I got my free cookbook from Jiffy Mixes in the mail today!

Click here to jump on over to their site and get yours!

So don’t ya just hate it when a friend or acquaintance says they saved $XXX.xx at the store using coupons? Usually it’s a ridiculous amount of money, and yes, they saved it using coupons. BUT what did they buy? Chips, sugary cookies, processed foods, frozen quick foods? Generally that’s what they have in their pantry and freezer because of all the couponing to save money.

Also, lets not forget the amount of time they spend clipping, sorting and researching on the best deals for couponing (and running to 2-3 stores). Just from the few I’ve talked to or read on their blogs, it takes them 3-5 hours a week but the time they do their coupon stuff and write their lists.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend our money on good healthy food that I pick out for our family(not food that was picked out because I had a coupon for it). I’d much rather us eat healthy foods and have spent the money on it than to be eating junk, with kids strung out on sugary processed foods and have a little more cash in the bank.

Do any of you use coupons and feed good, healthy foods to your family using coupons to shop? Please comment and share your secrets.

I don’t mean to sound negative, I just don’t understand all this. Every time I look through coupons, there are a few I would use, but not a whole heck of a lot of them.

What about you?

This is something our family is learning everyday. Everyone has their opinion on simple living, and many think those of us living this lifestyle (or learning to live this lifestyle) are quite um…nuts.

I read this post by Amy over at Homestead Revival this morning. She really has hit the nail on the head with this wonderful post. Please go over and read, you’ll be glad you did.

If you are not already on the same page as those of us living simply, or working toward our goal of Simple Living, do take all of the information to heart and really think about what is being said. You just may change you mind.

Now who doesn’t like to get something FREE? I know I love to find freebies and giveaways!

You can get a free cookbook from Jiffy (as in mixes).

While reading my blogs today, through my Google Reader of course, I found an awesome giveaway posted by Gnarly Notes. Visit her blog for loads of wonderful information!

Claim your free cook book HERE.

I tried a new recipe for breakfast this morning. Banana Bites were delicious! I got the recipe from Weelicious. Weelicious specializes in HEALTHY recipes for babies, toddlers and kids, but Mike and I loved them!! The warm, mushy banana inside of the pancake was out of this world delicious! Even those on a gluten free diet can make these, as you can use any recipe for pancake batter.

Felicity and I ate them with dark Karo and Mike ate them with some of my freshly canned Peach Jam.

I made a batch of pancake batter from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book and it took 4 bananas to use all the batter. I froze the extras for breakfast on another day or just a yummy snack.

I’m the proud new owner of my very own canning pot!!! This arrived in my kitchen this evening!

I’m going to the book store to get this tomorrow!

I’d love to order it, a much better price, but I don’t have time for it to arrive before Saturday.

I am making home made yogurt tonight so it will be ready for breakfast tomorrow. Saturday we are going to the farmer’s market and I’ll get some cucumbers. I plan to spend Saturday making kosher dills and salsa. Wish me luck!

Do you use paper towels? Here’s a tidbit of information you might find interesting.

As I was reading Diana’s blog, she posted this:

“The following facts have been floating around in the twittering/blogging world. Check them out.

Fact: About 900,000,000 trees are required to feed America’s paper consumption each year, according to the Clean Air council.

Fact: With over 90% of US households taking the advantage of the convenience of paper towels, we produce over 3,000 tons of waste each day.”

PAPER TOWELS! Good grief! That’s insane! We’ve used cloth napkins in our house for over 10 years, just because I prefer cloth to paper. I even try to use re-usable wipes for cleaning up messes, etc. I do buy paper towels, but only for the messiest of messes. One roll of paper towels can last us a month or more. I’d love to give them up for good, eventually.

Do you use paper towels? Do these statistics surprise you? I wonder if there will be any tree left on our Earth for my grand-children or great grand-children?

Take a look around on this link, you just may be surprised.

Ten Things You Should Never Buy

I just joined what looks to be an awfully fun apron swap!  Shawnee hosts these apron swaps on a regular basis and I participated in one about a year and a half ago and had such fun!

Y’all come on and join in with me! It’ll be a great time!  Click here to see the goodies I sent and received in the last swap I did hosted by Shawnee.

My first attempt at the Sourdough Starter ended abruptly yesterday. Mike found a fly in it. YUCK! Down the toilet it went.

I started another batch right away, which seems to be doing very well. The ingredients made the jar exactly half full. I took photos, starting about 1 hour after starting the batch.

This photo is right at an hour after starting. You can see the jar is nearly full.

Within about 15 minutes of the first photo, now you can see that it went down quite a bit.

Then about 10 minutes later, it’s way up again. We were afraid it was going to over flow out of the jar.

Then I quit taking pictures.

Here it is this morning. I’ve stirred it already, though it still looks separated. This is the level at which it all started in the jar yesterday.

So, we’ll see how it goes this time. I’ve put the lid to the jar on top of the cloth to keep anything from getting into my starter again.

On another note, here’s a great photo I took yesterday of one of my sweet Serama hens, Eleanor.

She is so tiny and so sweet!

Have a great Sunday.

Over a year ago, I watched the DVD from Homestead Blessings, The Art of Bread Making. They include all of the recipes that they show on the DVD that you can print out on your computer. I printed them out way back then, and never did anything with them.

Today, I was reading Sandra’s blog, Diary of a Stay at Home Mom, and she posted about the same DVD and the sourdough starter.

I decided I would start my starter the minute I read her post. I figured it would be fun to go on the journey along with a fellow blogger. So immediately, I got up from the computer, got all of the ingredients out and whipped up the starter. I used a wide mouth quart canning jar. Didn’t take me long at all to realize that a quart jar was way.too.small.

Here’s the recipe from Sandra’s blog, credit of Homestead Blessings.
Making Sourdough
Credit: Homestead Blessings - The Art of Bread Making

• 2 cups of All Purpose Flour
• 3 tablespoons of Sugar
• 1 tablespoon of Active Dry Yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon of Salt
• 2 cups of Warm Water

Mix in plastic or glass bowl till blended. Cover with cloth and set in warm place out of draft. Stir several times each day. Let ferment 2 to 3 days.

To use, remove starter needed for recipe then refrigerate remaining starter. Replenish every 7 to 10 days by stirring equal amounts of water and flour. Let stand at room temperature overnight and return to fridge.

As soon as I put away everything, I made a quick trip to the store to look for a larger jar to move the starter to. I left it sitting on my dryer (not running) with a handi-wipe over it. I thought it would take it a bit to start reacting.

While at the store, I called Mike and jokingly asked if it had blown up. He said he didn’t even pay any attention to it.  I was gone maybe a total of 25 minutes. I walked in the door and Mike said “it blew up”. Uh oh! He had cleaned up the mess all over the top of the dryer and this is what I found sitting on the sink.

Sorry for the bad photo. I was standing way too close.

I bought a nice 2qt jar. Now the starter has a nice, roomy new home.

I’ll post my progress as we go. Even after moving it, it’s still bubbling like crazy.

Yes, this DVD is part of the famous set that I have on the top of my wish list. You can see the entire set here.