New! Looka French Pastries

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Looka Pastries

I was shopping at Wal-mart today grabbing things for Brandon’s birthday cake and saw these in the frozen section.  I think I misunderstood something, forehead smack.  You can just grab these, at the last minute and everything.  Genius.

Would you do this?  If you were having a special gathering of important people, would you like to have Delicious, Fresh Pastries delivered for the occasion?  Did you know that you can buy yummy French pastries in your frozen section and skip making homemade dessert?  If you bought them, what would you do with the extra time?  Clean? Spruce yourself up? Think of ways to make your guests more comfortable?

Sunday Lunch

We had a chance to find out.  Our guest was a young friend over to play with Dub after church.  Our pastries were a box of Macaroon cookies (vanilla, chocolate, raspberry and pistachio)

Macaroons

A Box of Key Lime cheesecake

Key Lime Cheesecake

and a box of Chocolate Mousse cake.

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They came packed in dry ice and thawed to a texture as fresh as if they were just baked and picked up from the bakery down the street. The kids were especially excited about the dry ice since their scientist uncle showed them how to use it to make homemade soda pop.

Frozen French Pastries

Here’s where my true character unfolds….

I hid the boxes of cake (since they had 2 servings each.)  Then we cut each of the cookies into 4 pieces and passed them around so everyone could taste every kind.  (Yes, we were that family you saw at the fair sharing a single funnel cake among 8 people.) Then I expressed amazement and delight over what a delicious and lovely treat we just had and dismissed all the children from the table.

Mousse Cake

When they were completely out of sight, I brought out the cakes.  And savored lingering bites with my husband.  When our two girls sauntered back into the kitchen, we shared a taste with them, and swore them to secrecy.

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Guilt got to me an hour later, so I baked chocolate chip cookies for the rest of the kids. Then I read the back of the boxes for the cakes and was amazed at how great the ingredients were.  It was pure, fresh, stuff that I would bake with in my own kitchen.  Except nothing that came out of my kitchen ever tasted this good. That didn’t mean the cakes were calorie free though and I ate well more than 1 serving….should have shared.

All of this was before my allergy free diet and I’m glad I had the experience. They were delicious..but the macaroons were our favorite. Especially the raspberry.

Would you consider having something like this delivered for a very special occasion?

If you’d like to know more about Looka pastries you can visit their website or Facebook page.

Tough Decisions

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It was one of those mornings. Brandon was screaming for a half an hour, because he couldn’t find his backpack.  No one could find the backpack, and I was asking him to move on, “Make your lunch.” He’s in first grade, his backpack is empty.  We have other bags. Seriously.  But it was super important to him.  Important enough that he screamed for a half an hour, kicked everything he could find and went to school with an apple for lunch, because I handed it to him on the way out the door.  And he still didn’t have his backpack.

Brandon's Dinosaur Backpack

He’s cute when he’s not screaming.

I could have made his lunch, but the rule in our house is “Nothing good comes when you’re screaming.”  We don’t negotiate with terrorists, ever. That was hard.  Right now his class is eating a decent lunch and he’s hopefully munching an apple. I’m praying for him and hoping his teacher doesn’t bail him out.  I want him to see that actions have consequences and if he can learn it now, the rest of his life will be better.

Right now, my brother-in-law (45) is in ICU after suffering a massive stroke.  He has 2 sons and a loving wife and has been active and fit his whole life.  In a few hours they have scheduled a surgery to remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on his brain. When I think about that situation the other decisions I’m dealing with don’t seem relevant, but they are.  (Just throwing that out there in case you might say a prayer for Greg and his family Gayla, Jordan and Brayden.)

I went to IKEA yesterday.  Our local store has been open for 12 days and I was hoping I waited long enough for the crazy crowds to be over.  It wasn’t too bad.  The show room was mesmerizing.  We only set aside an hour to shop (definitely not enough) so went home empty handed.  This sounds random, but it relates, bear with me.

I had a garage sale last week and sold the rest of my baby stuff and everything else I could put my hands on.  I cleared over $600 and still have a generous pile to donate to Disabled Veterans and clothes to pass on to friends. My plan for the garage sale money was to buy a rug and an Ektorp love seat and chair (now on sale) for the attic sitting room in Dub’s new bedroom.  Right now the room has a cedar chest in it–that’s it.  I threw some pillows on top to make it more of an inviting seat, but it’s not awesome.

With Brandon’s outburst this morning, I’m thinking the money might be better spent building an organizational system for backpacks and such.  Like this: ⇓  And a working garage door opener.Mud room

Decisions. Decisions.  Darren said, if I could scrape together a bit out of our budget, he would start building our bathroom.  That is very tempting too.  (How soon I forget the pain of no kitchen for 9 months and no flooring for 12….and am ready to start a NEW project.)

AND–if you follow me on Facebook, you already know I found a doctor to treat my strange illness.  She confirmed it to be adrenal fatigue, plus food allergies, plus thyroid stuff.  We are waiting on test results to pinpoint how bad it is and exactly what to do to make it better.

For now, I’m on an allergy free diet.  Which is mostly protein free, since most allergies are to food proteins.  It’s a 180 turn from the way I’ve been eating for years, the way I’ve felt the best.  I have toxins coming out through my skin, my tonuge and other places it isn’t polite to talk about.  She said I would feel even worse for awhile, and she was right about that.  After 4 weeks of this, they will reintroduce one protein at a time and see what happens.  I’m hoping eggs end up on the ok list.  But I digress.

The bottom line. I can spend my garage sale money lots of ways: garage organizer and opener, beautiful sitting area for the kids in the attic (and it’s on sale!), one project in the master bathroom, or beef up the emergency fund for the medical bills that are likely to come in.

What would you do?

Frugal Weekend Shopping from Your Sofa

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A friend of mine shared a gift card with me to ThredUp.  I’ve been hearing about them, but never checked it out before now.  I looked around their site and was amazed at the selection of stylish stuff for thrift store prices.  Some of the items are brand new, some are gently used.  Each description is clear on what you are buying.  If there is a flaw, it’s clearly described so you can make an informed decision.

I picked out 2 dresses, a pair of studded skinny corduroy jeans, and a tunic top with a fun leaf print.  After my gift card savings it was shipped to my door for around $35.

Now here’s the part I wasn’t expecting:

polka dot box

Polka Dot Box

Polka Dot Promise

Cute little note on the inside flap.

Enjoy sticker

Tissue gift wrapped and sealed with an enjoy sticker.

Stuff Thred Up

There’s my stuff–it’s clean, inspected, and tagged.  Definitely not a thrift store shopping experience. (Ever feel like you need a good hand washing and maybe a shower after shopping at a thrift store?)

Thred up Tag

Thred Up Tag Back

Part of the reason why I ordered a few new clothing items is I’ve gained 20 pounds since I became ill last December.   I chose things that would fit me now and still look nice when I find healing and get my body under control.

Black Lace Dress

This is a stretch black dress (I brightened it and messed up the color so you could see the cool detail.)  The star burst style is Very figure flattering and the stretchy fit means it will still look great even if I get smaller again.

Studded Courderoys

Navy Blue Studded Corduroys.  I heart studs right now.  The low rise cut means they still fit in my old size (because of my hormone imbalance I’m only gaining weight in my middle area and my thighs and hips are staying the same size.) These are probably the highest quality pair of pants I’ve ever owned.

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This leaf top was listed as a dress, but it is just a few inches longer than my bum.  It is an adorable tunic top to wear with my white skinny jeans and a belt to accentuate what’s left of my waist.

Sun dress with yellow belt

The last item I bought was this yellow belted strappy dress.  I thought I would be a safe choice since it is an empire waist, but it wouldn’t zip :(.  This is tucked in the back of my closet as inspiration to keep making healthy food choices.  Heidi might borrow it while I’m working towards being able to wear it.

Overall, I’m thrilled with my whole experience with ThredUp and will definitely shop there again.  If you’d like to try it, here’s a $10 gift card to get you started.  If you shop with that link, not only will you get $10, but they’ll send me $10 too :).

Are you Cheap?

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Cheap.

hello_my_name_is_cheapskate_shirts-rdd56779059214edbad0a717b367be9ba_vj7gq_324

Growing up, I didn’t know that word was an insult.  If someone said, “I like your shoes?”  I’d reply, “Thanks, and they were cheap!” Like it was the their best feature.  And if you looked interested, I’d probably tell you how much they cost and where you could snag your own deal.

It wasn’t until I became part of Mary Kay that I learned that telling people how much an item cost was not very classy.   Not that they wanted us to pay a lot for stuff, just to make it our secret.  I’m destined to be unclassy.  It’s hard to break a long standing habit, especially when I think I’m really just helping people with good info, lol.

When Extreme Cheapskates called me up to do the show (which you can see on Netflix if you missed it,) I didn’t think much about the name. Then I watched the first episode.  Oh My!  They really went out of their way to emphasize the extreme, no?  They were making fun of us a little.  I’ve heard of some of the other people on the show. (The guy on after me was a famous NY Times best selling author.) They made him look a lot weirder than he really is. Shocking to me, there’s a culture out there that looks down on frugal people and values paying lots of money for stuff….go figure.

I think there’s a difference though between cheap and frugal.  I didn’t look this up; I’m making this up. Both words mean not spending a lot of money, but in addition they might mean:

Cheap: Poor quality, low class, low value, breaks easily, loose morals, trashy, stingy

Frugal: Hard working, savvy, patient, responsible, DIY, generous, faithful, conservative

Retail industry has a vested interest in making us love spending and judge quality by price.  When you think about it, their advertisements run our newspapers, magazines, TV, radio… the media that is shaping our culture. They tell us our clothes are out of style the minute we cut the tags off; our homes should be redone every season; and everything is subject to fad,  even our food.

It’s gotten so bad that people are drawing their personal worth from what they drive, where they live, and what they wear.  Some even measure other’s peoples love for them by the price of their gifts. Let me tell you something.  You are valuable.  And worth just as much even dirty, naked and homeless.  Simply because you are created in the image of God.  He paid a dear price for you and you belong to him.  And then, He set you free.  If your house is a mess or decorated in some other fashion than blogger style, so what?  If you rock mom jeans, no worries.  If you have peanut butter on the front windows of your door–it doesn’t change anything. You are priceless.  And when you look in the mirror you see a piece of God staring back at you—You are in his image!  Don’t tell me THAT isn’t beautiful.

What do you think?  Is there a difference between cheap and frugal?  Are they both bad, both good?  Is your favorite color blue? (Just to see if you’re still reading….)

(FYI if you want that shirt it’s for sale on zazzle.  Click the photo to go there.  But I’ll have to warn you–it’s not cheap….)

How to Get Your Husband to Budget with You

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Hi Ladies! Long time no see. I’ve been back in bed for a bit, except to teach choir and maybe another hour or two.  Technically I could blog from bed (like I’m doing now) but sometimes even that takes too much energy. I don’t want to dwell on that, though.

I want to talk about manipulation.  Wait.  What?  What I mean is getting your husband to do something he really doesn’t want to do.   We should call it motivation instead.  That sounds better.

Sometimes we get on the saving money kick and our other half doesn’t get it.  If we save money while he spends it.  That can make for a rough relationship.  So how do you get a reluctant husband to budget with you?

1.  Budget naked.  Put the kids to bed.  Find a location behind a locked door and have a naked budget meeting.  He’ll show up at least, and that’s the first step.

2.  Have snacks.  Good ones.

3.  Do most of the work ahead of time.  Draw up a rough draft budget and have a short explanation of each category.  Then ask for his input.  Let him change stuff and don’t get your feelings hurt if he does.

4.  Talk less than you want to.

5.  Make the budget meeting a safe place.  He needs to be confident you will not yell, cry, or question his manhood or his character.

6.  Cheer him on.  Tell him all the things he does that you appreciate and never follow up with BUT.

7.  Have a common goal together.  When you both believe in the destination, you’ll both be willing to sacrifice to get there.

8.  If all else fails, let Dave Ramsey tell him what needs to be done.  That’s easiest done at  Financial Peace University class.  If he doesn’t want to go, do your own class at home….naked.

My husband does most of the budgeting (being an accountant and all) but sometimes it’s hard for him to set the time aside and get it done or include me in the process.  Seriously, the naked tip is the only one I need to motivate him, lol.  The keep it short and talk less than you want to, is what makes me show up.

What about you?  Does your husband like to budget?  Do you have any tips for making the budget meeting more fun (or at least happen?)

And yes the alternate title of this post was “Budget Naked.”