I just thought I’d let you know that I am currently posting a series, over at Mommy’s Idea Book, on learning to use coupons effectively. If you’re interested in learning, you can click here to get started.

That being said, I want to add something after the name “Mommy’s Idea Book” to indicate that some of the stuff I’m writing about will be on various subjects. However, I’ve got to figure out exactly what I want that phrase to be.

Here are a few ideas that have crossed my mind:

• “Mommy’s Idea Book…and Other Spontaneous Thoughts”
• “Mommy’s Idea Book…Etc.”
• “Mommy’s Idea Book…and Other Interesting Stuff”
• “Mommy’s Idea Book…and Life As I See It”

I’m leaning toward either the second or last one. What do you think? Or do you have any other ideas?

You’ve likely seen all the deals I’ve been getting by combining coupons and sales. Well recently I’ve decided to branch out a little more and try some other money saving/earning strategies.

About a month ago I joined Ebates to start getting cash back on most of my online purchases. It’s a completely FREE site and since I’m going to be continuing to order online anyway, I figured I might as well be getting some cash back in my pocket.

Ebates is very easy to use. All you have to do is sign up and then choose one of over 1,200 stores and click through to the website and shop as you normally would. Ebates then automatically credits your account, based on your purchase amounts, for the specified percentage of cash back for that particular store.

You also get a $5 sign up bonus. Then once you earn $5 cash back you’ll be eligible to receive either a check in the mail or have your earnings credited to your paypal account. It’s a win-win situation!

The other site I recently signed up for is Swagbucks. Basically with this site you earn Swagbucks for searching the web. In other words, you use Swagbucks as your search engine and you earn Swagbucks for certain searches. The fun part is you won’t know which searches will win you bucks. The best thing to do is just search the web naturally like you would with any other search engine.

The best part is once you get a nice stash of bucks saved up, you can redeem them for prizes. This site is also FREE and since you’re going to be doing internet searches anyway, you might as well earn prizes along the way.

It may take a little while to save up for the better prizes but you’re not losing anything in the process.

Here is one example of what you can do with your swagbucks. One of the prizes is a $5 Amazon E-gift card, which you can redeem bucks for once you have accumulated 450 swagbucks. There are many other prizes requiring more or less swagbucks.

UPDATE: I have been using Swagbucks for two weeks now and have accumulated 470 swagbucks.

Here’s the breakdown that is showing up on my account:

• 30 for signing up
• 50 for referrals (Some friends signed up through my referral link. You can earn up to 1000 swagbucks from each referral – when they win by searching, you win too.)
• 220 for searching (I earned these simply by searching the web as I normally do, just using the Swagbucks search engine.)
• 40 for Swagcodes (You can get at least one of these each week – very easy to do.)
• 130 for special offers (You don’t have to do this. I just do some of the easy free ones to earn some additional bucks.)

One other thing, I recommend downloading the Swagbucks toolbar. This way you’ll have the Swagbucks search box easily accessible no matter where you are on the web.

Have fun shopping, searching and earning!!

I meant to post this yesterday but forgot to do it. As I walked past our back door last night, I was in awe of the colorful  sky and I wanted to share it wth you. Isn’t it beautiful? David described it as “a rainbow of colors.”

I’m  once again reminded of our awesome God and the beauty of His creation.

Photo by: Playful Librarian

Whew!! I’m tired from my second and final day of baking. Nevertheless, here’s what I managed to get done today.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Initially, I thought these tortillas were not going to be good because they felt too stiff. However, as I cooked them, I placed them under a warm cloth and by the time I was done with all of them, they were nice and soft. They taste really good too. I will definitely be making these again!

Turkey and Cheese Hot Pockets

I really wanted to make some Fried Apple Pies with this same dough recipe, but I ran out of flour. Oh well, maybe I can try those another day. It’s not like we really need any more sweets right now anyway.

Baked Spaghetti

We’re having one of these for dinner tonight and the other one is going in the freezer for later. It looks and smells so good. I wish it was time for dinner now.

Happy Baking!!

After being inspired by a few other bloggers out in the blogosphere, I finally decided to have my own baking days this week.

Technically, I didn’t do a whole lot of baking, but rather prepared items for the freezer that will make it easy to bake them on days my time is limited.

Here are the fruits of my labor from today.

Breakfast Casserole

I’m leaving one of these in the refrigerator to bake Saturday morning for breakfast and the other is going into the freezer for another day. I’ve never tried freezing one of these before, so I hope it does okay. I guess time will tell.

Oatmeal Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I ended up with three dozen Oatmeal Cookies and four dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies. All I did on these was mixed up the dough, dropped tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for a few minutes to slightly harden the dough so that I could drop them in freezer bags without the dough balls sticking together.

Now when I need a few cookies I can get them out of the freezer, a dozen at the time, and bake them.

Honey Oatmeal Wheat Bread

I made three loaves of this bread. The plan is to eat one now and slice and freeze the other two for later. Homemade bread is just so tasty and David thinks there is nothing like it.

Tomorrow I start again. I’m going to try my hand at homemade tortillas and hot pockets. I’ll let you know how it goes.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I thought I’d help my mom do some of the cooking this year. Since my parents are baking a ham, I decided to come up with the side dishes and dessert to go along with it.

Here’s what our menu looks like:

• Baked Ham
• Macaroni & Cheese Casserole
• Chicken & Dumplings (recipe below)
• Creamed Corn
• Cracker Barrel Green Beans
• Dinner Rolls
• Walnut Chocolate Chunk Brownies (Okay, I’m cheating here. It’s out of a box)

As for the Chicken & Dumplings, I’ve seen them made two ways. One method is blobs (that’s what I call it) of dough dropped into boiling broth and cooked, and the other is thinly cut strips of dough dropped into boiling broth and cooked. The latter is the method I grew up on and am accustomed to preparing.

Chicken & Dumplings

Ingredients:

• 4 – 6 Chicken Thighs
• Broth from chicken, plus additional canned broth
• 4 cups All-purpose flour
• 1 cup Crisco shortening
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups water
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Boil and debone chicken, reserving the broth. Set aside.
2. Mix flour, Crisco and salt until mealy.
3. Add about 1 1/2 cups water, or until dough is about like biscuit dough.
4. Knead very lightly. (Too much kneading will make them tough.)
5. Roll out really thin on floured surface and cut into strips.
6. Drop one strip at the time into boiling broth and cook until they are all done.
7. Add chicken, black pepper and additional salt to taste.

Now, I can’t wait to get to eat all this yummy food. Oh, how I hope I don’t overeat too much, especially on those brownies!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

Photo Credit: Allan Chatto

David got these funny glasses a while back at school. Well, the other night Brooke came walking through the house with them on and she looked so cute. Needless to say, we all had to try them on.

Too bad me and Chuck aren’t nearly as cute in the glasses as the kids are, but this was a family funny time. You can check out the rest of the pics here…