Costume Swap is Coming!

Amid all the life happening, I've been working with my friend Shannon to organize the Central Oregon Children's Costume Swap. We are thrilled to have some great sponsors and excited to see how everything comes together.

Central Oregon Children's Costume Swap
October 1, 2011 at Fall Festival

How it works:

All costumes $10 (all proceeds to the Family Access Network.)

Donate a costume and receive $5 credit toward your selection; Donate 2 and select one free!

Costume drop off will be Friday, September 30 from 6-8 p.m. at the Bend-La Pine Admin Building.

Who knows how much traffic we will generate, but this is only our first year as an official event. The real goal is to give parents a venue to recycle past Halloween costumes and pick something new. Hopefully we'll raise a little bit of money for the Family Access Network along the way.

For more information, check out the Central Oregon Children's Costume Swap on Facebook or Shannon's blog.

Also, our event is affiliated with the National Costume Swap Day that is promoted by Green Halloween. If you're not in Bend, you can check out the national website to locate a similar swap in your area.

Naturally...

My kids love pancakes. It's one of the few foods that both of them (even Josh!) will happily eat and usually ask for seconds. That MAY have something to do with the addition of syrup, but "calories in" is what counts around here folks.

Natrually... we got through a lot of pancake mix.

We've been reliant on Krusteaz whole wheat pancake mix for some time because I can't justify buying one of the fancier mixes - though they really do make much better pancakes. However, even the Krusteaz seems pretty expensive for what amounts to a bag of fancy flour, and...

Naturally... Costco does not sell the whole wheat mix, only the buttermilk.

We're trying to eat less processed foods and cook from scratch when we can. It's healthier and more cost effective.

Naturally... I've been thinking about making my own pancake mix.

So last week, I pulled out the trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook - the one with the red and white checkered cover - my go to classic. Imagine my embarrassment to see how rediculously simple it is to make pancakes from scratch. It's like 8 ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, milk, oil - one bowl, and 90 seconds.

Let me tell you, those were the best pancakes! I used whole wheat flour and tossed in a 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. They fluffed perfectly on the stove, crispy outside, airy inside, beautiful color, even shape. Beautiful and delicious! I even thought about taking a picture, but I was too focused on scarfing down the finished product. I was totally stoked putting the plates on the table and doling out the syrup.

Naturally... my kids did not eat them.

Sigh.


(But don't worry. We're persistent and I made the pancakes again on Sunday to show Scott. This time, the kids ate a more reasonable amount. I'm never buying bag mix again!)

Thoughts on Frugality

Budgeting and frugality are a hot topics right now and our house is no different. It's great that as we dive into these conversations in our house, there are tons of other people discussing the same stuff and posting tips online.

SimpleMom has been posting about budgeting. She says to think of your budget as a way to direct your dollars. I've always thought of a budget as a way to RESTRICT spending, but it's much more freeing to think of our budget as a way to give your hard earned dollars a job to do. We finally put together a serious budget and are approaching our first month of really tracking how our dollars are being spent against the buckets available. This Sunday will be my last grocery visit for the month and I'm excited to check the budet and find out if it will be a scrimpy or a splurgy trip to Safeway.

I also came across this great description of frugality on SmallNotebook.org.
"I used to think being frugal was spending as little money as possible — but that’s just being cheap. Now I know frugal is being wise with your purchases and spending money carefully to receive the most value."

I really like the idea of being intentional instead of cheap. I also think that being frugal also gets unfairly lumped with "going without." Instead, I'm trying to think of being frugal as "learning to get by and be happy with what you have." This is a hard concept in our commercial driven, and stuff-based society. How do we shift our perspectives to stop worrying about getting the next, best, new, improved product and instead find contentment in what we have and joy in the ability to make do, stretch, improvise, innovate, and create to meet our needs?*

Of course, it's a journey, but here are the concrete actions I'm trying to take on my quest to be content with what we have:

1. Ditch the catalogs. I've started to make a habit of dropping the catalogs straight from the mail into the recycle bin. It's really hard to avoid the urge to just "see what's out there," but if I don't see that beautiful kitchen table, pair of shoes, fancy tent, or flippy skirt, I won't know what I'm missing. On the plus side, I think the companies may be on to me (or giving up on mailed advertising in general), because the number of catalogs in our mailbox seems to be dwindling.

2. Avoid the urge to cruise the store. This is my downfall in Target. I always want to wander through the furniture area and quickly puruse the clearance rack to check for good deals. You know what's a better deal than an $8 sweater? Spending $0 and wearing the sweater already in your closet.

3. Multi-task with your tools. This is big in the kitchen. I love gadgets! And there's always a specialized tool out there that is the ONLY right way to slice strawberries, beat and egg, or mix your batter. You know what else works? A knife, fork, and spoon. Imagine the confidence in knowing you can be a great cook with simple tools.

4. Reuse, reuse, reuse. I'm trying to embrace an attitude of creativity and innovation. It feels good to find new life in something that would otherwise be destined for the trash or recycle bin. I just wish I was more crafty, so that those re-used things would be prettier...

5. What else?

We try to do things like delaying purchases for a week or a month to see if we really need them and keeping a list by the caldendar of our WANTS and NEEDS, so that we aren't swayed by the fancy advertising... but those things don't really help changing our focus to being happy with what we have. What works for you? How do you cultivate an attibute of contentment?

*Of course, the larger spritual picture is that we shouldn't be focused on our stuff at all and instead find contentment in the life, love, and journey God has placed before us, but my brain isn't going there with this post...

Rearranging

We inadvertently spent the weekend rearranging furniture and toys all over the house.

My office is in the little landing space at the top of the stairs. It's bare bones, but I've been wanting to get more work space amid the cords, printer, filing, and miscellaneous accumulation. I thought installing a big overhead shelf would solve my problem, but standing in the aisle of Home Depot, we got inspired to re-align the furniture. Now, all the extras are pushed into the corner and I have a full desk to work with. I think a $10 bulletin board is all I need.

Today we cruised all the "going out of business" furniture stores (tough times in Bend) looking for one of those ottomans that can also store blankets and toys. After some sticker shock, we remembered that we already have a standard ottoman and headed home to rearrange our TV room. Our falling apart coffee table went in the corner. It's now providing storage for Owen's toys and may soon get new life as a Train Table. The previous toy storage bookshelf is now filled with the books (crazy concept!) that were hiding under our coffee table. The ottoman that has been sitting in a corner for 3 years (good rest area for the cats), is now propping up my feet. An added bonus is that our TV room looks acres larger.

Both projects started with us wanting to get a new piece of furniture, heading to the store, and then deciding the things we wanted weren't worth the money. Instead, we got inspired to work with what we have. Good for the creative side of the brain and good for the bank account!