Moms

Preparing To Give Thanks

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Give Thanks

Are you counting down the days to Thanksgiving, knowing that you will have a house filled with guests? If you are already a very organized person, this thought won’t make you nervous. But, if you’re like the rest of us, your heart may start racing with anxiety. The good news is that there is still plenty of time to get your home ready for a perfectly wonderful day of giving thanks. Remember, when there is something to celebrate, it’s all about the people that you are with. It’s not necessary to impress everyone. Getting organized is what is needed in order to be ready, less-stressed, and really enjoy the holiday. It won’t feel like Thanksgiving if you’re just barely surviving. You want to make memories that are peaceful and fun. Here are some great tips to help you get organized and ready to give thanks: Plan Make a Master List of all the things you want to accomplish before the big day. Then, break it down into what needs to be done each week before Thanksgiving. The weekly list can now easily be broken down into daily tasks. Meals should also be planned. Your everyday meals still need to be cooked, so use a Meal Planner to stay organized and have everything you need to cook. Declutter Do you wonder how you’ll be able to let guests use your bathrooms? Are they a mess? It’s great to throw out any empty containers or slivers of soap. Kid’s toy shelves and closets need a good weeding. This is a perfect time to let children give away a few toys that they don’t use. De-clutter the kitchen pantry and refrigerator. Child-proof your home, if there are little ones coming to visit. Organize Now that you’ve de-cluttered, you may still have a mess. Do you need places to store things that you’re keeping? This is a good time to buy some baskets or containers to artfully store things. The kitchen pantry could use a good tidying up. Put like things together. This prevents you from buying too much food that you already have. After you get the pantry organized you’ll have more room for holiday recipe ingredients. Organize bathroom and linen closets. Make sure that there are plenty of towels handy and lots of extra toilet paper. That’s not something you want to run out of with extra people in the house. Organize the coat closet so that you have room for your guests coats. Around the holidays, there are lots of extra activities for your children. Do you have a type of “command center” in your home? Have a place to file all the papers that come into your home. Set up a calendar and place to coordinate everyone’s schedule. Don’t let events slip up on you because you weren’t organized. Keep a list-maker handy and write down things as you think of them. Make sure you keep plenty of batteries. The tv remote always dies when you least expect it. Cleaning Clean out the refrigerator to make room for all the holiday dishes. Clean each room from top to bottom, dusting first. Vacuum, mop, and scrub anything that needs it. When your home is really clean it makes more of a difference than spending money on new things. And, of course, this isn’t a good time to start any major home improvements or renovations. Delegate! Have your children work with a chore chart to help you with some of the cleaning. A good way to clean is to set the buzzer for 15 minutes and clean like crazy. Then, just do this daily until everything’s ready. Shop Plan the Big Meal and create your grocery list. The week of Thanksgiving is a great time to buy some foods on your list. Most stores offer big discounts. Purchase any decorating items or a centerpiece at the last minute. Cook Cook some dishes ahead of time, especially casseroles Make a cooking schedule, so you’ll put things in the oven in the right order. I write down the time we plan to eat and then work backwards, cooking dishes in a certain order based on the cooking temperature. In this way, we always eat on time. Get helpers. Your guests will usually volunteer to help chop, mash, and stir. Say yes to the offer and smile. Enjoy and Give Thanks! It’s such a blessing to have family or friends to celebrate a day like Thanksgiving. Give praise to God for all the good things in your life. @2019, copyright Lisa Ehrman

Cauldryn Smart Mug Is Perfect

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Taking your coffee or smoothie to work for lunch is a wonderful and frugal way to enjoy what you love. There’s no need to stop at the coffee shop and pay too much, when you can take a perfect cup of coffee with you from home. The Cauldryn coffee mug does a lot more than just carry coffee. CAULDRYN COFFEE’s powerful heating element can do more than just keep your coffee hot. You can brew coffee, heat up soup, cook, even boil right in the bottle. Use the simple arrow buttons on the bottle to set your temperature, or use the free phone app to control it from a distance. The app even has one touch settings for common tasks like brewing green tea, or cooking freeze dried food. CAULDRYN COFFEE’s design is modular. That means that the battery and heating element are removable for easy cleaning, and the attachment of optional accessories like our blender that can chop ice. It turns your CAULDRYN COFFEE into a mobile smoothie/frozen drink machine. Other smart mugs (Ember and Yeti) don’t have these great options. You can use CAULDRYN COFFEE’s powerful battery or the included plug in base to power it all day. The plug in base will still provide a wire free drinking experience. You can even use the optional Vehicle Base to power it from your 12V outlets. With multiple power options and a spill-proof design, CAULDRYN COFFEE is made for people on the go. Unlike other available passive thermoses (e.g., Yetti), CAULDRYN doesn’t keep your beverage so hot that you can’t drink it. What good is that thermos if your coffee is still 165 degrees seven hours later? With CAULDRYN, simply add your beverage and set the desired temperature. Your coffee will cool down to the desired temperature and keep it there all day long!  From now until 11/15/19, my readers can take 15% off the price and get free shipping. The Code is LECauldryn19 Would you like to give the Cauldryn for a Christmas gift? And, you probably are thinking that you want one for yourself, too. Take advantage of the savings above and go ahead and order today. @2019, copyright Lisa Ehrman

Things I Learned From My Grandmother

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pie crust

A few years back, it was all the rage to multi-task your way through life.  We talked about all the things that we could do at once.  It was believed that this was the way to get more done in our days.  But, now the common thought is to single-task instead. Although fads will continue to evolve in our thinking, I do agree that single-tasking is the way to go.  We may still multi-task when cooking a big holiday meal or keeping up with our small children, but it’s not the best way to function in our lives. As someone who always ran on adrenaline, multi-tasking seemed very helpful to me.  I was the typical Type A personality that wanted to succeed at everything I did.  It was easy to get in a tizzy and get burned out.  As I got older, multi-tasking became less likely to happen.  The energy level and mind fog both seemed to stop it from working.  I was now single-tasking.  And, sometimes even that didn’t work. Looking back on my youth, I realized something about my grandmother.  Both grandmothers were excellent role-models, but I’m focusing on my paternal grandmother.  She never multi-tasked.  She was a single-task person who accomplished more in a day than anyone I know. This lady could do almost anything, and she was good at it.  She lived in the country and always raised a big garden.  She tended it and kept the weeds away.  She harvested and canned all of the vegetables.  She was an excellent seamstress and was in great demand  in our area.  Her house was always clean and she always looked fresh. What I remember most is her attention to us.  When we would come to visit, she stopped whatever she was doing and sat down with us to visit.  She gave us her full attention and made us feel welcome.  Little ones were encouraged to sit on her lap, where she would read them a story or just rock them.  She always asked questions and got to know her family well. Because she lived this way, I never saw her get in a hurry.  I never saw her rush people around.  She always seemed to have control of herself and enjoyed what she was doing.  Although I watched her all of those years, I didn’t realize one of her great secrets until later in life. She didn’t rush through life, but focused on one task at a time.  This worked perfectly for her and it brought all of her grandchildren many wonderful memories.  Even though I didn’t practice this as a young mom, I hope that I can treat my grandchildren half as well as she did. My hope is to see the beauty in life and feel contentment in each and every task that I can complete.  My goal is to make my children and grandchildren feel welcome and important when they are with me.  What a great legacy that would be! @2019, copyright Lisa Ehrman

How To Feed Your Family For Less

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Disclosure: Affiliate links may be included.  Clicking on these links could provide me with a small award, and costs you nothing. I’ve gotten away from meal planning and it has certainly cost me money.  What I’ve found with our family grocery budget is that without a meal plan in place, we make many more “short” trips to the grocery store and spend way too much money! Another reason for meal planning is the way that it can help you use what food is in your pantry or freezer before purchasing new items.  Since we moved to the midwest, we’ve found that food prices are higher in our supermarkets.  Most items cost more, especially chicken.  Because of my chemical sensitivities, I have to purchase organic meats (which are very pricey).  So shopping around is necessary. With meal planning, shopping the various store weekly ads can help me to buy what’s on special.  This helps tremendously for meeting my goal to shop for a variety of delicious foods that are temporarily marked down.  It pushes me to vary the menu plan, otherwise I tend to get in a rut with my meals. It’s also important to use every coupon and cash back service available to me.  I love to shop in stores that offer digital coupons and most stores do that now.  I can easily plan a meal based on a terrific coupon.  This is also a good way to stockpile things that you’ll need when they are marked down + have a coupon code (or paper coupon).  Some of the cash back services change their list of items often, so it’s helpful to check the list often. Here are my favorite apps to save money: Ibotta Saving Star Checkout 51 Ebates Paribus Coupon Surfer What are your favorite ways to make the grocery bill grow smaller?  Sometimes the items on the coupon or cash back apps cost more than the grocery’s generic brand.  Trying some of the generic foods is usually my preferred option, but some generics aren’t near as tasty.  Also, if you look carefully, you can often purchase the name brand cheaper with the generic using sales + coupons. Here is the weekly meal plan: Monday:  Pan-fried Cod and Green Salad Tuesday:  Potato Soup Wednesday:  Spaghetti and Green Salad Thursday:  Tuna Noodle Casserole and Green Beans Friday:  Home-Made Pizza Saturday: Fish with Baked Potato and Green Beans Sunday:  Salmon Patties with Mashed Potatoes and English Peas Our lunch menus are usually leftovers or sandwiches.  I keep deli meat, cheese, and bread in supply.  Breakfast consists of oatmeal with fruit and nuts or bagels.  This keeps it very simple and quick.  The above meals are favorites and I can practically fix them in my sleep. Here are a few posts I wrote about saving money on food: Great Ways to Save How to Make Fall Festival Foods At Home Senior Deals Do you meal plan?  How has it benefitted you?  I would love to hear! @2019, copyright Lisa Ehrman

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