i'm feeling reminiscent lately...


recalling old trips,
missing old friends,
longing for warmer weather,
remembering our former house by the river.  that old house with the hardwood floors, all the built-ins, and the sun room.  oh, that sun room...

i've been thinking about purpose

and passion

and plans for the future.

my heart is antsy.

i get like this every now and then.

it's like there's some strong creative passion inside of me just desperately wanting to get out.

but i'm still trying to figure out what that passion is.

i passed on another job.

just like the last one, my initial reaction was interest and gratefulness.

but then i started thinking more about it.

i realized the mundane office tasks just didn't excite me.

and i want something that excites me.  something that i look forward to.  something that i actually want to do, rather than just doing it because i have to.

there's enough in my life right now that i do because i have to (or feel like i have to).

this is something that i've been pondering for a few months when i was asked this question:

"what in your life brings you joy?"

(sidenote:  i believe there's a difference between filling your life with joy-giving things and being caught up in a life of self indulgence.  it's the first one that i'm trying to pursue here.)

so, i'm trying to follow after activities, people, and commitments that bring me joy.

and trying to eliminate - as much as i can - those activities, people, and commitments that rob me of joy.

so, i'm curious.  if you were asked that question, how would you respond?

what in your life brings you joy?

It started with bananas.

As a followup to yesterday's post about needing one ingredient and wondering if I'd end up with more...

As we were going to the store I decided it would just be easiest to get the one thing I needed (beer, oddly enough) and not shop for more things.  Toting a toddler around in snow and cold is a challenge, so I thought the less I have to carry with me the better.

So, beer:  We don't drink it, but I was needing it to bake beer bread for tonight. Someone had told me awhile ago that Kroger sells individual bottles.  Perfect!

Well, trying to find them was another story.  First employee I found was clueless.  The second said they have them in the summer.

Oh.  Ok.

So, I ended up with a six pack.

And on the way there, I saw bananas and thought, "Bananas are good to have.  I can get a bunch of bananas."

After the bananas, the floodgates opened up.

I decided I should get yogurt (on sale) for Catherine.  She loves yogurt, and lately she's always eating mine.

Grands biscuits were on sale, and I've had Monkey Bread on my mind.  Knowing we have a long weekend with Josh off work Monday I knew I'd be tempted to celebrate with brunch out.  Instead, I decided, I'd make a special brunch at home.

On the way to the dairy aisle, I found mini quiche.  On clearance.  "That'd be great to add to brunch for some protein."  I thought and added it to the cart.

Next I found cookie dough on clearance.  $1 for cookie dough, hello!!  "These will be great for when I need something sweet!"  I limited myself to two.

Next to it were coffee creamers on clearance.  Perfect!  I periodically take flavored creamers to the Moms Group/Bible Study I go to, and I noticed we were out last week.


"Oh, and milk is on sale.  I should probably get Catherine more milk."

"Oh, and this big bag of frozen french fries is only a dollar?!  Awesome!  They'll be great for when I'm craving fast food."

. . .

Everything except the beer and bananas were on sale or clearance.  I spent $24.40 and never even thought about eggnog.

P.S.  The beer bread turned out well.

Well, we have made it half way through the month.

We got some groceries the other day, and Josh did a great job of helping me stay on track and determining if something was a necessity or not.

I have to go to the grocery store tomorrow to get a missing ingredient for a dish we're making for our small group potluck dinner tomorrow evening.  I've got some other things on our grocery list that I'm wondering if I should get too.

I'm also craving eggnog (SO random!) and will be temped to get some.

Darnit, I should have had Josh get the ingredient for me today.

Being on a spending freeze has definitely gotten me doing more in the kitchen, and it's been really fun!  Especially since my husband is willing to do the cleanup!  Bless his heart!  Oh, and did I mention that on top of everything else, our dishwasher broke?!?

Catherine LOVES to help bake.  In the past I would just let her watch from her highchair pulled up to whatever I was doing.  But now she is helping with lots of stirring, and she can't get enough of it.  Her latest phrase repeated over and over is "Gotta stir it up!"  She even has to stir the food on her plate at every meal now.

In the last few days I have made Mounds Bar Brownies (so rich!), Smores Bars (just made it up as I went along - used a sugar cookie dough as a crust and added chocolate chips, marshmallow creme and marshmallows), and Peach Slowcooker Oatmeal.

Tonight we made our own version of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  Those are one of the best things in the world (can I get an amen?); in fact they are the reason I go to Red Lobster!  I'm not a huge fish eater and usually get chicken there, ha!

Anyways, I started with this base recipe from the Top Secret Restaurant Recipes book.  (Warning: on my computer some annoying video started automatically playing at this site, and I couldn't find it anywhere to pause it, so I ended up just muting my whole computer.  Automatic videos or music is a HUGE internet pet peeve of mine, but that's another blog post.)

Then I researched a few other recipes, reviews, and comments online and ended up with this:


Cheddar Bay Biscuits:

2 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix (I used Aldi brand)
1/2 stick cold butter
3/4 cup whole milk
1 cup+ shredded cheddar cheese (I actually grated it myself from a block of extra sharp)
garlic powder
Old Bay seasoning
dried parsley flakes
(sorry, I don't measure seasonings)

Cut the butter into the Bisquick mix with a large fork and knife.  Keep going til you end up with pea sized(ish) butter clumps.  Add the rest of ingredients and stir.

I used a small ice cream scoop and plopped onto cookie sheets and baked at 400 degrees for 12ish minutes (not sure here because I had to pull them out early because our oven was smoking.  Ha, turns out my sneaky daughter had turned up the oven to 490, yikes!).

While they're baking, melt in the microwave 2 tablespoons butter (I used margarine).  Dump in a bunch of garlic powder (Catherine just went to town here), more parsley flakes, and a pinch of salt.

Brush on top of hot biscuits (or somehow transfer with a spoon if you're like me and don't think you have a brush) and bake for another couple minutes.

Enjoy!  They are just as addicting as the real thing!

The other day we ran errands.  Josh had to have his phone fixed.  And we felt a working toilet was a necessity, so a stop at Lowe's was also in the plans.

I decided to join him since I really haven't been out much in the last couple weeks.  Then it became a matter of what do I do while he's having his phone fixed.  We were right by Target.  C and I could spend some time wandering around.  Thanks to the emails they send me I know that every department has my favorite thing going on right now:  CLEARANCE!!!

Big fat NO!!!

I love Target.  And I love Clearance.  So I have a huge amount of love for Target Clearance.  Which is the reason I knew I couldn't step foot in their door.  This kills me!  But I know I'm better off not going at all, rather than going and being tempted by so much and then let down when I can't get it.

We are quickly getting to a point though where we will need some groceries.  C is getting low on milk.  We've been out of bread for days.  I'm working on a list, but the hard part will be sticking to it.

It has been kinda fun these last few days to have to get creative with food at home.  The other day I was having leftover pasta and really wanted some garlic bread to go with it.  None in the freezer, and normally I'd just whip some up in the toaster oven with bread, butter, and garlic powder, but we had no bread.  Josh reminded me of a can of crescent rolls in the fridge, so I decided to put some garlic powder and butter on that instead.  I even found some shredded mozzarella in the freezer and stuffed some of them with a pinch or two of cheese.

I was pretty proud of them.

I'm also really proud of us.  We love to eat out.  So, I'm really proud of us for making more meals at home.

We got a little sort of break the other day with a night at a hotel.  I say a sort of break because we received some money at Christmas that we set aside for the hotel stay.  We usually go away for a day or two when Josh has a long break, so our night at a hotel was our Christmas Break "vacation".  We stayed at The DoubleTree just half a mile away from where we used to live.  It was a very nice hotel, and it was nice to be kid-free for a night.  I got to enjoy lots of HGTV from a comfy king-sized bed.  I also took advantage of their yummy free cookies and a free apple from the check-in desk.  Winning!

Looking down from our 8th floor room onto one of the lobbies.

Hanging out in the main lobby - so swanky!

 After our one night getaway, we ended up stranded at my in-laws for two nights due to a blizzard.  I am so grateful for two sets of parents in the area who take such good care of us!  Still didn't spend any money, and got to go a couple days without worrying about fixing the meals, woot woot!

Why do this silly little spending freeze experiment anyway?

Oh many reasons.  In fact, I rarely choose to do something significant if there's only one reason for it.

So, in no particular order...

• I've always wanted to.  Years ago I contemplated the idea of stopping buying things.  I even read a book about a couple who did a year long spending freeze.  I wasn't that impressed with the book or author, but the idea still stuck with me.

• Recently lots of unexpected expenses keep piling up.  It is just one thing after another:  the built-in microwave quits working, 2 of Josh's 3 pairs of jeans ripped, his cell phone earpiece quits working and it quits charging, the toilet seat broke at the hand of our two year old, a headlight goes out on Josh's car...  I don't even remember half of them.  The point is that I feel like our bank account is being attacked by one calamity and expense after another.  And quite honestly, when I look at our account I am overwhelmed, thinking we just can't get ahead.

• In addition to our regular church tithing, we have made a commitment to give toward a specific three year fund at our church.  We knew when we made the commitment that it was going to be a sacrifice and something that we would clearly notice, so this is a very good way to become more cognizant of our spending.

• My husband was on board - hooray!  There was no way this could work without him!

After having 2 1/2 weeks off work, Josh returns tomorrow, so this will be interesting to return to life as normal while still being on the spending freeze.

 Next time I will share about a little one night "break" we got from our spending freeze, our pantry clean out, meal planning, getting creative, and the blessings of family!

I can't believe it's only Day 3 of the spending freeze.  I thought for sure it was at least 4...

Josh was reading tonight about how McDonalds soft drinks truly do taste better than other soft drinks and why.  I saw a picture of the McDonalds cup and thought "Yes, a diet coke from McDonalds sounds just dandy right now."

I've been sick with the flu since 2014 started.  Fever, chills, cough, sore throat, headache, achy, nauseous...  So, to actually have some food or drink sound good to me is nice.


Bless his heart, this man has put up with so much from me and Catherine in the last 3 days and still offered to actually go get me a Diet Coke from McDonalds at 9:30 at night.  Oh, and in sub zero temps on snow covered roads.  (Wow, what a guy!)

When suddenly I remembered, "WE'RE ON A SPENDING FREEZE!!!!!"

Don't mind me.  I'll just go back to my alternating sweats and chills and hope this ends soon!!!

The last 2 weeks of holidays and merriment and family and friends have been awesome!!

However, since Christmas Eve part of my heart has been in Burbank, CA, where I used to live ten years ago.

In California, I was a part of a good GREAT group of people who met Sundays and Thursdays to grow and learn together in our faith.  It was an incredible two years that I spent out there, and I'm forever grateful for the way I grew because of time spent with that incredible group at Village Church.

A member of our group left this earth on Christmas Eve morning.  He had been fighting cancer hard core for two years.  Tonight is a memorial service for him at our church in Burbank.  I wish I could be watching a live stream of it or something.  Ha, that's totally something he would have set up if it was somebody else's memorial service.  Kevin was very tech minded.  Anytime I had problems with or questions about my computer I could go to him for help.  And, boy, was he patient.

The most laid back, calm, thoughtful person you could imagine.  He dealt with a lot during his 37 years on earth; yet he remained steadfast.

A verse that came to my mind as I pondered over Kevin's life, especially these last couple years of intense battles, is 2 Timothy 4:7.  Kevin truly fought the good fight.  He indeed finished his race.  And he certainly kept his faith.  As Kevin passed from this earth into the presence of His Lord, I believe he heard as we read in Matthew 25:21, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Most of my pictures from California were taken on film and printed off and in some random storage bin now, but here's a picture of just some of our group taken one Sunday morning in Burbank.  Kevin is in the white shirt near the center.  His now wife is next to him in the denim jacket.  I continue to keep her and their two little ones in my heart as they go through this grieving process.  It won't be an easy road.

If you want to read more about their journey, visit their blog at www.aquietlife.net or their FB page for the Hill Family Fighters.

Last month Josh got a travel mug that during the month of January can be taken to any Starbucks and filled with coffee at no charge.

Depending on how much one likes Starbucks coffee, that could be a pretty smart investment.

So, we're making sure he makes full use of it, and that started today of course.

During Christmas Break this week, we've been enjoying lots of quiet down time at home.  I may have even spent the last two days in pajamas.  It's been awesome!  But of course we knew someone had to go get coffee today.  As Josh was talking about going, my first mental reaction was about me.  Hmmm, he's getting coffee.  Is there anything I want?...

I contemplated their (relatively ?) new chocolate filled croissant, because can you really go wrong with a chocolate filled anything???  But decided against it when I remembered that my breakfast had been sweet enough.

It didn't even dawn on me until much later:  oh right, I can't get anything anyways because it costs money!!!

Josh said later when he came home that he was so tempted to get other things while he was out.  I didn't even want to hear about the things he saw at the stores because I just can't be tempted now.

This is gonna be an interesting month.

You always want the things you can't have.  I found myself today so badly wanting food from a restaurant.

We're gonna have to do lots of meal planning this month to make sure we stick to our plan.

Not only does tomorrow start a new year.  But it also starts a new month.  And we have decided that we are going to attempt a month long spending freeze.

Now there are certain things that we HAVE to spend money on:  house payment, utilities, student loans, etc.  And there are certain things that we will still spend money on:  telephone and internet.  Though, those things are being re-evaluated.  There are certain necessities such as milk.  And gas.  I'm not gonna say start the month with a full tank of gas, and when it's out, we're done driving.  It's something to consider.  We considered it.  And that's what we decided.

I'm sure there will be other things we will need to ponder throughout the month.  And I think maybe that's the point.  Also, in order to get our higher interest rate at our bank, we have to make a minimum number of debit purchases each month.  So we will track that closely to ensure we meet that requirement.  Again, another thing that is part of the whole point of this experiment:  to think more carefully about how we spend our money and to pay better attention as to the money we spend.

No, we didn't cheat and stock up intentionally on things on the 31st.  But we may cheat with some restaurant gift card usage during the month...

We're still figuring out some of the details.  But that's ok.  No matter what happens, I'm sure we will learn from it.

I hope to share next time about why we're doing this.


See ya next year!  ;)