Ever since we moved two years ago, we have been eating off plastic and paper plates. Our last set of dishes were only $10 and we thought we’ll just pick up some new ones. Well, we could never find anything we liked that was cheap as $10/set.

I love bargains and stopped by the local thrift store. They had a sale, so I just had to rummage through all the knick knacks. Then I noticed the stacks of plates. Since we really needed plates, I took a look at the plates and found four that I really liked. I only found one bowl that I liked but plan to keep an eye our for more of these -

I told my husband that it would be nice to have some ‘real’ plates for if/when we have company over. It would be so nice to do some entertaining again. At least now we have real plates should we have people over for dinner.

It seemed every time I would visit my grandmother – who lived about three miles from us so we would visit quite often – she would offer to make me biscuits. She made the best biscuits. My mom makes really good biscuits, too. But I have never attempted to make homemade biscuits until now.

I ran across a buttermilk biscuit recipe that was on a friend’s blog and decided to give it a try. I knew there wasn’t that many ingredients in biscuits but never liked the idea of getting my hands into the dough for kneading. But with rising prices of my beloved canned biscuits, I really need to make biscuits from scratch. Here is my first ever attempt at making homemade biscuits.

They turned out pretty good and tasty. Our oven is temperamental, so it’s hard to cook anything to perfection in it. I really would like a cast iron griddle since that is what my mom uses. All in due time I guess. Right now I’m just thrilled that I will be able to make editable biscuits and won’t have to buy canned ones anymore.

My little girl loves marshmallows and so when we go to the grocery store she usually insists on getting a bag. I comply since it’s $1 and it keeps her happy even if we have plenty of marshmallows at home. But I noticed that we had nearly 3 bags of mini-marshmallows and her marshmallow eating had tapered off. To use some of these marshmallows, I decided to make Rice Krispy Treats(R).

I bought the generic Rice Krispies and then discovered that the recipe wasn’t on the box. My husband found a recipe online for Rice Krispy Treats at Cooking for Engineers. It was the first one he found that sounded correct or close to what we were used to.

So I made the treats and then my husband suggested sprinkling semi-sweet chocolate chips on top. that was pretty good, so when I made another batch, I used both chocolate chips and Reese’s peanut butter chips. Now that was divine – of course I love peanut butter.

Now we are out of marshmallows but still have plenty of cereal. I will be buying some more marshmallows since this is one of the easiest treats to make plus the little girl can help out. She loves to help in the kitchen, so I’d like to encourage her as much as possible.

After making blueberry jam a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting a food processor since it would have been so much easier to prepare the blueberries with one. Much to my surprise, the food processors were cheaper than I thought, so I was able to get one for $29. Last weekend I tested it out by slicing up some vegetables for my husband’s lunch. It took longer to clean the food processor than it did to slice all the vegetables. I decided to try some new potatoes that I had bought since I love thinly sliced potatoes.

I can’t believe I haven’t bought a food processor before now. I guess I just had in my mind that I wouldn’t have any use for a food processor. I will be using it again this weekend to make blueberry butter and slicing up some vegetables for a salad. It does help to cut down prep time for meals. Since it makes food prep a breeze, I may even cook more. I’ve never been much of a cook but lately I’ve really had the desire to cook, so I’m glad that I have discovered a useful kitchen appliance.

This weekend I finally started to tackle the huge mess that is my kitchen. It had gotten so disorganized that even if I had something that I couldn’t find it. So it was high time to sort through it all even though I didn’t really want to.

We have very limited cabinet space and the space that we do have it oddly-shaped. That’s a big drawback of this mobile home. I’m not sure who designed the kitchen but it’s obvious they had never spent that much time in one.

I’m not sure why it seems the rule that spices reside in the small cabinet above the stove but this just doesn’t work well for me. So, I moved all the spices to a another cabinet. Now my pots and pans are in that cabinet. It works better for me to have the spices at a lower level.

Hopefully I can keep the momentum going this week and finish organizing the kitchen. Then it’s on to the rest of the house. If I can get that done, then I will be a very happy housewife.

We have very limited space and since I have a laptop, I thought I would just break down my desktop. We built both our desktops a few years back. The other day I moved the monitor to my husband’s PC. It’s so nice to have two monitors.

His video graphics card can handle two monitors, so technically I might could move my video card to his computer and have three monitors – if we had a third one. We would need a bigger desk.

So I’ve managed to create a small amount of space by breaking down my computer. Now if I can just find more items to consolidate then we might have room for everything for once.

Blueberries are in season and so our blueberry bushes are full of them. Since we’ve moved to the country, I’ve been wanting to do more cooking and country-life activities. So since we had an abundance of blueberries, I decided to make some blueberry jam. This would be my first attempt at making jam and canning. First I picked and washed the blueberries.

After preparing the jars, I cooked the blueberry jam with a ton of sugar, pectin, and lemon juice.

After adding the sugar, I then noticed that my pot was way too small, so I began to dump out some of the mixture with measuring cups as I didn’t want to paint my stove purple. So it was a learning experience. I did get 12 small jars of blueberry jam. I was glad that all the jars did seal.

Next time I will buy bigger jars instead of these tiny cute ones. I seriously thought they held more. My husband opened one up today and used half of the jar on three biscuits. I was glad that I had bought a canning kit that had some neat tools in it like the magnet to retrieve the lids from the boiling water.

Up next I plan to try apple butter. I may also try blueberry butter since we still have plenty of blueberries. I used the website PickYourOwn.org to find instructions for blueberry jam and will try a few more of their recipes in the coming weeks.

Last week I was sick. It’s no fun to be sick in the summer. It just seems wrong. But like most bugs that make their way around, both my husband and daughter now have it. Thankfully I’m feeling better so that I can take care of them.

This week I have a lot of catching up to do. I feel behind on everything like housework, summer activities, and the Internet. I just haven’t been online much and I feel a little disconnected. What did I do before the Internet?

I do have a few blog post ideas that have been running through my brain. So maybe I can get those jotted down between the laundry and disinfecting the house. I’m still not 100% this week but feeling a lot better than last week. Hopefully I can at least get partially back in the groove this week.

When I run the washing machine, I smell something like rotten eggs. After an Internet search, this could be sulfur since we are on well water. Today I’m going to try a few of the suggestions to get rid of the smell just in case it isn’t sulfur.

One suggestion is to use bleach. This makes sense since if the smell is something lingering around, bleach will surely kill it.

Another suggestion is to wash with just washing powder – which might not be an option since I can’t find this locally. I will look one more time today when I go to the grocery store.

Doing a washing cycle with just vinegar is another suggestion. Vinegar is definitely one of those wonder products, so I may have to try this one, too.

Hopefully I will stumble upon some solution. I might look for water softeners, too. If it is sulfur, then maybe some sort of treatment can at least get rid of the smell.

A dear friend of mine is getting married this weekend, so I would love to get her something nice for her wedding. But with a limited budget, my options are not that great but there is a neat website that lets you divvy up the price of an item between several people.

It may be easy to pool your money together when you live in the same city, but it’s not so easy when friends are scattered across the country. Divvy.com makes it easy for people to create a gift registry and then invite others. You can suggest an amount for participants when you send the invite. Participants can opt to send a gift card in case the invitation is not fully funded.

There are many gifting opportunities that can happen from birthdays to baby showers. Edivvy can be a great tool to get those much needed more expensive baby items like strollers and car seats – at the same time giving friends a very affordable way to give something you really need.

Edivvy is filled with unique gift ideas and gift suggestions in categories like new parents, shutterbug enthusiasts, and iPod owners.

This is one website I will keep in mind when it comes to Christmas and birthdays. It seems we buy so many gifts and always have a tight budget. But if our friends and family had an event on Edivvy, gift buying would be much simpler and we would help to get them something they really need.