Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Showing posts with label links. Show all posts

Monday, August 20, 2012

Teacher Week - Teacher Must Haves

Hello-- I am joining in the Teacher Week Link-Up from Blog-Hoppin.



Here are a few things that are must-haves in my classroom.

1. Fun bulletin board borders (although I have nothing up on the bulletin board yet!) I chose this leopard print from Michael's this year:

(they also have tiger , zebra, and rainbow leopard).  My seven year old son was very disgusted by this bulletin board and wanted to know why I couldn't just do apples.  I also used fabric instead of paper for the background.  It doesn't fade or show seams or holes. 

2. Highlighter tape -

Great for bringing student's attention to certain things in the textbook.  It peels right off when you are done.  It also comes in super giant roles to use on chart paper.

3. Sit and move cushions-


Great for my students with autism.  They can have the movement they crave while still remaining at their seats.



4. These puzzles (and all of the others like them) from Lakeshore. 

They have all different reading ones, math ones, shapes, colors, sight words, word families, etc.  They are great to throw out as busy work for the kids and don't involve writing.  (Many of my students have OT issues and hate writing). 

Thanks for hoppin' over!
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Friday, August 17, 2012

Friday Favorites

I haven't done a link up in a while. It's late, but it's still Friday!
friday favorite things | finding joy

1. Date nights!  Ryan has been working a hectic schedule of very long overnight shifts which has not been any fun for any of us.  After working seven straight days he finally got a night off and we went to see Carolina Liar, Kelly Clarkson and The Fray.  Sadly, due to my inability to both driveaggressivly and follow a GPS, we ended up driving through the city.  As a result we stopped at no less than 1902298239823 stoplights and we ended up missing most of Carolina Liar, which is a shame because I really enjoy their music. 

I had been leaning towards getting lawn tickets, but Ryan found us a great deal on Stub Hub on seats in the center of the arena. He totally made the right call. We ended up being in the perfect placebecause both Kelly Clarkson and Isaac Slade of The Fray came out and performed a few songs from a small stage in the audience right in front of us.  The pictures are terrible quality, but the first one is Kelly Clarkson and the others are Isaac Slade. 


Kelly Clarkson put on a great show.  She really does have an incredible voice.  She covered  her bases singing most of her big hits (Since U Been Gone, Miss Independent, Breakaway, Because of You, etc, etc) which, let's be honest, is what people want to hear when they go to a concert.  She was very cute and bubbly, even if she does say "y'all" about every other word (personal pet peeve, plus isn't she from OHIO?). 


The Fray also put on a great show.  I like Kelly Clarkson and The Fray equally but I thought they were a bit of an odd pairing.  Kelly Clarkson is pretty much cheesey ballads and rockish pop.  The Fray is very serious and angsty.  I thought they had a reasonlyy upbeat and fun show, considering most of their music is fairly melancholy and piano based, but it seemed that most of the people were only there to see KC, because once she was done, quite a few people went home.




2. These fun printables that I am incorporating into my classroom!  I've already printed the flipped supply signs.  I will be printing the posters when I get a new color ink cartridge.

3.  Tackling something that has been hanging around on your to-do list FOREVER.  In the spring my brother Joe and Ryan put a ceiling fan up in my bedroom (which has been so so so lovely all summer).  Joe converted the single light switch into this double one.  Joe left me with the task of getting a new switch plate to put up.  And for the past four months or so this is how I left it.....


Well, with the new school year charging towards me like an out of control locomotive, I have renewed motivation to tackle those tasks.  It usually takes me until about November to get my head above water and until then I only do the true necessities in terms of housework.  Anyways,

Ta-DA!!!!

I know this is nothing to brag about really, but I am still going to allow myself to revel in the small burst of ecstasy when you finally get to cross off a nagging task, even if it is a small one. 




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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

advice for new teachers...

Today's topic is advice for new teachers.... which... I feel like a pretty new teacher myself... but here goes. (FYI-- for those who have hopped over, I do first grade autistic support in a cotaught classroom)

1. Make friends with your speech therapist, OT and PT. They are a wealth of information and are usually happy to share ideas and resources. I am amazed when I am totally frustrated with a situation and I bounce it off of one of them, how they might see the situation from a totally different point of view than I do.

2. When writing IEP goals, try to align them with data you are already collecting anyways. We do tons with DIBELS data, so I have started including that as reading goals. Why do double work?

3. It's okay to shut the door and cry during your prep period once in a while. It happens to everyone. Heck, I cried on my way home from school pretty much every night in August, September and October of my first year. But it got easier.

4. Don't be afraid to ask questions or ask for help. Everything will be so overwhelming at first and you won't be able to figure it all out on your own.

5. Have a plan B (and a plan C). And it's okay if, once in a while, your plan C is playdough. I've had all kinds of kids since I started teaching and playdough is a universal pleaser.

6. Don't be tempted to go crazy in the teacher store. Sure at the beginning it's fun to splurge, but so many things can be made, or picked up at yard sales, or inherited from other teachers who no longer need them, or discovered in the closet of that empty classroom... Ask around first before you shell out cash.

7. Listen to little Johnny's long rambling story. You might be the only person who gives him some undivided attention that day.

8. Let people push you a little when it comes to letting your IEP kids bloom. This can be a hard one. I looped with my students with autism for three years and found myself making snap judgement on what I felt they could and couldn't do. It came from a place of good intentions: the mama bear in me wanting to protect them and shield them from "failing". There were definitely times when a colleague or supervisor pushed me to have a child participate in something and I would be surprised at how well they would exceed everyone's expectations.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

survey

Favorite time of day: That hour or so after Isaac goes to bed before I fall asleep. Favorite season: Oh gosh...I love them all for different reasons! Spring for the all the flowers blooming and just that feeling of renewal and life. Fall because it is sooooooooooo beautiful. Summer because of vacation and minimal work and the beach and family memories. Winter because of snow days and the holiday merriment. Favorite month: August. We tend to take our family vacation in August and then there is all of the fun back to school stuff. I love the anticipation of a new school year. Favorite holiday: Christmas :) Halloween is a close second.

Favorite subject in school: In high school I loved English and writing. In college I loved psychology classes, especially abnormal psych. After getting my undergrad and Masters...I'm over school for a little bit. When I pay down my student loans perhaps more school is in my future! One of my longterm goals is to get my doctorate. Favorite channel: Probably A and E. I actually don't watch too much TV these days though. Favorite color: pink! Favorite song: Oh gosh, so many. Catapult by Counting Crows will always be a favorite.

Favorite movie: Lars and the Real Girl Favorite celebrity: I do love Adam Duritz Favorite kind of music: Depends. As a general rule, I like pretty much all pop. Favorite TV show: Rupaul's Drag Race,Obsessed, Pushing Daisies, Intervention, Hoarders, Heavy, Beyond Scared Straight, Project Runway. Favorite thing to do: spend time with family, read, run around Philly with friends, go out to eat. Favorite place in the world: Jersey Shore. I'm a simple girl. Give me a beach, a good book, some fudge, and a porch swing and I'm good. Favorite hobby: Zumba. Favorite kind of animal: the cats. I have one good one and one naughty one.... Guess which one is running along the top of my kitchen cabinets? Favorite place to live: I liked living in Oaks. After Isaac is all raised I would like to live in Rittenhouse in the city. Favorite place to vacation: I've never been anywhere too exotic but anywhere I can get a tan is nice :) I really enjoyed spending time at my parent's time share in Orlando. Favorite restaurant: Oh gosh. I don't know. Anything with really good mexican food. Locally, I like every Stephen Starr restaraunt I've set foot in. Favorite food: ice cream :) Favorite thing to cook: Ha! Me? Cook? I make a mean grilled cheese. Favorite drink: Diet Coke. Favorite chore: folding clothes...for some reason I really don't mind this chore! Favorite makeup: Still loving Bare Minerals. Favorite hair products: I like Herbal Essenses. Nothing fancy anymore. Favorite lotion: Bath and Body Works Moonlight Path :) Favorite perfume: I really like Victoria Secret's Pink with a Splash. Also can't go wrong with Candies... Favorite blogger: Sooooooooo many. I love blogs and spend far too much time reading them.

I could go on and on. I'm sure I probably have at least 100 blogs in my reader. Favorite thing to blog about: oh about anything. I always get a good response to the "e-harmony reject pile" posts. Favorite books: Oh gosh. I don't know. I try to read most of the current "Best Sellers". Also a fan of fluffy "Chick Lit". Favorite thing to wear: Sundress, flip flops, huge sunglasses. Favorite kind of day: One where I can sleep in, eat lunch my mom or girlfriends, Zwahlen's, some kind of fun adventure somewhere locally, a long, hot shower, then bed! Favorite memory: How do you choose a favorite? Disney with my parents and sister last year was a fantastic memory...

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Saturday, March 5, 2011

I'm only happy when it rains....

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. I finally have some time to sit down and type because (insert angel chorus) it's the weekend!!! I've been under a lot of stress from work and it seems like when I am stressed everything in my life unravels. I start eating crappy (like Oreos for dinner badly) and then I don't bother to work out and I stop cleaning my house and pretty much everything falls apart. WIWW falls by the wayside. The vacumm cleaner goes untouched. On and on. Anyways, I can't write about it specifically (of course) but it is a terrible continuation of the stressful situation from about this time last year that caused me to flee to Florida for a while. Also the continuous stresses of never having enough money. I have been tutoring after school like crazy. It's still never enough though. I'm wondering if I might need to get some kind of weekend job to hold me over until summer. I feel like I am barely squeaking by with the monthly expenses. And then there's everything else. The dishwasher is not really cleaning the dishes anymore. I need rear brakes for my car. It goes on and on. I'm trying hard to look for the positivity, because I do have so many blessing in my life and so many people that help me. While we are on that topic, here's one I probably need to record for prosperity. Last week Isaac and I left to meet up with my brother Tom at Costco (mom got us a membership for Christmas and we never went to fill out the paperwork-- isn't that an awesome present?) which is a decent drive from my house. Afterwards we stopped at Game Stop because Isaac's birthday money was burning a hole in his pocket. Then we decided to stop by Zwahlen's for some ice cream, just to make a night out of it. By the time we drove all the way home we had been out for several hours. I opened the door for Isaac and went to bring in my trashcan from the curb. Isaac came running out of the house screaming "Mom, there is water everywhere!!!!" I came in and sure enough water was POURING out of the kitchen ceiling through a big gaping opening along the seam of the dry wall. There were puddles on the floor, and my work laptop was sitting in a pool of water on the counter. I ran upstairs to see that Isaac didn't turn the water off when he used the bathroom before we left. Unfortunately, the sink that was left on was the sink that has been draining extremely slowly for the past few weeks. Water was flowing over the edge of the sink and there were several inches of water on the bathroom floor, and soaked into the carpet outside the bathroom on the landing of my stairs. It was bad. I freaked out. Isaac was terrified. We turned into a two man clean up team. Water continued to pour of the ceiling out of the gaping crack in the drywall of the kitchen and in eight different spots in the living room ceiling for the rest of the night. I had to put out huge mixing bowls and pots to collect it all in. I was pretty much hysterical envisioning rotting drywall, mildewy carpet pads, tons of home repairs. But the next day after I returned home from work I discovered that everything was pretty much dry. All of the holes and spots in the ceiling that had gallons of water flowing through them were barely noticeable 24 hours later. The carpet that had been totally saturated with water was only mildly damp. My work computer still worked fine. Tons of water poured out on either side of my TV and TV stand but all of my electronics stayed dry. Even the kitchen cieling which was the worst was quite dry and the somehow didn't seem as gaping as the day before.
It was pretty much a little personal miracle and I'm not quite sure why it worked out that way but I'm so grateful.
So what else is new?
Not to get political, but why does it seem like everything in this country is going to hell in a handbasket? NPR and Planned Parenthood are being defunded. The Postal Service is in real trouble. I will refrain from posting a million links about terrible things that are happening in education locally and nationally. It can be so discouraging. I went to the movies last night and saw The King's Speech. We pretty much just chose that one by default. There are no good movies playing. It came down to that or the Justin Beiber movie (seriously). I had my doubts about a period movie about a guy with a stammer, but as everyone I knew who had seen it assured me, it was really, really good. Not too sure why it was rated R though. I guess because of all of the swear words. (He doesn't stammer when he swears and the speech therapist sort of runs with that).
I have had this book:
for book club for nearly a month and I haven't opened it. It is really long and my coworkers who have already started it aren't crazy about it, so I haven't gotten the motivation to start it. Maybe I will just skip this month. January I was tearing through books, but lately I can't seem to get interested in reading (see first paragraph about being in a funk). Anyone read it?
Anyways, I guess I should get out of bed and crank up the Lady Gaga station on slacker radio and get to crossing things off my to-do list. Happy Saturday everyone!
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Thursday, December 23, 2010

cool

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Friday, November 19, 2010

Favorite Things

I'm linking up to the favorite things blog.
Here's a few of mine:

It's the only picture I can find, but that bag. It's a roomy slouchy over the shoulder kind of purse that my sister brought back from Ghana and I LOVE it. (the adorable baby in this picture is one of my favorite kiddos too).

This is the shower gel but I use the same scent of grapefruit shampoo from Whole Foods. It smells sooooooooooooooooooooo good.

Definitely my favorite candy.

Another favorite. Reminds me of my mom and sister.

My favorite kind of toothpaste. It just tastes really fresh,

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

I love postsecret

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Friday, October 1, 2010

So sick and weird... This state official has a blog completely attacking a gay college student. Watch the video. The guy is beyond creepy. "Do you consider yourself a bigot?" "Absolutely not. I'm a Christian citizen excercising my first amendment rights."
(SIDENOTE: I have a major crush on Anderson Cooper.)
This combined with the sad suicide of Tyler Clementi has me feeling really down.
Why can't people treat each other civilly?
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Saturday, September 25, 2010

whippin out the sewing machine

The directions for blogger's mobile photo uploader thing are kind of confusing. I haven't had too much luck with it yet. I can be really slow with that kind of stuff though. Anyways, here are some crappy cellphone pictures of my latest crafting adventures. I'm on a banners kick lately. It started off with this cheerful happy birthday one. My house is the most centrally located and has the biggest kitchen, we tend to have celebratory birthday dinners here. Occasionally, I try to be domestic and decorate. Last year I made a really cute paper happy birthday banner for my brother's birthday. It didn't store well though and got kind of crumped and I thought it would make more sense to have a fabric one handy. I just followed the tutorial I found here. I didn't bother using the tiny iron to press open the seams though. I don't have a tiny iron and I find ironing seams open to be extremely tedious. Anyways, there are also cute tutorials for other variations found here and here.
I don't think my poor quality pictures do justice to their utter adorableness, if I do say so myself and they are wicked easy to make.
I just picked up some fun fat quarters for the little pennants, some bias tape, some wunder under. The letters I cut from an old pair of jeans.
I decided I was so happy with the way that came out, I bought some fallish fat quarters and made one for fall. Then I made two more for gifts.
I don't even have a mantle. My brother helped me put up this shelf which serves as sort of a makeshift mantle between two of my windows.
Hopefully next time I am out in Lancaster I can pick up some little pumpkins or something to beef up the mantle a little.
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Saturday, July 31, 2010

half icecream half human hybrids

Whatever Tickles Your Fancy: Click on Mrs. Scoop to go to Icecream People, a whole blog devoted to art of people who are made of icecream. For real!
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Friday, July 16, 2010

Prison Labor and Delivery

This is insane and so sad.
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

mommyhood

This post was amazing!
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Pretty cool
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

creepy

Why?? Click here to read the story
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Thursday, March 18, 2010

A wise woman once said "Shoes are like girlfriends... you can never have too many". Which is great cause I have tons and tons of shoes. I thought this was a fun meme, and since I am incapable of creating posts that aren't about dating or puke I figured I would go for it.
These are a great old standby. I got them about four years ago when we went into the city for one of those single mingle conference things. During the day we did a hardcore service project cleaning trash out of fields in North Philly. I brought clothes to change into before the formal dinner/dance later that night but realized I didn't pack shoes-- I only had my filthy sneakers. I wandered around University City until I stumbled into a little hole in the wall shoe place and bought these for around 19 bucks. They are so fun (although even after all of these years I haven't *QUITE* got the hang of walking on the kitten heel). These were new this past year. They are actually Jessica Simpson; believe it or not her line has some pretty fab shoes. I usually wear them with jeans to get into "hot mom" mode.
I've had these forever too. They are kind of furry. My sister and I both bought a pair on a marathon shopping trip to my favorite store in the world (whose name sadly escapes me currently... what the heck??? that big store in the Gallery Mall.... the discount department store.... what the heck? I'm having a senior moment... sorry).
BURLINGTON COAT FACTORY! Whew! That's it.
These are from Target. I love to wear red, white and blue. These are from Kohl's. Cute with black tights.
You wouldn't think you could combine snake skin, tweed and embroidery and have it look remotely cute, but somehow these shoes do it. When my mom, sister and I were shopping at the outlets last year, I saw these and drooled over them but decided I couldn't afford them. My mom and my sister ended up seeing them the next day at the outlets in Lancaster and surprised me by getting them for me. I know what you are thinking. "Lisa, these shoes are all fabulous, but come on now. You're a soccer mom and you teach autistic kindergarteners. You're not strapping on stilettos everyday!"
True.
Here's a random smattering of what I wear to work about 75% of the time. These colored slip on shoes come in a variety of colors. I usually am wearing boring khakis or black pants so I try to choose a shoe that coordinates with my shirt. Most were bought from Target for 6-12 bucks, so when they eventually give up the ghost it's no big deal.
Last but not least, you can't go wrong with some pink paisley Chuck's.

Show me your shoes!

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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

blah

here is my life right now:
work
work
pick Isaac up from school and then take him to my school while I continue to work
meeting with upset parent
dirty dishes piling up in the sink
driving to Lancaster
checking blogs
looking up at the clock at work and seeing it is 6:30 at night and I haven't eaten anything since 12:30
e-mailing work people until midnight while in bed
work
tv dinner
work
Pretty exciting life, right? Doesn't make for good blog material.
I am definitely terrifically busy at school. The insanity starts with the early intervention kids in February and keeps building steadily until June. There is no doubt my work load has increased.
But... (yes, I'm blogging about it again)....
I also feel a bit of loneliness and a void that for the past six months or so has been filled up with PDH and I think it is safe to say that I am filling that up with school. On Monday I had an after school meeting and so my mom was kind enough to pick Isaac up from school and brought him straight to her place. After my meeting was over the thought of going home to an empty house was unbearable. In the past I would have jumped on the chance to grab dessert or go bowling with PDH. Now I am filling the time up running 100 individual 3 by 5 cards through the printer until the cleaning lady is kicking me out. Dating him helped me draw boundaries on things and keep other obligations from encroaching over every aspect of my day. I need to try to regain that. I can't do another year like last where I show up at work at 6:30 am, stay till five and then bring three hours of work home with me.
On the break up front... it's done for real. I deleted his number, the whole nine yards. I'm still alternating between sad and mad. The playlist ranges from Almost Lover by a Fine Frenzy ("Goodbye my luckless romance/my back is turned on you/should have known you'd bring me heartache/almost lovers always do") to Narcissus by Alanis Morrisette.
("Any talk of willingness/and any talk of both feet in/ and any talk of commitment/leaves you running for the door"). The opening line of that song I think is my favorite of any angry chick song ever, but it's not really family friendly. Feel free to Google if you're curious. I'm still fighting the urge to think catastrophically. Just because we didn't make it doesn't mean that I will die alone in a house full of 20 cats. Anyways, it's after midnight. I guess I should go to sleep. Better blogs to come soon (for real).
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Sunday, January 3, 2010

Mormon Singletons

This blog post and this blog post (and really, the whole darn blog) is fabulous. Oh, this one too.
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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas and some other unexpected expenses (coughcoughspeedingticketcoughcough) along with just a desire to get a better grip on my finances has me trying to get serious about reducing expenses . But it's hard!!! Also, here are my hang-ups: * I'm freaking busy. And when I come home from work I'm hungry. I don't want to spend a ton of time cooking a big dinner after a long day at work. Also, although I get that it can be cheaper to make things from scratch I also have to factor in the time that it will take. My time is worth a lot to me. I won't sacrifice three hours to save three bucks. * It's really just me eating. Isaac is horrendously picky (that's a whole 'nother blog post). There is no point in making a big casserole. Even if I eat it for lunch and dinner the next three days I will never finish it. I need small portions. And sometimes I am just too lazy to make a whole elaborate meal with sidedishes etc. just for me to eat. Also, buying in bulk seems so silly when it's just me. * I'm not that great of a cook. I'm improving, but I don't have a solid foundation of homemaking skills to build on. So I stumbled across this article: 35 Ways to Reduce that Grocery Budget . Click on the link to see all of the author's links within the article. Here is the article and my reactions:
  • Buy the least expensive ground beef and rinse the meat to reduce the fat content. I never would have thought of this but I'll give it a try. I usually buy ground turkey instead of ground beef.
  • Stop buying baby carrots and cut the carrots yourself. I should totally do this. I'm so lazy though.
  • Milk your milk budget by using powdered milk when milk prices are too high. Not really applicable. I only buy soy milk for Isaac to drink and milk occasionally for cooking. This one doesn't really appeal to me.
  • Try making your own coffee creamers and syrups to save on your coffee expenses. Not applicable. Don't drink coffee.
  • Dispose of disposable items and switch to cloth napkins, washclothes and microfiber cloths to replace your disposable wipes and paper napkins. I should do this. I am better with using cloths for wiping the counters now(it used to totally gross me out). I need to buy cloth napkins too. I don't have them.
  • Try to make your own bread using a bread machine or making bread the old fashioned way. Haven't done this. I would give it a shot though. However, I don't eat a lot of bread. If I don't remember to toss the bag in the freezer it usually grows mold before I finish it. Also, I am worried that baking my own bread might take more time than it would be worth in dollar savings. Does that make sense? I'd try though.
  • Start keeping a price book to cash in on the best deals. I've been meaning to do this forever. I don't have that many grocery stores around here but there is Target, and Weis. I generally shop at the Giant. I would like to at least get a baseline price for the stuff I normally buy.
  • Take advantage of grocery delivery options or free in-store shopping services to help avoid impluse shopping. I will freely admit that I am an impulse shopper. It is worse when I take along another impulse shopper (Isaac). And having groceries delivered is terribly appealing.
  • Give wholesale shopping a try for items that you use frequently, just be sure to use your price book to compare the prices. Joining Costco has been on my to-do list forever too, if for nothing else than the tires and the discount movie tickets.
  • Start making homemade cleaners. I would give this a try. Goes hand in hand with the "going green" thing too.
  • Learn the art of stockpiling and create a system for storing your stockpile that works for your family. I need to get better at this too. My idea of foodstorage is helping myself to my parents pantry.
  • Try using coupons and utilizing free coupon services to help you score the best deals for your money. I try to make coupons work-- I really do. They are all over my house. They are stuck inside my purses. They are expired in envelopes in my car. But I don't think they really help me save money. I don't want to buy two of something to save 35 cents. And the store brand is usually cheaper than the discount that I get with coupon, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't get it. I can't make it work.
  • Start gardening with simple foods that are easy to grow like tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers and squash. I really, really wanted to do this this year but it never happened. I am definitely doing it this coming year. My gardener friend Andrew said he would help me get things going, so that is exciting. I'm so on board with this one.
  • Make your own baby food. Not applicable, but I am totally interested in doing it if I ever have the chance to have another go round with a second baby.
  • Give cloth diapering a shot! They have come a long way and can save you hundreds and hundreds of dollars! Same comments as above.
  • Sign up free samples of food and toiletry items. You will waste less money trying out new products and these samples can get you through when times are more lean. Not so sure about this one. I don't usually remember to use the samples. Also, getting samples usually puts you on annoying e-mail and mailing lists.
  • Make your own mixes instead of buying. I love this one. I would love to do this. My mom went to a class on how to do this and I need to get her to give me a tutorial.
  • Try shopping at a less expensive supermarket. I have done this to a certain extent. When I lived at my parents I shopped much more at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. Now I pretty much only shop at Giant because it is big, clean, close by and new. The Weis and the Aldi's that are near me just seem icky. However, in the name of cutting costs I may need to stop being so snobby. Hopefully the pricebook will help me decide if I should change up my grocery shopping or not.
  • Bring your own grocery bags for a grocery bag credit at most supermarkets. Eh. I have a million of those cloth grocery bags and although I have the best intentions I rarely remember to take them to the supermarket with me. Last time I checked they were giving you 5 cents a bag which doesn't seem to add up to that much of a savings. I bring 10 bags and I save a whopping 50 cents.
  • Shop at a store that will double your coupons. I guess this assumes you are using coupons. I know the Giant will double ones under a dollar.
  • Bring cash and a calculator instead of using your debit card. This will help you stay on a budget better. Oh I should totally do this. The debit card gets me in trouble a lot because I don't often bother to balance my checkbook.
  • Utilize a slow cooker so you can buy cheaper cuts of meat and use the slow cooker to tenderize them. I don't have a slow cooker. But it is something I am interested in looking into.
  • Make your own condiments like pancake syrup, croutons, and salad dressings. I'm willing to give this a shot assuming I don't have to buy a lot of crazy ingredients and again assuming the time it takes to do this is worth the savings in money.
  • Take inventory in your fridge, pantry and freezer to avoid buying repeat and unnecessary items. I could do better at this. I often buy doubles. I also have something halfway made and then realize I am missing an important ingredient.
  • Try replacing one evening meal with breakfast foods instead. Most brunch dishes are less expensive and you can omit or stretch meat in these dishes a lot further. I think I've mastered this one! I thought I was just being lazy though. "Hmm, I don't feel like making meat tonight for dinner... How about we have waffles instead?"
  • Instead of buying prepackaged bagged ingredients, try prepackaging your own ingredients once a week instead. It will help get dinner on the table faster and save you money on your grocery budget. Doing this helps the portion issue and the time issue I mentioned at the beginning. I would be very interested in this. Anyone have ideas?
  • Schedule a day in your kitchen every week to make cooking easier and to save money buying convience foods. So this would be the time to make your dishes and your dinners in a bag. I have done this before but I would like to get it scheduled in more regularly. I'm thinking either Sundays, or the Saturdays that Isaac goes to his dad's. I don't think a week night would realistically happen.
  • Make a homemade pizza instead of buying a frozen one. I do this one about half the time. I have bags of frozen pizza dough, cheese and sauce. It doesn't take long to slap them together.
  • Give once a month cooking a try to save time/money. Same as above.
  • Eliminate meat or make one night a meat free night. I have been trying to reduce the amount of meat we eat (especially red meat). I need to do better at increasing the veggies though. I find my meat free meals are just variations of pasta.
  • Make snack items more convenient so you don't have to buy prepackaged goodies. I don't buy tons of snack items. I would like to make my snack items more healthy. This will come into play more when I have to start packing Isaac a lunch again I'm sure.
  • Buy your meat in bulk. I do this already. Ideally in the future I would love another freezer to store things in. My freezer is on the small side.

So do any of you have reactions or comments? Other tips? Lay 'em on me.

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Saturday, December 5, 2009

Link Round-Up

Monkeys are so smart These are cute Bring it on!!! Seriously, it's probably way better for my kids than the crazy psychotropic drugs they are on. It's cheap, readily available and all natural. I've seen kids on drugs with terrible side effects like facial tics, loss of bladder control, hyperactivity... If your only side effect is the munchies, what's wrong with that? And for kids who refuse to eat, pot brownies are better than putting your kids on a feeding tube. Thoughts?
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