To God be the Glory

Don't ya just love the words to that hymn? "To God be the Glory, great things He has done. So loved He the world that He gave us His Son."

He does great things for us everyday that we don't even give Him credit for. Well today I am giving Him all the Praise and Glory...I got a phone call this morning that every wife fears...."hello, my name is so and so, I am calling to tell you that your husband has been in an accident." That was how my morning started out. I did get to speak to DH for a brief minute before he was taken to the medic but I didn't know much more than the fact that a tire piece had flown off of a tractor trailer and went through his windshield and busted the back window as well. When they brought him into the ER he was strapped to a backboard and his face was all cut up and bloody. But he is doing fine other than lots of cuts on his face which will heal and I am sure some soreness will present itself in the next hours. Several people who saw the truck afterwards said that he was lucky. If it had went through the windshield even a foot to the left it could have killed him or at least done a lot more damage. We praise God for DH's safety in this.

Couponing part 2

Ok, so if you read my last post, you know that I am getting into this couponing thing. Hopefully, I will keep wisdom about me and not purchase unnecessary stuff just because. Anyway, I won't tell you about every shopping trip I go on but I did want to share one more. You can decide if you think I did well or not. Feel free to let me know you thoughts and tips. This week I went to four stores, in order of a goal of getting to the farm store on the other end of town so it wasn't a gas waste.

Albertson's
5- boxes cereal
10 more BBQ sauces(I think I am stocked up for a good while)
1-box of Green tea
2-packages of feminine products
3- things of deodorant.

I spent $24.28. I thought that was pretty good. If I had went to my regular store I think I would have spent about $36 for it all. Of course shopping at Albertson's without a sale or coupon would be totally out of our budget as all of this would have been $81.00 there.

Next I popped into Walgreens and picked up 3 rolls of scotch tape(a coveted item in our house) and 5 packages of papermate mechanical pencils. I spent $1.12.

Then I ran into Rite aid while the girls went to the fabric store. I bought 2-boxes of huggies baby wipes and 3- cans of Edge shaving cream. I did spend $8.97 there but will get $3 back in rebates from Rite aid. That made the shaving cream $.99 each.

Lastly, I ran in to Safeway to pick up chips, which is something we buy every week anyway. I bought 5 bags of chips for $5.56.

Well that was my couponing trip. Today I do my BIG shopping at our local cheaper store. My goal is to stay definitely under my budget while stocking my pantry. I will let you know if I manage to do that. Maybe it just takes time:)

Couponing

In years past I used to use coupons but then I started shopping at a local store where most of the store brand products were at least as cheap as those I had coupons for if not cheaper so I let that fall away. Well recently a friend from church has gotten several of us moms started up into coupons again. I signed up for a 4 week trial period for "The Grocery Game" which is a web site that tracks all sales and coupons and matches them up, telling you what to buy to save the most. It is interesting but you do have to pay a fee for it and I actually have been having fun just going through my sales flyers and matching it up with coupons that I have gotten from the Sunday paper. For a family of 10(as we are) it is suggested that you purchase two Sunday papers to help you have a good stock of coupons. Now some may say that you spend as much on two papers as you would save but I felt that it was worth it on my trip to our local Albertsons. Below is what I purchased and how much I saved...

1 bottle of Purex HE landry soap
1 box of Crystal Light to Go(for a friend)
2 packages of marshmallows(gotta keep those handy for smores)
4 bottles of bbq sauce(which were $.49 and had a coupon on pkg for $.35 off making them $.14 each
1 box of Ritz Crackerfuls(normally I wouldn't buy these but by the time I was done I got them for $.99 and it was a good snack for hubby's lunchbox)
1 package of these new weird dishwasher tablets.
Oh, and one bottle of water for B#7 and I to share.

I spent $8.14 and saved $27.30. I used a couple of double coupons, one of the crackerfuls and one of the dishwasher stuff. Anyway, I was pleased with my purchases and my savings. I went through the list for this week and will let you know how it works out.

First Harvest

Finally after the second try and lots of cold weather up here, we have our first harvest of the year...zucchini of course and a head of lettuce. Isn't that what grows best in most gardens? My problem with zucchini is that the only thing our family really likes it in is zucchini bread and zucchini cake. Anyone got some really great ideas for preserving it and what to make with it? I have shredded it and frozen it in the past which works ok but you sure gotta squeeze all of the liquid out before you can bake with it.

Someone to greet me every morning

I have a new friend. Her name is Pippa. She is pretty young, only about 5 months old and there is something strange about her looks....

Well okay, maybe not so strange if you are a chicken...Anyway, for the past couple of mornings, Pippa has been showing up bright and early on the porch off of our dining room. It is hilarious to watch her peck at the window and turn her head side to side trying to look inside the dining room. When she isn't satisfied with that view of life in side the big house she proceeds around to the kitchen window and hops up onto the window sill to see what is going on in the kitchen.

You gotta wonder what is going on in their little heads sometimes.

Never a Dull Moment

,One thing I can say about living out here in the country...there is never a dull moment. We are borrowing three sheep from one of the girl's friends to keep our fenced pasture mowed down. Well, one day a couple of weeks ago we spent a fun Saturday in town doing some fabric shopping. When we got home I got busy changing baby's diaper and in comes B#2 running and crying. Oh no! What now? The running in crying has been a common theme around here and usually means something is dead. This time, however, it meant that the three borrowed sheep were GONE! Someone left the gate open accidentally while trying to chase some stubborn roosters who were going away that day. So with baby not quite diapered I called B#3 to come and finish up, told the other little ones to stay put with her and ordered everyone else to go sheep hunting. We must have sounded quite odd to anyone within hearing distance as we all wandered around calling, "here sheep sheep". All praise goes to the Lord that we found all three of them across the road in the "98 acres", as we call it. Then came the fun part of trying to lure them back by shaking grain in a bucket since they were scared of us. B#2 finally wrestled the lead sheep and pulled while a couple of us pushed all the way back down the hill to our property. The other two sheep gladly followed. Boy were we tired and our family friend, Katie, was able to go back to the fire station and say that she got to herd sheep today.

Then last Saturday, while helping a friend at a garage sale, B#3 called to tell me that a car had crashed through our front yard fence. I decided I should head home to see what that was all about. Sure enough part of our front fence is busted up and the guy didn't even stop to tell us he did it. According to the neighbor, he just checked to make sure his car wasn't too damaged and then took off. I thought maybe he might come back later and fess-up but here we are a week later and no sign of him. Add it to the list of things to fix around here. Now we have one more opening to worry about B#7 getting out of.

Hopefully all will be quite on the Western front on this sunny Saturday. Happy 4th of July to you all. And don't forget to pray for our nation, it sure needs it:)