a bunch of good quotes and Amy commentary

I have not felt like blogging lately, but I just finished a book titled Behind Every Good Man by John Bytheway and it was such a "pick me up", I wanted to share. The main concept is helping your husband take the spiritual lead at home but I think that the basic people skills can be used in any relationship. Bytheway puts things bluntly and simply with a little humor and that's the way I like it. One big concept is summed up in this Quote " The grass isn't greener on the other side; the grass is greener where you water it." (a quote by-A guy named Mel, from Intermountain sprinkler. That's how it's quoted in the book.) Basically we need to treat people looking at who they can become and not by looking at their faults. Thanks Becky and Diana for recommending and letting me borrow this book. I think I will put that into action, more praise and try to be less critical.

Kaylee my sister has made it a goal to be a more positive. She and I talked a lot when she was here about the saying people don't remember what you say or what you do, but the way you make them feel. I'm not sure it is a quote, but if anyone knows who first said it please let me know. I wanted to put it on my wall. Not a new concept really, but I heard the quote many times in random places recently. I felt like it was something that I needed to pay attention to. Maybe the Lord felt that way too and was trying to point it out to me. My friend Kiran is such a great example of this. She is very good at keeping things positive and giving compliments. Who doesn't want to be around someone like that. So there is another goal.

Another goal of mine is to be more frugal. With a new car payment and some other unexpected expenses I had been considering getting a job to stimulate the income and instead I have come to the same conclusion that I have many times that I need to look at ways to reduce and reuse. My quote or saying to go along with this is "The best things in life are not things."
I also was listening to a book on tape, (again thanks Mom Parker) and one of the concepts it was talking about was creativity comes when we have the spirit with us. Blogging is a creative outlet for me and a positive one, not to mention cheep. One of the reasons that I haven't wanted to blog lately is because I have been down on myself and letting those negative thoughts creep in. We all know who that comes from. It just was a realization to me that I was letting him trump my progress.

I wanted to share a few thing that I have discovered recently that really helped me to feel good about myself and cut some expenses. I have always thought that I was pretty frugal, and I was raised by the queen of frugal, my mother, but I know you all probably have some tricks up your sleeves too. Please share back. I'm not bragging just sharing ideas.

Helena, I think is great at creative frugality by the way, and she gave me a real pick me up by teaching me how to, and helping me can tomatoes. I have canned peaches before and even tomatoes a long time ago, but it felt good to have them on my shelf and use them in a recipe. Thanks for the help Helena. I really needed that. If I could just get the growing of the tomatoes down we would have a great self sustainment process. I did something for that too this week. I saved some seeds from my tomato and I will try to plant them in pots for next growing season. I am not giving up on my garden, but please I need some encouragement.

The next thing I did was make milk from the canned food storage. I remembered a lady in my ward telling me that when she was raising her kids she would make milk from the canned storage and put it in the store containers so that they wouldn't pull a face at it and they didn't even notice. We were running out of milk and I was trying not to go to the store until payday and it tastes great when it's cold.

Samantha was invited to two birthday parties this week and it can get expensive buying gifts so I made some hair bows. (Another creative thing inspired by Helena). They loved them and I loved making them. I already had the supplies.

I had some clothes that had been stained and I had some dye on my shelf from a long time ago. So I dyed them and they look like new. I don't know what it costs to buy the dye. I wonder if it is inexpensive or not. Since I already had it I was so happy with the results.

Lastly I am trying to be creative with the kid's lunches and not just buy the packaged products that cost so much Even though it is takes more time I have enlisted their help and it has resulted in more variety. Still working on more ideas, but we didn't have bread one day, so I rolled lunch meat in tortillas and Samantha has made jello from the box and put it in containers. I also put yogurt in a container. It is cheaper than buying the little ones. ---Side note. Because Samantha is allergic to Milk I have had a much more fun time making lunches for Keagan. There is so many more foods he can eat. Well I guess they are all milk foods HA HA.

I hope everyone has a great week. Sorry no pictures this time. I will post some soon.
My Aunt Natalie posted pictures from our photo shoot from when we were in Logan. You can check them out on her blog on the side bar Natalie Lundberg Photography. Anika was being so fussy at the time, but she still got some good shots of her and the others are just awsome I am so excited!