Plans for 2012 - Keep Track Of Items Bought!

I have been thinking about trying to keep track of everything I buy next year! I want to try and limit my buying to only those things I REALLY need. I have tired in the past to keep track of what I spend on food, but there too things get forgotten and sales slips get tossed. My husband is also a big problem in this area as he NEVER keeps track of his spending, so it gets on my nervous that I know where every penny that I had control of went but he has no idea where his money went. But this year I am hoping to really be aware of our spending!! We honestly never buy much of "un-needed" items but I do see for instance that I have a number of one subject notebooks, books that could have been inter-library loaned instead of bought ect.
I have been trying to declutter most of the areas in our home, and already it is giving it a better feel. It's funny no sooner then I started decluttering our stuff that a work buddy of my husbands started cleaning out their place and you guessed it tossed the stuff our way.... But hey, I got a great couch that is in almost new shape that I really needed so it's all good.
Until next time - God Bless!

Lots of Reading Material

My husband stopped at the library and bought home a couple of the books I am dying to dive into:
Not buying it, My year without shopping by Judith Levine
Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza
Complete guide to safe herbs by Chris Meletis
I also got A year by the sea by Joan Anderson, a gal on one of the blogs I follow: The 4 Buschel Farm suggested and it sounded good.
So much to read and so little time..... : )

A Couple Of Change I'm Really Proud Of.....

I am pretty proud to admit I have really addressed my paper towel addiction! I used to be a mega user of paper towels, I would go thru one of those huge 12 roll packages that cost like $15.00 a week! But I am happy to say I now down to a 2 roll package and I am making it till the end of the week : ) I have placed dishtowels out by the sink for drying my hands which has helped save. My biggest user problem was picking up after my dogs/cats messes, I would use a ton of paper towels for these messes, but now I use newspaper. We receive each week a penny saver paper which is free and given out to all the homes, I used to recycle them but decided to try using them for the animal messes and it worked out great. Now I know I'm not really helping things by just switching from paper towels to newspaper but I have to say I cut the newspaper in half and use only one sheet and that goes along way so for sure I am saving some trees there.

My daughter and I have been meat free for months now and I am LOVING it! I am so happy to know I am not reponsible for killing an animal ever time I eat something! I feel sooooo much better inside too, I no longer have that heavy feeling you get from having that hard to digest meat sitting inside my gut. During the summer we were buying fruits/veg. from a local farm stand but they closed down for the fall/winter months which has been such a disappointment. I am now finding I am going more for the sweets again instead of a fruit.

Still need to do alot more, but I'm a work in progress : )

Great Blog I Found!!

I found a great blog which I have been spending a great deal of my time at recently reading over her past posts: "Live Ready Now" . I have ordered a few of the books on interests that her blog has gotten me thinking about from my library:

"Natural health magazine complete guide to safe herbs"

"Lasagna gardening : a new layering system for bountiful gardens: no digging, no tilling, no weeding, no kidding"!

I just love when I get that crazy feel inside about something, it's strange I know, but I find it so exciting waking up in the morning with something new to learn about....

Liebster Blog Award

The Liebster Blog Award started (sometime in the recent past) in Germany to encourage traffic to hidden gems of blogs with 300 followers or less. So it is an award you receive, but also an award you give (share the love kinda thing). If you receive a Liebster Blog Award you are asked to choose 3-5 other bloggers and link back to the blogger that gave you the award. Thank you, Jessica @Teachable Moments for this honor.

These are a few of the Blogs I enjoy that I would like to pass this award on to:

The Bergblog Phyllis always has such great ideas and is always so helpful when I ask countless questions.

Home *School* Home This blog was one of the first I found when starting out homeschooling and have loved it ever since.

Toad Haven Homeschool I so enjoy reading about the adventures this family takes and all of the learning they do!

Alston Academy Rhonda does such a great job teaching her daughters & I love reading about her lunch ideas too!

Journey to Excellence This is a new one I found and am loving it! I really enjoy when parents of teens post what they are doing which is hard to find.

This is just a small list of some of my favorites, I really hate just posting a few because it might hurt some of my other bloggers feelings so please know I LOVE you all!!

Freeze Yer Buns Challange 2011

I am joining in on the Freeze Yer Buns Challange 2011 over on the Crunchy Chicken Blog. Living down here in Florida you all might think winters are a breeze, but we have cold weather. It might be milder by up norths standards but being that we are not used to the cold weather it hits us hard. We have lived down here for 8 years and last year I think was the worst winter for cold temps yet. We have issues with our heating/air conditioning unit if we use it on a steady basis our electric bill runs sky high, We haven't been able to afford someone to look at it. We do have a fireplace in the livingroom which I hope to use a bit more this year to help take the chill off during the evening time.
I look forward to the challange of keeping our temp. in the house as low as I can : )

Getting Back To Blogging!!

I am up set with myself for not keeping up with this blog!
I have been bogged down with family things and my new interests have been taking a back seat which I really need to address, since I was soooo loving the new me who was excited again about something.....
To catch up it has been well over 5 months now of going vegetarian and I feel GREAT! I have no interest at all to eat meat!! To be honest when my husband cooks it, I kinda get sick from the smell of it.
We have been enjoying a number of the Boca & Morning Star Farms products. They fill the void of needing a "meat" on the plate and they taste fantastic. The cost is getting kinda high on their products which is getting to be a problem for me in my budgeting for groceries each week. Have you seen the prices of food lately? They are skyrocketing, each week I am seeing a price increase on a large number of the items I buy : ( It's hard to keep a pricebook of where to buy at the lowest price since the stores change the prices so often.
Need to stay on top of it since we spend a huge chunk of the little bit of money we get each week on it.
Until Next time....