dog from puppy training through any specialized training needed.  As soon as we get the dog, we will begin the process of taking the dog everywhere we go that he can go with us.  Once he completes the Good K9 test successfully, he will be able to go everywhere as a service dog in training.