Branson, Zaycon, Sewing, Family

Hello everyone 

This past blogging break was because we spent a week in Branson celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary.  

We had a very nice time.  We saw 2 very good IMAX movies- one was about US National Parks and the other was the early history of the Ozarks.  

We shopped some, browsing several antique businesses, a brand new Dollar Tree and a giant Menards.  

One the big things to see in Branson is live music shows.  We saw 

SIX

The Hughes Family

Broadway’s Greatest Hits

Dublin’s Irish Tenors and Celtic Ladies

and the biggest show in Branson is 

Samson at the beautiful Sight and Sound theater.  

All of these shows were so good and we recommend them all.  

We also enjoyed an amazing Sunday Brunch at Keeter Center  at College of the Ozarks.  

Below is my husband with a Dogzilla at Fuddruckers.  I had a crispy chicken salad and we both like their high tech soda machines with so many flavors of bubbly drinks.  I think he was drinking limeade and I had diet cherry ginger ale.  Fuddruckers is our favorite Branson restaurant. 

Before our trip,  we got our first ever Zaycon order.  I saw a deal awhile back to get boneless skinless chicken breasts for .99 cents a pound for first time customers. 

Pickup in our town was in a church parking lot.

Customers line up in their cars and then the Zaycon workers get your order from their truck and put it in your trunk- so easy.  


The chicken was fresh and packed in 4 10 pound bags in one box.  



So, we repacked ours into zipper bags and froze them in meal size portions.  

I think we are stocked up on chicken for a good while! 



Did you know leprechaun traps are popular among elementary age kiddos?  If you happen to catch a leprechaun, then he has to give you all his gold.  

These 2 grandsons were out of school on St. Patrick’s Day so they built a trap at our house.  Look on Pinterest for Leprechaun Traps if you’re wondering how popular this is.  

They had lots of fun building it and used stuff I already had, some from our craft room and some from the “trash” 

5 Star Hotel- they took it home that night and didn’t catch a leprechaun but did find a note from a leprechaun who said it was a great box and left them some candy as a consolation.  


Our grandson in Pre K did have school on St Patrick’s Day and they had a party.  The students were asked to provide bite size portions of green foods, preferably naturally green and not dyed.  

I was amazed when I saw this photo of all the different green foods.  

JJ seems to be eating a pickle first but his table mates seem to be eating their cookies first 😂

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, right? 

This weekend, 6 of our grands were here at the same time Sunday.  They are a very sweet and fun group ❤️

They played and hugged 

We did indoor things like coloring books, play dough and we had some fake eggs that are made of paper and they colored with markers on them.  




Sewing- these grands all need pajamas for our house.  

I plan to sew up a bunch of loose fitting, comfy sleeping shorts with fabric from my craft room.  


I’m only making 2 sizes as I think the smaller size should fit 4 of the grands and the larger size should fit the 3 oldest.  I had a size 5 pattern and I just enlarged it for the size 8.  The littlest grand will wear baby pajamas for a while longer.  


I think I ended up cutting out 15 pairs.  I’ve started sewing them, factory style and hope to find time to finish them this week.  



Below is my to do list for this week.  

And now it’s time to get stuff done! 



Hope you all have a good week.  

PS- about subscriptions,  unfortunately I have no control over them.  They are done by google or blogspot I think.  

The link to them is on my sidebar,  right under my most popular posts and above the blogs I follow.  My advice is just add your email there if you want my updates emailed to you.  

But I don’t think the subscriptions work flawlessly though.  I used to get email updates from a few blogs but don’t anymore.  So when I want to keep up with a blog, I add it to my sidebar. 

Aldi Seedtastic bread- a copy of Dave’s Killer Bread

Good morning everyone, 

Evelyn at http://blessedinbowie.blogspot.com/ asked about the Aldi bread we like that is a match to Dave’s Killer Bread but is only about half the price.  

The Seedtastic bread is $3.99 at my Aldi and the Dave’s bread was $6.99 at my Sprouts.  

These are not low cost breads by any means.  And if seeds are a digestive problem for you,  this bread is not for you either.  

Only my husband and I are eating this and we really like it.  It has 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber per slice. 

Eating 2 pieces for breakfast keeps us full until lunch.  

This is a dense type bread- it may be fine for sandwiches but we’ve only had it toasted so far.  

We toast it on the griddle that came on our gas stove we bought 4 years ago.  I never used this griddle until our toaster oven broke.  Now I use it several times a week and it makes the best toast and toasted sandwiches.  

I have more counter room with the toaster oven gone too. 

So it was a win-win situation but I feel a bit silly for not trying the griddle sooner.  

We are retired and on days like today when we don’t have grandchildren here,  we eat when we feel like it.  

Today it was almost 1000 when we had breakfast.  

Homemaking this past week or so

Hello everyone,  first I want to thank everyone who read and signed up for Fetch Rewards.  I almost have enough points to cash for a $50 gift certificate.  I’ve done a number of points programs since the internet started and Fetch truly is the easiest.  

I posted earlier that I put up a St. Patrick’s Day tree but I didn’t post a photo. 

I had an emailed coupon code from Olive Garden so we tried their catering.  We ordered 1/2 gallon each of 2 kinds of soup and salad for 6 and 12 breadsticks.  It was packed so nice and everything was delicious.  We enjoyed soup and salad every day for a week for about $40. 



Sewing- I used scraps and remnants to cut out some baby bibs and burp cloths.  

They are for our son’s college friend who is having her first baby soon.  

Aren’t there so many cute baby fabric prints in stores?


I made a St. Patrick’s bracelet for my mom.  Green has always been her favorite color too.  

My to do list for this week- shortly after I made it Monday morning.  

My manicure is Impress press on nails- they work best for me and I get compliments on them often,  


The heritage of our new puppy is mystery and he is growing much bigger than we or the veterinarian expected him to.  He outgrew his small food and water bowls.  Instead of buying bigger ones,  he is using some Pyrex bowls that are not part of any of my sets.  
Use what you have! 





We all like pudding and gelatin cups.  I use 5 ounce portion cups from Amazon because they are so convenient. 

But when my budget was tighter,  I made in reusable juice glasses or plastic containers.  

We like the Aldi and Royal brand gelatin and puddings justvas much as the more expensive Jello brand.  




I recently made a quadruple batch of freezer biscuits from the King Arthur site. 

They are so delicious and we like being able to bake a few at a time and have fresh biscuits at breakfast. 

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/biscuits-recipe



I had a first time user coupon and tried Sprouts home delivery.  With the coupons, this $45 total dropped to $20.  I was very happy with how nice the delivered produce was.  

I won’t do home delivery regularly but it’s nice to know it’s now available if we need it. 

In the bag is 2 pounds of English walnuts and there were also 2 pounds of butter. 

We really like the Killer Dave’s bread with lots of grains and seeds.  I just discovered Aldi has an almost identical version for 1/2 the price of Sprouts. It is especially nice toasted. 

Below is my general plan for meals this month.  

They are not in any order.  

As the days go on, I just pick which ones we feel like having and it’s nice knowing we have the ingredients on hand.  

☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️March Meal Planning ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️

✅Pepperocini beef from freezer 

fresh spinach - salad - French bread

Taco meat from freezer- crunchy shells, also have soft tortillas for round 2

Refried  beans from freezer - taco toppings 

Roma sauce from freezer with pasta

French bread  green salad 

Hamburger soup- make with fresh potatoes,  carrots, canned tomatoes 

Chicken strips from freezer with homemade mashed potatoes 

Green salad

Cube steaks with oven fries, gravy

Green beans 

Tater tot casserole with green beans 

Bacon lettuce tomato sandwiches 

Chicken shepherds pie with cooked chicken from freezer and mixed vegetables, 

Homemade mashed potatoes 

Salmon patties with wild rice

Fresh spinach 

Chicken fajitas with bell peppers from freezer, onions

Flour tortillas and toppings 

Baked or smoked whole chicken 

Mashed cauliflower 

Green salad 

✅Hamburgers 

Toppings and baked fries 

Spinach 

Red beans and rice - buy beans and green bell pepper 

Chili from the freezer on rice - cook extra 

Fried rice 

Turkey dogs - use buns or wrap dough and make pigs in blankets 

Baked beans 

Easy Baked chili rellenos with baked chicken 

Green salad 

Use frozen pizzas and chicken strips if needed at busy time 

☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️

Baking- mini choc chip muffins- use up sour cream 

Snacks/sides

Celery and carrot sticks - make homemade dip

Celery sticks w/ jalapeño or plain cream cheese

Pimento cheese 

 ✅Pudding cups

✅Jello cups 

Our 8 grands are all busy and doing great.  

Gavin has been to 2 big livestock shows this year.  

Little brother Braeden isn’t old enough to show animals but he like to help with the grooming 


Isn’t this a great school photo? Elizabeth is almost 8 and sold 800 boxes of Girl Scout cookies this winter.  


Andie just turned 6 and she is also in Girl Scouts and really likes kindergarten.  

My daughter did these costumes for JJ and his best friend to wear on Dr Suess Day at their school. 

I hope you all are fine and having a good March.  

FetchRewards - quick and easy shopping reward program

http://www.fetchrewards.com/

Fetch Rewards is a new program, like Ibotta, but much simpler.  

All you do is scan in your receipt from whatever store you shop at, within 2 weeks,  and points are added to your account.  You earn 200 points for every receipt.  If you buy any of the 250 or so featured products.  You’ll get even more points.  

You can cash in with as few as 3000 points for things like Amazon cards, restaurant cards, etc.  

I got the app on Sunday and then I rounded up my last 2 weeks of receipts.  

Below you can see where I scanned in my receipts from the last 2 weeks when I got the Fetch app.  

 If you sign up under me,  you will get 2000 points and I’ll get 2000 points. 

You don’t have to join under me though.  

My referral code is 

E6TNG

I have my FetchRewards app on my iPad but it work on any smart phone or tablet as long it has a camera.  

Thanks for reading and happy shopping to you.  

Stretching our dollars

With just a little prep work and planning,  our dollars seem to last a longer. 

One thing we do is spend cash for most things bought locally.  

This is the monthly cash I’ll use for groceries, my spending money,  miscellaneous expenses and if we go out to eat.  

The $200 is to buy our monthly card at Walmart.  We use that card for gasoline.  This method works best for us as in our town,  Walmart has the cheapest gas and the stations are very convenient to our home.  Having the card means we can pay quickly at the pump without the hassle of going to the window 2 times as in a cash purchase.  

My husband also has spending money but he doesn’t keep his in a cute envelope with a bird on it.  😂

And no,  I don’t carry all this cash with me everywhere I go.  I take what I think I will need and the rest is at home, usually in a safe.  

I planned to shop for a few groceries, but before I made my shopping list,  I looked in the fridge and made a list of the fresh produce we still had and that I need to plan the next several meals around.  

This list is on the front of our fridge to keep me reminded what to use. 

Then I made a shopping list.  

I divided it out with which products I planned to buy at each store.  I went to Dollar Tree, Aldi and Walmart.  All 3 stores are close together and none are far from our home so this multiple store shopping is not as time consuming as it may sound.  

Below are 3 grocery items I like to buy at Dollar Tree.  

I’ve blogged about this shelf stable milk from Utah before. 

The 4 pack of Dannon yogurts are a favorite of my grands and much cheaper at DT than other grocery stores.  

The coffee is a 6 ounce bag.  My husband really likes it as he like plain, black, basic coffee.  I don’t drink coffee so I can’t  give you my feelings on it.  Our son in law  has drank a lot of fancy coffee from coffee shops and he says this DT coffee is good.  

And in case you don’t know,  everything at Dollar Tree costs $1 or less.  

One big way we don’t spend much is we rarely eat out.  We just aren’t crazy about most restaurant food or the restaurant experience.  

Even on our trip to California,  we only ate at 3 California restaurants during the 5 days we were there.  And we ate a couple of airports meals as we had some layovers.  

I’ve been doing this careful budgeting for a long time and for us,  it has paid off.  

If you have a good method,  I hope you’ll share it.  

The last month or so............

edited - so many typos!

Hello everyone 

I didn’t mean to take a month off from blogging.  We are all fine and I’ll show you some of the things we’ve been up 

Our new puppy Ducky is growing and we enjoy him so much.  He had a few health problems when we got him but those have cleared up.  

We think he is cute as can be ❤️

I have slowed down on couponing, partly because of winter weather and mostly because we are just stocked up from previous couponing deals.  And that is a good situation to have.  

I only went to CVS once, and that was because some of my Extracarebucks were going to expire.  

Below - I got 4 boxes of Lipton black tea- my favorite 

Physicians formula foundation

2 bags of popcorn for grands to snack on

2 bags of cashews 

After coupons and Extracarebucks, I spent $3.84 cash and saved 91% 😍

I left with a $7 extracarebuck for future deals. 

I went to 1 thrift store this month.  

I bought this brand new Brighton bag for $3. It almost matches our breakfast nook curtains.  

The black and white checks are  3 yards of 60 inch wide woven fabric,  I don’t think it’s wool but if feels almost like wool.  $5

The green netting was .25 and I 'll use it to make bathroom scrubbers for cleaning. 

One freebie I did and I’m pretty it is still available is for a free glass spray bottle,  handy if you make any homemade cleaners.  

I’m pretty sure it is USA only.   Just use the link to sign up,  no payment information is asked for 

17NINETY.COM/SPRAY

I never switched our little white tree from winter decorations to Valentines 

But I did just change it to St. Patrick’s Day.  

I had a few decorations and I printed off a few more free printables found on Pinterest.  

It was fun to work with glitter and glue 

Our granddaughter’s school was closed for a couple of days because of a gas leak.  She went to work with her dad one day and one day she stayed with us.  

She helped grandpa start some seeds for his spring garden.

The biggest thing during the past month was my husband and I flew to California.  

We went to see a friend graduate from Marine Corps boot camp.  It was huge ceremony and so special to see all the traditions at MCRD in San Diego.  My husband graduated there in 1975 and went to Recruiters school there in 1986.  

We stayed in a beach cottage aboard Camp Pendleton and we spent much of time seeing places where we lived, worked and shopped way back when we were stationed there.  

This is a base home we lived in for 3 years.  

And another home we were in for 1 year.
  

There are not many Quonset huts left aboard Camp Pendleton 

This was cove, protected by jetties on both sides  just outside our beach cottage 

Inside our cottage......

And our view every evening

It’s been a mostly good month ❤️