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My Magazine Sharing Network Is On Fire
Seriously, if you are not a member of My Magazine Sharing Network and you have a Kroger affiliate store in your area you really need to join this site! I am not kidding.
I made a post here, that explains a little about the program. Basically the Kroger grocery store chain has a program where they are looking for honest feedback on items that they sell or are considering selling in their stores. Once you sign up you will receive notifications of new missions that you may or may not want to participate in. You just log into your dashboard and accept what ones you are interested in. The number of missions you are sent depends on how active you are. The more you participate the more you can qualify for.
I am not kidding when I say they are on fire. In the past 2 weeks I have received numerous boxes from them of things to try like this:
Yesterday I received 4 coupons for Hormel Natural Choice Bacon. 1 coupon is for a free package the other 3 coupons are for $1.00 off a package. Free bacon, who wouldn’t want free bacon (well maybe a vegetarian, which I family is not).
All I have to do now is head to my local Smith’s grocery store, redeem the coupon for the free Hormel Natural Choice bacon, cook it and serve it to my family (or friends) and then log into my dashboard at My Magazine Sharing Network and complete the tasks they request. The tasks are super easy and quick. Things like share a picture on instagram, make a post on facebook, post my opinion of the product in their group discussion post, etc. They are looking for honest answers and even if you didn’t love the product they really want to hear it, they want to know why you didn’t enjoy it, if you did like it be specific and tell them why. That is it. Simple as can be.
The stores in the Kroger chain that look like they participate are Kroger, Ralph’s, Dillions, Bakers, Fry’s, Smith’s, King Scoopers, Fred Meyer, City Market, QVC and Gerbes. If you have any of these stores in your area you need to check out My Magazine Sharing Network.
I will be making several posts to show you more of the items that I have received to try. Watch for them. I have received some great products.
*This post does not contain affiliate links
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Bountiful Baskets 5/19/2018
I was so glad to see Saturday come this week. After missing our Bountiful Baskets produce csa last weekend due to my daughter’s college graduation, I was so happy to get my produce this weekend. The kids and I were up early so we could volunteer at our drop site again. As I have said before I really enjoy seeing the volunteers each Saturday. I love catching up with them. It’s fun to see what everyone has been up to, especially when it had been 2 weeks since we were there.
The weather this weekend was really beautiful. Summer is coming to Las Vegas, and we are being spoiled by having some respite from the heat. There was a light breeze and temperatures were in the 70’s which for mid May is beautiful weather. We took our time distributing the produce to enjoy the morning.
This week’s baskets were heavier on fruit than on vegetables. That’s not always bad except that I really regret that there wasn’t any citrus this week. Some weeks oranges or tangerines are plentiful, not so much this week.
My vegetable basket included 3 ears of corn, 2 cucumbers, 1 zucchini, 1 bunch of kale and a large romaine lettuce. I was happy with the vegetables, I was thrilled to see the romaine, with the romaine lettuce recalls out here in the southwest, we haven’t gotten romaine in such a long time. My dogs were excited too, they love romaine lettuce! My daughter gives them each a huge leaf of it and the dogs think it is the most amazing treat in the world. Nothing like happy puppies to make everyone smile. The only thing I wasn’t overly excited to see was the zucchini, I have a love/hate relationship with this vegetable. I love to hate it! Maybe I am being to hard on it, I don’t actually hate it, but I don’t really like it. I love it in zucchini bread but that is about it. My daughter tends to grate it really fine and tries to hide it in soup or something like that so that we use it and it doesn’t go to waste. Of all the produce I have to say I LOVE CORN! I am a Michigan girl at heart, and I have fond memories of fresh picked bushel burlap bags of sweet corn. We would eat corn on the cob all summer long. I don’t think my family could eat it as frequently as my brothers & I did when we were growing up, but what do they know, they aren’t from Michigan. They don’t know how good fresh from the field corn is.
Now for the fruit… We received a personal watermelon, a pineapple, bananas, 2 packages of organic strawberries, 5 tomatoes on the vine, 1 mango and 5 apples. Overall the fruit is great. I could do without so many pineapples lately, it seems like we get alot of them this time of the year. Summer is coming and summer is watermelon & berry season, so I very happy with the melon and berries. My daughter made a vegetable soup and used the tomatoes already and they were a nice addition. Can we talk about mango’s for a minute. Maybe I am doing it wrong, but are mango’s really worth the work? I mean, once you peel them and try to cut them off the pit, or seed or whatever that huge thing is in the middle, I feel like I get very little fruit. Generally we just freeze the chunks and my daughter uses them in smoothies. The organic strawberries were amazing, I sliced them up and tossed them with a little bit of organic sugar and made homemade pancakes and topped them with the berries. SO GOOD! Pancakes with strawberries is my favorite breakfast.
Remember last week when I posted my grocery store produce, here ? This week’s haul cost me $18.00 for the share of fruit and vegetables. That is a much more amazing deal than the nearly $40.00 that I paid last week for produce at our local Smith’s grocery store. If you are curious to learn more about Bountiful Baskets click here. They are amazing. They try to bring you produce as local and in season as possible.
*this post does not include affiliate links.
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No Bountiful Baskets This Week
This week we did not purchase out share of Bountiful Baskets. My daughter graduated from college today so we knew ahead of time that this week we wouldn’t participate. That means that we had to purchase our produce at the grocery store. After the graduation ceremony and our lunch out I decided to go to my local Smith’s grocery store. With tomorrow being Mother’s Day, I decided to have a nice relaxing day at home tomorrow and not have to worry about grocery shopping.
I did still have some produce left over from last week, but not much. I have alot of corn on the cob, green onions, broccoli & canteloupe. So I needed quite a bit to get us through the week until I pick up our produce share next Saturday from Bountiful Baskets. This is also a great opportunity for me to share the value of Boutiful Baskets compared to a regular grocery store. I know that every grocery store’s pricing will not be the same as mine, but Smith’s is one of my normal grocery stores, so it is a great guide for me.
This week I picked up: 2 personal watermelon’s, 8 apples, 5 oranges, a 3 lb bag of halo’s, bananas, 2 lbs of strawberries, 4 potatoes, 1 head of green leaf lettuce, 1 english cucumber, 1 head of cauliflower, green beans, mini sweet peppers, 1 lb bag of organic carrots, 1 bag of baby carrots, & a large container of sliced mushrooms (normally I would buy whole mushrooms but these were on sale for 99 cents for a large container, coudn’t pass them up).
Today’s grand total was $39.90! That is absolutely crazy! My produce share from Bountiful Baskets is $18.00. This is confirmation that Bountiful Baskets is an amazing deal for your money. I can’t wait for next Saturday. I love being surprised by what my baskets will contain. I love getting fresh produce for an amazing price. It makes feeding my family healthy food a wonderfully affordable alternative.
Check them out at here. -
Katie’s A Graduate
Today was a very momentous day in our family. My daughter graduted from the University Of Nevada Las Vegas. My husband and I are very proud parents. She graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Mathmatics with a Minor in Secondary Education. She is going to be a high school math teacher.
As my husband, son and I sat in the stadium and watched all of the other families come in and claim their seats I was amazed at how many people showed up to support their graduates. The stadium was huge and it was full. There were over 1500 graduates and I am sure that all of those families were just as proud as we were.
It made me so happy that the first glimpse I had of her, when her College of the Sciences walked out, she looked so happy! I am sure that she was happy & relieved to have made it to this point and to be receiving her degree.
What an amazing day we had…
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Welcome To Our Simple Days
When I was thinking of starting a blog I really wanted to share with you all how I try to incorporate natural and simple living into our daily lives. The more I thought about it the more I realized that natural and simple living have meant many different things to my family over the years and I can only imagine that I am not the only one who has ever experienced this. The internet is full of such a wide variety of people looking for ways to live a more simple life. There are people who struggle financially that living a natural life seems out of their reach, and there are people who are financially stable and are looking for more ways to live naturally. I want this blog to be for everyone no matter your age or income. I hope homemakers, single parents, full time working parents, men, women, young adults, retirees and people in their middle years feel equally at home. I hope that we can share something that is relavent to everyone in part or in whole.
My goal with this blog is to share what I have tried that works for my family, things that I am hoping to try, and things that we have tried that really don’t work for us. I hope that as I share things you will also share with us. I know that I have alot to learn but I also know that I have alot to share.
I am sure many of you have read my “About” post located here I would like to share bit more about myself and my family than I touched on in that post. I hope that through out my posts you all can get to know myself and maybe bits about my family too. I may share more about my daughter than my son or husband, as the men in my life are very private and I have to respect that.
I grew up in an very small town in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. My Mother was a single mom with 4 children and even though she always worked, we were very poor. My childhood was spent thinking Kool Aid was juice, and government cheese made the best grilled cheese sandwiches. We were on governement assistance and even though my mom didn’t really talk about it I think she had W.I. C. also for a time. I remember going to the little store near our home that had a butcher shop and asking for 1/4 lb of hamburger and when money was a little better we could get 1/2 lb hamburger to put into the Hamburger Helper.
My brother’s and I were very fortunate to have had a wonderful Grandmother who loved us and did so many wonderful things for us, like giving us a dime and taking us to pick out Penny Candy at the Ben Franklin store and explaining that some candy was less than other candy and if we really watched the price we could get alot of candy for that dime. She would treat us to ice cream at the Dairy Queen, and to this day my favorite item from Dairy Queen is her favorite hot fudge sundae with Spanish peanuts. I remember fondly her taking me to the little diner she used to go to with her friends and treating me to a grilled pecan sweet roll that I could enjoy while she got to chat with her friends. Pure Heaven!
Growing up poor really made me understand the value of a dollar and how to make money stretch. I learned so many ways to be able to feed my family for very little money. I double couponed, I stocked up, I learned to make things from scratch, I learned to make substitutions when I didn’t have the items I needed.
These skills have served me well throughout my life. It enabled me to be a stay at home mother for several years, and even when the kids grew and I started working more and more it still helped me to be prepared.
So if any of our readers are struggling and are afraid to ask questions or ask for advice, please know I understand. I will never judge you, I will offer support and advice anyway that I can. You are not alone.
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What I Am Reading
Strawberry Shortcake Murder
By
Joanne Fluke
Strawberry Shortcake Murder After finally finishing my last book I am ready for some light reading. Right now I am reading the second book in Joanne Fluke’s Hanna Swensen Mystery Series.
I really struggled to stay focused on my last book choice (read about it here) I decided to keep it simple this time. I enjoyed the first book in this series and really could just sit back and enjoy the book and not really have to think to much about anything but enjoying the story and watching it unfold. I am really hoping for that again.
The main character in this series owns her own little shop called “The Cookie Jar”. Somehow in this small town she always seems to find herself right in the middle of a murder investigation. If this sounds familiar it’s because the Hallmark Murders & Mysteries channel has turned this into a tv movie series which is pretty good.
One fun note about the books in this series is the author also includes several baking recipes throughout the book. Some of them look pretty good.
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I Finally Finished Reading
The Sixth Day
By
Catherine Coulter & J.T. Ellison
The Sixth Day Ok, I have finally finished this book. I usually really love reading books by Catherine Coulter, and I really have enjoyed this particular series that she writes with J.T. Ellison. It’s about a British agent who works with the FBI. There are several books so far in this series and I have loved them all. This one however was a difficult read for me. I really struggled to get through it and with it being over 600 pages it took me what seemed like forever to get to the end.
I didn’t really hate the book, there were parts that I really liked but as a whole I found it hard to become invested in it. There were so many characters, and the story seemed to jump around. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it focused on the 2 main characters more and less on the minor ones.
I know that there will be other books in this series, and I will absolutely buy them. One book out of many doesn’t detour me from enjoying a book series.
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Bountiful Baskets 4/28/2018
As usual the kids and I volunteered at our Bountiful Baskets produce co op. It was a beautiful morning and it is always good to see my “Basket Friends”. There was a fairly large turn out of volunteers this morning and it made our time spent there go very quickly. There were several ladies who I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks so it was nice to catch up as well. It’s always nice to catch up and find out how everyone is doing. I work so many hours each week at my job, that I welcome my Saturday morning volunteer time. I find it relaxing to spend the time with my children and the other volunteers. I love that even through my kids are grown they really don’t mind going with me. Hopefully as they continue through life this Saturday morning ritual of ours will also be passed down to their own families.
I am always amazed at how much fruit and vegetables that an $18 share provides and this week didn’t dissappoint…
This week’s basket contained the following fruit: 6 Lady Alice apples, 5 oranges, 15 tangerines, 1 package of strawberries, 1 mango, 6 lemons, and 11 roma tomatoes. The fruit looks amazing and everything smells so sweet and wonderful.
This week’s basket contained the following vegetables: 1 bunch kale, 1 cabbage, 2 bunchs of green onions, 2 sweet potatoes, and 4 broccoli crowns. I am pretty happy with the vegetables also.
My only problem I have with the produce this week are these monsters:
size comparison Oh my gosh, can you believe the size of these sweet potatoes? My problem isn’t with the size it is with the sweet potatoes themselves. I really do not love sweet potatoes, I don’t even like them! Normally I just ask any of the other volunteers if they would like to take them, but this week my daughter decided that we would keep them and she is going to try to make sweet potato dog treats with them. Ok so here we are with a double share of our produce which means I have 4 massive sweet potatoes! I sure hope she finds a recipe that our dogs love and that once the treats are made they can be frozen to be thawed and eaten at a later date. My poor daughter has her work cut out for her…
I am not sure what I am going to do with the rest of the produce this week. The fruit will be eaten fresh with meals or for snacks. The vegetables will be used for our dinners. Again, I am not sure what we will be eating yet.
I have been toying with the thought that I really need to start menu planning. My work schedule has been quite busy lately and for as much as I would love to work less hours, that just never seems to work out for me. I think maybe menu planning and doing some food prepping on the weekends would really help me. We’ll see…