22 February 2010

Giveaway Winner

The winner of the Pillsbury sweet rolls gift pack is Anita. You should have received an e-mail from me; if not, please leave a comment and I will resend it! Congratulations !

18 February 2010

New High Value Land O’Frost Lunchmeat Coupon

New High Value Land O’Frost Lunchmeat Coupon

Thanks to Common Sense with Money for this coupon find----$2/1 Land o'Frost lunchmeat. The one-pound packages happen to be on sale this week at Meijer for $3 each---with the coupon, that's only $1!!

17 February 2010

Sugar Cookies (Great-Grandma's recipe)

3 cups flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 t vanilla or almond flavoring

Sift dry ingredients. Add shortening. Mix with fork. Add unbeaten eggs and flavoring. Roll and cut. (Note: You may need to chill the dough before you attempt to roll it---the recipe does not specify this, but the dough is a bit soft.)

375 degrees for 8 minutes

15 February 2010

Giveaway

My family loves fresh, warm sweet rolls, but my past attempts to make them have met mostly with failure. Usually what I do is buy a couple of tubes of the refrigerated cinnamon rolls, pop them in the oven and watch the children devour them!

When My Blog Spark contacted me and asked if they could send my family a coupon for a free tube of Pillsbury orange sweet rolls, I was more than happy to say yes. We love the Pillsbury brand (they taste great and I love collecting those Box Tops that they have on the Grands rolls and biscuits). I had seen the orange variety but never bought them, and decided this would be a good opportunity to try them. It turns out, they are wonderful!

My Blog Spark and Pillsbury have offered to send one lucky reader a fun gift pack including a coupon for a free tube of Pillsbury sweet rolls, and a cute little photo album. To enter, leave a comment telling me what is your favorite childhood breakfast memory. For instance, I remember when we would visit my grandparents on their farm in Indiana, my grandpa would prepare these huge, homemade pancakes! They were so good.

The giveaway will end on Monday, 2/22/2010. The winner will have 48 hours to respond, or a new winner will be chosen.

I did not receive compensation for this giveaway. Pillsbury and My Blog Spark did provide my family with an identical gift pack to the one being offered: a photo album and a coupon for the free product.

08 February 2010

Free breakfast sausage at Meijer

If you live near a Meijer, the Johnsonville breakfast sausage (patties or links) are on sale for $2 each. Use a $1/1 Meijer mealbox coupon and a $0.55/1 newspaper insert coupon (which will double to $1) to get them for free.

02 February 2010

Free Cat’s Pride Litter Product Coupon

Free Cat’s Pride Litter Product Coupon

Thanks to Common Sense with Money for this find!! You can sign up with Catster and receive in the mail a coupon for a free Cat's Pride litter. I've never tried that particular litter, but my overgrown kittens do go through it rather quickly so this will be great!

01 February 2010

Early this morning, my 92-year-old grandmother died. I thought it appropriate to write a few words about the person she was before dementia took her away from us.

Grandma was born in 1917 to a railroad worker and the busiest homemaker that ever lived on this planet!! She had one brother, ten years younger (who also suffers from some kind of dementia). She was a highly intelligent woman and an accomplished (amateur) musician, playing piano, organ and saxophone. In 1937 she married my grandfather, and they were married until his death 5 years ago.

They lived on a farm in northern Indiana. That place is where my siblings and I spent some of the most fun times we had as a child. Grandpa would give us tractor rides, we would hunt through the barns for Grandma's barn cats and their kittens, or explore the house---my grandparents kept everything. They had my mother's and her siblings' old toys, their prom dresses from the 1960s, and some clothes of Grandma's probably from the 1930s.

Grandma wasn't the stereotypical grandmother---her house was always a mess (much like my own), she didn't smother you with hugs (but it was clear from her actions that she loved us), and she was never in the kitchen cooking yummy treats (she hated to cook and was terrible at it, but she would always keep packages of cookies or bags of candy around to treat us with). However, she was a very kind person and we loved visiting her and Grandpa.

They were total opposites. Grandma was a quiet person who loved music and books; Grandpa was as ornery as the day is long (in a good way). Still, they made their marriage work for over 60 years. Marriage vows were taken seriously by that generation.

We did not realize the extent of her decline until my grandfather fell ill and could no longer care for them both. After his death, my mother and her siblings appropriately decided it would be in Grandma's best interest to move away from the farm up in Indiana (none of our family lives close to there anymore) and closer to us, into a retirement home for seniors. It soon became obvious that something more was wrong than mere forgetfulness caused by old age.

Within a couple of years, it became necessary that she move to the assisted living part of the retirement home. She declined to the point where she often did not recognize the children she had raised, or her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She stopped writing in her diaries, a lifelong habit she had learned from her own mother. When she suffered a serious fall, it was time to move to a nursing home. Her decline was very rapid after that.

Grandma died peacefully in her sleep, February 1rst. She will be missed by all who knew her, and most definitely my children will be missing their Great-Grandma.