Green Cleaning

Household cleaners are SO expensive. If you are looking for something on the safer or "greener" side, you can spend even more. I don't mind making cleaners at home, but most of them have a vinegar base that I just can't stand. I want my house to actually smell clean and not like I just spilled a gallon of vinegar on the floor after hours of hard work. Essential oils can help, but those are very expensive too.

A friend of mine introduced me to Shaklee a while ago, but for some reason I thought you had to be a member to purchase their products. Money Saving Mom is writing a series on her blog on 100 Different Ways to Save $100 This Year. She tipped me off on Shaklee's Basic H2 Organic Super Cleaning Concentrate. It's non-toxic, natural, doubly concentrated, and biodegradable. The 16 oz bottle makes 48 gallons of household cleaner! It has formulas for Windows and Mirrors, Degreasing, and All purpose jobs. The best part about it is that it only costs around $12 a bottle at non-member price.

Working great so far.

Strawberries!

I loooove strawberries! And I LOVE strawberries from our garden. So sweet. No chemicals. All naturally delicious. There is nothing better.

I picked all of these just today!

21 Weeks!

We are 21 weeks along in the pregnancy already. Halfway there! I really just can't believe it. Today was a really exciting day. Ultrasound! Byron took a half-day off of work today so we could go together. I have to say it's the most amazing thing to see your baby moving around inside of you. The spine was the first thing I noticed (pretty cool). We got to see the heart beating and the little arms and hands...and the legs and feet that were doing what they like to do (jab me in the side-haha). The appointment took really long, though-1 hour. The baby just didn't want to cooperate and was facing down for most of the time. Didn't get that great of pictures in the end, but it was still cool to see the little one who has been doing gymnastics inside of me for the past few weeks. Part of me wanted to know the gender SOOO bad, but we held strong. All in all the report and measurements all came out normal. The only thing they noted was that the baby has pretty long legs and arms and a big head, but they are all proportionate to the body....haha. Hmmmm....Maybe we'll be having a little Byron running around here after all??

Profile view (Section through Head) of our little one. Mostly head and shoulder area.

Last Night's Dinner

I'm a pretty picky eater. This whole eating less meat and more legumes thing is a bit of a challenge for me. I'm not a huge fan of beans, but I do like lentils (as of recent). I found a recipe from my More-with-Less cookbook using lentils that looked interesting-Lentil Burgers. Hhhmmm....well I decided to try it out last night. We ate these on whole wheat buns with a side salad, strawberries from the garden, and watermelon.

What I liked: Used little ingredients, quick and easy to make, tasted GREAT, and didn't stick to your gut like a regular burger.
What I didn't like: They didn't seem to actually stay together, very messy.
What I'll do different: Instead of making them into burgers, next time I will make them as a sort of sloppy joe.

Dehydrated Apples

My husband and I went to an Italian grocery store in our area this weekend. What I really like is going to their discounted produce area. They package up produce that is on its last leg into big boxes for $2.50 (no matter what is in there). My husband recently has been juicing for breakfast and this is a cheap way to juice. I have also wanted to get back into dehydrating. I got a dehydrator a couple years ago through freecycle.org. We purchased two big boxes of apples. One for juicing (which was enough for the whole week) and one for me to dehydrate. Just make sure you wash the produce and cut off all the yucky parts.

How to Dehydrate Apples

Wash, peal (optional), and slice to 1/4ish inch (just make sure they are all the same. After that you want to soak the sliced apples in a bowl of equal parts lemon juice and water for about 10 minutes.

Evenly spread apple slices on food dehydrator trays. Do NOT overlap apples.

Every food dehydrator is different, so check your manual for drying time and temperatures. Mine doesn't have a temperature gage, so I just let it go for about 6 hours and checked it every hour after that until apples were slightly pliable.

Remove from trays and put into air tight freezer bags. Label with date and enjoy! These will last for up to 1 year.
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My handsome husband with our first harvest from our strawberry patch!

Family Budget Update

Last month we decided to switch over to a cash/envelope budget system. I must say, I was a little skeptical about it. The Costco membership we got this month cut into my grocery budget, so I was a little worried that I wouldn't have enough for food. We also ran out of money for gifts pretty fast. B and I went over the finances for May over the weekend and we were pleasantly surprised.

Dave Ramsey turned us on to the envelope system after hearing that people save an average of 12% more using it. We only have two credit cards. One for emergencies and one for everyday use. We never carried a balance on either card paying the complete bill every month. We still felt like we didn't quite have a handle on what we were spending each month. We haven't actually "cut up" our credit cards yet, but we didn't use them at ALL last month. Using this envelope system and using cash for almost everything (everything but the bills we pay through our bank online from our checking account) does work. I am excited to say we actually ended up saving 20% MORE this month! We ended up having $8 left in the grocery budget even after the Costco membership. I know I can do better next month. We ate a lot of meals "from the pantry." I was able to be creative with what I had in the freezer, fridge, and pantry. Now that I am learning how to sew, I am able to be creative and frugal by making gifts for people. It's really been great.

I can't wait to see how much we will save this month!

Weekend Movies

After a long 2 days of having a garage sale with my grandmother, Saturday evening my family rented The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This movie received 13 Academy Award nominations and won 3 Oscars. However, we were surprisingly disappointed with this film. No one seemed to enjoy it. I found it to be extremely depressing. Someone always seemed to be dying and there was as constant reminder of age and getting older. My husband especially couldn't get over how inconsistent the movie was throughout. The movie was fairly long and left you feeling like "why did I just waste 2hrs and 45min of my life watching this movie." Don't waste your time with this one!

After spending the day weeding, planting flowers, and tending to the garden & yard on Sunday, my husband and I found a documentary on Hulu to watch called the Future of Food. "THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade." WATCH THIS MOVIE! It's an eye opener....and it's free! Watch the trailer below.

The Future of Food