Thanksgiving 2022

I know we just had Christmas but I had still been wanting to document Thanksgiving so here we go....

   Thanksgiving morning found Megan and I hard at work in the kitchen working on Butterhorn rolls and pies. I am thankful for children (my girls especially) that are very capable in the kitchen. Megan especially enjoys baking.

   This year for Thanksgiving there were a lot of family here in town and so some thought it would be to crowded at our house (where we usually have it) and so we should have it at the church building instead. Our family struggled a bit with not having it at home and changing that tradition but in the end where we get together with our loved ones, and the purpose of this Holiday to give thanks to our Creator does not require being in a certain place. We had a lovely day!

   Decorating is important to me in making a holiday special. So I packed in a bunch of stuff to work at making the church building seem a little more homelike and special. I was blessed to have people willing to help me in the decorating. Working at a Florist shop is always a nice thing as I frequently get to take home (for free) flowers that aren't sellable but still look lovely for our table.

We had a very large L shaped table for the older people and then a shorter kids table as well. The kids were eager to help with the decorating and so their table got heavily decorated. I had so much fun with them and helping them with flowers and finding vases. The arranging of the flowers and everything else was totally their doing.

For me it is the people that make any holiday special....

Heidi and Tati

Mom and Dad and their youngest grandchild (that is born - there is another grandchild and another great grandchild on the way)

Dennis and Karen (my Brother-in-laws parents)- They moved to our town this summer and we are loving having them at church.

Brandt and Jennifer.

Heidi, Molly and Dakota

Plenty of pie for all!!!

Malcolm, Mara and Thomas

We had like 2 turkeys and 2 hams. Way more food than we could ever eat.

What a fun bunch of kids!

It was lovely to have my brother Peter and his family in town with us this year for Thanksgiving.

These two had fun playing with the rockers in the nursery and taking care of "their babies".

Thanksgiving is a holiday that reminds us to be Thankful but we truly have so very much to thank God for all year round.
 

December Goals/Challenges

We have a grocery store in town (which is actually in the same building as the Flower Shop that I work part time at) that gives out "Gas stamps". You get 1 stamp for every $5 you spend and then you put 20 stamps on a card and that is worth $1 to buy either gas or groceries. I collect stamps and will use them occasionally but I don't shop there real often normally - especially since ALDI came to town. But one day not long ago my boss brought 3 zip lock bags into work and wondered if I wanted them. I guess their family had been collecting them for years but hadn't used them. I said "Sure"!

   When I got home the kids and I guessed on how much they are worth. I guessed $45, Megan $50 something and Aaron $180. I haven't gotten them all glued together yet but using up two bags plus a little more I am up to $190. What a blessing! So that brings about December's financial challenge: Use only gas stamps to buy all of my food and gas for the month. I also don't plan on doing any other shopping except for I have a $12 rebate check for Menards, $30+ in credit at a local second hand store (where I get pretty much all of my clothes since I can sell other things there and then just use money that I have made to buy what I want) and a $20 gift certificate to another 2nd hand store. Other than that I don't plan to do any shopping. The grocery store  where I will use the gas stamps does limit your spending to ten filled cards (worth $10) at a time. So it is a good thing that I work right next door. I can do a little shopping and getting of gas every day that I work if need be.

  My goal is not to spend hardly anything else either (other than giving or extra on my mortgage - the reason I want to save is for those purposes) but I do leave it open to pay money for activities if that seems the best way to spend time with those I love. That could include skiing, rock climbing, going out to eat, etc. I don't currently plan to do any traveling this month but if an opportunity should come up I would be willing to do that and pay the money for trip expenses if it seems like a wise thing to do.

    You may wonder how that works with Christmas coming. We have a very simple Christmas and this year we are trying to make all handmade gifts (and I will use the many, many things I already have on hand to make things with. Most of those things (fabric, yarn, etc) have been given to me as people know that I like to make things. I will be sure to tell you about the gifts I made but probably not until next month. So making homemade gifts is one of my other challenges for the month. I have ideas for everybody but I still would love to hear about any cool handmade gifts that you have given or received - especially for men. I can always use some new ideas.

 Another challenge is to clean out 2 spaces each week. This will help to get our house into a cleaner and tidier state and helps in the decluttering process as well. 

  Another goal that I hesitate to state because I am afraid I can't get it done - is to finish the challenge that I started at the beginning of this year to record a song on 12 different instruments in 2022. I rather dropped the ball on this one but I would still really like to do it. So I am going to try.

   I had a lovely week that I really would like to share more about but it truly is time to head to bed. I will leave you with a couple of pictures from this evening. We watched Malcolm while his parents went bowling and had a delightful time.

  

Megan is working to change the mantle from fall to Christmas and decided that Malcolm made a nice decoration.

Malcolm (on the Ukulele) and Aaron made some music this evening.

  Jonathan also joined us for supper this evening. My heart is full - I got to spend time with all of my kids today.

 

November Goals Report

I made my goal of getting rid of an item (or many times a lot more) for the number of each day. That was a total of over 475 items. That is pretty impressive when I calculate it! I did take pictures of pretty much every day but I didn't get around to blogging and I decided that you probably didn't need to see pictures of all my rejects. I did choose to share a few pictures to highlight some of the areas that I went through. I did do a lot of cleaning out in paper areas so that doesn't tend to make as big of visual difference. There is definitely still areas in  my home that could use some decluttering. I am super thankful to have gotten to the areas that I did however - some of them especially were good to work through mentally.

Cupboards were one area that I did clean through. I found French dressing that was outdated. It isn't a surprise - only Ken liked that dressing and he hasn't lived here for nearly 2 years. I hate to waste food and wish I would have thought to give it away a long time ago but at least it is out of my cupboard now.

I had a chance to make some Thanksgiving Cards and envelopes from things that I already had on hand. I was able to go through my card making scraps some with that project and then give away the results (which took them out of my house) and burn leftover scraps.

The pictures above and below were really good for me to go through. It was letters that Ken and I had written when we were engaged, lots of cards that Ken had given me and cards we had been given for our wedding (and I think I am sounding a bit like a hoarder now - I did have a cute little chest that they had a place in) as well as other various paper things from our wedding and bridal showers. I dealt with some sorrow when going through it but mostly it just felt good to get rid of it.

I had a burning time last night to get rid of a bunch of this stuff.

I am pretty excited to have gotten my new will all witnessed and notarized yesterday and so I burned up the old one. 

So, all in all the decluttering goal went well and was quite helpful!

Goal number 2 was to have a really low spend month. I would only buy groceries 2 times - at the Amish Bulk Food store and then one other time when I got needed things for the Thanksgiving. I did also mention that I might need to buy catfood. We did need it and I was planning on buying it but when I went to Aldi to get Thanksgiving stuff they were out of the cheap catfood so I didn't get it then and I found some bones and old meet in the freezer so I have been making cat food instead using up old food. 

At the Amish store I did spend $252.47 but I got a lot of baking supplies that will last throughout the year as well as over 12 pounds of cheese (which will last quite a while - I freeze it). 

I did also have that one trip to Aldi where I spent $34.47 to buy a turkey and a couple other things. I may have cheated a bit in that I did buy a gallon of milk and some whipping cream that we didn't actually use for Thanksgiving itself.

That is a long way from the lowest amount I have spent on food in a month but with so much of it being stored away for the future, I am quite happy with it. 

This month has been one of my favorite cooking months in a long time. I have just loved the challenge of making do with what we have and enjoying some pretty delicious meals in the process. Whenever there seemed to be something lacking I would think through what we did have and what else might work and then I would just get overwhelmed with the abundance that God has given us. We are incredibly blessed and are a long way from going hungry - even if we didn't go shopping for a while. :-)

These pictures are from a couple of yummy breakfasts that we enjoyed. By the way we were blessed to be given 5 dozen eggs from a couple of friends and my parents. That was a lovely addition to our diet. We would have been baking with flaxseeds for eggs if it weren't for those gifts.

This is a Brazilian Cheesebread that our exchange student from 2020, Debora, introduced us too. It has a different texture but I think it is super yummy. Here is a recipe that seems to be the same as what I use.

   I have had to make do with deodorant and toothpaste (I had some but discovered it was giving me canker sores. I was going to make some but haven't gotten around to it yet so I have just been using baking soda - it works). 

  I did also buy gas this month. I spent $69.73 along with a $25 gift card. 

  I did also spend some money on Entertainment. I spent $36 for Aaron, Megan and I to go to a musical at the community theater. I was reminded later that I could have checked on ushering to see if I could have watched for free (as they called me to see if I wanted to do that later on) but I don't regret spending it. We enjoyed it. I also spent $5.39 for more texts on my Tracphone. I guess that is kind of entertainment too :-). The other expense I had this month (besides the normal electric, internet/phone, etc) was $40 for going out to eat TWO times! I rarely go out to eat but for some reason or another the kids really wanted to a couple of different times (once on a Sunday after a busy Saturday and the other time to satisfy the cravings of my pregnant daughter, Mara. The adult children paid for themselves but I did pay for Megan and I. I am putting that in the entertainment section too but I know that is rather cheating. :-)

  Over all it was a good month of setting and achieving goals. What I am really excited about is the progress I have been able to make on paying off my mortgage early when I work to save money in our day-to-day expenses. Today I was able to go in and pay the principal of the Mortgage payment on two extra months. Paying just those two months of principal only today saved me $800 in interest. That is pretty exciting to me. I am now 14 months ahead of schedule in paying it off. Having both that and saving up for going with my kids on a mission trip is a good motivator for me in being careful in my spending. It pushes me to figure out and take the time to pack a lunch each morning when I head of to work instead of running and picking something up in town. It pushes me to try to use what I have instead of buying new - and I have a lot of fun in the process. 
 

I am hoping to share with you soon more about what I am doing to save money and make extra money. Is that something that you are interested in?

I hope to share my fun goals for December in this post also but it is time to head to bed so I guess that waits for another day.