After my last coupon book fell apart, I decided to try a new system. This time I purchased a 3-ring binder and some plastic pages. The binder is a Wilson Jones Impact 3-ring binder. They’re not the cheapest binder on the market, but they hold up extremely well. The pages are photo sleeves that will hold three 4×6 photos on a page, with a small area on the side for a label.

Each page has the coupons in the two bottom pockets. Each group of coupons is sorted by date, to make culling out expired ones easier. Coupons that will expire in the next couple of weeks go into the top pocket so they can be used before they expire.

The labels are just printed on card stock and cut out. I printed two of each so I could see the writing on each side and flip through the book a bit easier. Here’s a close-up of the label:

There are 2 sizes of envelopes in the front of the notebook. Some stores limit the number of coupons you can use in one order, so I sort all the coupons I might use into a business envelope. Then I put a smaller envelope inside the bigger one. As I find items in the store that I’m definitely buying, I transfer those coupons into the smaller envelope, and make a mark on the outside to show how many coupons are inside. Then when I’m ready to check out, all I need is the smaller envelope. I read about the envelope system over at the Taking Stock Blog.

The notebook is a bit on the large size, but everything is so organized that it is very easy to find the coupons I want while I’m in the store.

This tote bag is actually pretty large – 13.5″ tall by 15″ wide, but I love it. The fabric was a pillowcase I found at a thrift store quite a while ago, and it’s lined with a yellow gingham. Then I put two rows of pink rick rack around the top of it. The whole thing is really lightweight.

I made it to carry my coupon binder and price book. My coupon binder (more on that later) is just big enough that I figured it would be easier to carry it in a tote bag into stores rather than carry it by itself. Besides, it was another excuse to make a new bag!

For a while, I was thinking that I had plenty of tote bags (they’re so easy to make!). I’m finding that it’s easier to have several so I don’t have to keep switching things in and out of the same bag all the time. Now I can have a bag for my Sunday School lesson (Oh – I never mentioned that I’m teaching the 6-8 year-old class now, did I? Well, I am), a bag for grocery shopping, a bag for our music at church, etc. It’s great!

Now I just need to go make a few more bags, so I don’t have to hunt down all the old paper bags for an Aldi trip. I try to keep those in the van, so I always have them, but they still get lost or torn or thrown away.

God has blessed us with an abundance of food! It has been absolutely amazing.

There is a distinct advantage to having a father-in-law who is the cook at a nearby Christian school. We get leftover food. Now, lest you think it is all nasty cafeteria food, it is not. Stephen’s dad is an amazing cook. There are also some days when the school orders food from nearby restaurants, and we sometimes get those leftovers too.

I just got off the phone with him a moment ago. He wanted to know if we wanted any french fries and cheeseburgers. Um, let me think about that for a moment. . .uh. . .yes, of course! Stephen will be thrilled with the fries – since we’ve gone low-carb, we rarely eat or make fries any more unless it’s with sweet potatoes. Let me tell you, that husband of mine loves his fries. So he will be happy.

Another nice thing is that most of the food freezes well, so whatever we can’t eat in the next day or so gets frozen and becomes a quick meal for later.

It’s a win-win situation. The school doesn’t have to throw away perfectly good food, and we get blessed with food which is often food that we haven’t had in a while (like pizzeria pizza – YUM!). It has been so neat to watch God provide for our needs this way.

But cafeteria food isn’t all that God has blessed us with lately.

When my parents were here last week, they took us grocery shopping. Some of the things they wanted to buy us were things that we usually choose not to afford or things that we consider “treats.” That really was a treat.

Then, one of our local grocery stores ran a triple coupon promotion this last weekend. In two trips I was able to save an insane amount of money (while spending hardly any!), as well as getting quite a bit of food for free or next to free. I like getting boxes of deluxe brownie mixes for $.64 – I can’t make a batch for that, and now I have a couple mixes on hand for when I need something in a hurry. . . like for the fellowship we’re having after church this Sunday evening. I had prayed that God would help me do well with the money and coupons that I had, and He did.

Stephen and I were standing in the kitchen talking the other day, and I told him that it just amazes me how full our pantry is right now – it hasn’t been this full in a long time.

As if that weren’t enough – we still have some grocery money that was set aside! I’m hoping that there will some good meat sales coming up soon, so we can stock up. The sales flyers are supposed to be in today’s mail, so we shall see.

God has been so good to us!

I need a coffee category. . .

This morning I made up some vanilla coffee. It was the flavored Folgers stuff that comes in little cans – yummy stuff. There was some cinnamon coffee (sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over plain grounds before brewing) left over from last night also, so I dumped a little bit of that in my mug too. Yes, I drink leftover coffee, lol!

Wow – vanilla cinnamon coffee. SO good! If I were to recreate it, I’d use half vanilla-flavored grounds and half plain coffee grounds (this much we do on a regular basis), and then sprinkle the cinnamon on top of the vanilla grounds before brewing.

Debby asked:

I’m curious though about why no dancing in your house? Just wondering!

Two reasons.

The shallow reason is that this mama has absolutely no sense of rhythm and is completely uncoordinated. If I tried to dance, it would look more like something off America’s Funniest Home Videos. It would be horrible. Go figure – I have a degree in music but I still have no sense of rhythm. That’s okay though.

The other reason is 1 Thessalonians 5:22.

Abstain from all appearance of evil.

I don’t know what comes to your mind when you think of dancing, but the first thing that comes to my mind is clubs and bars. I know there are other types of dancing, but how many other people immediately think of erotic and sensual or just plain wild dancing when they think about dancing in general?

It’s like buying a bottle of sparkling juice. It’s not alcohol, but the bottle looks like a wine bottle. I’m the pianist at our church, and often visitors to the church will recognize me out in public, even though I may not recognize them. If a visitor to my church saw me in a store and came over to talk to me, and noticed that I had a bottle of sparkling juice in my cart, what would their first thought be? Would it be “Wow – that church pianist drinks!” or would they even stop long enough to read the bottle to see if what I’m buying really is alcohol or not? It looks like alcohol, and from a distance, it is irrelevant whether or not it really is, because either way, it would appear as if I drink. Just by having it in my shopping cart I can damage my testimony. Something I am not willing to do.

We look at dancing in the light of that same verse. Granted, not all dancing is erotic or wild, but we see no reason to allow dancing in our home when it could be cause for someone else to stumble or to reject Christ.

Each Saturday I try to go through our closets and pick out and iron what everyone is going to wear to church in the morning. I don’t always pick out Stephen’s clothes for him though – he has a specific rotation to his clothes that I haven’t quite figured out yet.

Anyways, I was going through my clothes today and I chose a blouse for tomorrow that is too low-cut for me to wear without something to raise the neckline a bit. It’s a pretty little button-front blouse, and I usually wear a silk scarf with it. For some reason, none of the scarves that I usually wear with it looked right today.

As I thought about it, I remembered a box of vintage handkerchiefs that I inherited from my grandmother. They’re beautiful – many have exquisite embroidery or delicate lace edges. Most of them are just the right size to use inside a blouse. The one I chose for tomorrow has a delicate crocheted trim on it and it really adds a nice touch to the blouse.

The scarves are nice to use, but sometimes they can be hard to pin inside a blouse if they’re very big. It was nice to find something else that will look nice but that won’t add a lot of extra bulk.

So now I suppose I’ve found something else to hunt for at thrift shops – vintage handkerchiefs and silk scarves! I have a couple dozen scarves already at least, but it’s nice to have a variety to choose from. Besides, when you get them at a dollar bag sale, you don’t have to feel guilty for buying over a dozen at one time!

Oh wait – I never mentioned we got a goat, now did I? Well, we did.

Sunday night after church Stephen came and got me and told me we needed to leave right away because we needed to pick up a male goat we had been given.

My initial reaction was, “Huh? What goat?” LOL!

So we stopped on the way home and tied the goat into the back of the van so he couldn’t run around while we drove the rest of the way home. Once we got there, we put him in the fenced-in area we have around our chicken coop, and then we went to bed.

When Stephen got home from work on Monday, he went out to go check on the goat to see how he was doing. He came running into the house with news for me.

“You’ve got to come see this goat!”

When we got outside, he showed me something. Our male goat has an udder.

Apparently “he” is not a “he” at all, but is, in fact, a “she.” Stephen’s reaction? “Well, amen!”

We’ve been wanting to raise goats for a while, but had decided to wait a bit before we got any. Our plans were to raise the goats for milk. When I found out that we were getting a male, I was thinking, “What in the world are we going to do with a male goat? You can’t milk it!” Lol! As much as we love pets, most of our animals here earn their keep in some way or another – like our hens that we keep for their eggs (which we’re getting 2 and 3 a day eggs a day now!). I thought it was pretty neat that our goat ended up being a female. Looks like God is growing our little farm pretty quickly for us.

And to top it all off, Stephen suspects that this little goat is pregnant. Go figure. We’re not 100% convinced of that fact though, so we’re just waiting and watching her to see if his suspicions really are true.

Oh – she does have a name – Sasha.

What a trip. Life on this little farm certainly is crazy!

This is my chocolate chip cookie recipe. It uses some wheat flour and the Splenda brown sugar replacement. They’re VERY good!

Chocolate Chip Wheat Cookies (Reduced Sugar)
Makes 24 large cookies

3/4 cup margarine – softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2/3 cup Splenda brown sugar blend
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Mix together softened butter or margarine, vanilla, and eggs. Add brown sugar blend and mix well. Add dry ingredients and chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes.

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 180 Calories; 9g Fat (46.6% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 22g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 18mg Cholesterol; 171mg Sodium.

Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 2 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.

It’s that time of year again. Mother’s Day is tomorrow. Once again, I find myself waffling between two very different and very opposite viewpoints about the holiday.

I dread Mother’s Day. I know it will probably end up being a nice day with my family (my parents are visiting for a few days), but there is a part of me that, even though I am a mother, still dreads the arrival of Mother’s Day.

We celebrate our 6th anniversary this summer. Six years of no pregnancies, ever. I never imagined it would be this way. When we got married, we expected that children would soon follow. They didn’t. Despite our attempts to conceive, God’s plan included a wait for us.

As each year passed with no children in our family or on the way, I grew to despise Mother’s Day. Everyone knew we wanted children, but attending church on that day became incredibly painful. Mothers were honored, I was not. I wanted children too! Women younger than I was were pregnant or already mothers and were being honored. . .yet I was sitting on the sidelines grieving the absence of children. It became a day of reminders that I didn’t have what I so desperately longed for. It was so easy for everyone else to become mothers, but my doctor’s hopeful words that “it shouldn’t be too hard for you to conceive” seemed empty and unrealistic. I considered skipping church on Mother’s Day several times, but since I was the church pianist, I never actually acted on it.

Eventually we began the process of adoption. Almost nine months later, our son was born. I was thrilled to finally be a mother. After we brought him home from the hospital, we brought him to church the very first chance we could. Interestingly enough, that first service at church was Mother’s Day. What an honor.

I wouldn’t trade that journey – it was through infertility and adopting our son that I finally came to accept Christ as my personal Savior. I had to see that finally having that child I so desperately wanted was not enough to fill that void in my life. I can honestly say I wouldn’t change how God had things planned. It is a great honor to finally be a mother, especially after waiting for it for so long.

But even though I see how God’s plan was the best. . .the old emotions surprise me. I thought we would have another child by now, but once again, God is saying, “Wait.” I don’t know His reasons. I’d probably be lying if I said it didn’t sting a bit, but for the moment, there is peace. He is in control, and He does have a better plan.

Then my thoughts turn to all the other women who are still waiting to become mothers. I wonder how many of them will see me with my son this Sunday, and turn away fighting back tears because I am just another reminder of what they do not have. How many hurting women will be at my church this Sunday, listening to my pastor give out awards to mothers (oldest, the most children, etc.). . .how many women will be sitting in the pews cringing from the pain and considering leaving the service?

So tomorrow, please don’t just assume that everyone is enjoying Mother’s Day. They may not be. If you know someone who has experienced infertility or loss, how about encouraging them tomorrow? Even just a hug would be wonderful for someone whose heart is aching this year.

Little man has an alphabet toy that plays all sorts of different folk songs. He came up to me today with the toy.

“Dounce the zoogit, Mommy!”

Dance to the music, Mommy!

Uh, not this Mommy, and not in this house, lol. I sure do love his pronunciations, though!

“More zoogits!”