The calm before the storm......

Drove to the "big town" to get my Thanksgiving shopping done, plus some Christmas shopping at Toys R Us before Black Friday and the crazies all go bonkers! We have a little extra money this year so I didn't have to make everything from scratch. In fact I'm using the extra time I've been saving by using paper plates, disposable diapers ( versus potty training cleanups) and buying instead of making bread to work on web "stuff" for our business. I'm excited to be featured in MamasLike.com and their holiday EXTRAVAGANZA!!! These ladies get 20,000 hits a day and have a passion for helping women with small businesses. Baby is climbing on top of my new cases of mailing envelopes right by the big picture window so gotta get 'em moved. Big sister age 16 is taking care of her but needs to do homework. Have a great day!

so much for posting

baby fussing about her diaper. She removed diaper. gottta sign off now

Mixed blessings

Littlest Smith is sick today. Thought she was fine but woke up late at night and threw up all over her bed again. Why is this a mixed blessing?

I had to cancel my Dr. appointment and stay home all day. I pulled out the doll patterns and I'm making all the plans for the one hundred dresses I'm making and auctioning off for charity. Also I'm taking suggestions on which charity to donate the proceeds to.
Possible thus far:
World Vision
Christmas Box House
Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City
Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, Id

Please let me know your favorites and I'd better get cutting :)
joan of ark

Busy Lazy Day

Well I've been up since 5 something. Read scriptures, did prayer journal, drove son to scouts activity, and mainly worked on the computer. I posted cake mix cookie recipes, rice and sausage casserole, carrot cake all on my secrets page
and now I'm just about ready to sign off for the day, well until the football game later today. They can watch the Ducks play and I'll sit here doing my thing and still being a part of the family. Guess I gotta go shine my sink and start laundry. Have a great day and blessing to all.

My first ebay listing

OK I finally gave in to John and listed one of the quiet doll kits on e-bay. Not just a plain old regular doll kit like he wanted but I added a custom made doll and some brand new fairy doll patterns. I guess my inspiration is the mom at www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com

I hope that's right. Not that she needs any more traffic as she gets like 20,000 hits a day and all that from an ad she put on e-bay for selling some pokemon cards that her kids slipped into her grocery cart and then opened so she couldn't return them. She's got a great sense of humor and now she's got a profitable web site/s and even a contract for writing her first book. Anyways check out my listing for My Quiet dolls Craft kit. I'll add an actual link when I figure out the web address. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, it just takes extra patience and lots of time :) We'll keep in touch and let you all know how it turns out!
blessings,
joan of ark

UP and running :)

Ok the new site is www.secrets-of-the-butchers-wife.com and it has our booo-tiful halloween cake , soup recipes and how to make homemade French Bread. It's brand new but let me know what you want to see first and I'll see what I can do:) I'd write more often but I really want to get this blog on my actual site. OK let's see if can can actually add a picture today. What do you know it worked! Now I'll try a link, ooo Yeah! I must be on a roll! Now I'll sign off and see if I really even did the links right :)

Creamy Pumpkin Soup Recipe and Scones

Creamy Pumpkin Soup

1 small onion, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped green and red peppers
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup canned tomatoes
2 cups canned or pureed pumpkin
2 cups water
2 cups milk( whole, evaporated or even cream
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder or 2 cubes
1 tablespoon flour
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Melt butter and sauté onion and herbs until onion is transparent. Add pumpkin, tomato, milk and water. Slimmer. Mix flour with a little water to make a rue. Combine with some soup liquid and blend thoroughly. Strain if needed before adding to the soup. Stir and simmer. If desired, puree in blender for smoothness. Excerpt from my article Five Fantastic Fall Soups.

Scones:
I take one batch of bread dough and heat a pan of hot oil. I make a small roll piece of dough and pat it flat. If you have time you can let them rise. Fry in hot oil until browned nicely. Drain on paper plates or napkins. Serve plain or with honey butter or sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

blessings,

joan of ark

I begin to scale the mountain again......

Only 6 more days I have to decide if I'm really going to start my new website Secrets of the Butcher's wife. As you can tell I've already got the name and some good info but I don't look forward to the getting started part again. I've got one year of SBI hosting and it's gotta pay for itself before that year is up. I still have to buy the blog program so I can transfer all my archives from the old blogging site- well over a years worth of posts. Wish me luck and I hope this is the way I can truly dedicate enough of my time to get my Secret's of the Butcher's Wife book together and ready for publication.
"When the student is ready the teacher will appear"

also

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure".

just pray that I'll I'll be able to manage my time well and make this all work!
blessings all.
joan of ark

Jimmy Fincher Saga

Well Marta I admit it. I'm really enjoying the Jimmy Fincher Saga. I'm already on book 3 The Tower of Air and thought I'd better do a little reporting. Stephen King look out! This series will be a really cool movie one of these days! It's so hard to find good books for boys to read and now lo and behold, there's a whole series of them. I'm hoping the 11 yr old will get hooked on these instead of Hank the Cow Dog. Mr. Dashner has a very pleasing writing style that can be enjoyed by ages 9 on up to adult so basically any literate that are young of heart. I"m very much looking forward to reading the complete works of James Dashner if I can just keep the kids away from them until I've completed my new quest!
blessings,
joan of ark

Did I do it right for the free book????

http://jamesdashner.com/ Ok there's the web address and here's the blog address
http://jamesdashner.blogspot.com Here's the deal be the first of 30 to post to the blog about James Dashner's new book and get a free one.

Also he has a great books for kids as I found out today from our writer's group. I've got a stack to read so will let you know after Sunday what I think. Highly recommended.
blesssings,
Joan of Ark

Checking prices.....

I didnt' realize how time consuming it would be to come up with a weeks worth of recipes, menus and a shopping list. Now I gotta figure out how to upload the charts to the website. I already made 3? trips to the store today I think.....boy it's been a long day and I'm just gonna check in later as the keys are becoming blurry or is it just my ffffingers are going to sleeeeep. nite all.
joan o f ark

just ck it out at http://www.all-about-meat.com in the freebie section.

Mrs. Survival found me

Check my referring sites and found a fun one, mrssurvival.com. I really do like preparedness as you can tell from my pen name Joan of Ark:) I better, as we published Ark Essentials the newsletter from 1991-2000. I've got loads of old newsletter articles that I need to archive and probably turn into a website and/or book one of these days......
blessings all,
joan of ark

Cruel and unusual punishment.......

Ever since kindergarten has started my 5 yr old has been getting even more creative in his search to drive me crazy. Today he and little sis filled the bathroom sink with water and had a water party, sloughing, drenching the laundry hamper, etc. Once caught and vanquished from the scene of the crime he proceeded to dump water into his shoes. Time to get "cruel" and creative in my punishment, he was forced to stand at the door of the bathroom while little sister got the job I'd intended for him. She received a cut up milk jug to scoop water and it was her job to dump the water into the toilet. It was the worst thing I could have made him do. Stand and watch his sister have fun cleaning up.

It could've been me......

Saturday we planned on going to the water park in Rexburg but one of the little kids was sick. We decided to stay home, get some movies and do some fun activities instead. On the way out of the store, a man stopped me and asked about the wreck. I guess there had been 3 ambulances called and all traffic had been diverted to back roads instead of the freeway. My heart kind of skipped a beat. If I hadn't been getting movies there's a very high likelihood that I could've been headed to Rexburg right about the time of the accident, with my family. I really feel like we were divinely delayed and protected. It really makes you think. What does God have planned for me? Gotta go help with math homework.
blesssing to all,
joan of ark

Friend to Boot Strap Marketers strikes again.

Too fun. I've had about 4 invites to Daniel Levis's teleconference tomorrow. JP Maroney, Steve Manning, and Daniel have all sent me info, some more than once. It's on how to grown your online customer lists 4 to 7 times faster! After the great response we've had this week I don't know how much faster I can handle! Actually we just got backed up confirming e-zine subscriptions because of the Labor Day holiday weekend.

HIlbilly Housewife

Hurray! I finally found a good way to finish writing How I Feed My Family of Ten for $100 a week. I visited www.hillbillyhousewife.com and looked over her report How to Feed a Family for $45 a week and her other report How to Feed a Family for $70 a week. Both reports are for a family of 4. I guess I'm right in there for being super frugal.

Chocolate helps the zucchini go down.

We decided on muffins for breakfast this morning. I tricked our pickiest eater by adding zucchini and then cocoa powder. I even made one batch with mini marshmellows in the middle- didn't work well. They might be better after they cool. My personal favorite ones had added coconut and peanut butter too. Mr. Picky actually ate two!

The Dollar Stretcher loves us too

Hurray, our BBQ sauce article appeared on http://www.stretcher.com and the sign ups for the Meat-zine newsletter are going crazy! I just got 7 new sign ups in the last two hours! Total of new subscribers in the last two days 59?! and increasing as we speak. Usually we get some good book orders but this time they all want the free newsletter and special report. I'll have to tell them we left out lots of the tightwad tips to appeal to the general public. It's cool because our traffic average to http://www.all-about-meat.com has more than doubled. I can hardly wait to get the DVD back from the fellow who knows how to get it up on the web for us and then you can all see John and how he cuts up meat. Kinda fun to watch :)
blessings,
joan of ark

Old blog archives available until Sept 8

This is the link to my old blog that will be closed as of Sept 8th. If you can't find something on this new site yet, it might still be up at the old one.
http://butcherswife.blogsource.com/

blessings,
joan of ark

How much do I spend on groceries?

This was a question from the dollar stretcher forums ( http://wwww.stretcher.com) How much do I spend on groceries. Usually I spend $100 a week. That's why I wrote a special report called How I Feed My Family of Ten on $100 a week. It's the free bonus if you sign up for our "Meat-Zine" at http://www.all-about-meat.com. Another question was what is the most you've ever spent on groceries. I think the most I've ever spent was when we first moved and had to restock our pantry. Winco is a hour away so we took the big van and filled up 3-4 carts. I think the total was just over $500. That food lasted a long time- but our basement flooded and we lost a few cases that were on the bottom level. I'd placed everything on wood- not the cement floor but the boxes still got wet. It was weird to pick up a can of vegetables and it had no liquid left in it when you'd shake it. The water had drained out. One more reason to be careful salvaging food after a natural disaster. Even sealed cans, or ones that appear to be sealed aren't necessarily sealed.

Anybody interested in a joint venture?

Our last joint venture worked out pretty good and grossed over a thousand dollars. We let someone sell John's e-book Confessions of a Butcher- eat steak on a hamburger budget and save$$$ to the people on their mailing list. I know Amazon doesn't pay their affiliates very much so anyone who has a food site and is an Amazon affiliate is a possible contact. I'm thinking with the economy down that this might be a good gift for an employer to give to their employees. If you know of anyone who might be interested, feel free to contact us on John's meat site htttp://www.all-about-meat.com or our older site http://www.arkessentials.com

3lbs for $100

John and I started up our contest again. Whoever hits their weight loss goal first gets $100. I didn't seem to be making any progress this week and then when I weighed this morning Hurray!!! I'd lost 3 lbs. Our scale is kind of funky sometimes and you never know if the reading is accurate the first time around but multiple weighs and still down. Only 3 lbs to go. I've won the last 2 times we've done this but I just have to keep John from bringing home treats. Tomorrow the big girls wanted to make a sugary treat and he talked them into fruit salad instead. I ended up buying fruit salad fixings but I also bought melons and a pineapple so I can have a low calorie alternative. Yogurt is sure yummy. I'll just have to resist. Is it worth $100 to eat it? Nope. I even turned down a chunk of a Symphony candy bar. Is it worth $100? Nope. Any suggestions on what I should spend the money on? It's supposed to be just for me and something kind of frivolous, not clothes or something I should just be buying for myself anyways.

My friend sent me this video link- Frugality in the news:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/223/popup/index.php?cl=3901345
It's the Economeese( excuse the spelling) family. They're supposed to be the cheapest family in America. They even called their book America's Cheapest Family. I've already sent her a review copy of John's book but if they're big they might not have time to even open their mail. I wish them well and hope they continue to carry the torch dropped by Amy Dacyczn when she canned her newsletter. I mainly used it for mental support as I'm already totally cheap. I do want to buy a copy of Richard Paul Evans The Five Lessons I learned from a Millionaire. I wish my family would catch on that the little pennies do add up eventually and we need to stay more on budget. Guess I better go run errand.
blessings all,
joan of ark

New US savings site

Yurray! the Simple Savings folks from Australia now have a US site and newsletter. They returned my email last night and here's the new web address www.simplesavings.net. You'll have to check them out.
blessings,
joan of ark

Not so nifty surprize inside :)

Just was sorting out some hand-me-downs from my neighbor and I remembered when she gave me a bag before....... she goofed and handed me the bagged garbage in the back of her car instead of the bag of used clothes. I didn't get to them for a couple of days and wondered why my car was smelling funny. OOps! was she embarassed. I had to call and definately kid her about that one.

Here's a great website for the frugal minded. Simple Savings at http://www.simplesavings.com.au/
I got a free membership by calling into their radio show on world talk radio. I like the free newsletters and PennyWise's blog :)
blessings to all,
joan of ark

Dandelions are good for......

Hubby had a kidney infection and even missed some work. He went to the Dr. and got some medication but it wasn't enough. I did some online research and found an herbal formula that was supposed to help for $30 a bottle plus shipping but he wanted to feel better now. I read the ingredients and we had 3 items right on hand that were good for the kidneys; beets, lemon balm, and dandelions. What do you know we had all three right in the garden. I cooked up some beets including the tops and while he ate those I brewed him a cup of herbal tea made from the lemon balm and dandelion leaves. After completing my "cure" his fever broke and he was finally hungry again. Felt good enough to eat the yummy cinnamon rolls sitting on the table.

I miss my old blog already

Well I've downloaded about 6 pages worth of old blog entries from my former blog home :( I guess I"ll be posting them on http://www.arkessentials.com or making a new site build it page. But gotta start blogging in the meantime. so here goes.
blessings,
joan of ark

Finally some success...

I've been up on the web for over two years now and finally hit on a way to actually make some money. I did a joint venture with a BBQ guy and made over $500!!! Hurray! I might end up in the black this year. Now I gotta get over and see my friend's new blog. martaosmith@blogspot.com. She's the reason I signed on today. Have a great awesomely good day.
blessings,
joan of ark