Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to pop in and wish all of you:

Happy Thanksgiving

I got up at 6 am this morning to put our 24.5 lb turkey in the oven.

Of course I went back to sleep afterwards.

Especially since my sister-in-law came in late last night and we had to visit.

Yesterday I got all the desserts cooked.

And a few appetizers.

Now I am going to relax for a bit and watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on the television.

To all my celebrating friends:

Let's all laugh and feast!

To those who don't celebrate, I hope you have a very blessed day 

AND 

you find many things to be thankful for!!!!

Until next time,

Be Blessed

Erin

Holiday busy!!!!!

My friends, I wanted to pop in and tell you about our busy goings on this week.

Thursday is Thanksgiving! I can't wait to eat all that delicious food!!!!

But there has to be some prep for it!

Today, I have been tidying up a bit. We are expecting some in-town and out of town guests for our meal this year. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law are traveling from Tennessee. My mom and my step dad will also be accompanying us for dinner! I love cooking for a big crowd!

Tonight we have to go to a musical program at the school that our 4th grader is participating in.

It is a 30 minute program. I really enjoy the kids school programs.

Tomorrow I have women's Bible study. Afterwards I will be baking and making some foods ahead of time.

Cheesball 

Veggie tray with ranch veggie dip

pecan pie

pumpkin pie

chocolate pie

pig lickin cake 

and deviled eggs.

Either tomorrow night or Thursday morning is when my sister and brother in law will be arriving.

Thursday morning I will get up at 6 am to get the turkey prepped and in the oven by 7 am at the latest.

I will prepare a Turkey day breakfast for my hubby and kiddos (probably french toast).

I will then watch the Thanksgiving day parade on television (one of my favorite things ever)

Then closer to chow time I will be making the rest of our turkey day food:

corn bread stuffing

green beans with shelled beans mixed in

baked mac and cheese

candied sweet potatoes

mashed potatoes and turkey gravy

cranberry sauce

and Crescent rolls.

I expect we will be eating sometime between Noon and 1 pm.

Then we will spend the rest of the day with our visitors.

That night we will be having Leftover turkey day sammies for lunch.

Friday, my hubby has to work but his sister will be coming over for a day of beauty.

She is has a master's degree in cosmetology so she decided she will give the girls and I a beauty

day.

Saturday, will also be spent enjoying time with family.

Sunday we have church activities.

Monday the kiddos head back to school and our guest will have left.

So I will spend Monday cleaning up my house..

Then Tuesday, we have to attend another school function. My 6th grader has a band concert.

Wednesday, I will be attending Woman's Bible Study.

And there you have it!!! 

I think I will plan on sleeping all day Thursday ;p

Hope you have enjoyed this peek into my schedule this week!

I will try to remember to take TONS of pics to show everyone and I will try my best to blog during next week whenever I get a chance.

Until we meet again.

Be Blessed

Erin

Crochet Tag

Hello my friends! 

I have something kind of fun for you.

I decided to take a little break from my house tidying to check all the websites I frequent when I came across this video from BobWilson123 on youtube. 

I thought, "Hey that tag would be fun to do for all my crochet friends"

So here we go!

1. How long have you been crocheting? 

Let's see....I have been crocheting for 8 or 9 years now. 

2. Who taught you how to crochet?

My mom and my cousin tried to teach me to crochet but I didn't really catch on 

until I purchased my first crochet book.

3 .Whats your favorite hook size?

My favorite hook size is a 5mm.

4. Whats your favorite Brand of hooks?

Hmm..I don't really have a favorite brand but I prefer metal hooks.

I started with plastic hooks and they would snag on the yarn and break!

5. Whats your Favorite Yarn?

I use a lot of Red Heart yarns because they are available here in my town.

However, my favorite yarn I have used so far has been 

Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn. 

It is so soft and smooth to work with.

6. Whats your Favorite pattern?

Honestly, I don't have a favorite pattern. 

7. Whose your favorite Crochet guru?

Lucy from Attic24.

I also enjoy Bob Wilson123.

8. What are you inspired by?

My family, the world around me, colors around me.

9. What do you use for a stitch marker?

I either use a safety pin or a paper clip.

10.What was the highest amount you paid for 1 skein of yarn?

I'd say around $4-$6. I don't really remember.

11. How many times have you re done a project before you got it right?

It doesn't happen too frequently unless I am making up my own pattern.

12. Do you know how to read patterns?

Yes I do.

13. How do you feel, when your in a yarn store? (Express yo feelings)

Hmmm, well I love feeling the different yarns.

I sometimes get overwhelmed when I am trying to find "the right one" for a project.

I love getting the free patterns that are scattered about.

14. Do you have a lot of yarn, but still feel like its not enough?

I do have a lot of yarn. But sometimes I just don't have the color or quantity of a color I need.

15. Do you think your a Yarn-a-holic?

I don't think so. I don't really have a need to purchase yarn.

I just buy it when I need it for a project.

16. Have you ever free styled crochet?

Yes. I free style a lot.

17. Express how you feel when you are counting in crochet, and someone interrupts you.

Well, I get a little annoyed. I usually hold up a finger and start counting aloud.

18. Do you dream about crochet?

I haven't recently but I have dreamed about projects I am doing or I will dream about 

a project I need to invent.

19. Do you drive and crochet?

No I don't. I don't think that would be too safe

20. Do you crochet at work?

I am a stay at home mom so I guess I do :)

21. Do you dislike it when you have a simple pattern, but it is hard to follow due to the way it is written?

Yes I do! However, if there is a picture, I can usually figure it out.

22. How many U F O ( Un - Finished - Objects) do you have?

Maybe 4. I don't really know. I have tons planned.

23. Do you travel with your hook and yarn?

I have a few times but most of the time I am working on larger projects.

However, my new love of making dish cloths and wash cloths and pot holders

makes it easier for me to travel with them.

Well there you have it! I hope you all have enjoyed this tag!

I would love to see your answers.

Until we meet again.

Be Blessed

Erin

Crochet Ta-da: Dish cloths and wash cloths

Hello again everyone.

Brrrr....it is freezing here!

I am so glad I have an electric blanket to snuggle under!

I have been working on so many large projects, including the patchwork granny. 

I was burnt out on crochet. I wanted to crochet, I yearned to crochet but I am just tired of the redundancy of larger projects!

So I decided to make myself some wash cloths and dish cloths.

Here are tow wash cloths I have made. 

Both are made just using half double crochet stitches.

I love the ombre colors in this cotton yarn..

Here are some dish cloths I have made. Unfortunately, we don't have a dish washer so now I can enjoy

some crochet while hand washing my dishes. 

Some of these are just alternate stitches of single crochet and double crochet. Others are just double crochet through out. I put a red border on some because I will eventually have my kitchen decorated in red.

Well that is all. I mood is a little off today and I think it is showing in this post.

I am sorry for that.

Hope everyone is well!

Be blessed!

Erin

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ahhh, Thanksgiving is just around the corner!

We have a special guest coming to our house this year!

My hubby's sister is traveling from Tennessee to visit.

We are so excited.

Well, this post isn't about Thanksgiving though!

I wanted to show you what I have been working on.

You see, these months get awfully cold and miserable.

Makes putting up Christmas lights a little hard.

So I decided to utilize the latest warm spell and get my outdoor Christmas lights up.

This is from the right side of my front porch. We went with white on it this year.

Here you can see my porch from the left side. .

I love these snowflake lights that stretch across my front porch

(Don't worry, the dark one isn't burned out...it does a sequence of light flickers)

Here is our little light tree on our front porch.

It has a cute little star on the top.

And it has it's very own tree skirt.

I think I need to get some light up presents to go around the tree!

This is looking down the side of my house. 

We hung white icicle lights down the side of my front porch and across the back deck.

And here is my gazebo. Blue icicle lights and a Santa blow up.

The side of our house and the gazebo can be seen from the main road through my town.

One day I would love to just fill my whole yard with beautiful decorations.

Or I would love to get the lighted green garlands to put on my front porch posts and railings.

I have so many ideas!

Hope you have enjoyed this look at my outdoor lights. If I add anything I will be sure to let you know.

Now I think I will take me a little bit of a nap.

Until we meet again

Be Blessed

Erin

A Coupon Update

Hello again my friends. 

I hope you are having a splendid day.

Even though I am grieving, I have found today to be lovely.

Sunny and breezy. Seventy degrees outside.

The windows and doors are open in my house and I am in love with the weather!

I have been wanting to do a coupon update but I just hadn't been very enthused with the whole process lately. You see, I was using the binder method when I first started. I would cut the coupons to fit into baseball card pages. Keeping up with the binder was hard for me! I have 4 kids who want my attention too and a binder took me Hours a week to do. Plus, it was harder for me to find certain coupons I wanted.

Then I went to a full sized expandable file folder. I would lose coupons in the expanse of it and made it really hard to find them at the store if I found a good deal I hadn't planned for. So then I took a bunch of business sized envelopes and did subcategories and used them...It was still hard to find the coupons I needed. So I went back to the binder method. 

I got so tired of having to flip through all those binder pages of coupons. It took me forever to clean out the unused expired coupons each week and it took forever to put the freshly cut coupons in...Needless to say..I fell out of love with couponing but I had to do it in order to provide the necessities for our family.

So I decided that since I HAVE to coupon, I would find a method I like and that I could stick to.

Here I am going to take you through the process I use for my Coupon Box method.

First I buy my papers. On Saturdays, our little local paper has coupon inserts since it doesn't publish on Sunday. This is a super thing because Sunday newspapers cost $2.00 around here BUT this Saturday paper only costs $0.75. I save a $1.25 on each paper from the start!!!

Once I get my papers home I pull out all my coupon inserts, today I bought 3 papers so I had 3 inserts.

I open up all my inserts and match up the pages so when I cut my coupons out, they will already be matched up for me. Here you can see the big stack of coupon pages on the left and how I have matched up the pages on the right.

Then I cut all the coupons out of the matched pages. 

Then I put the coupons in my box under their correct heading and sub heading. The new coupons I clip go behind the coupons that are already in that category. That way when it is time to clean out my box, I just pick up the folder and the expired coupons will be right in front!

Here is an upclose picture. I made the neat little folders out of tabbed dividers that I folded in half and cut to fit inside my box. Easy peasy! I used my label maker and labeled each folder. Then I used index cards to add sub categories in some folders. I put a paper clip on one side of each of my folders so when i am at the store, I can just pull one out and open it up to look for a coupon for a deal I hadn't planned for BUT is too good to pass up.

After all of my coupons are organized, I gather up this weeks sales papers (Kroger and Rite Aid are missing from this pic) and I go through and see what is on sale that I can use coupons with to maximize my savings.

I make myself a list. I write the store, the item, sale price, the coupon price and how many of each I need.

Then I pull those coupons out of my box and put them in this little purse size coupon organizer. I have each store labeled.

Once all my grocery planning is finished I put my handheld organizer and my list in my box (along with my wallet if I decide not to carry my purse)

And I snap the lid on it and I am ready to go.

I do take my box with me when I shop because you never know when you will see a deal that wasn't advertised or you find an item on clearance you can snag really cheap with a coupon you have.

And there you have it. My coupon box looks huge in this pic but I assure you it is just a tad taller than a shoebox and about as long. It fits neatly in the child seat of the shopping cart.

I have been saving more than 50% on my groceries and household products using sales and coupons.

I am really happy about that but am shooting toward saving 75% or more.

I hope you have enjoyed my updated couponing program. You all should give it a try. It takes me about 30 mins to an hour to clip the coupons and store them.

I take a little time browsing the web for coupon matchups and looking at my local ads. But the savings are worth it.

Until we meet again

Be Blessed,

Erin

Update

My friends I wanted to pop in really quickly to post an update.

My mom called me at a quarter til four this afternoon and told me that my Uncle (her brother) passed away

just before she had called.

If you haven't read already, he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It was a very aggressive cancer.

He was diagnosed in July and has passed on now.

I ask that you all please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers.

My Uncle will be buried in Georgia. Unfortunately, I will not be able to go to his funeral as my hubby cannot get leave from work and I have to be here for my kiddos.

I promise you all I will be getting some decent posts up soon.

Things have been really stressful and tiring and trying and crazy lately.

I have been working on some crochet, I have a couponing update for you all. I will also have some holiday posts coming up (as I already have my outdoor lights up).

Please bear with me while I get back to blogging.

Thank you to all my lovely followers and readers.

Your comments brighten my day.

Be blessed

Erin

Crochet Ta-Dah: Hooded Scarf

Hello everybody! 

I sure hope you all are doing well.

I am doing okay. A lot of stuff has finally calmed down here.

I was able to sleep well last night for the first time since spending last Friday consoling my mom.

Last weekend was the hardest, most emotional time I've had in a while.

It isn't easy to console the strongest woman you know!

Speaking of the situation, my Uncle Buster has been moved closer to home into a full time hospice 

center. He and his long time girlfriend married a couple days ago.

I would post a picture of them but my uncle wouldn't want the whole world to see him the way he is now.

He always took care of himself. He was a body builder. Now he looks like a skeleton. He looks 

very old. Much older than his 49 (50 at the end of this month) years.

On a lighter note. We got our first snowfall of the winter on the 30th of October thanks to Frankenstorm Sandy.  Wanna see?

We ended up with about an inch of snow BUT it melted as soon as the precipitation changed from snowflakes to rain drops.

Ok now for what you all came here for. I FINALLY finished my hooded scarf. I made it out of Lion Brand Homespun yarn. I think it was the colorway called Ocean. This yarn was very hard for me to crochet with. It is super fluffy and soft and thick and it was kind of hard to find where to place my hook. 

I made it by just crocheting a very long chain and then I just alternated rows of half-double crochet and single crochet. Once it was wide enough to cover my head properly, I finished it off and then folded the scarf in half and stitched up the backside. I only stitched up about 10 inches of the backside. That was it!!!

Here is the finished result.

I already tried it out while walking the dogs in the frigid weather we were having. It is so warm...I love it!

Oh and here is how it looks in the back. I just criss-crossed the scarf ends in the front and let them hang behind me. That you you can see the end of where I stitched it up.

My scarf took nearly 3 skeins of the homespun yarn.  I highly recommend making one as it is a very simple project and you can use any variety of stitches you want. It is super warm to wear especially if you spend any time outside in colder weather. I just love it.

Well that is all for now. 

Hope you all have a very fun weekend and stay safe.

Be Blessed,

Erin