The best thing since sliced bread is...

....three-cheese sliced bread from Panera!! Our usual bread is a whole grain, HFCS-free bread by Sara Lee. It became 'our bread' because of those qualities and because we can find it at the bakery outlet and get it for half the grocery store price, which means we don't spend close to 10% of our grocery budget on bread every week.

It's a good bread, but it gets a little tiresome every now and then. And it's not really the right bread for certain things, like french toast. Well, we had Monte Cristos on our dinner menu one night this week, which is basically a ham and cheese, french toast sandwich (I know, not the healthiest choice, but we replaced an egg with 2 egg whites we had in the freezer...) So, since we've been doing really well with our grocery budget lately, coming in under budget every week, we decided to splurge (but not go over budget!!) on some 'fancy bread' this week.

That's where the Three-Cheese bread from Panera comes in. It is very tasty and HFCS-free (actually free of any sweetener) although not whole grain, but that's fine by me since it's not all-the-time bread. We've used it in our Monte Cristos, as a breakfast bread with an egg scramble on top and for cold ham and cheese sandwich. I can't decide if we should eat the rest or freeze it so we can enjoy it sometime down the road...

If you told me a few years ago that I'd be this excited about a loaf of bread, I'd call you crazy. But I'm really happy for us that we've been able to stick to this grocery budget and even work in ways to 'splurge' every now and then. And it's just plain tasty :-D

A Tried and True Argument: Leaving the Toilet Seat Up

Aaron leaving the toilet seat up has never been something that bothered me. I think part of the reason is that I haven't really had to deal with someone who leaves the seat up on a regular basis. I know that when we only had 1 bathroom, the seat would get left up occasionally, but it was the exception, not the norm. Now that we have 2 bathrooms, I think his seat is up all the time, but it doesn't effect me!!

I've discovered over the last few weeks why this might be an annoying habit though. I work in an office that usually just has another female and 2 males working. There's 1 bathroom in the office (which presents it's own unique challenges for a pregnant woman who seems to have to pee all the time!!) and I swear that 75% of the time when I go in there, the toilet seat is up. I despise having to touch it to put it back down.

But, then I think about a possible alternative. What if they didn't put it up in the first place?? The possible mess there just grosses me out even more. And I suppose there's this argument as well...

Maybe no one else has really thought about this, but what do you think about the age-old toilet seat argument??

"Mortology"

Let others know a little more about yourself, re-post this as your name followed by "ology"

***********FOODOLOGY***************
What is your salad dressing of choice? French - boring, I know.
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Carlos O' Kelly's, Cheesecake Factory
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Chips & Queso
What are your pizza toppings of choice? Italian Sausage and Zucchini
What do you like to put on your toast? Peanut Butter or Cinnamon & Sugar
Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate for sure!!

***********TECHNOLOGY***************
How many televisions are in your house?3.
What color cell phone do you have? Pearl (fancy name for shiny white)
Do you have a laptop? Yup - it's our only computer.

***************BIOLOGY******************
Are you right-handed or left-handed? I'm right-handed.
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? A few teeth...
What is the last heavy item you lifted? Nothing too heavy recently...probably a gallon of paint.
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? Nope.

************BULLCRAPOLOGY**************
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? No way.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I wouldn't. Even if I do have a horribly to pronounce and spell name, I like it :-D
Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? I don't think so. I don't really do spicy.

************DUMBOLOGY******************
How many pairs of flip flops do you own? A few - I'm too lazy to go upstairs and count.
Last time you had a run-in with the cops? Haven't had one.
Last person you talked to on the phone? Someone who called in at work.
Last person you hugged? My hubby.

**************FAVORITEOLOGY****************
Season? Spring.
Holiday? Thanksgiving, Christmas.
Day of the week? Saturday. I get to sleep in and snuggle.
Month? Either June or October.

***********CURRENTOLOGY*****************
Missing someone? Yeah, it's been too long since I saw a few of my friends.
Mood? Content.
What are you listening to? The TV and the 'whir' of the exercise bike.
Watching? Nothing really - "Rules of Engagement" is on, but I'm not paying attention.
Worrying about? Finances.

***************RANDOMOLOGY****************
First place you went this morning? To the bathroom.
What's the last movie you saw? Some weird movie about summer camp.
Sleeping Alone Tonight? Nope - I'll have Aaron on one side and my snoogle on the other.
Do you always answer your phone? If I'm available when it rings....
Its four in the morning and you get a call, who is it? Better be somebody with an emergency!!
If you could change your eye color what would it be? I wouldn't.
What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? I don't eat there...
Do you own a digital camera? Yes.
Have you ever had a pet fish? Yes. Several, but cleaning the aquarium wasn't really my thing.
What's on your wish list for your birthday? A great weekend away with my husband and daughter.
Can you do push ups? I used to be able to do a couple...but it's been a while.
Can you do a chin up? No.
Does the future make you more nervous or excited? Definitely a lot of both.
Do you have any saved texts? Nope.
Ever been in a car wreck? Nothing too bad.
Do you have an accent? I sound normal to me....
What is the last song to make you tear up? Actual tears...it was a father-daughter dance at a wedding a couple years ago.
Plans tonight? It's tonight already. I plan on watching "Medium" and going to bed.
Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? Not really.
Name 3 things you bought yesterday. Nothing - we didn't leave the house.
Have you ever been given roses? Yes.
Current hate right now? Uncertainty about my job status and my constant craving for junk food.
Met someone who changed your life? Of course.
How did you bring in the New Year?Playing the Wii at my in-laws!!!
Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? Maybe, but the whole "butterfly effect" idea freaks me out.
Have you ever dated someone longer than a year? Yup - then I married him.
Do you have any tattoos/piercings? I have one tattoo and I used to have a belly button ring, but I took it out.
Does anyone love you? Shyeah!!! I'm very lovable :-D
What songs do you sing in the shower? I'm usually just trying to stay awake.
Ever had someone sing to you? Yes.
Do you like to cuddle? Uh, yeah - who doesn't??
Have you held hands with anyone today? Yes.
Who was the last person you took a picture of? I think of myself with the self-timer.
What kind of music did you listen to in elementary school? Ace of Base was my first CD...and the Grease soundtrack!!
Are most of the friends in your life new or old? New-ish.
Do you like pulpy orange juice? I'm not a fan of citrus-ey juices.
What is something your friends make fun of you for? I don't know - they're nice enough not to do it to my face.
Have you ever ridden an elephant? No, my life is rough.
Do you like to play Scrabble? Sometimes.
What are you saving your money up for right now? Chloe and possible unemployment.
When is the last time you ate peanut butter and jelly? It's been a while. We go the peanut butter and honey route lately.
What were you doing 12 AM last night? Finally sleeping.
What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? For seriously?!? It can't possibly be time to get up!!

Frugal is my (our) middle name!!

I've always liked being able to find a good deal. And if I can save money, sign me up!! I'm always trying to come up with ideas to save a little here and spend less there. Sometimes, it takes my lovely husband a while to warm up to my ideas, but he's usually pleased with the end result. Here are a few of our latest money-saving adventures.

--We're going to make our own laundry detergent. After a lot of research, we've decided to use the Duggar's recipe. There are only 4 ingredients - water, borax, washing soda and bar soap. We were able to buy everything below for less than $10 and we can make many, many batches of laundry detergent from what we bought.


I think the cost for the portion of ingredients needed to make 1 batch (10 gallons) is ~$2. According to the recipe, we should get about 640 loads of detergent, which means each load only costs about $0.03. Currently, we use the All Free & Clear concentrated HE detergent. A bottle that claims to have enough for 32 loads costs around $7.99, which works out to $0.25 a load. Although $0.22 might not seem like much, if we average 10 loads a week after Chloe arrives (I'm not sure how many we'll need to do since we're cloth diapering...) that's a savings of $2.20 a week and $114 a year. That's pretty good!!

And...if we do average 10 loads a week and 1 batch of detergent has 640 loads, then it'll be more than a year between making detergent, so the time investment is pretty much negligble. In addition, homemade detergent has fewer chemicals so it's not as hard on your clothes or as harmful to the environment. Bonus!!

--We like it when we can be frugal and green at the same time. Along the same path, we like it when we can eat healthier and save money. One of the biggest things we're trying to do to eat healthier is just knowing what we're putting into our bodies and avoiding unnecessary sugars, preservatives, etc... A few months ago, we made our own vegetable stock. We threw all the ends of onions, skins from carrots, brocolli stalks, etc... into a Ziploc bag and kept it in the freezer until we had enough. Then we froze the stock after we made it and pulled it out as needed to make soup this winter. After seeing a great deal on whole chickens at Hy-Vee, we decided to try the same thing - making chicken stock. We didn't have an immediate need for the amount of meat we'd get from the chickens though, so we shredded it and froze in usable portions.

We ended up getting 10 12oz. portions of shredded chicken and 2 quarts of chicken stock. A 12 oz. can of shredded chicken costs $2.18 and a quart of chicken stock is $2.89, totalling $27.58. We spent almost exactly $7 on the 2 chickens, which means we saved over $20!! Our total time investment was probably about an hour - and $20 for an hours time isn't too shabby in my opinion.

--Then there are times when the only way we can spend money, is to try to save some in the process. (I'm not sure if that'll make sense to anyone but me!!) We've been wanting a new bed for a while now. Our bed is over 20 years old and only a full. The size didn't bother us too much until I got pregnant and started having trouble sleeping, which meant lots of tossing and turning, and then the addition of a very large pregnancy pillow. Apparently, the pillow and I don't leave a lot of room for Aaron...

We decided to use some of our tax return to buy a Queen size bed. Aaron did a lot of reading online and decided a Memory Foam mattress would be the way to go. We still had a definite budget to stick to, and we couldn't get the mattress we wanted and a box spring. So my handy husband built us a platform!! We were able to get some 2x4's leftover from another project (thanks Steven!!) We had to buy a couple pieces of plywood, which cost $68. The cheapest box spring we found anywhere was $200, so that's a $140 savings!!

And...thanks to my husband making smart cuts, we'll be able to use the scraps to make a couple shelves for our office. So chalk up another one for the frugal Mortvedt's!!

Yummy!!

We've been trying to use at least 1 new recipe a week from Recipezaar - one that we found either from Gayle at the Grocery Cart Challenge, assuming it will be fairly cheap, or one that I found while searching around through popular recipes. Well, this week's recipe, Crock Pot Chicken, was a hit!! It was super simple to make, not horrible on the nutrition scale, makes a ton and it's pretty versatile.

Aaron came home for lunch and threw the chicken breasts, salsa, black beans and corn in the crock pot on high. When we came home from work, we threw the cream cheese on, turned it to low, and took a walk for 45 minutes. When we came home, we realized the chicken was really 'fally-aparty' (a very technical term) so we shredded the chicken, stirred everything together and threw some rice in the steamer. We ate the chicken mixture over rice and it was very tasty!!

After we ate, there was still about 6 cups of the mixture left, so we froze half of it and kept the other half out for another dinner and a lunch. Others who have reviewed the recipe have suggested using the leftovers to make wraps, which we might try out with what we froze. (We don't currently have tortillas or have any need for them for any upcoming recipes.)

Next time we make this, I think we might try using less chicken, doubling the black beans and corn and using the fat-free cream cheese (we used 1/3 less fat this time). We weren't really sure how the cream cheese was incorporated or how the fat-free would work out texture wise, but since we just mixed everything together, there's no reason not to use the fat-free.

Blame the Dog - for seriously!!

I'm sure I'll be sharing baby poop stories soon. For now, just a dog poop story.

When I let Steve the dog out of his cage on Monday night, he'd left a little 'surprise' for me. I could tell he must have an upset stomach, because it was totally unlike him to go to the bathroom in his cage.

Then all night last night, Tuesday, you could hear his stomach growling and gurgling from across the room so we could tell things still weren't right. We gave him a Pepto Bismol pill and he seemed to quiet down a little.

Tonight, Aaron let him out of his cage. I could hear some cries of disgust coming from their room, so after I let the boys outside, I asked if everything was okay. Aaron said everything was clear, but their room was stink-tastic. We thought one of them must just be gassy, as they often are, which is why we commonly "Blame the Dog." Then Aaron let the dogs in and I almost fell over from the stink. I'll just say 2 things - Steve has longer-ish hair and he must have gone #2 before we left for work today. So...the stink had been literally been hanging around with him all day.

Aaron gave him a bath, was truly grateful that we put in a fancy shower head with a hose, and Steve is no longer stinky. The entire basement still stinks though...hopefully the Febreze Air Freshener kicks in soon!! And I'll love our daughter no matter what, but I hope she's not as stinky as the dogs...

25 things about the two of us

This is kind of like the 25 things from Facebook - except there are pre-decided questions and it's about you and your spouse. Come on, play along - inquiring minds want to know!

♥ What are your middle names? Michael and JaDeane
♥ How long have you been together? About 4 1/2, married for 2 1/2.
♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? About 8 months - we spent pretty much every Saturday together at work.
♥ Who asked who out? Aaron asked me over as friends, but then tricked me and romanced me - it was a date by the end of dinner :-D
♥ How old are each of you? I'm 23 and he's 36.
♥ Whose siblings do/did you see the most? My older brother lives in town, but we probably see his sister almost as much.
♥ Any pets? We have our 2 boys, Steve and Nick, and their 'cousin' Max lives with us right now too.
♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? Finances - Chloe will be here in a couple months and I'm basically unemployed. Not how we planned it!!
♥ Did you go to the same school? No, which is good, because he graduated when I was in kindergarten and that's just weird to think about!!
♥ Are you from the same home town? Nope.
♥ Who is the smartest? Well, I'm always right (hee-hee) but he did score a point higher on his ACT's.
♥ Who is the most sensitive? We deal with our emotions differently, and I'm definitely more vocal about my emotions.
♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? We don't go out much, but when we do, there's a good chance it's Panchero's.
♥ Who has the worst temper? Again, we deal with it differently.
♥ Who does the cooking? Well, since Aaron doesn't like Hamburger Helper or Chicken Patties every night, he does!!
♥ Who is more social? Probably me.
♥ Who is the neat-freak? Neither of us are really neat freaks. I'm more of an organizer than he is though.
♥ Who is the more stubborn? Ooh...that's tough. Probably me.
♥ Who hogs the bed? Currently, I do. Me and my Snoogle take up a lot of space. I've promised Aaron a bigger job if/when I'm gainfully employed again!!
♥ Who wakes up earlier? We get up at the same time for work, but I'm a better "sleeper-inner" on weekends.
♥ Where was your first date? At his house. He made me dinner, charmed me with his dog, and we watched "Finding Nemo" together.
♥ Who has the bigger family? We each have 2 siblings, but both my immediate family and extended family are bigger, I think.
♥ Do you get flowers often? No, but he does send me flowers occasionally and it's always a nice surprise!!
♥ How do you spend the holidays? With our families. We're lucky to have them all nearby, so we don't have to decide.
♥ Who eats more? We're about same-same right now, but it used to be Aaron.
♥ Who does/did the laundry? We both do.
♥ Who drives when you are together? 99% of the time it's Aaron.

We've lived here how long?!?

For whatever reason, Aaron and I are both into light fixtures - they were the first thing we changed out when we moved in. Our bedroom just had a cheap $5 light fixture and we decided to change it out for a ceiling fan. It came with a remote, which we thought was fantastic, and were happy that we could change the fan speed in the middle of the night without getting out of bed. But...the light was super dim. It uses a halogen, so we tried buying a new bulb to see if it would improve. It didn't. We had accepted the lack of lighting and were thinking about putting some track lighting in/by our closet so we could at least see our clothes.

Saturday, we were looking at light fixture for Chloe's room. Again, there's just a cheap $5 fixture and we want to put a ceiling fan in. Right now, the light is on a dimmer switch and we like the idea of having a 'dim-able' light for middle of the night feedings and diaper changes. While looking for a ceiling fan where the light could be dimmed, we discovered that a remote just like the one with our ceiling fan can dim the lights. We thought, Wierd, wonder if our remote does this somehow?!? We got home and did a little experimenting. Turns out, if you hold the light button down, it changes the intensity of the light!! We felt a little silly that we'd had this fixture for ~7 months and just discovered this, but there wasn't anything in the manual about it, so we were just thankful to have finally found out!!

Then came Sunday... I was wiping down all the cabinets in the kitchen. Next to the oven, there's a plain wood panel that's maybe 4-5 inches wide. As I was wiping it down, it seemed like it was really loose, so I pulled on the bottom just to see how loose it was. To my surprise, it pulled out completely. It wasn't just a panel between the oven and our lazy susan, it's a drawer!! It has 3 shelves that are wide enough and tall enough to hold, for example, a box of Mac & Cheese.

How crazy - we discovered a new-and-improved light in our bedroom and another cabinet/drawer in our kitchen within 24 hours after living here for over 7 months!!

Menu Plan Monday

Last week's menu had a couple great new recipes in it. The White Chicken Chili and Nacho Casserole were both fantastic!! The Manicotti was good the first night, but didn't reheat very well. This week we tried to plan our menu around things that were on sale and did really well with our grocery budget. Here's what we have planned:

Monday - Quiche based on this recipe
Tuesday - Shrimp Scampi w/ veggies
Wednesday - Leftover Nacho Casserole
Thursday - Jumbalaya w/ corn muffins
Friday - Homemade Pizza
Saturday - Salmon w/ yukon gold potatoes and veggies
Sunday - We're taking Queso Dip to a Super Bowl Party.

For more ideas, visit the Organizing Junkie.

Week #1

So I had my first week of unemployement and abundant free time. I feel like I managed to stay fairly productive - and even took a shower every day!! Here's what I got done:

• Research and apply for every possible legitimate job opportunity. (The Obvious) I didn't find any new jobs to apply for, but I did have one interview and a proficiency test for another position.
• Have lunch with my friend Becky, without looking at the clock even once to see if I need to hurry back to work.
• Go to the chiropractor. My hips have been out of alignment for weeks, but I've been putting it off, knowing I'd have lots of free time coming up.
• Make bread. We've tried making bread twice this week with our bread machine, and it's turned out funky. We can't tell if it's because we're using the delay setting or if something's wrong with it. I made bread on the Express setting and it worked. I still have to test the regular setting.
• Find the ingredients for and make homemade laundry detergent. I've checked 3 stores and haven't been able to find Washing Soda yet, so I'm still on the hunt.
• Get a book from the library on the Bradley Birthing Method and other natural birthing techniques and start loading up on info. I also got a couple books on eating well during pregnancy - I'm hoping to find some inspiration in recipes and snack ideas.
• Perfect my Wii Bowling and attempt to get my first Turkey.
• Go through what has become the junk bedroom and figure out what we're keeping, what we can sell, give away or throw away. Then, organize the rest!!
• List a bunch of stuff on Craigslist.
• Finish and send out our holiday cards. Better late than never, right??
• Put away the remaining Christmas decorations. Sorry love!!
• Attempt to invent "the next big thing" so we never have to worry about money again.

I also did a bunch of laundry, kept up on the dishes and made dinner every night (things my wonderful hubby normally did the bulk of.) I spent a few hours hanging out with a friend's baby so she could get some errands run, had a nice long phone conversation with a few friends, deep cleaned our stove, brushed out the dogs and vacuumed the basement. On the less productive front, I also watched 4 episodes of "Private Practice" and read a couple novels. And unfortunately, I spent 2 days cleaning up after a sick dog (as much as it sucked, we were sort of glad he wasn't stuck in his cage all day.)


It looks like I have plenty of things left on the list that I didn't get to this week that should keep me busy next week. And I'm sure I'll find plenty of things to keep me busy that aren't on the list.