A Happy Surprise (Faux Haitian Black Beans and Rice)

I made this soup recipe tonight for supper. I love slow cooker recipes and something that uses beans is up my alley since beans are cheap. I was initially a bit disappointed. It looked a less than appetizing purpley color. And the texture was a bit off. But as I was ladeling it, I thought, "Hey, this looks just like the bean sauce they serve over rice in Haiti. And it tastes similar too." So I thawed out some rice from the freezer for Kenson and poured the bean soup over it. For D and myself, I made a salsa out of fresh vegetables as the recipe suggests and then added lime juice and, at D's request, tortilla chips. (I didn't try the sour cream per the recipe but D did.) Yummy for us! And Kenson ate a huge plate of it mixed with rice. So my gut reaction of ew was pleasantly surprised by the creation of Faux Haitian Black Beans and Rice. If you're looking for an super easy recipe for that, here you go!

Menu Planning Monday

Runza Style Ground Beef Sandwiches
(Brown 2 pounds of ground beef with 1 chopped onion. Add 2 small cans of chopped ripe olives and 1 1/2 cups of cubed Velveeta cheese. Serve on hamburger or hoagie buns. Sanwiches can be wrapped in foil and frozen.)
Oven Fries
(Slice potatoes into 1/4 inch thick rounds. Place on greased cookie sheet. Spray potatoes with non stick cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil. Season with seasoned salt, garlic salt, or other herbs. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are tender and starting to brown. You may want to flip the potatoes about halfway through so both sides of the potato get browned.)
Jello salad with fruit

No Soak Black Bean Soup (New recipe to me; it sounds easy, cheap, and yummy)
Home Made Cinnamon Tortilla Chips with fresh fruit salsa

Spaghetti with crockpot sauce
Lettuce salad
Garlic bread

Cheesy Potato Soup
Fresh fruit

Oatmeal Pecan Pancakes (I add oatmeal, pecans, and a bit of brown sugar to the usual Bisquick pancake recipe.)
Bacon
Fruit

Crockpot Baked Beans with Jalapenos and Apples
(I tried this 2 weeks ago as a new recipe and it is awesome! You will never want Bush's baked beans again. And it's super easy.)
Corn Dog Muffins
(Combine 2 8.5 oz. packages of cornbread mix, 2 T. of brown sugar, 2 eggs, and 1 c. milk. Stir in 11 oz. of whole kernel corn and 5 hot dogs, chopped. Fill greased muffin tin 3/4 full. Bake at 400 14-18 minutes or until golden brown.)

Thoughts in my brain...after one month home...

Trying to apply topical medicine to a two year old is like trying to complete a paint by numbers picture that is attached to a bungee cord as it is suspended out of the door of an airplane. Similar things can be said about dressing a two year old.

I knew that little boys + even slightly cold air or water + no diapers = pee but man alive, I really underestimated the hand eye coordination and lighting quick speed you really have to have when rediapering, especially after a bath.

One itty bitty person adds a lot of extra laundry to the world.

As the mother of a toddler, I should buy shares in antibacterial hand soap. I have seriously used more soap over the last month than I have over all of 2008. Maybe I wasn't washing my hands enough before...

Wow! My shirt resembles a Jackson Pollack style painting rendered soley in peanut butter, boogers, saliva, and other unnamed substances.

It is totally possible to think "Get up and to do something productive" at the same time you are thinking "Sit down and soak in those clingy little hands that are telling you to hold me."

Apparently, toys are for occasional playing. "Real" playing occurs with the dog bowls, chairs, keys, remote controls, cell phones, baby strollers, assorted clothing items and more than anything, shoes.

Can you pinch pennies and make them scream?

If so, this post is for you. Now that I'm not working at all, our budget is considerably smaller. We intentionally tried to reduce our debt so I would have the option to stay at home. But even then we knew that living off of one teacher's salary would be a bit tight. And due to a few unexpected changes in our budget (and one mistake on my part), it's going to be really tight. I know that God will make a way for all of our bills to be paid because He always has but I need to get my grocery budget down to help with that.

Right now, I budget $450 a month for groceries for three people. I know some of you with larger families are thinking I'm nuts because you do it for much less and feed lots more people than I do. Well, $450 is my starting point. It was what I estimated our need might be with diapers. It's economizing to some degree but still purchasing more expensive items like certain spices that I could do without or produce that isn't in season. So I know I can do better. I clip coupons already both online and from the local paper. I do price matching with grocery store ads if possible. I plan my menus each week and generally just buy what I need for that week sometime the weekend before the week starts. (And often my monthly grocery budget includes other small household purchases like printer paper, tolietries, etc. so that amount isn't just for groceries.)

But I'm not sure what else I can do to save money. I live in a small town and usually shop for groceries in a town with a Walmart, a Dollar General, and two other small grocery stores. None of these stores offer saver cards or double coupon days or anything like that. (Walmart will match ad prices but that' it.) I live 45 minutes from a larger town with many grocery stores, a Sam's Club, CVS, etc.. I'm wondering if it's worth my effort to try to take advantage of the sales/saver cards that might be offered in the larger town. (ie would my gas money and time be worth the trip) So many of the blogs I've seen on frugality don't seem to have viable options for me. (I don't have the time/energy to drive my 2 year old 45 minutes one way each week and go to multiple stores to try to get their best deals. I have some doubts about the blogs that encourage you to purchase items you don't need so that you can get back money on a saver card. With our small family, it takes us a long time to get through certain products and buying a product when I don't really need it usually means that I forget I have it by the time I'm out of it. Plus, if I'm just buying something because it's cheap that is still spending money I wasn't intending to spend.)

So my question is, those of you who are really good at being thrifty with groceries, what is my best bet for crimping my budget? Options I have considered are:

buying my non perishables in the larger town either at Sam's Club or when specific stores have these items on sale and then only using Walmart for refrigerated and last minute type purchases?

doing all my grocery shopping at Sam's Club?

doing all my grocery shopping in the larger city and trying to hit multiple stores and their promotions, maybe once a month?

Chime in if you've got some ideas.

What's Worked for Us-Food

I believed that we would have some food issues due to differences in textures and tastes as well as the availability of food. Kenson has never not had food but it has always been on a schedule and, I'm guessing, always a specific amount given to all children, regardless of if they were still hungry, if they liked it, etc.. So adjusting to having the meal schedule changed up a bit as well as being able to communicate if he was done or if he would like more were challenges.

When we first came home, Kenson had a hard time at the end of the meal. He would have finished the food that was there, an ample amount of food, but then cry and be mad when we tried to tell him he was done or if we tried to wash his hands or take him out of the booster seat. He wanted the meal to continue. He wasn't really hungry as when you gave him more he would just play with it. Or if he did eat it, he would eat a huge amount of food. I think in some ways he wasn't sure of our food schedule and this was creating anxiety in him as to when/if he would get another meal.

Adoption literature tells you to let the food be readily available to newly adopted children. (ie leave snacks out on the counter, let children carry a backpack for food) I agree with this in theory. But for a toddler, this is a bit harder to do. Plus, I wasn't really sure that Kenson's issues had to do with a deep seeded fear of starvation. My first desire was for him to learn that screaming and crying was not an acceptable way to get what you want. So we taught him baby signs for more, drink, and eat. This has helped him tell us his needs. It also gives us something to replace the crying with. We weren't just stuck telling him "no crying"; instead we could tell him what to do that was positive. He does great with the signs.

I also think the signs helped with the attachment aspect of things because he has learned that he can do the signs and then Mama or Papa meet the need. When he first figured out that we would get whatever he was signing, he loved to just do it over and over again. He would hand us the sippy cup, and do the sign. Then he would get a drink and give us back the sippy cup so that he could sign "drink" again.

The other thing we did was to give him a small snack at the end of the meal if he wanted more. If I continued to feed him the main entre, we would be sitting at the table for hours. So I put a few Cheerios in a baggie and let him carry those around. He didn't want to eat them; I think he just wanted the security of the having the food. I only did a few pieces of cereal (like 5 or 6) because I didn't want to reinforce overeating. It was enough to help him. He's now eating at meals like a normal kiddo without crying when his plate is empty. He is able to tell us he's finished or sign for more. And depending on what he ate, we give him more or we tell him no that he is finished. And he seems to be okay with that. I also think he now recognizes that we eat on a schedule and that he now knows when to expect food.

God and Me-I'm not as Smart as I Think I Am

God has been at work on my heart on one topic over the last 2 months or so. He's been consistenly telling me that I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am. (I'm sure some of you reading this are thinking, "Um yeah!") Generally speaking, when things go well for me, I have always chalked it up to my own ability to be successful. Got a good grade on a test? That's because I studied. Answered the Final Jeopardy answer correctly, even when all the tv contestants did not? That's because I've got a sponge for a brain. Maintained a fairly orderly classroom? That's my great classroom management skills that I honed through lots of practice. It always comes back to me. Me working hard. Me mentally preparing. Me being my amazing self.

But God knows better than that. He knows that all of my successes are because of His presence in my life. Be it divine intervention in the events of my life or divine gifts poured into me, little joys or big tasks, it's God at work in me. But, more often than not, I just ignore that until I meet up with a job that seems overwhelming to me. Then, I want God's help. (Actually, I just want Him to rescue me but that's another story.)

Why is it that I count God out on so much of my life? Why is it that I only ask for His advice when the chips are down? (And sometimes not even then.) I'm human, like everyone else and Satan loves to convince us humans of how independent we are. Rarely do I ask God for the patience to not yell at my husband over something I . Rarely, do I consider God's impact on my ability to prepare supper and do laundry simultaneously. And I definitely don't walk around saying things like "Gee God, thanks for helping me drive my car and avoid and accident today." or "Wow, God! You sure helped me figure out how to make one heck of an awesome chocolate chip cookie!"

This week, several things I read in Martha to the Max have reminded me that life isn't about having all the answers. It's about being weak and recognizing how truly weak you really are. It's about seeing those times when you have no answers for problems as opportunities for the Holy Spirit to help you know what to do. Gregg reaffirmed this today in his sermon. He preached from Colossians 1:9-12. One aspect he preached on was that often we think we understand God's will and we say things like "God won't give you more than you can handle." That American cliche is not Biblical at all. The truth is, God gives us more than we can handle on a daily basis and we should be tapping into His might to deal with those things. In fact, the Greek word for might in the passage was actually a word that helps form our word "dynamite" which makes a pretty cool mental image if you stop to think of God's presence in our lives as akin to TNT.

So may you decide you don't know it all this week. Instead, look for ways that your life is ready to blow. Find God in the middle of that near disaster and look for His presence close to the lit end of your fuse.

Snow Men and other Experiments

We couldn't make a snowman when it snowed a few days ago because the snow was too dry. But now that the weather's been warmer and the snow has melted and gained some moisture, a snowman is very doable. (A little mushy but doable.) So Kenson and I went outside and rolled some snowballs, gathered some artifacts courtesy of the Great Outdoors and made a snowman. Kenson's contributions were somewhat limited. Okay, okay, he basically touched each snowball once very gingerly with his gloved hand and then grunted like he was really rolling it. Then I scurried to find twigs and such to use for a face and arms. I put one arm in and Kenson wanted to do the other one. Then I added the smile, the nose, and eyes. And watched as Kenson suddenly became scared of the thing we had created! He wouldn't even stand next to it to get his picture taken! Don't you love the "this is as close as I'm gettin' lady" look on his face? (And yes, I realize that is one homely snowman. You get what you get some days)

I then found a recipe for making faux snow and thought that might be fun to try since we had just played in the snow. Ivory soap + torn toliet paper + warm water = one slurry messy white mess. (Honest rating? Easy to make. Easy to mold into balls and other shapes. And it's just soapy water so even if it makes a mess, the clean up is easy.) I shredded the soap bar and let Kenson shred the toliet paper. We added the water and I showed Kenson how to make snowballs and a snowman. My neat freak of a child refused to touch it. The slimy whiteness was totally unappealing to him. I even tried the destruction route: building a snowman and then smashing with my hands. He wouldn't try that either. He did poke it a couple of times but he would not smoosh it in between his fingers or pat it into a ball. I did grab a piece of snow from outside and held it up next to what we had just made, hoping he would at least make the connection and not just think we were making some goopy gloppy mess.

And so what to do when said child does not want to participate? Change the project. So we added more water and got a spoon and practiced moving water from one place to another. We practiced stirring and making bubbles. We added refrigerator magnets and practiced hiding them. That was up his alley. (Maybe Mama isn't a crazy lady who wants me to touch yucky stuff after all.)