This last week was very good to us. Very relaxing and somewhat calm. Besides sports and dance practices, work for three of us, and family get togethers, we just kicked back a bit. We watched a lot of Harry Potter and Star Wars since it was on television. We all watched our almost favorite Christmas movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas (yep, we are like that). We ate a lot of food and managed to get a few things done around the house. It was all good.

I avoided Black Friday for the most part. I did go to Bomgaars for some softener salt that we were out of and picked up some AA batteries and pajama pants for my rapidly growing girl. If we hadn’t ran out of softener salt, I would not have shopped at all. We were rather amazed at how many people were at Walmart and Kmart on our way home on Thanksgiving. Just crazy how full and overflowing those parking lots were!

We did some more decluttering and reorganizing. We cleaned clothes out of Paige’s closet that did not fit her anymore. We emptied four half-full totes of clothes and blessed someone else with them. We also found two totes in the same closet that will fit under Jordan’s bed for storage. She has been wanting these for awhile so I feel quite good that we found them! We also gave away several books to bless some young readers since we have outgrown the books. I love being able to give things to bless others! I also love finding things and repurposing them!

I took down our old, hit by the snow plow, rusting mailbox and replaced it with the new one I bought a year ago. I also found some outdoor paint on the paint shelf to paint our name and address on it per the post office’s rules. It must not take much to make me happy because I was thrilled to have that project done!

I made mashed potatoes and pumpkin cake for Thanksgiving at my parent’s house. I had most of the ingredients on hand so it was a cinch to make! Rob had given me a potato ricer as well as an ice cream maker for my birthday. That potato ricer is awesome! No lumps in my mashed potatoes!

My mom saved the turkey carcass for me and I was able to can 8 quarts of turkey broth from that carcass. I should have tried to get a second batch from the bones, but I am still not certain about that theory of the broth being just as good the second time using the carcass as the first time. I made the turkey broth the same as I do the chicken broth except I used the slow cooker this time and left it on low for 8-10 hours.

I made two buckets of laundry detergent. The soap was a little more expensive this time so each bucket cost me about $3.50. However, it still beats the cost of store bought!

We did not eat out all week which amazes me because I almost broke down twice and got pizza! However, Shali and Jordan spent their own money and got pizza rolls from the grocery store. Evidently, they felt the need for junk food.

That is about all for this week! Next week should be better!

Thanks for reading!
Erica

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