Goodbye

I am ending this blog and moving to another website. If you wish to follow me, email me and I'll let you know the URL.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Matt and I went to my mom's for lunch, and then we went over to Mom & Dad Cuff's for dinner.  Trinity was home from grad school, and she brought her new boyfriend, Cody.  He was nice.

On Friday, I went to the Black Friday sale at Jo-Ann's, and since flannel was less than $2/yard, EVERYONEGETSPAJAMASFORCHRISTMAS!  It was pretty exciting!  I got roughly two-thirds of the Christmas gifts, so that was a raging success.

I don't think we are going to decorate with a tree this year.  We are decorating our windows, and I got some cinnamon pinecones, but other than that, eh.  I need all the space in the living room for ALL THE SEWING I am doing for the next four weeks.  Matt is washing all the fabric today.  What a nice husband!

On Saturday, Gina and I went to Ferndales to look at wedding dresses, and she found her dress.  Exciting!!  She looks fabulous in it, and she will be a gorgeous bride!

This week, not much is happening.  I'm hoping to really buckle down and get all these Christmas presents made!

Weekend Happenings

 Jocelyn and Me

Jocelyn

 

This weekend was quite relaxing!  On Friday night, we drove out to Riverside for a belated Halloween party.  We picked up Jocelyn and Jacob on the way.  Jocelyn was a medieval adventuress.  I reprised my Snow White costume.  It was very fun - we met a few new people and had some delightful conversations.

knitting my gauge test swatch

Matt had gaming on Saturday, so I spent the day learning how to knit in the round and listening to NPR.  Knitting on circular needles is more difficult than straight, because I hold my right needle under my arm, and I can't do that on circular needles. 

I'm finally using up all the fabric I have purchased and never used!  I sewed two skirts last week, and I have two skirts cut out and ready to assemble for this week.  I'll post pics in a day or two.

On Sunday, Matt and I spent most of the day lounging and watching HBO's John Adams (we've never seen it).  In the evening, we had our final new member class, plus evening church.  We are joining th echurch next Sunday, and I am really excited!  I have some fabric I've been holding onto for awhile, so I'll make a new dress for the occasion.

Halloween 2012

Matt and I went with Gina and Chris to Club Bang for 80's dancing. They had a $5 cover, so it was really cheap, which was awesome!

I was Snow White, and Matt was the huntsman (Disney version). I had a lot of the fabric already, so we didn't spend much on the costumes.

It was a really fun night! It was awesome to get out and have fun - haven't done it in awhile. :). It made me feel less "old and married" than I have been feeling lately.

Weekend Events

Eating Pie

On Saturday, Gina and I scrapbooked at my apartment.  I got afew random pics from 2008 – 2010 done, as well as apple picking 2011, Knotts2012, my bachelorette last November, the Renn faire from 2011, and applepicking from 2012.  I want to do our wedding photos, but first I need toprint them out, organize them, and actually find binders for it! 

We decided to go to an 80’s club in Downey, and we got pieat a Stox across the street from it.  But we did not stay at the clublong.  It was boring.  Matt was gaming all day on Saturday, and hegot home around 2 AM.

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning.  We havebeen attending Our Savior Lutheran in Arcadia.  We went to the churchinformation meeting on Sunday evening – you have to go through it to become anew member.  We learned how the Missouri Synod differs from the ELCA (theELCA believes that the Bible contains God’s word, but the Missouri Synodbelieves that the Bible is God’s word).  We also learned how thechurch views salvation – by faith alone. 

It was interesting – when I went to Gethsemane, I was taughtthat when we went to heaven, God would tell everyone everything you did, goodand bad.  So I was told, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want everyoneelse to know, because we will all know in heaven.”  But on Sunday, PastorSonnerberg explained that no, because of grace, only the things we did forJesus would be mentioned.  The umbrella of grace means that all the sinswe commit are forgotten.  That was actually very interesting.  Sidenote: this is why I do not like Sunday School very much – it is too easyfor people who do not know the Bible well to impress wrong information onchildren/teens. 

Afterwards, we went to the cheap movie theater near ourhouse ($1.50/movie on Sundays!) and saw Expendables 2.  It wasn’tas good as the first one, but it was entertaining.

Easy Apple Cobbler

I have a few food posts coming up that I've been neglecting!

We made this about two weeks ago when Dave and Sharon came over. We used the last of the apples from apple picking. I sliced them, stuck them in a pan, and sprinkled chunks of butter on them. Then I mixed together 1 cup oats, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup white sugar, and 1/2 cup flour, mixed it together, and sprinkled it on top of the apples. I baked it at 350 for about 1 hour.

When it comes out, it looks like the topping isn't done, but it is! The apples are soft, and the topping is buttery and crumbly! Delicious!

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping took almost 4 hours, from the time I picked Matt up to when we finished putting away all the food. Correction - Matt is dividing up the meat, so it's technically not put away yet.

Since we have to pay Matt's traffic ticket from May, and our electric bill was about four times the normal amount, I didn't have a lot of money for food. I decided to get enough food for four weeks, since my next paycheck is going towards rent.

I had about $150 for one months worth of food for two people. That's not a lot. Normally we spend about $250 a month on food. (Matt is addicted to energy drinks, so that eats a lot into the budget.)

I got our basics - milk, eggs, sugar (we make Kool-Aid instead of buying soda or juice), 20 lbs potatoes (cheaper than pasta, and I hate rice), frozen veggies (on sale at Lucky for $0.88/lb), fruit, a few boxes of pasta, and cans of soup (Lucky had then on sale).

I know that meatless dinners save a lot of money. But Matt likes meat! Sausage (for homemade pizza) was on sale at Lucky for .88 cents, so I got 4 of those. Smart & Final had chicken breast on sale for $0.99/lb, so a pack of that was less than $5. They also had pork cushion on sale. It was my most pricy meat - about 10 lbs for $17. But it was boneless, so that's ok. But Superior had whole chickens for $0.69/lb, so we got 4 whole chicken for less than $9. Along with smoked sausages (lunches for Matt), and some more cheese, that pretty much rounded out our shopping trip.

I'm pretty stocked up on baking supplies, so that should last us a month. I will pick up some more milk, bread, ice cream, and fruit next payday anyway - less than $20.

Yes, Matt did get energy drinks, but at Big Lots, so they are cheap.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy we spent in our budget and got so much meat. Matt should not complain!!

Sharon and Dave are coming for dinner tomorrow. Guess what we are having? Roast whole chicken!