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Fog

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This weekend we were driving home from visiting my parents in Wisconsin. They live near the Mississippi River which means we had several hours in the fog when we left early yesterday morning. While we were on the winding roads finding our way through the creeping fog I thought of Narnia. (If you have never read the Narnia series, you should. They are excellent) In "The Horse and His Boy" Shasta is a boy that has had a rough go with life. He is walking alone through a misty mountain path, dwelling on all the things that have gone wrong when Aslan (God) shows up. " And being very tired and having nothing inside him , (Shasta) felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks.  What put a stop to all of this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was breathin...
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My new grocery budget challenge

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Hello friends So my new challenge that Charlie gave me is to only spend $600 total for the month on groceries. We are taking Financial Peace University and are trying to crack down on all spending. Like I said in the previous post, we were spending $150 a week plus $200 a month for meat. $800 total. One of the things I am trying is to plan two weeks of meals at a time. We did pretty well in February and ended up spending about $650 for the month. Went a little bit over when I found my favorite chicken marked down. >happy dance< A few things you should know before you read the rest of this post. 1. I love markdowns. We have been shopping at the same stores for multiple years so I know the patterns of when and what they mark down. I found some A-mazing meat deals this week. That is not normal. I know some people do not like buying close date meat. I normally throw it in the freezer to freeze or in the crock pot to cook. I am also known to change our plan based on markdowns. ...
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grocery budget

A few friends recently asked about my menu plans with our budget. We recently bumped our weekly grocery budget from $130/week to $150/week + $200/month for meat. That includes paper and health & beauty products. Charlie and I have recently started a low sugar & grain diet since both of us have some serious family health issues. I also have several allergies/sensitivities that factor into what we buy. For those who are interested in how I do it, here ya go. 1. Double ad day. A grocery store in our city has double ad day where the last week's ad as well as the current ad's deal are in effect. Double the amount of things on sale is a win. 2. Aldi.  I love Aldi. They recently updated the ones near us so the are nicely light and clean. I find their produce a hit and miss type of place, but if you go on the day they restock it isn't too bad. 3. Coupons, rewards programs and markdowns. Bakers and Walgreens both have apps that you can download coupons to your rewards ...
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an introduction

Hello. Welcome to this cozy little corner on the internet. My name is Melissa and I live in the currently very chilly state of Nebraska. I have been married to my husband, Charlie, for 11+ years and we have 4 kids ranging from 3 to 10 years. I homeschool the oldest 3 with the help of a university style school. We have been attending our amazing church for almost 8 years and are very involved with our small group. Jesus has been a part of my life since childhood, but my Dear Friend for about 12 years. Some years ago I had another blog. It was personal and was really for keeping our extended family informed after we got married, moved across the country and started having babies. It was a nice little blog. But not very deep. And that was ok. But as life got more difficult and problems showed deeper, I didn't feel like that was a place to share the struggles. Thankfully God placed some incredible people in our lives while we lived on the East Coast. Even though it has bee...
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