Give Thanks

How was your weekend? Mine was long and tiring. LOL Glad it's over and I can get some things done and rest. Weekends are for having fun and relaxing, mine are the opposite with working. But I am extremely thankful that I get to work very part time and stay home full time! I always remind myself it could be a lot worse...and I'm so thankful for hubby and I even having jobs with this crappy economy. We received good news from Dave's job a couple weeks ago! Not everything is back to "normal" but at least we are moving in the right direction. It's been quite the long year. I want to thank all who supported us (with love and words)...and to all who didn't support us...you made me want to work harder than ever to fight this economy! Remember a KIND words goes a long way.


Thanksgiving is upon us! Can't believe it will be here in less than 3 weeks! These days, I try each and everyday to find something to be thankful...some days it's really hard and I am extremely guilty at focusing on the stresses in my life. Can we all raise our hand at being guilty with that?


I've been seeing these Thankful jars here and there in blog land and thought it would be a fun activity to enjoy for the month of November. I took a simple jar and used scrap paper and fabric. Then I printed out things to be thankful for on strips of paper and rolled them up. You can go here for "thankful ideas" or just make up your own. We plan on doing this after supper then the whole family can be involved.


Here are some examples of what I printed out:


I am thankful for the seasons!
Go on a walk, enjoy nature, the colors...

I am thankful for my brother!
Do something nice for your brother!

I am thankful for my HOME!
Clean out a room or closet together.


Got any fun Thanksgiving ideas you do with your family? We did a Thankful Tree last year! That was a lot of fun. I would love to read them, so please share!

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It's Money Saving Monday already! I hope you are finding some tips helpful or to pass on! If you ever have any to share that work for you and/or your family, please comment! Knowledge is good for the pocket book!

How are your budgets going? Have you started one, doing one or thinking about it? Communicating with your partner is the key! Dave wanted a little extra $ to go hunting this month and we budgeted for it, no problem. If he's having bad luck during opening deer season weekend then we might have to re-evaluate more $ to go to his hunting budget. As long as we keep talking then we will know where we have to make adjustments.

So have you figured out where all your money is going? A year ago I did this all in my head, wrote nothing down and we "got by". Now I write everything down and this has saved us so much $$! These are recommended percentages Dave Ramsey suggests that you should be spending on house, giving, food, etc...

Take Home Pay

Charitable Gifts 10-15%

Saving 5-10%

House 25%

Utilities 5-10%

Food 5-15%

Transportation 10-15%

Clothing 2-7%

Medical/Health 5-10%

Personal 5-10%

Recreation 5-10%

Debts 5-10%

So where are you? I hope you find the time to budget...it will truly change your life. It did ours!

Have a wonderful day!

Prim Blessings, Kindra

Good Grub!

Hi everyone! Hope your week has been going well. For me it seems like it flew by with not much accomplished! LOL My bud, Colleen, is hosting Homemade Holidays Recipe Swap every Friday, so I thought I would get all Martha Stewart on ya and share a couple recipes today! You can share your everyday favorites, holiday favorites, food gift favorites or even craft recipe favorites. As long as there is a recipe/formula/tutorial, then you can join in on the fun! I know Colleen would be thrilled if you did!

I made a couple new things for supper last night. And my family really enjoyed them so they will be added to our favorites at home for now on!

For the main dish I made Hamburger Croquettes. These are simple and super tasty!

Hamburger Croquettes

1/2 pound lean ground beef

1 thin slice fully cooked ham, halved

2 slices American cheese, halved

1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

hamburger buns

Shape beef into four thin patties. Place a half slice of ham and two half slices of cheese on two patties. Top with remaining patties; pinch edges to seal. Coat both sides of burgers with bread crumbs.

In a skillet, cook burgers in oil for 8-10 minutes or until meat is no longer pink, turning once. Serve on buns with lettuce, onion and tomato if desired. Servings 2. Enjoy!

Kellon had his burger gobbled up in no time! We sure enjoyed this one!

For dessert I made

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

3 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 (16.5-ounce) rolls refrigerator chocolate chip cookie dough

Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and vanilla until well mixed; set aside.
Slice cookie dough rolls into 1/3-inch slices. Arrange slices from one roll over bottom of a greased 9" x 13" baking dish; press together until there are no holes in dough.
Spoon cream cheese mixture evenly over dough; top with remaining slices of cookie dough.
Bake 45 to 50 minutes, or until golden and center is slightly firm. Remove from oven, let cool then refrigerate. Slice when well chilled.
SERVING TIP: Serve the cheesecake plain, with chocolate or fudge sauce, or whipped topping – whatever is your favorite.

I only had one package of cream cheese and a package of chocolate chip cookie mix at home so I used what I had. So my dessert was not as big as the recipe calls for. It is super good! I got this recipe from Mr. Food. Have you heard of him? He is on our local news showing new recipes daily. He's giving away a cookbook every day for the next couple weeks, so go check out his website. I like his recipes because they are so quick and easy! My kind of meals!

For more good recipes, head on over to Colleen's blog!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Prim Blessings, Kindra

Happy November!

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a nice weekend! We were blessed with beautiful weather so that made trick or treating even better!! Here's my little trick or treaters! Kellon's costume was a team effort and it was quite fun to make! He got many compliments during the night. I was excited to see the "warmer" weather and dug out Kellon's past Indian costume for Taran. It's one of my favorites and I was so pleased that Taran kept on the wig! I had my doubts. LOL

So now we have more than enough candy sitting around the house. I catch myself grabbing a piece now and then...so I'm really thinking some of it (most) needs to go with Dave to work. His co-workers would love that!

We have a ground hog hanging around the house the last couple weeks. He's quite big! He hides out in the culverts nearby. Dave said he ran across our deck while him and the boys were outside yesterday! Do these things bite? I wish he would make his way out in the country...

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Well it's Monday again so you know what that means?! Another money saving tip to share!

What kind of money system do you do for your kids? And I mean small children, not grown ones. LOL I shared OUR IDEA what we started with Kellon this year on my Boy Blessings Blog. So go on over and check it out. This has really worked for us/Kellon! And he finally has enough saved up to buy something at the store. Now I don't know if he wants to spend it or not. LOL We'll see when he decides on a purchase. Definitely no rush!

My friend, Sandy, shared the other week:

"...And I have to admit, my budgeting has worn off onto Tab(her daughter). She loves watching her bank account grow and always sets a goal for what she wants to purchase next. I think that is pretty good for a 12 year old. She has made some large purchases this past summer and at the same time we watch her education fund grow. She was even the one who purchased all her clothes for the start of the school year. I think this is something good not only for the couples but also for the children."

Keep the great ideas/comments coming! I love to read them!

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I wanted to share a block set I made for my online friend, Robyn. I got some new letter stencils and just love them!

Robyn decided to join the blogging fun and started her own, Primlish. Go on over and pay her a visit. She has a beautiful home! Can't wait to see more of it!

I also wanted to let everyone know that I will be stopping custom orders for awhile. There are a few pending emails, so if that's you don't worry. I have some things that I need to focus on at home right now...thank you for understanding. But I will keep on blogging. LOL

And last but not least, today, 7 years ago, I married my best friend. I love you, too...no matter what.

Have a great Monday! See ya next time!

Prim Blessings,

Kindra

A Merry Halloween!

A Merry Halloween from our Trick or Treaters to yours!

Treats from Colleen last year...

A treat from my hubby...a free candle ring he got at a factory trade show made from a pipe. I thought it was cute as a gourd ring. :)




Colleen sent my family and I a goolish package of Halloween treats this month! Included were her famous dough bowl fillers! Love them Colleen! The candle is from my parents...an early anniversary gift. It's made from Swan Creek Candle Co. It smells quite good!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! See you back on Monday!

Kindra

Long Weekend!

Hi Friends! I'm a little tired but I made it through the weekend! I had to work 2 nights on top of the craft fair day, so I have a little sleep to catch up on. LOL My mom and I had a wonderful day of sales on Saturday! It wasn't terribly busy but it was a steady stream of people all day. Which was nice. Sometimes those afternoons can be long after the morning rush! My poor mom cracked her tooth in the late morning so she had that to worry about instead of having craft fair fun. Sorry, mom. And it was her birthday yesterday, too. I hope you got to enjoy your day even with that in the way.

Speaking of tooth, Kellon lost his first tooth yesterday! It has been hanging on for dear life for quite sometime and finally came out when he was brushing his teeth. Mrs. Tooth Fairy was very generous and $2 was waiting under his pillow this morning. Kellon was so excited! The next teeth won't be as much. LOL Mrs. Tooth Fairy is on a budget!

Well I took some booth pictures for you! I wish you all could of been there. I did get to meet a blogging friend from Oregon! Carrie from Cricketwood Prims and Gardens was here in Nebraska to visit her son and family. So she took the hour plus drive over to our craft fair to meet me. Blogging friends are the best! Carrie is so nice and we had the nicest conversation. Wish I could of spent more time with you! I had to rest up for my night shift and she had to go back to her triplet grandsons. Maybe again in the spring we can meet up! And would you believe, I forgot to have our picture taken! I couldn't believe that when I got home and realized that. Bummer! Have a safe trip home, Carrie!

Before I share my photos, I had a customer tell me she came across my blog the other day! Locally, I don't really tell anyone my blog address. I don't know why...it's just different than strangers reading about me. LOL So when she told me that I was quite shocked. She started clicking away, you know how it is...getting lost in blog world and she stumbled upon mine and she was like "I know that girl!". Small world, isn't it? She loves primitives and decorating, so maybe she'll start a blog of her own. *Hint*Hint* So Aaron if you are reading this, "Hi!"

So here are few shots from our show!

So now it's time to replenish the stock. For the most part, I'm taking this week off from crafting. A pumpkin patch trip is planned, costume making, teacher gifts, painting/carving pumpkins, a trick or treat trail and Halloween to end the week. I love this time of year and definitely want to enjoy it while I can. Pheasant hunting season also starts this coming up weekend and deer shortly after that. My husband loves to hunt! So lots of activities coming up and then the Holidays will quickly sneak up on us!

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Well it's time again for Money Saving Monday #3! Thank you all for your comments and personal tips. I will share a few of them every now and then just in case people don't read my comments.

Here's a couple from week #1:

"Because I am home alone a lot during the day, I dress more warmly and use a small room heater where I spend my time instead of heating the whole house. And last spring I bought a heated mattress pad so we can lower the thermostat even more. It's great when there are no other bedrooms that need heat." $Linda$

"One thing that my sweetie and I have always done, is to keep a change jar where at the end of each day, we would put all our change in. After a few weeks, it really starts adding up. When the kids were younger, we all did that and the kids included adding some of their allowance and we saved up enough money in one year to pay for a weeks vacation in Disney land. All expenses were paid for by our saving together." $Birgit$

Thanks for the tips girlies! Keep them coming!

My blog friend, Amy asked last week: "How do you handle birthday presents for your kids' friends? It's hard to budget for them because they come up all of a sudden. Also, weddings, showers, that type of thing. Do you just figure it into a misc spending for the year/month?"

Pull out your credit card...just kidding. I personally emailed Amy but wanted to share my thoughts on this. If you have anything to share, please feel free to comment. Personally I have my craft profit to help us pay for gifts and extras of the sort. But if I didn't have that extra income, I would put that in my "extras" category in my budget. We allow a little breathing room in our "extras". Sometimes we use it all and sometimes we don't. If gift giving tends to be a problem and always coming up unexpectantly and your budget can't keep up then I would definitely recommend putting a little money away each month in a "gift fund" so when those occasions do come up then you have the money and that leaves out the worry/stress for the month.

With Christmas coming up it's just a great idea in general to save a little $ every month all year long. Then when the time comes around then the $ won't be such a worry and you can enjoy the real reason for the season. Makes sense to do this, but why do people rack up their credit cards every Holiday season for the perfect gifts?! Just taking the time to prepare, makes a huge difference!

We started puting $ back every month for license plate renewal. We simply added all the cars together and divided it by 12 to get the amount to put back every month. We have online banking so it's easy to transfer that $ to our savings for safe keeping. In the future we hope to add other not so fun expenses that we get every year like: the vet bill, optometrist, our LPN and Engineer License renewal (goes up every time!)...and how about those big ticket items like an air conditioner, furnace, appliance?! Like I said, just planning for future events/disasters, makes them not look so bad when you don't have to panic and you have the $ safely tucked away. And yes, something bad/unexpected will happen! It's just the question of when??

Oh and I would love to go on a very nice vacation someday! Birgit and her family used loose change that got them to Disneyland! So every little bit counts!

I hope I helped a little bit on this subject or got the ideas flowing for you!

And I just want to commend my real life friend, Julie, on all the financial changes her and her husband are doing. They plan on doing a Dave Ramsey class at the beginning of next year! So way to go, guys!

Just remember: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11

Until next time! Thanks for visiting! Have a wonderful day!

Kindra

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Another cold, wet day today. Blaaahhh...I think our fall is going to be short this year. I hope this doesn't mean a long, hard winter. But I have hopes for a few "warm" days before hibernation. LOL Crossing our fingers, but the weather is expected to be decent for Saturday-craft fair day. Just got to pack up the car and I'll be ready to go. The first craft fair of the season is always so much fun, just expecting to see how things sell and if and what people are buying. It will be long day since I have to work Saturday night as well, but the weekend will fly by, I'm sure.

Even though it's been dreary outside, the fall colors have really blossomed in our backyard. The trees caught my eye all day yesterday as I walked by a window, thinking it was the sun, but it was just the leaves. They really were that bright! So I had to go outside in the sprinkles and take a few pictures before they all fall to the ground!

I wish these colors would stay for months and months!

And while I was at it, I took a few pics outside our home. You're always welcome for a visit. :)

Our pour cornstalks get wind damage around this part of the house. They look a little sad...

I have more fall to share another time. I was getting a little wet and it sure hasn't let up!

I forgot to share pics of my roses I got from hubby before our weekend getaway. I really love that guy, you know it?!

Well I am cutting this short today because I am off to volunteer in Kellon's classroom this morning. So gotta get Taran and I bundled up. Then it's grocery shopping. I hope to find some time soon to visit you all on a normal basis. It's hard sometimes. You know how it is! Have a wonderful day! Hope the sun is shining in your area!

Prim Blessings, Kindra

Getaway

Hi everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend! Hubby and I enjoyed a little R&R this weekend and had a great time. Here are some pics from the weekend! We headed to one of my favorite Nebraska towns, Nebraska City. I just love this area and there are tons of trees (the Home of Arbor Day)!!

We walked through the Tree Adventure. A place to celebrate nature with walking paths and activities. Our surroundings were just beautiful.

We sampled wine and beer at a local orchard. I wish I could of brought the bottle of apple wine home with us. It was super good!

We did a 20 acre corn maze. We had a map and Dave was the navigator so it wasn't too hard. No map...that would of been different.

We got a little Christmas shopping done. It's nice to get a few things checked off the list!

I ended the day with a migraine...bummer. So after supper we just hung out in the hotel room and watched cable! Remember we have an antennae with 4 channels (for now), so I got a little dose of HGTV to keep me going for awhile. LOL

Did I mention all the foliage that we got to enjoy?! I just love this time of year!

We ate brunch on Sunday morning at a really nice restaurant. Blogger me, always has the camera to get an idea or 2...They had wonderful simple centerpieces! They used glass cylinders of different sizes and added pumpkins, gourds and leaves. There was a really cute one filled with mini pumpkins. On our table was a cylinder filled with weeds. :) It was so simple and so cute! And a splash of bittersweet was added to it! So sweet.



Outside on the balcony they used big pumpkin centerpieces. Look at this wonderful grey blue pumpkin. They added raffia, leaves and wheat. How cool is this! Makes me want to have a gathering at our house and make all these cool fall centerpieces for dirt cheap!
The weekend just flew by and now it's back to work and school. It was a great time while it lasted and can't wait for the next outing with my husband...big or small. What did you do this weekend?

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Well it's time again for another: Money Saving Monday #2

Budgeting!! Do you do a budget? I know boring....yawn....But stay with me on this one. Budgeting was one of the first things Dave and I did to get our finances in line. It has literally saved us 100's of dollars a month doing a budget. It takes some time and a partner so be patient and you will enjoy budgeting as much as we do!

At the beginning of each month, Dave and I sit down together and go over our expenses and plans for the month. This is also a great time to get our calendar out and see what events are coming up. This eliminates (99% of time) with unexpected costs/events sneaking up on us. The key is that every dollar earned in that month should have a name to it.

Here are some simple steps to follow while doing your budget:

1. Gather every financial statement you can. For example; bank statements, bills, pay stubs, receipts...This process will probably take the longest if you are not used to somewhat of a budgets. This will help you create a monthly average.

2. Record all of your sources of income.

3. Create a list of monthly expenses. Write down a list of all the expected expenses over the course of a month. This includes a mortgage payment, car payments, groceries, utilities, entertainment, auto insurance, retirement or college savings...everything you spend money on.

4. Total your monthly income and monthly expenses. If your end result shows more income than expenses, you are off to a good start. This means you can prioritize this excess to areas of your budget such as debt (credit cards, car, house!), retirement and/or savings. If you are showing higher expenses than income it means some changes will have to be made!

5. Make adjustments to expenses. The goal is to have your income and expenses to be equal! This means all of your income budgeted for a specific expense. If you are in a situation where expenses are higher than income you should look at some of your expenses to cut. Don't get frustrated! It might take you a few months to get your budget going. But eventually you will find it easy shaving a few dollars here and there in your expenses to make it equal to your income.

6. Review your budget monthly. It is important to review your budget on a regular basis to make sure you are staying on track. Always have a budget buddy!! If you are single, find a trustworthy family member or friend to go over your budget with you. DO NOT DO YOUR BUDGET WITH A PARENT! They will most likely "help" you out if you are coming short all the time...A big NO! NO!

Doing a budget just takes 5-10 minutes of our time every month. If an unexpected expense does come along then we have to re-evaluate the budget and see what other category we can pull money from.

We keep our budget pretty basic: Food, Car (gas, maintenance) and Extra(presents, a shirt for one of the boys, an ice cream treat, etc...), along with our regular monthly bills (house, utilities, insurance). Some budgets can be very specific, like clothing, entertainment, haircuts...we don't shop much or get out much...so ours is pretty general and that's what works for us. Dave made up a monthly spreadsheet for us that we keep in a binder. There are several FREE budget forms you can print online. Just Google "budget forms" and that will give you many sites! This will at least give you a start.

So do you do a budget? Do you have any tips on budgeting, if you do? If you don't, I really encourage you to. The first few months might be hard, but don't get discouraged, it gets easier and easier! This is just one on many steps to do for saving money. It sure has helped us! It definitely felt like we got raise somewhere!

Do you have any comments or suggestions? I would love to read them!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Prim Blessings, Kindra