My $5 Meal

One of my favorite bloggers is Erin Chase from $5 Dinners.com .  She’s authored at least 1 cookbook The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook.

I’ve always wondered, “how does she do it?”  Last night, as I was cooking my own dinner I realized, “hey I think I might have a $5 dinner here.”  Here’s what I had,

1 Package of Bratwurts

grilled onions

1 Package of hot dog buns

1 package of shoestring french fries

My grocery was having a 10 for $10 sale on the buns and the fries so those were both $1.  The brats were $3.99 making my meal just over $5 at $5.99.  Hey that’s probably as close as I’ve gotten lately (who knows really this is the first time I’ve really considered it).

By the way the meal, YUMMY and a hit with my man.  What’s your favorite inexpensive meal?

**Disclosure: the link to the cookbook is an Amazon link and I will get a small commission if you buy the cookbook by clicking on the link.

Sweetpea Beauty from Veggie Tales Review

Sweetpea Beauty – this is VeggieTales first ever show just for girls! It shares a lesson about true beauty with young girls – that God made you beautiful and it’s what’s on the inside that counts most!

I receive this offer in my inbox a little over a week ago to receive the Sweetpea Beauty Veggie Tales DVD and accompanying CD with all the music from the movie.  I jumped on the opportunity because:

A) I love Veggie Tales myself. I still remember the first time I saw a Veggie Tales video at Centrifuge back in the day.

B)  I have three kiddos and most of the stuff we have to watch on TV isn’t worth watching, but Veggie Tales yep they are good.

C)  It teaches about beauty and Godly beauty which even my 3 year old daughter needs to hear.

So, we’ve watched this thing now, officially a dozen times in the few days we have had it and the Puppies song is stuck in my head from the CD.  Even the screeching ending!  Ha! You’ll have to get it to hear that.

Anyway, you’ll love the Veggie Tales no matter if it’s this one or another one.  It just grows on you.  But, if you want a chance to win this particular movie and CD.  You can enter to win here.

Here’s how you can enter:

Enter a separate comment below for each item.  Entries can be made for

1) Tweeting about this giveaway.

2) Subscribing to our RSS feed via email or reader.

3)  Just leaving a simple comment with your name and url.

The entries will be accepted through midnight Wednesday September 8 and the winner will be announced on Thursday, September 9.

Sometimes It Takes a Leap of Faith

It was a few months there that I walked around in a dense thick fog. Not literally of course, but that’s how I felt in my mind and in my heart. It was clouded, dark and I desperately wanted out. In fact, I would have given anything to get out.

I knew deep down that the only way to thin the fog, the only way to see the sun on the horizon again was to take a leap of faith. This leap of faith would mean a change in my lifestyle, a change in my everyday and a change in me. It was going to involve a daily commitment from me to follow after what I was suppose to be doing in life. It involved going from having a steady paycheck to earning my income freelance and it wasn’t going to be a guarantee.

No matter the sacrifice I knew in my heart that this was my chance to truly live the “abundant” life, to truly live life to the fullest. So, though it took me a long time to take the leap, and it was not easy learning to live differently the first few months, I’m so glad that three years ago I took a leap of faith into this new “life”.

Every day is a new adventure, but life is about learning and growing, and faith is about trusting in something that you cannot see. So with a sense of adventure and at least a mustard seed of faith I face each day.

So far it has been leading me down a path I could have never created for myself even in my wildest dreams. Living life to the fullest doesn’t mean that life is easy, or without struggle, because it is in and through those struggles that you learn and grow the most. This prepares you for the next leg of your journey.

I have been a few miles down the road, I have amazing memories from those travels and I’m looking forward to the ones that lie ahead.

**Originally published at Skimbaco for a contest entry (no longer valid contest). This is just a reminder to me of why I am living the life I am living.

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