Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:  Beef enchilada stack

Tuesday:  Buffalo chicken fingers

Wednesday:  BLTs

Thursday:  Sloppy Lennies from the freezer

Friday:  Pizza

What would you do if you won $1 million?

Sadly, a million dollars isn't nearly as much as it used to be, but what would you do with a million dollars if it were given to you?

 

First, I would pay a 10% tithing to my church, so I'd have $900,000.

 

Second, I'd pay off my house and the rental properties we own.  That would leave me with $400-500,000.

 

Third, I'd buy a version of the car below.  That's a '78 and I'd want one about that vintage, although charcoal gray would be my preference, or perhaps white.  Not red and certainly not orange or yellow. 

 

source

 

Next I'd buy some reasonable gifts for my family members.

 

Last, I'd put money aside the the children's education.  It would be a relief to know I had enough money to pay for their tuition if they went to a moderately-priced college.

 

How about you?

Church cleaning . . . again

With more than 200 families and only about 4-5 needed for each church cleaning AND being responsible for cleaning the church only every other month, one would think the A family (that's us) should sign up to clean about once a year.  Uh uh. 

Only two people signed up to clean the church when the sign up lists went around last Sunday, so the coordinator had to start making calls.  I'm not sure why, but it looks like she grabbed the list from two weeks ago and used that as her calling list.  Most of the same people were there today who were there the last time I cleaned.  It's probably because we did such a bang-up job, right?

We set up chairs at the back of the chapel because our congregation is so big we don't fit in the chapel proper.

 Sophia and I tidied up the hymn books and dusted the chapel.

 And last of all we took out some of the trash that was left in the building.

Other people cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed, cleaned windows, emptied other trash, tidied the classrooms, and put furniture in its proper place (there was a funeral there earlier today).  We'll look forward to a neat, clean, and tidy church building tomorrow morning. :-)

How my camera got me a free package of tortillas

That probably isn't the typical title of a blog post, but it's true; I'm going to tell you about it.

Here is the picture:

When I scanned my tortillas they came up as $2.17 - 0.18 = $1.99.  Uh uh.  I paid anyway, but then went directly to the shelf and since I just happened to be carrying my camera in case I came across something interesting to photograph and post here, I just took a picture of the shelf tag.

Next stop was Customer Service and I just showed her my camera with the picture of the tag and she immediately refunded all my tortilla money.  I like that Fry's does that when you catch them in a mistake. :-)

See next week's menu on Sunday to see what I bought the tortillas for.

Cupcake Fondue

I am sooo trying this!

Hoosier Homemade has wonderful pictures of a cupcake fondue party.  My mind is whirring.  The first Saturday night of April and October I always throw a banana split party for my husband, his friends, and our family.  Now I'm wondering if I ought to toss in a few cupcakes as well, or if that would be a little over the top?

Evening pictures of the girls

As was getting ready for this post I walked around the house and took a quick picture of each girl doing what she was doing at that moment.

Elizabeth was making things with Moon Dough.

 Princess Sophia was doing her homework.

 Caroline was playing on the computer.

A shameful picture

Yes, this is my laundry room.

 The size seems all right, doesn't it? It's 9.5' x 5'. Still sounds good.  Oh, there is a 3' x 4.5' platform just to the right in this picture and the water heater and the furnace are sitting up on it.  THAT takes a chunk out of the square footage!

I hope one day we'll get a heat pump for the A/C and heat and perhaps get a tankless water heater.  That would allow enough room to dance a little jig.  Even a counter for folding!

BUT, that is years away.  Unless the A/C+furnace unit mysteriously quits working . . . .

My jaw dropped

I've mentioned quite a few times that I like to use coupons to cut my grocery costs.  The couponing sites I go to are scrupuously honest in advising the readers on the best and proper way to use coupons.

But!  Today I followed an advertising link to a site with some coupons, along with some "helpful" couponing tips such as this:

Extreme Couponing Tip #1
One episode of Extreme Couponing shows us that a person using the coupons for a certain size of item for the same product and brand but of different size. The featured couponer shows us that in order to really save on the stuff we buy on the grocery, just try to trick the grocery computer.
You see, the grocery computer will never read the letter and words written on the coupons, as the person in Extreme Couponing shows it, computers read only the codes printed on them. So although the coupon is for a bigger size for a particular brand, when the computer scan your coupon, as what happened in the Extreme Couponing show, the computer will only read the discount. So if your coupon is 50% for a 1 Liter of an item and if you use it for a 500ml of the same brand, the computer will never be able to tell the difference.

Ummm . . . that is coupon fraud and I would NEVER recommend anyone do that!  I am super careful to carefully read the coupon and follow the requirements to a "T."  Really--if I'm going to steal it's certainly not going to be 20 cents on a box of cereal.

And no, I'm not going to link the site here. ;-)  I probably downloaded a hundred viruses by clicking on that link anyway.

 

The Best Two Years

In one of Kevin's recent emails (he's in Brazil on a Mormon mission) his response to my telling him about our wonderful vacation this summer was to tell me I was "trunking [him] out of [his] mind!"  That's a line out of my favorite Mormon comedy movie, The Best Two Years.

Tonight I made vanilla custard ice cream for the family and we settled in the family room to eat it.  The girls wanted to watch a movie while we ate ice cream, so I told them Yes, if we could watch The Best Two Years. 

My favorite part is when the renegade missionary in the movie teaches a lesson about Heavenly Father's love for us and then says that is why he went on a mission.  Yes, THAT is why he is there.

Such a good movie.  And I'm glad Kevin is serving a mission.  That's why HE is there.

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:  Creamy macaroni and four cheeses (recipe from Parade magazine), Brussels sprouts baked with onion, Balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.

Tuesday:  Pork chops/Fresh Take coating, rice, carrots (pork chops from the freezer)

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:  Pizza