Menu planning forms (one month per page), sales flyers, and a couple lists of things I don’t want forgotten

A few people have asked if I’d share my dill pickle recipe. This is the recipe my grandmother used for years, and she recently told me it’s the recipe her grandmother always used to use. She said she liked it because the ingredients are per jar – making it really easy to make pickles as your cucumbers are ready, instead of having to wait until you have a lot at once.

These pickles also have to age for a while. Mine will sit at least 6 weeks, but longer wouldn’t hurt.

Dill Pickles
Makes 1 Quart

1/2 to 1 Tbsp salt
1 cup white vinegar
1-2 heads dill
1/2 tsp. powdered alum

Put salt, vinegar, and dill in bottom of can. Add cucumbers and more dill, finish filling with boiling water and seal up.

Since I’d never made pickles before, I wasn’t convinced that the brine alone would be enough to preserve the pickles. We ran the jars through the water bath canner for 15 minutes (based on another pickle recipe we found). I’m still not 100% sure that’s the best way to do it, but I’m curious.

Just thought I’d update my sewing list here to keep me accountable. I’ve been working, but I’m not convinced it’s evident.

*Maternity dress

*Pajama pants for Stephen

*Comfortable skirt for me

*Cloth diapers – 16 complete diapers in progress, need to find and cut fleece for at least 4 more

*Cloth diaper covers – have fleece for these (the navy) – just need to find my pattern and cut them out

*More wetbags

*Bouncy seat cover – still need to find fabric

Guess I’ve gotten some done, but looking at this list, it doesn’t look like much!

This is a yellow brandywine tomato on homemade bread. Does it get any better?

This is the first year we’ve ever grown any of the yellow brandywine tomatoes, but it won’t be the last. The flavor is incredible.

Last night I was up later than usual working on some website coding issues. This morning, I am SO tired. :O) Funny how I didn’t anticipate that! Thankfully there’s nowhere that we have to go today. There’s still a lot on my to-do list, but that’s ok. I’m just thankful there’s no running around that needs to be done!

That said, I am seriously considering keeping the coffeepot filled and hot today. Something about a fresh cup of coffee always sounds rejuvenating!

Here are our finds from a trip to Value Village this morning. They have a half price sale roughly once a month. It’s a madhouse in there, but worth it for the good deals you can find. This morning, all these clothes cost us a whopping $14.41. I was able to find a few more clothes for Little Miss, some church shirts for the boys, and a bit more fleece to get more diapers finished. I’m not sure if it will be enough, but considering I’m completely out of anything that looks ok with pink flannel, this amount will really help.

One of my favorite finds is this little dress. It only cost $1.50 today.

Today’s afternoon snack was unbelievably delicious – it was a chocolate milkshake with a twist. One of Wendy’s toffee coffee twisted frostys sounded nice, but I had no plans to make the 30-minute drive to go get one.

I wasn’t sure what to do to imitate the flavor since there’s no toffee-flavored anything in the house right now. I finally settled on a chocolate milkshake with coffee flavoring. I only added a tiny bit of instant coffee powder, but the amount of richness it added really surprised me. As a general rule, I do NOT like mocha-flavored coffee, so I was surprised I liked this as well as I did.

Here’s how to make it. This is the small mixer cup for my Magic Bullet knockoff (gotta love Aldi!). It holds about a cup, maybe a cup and a half, tops.

Fill your container most of the way with chocolate ice cream. I used homemade because that’s all we had in the house.

Add a splash of milk. In my case, use the rest of the gallon. It was maybe a third of a cup.

Dump in about a half teaspoon of instant coffee granules. This was decaf.

Insert into blender base. . .

Blend. . .

Enjoy. This never made it to a fancy cup. It was fantastic.

If you’ve been looking for a post with all the links for the Coupons 101 series in one place, you’ve found it.

Coupons 101 – Getting Coupons

Coupons 101 – Organizing

Coupons 101 – Price Books

Coupons 101 – Know your prices

Coupons 101 – Ethics

Today’s work involved a lot of time in front of the computer.

First, let me just say I’m thankful for a husband who sets me up a dual monitor setting like this! That giant monitor on the left was FREE. One of Stephen’s clients at work was upgrading their monitors and let him have this one for free. I love it! It stays off most days, but is wonderful for days like today, when the extra screen makes work a lot easier.

I’ve been asked repeatedly for household notebook forms that people can type directly into, but only recently was able to purchase software to be able to do it. They’re not ready to put in the store yet, but hopefully there’ll be good feedback from the people who are testing it for me.

This morning these little guys decided to put up enough of a racket to wake us up. We knew they would hatch sometime this weekend, but weren’t expecting to hear them at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

They are coturnix quail, and each chick is just barely over an inch tall. On my screen, the picture is almost life-size. What sounded like just one quail from our bedroom turned out to be six of them that had hatched overnight. We’ve never had so many hatch so close together before. What fun! Another hatched right before we headed out the door, leaving seven in the incubator to hatch tomorrow.