Country Living Is the Life For Me....

Down the Road a Piece--I drive by this house often and over the years it has changed hands many times. I finally decided to look it up online....pretty nice!

I fell in love!--If I could move in right now I would be a happy little lady! For now I am going to use the photos as something to aspire too. I really want to go visit this house and just breathe it all in, and say, "I'm home!"

Crock-Pot Pulled Pork

In this house BBQ is king! When we took a roadtrip this Winter we hit up quite a few bbq joints. The other day I made a Crock-Pot Pulled pork and hubby approved. That says a lot coming from him! I got the original recipe from A Southern Daydreamer, but I made a few changes...

I used our last pork shoulder (from the pigs we raised) it was probably 2 lbs at least

I added 2 cans of Coke (instead of diet soda)--I probably could have used a little less

1/2 a large onion

1 cup of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce

I cooked in the Crock-Pot on High for about 8 hours. I actually didn't pull it all apart until we were ready to eat.

Hubby loved the taste so much he didn't add any bbq sauce or anything! We ate the pork on bulky rolls. It was so good!

Homemade Goodness

Despite the humidity, I felt like baking tonight. I seem to have a knack for timing oven cooking (which throws extra heat into the house) for the very hot, humid days...wonder why that is? Anyways, I decided to make artisan bread and the chocolate chip muffins the boys have been asking me to make for the last week or so. In between recipes I decided to make some lemonade (you know to cool down from the heat!). The warmth in my kitchen was actually a good thing, both my bread and muffins rose a lot higher than normal. Also, the lemonade seemed to make my family much more appreciative than usual. I got lots of compliments, especially when everyone was stuffing their faces with the chocolate chip muffins!













I thought I would share my resources for the recipes:

Artisan Bread-I use the basic boule recipe that was in the Five-Minutes a Day for Fresh Baked Bread article that was in Mother Earth News last year or so. I just mix up my ingredients in a large bowl, lightly cover it and let it sit for about 2 hours. I flip out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, fold in my edges to the middle, pop the dough onto a pizza stone and let it rise for about 20-40 minutes (have the over preheating while it is rising). Then I cook it for about 30 minutes. You can tell if the bread is done when you flip it over and gently tap the bottom and it sounds hollow. You could also use only half the dough and refrigerate the rest for another day. We often use the dough for pizza...so good!

Chocolate Chip Muffins- Ehric discovered this amazing recipe and other really good muffin recipes while playing Holly Hobbie "Hey Girls" Muffin Maker game on NickJr.com. To get the recipe you need to complete the game. Have your kids play the game or try it out yourself!

Lemonade- I used Real Lemon's recipe from the bottle and it was really good!
for a 2 quart container: 6 1/2 cups of water, 1 cup Real Lemon (or other bottled lemon juice), and 1 cup sugar.

Enjoy!

A Walk In the Yard

Father's Day Memories

Getting on a Budget

I absolutely love being a stay-at-home mom, and really want to continue in this amazing role for as long as possible. But lately I have been slowly becoming aware that for me to continue to stay home and help guide my children while they live and learn about their world, that I need to get my family on a budget and fast! How we have been spending is really threatening my desires to be a stay-at-home mom and if we don't make changes now I will not be able to continue staying home with my boys for much longer.

What brought about this realization? The other day I was looking at our calendar to see what we have been doing all month. I noticed that the boys and I have been indulging a little too much and too often at resteraunts. Everytime I turn around I am having to refill my car, because we have been driving here there and everywhere. I have signed us up for a lot of workshops and other events that are relatively low cost but when added together start to add up. We have been shopping like money is growing on trees. I consider myself a pretty intelligent person and able to reason but apparently I have not been paying enough attention to how much we are spending and how often. I have been letting myself and my family down by not paying attention.

So last night and most of today I have been getting serious about budgeting! I feel both spent and enlightened. I feel like I have a better grasp now on where we are at and where we need to go. I have some plans and ideas about how to make my goals a reality. But of course it will also mean that my family will have to be on board with this game plan or it will not work. They have to want me to be able to continue to stay home too!

Sometimes we are cruising along in life and don't realize that we got off on the wrong track at some point because we were not paying enough attention. We need to work on creating the reality we desire, but if we don't pay attention we will have a reality that we do not desire. If I want to be a stay-at-home mom than I can do that, but I need to sometime's reevaluate and need a good reminder of exactly the kind of life I am trying to create with my family.

I know that my family is not trying to keep up with the Jones'. We are frugal and happy living a simple country life. We are not trying to do what everyone else is doing and we don't really care what everyone else is doing. We prefer to make our own informed descisions free of someone else's control. We want to be free to pursue our passions and to learn about what is important to us. We want to raise our children to be independent free thinkers and to be happy.

This realization as it relates to my awakening means that I can be a stay-at-home mom because that is where I want and need to be right now. I have what it takes to get my family's finances back on track so that we can all continue to live this amazing life! We want our children to have the freedom to live and learn in a happy and stress-free home. I feel that my presence in their little corner of the world is the way for us all to live a good life. So if a budget is needed than bring it on!

Local Foods

Today I read this post from Liz at A Natural Nester about her entry into eating local foods. I too have been thinking a lot lately about searching out and buying more local foods. We already get our milk from a farm down the street and raise our own chickens for eggs. But we could do more. I also have been trying to eat a lot better as of late, and am really tired of all the preservatives and fake stuff in food...makes you wonder if we are all going to glow in the dark someday. I really questioned my buying habits too watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. He makes a lot of good points about American food.

I am wondering what you have found local or are doing to eat locally grown food?