Month: December 2024

Juggling

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn JournalLeave a comment

All day today it has felt like I’ve been juggling balls and every now and then another one was added just to keep me on my toes. Donny was off so I let him sleep in while I fed the cats, let the chickens out of the coop, rolled the trash cans out and made sure Jackson made it to school an hour early to start finals.

Donny ran Hannah to work at noon while I got ready so we could go run errands. I had to go to Sally’s, then the Asian Market to pick up some sauces for dinner, then to Aldi to shop for the rest of the items we needed for Christmas dinner.

When I got home I needed to bake the cheese Krispie crackers I had made the dough for last night and that took a whole lot longer than expected. I still needed to color my hair, so I left the last tray in and let Donny get it out while I started on my roots.

Since I still needed to prep dinner, (the Asian chicken wasn’t going to happen tonight) I changed gears and chopped up leftover chicken, made some quesadillas and threw together a Caesar salad. Donny went to pick up Hannah while I quickly blow dried my hair. I made Hannah’s coffee, sweet tea and cleaned the extremely messy kitchen. In between that I also got the food outside for the skunks, raccoons and possum. I am just now sitting down.

As parents we learn to multi task and go with the flow when plans change. I was chatting with a life long friend today about this very subject. We know 2 woman, who are married, but chose not to have children, which is completely fine. However, both of these woman do not handle change well. They are both very rigid with their schedules. If you ask them, spur of the moment, to do something they just can’t. One of them cannot even have an impromptu call. She has to schedule them. She is semi retired, yet if I call her, she won’t answer but will text me back with a time she will call me back.

So even though today made me a bit harried and a little overwhelmed, I’m very glad that I AM able to roll with the punches and not take things so seriously.

And because there is no photo evidence of my day here is exactly where I am right now getting ready to watch the Survivor finale.

New Fave + Dollar Tree Find

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn product reviewsLeave a comment

Around here everyone has “their” breakfast that I make them. Hannah”s choice is two sunny side up eggs with a sausage patty. Jack has two, either a breakfast on a Bun with sausage or a breakfast taco with sausage, egg and cheese. Donny has two slices of bacon, 3 scrambled eggs with cheese and hot sauce. I have never really had a favorite, must eat this, breakfast until now.

On my last trip to Aldi I picked up the thick cut Appleton bacon that I always buy. When I pulled it out this morning to make Donny’s breakfast I noticed that I had picked up the maple bacon. I always either get the peppered kind of just the normal one. I didn’t even know that this company even made maple bacon.

After I made Donny’s breakfast our house smelled SO good. I love the smell of maple. It’s just that cold weather cozy smell. After I dropped Jackson at school and walked back into the house I could still smell it. It’s like we had a maple candle burning. This, of course, prompted me to want some of that bacon. I am not a huge breakfast eater. I love breakfast foods, but I normally don’t eat in the mornings. Not this morning though. I decided that nothing would go better with bacon than some sourdough french toast with maple syrup. I was not disappointed.

This is 100% my favorite breakfast. Thank you, Aldi because everything came from your store. I cannot wait to have it again tomorrow morning.

On another note, I was in Dollar tree last week. Our dollar tree does not have a lot of products that I’ve seen people showing online. I don’t know if everything just sells out and I miss something because I rarely go into that store. When I was there picking up candy for the stockings I happened to walk into the kitchen side of the store and found this product on one of the shelves, completely misplaced.

I am extremely leary of dollar store beauty products, but this one checked all of my boxes.

And one of the best things is that it’s…

I don’t know why the picture is blurry, but you get the idea.

Now, all of this doesn’t mean a hill of beans if it doesn’t work, but this stuff really works. I just spray it on my hair, especially the ends, and blow dry. It makes my hair soft and shiny. I don’t like to use heat on my hair, but during the colder months, I can’t have a damp head or else I’m freezing all day. If you find this at your Dollar Tree it’s definitely worth a try.

And just because, here’s Monkey napping. She won’t come inside during the hot months, but rarely leaves the kitchen during the colder ones. Such a strange little cat.

7 Brew Dupe

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn RecipeLeave a comment

My daughter loves iced coffee. Her favorite place to get a cup is 7 Brew. We have always bought the mocha coffee that comes in the cartons as a fill in, but she can drink that really quickly and it isn’t cheap. I decided to try and make it. Here’s what I used.

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup Hershey cocoa

1 cup water

6 cups brewed coffee

whole milk

Put the sugar, cocoa and water in a small pan and heat it up. Whisk, whisk, whisk until it’s all dissolved. You do not want to burn it.

Next I put the mixture into my blender and blend it up. I then add the coffee a little at a time.

I pour all of the coffee, cocoa mixture into a glass container and top it off with milk.

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This is actually the second batch i have made. My daughter said it better than 7 Brew and the carton coffee. I like it better because I know exactly what is in it and it’s much cheaper to make than when we buy it. So if anyone in your family likes mocha iced coffee, you should give it a try.

A little FYI: give it a little stir before you pour it. I use the handle of a wooden spoon.

If it’s too strong for you just add milk once you pour it.

Kevin’s Enchiladas

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn RecipeLeave a comment

If you have a TikTok account you must follow Kevin Ashton. He is a chef for a sorority house. He is the Bob Ross of cooking. You’ll know what I mean if you see his videos. His voice is so soothing and I just love to watch him make each magnificent dish. I saw a recent video of him making green Verde chicken enchiladas. Because he cooks for about 25 girls, you kind of have to guess the measurements, but it isn’t hard. I had leftover chicken in the fridge that I needed to use up so this is what I made.

shredded chicken

tomatillos

poblano peppers

jalepeno peppers

white onion

chicken broth

oregano

salt

cumin

cilantro

garlic cloves

shredded Monterey jack

shredded colby

tortillas

Heat olive oil in a pan. Add the tomatillos, poblano peppers, onions and jalapenos. Just stir them around until they start getting soft.

Add the chicken broth and cook for about 30 minutes on a simmer.

After it has simmered add the oregano, cumin, salt and cilantro. I used a stick blender, but you can use a regular blender. Just blend it until smooth. Add a generous amount of sauce to your chicken. Next add a generous amount of Monterey Jack. Mix that all up.

Pour some sauce into your baking dish. Grab your tortilla and put the mixture in the middle and roll it up. After you’ve done all the tortillas, spoon the sauce over the enchiladas and add more Monterey jack and Colby. Pop it into a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes. Y’all, it was so good. I should have added more peppers, but they were so hot that I was afraid it would make the sauce too hot. As for the spices, just add as much as you like. I used 1/2 of a large onion, 4 large garlic cloves and 10 tomatillos.

The Nest

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home StuffLeave a comment

A few years ago Donny and I had to be in Oklahoma City. It was just an overnight and I found the cutest Airbnb.

It was a four Plex and our space was the upper right unit.

Not only was it just so cute, but it had the MOST comfortable bed. We felt like we were in a nest. It was so hard to get up the next morning.

It doesn’t look like much, but oh how looks are deceiving.

After we left we couldn’t stop talking about this bed. I went so far as to message the host to find out what kind of mattress it was. Come to find out it was an iComfort Serta. That’s the exact mattress we have. Then he let me in on a little secret. He had a mattress topper on it. He couldn’t remember what brand it was. I looked around our town, but couldn’t find anything that matched what his topper felt like. I put it out of my mind until last week. I decided to look online to see what I could find on Cyber Monday. I found what I thought would be perfect. I found it on Amazon. It has 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of fluffy topper.

I couldn’t wait to open it.

It actually takes a full 48 hours before it’s fully fluffed up. Well, we needed to sleep on it so it only got about 14. Luckily the mail person delivered it at 6:30 in the morning. I didn’t tell Donny I ordered it. I wanted to see if he even noticed.

This was just after I put it on. I left the sheets off all day for maximum fluffing. Let me tell you, It was worth every penny. We finally have our own nest. Now if only the cat would stop waking me up by laying on my neck it would be perfect.

Accidental Black Friday

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn familyLeave a comment

I am not a Black Friday shopper. I had no intention of going out and getting in the melee of crazy shoppers trying to run me over with their shopping carts. There was only one problem, I was almost out of cat food. Hannah had to be at work at 2. I figured by that time of day it would be safe to hit Walmart because the Black Friday shopping would be finished. As memory served all of the deals happened in the wee hours of the morning, right?

When Jackson and I pulled into the parking lot I knew I was wrong. After finding a parking lot in the nether regions of section 8, we got our steps in as we made it into the store. There were maybe 5 carts to choose from and I finally found one that didn’t have a wobbly wheel.

We headed to the Holiday shop because I needed ornament hangers. It was crazy in that department. Then as we were walking toward the pet food area I told Jackson that I remembered I needed something in housewares. I just needed to pick up some more glass food containers, but Jackson said, “are you going to get an air fryer?!?”. He has been hinting for me to get an air fryer for over a year. The thing is, we have a small kitchen with limited counter space and those things aren’t small. He found the display on a shelf and said, “look at this one”. Then he saw the $150 price tag and knew I wasn’t going to go for that. I told him that there could be some in the center isle on sale and if he found one at a good deal we could get it.

And look at what we came home with. We found it on sale for $50. Jackson was one happy camper. In fact he was so happy that Saturday morning he got up early, took a shower and, before I knew it, he had it out of the box setting it up.

He decided to christen it with pizza rolls.

The jury is still out on how much we will actually use it, but I do like the dehydrator feature. At least Jackson is now wanting to cook a little more so I’ll call it a win.