My First Extreme-Couponing Experience

It seems to me that we all know someone who likes to consider themselves an extreme coupon-er. 

Photo courtesy of Buckinghampost.com

Previously, I've always perused our paper's coupons with a half-disappointment at the products that A. My family will never use, B. Are still more expensive than the off-brand, even with the coupon, or C. are terrible coupons. 25 cents off of a 4 dollar product? Get real!

A few days ago, our station paper was delivered. I brought it in and let it gather some dust. This morning, I decided that I needed to throw it out, but "perhaps I should check the coupons first."

WOW! I am so glad that I did. This week's was chock-full of coupons that were relevant to me! Great savings on lotion, herbal tea, Smithfield products, dried pasta, brand-name products for frizzy hair, rice, AH, the list could go on...

I cut them out eagerly and wished for more... but how? I thought back to all my neighborhood walks with the  little boys and of all the newspapers left to rot outside. 

I gathered all the boys, (the big one is off today!!) and we went for a walk. I didn't feel the least bit guilty when I gathered the abandoned papers on our route. I figure, if you leave it outside for more than half a week, you're obviously not going to use it. I found 10. :)  We will probably walk tomorrow in the other part of the neighborhood because I know there are more tea coupons calling to me...

Anyway, I'll let you know how everything turns out! I'm really excited to be able to use these coupons, but I'll have to wait until next week, when I get my AWESOME STAND UP FREEZER!!!

Cheers!

The Dreaded First Haircut

One of my little boys has curly hair like Mama...and usually it results in an unkempt jungle-child appearance. I've been postponing this haircut because when his hair chooses to behave, he has beautiful little angel curls around his ears and by his neck. As any mother knows, these are very treasured little bits of babyhood and it's difficult to let go of them and realize your baby is growing up. He's been looking the worse for wear the past few days, and I've finally come to terms with the inevitable: I have to clip his hair.

No, Dad, I DON'T want to pose!

I had to groom some of the curls so
I could save them for my mom.  This photo doesn't
do them justice.

The easiest way for me to trim the back was for Dad to hold him while he watched Sesame Street and occasionally checked on my progress.

The rest of the cut needed to be from his highchair because I had to get to the top of his head. It was a little difficult to keep everything even because he kept moving around, but I really think the secret is to do only a little at a time. You can always take off more, but you can't put it back.

Wes enjoys noodles for lunch after his haircut!

In the end, he didn't seem to care that he had a nice haircut. I'm glad that his hair doesn't go into his eyes and the back of it doesn't stick straight out a la mad scientist. I'm also glad that I didn't have to drag him, his brother, his father, and a bunch of baby gear to some place to have someone to cut his hair too short and then charge me for it.
But I digress. People with the proper schooling and skill know what they're doing. Just not in my area.

I think he looks quite dapper. 

Minimal hair was harmed in the making of this blog post.

I know that this post and the last haven't been the most substantial. This is mostly for our out-of-area families that missed the occasion.

Do you have a bad haircut experience that you'd care to share?

Some of Life's Grape Questions

Let me start this post by raisin the bar.
I stepped on a grape; it let out a little whine.
Okay, okay... these puns are really starting to grape on me.

Hahaha, you're such a grape group of people.

Done. Really.

A few weeks ago, I was mushroom hunting with Indulgent Husband (for pleasure only) and I came across some wild grape vines with unripe fruit. I took a few leaves home and identified them. Knowing that Muscadine grapes are native to North Carolina, I became very excited!

 A Muscadine leaf is identified by it's saw-toothed
  edge and  is unlobed, unlike other grape varieties.

Muscadine grapes are members of the "slip-skin" type of grapes. The skin 'slips' very easily from the inner pulp and large seeds. Muscadines range in color from bronze to black (dark purple) and pleasing, both to the palate and the eye. They can be identified by their leaf shape (see below) and by their grouping of usually no more than 4 to 5 in a cluster. More often than not, I found them in pairs or stand-alones.

A pair of ripe Muscadines.

When you are foraging, the most important thing is not to know what's available in your area, or when it's peak season is; it's knowing the dangerous plants and poisonous look-alikes. IF YOU AREN'T 100% SURE OF IT'S IDENTIFICATION, DO NOT EAT IT. I don't want anyone getting sick because they mistook Pokeberries (Phytolacca Americana) or Common Moonseeds (Menispermum Canadense) for grapes. Make sure to ID leaves, stems, fruit, flowers, and whatever else is available on the plant in question.

Pokeberries L, Moonseed R

I spent about two hours reaching, grunting and being attacked by shrubbery and I'm now the proud owner of  a pound and a half of wild grapes. It isn't a terribly impressive amount, but it's just the beginning of the season, after all. I tool a stroll in the surrounding areas and ended up finding a glorious Maitake (Hen of the Woods) mushroom. I deemed it inedible because it had been nibbled by bugs and was starting to be a little past it's prime.

It was a little smaller than a volleyball in diameter!

A few other sights from yesterday:

This picture doesn't begin to explain how large this tree was...

Purple mushrooms???

Whats up, hometurtle?

Later tonight I'll be making some wild grape jelly with my little haul of grapes. Since it's a time-intensive thing (juice straining, time for the jelly to set, etc), I'll be sharing my results on Thursday. I'm really craving some jelly now...

What is your favorite part about taking a walk outside?

Summer Gold

Peaches, unlike Olympic medals, are the gold accessible to almost everyone in the summer and very early fall season; and here in the South, they're sweet, abundant, and cheap! Read more after the jump!

It's been a million years...

But I'm finally ready to begin blogging with regularity again. The boys are walking, But I'm FLYing. (That stands for Finally Loving Yourself.)

Seriously, check out The Flylady sometime if you're needing a personal life coach. She's helping me deal with my side-tracked tendencies, my three messy monsters, and well... I'll let you check that out for yourself if you're interested.

Not my photo. www.faithwriters.com

Anyhooters! I'm blogging again, and I'm going to shoot for posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and maybe Saturdays. If there are extras, that's great! If I'm a day late, please don't be angry! Toddlers are a busy thing.

I love you guys, thanks for sticking with me!

Sub-LIME on a Dime

First, I'd like to apologize for neglecting my blog. Second, well, there is no second.

I hope everyone has had the pleasure of having a vase of fresh flowers decorating their house at LEAST once in their lives. It's a luxury that can be pretty expensive, especially when you have florist flowers- taste on a grocery store flowers-budget. Lets be serious, isn't that mostly everyone nowadays?

I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the time yesterday two days ago when I was attending a lovely wedding. As the lights were turned on after the reception, I quickly discovered that an unimaginable amount of limes and florist-quality white hydrangeas and green spider mums that had been used for 4 hours , tops, were about to be thrown out. Waste not, want not, right everyone? When the employees saw me stuffing my handbag what I was doing, they were kind enough to get me a grocery bag for the limes! The flowers were another monster entirely, but I got them home and they were none the worse for wear. Indulgent husband pretended I didn't look like the shameless scavenger I was as he drove us home and spoke of other things.


But really, beautiful flowers for free? And limes for margaritas marmalade?! Sign. Me. Up.


The only drawback was the flowers' stem lengths; about six inches, which doesn't leave one much to work with. I segregated the flowers and bound them in a few bunches with broccoli/asparagus rubberbands and put them into any larger container I could find. This included an American-style trifle bowl, quart-sized canning jars, and a glass ice bucket. One does what one must.

Today I wanted to have a decorated table for dinner instead of the usual wipe-off white and red plaid. I hadn't considered making a flower arrangement with my beauties, but I remembered some that I've seen and, under my breath, I've said "I can do that!" All it took was fifteen minutes with barely any fuss and I'm now the proud owner of a gorgeous centerpiece that even inspired J to comment!


 Here's how I did it:

My trifle bowl. I bought this a few years ago from Wal-Mart for less than ten dollars, I believe. It is Anchor glassware. They still have them, but you can use any similar clear glass container. Be creative!

I put one layer of limes into the bottom of it.

I placed another layer, minus the center lime.

I began to fill it with cool water...

and up floats that pesky middle lime! I took it out. Let's try this again...

SO. I filled it with cool water...

and I proceeded to place my rubber-banded hydrangeas in.

I separated spaces in between the large blooms and poked a green spider mum in. I alternated the spacing to make it look like polka-dots.

Insert. Bahaha!

Six hydrangea heads and eight spider mums later......

TADA!

C'est magnifique! Of course you can do this with just about anything, but I like for white and lime and purple for some reason. As I was typing that last sentence, I remembered these were the colors I came up with out of nowhere used for my wedding. D'oh!

Some other ideas you could try:

Christmas ornaments

Plastic Easter eggs/ Easter grass (Messy clean-up, I bet!)

Lemons

Golf balls (Father's Day!)

Legos (Little boys' birthdays)

Mardi Gras beads

Really-- any small items that won't be ruined by submersion. Let your theme or interior decor style be your guide!

What was your best trash-to-treasure project?

The Quest for Marmalade: An exotic citrus mini-series

This photo was taken from www.thehungrymouse.com.
It is definitely not my property, but it IS a gorgeous photo.

Marmalade. I'm not talkin' the Voulez-vous coucher avec moi type, either. I'm talkin' fruit spread. It's tantalizingly sweet-tart flavor with luscious bits of candied peel and fruit are calling to me with siren song.

Alas, the old stand-by of orange marmalade is just ho-hum. I'm looking for something electrifying!

You guessed it. It's April, and I'm starting to get a little huffy about the end of citrus season because I promised myself that I would make marmalade this year. I've been stalking the fruit section at my local grocery stores and I've found a few promising possibilities.

Ugli/Uniq Fruit

Grapefruit

Lime

Kumquat

Meyer Lemon

The citrus that is available to me is a little touch and go as far as ripeness and quality, but I can be choosy since I will be making micro-batches of each to see WHICH MARMALADE REIGNS SUPREME!

 Ok, so I really loved the original Iron Chef on Food Network beore they adapted it to the crummy Iron Chef America version that plays now. Who doesn't enjoy watching dubbed chefs make art out of nasty ingredients? I definitely do.

Anyway, before I continue, some of you may not know what a micro-batch is, exactly. It's a very small batch of whatever you're making. It can yield 3 or 4 pint jars, and is usually a tester for recipes, techniques, or new ingredients.

Or for people whose husbands won't eat marmalade 'til it's coming out of his ears. *Ahem.*

TO WHOM COULD I POSSIBLY BE REFERRING? 

No one in particular. No one at all...








But seriously. They're useful if your kitchen storage space is at a premium. And believe me, mine is.

Stick around and in the next day or so I'll be posting about my first encounters with Ugli Fruit, a tangelo that was originally discovered growing wild in Jamaica.

Will you be making any marmalade before citrus is "out of season?" What is your favorite kind? How do you like to eat it?

Unleavened Bread

Ask someone what they think of when they hear the word "Passover" and they'll probably say "It's a Jewish holiday around Easter." Technically they are correct, but more and more Christian families are starting to observe the Feast of Unleavened Breads as a way to delve deeper into their faith's history.