Best Deals

This week's Best Deals come from HEB! 

 I found all these things on the clearance rack and I got some great deals!! 

• 4 pound bag of sugar - normally $1.96 - I got it for .48cents 
• a 4 pack of organic apple sauce - normally $2.09 - I got it for .52cents 
• Chocolate chips each bag is normally $2.48 and I got each bag for .62cents  
• Hershey's cocoa powder - normally $2.98 - and I got it for .74cents 
• Bar Keepers Friend - normally $2.34 - and I got it for .58cents 
• Mallow Magic microwave popcorn- a 2 pack - normally $1.98 - I got it for .49cents 

I do not normally buy microwave popcorn - but it sounded so good I had to try it. My husband and I shared one bag and we sent the other bag home with our oldest son - so that the girls could share that bag. 

I was very pleased with my best deals this week. When I go to HEB - I don't always find awesome deals like this, but when I do, I am very thankful!! What great deals!! :O) 

"Finding the Word of God"

Today I want to share the beginning of a sermon series that I have enjoyed. 

The title of this series is "Reset in the Word" 

This weeks sermon is: 

"Finding the Word of God" 

Here are just the first couple of Scriptural references. 

I hope you are blessed. 

 "I'm overjoyed at your word, like someone who finds great treasure."

Psalm 119:162 

(Common English Bible) 

 "I will praise thee with an upright heart, when I learn thy righteous ordinances. 

8 I will observe thy statutes; O forsake me not utterly! 

9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to thy word. 

10 With my whole heart I seek thee; let me not wander from thy commandments!"

Psalm 119:7-10 

If you would like to fast forward to the sermon - you will want to go to about the 5 minute mark. 

Be sure and come back next week when I will share - "Feasting on the Word" 

Almost Back

 Thankfully in the middle of my busiest day of the week I was able to find an hour to jump on my desktop and get some of my posts typed up and organized and ready to post. So be sure to check by on Sabbath - I will have at least a week of posts from that point. I sure hope I am able to get on next week and get some more things typed up and ready to go. 

We have a lot of exciting things going on around here and I can't wait to share!! Life on a homestead takes improvements and changes to make things work better and that is where we are at. Some things need to be changed and I can't wait to share a little of it with you all. :O) 

SS&T

 So I had every intention of getting back to blogging this week. I even got a few things typed up, however they are not things I planned on posting first so please be patient with me. 

I woke up very early on Monday morning and I was so productive. I was able to get my house vacuumed and carpets cleaned and I even cleaned my fish tank. Those are 2 big jobs and I knocked them out Monday morning. It felt good to get those jobs done! 

When my husband got home - he was ready to get working on our green house! And when he is ready to work - I do not stand in the way of that, even if I was tired and wanted a break. We got quite a bit done. It was a bit of a messy job since it had rained quite a bit for a few days, but we didn't let that stop us. I am thinking we will be working on it more this afternoon. So for now I just share this little bit so that you know I am still working towards more posts I just have to get a few more typed up and set up the order that I want to share them. 

It will be a busy week - I will be watching the grandson's Wed. am, pm and Thursday am. I also will be helping out with my churches food pantry on Wed afternoon and then prayer meeting. So it may be next week before more regular posts are shared.

I hope you all are doing well and staying well. As a fellow chemosabe used to say - Stay Strong and Thrive aka SS&T. :O) 

Sabbath Praises

Another great song - we really need to learn to have a "praise going strong!"

Happy Sabbath may be you blessed in a special way! :O) 

Very Important Advice - I hope you will take the time to listen...

This week my sister shared about an awesome sermon she had heard recently. I went and listened to it and I was blessed. I will warn you, it is a long sermon but it will be well worth your time. He starts with telling about a recent experience of his and it links with the sermon. I hope you all will take some time to listen to this sermon. Below you will find some of the main verses that go along with this sermon. I was busy doing some work in the kitchen when I wrote down the scripture references so he may have had a few more references than there and he may have read a little longer in some of the sections. 

Oh and by the way - my word for the year was used in this - so just be paying attention and next week when I share about how I choose the word for the year. :O)  

The title of the sermon is - Last Line of Defense 

 Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.

1 Timothy 4:16 

 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 

4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 

5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

II Timothy 4:3-5 

14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 

15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 

Ephesians 4:14:15

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary * principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 

13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14

 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Hebrews 4:12-14 

 "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth."

John 17:17

And what is the Last Line of Defense? 

1. Remain faithful to the truth as it is in God's word.  

2. Remain faithful to the 3 angels message. 

3. Remain faithful to Jesus Christ. 

Come back next Friday when I will have a post for Freebie Friday! :O) 

 So last week was such a busy, hectic week. This week should be a bit slower. However there is a whole lot of rain in the forecast for this week so I am trying to get a lot of my running done today. I should have time to get on here and get some of the posts that I have been working on offline - typed up and ready to go. I hope you all are doing well. May God bless you in a special way and may He draw you closer to himself! :O) 

Best Deal

 Well sadly I do not have a best deal to share about today. My favorite little thrift store that is only open several days a week was not open on Sunday as usual because of the snow. Like I said around these parts - if we have snow - we usually have icy road and so for safety reasons they closed it down. And then when Tuesday rolled around I was too busy and totally forgot it was Tuesday so I did not make it to the thrift store. This is a series that is just like my Freebie Friday posts - sometimes I will have things to share - sometimes I won't. 

Hopefully by next week I will have something awesome to share with you. 

Take care, stay safe and thrive! 

Sabbath Praise

I found another great song! Be sure and listen to everything past the 50 second mark! It is an awesome song! I hope you are blessed! :O) 

Freebie Friday

 This is a new series I have started. In this series I will share things that I have gotten for free. There are many ways you can get things for free. Sometimes it is when you grocery shop- HEB does a lot of their sales where if you buy this - you get this free. Then sometimes it is freebie boxes at a local thrift store. And then sometimes friend or family members give me things. 

Today's freebie Friday is courtesy of a friend going through stuff and getting rid of things she does not use any more. And I was the lucky person to get her Viante pasta maker. 

I looked it up and it is a higher dollar pasta machine. And it has many attachments - that go where the white circle is!  

Lucky me already know what I will be sharing about next Friday. But I do need to say that this may not be a every single Friday post - because some weeks I may not have any thing free to share. But when I do I will certainly come here and share with you all. 

I just love when people I know get rid of things and think of me. I also like to pass things along to friends and family when I can. It is a real blessing to be able to share with others. 

An Unbelievable Chicken Adventure

Today I want to share a little story - an unbelievable story really. Stay tuned and you will see what I mean.

When I went to put chickens up one evening, I counted them like I usually do to make sure they were all there. One was missing. I counted at least several more times to make sure. Earlier in the day we had had 2 chickens get out because someone forgot to shut a gate during the weekend. But we had gotten the chickens in and had closed the gate securely.

As I am counting chickens, I hear a whole lot of dogs in a yard behind our house barking like crazy. I mean I hadn't ever heard them bark that viciously before. I felt sick, I was almost sure my chicken had gotten into that yard. As I went to sleep that night I felt sick about my poor little chicken.

Fast forward to 2:15am. I get a phone call from my husband- he starts off by saying "everything is ok". He had stopped at QT about 13 miles from our house on his way to work to get gas. As he had walked back to get gas in the truck he discovered that my little black and white chicken had been roosting on a bar between his work truck and the trailer - ALL the way there. He put her in his trailer and drove her home where I met him out there to get her back to her home.

I was so grateful that she was alright and thankful that God protected her on that long journey!

Do you see how unbelievable that story seems - I am so shocked that the chicken stayed on the bar - especially when they arrived at QT and all the bright lights and my husband getting out of the truck and slamming the door. I am so grateful that she did not fly away. It is such a great story to show God's protection of even our animals. So thankful for a loving God! :O)

Unbelievable

 You will not believe what happened here this week end! It is a rare occasion for sure. In fact, I can not think of the last time it happened here. 

We actually got snow!!! Here in Texas when we get snow - usually it is just an icy mess, but that was not the case this time. We actually got over 3 inches of snow. It snowed all day Sunday! It was so nice just to be able to stay home and enjoy the snow. We got our fireplace going and ran it all day Sunday and Monday as well.  

I was so thankful for our blessing of having firewood stacked up very nicely in the house. I was amazed at how well that firewood lasted. Not only did we run the fireplace those two days but also a few evenings as well before that and we could possible run the fire place a few more evenings on the wood we have in the house. 

I plan on restocking the wood sometime during the next week. It is best to be ready. It was so nice when we got a warning for up coming snow not to have to stress about getting wood in the house. This was actually the 2nd time this year that we had snow forecasted and the first time it did not come to fruition so to be honest when snow showed up in the forecast again I certainly held little hope of it actually coming true. But it actually snowed, all day long! And it stayed on the ground and accumulated. And the next day there was still snow on the ground and even into Tuesday. I am writing this Tuesday afternoon and the sun it out and we still have snow around, even though it is 50 degrees out. 

In Texas it is a rare thing for us to get accumulated snow. I looked it up and this general area had not had that kind of snow since 2015 and before that 2009. And that does not mean that we here at my house got it. Because I really can't remember the last time we got a good amount of snow that stuck and stayed around for a couple of days. Usually it snows and then it is gone. A rare occasion for sure but we enjoyed it and we were thankful to be able to stay home and enjoy it! 

Did you get snow at your house? 

A Youtube Channel and A Staples Pantry

I have really been enjoying Youtube over the past year. Every since I finally figured out what an awesome resource it is I have found some great channels. And every so often I will be sharing a video here and there with you all so that maybe you can discover some great channels as well. 

One of the things I love about The Wellness Homestead is her calm demeanor. And she has a wealth of information to share. 

This is a video about how to Build a Staples Pantry. It is very important to have the things you might need in your pantry and she shares a lot of very good information. She even gives a few little pointers about if you need bread flour or self-rising flour and don't have any - she shares what you can do to make your own! Enjoy! 

If you have any favorite Youtube channels - I would love for you to leave me a comments to let me know. Always looking for great new channels!! :O) 

Blessings ....Thankful

A couple of weeks ago - snow appeared in our forecast. It was time to get serious about getting firewood. We had contacted a family member several times about getting firewood and it looked like we would not be able to get any wood. But thankfully when the snow showed up in our forecast we were able to get wood. And it was the perfect shape to pile nicely and neatly in our living room! 

The dog on the wood pile belonged to my husband when he was a boy and the Hippo - well the hippo is a farting hippo I bought for my husband for a gift a few years ago. The grandchildren have gotten a lot of enjoyment from the hippo as has my husband! lol 

We were able to get some kindling type wood as well and same as the other wood in great pieces to stack nicely. 

By the way - our oldest granddaughter - which I would refer to as Sweetpea  (now we have 2 grandsons and a granddaughter that have been added to our family) turns 11 years old! Boy how time flies! :0) 

Be watching for my next Blessings post as I will share another blessing that I have had recently. 

Hope you all are doing well. :O) 

My Best Deal

This weeks best deal is this cute little juicer. 

Several years ago I was given a juicer. I used it a couple of times but I just do not have room for big appliances I do not use very often so I gave it away. Someone else got a freebie :O) 

When I saw this cute juicer I just could not pass it up. During the summer especially I like to make up Key Limeade. My oldest Granddaughter loves Key Limeade and there is a good chance that the rest of my grandchildren will love it as well. So this handy little juicer will probably get a good work out!  

 I got it for $3.00~ It is in new condition - especially since the tag is still on the base of it!! :O) 

Sabbath Praises

It ain't over yet - a great song that just showed up on Youtube one morning this week. I think that God knew I needed to hear this awesome song. What a great message. It isn't over till God says it is over. And although world event show that we are nearing the end of time - we need to continue to pray! We need to keep holding onto God and trust in Him! I hope you are blessed by this song - a new favorite song of mine! :O) 

Freebie Friday

 Today will be the beginning of a new series I will be having. It may not show up every week for obvious reasons. I may not get something free every week. So this will be a post that will show up when I actually have gotten something for free. I think it will be something fun to share.

There are several ways to get something for free. Sometimes friends give me things they no longer use or want. Sometimes I get free stuff from my favorite thrift store. And sometimes I get things for free - when shopping - especially at HEB. They are good about having sales where you get stuff for free when buying certain items. 

Today's freebie was from my favorite little thrift store. As I was leaving the store last week - a lady who works there showed me this little crockpot - that was filthy - I wish I had have gotten a photo of the inside of the bowl of this crockpot before my husband and I worked on it. It was very dirty. The bottom half along with the bottom of the bowl was black/brown dried on dirty. 

I knew that I had used bleach in the pasted to get some stains out of the pots I have and thought it would be worth it to try to clean this up. So I said "yes!" when she offered it to me. Of course I would be willing to scrub on it to see if I could get it cleaned up. And thankfully it cleaned up very nicely! 

I now have a small crockpot with a removeable pot. I love it. It will be great for things like queso!

Luckily for me - I already have a great freebie to share for next week - just hope I can get some photos and get a post typed up to share. :O) 

I would love to hear if you, my reader have gotten any freebies lately?!  

Shaving Baking Time From Scalloped Potatoes

 So this week we have been talking about a great way to process your potatoes in order to keep from having so much waste and to help potatoes (and other fruits and veggies last longer) We had talked about processing the potatoes to make them ready to make scalloped potatoes. And we learned what to watch out for to prevent black spots on the dehydrated potatoes. Today I want to share something great I learned during this process. 

If you have ever made scalloped potatoes - you probably already know that it can take several hours. I think I go by the recipe in my Betty Crocker Cookbook and it says to cook for 30 minutes covered with foil and then remove the foil and cook for another hour to hour and a half. Plus the time to peel the potatoes and make the white sauce- it ends up taking quite a bit of time to make them. 

Well when I did my first batch of potatoes _ I had wanted to do a batch for a 9x13 batch and then a 8x8 pan of potatoes but it ended up looking as though I would not have enough room in my dehydrator to do both batches at one time. I had already blanched the potatoes by the time I realized this so I decided to go ahead and make up that 8x8 batch of scalloped tators. I figured out that by just blanching your potatoes before baking the scalloped potatoes - you save some time on baking. It just does not take as long to bake. So if you are ever in a hurry to get your scalloped potatoes done - you may want to blanch your potatoes first - it speeds up the baking time!! 

I love learning new things that make my life easier, how about you?  

Dehydrating Potatoes.... An Oopsy and Hopefully a Fix

 I dehydrated a lot of potatoes so that I would not end up wasting a lot of food by them going bad before we could eat them. So I was slicing them and dehydrating them. I learned several things doing this and I wanted to share what I learned so that if you decide to dehydrate potatoes - you will have these great tips. 

So even though I blanched the potatoes, I ended up with about 7-8 slices of potatoes that ended up with a black circle in the middle of the potato slices. So I learned that I have to make sure that I blanch the potatoes long enough. On the next batch I blanched them but as I was laying the potatoes down on a single layer - I watched for white places on the potatoes and if I found them I put them into hot water to sit for a bit till it cooked through that area - I am hoping that this will take care of the potatoes having black spots. Sadly - I still had a few black spots so I will have to try something I read on a dehydrating facebook group. I will be sharing it with you just in case you are interested. 

So the suggestion was - as soon as you slice the potatoes - to put them into cold water that has a Tablespoon of citric acid to soak . They suggested soaking for 1 hour. Then they rinsed the potatoes and then blanched them, drained, put them into cold water again. Drained them and then dehydrated them on 120*. So this will be the way I do it the next time. I am hoping to be able to get a whole batch without the black spots.  

I learned something else but will be sharing about it tomorrow so come back. See you then. 

Scalloped Potatoes~ Quicker?

I ended up with a whole lot of potatoes. I already had a 10# pound bag and then Aldi's ran a sale for $.99 cents and I just couldn't pass it up so I had quite a few potatoes and there would be no way that we could eat through them all before they went bad so I decided to do a project with the potatoes that I had wanted to do for quite some time. 

I wanted to get potatoes peeled and processed so that I could have batches of scalloped potatoes dehydrated and stored for later use. 

So I peeled and sliced enough potatoes and put them into my 9x13 pan- So I could do it a batch at a time to individually store each batch. 

Then it is very important to blanch your potatoes - but sadly I did not get a photo of that step. 

Once you are done blanching for 4-5 minutes - it is best to put the potatoes into ice water to stop the cooking. 

Then I laid the potato slices down single layer on the trays of my dehydrator. 

When they were done - I let them cool off and sit for a while and then poured them into a bowl to make it easier to put into my bag. 

Then I put it into a storage bag. I don't think this will be my way to store it. I think I am going to see if I can use my food saver to store them. I am just a little concerned that the food saver could end up breaking my potatoes when it tries to such the water out. I will have to try one time and see what I decide it the best thing to do. 

I am so glad that I learned about dehydrating foods because it really helps from wasting food that you just can't use before it goes bad. It is a blessing to be able to save money by wasting less. 

I will be sure and follow up with what I decided to do. Plus I have a post about some things I learned during this process. So be on the look out for another post about dehydrating potatoes. 

 

My Best Deal

 So today's best deal is this pretty purple/plum colored topper. It had the tags but out so I have no idea what brand. But it has pockets and it goes nicely with this top I have. Many times I don't buy toppers that may not go with very many of my clothes, but the price of this long sweater made me decide to get it. And then as I was visiting with my MIL she suggested that I could wear it with navy blue and black so now I have several other options of what to wear it with. Plus the other tops have a nicer shape to the hem of the top - and I think it will look even better. This top that I am wearing is actually like a fancy sweatshirt type top.  

Anyway I have been blessed by my favorite little thrift store running a $1.00 sale on most clothes, so I only paid $1.00 for this great topper. And it is a favorite! What a deal!! :O) 

Sabbath Praises

I heard this song for the first time this week and thought it would be the perfect song to start out the year for our Sabbath Praises! I hope you all are doing well. May God bless you in a special way on this His special day! :) 

What Can A Calendar Cleared Do

First of all let me say Happy New Year! As I was getting my new 2021 calendar ready to put up on the way, I began to ponder how 2020 had gone. The first couple of months found me quite busy with all sorts of things going one. I had several lady study groups going, an exercise group, volunteering, a monthly painting class and such. But as the month of March rolled by, slowly each things ended, even going to church disappeared from my calendar (for 11 weeks). As I thought of all the loss from my calendar I could have chosen to be frustrated but instead I choose to consider what happened this year because my calendar cleared. 

This year I realized what a true blessing it is to be able to meet with other believers and to worship God together! I will not take it for granted again to be able to go to church. Not everyone has the freedom to do so. There are people even here in the USA that do not have that freedom even now. And sadly we may not have the freedom very much longer. So it is best to take advantage of the blessing we have to gather with other believers and praise the Lord together! 

I learned that "one is none and 2 is one." What does that mean? Well I have heard several Youtubers talk about this. So basically what it means is this - if you have 1 tube of tooth paste and you use it - you are left with none, but if you have 2 tubes of toothpaste and use one - you still have one. When it became very hard to find toilet paper, I quickly realized that it would be important to do better at having what we have. And to have extras of things that we use on a day to day basis. And never again will I allow us to get to our last roll of toilet paper before going to get more. I make sure I have extras- just in case we or our family need some. 

Because I did not have a full calendar I had the opportunity to learn many awesome things- like canning,, dehydrating, and learning more about gardening and more. Sometimes having a full calendar causes you not to be able to learn as much as you could if you were not so busy all the time. 

So 2020 was frustrating because of all of the restrictions and the mandates, but I gained some great knowledge this year and I also ended up in a church that had placed their faith in Jesus Christ - the only place we really can place our faith. My calendar may have cleared out but I was able to add knowledge and skills that I did not have before. So over all I am pretty happy with the accomplishments of this year! :O)