The Suits Sisters

I hesitate to write about my laughable budget because some of you are probably paying off your entire home in three months or giving half of your income to war refugees. OR BOTH. One night my mentor mentioned we had nothing to talk about (what?!) so he started grilling me with financial questions (yay!) ...that I had basically no answers for (double yay!) My final answer was something along the lines of "So, like, we pay rent every month. And uhh I guess like, insurance?" PATHETIC. I am supposed to be a grown Proverbs 31 woman with two kids and a pastor husband! After I finished riding the Guilt Shame Train (always a pleasure), I came up with a couple of reasons to follow a budget.. When my mentor isn't asking me financial questions,  he's reading books to his granddaughter  1. We can work towards a goal(s) We want any excess money saved up for IFT (Important Future Things). A bigger family car, college and retirement, mainly. Without goals, our excess ...

Do I look different to you? I'm a SEAMSTRESS. I SEW.  (Kinda like sailing ) This post is 6 years in the making, confirmed by the receipt that I found in the bottom of the sewing machine box. It was marked March 2010 from Target. I saved over forty dollars and it's forty dollars that has haunted me for some time. I wondered about selling the machine or giving it to my friend, the one who threaded it for me. She's borrowed it twice and even gave me a quick tutorial. In the end I hung on to the huge box, determined that it WOULDN'T BEAT ME.  Last night I went all CARPE DIEM on it at 9:30 PM  I went with an "easy" princess pillow case for Caris. High five to the ladies out there with video tutorials and free patterns, but I also pair that high five with an ugly side glance because they sure did trick me with their easy peasy talk, "Lookey see here, you just snip snip snip and sew sew sew and there you have a perfect pillow case"  ...

Be careful what you wish for. In April I mentioned that I wanted the new Cookies and Cups Cookbook   and not a week later IT'S SITTING IN MY MAILBOX. (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) First, I looked through all of the amazing pictures. Second, I read through every introduction to every recipe. Wait, is that pity  that I'm sensing from you, my reader? You should be jealous. Every night I tucked myself into bed and read 3-4 recipe introductions. It was amazing. Third, I balked at making any of the desserts because I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL. Why oh why did my (new, pretend) friend, Shelly , release her cook book chock full of delish desserts a mere months before summer? (and all the ladies said amen) Why not release it on October 1st when we're all settling in for a long winter of oversized clothes? {end rant} I love Shelly for 3 reasons: 1. She shares a name with my Ma and my daughter. I just realized they all spell it the same so DOUBLE POINTS. 2. The way she writes is so f...

Before we begin, let's remind ourselves that this is a Judge Free Blog. thank you Over the weekend I knew that it was finally time to tackle the kitchen pantry. We've never had a pantry in our married life so I was excited to have a home for our food. However, we lacked a system to organize food, trash bags, bottled water, yatayata which led us to this... I'm ashamed  The first step was to pull everything out and organize it into piles. Piles like Caris, hot drinks, dips, canned food, this doesn't even belong in the pantry, etc.  I've watched enough HGTV shows to know that the cute hosts dream up an idea and then their stud-muffin-of-a-carpenter appears to build them whatever they want.  And I'm no different! Here's what my carpenter came up with. Perfect!  Surprisingly enough I haven't even opened that JIF Hazelnut Chocolate Spread {yet} Here's the finished product. It's still packed with food (Moment of prayer a...

Goal: Martha's Peach Pie  Level of mess {to clean up}:  Medium. Peach juice + brown suga' + mixing by hand  Eatable: I'm not a huge pie fan, but Kent is. He ate it, but didn't fall out of his chair after the first bite. He didn't rave about it.  Bottom Line: When following a Martha Stewart recipe I always feel the need to be totally serious, read the recipe 4x more than I normally would and furrow my eyebrows. No nonsense.                     If you want to fill like the bombdotcom baker, BAKE A PIE (store bought crust, of course). And if you're a total cornball, stand on the front porch holding the pie, while wearing oven mitts  when your husband pulls into the driveway . (Guilty)  It'll make him laugh.  My Sous (pronounced "Sue" in case you're not totally into competitive reality cooking shows. Guilty.) My Sous  Chef was so excited about making a pie that she lost control of her bowe...

Goal: Twice Baked Potato Casserole. Recipe found here .  Level of mess {to clean up}:  Easy Eatable:  Yes, even Sara went back for seconds... Bottom Line: Easy recipe (I've made it before), feeds a crowd and the cool thing about this casserole is that while you're eating it, you can actually hear the arteries in your heart getting clogged. If you're a calorie counter, save some calories for this one. 

Goal:  The Pioneer Woman's Iced Coffee Level of mess {to clean up}:  Easy Eatable:  Yes Bottom Line:  Easy, fun, tasty Anna and I set out to make iced coffee at the beach. Somehow Dad and I ended up making it. So far we were 1 for 1 together so I felt confident. We worked with top of the line equipment: a cool whip container, milk jug and pickle jar (which surprisingly didn't smell like pickles at all. Go Ma).  We made the coffee, after soaking it overnight, at breakfast and we were sippin' iced coffee on the beach in no time.  It was a big hit!  Added Bonus: Making your cup of iced coffee might make you fill like a super cool Barista.  

Goal: Bread {that at least rises and looks like bread}  Eatable: YES. High-five! Best eaten slathered with butter, hot out of the oven Bottom Line: You can't go wrong when the engineer-turned doctor-turned African humanitarian recruits you to redeem your last bread making attempt. The only low point was spilling a large pan full of milk, oil and water on the floor.  But Big Papi helped me to Keep Calm and Bake On. And for Mother's Day, Ma's gift to me was a thermometer so that I no longer have to sprinkle warm-ish/hot-ish water on the inside of my arm. 

Goal: Homemade Braided White Bread Level of mess {to clean up}: Medium (so many bowls) Eatable: Yes Bottom Line: EPIC FAIL  I set out to make homemade bread this week. I'm a super-novice when it comes to bread making. My dough turned out beautiful and while I kneaded it, I felt like a baking pro. My hopes were up for an hour while I waited for it to rise...until it didn't. FAIL. It just sat like a big, fat, lazy lump.  Although we didn't end up with soft, fluffy, warm bread to slather butter on, in the end there were two highlights... 1. African Mama saved the dough when she fried it to make delish BLTs 2. I met a sweet old lady on the baking aisle at Walmart. She was buying bread flour and seemed just as clueless as I was.  Tips from all the accomplished Susie Homemakers out there?