• Life&Land - Purse

    The Secret to a Simple, Affordable Life

    It is all too easy to get caught up in the fast-paced atmosphere of juggling work, family needs, family fun, community commitments, building up friendships, and still having time to yourself. All too often we find ourselves just going, going, going.  The morning rush of getting ourselves off to work. The kids, if you have them, off to school or daycare. The brisk pace of your workday. Then the hectic juggle of activities in the afternoons and evenings. Not to mention finding time in-between it all to prepare and/or eat food. Our exhausting, often competitive, routines become a whirlpool of…

  • Pantry

    Cinder Block Pantry

    This concrete cinder block pantry shelf comes together quickly, stands alone, and offers all the sturdiness you could need to shelve those home canned mason jars, store bought tin cans, pancake batter mixes, and any other pantry food extras you have in your home. And all for the price of a few concrete cinder blocks purchased at your local hardware or lumber store. Cost to Build Building a pantry shelf out of cinder blocks is perhaps one of the most inexpensive ways you will find to build shelving unit.  The most importable piece of this building fun is, or course,…

  • Pantry - Purse

    Budget Bread Buying

    Buying bread from the store can get expensive. Whether you are supplementing your homemade bread supply or you solely buy your bread from a store –  with bread costing between $3-6 dollars per loaf, it can get expensive real fast. Ours is a home of bread lovers, so buying bread in all its forms can really weigh down our monthly grocery budget. With our high consumption of bread, saving any amount of money per loaf can be significant. And I’ve found the best place to save change on buying a loaf of bread is to buy it from the source:…

  • Pantry - Recipes

    ‘Cream of’ Soups: Recipe Staples for Every Kitchen

    Whether you are planning a delicious creamy soup for dinner or are in the middle of prepping a favorite casserole and discover you’re out of canned cream of chicken soup (or mushroom soup, we aren’t prejudiced!) – these simple from scratch cream of soup recipes are a good thing to have in reach. Delicious, creamy, and homemade – and did I mention simple? Really, you can’t beat these recipes. Cream of Chicken,  Cream of Mushroom,  Cream of Celery, and  Cream of Onion.  Recipe PDF Print PDF to have these recipes within easy reach for whenever you need them.  Directions: Melt…

  • Recipes

    Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup

    Whether you have gravy, casserole, soup, or some other delicious meal planned for your and your family’s dinner tonight, it’s probable that you will find yourself reaching for a can of cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, or cream of celery soup to make the dish pop with flavor and creaminess.  Cream of soups are a staple in many recipes — especially those that boast fast cook times.  But a fast and easy recipe doesn’t mean it has to come from a can.  Homemade cream of soups can be fast and easy, while being healthier and even more delicious than…

  • Uncategorized

    Chicken Mac and Peas

     This one-pot recipe is a fun and fast comfort food that is ready in under 30 minutes. One of my college original recipes, this recipe not only comes together fast and easy, but is very budget friendly using just three ingredients: macaroni pasta, cream of chicken soup, and peas. That’s it! Three easy ingredients plus 25 minutes, and that hangry attitude will be gone! Simply boil your pasta, drain it; add the cream of chicken soup; add the peas; and finish up with a dash of salt & pepper to your liking. Note on Cream of Chicken Soup: We do…

  • Garden - Pantry

    Peas ‘A Plenty: What to do with all those Garden Peas?

    Here we are at the start of the calendar summer, and we are waist deep in peas at my place (literally, waist deep). My little helpers and I were out in the garden yesterday and picked this lovely large bowl full of sugar snap peas.   We are a few weeks into this full explosion of peas, and are loving the thick harvest we are blessed with. I find peas in the garden are simply great for the kids. Not only are they an excellence, healthy snack for the kids to graze on while outside playing in the backyard, but…

  • Pantry

    Bargain Bananas

    I love bananas. In fact, I think most people, save for sister and my husband, love eating bananas. (Okay…maybe  there are more anti-banana eaters out there than I care to admit…) When I was walking through the grocery store this morning and saw a cart full of these red-taped bananas, I got excited. For those of you who don’t know what a red-taped item of fruit is, it is a simple marking many small-scale, local grocery stores use for items on the verge of spoiling. The red tape marks not only that the fruit is riper than ripe and probably…

  • Life&Land

    Follow-Through: A Commitment to Do Better

    One of the many sayings my mother-in-law uses is “onward and upward.” I think these two words and the images they create in our minds can differ slightly depending on the context we place the phrase during any moment of our day. But ultimately, both words invoke the idea of progress. Progress forward, progress upward. I have come to love this portion of a catch-phrase. Onward and upward. One of the unfortunate realities of life is that we all falter. We all stumble, and occasionally fall, on this personal journey we each are trekking. And although it is often tempting…

  • Life&Land

    For the Love of Writing

    I have always loved writing. Writing, for me, has been a form of not just communication to other people, but a way of communicating with myself. It is brainstorming, finding clarity in my own thoughts and my own beliefs. Writing is therapeutic. It gets things out of my head so I can then move on, like removing the pressure of a thought. Writing has always been a huge part of my life (at least it has been a huge portion of my life when calculating the numbers of my life I’ve spent doing in :). As a student in high…