Savings

For those of you who have been following my blog posts, you know I am addicted to pinning on Pinterest, there I said it! I am a Pinaholic. But I do find good things that I like to share with others. So here is my post from a pin I just found on savings.

Pinterest

When we budget we should be paying ourselves some of that hard earned money by saving a percentage of funds per pay period, after we pay God in tithes and offerings. This pin is a cool way to start that plan and its not to late to get started on it. Check it out and see what you think, I am going to start this today. Its called the 52 Week Challenge.

52 Week Challenge

It could actually be a Christmas savings fund or saving for that special something. I just never thought about doing it this way. It is a great help in just getting started.

Multiple Choices in Grains

I first want to apologize that I did not post anything last week. My heart just wasn't in it and when my heart isn't in it I don't write very well so I just didn't do it. A friend passed away last week so there was a funeral to attend plus I am the Compassionate Service Leader in our ward so I had to make arrangements for meals for the family and the funeral dinner for the family. Also, someone else had a baby so I made arrangements for meals for them. It was a busy week.

But I did post on Sunday and now this one and I hope all will be well enough that there will be one for Thursday, lol.  Anyway, I will give the challenge this week and some recipes so I can make up for last week.

My Sunday Blog Post


One of the staple foods we can store is grains. When I first heard this I thought about grains like the ones are fed to livestock. That wasn't a very pretty picture. But then after researching what grains are for humans, I realized we have many choices of grains that we can store.

Grains can be things like wheat, oats, and barley etc. Those are very healthy choices and can sustain life for a long while. Its inexpensive, at this time, and can feed many. Some other choices of grains can be pastas. Now that made me happy because I love pasta. Do you know how many choices of pasta there are? Me either, but when I go to the grocery store I see so many choices, this can make your meals less boring.

Storing pasta is easy, too, even spaghetti. We took long uncooked spaghetti and broke it in half then placed it in the #10 cans with the strands standing up. You can lay the can on its side to fill it. Once it is full you will probably see that there is some room on top of the spaghetti so you can break some more to put on top of that. Sorry, but I don't remember how many pounds can be stored in the can.

But you can put any kind of pasta in the cans and they have a 20 year shelf life. Pasta is filling and can feed many people. Elbows are a good choice of pasta to store. Think of all the meals you can create using elbows. I could eat pasta every day for the rest of my life.

Rice is another grain that is easy and inexpensive to store. Rice can also feed many people and be filling. There are many things you can do with rice to make fun, not so bland, meals. It also has a 20 shelf life. I think 5 pounds of rice fit in each #10 can for storage.

Another grain is flour. So many things can be made from flour to sustain life; bread, biscuits, gravy are just a few examples. Flour can also go along way and is inexpensive to store. I guess I am seeing that grains are a good choice in items to store first. We are told to store 

Make sure you always leave about a 1/4 inch head room in the cans of all foods stored. Also, don't forget to place an oxygen packet on top before sealing it. Maybe next week we can talk about ways to store food if you do not have access to canning sealers.

I hope this information is helpful. Remember to store only the things your family will eat or you will be wasting your time and money or you could use it to barter with people if times get tough enough.

Here is your challenge this week:

Staple - 1 month of grains of your choice for 1-2 people in your family

Non-Staple - 6 month supply of soap, this is an easy one because you can buy packages of bars of soap for under $4

Tasty - Chocolate Chips, I will leave it up to you to decide how much you want to store on those according to how often you bake cookies. They are also good in pancakes and cupcakes.

Suggested Year Supply of Food

Here are a couple of website with good recipes for grains.

Pasta recipes

Rice recipes

Recipes using Flour

Recipes for Chocolate Chips

What is the right choice?

I love my family so much. For such a long time I have had to make decisions based off what was best for my family. My oldest child was 5 years older than the next, then there was an 8 year difference to the next with the last following 2 1/2 years later. There was a lot to consider for what was the best for each one.

We lived in Utah for 8 years and we loved every minute of it. I was raised in Florida but my heart will always be in Utah. I felt prompted to move back to Florida and have found many reasons why we should have been here at the time we moved back, almost 9 years ago. I am still finding reasons why.

I have a daughter with an eye disease, I just learned Friday that Florida, in fact the county we live in, has the best resources to help with children with eye diseases. I knew it was another reason, and quietly thanked my Heavenly Father for his wisdom in bringing us back. But it was through spiritual guidance that we are here.

I have always planned to move back once I felt no reason to have to stay here. Florida is beautiful but I hate bugs, humidity and hurricanes, so I knew I wouldn't stay the rest of my life. I live with my mom and we just found out this past year that she has Parkinson's Disease but not real far advanced. So I knew my plan to leave needed to be delayed.

My oldest daughter married a wonderful man from the west, all his family lives there except one brother who is in the military. They are living in Florida and have 2 of the most beautiful sons (yes, I am a little partial). My son-in-law has a great job and has done real well here in Florida. But his parents are getting older and he thinks about being so far away from them.

My daughter spoke to me about their desire to return to Utah and has asked me to consider moving back too. I was excited but I knew that it might not be possible any time soon. So I spoke to my mom about selling and moving west. She was against it, now I am torn between moving some place I want to be and near my children or to stay some place I don't really want to be but to be here while my mother needs me.

What is the right choice? How do I make the best decision?

I have 4 children and they will leave me and go their own way some day. They cannot base their life decisions on me, they have to decide what is best for them and the family they will have so perhaps I have to look at what is best for me.

I left my mother when I married and started my own life, but do I leave her now that she is ill in order to live my own life? I love my mother so much, I can't desert her. She has never deserted me throughout my life. I told her I would not go to Utah while she is alive unless she had someone else to live with her.  She feels bad knowing how much I loved being there. I don't want her to feel bad about something that is out of her control. But now I have to decide what is the best decision, how do I do this?

My thoughts take me to my Father in Heaven. I trust him to help me make the best decisions, I always have, that's what brought me back to Florida. I told my children that I would council with Heavenly Father and then make the a decision but it will be awhile before it can all happen anyway, so I have time to decide.

If we put our lives in His hands and trust in Him to help us, no matter if it's not what we want, then it will all be well and for the best. We are told that we should weigh it out in our minds, make a decision and go to the Lord for a confirmation of our decision, that is what I will do. I will put all my trust in Him and I know everything will be all right, no stress...well, maybe a little.

Looking for Cleaning Tips

You know, I am all for cleaning tips for making cleaning a lot easier, since I only have a few hours a week to do it.


I have been saving lots of pins on Pinterest to see how they work. I have a tried a couple and they seem to work out fine. But I find it weird when I see the same picture with a different way to do it, so be careful and try it for yourself. If they work then tell your friends but if they don't then tell your friends!

Here are some that I found on a good blog page (you should check out her blog, she has a big variety of posts with great ideas on cleaning and whatever you can think of):

Cleaning pillows

 

Uses for Vinegar

Here are the first 10 -

1.  Make fluffier pancakes by adding 2 TB of vinegar
2. Clean dirt off your computer and mouse with a little vinegar and a q tip
3. Treat stained Tupperware stains with vinegar
4. Wipe away mildew
5. Clean and polish chrome and stainless steel
6. Clean your drains with vinegar and baking soda
7. Erase ballpoint-pen marks
8. Erase crayon marks from clothes
9. Boil better eggs by adding 2 TB vinegar to the water – keeps them from cracking
10. Disinfect cutting boards

Uses for Baking Soda

First 10 -
1. Use it as underarm deodorant by applying it with a powder puff.
2. Mix half a teaspoon with peroxide paste and use it as toothpaste.
3. Use it as a face and body scrub.
4. Add a cup to bathwater to soften your skin.
5. Relieve skin itch from insect bites and pain from sunburn.
6. Put two tablespoons in your baby’s bathwater to help relieve diaper rash.
7. Apply it on rashes, insect bites, and poison ivy irritations.
8. Heartburn? Take a teaspoon of baking soda mixed with one-half glass of water.
9. Relieve canker sore pain by using it as mouthwash.
10. Use it to relieve bee stings. Make it into a paste, cover sting, let dry and pull out the stinger!

Cleaning schedule

Making deodorizers

• 2 cups baking soda
• 1 – 2 cups distilled water (or you can boil your water for 10 minutes.)
• Lavender essential oil (or whatever oil you choose. Citrus would be good too!)
• Silicone mold or muffin pan

There are lots of ideas out there on the Internet as well as Pinterest. Once you find something good I hope you will share with everyone, I don't like to waste my time or money on things of no true value.

Of course, trying things for one purpose unsuccessfully could lead to trying it for something else and being successful, look at Coca-Cola!

Dehydration of foods

Hello,

Storing food can be a problem due to storage space. Today, I would like to talk about something we can do that takes little space and that is...dehydrated foods. It's not really that hard to do and doesn't really take a lot of time to prepare the foods to do this.

Some things you can dehydrate are vegetables, fruits, herbs, and meats. Here is a link that shows how to dehydrate several different things.

How to dehydrate foods

You can use a dehydrator or you can use the oven or even the sun, if you like natural and are very patient. I think the best option is to buy an inexpensive one for around $40. To me the oven takes to long and uses a lot of electricity and drying naturally outside there is the issue with bugs, especially in Florida.

Dehydrators costs anywhere between between $40 to $300 depending on the kind you like. There are lots of links for how to make dehydrators but they looked pretty costly to me. However, in the long run, if you use it, it is probably worth the time and headache to build it.

There is always the option of buying the foods already dehydrated.   That's a good option if you don't have a lot of time. But don't do any of this unless you plan to use it. Once you dehydrate then you have to know how to rehydrate it so you can eat it.

Rehydrating foods is not too hard either. Here is a link that is helpful in using the products in food;

Rehydrating foods



Maybe next week I can find some recipes using dehydrated food. Good luck!!!

Need to Stay Awake

I have a young friend at work who sends me an email every day called "Daily Bread". This is a Christian post that sends uplifting messages to those who need to hear the Word of God. I love that she sends these to me because they really do make me think. This past week I reflected upon one that touched my heart some, so I would like to share my thoughts on this one today.

Our Daily Bread

The post was called 'Heart Attitude' and was about having passion to do the Lords work. He said that after a football team is no longer able to win the championship the players just go through the motions but have no heart in the game any more.

This made me think about us as Christians and how we profess to be followers of Christ but are only giving lip service and not acting as He would have us act. I am guilty of this from time to time. Its like I fall asleep and forget what I am supposed to be doing. He needs me to do my part in building his kingdom here on the earth.

There have been times in my life that I realized that I have been functioning daily while being mentally asleep, meaning I live each day but I just go through the motions. Its all routine and I can do this in my sleep. Even at work when my brain wants to sleep I realize that I got through my assigned work but question if I did it correctly because I didn't remember doing it. Because I can do most of it in my sleep but my brain gains nothing. If I don't use my brain and make it work then I will get no where in my career. So I have to stay focused.

When I realize that I am standing still in my spiritual self, feeling lost and distanced from God,  I usually figure out that its my own fault that I have not been growing in knowledge of the Gospel and my relationship with Him. My prayers become weak and my thoughts are not focused on the Gospel and my responsibilities. I have to make a heart attitude adjustment. When I start doing the things that are required of me then I feel alive and awake and I want to shout out to all telling them what I have learned!

We live in the last days and have been warned to be prepared for the Second Coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. We can not fall asleep at this time, we have to constantly stand and watch for His return so that we can be ready to follow Him home to live in peace. Hopefully, as we do this each and every day, our example and our desire for others to know and be ready too, will become stronger so that we can be contributing to the strength that will be needed from each of us to make this Kingdom stand firm and immovable.

I do love my Savior and our Father in Heaven. I want to return home to them and share my life with all those I love and worked hard with to receive the glories that will be given to us through the Grace of our Savior. I love when my testimony grows and some days I do have to share it with others.


Usually when my young friend at work and I go for a morning walk we are able to share our thoughts about the Gospel and I get the opportunity to share what I know with her. This is my way of doing the Lords work and keeping myself awake each day.

Sisters, stay awake and shine the Gospel of Jesus Christ each and every day so we can live in that wonderful place that is being prepared for us in Heaven.