Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

Here are 5 posts that caught my attention this week:

1. From Planning Queen, Beef Stroganoff Slow Cooker Recipe
2. From Redneck Mommy, her hilarious description of her daughters cat giving birth on her bed - not for the faint of heart, or stomach. Or if you’re eating. You’ve been warned.
3. From Frogdancer, Mother’s Day with older kids. Her boys are turning into such delightful young men.
4. Kelly, who this week got her eyebrows waxed because she broke a nail.
5. Lightening posted her thoughts on Paid Maternity Leave, which prompted me to post my thoughts.

What caught your attention around the blogosphere this week?

Menu Plan Monday is a regular feature here at Kin’s Home. Hosted by Organizing Junkie each Monday, hundreds of bloggers post their menu plans. Some to share recipe’s, some to motivate them to actually have a plan, and some because they can’t think of anything exciting to write on Mondays . I’ll let you guess into which category I fall.Menu Planning has many benefits. Less wastage, no “What’s For Dinner?” questions at 5:30pm, a targetted shopping list. But how do you go about it if you’ve never done it before? Here are the 5 steps I use to menu plan each week:

1.  Make a list of what you already have in your house. Empty the freezer and see what meat’s in there. What packets do you have in the cupboard? Tins? 
2. Estimate the meals you can make with what you have on hand. Do you have everything to make Spaghetti Bolognaise? Or a curry? Write down what you could make with what you have, and you’re on your way to your first few meals.
3. Navigate the specials. If you have a variety of supermarkets you can shop at, check what meat is on special where. Meat is generally the most expensive part of the shopping, so if you can save $10 on meat you’ll be far better off than $2-$3 on general groceries. This, of course, also apply’s if you don’t eat meat. 
4. Unleash the cookbooks you have languishing around the house. At last count I had over 60 recipe books. Each week grab a couple and sit down with a cuppa and match up meat specials with new recipe’s you’d like to try. I’ve taken to marking recipe’s with sticky tabs if I’d like to try them, and with the meat specials in hand I can pick a few dishes to fill whatever gaps I have left.
5. Synchronize your calendar with your menu plan. Do you have football training til 6pm on Wednesday? Wednesday is a crockpot meal. Or toasted sandwiches using leftovers from Tuesday. Aunty Pat is over for dinner on Friday night? Plan your best meal for then. Know you’ve got extra’s for Sunday night? Something that’s easily padded with vegetables and bread.

As you may have read, we’ve had two exchange students visiting over the last few weeks. They’ve stayed here for just over a week and a half, and tomorrow we’re taking them to the airport to fly home. There are so many benefits to hosting students I’ve had to struggle to narrow it down to five, but here they are:

1. Make Friends - there’s nothing like living with people to quickly bond and become firm friends. I’m sure I had the two most delightful students possible (they have the address of my blog so I have to be nice ), but sharing meals, bathrooms and those late nights and early mornings are when friendships are formed, not out in the world as people go about their daily tasks.
2. Learn about different cultures - this is so obvious it kind of goes without saying, but I’ve included it because it’s kind of the fundamental point. For them to learn about you, and you to learn about them. We were pretty lucky to have the Olympics on while the girls were here, so another cultural activity to bond over. We learnt about festivals in Germany, and the girls learned about exploding Tim Tams (personally I was shocked they got here after 4 weeks in the country and no one had showed them Tim Tams).
3. Entertaining the children - ok, if you don’t have children this won’t help you much, but my kids were fascinated and thoroughly entertained by two new friends who hadn’t seen their toys, dances, songs thousands of times before.
4. Extra Income - Our exchange students came through the Lions club, but if you take on students from a local English college they quite often pay board, which, if you have a spare room can be a great way to bring in a little extra cash.
5. Cleaning out the spare room - If you’re like me, you have a spare room that could be usable, but for the piles of crap stuff that you can’t get rid of and don’t have time to sort through. Having guests is motivation to clean up that spare room and get some use out of it.

1. Turns out Miss Moo does have chicken pox.  I haven’t left the house since Wednesday morning.
2. My dog isn’t doing so great. He got a tick Wednesday afternoon, and has been at the vet every since. Despite the damn thing only being in there for a couple of hours, he’s not improving as quickly as the vet would like.
3. My phone is still touch and go. I haven’t been advised that it’s been fixed, but the diversion was taken off so I assume they did something. Loving the communication too.
4. The Olympics are over this weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I totally love watching the Olympics, but14 days is definitely long enough
5. Shopping. I have lined up DH to watch Miss Moo for an hour tomorrow morning so I can go for some retail therapy at my favourite shop. She’s having 50% off shoes and bags as well. Umm…. where did I put that credit card?

Just for fun today, 5 things I never thought I’d do:

1. Watch more ABC than my parents
2. Be an obsessive comprehensive listener of ABC radio
3. Sit up past midnight on more than one occasion to watch a bike race
4. Enjoy gardening
5. Study Law

So what 5 things did you think you’d never do? Post in the comments or on your blog and leave a link!

Last August I published a post on buying reduced meat. With the current economic climate and people looking to save money wherever possible, I thought it a subject worth revisiting.

Buying reduced meat can be tricky. Meat near or on it’s use by date can be fickle, and if there’s one thing that WON’T save you money, it’s getting sick from eating off meat. And yet (for us anyway) meat is often the item that costs us the most in our weekly shopping. I have a target of $5 per meal for meat. If you mulitply that by 7 meals a week, that’s $35, and about 30% of our weekly budget. Clearly this is one area that’s prime for cost cutting. Following these simple steps I can often save half our meat budget, and minimise the risk of consuming off meat.

1. Find out when your local supermarket reduces their meat. If your shops are closed on Sunday, it’s likely to be Saturday afternoon. Our shops are open Sunday, but the big meat delivery comes Monday morning, so that is the best time to snaffle reduced meat as they are clearing out the “old” stuff for the new fresh stuff. It also pays to be friendly with your local butcher. While flirting chatting with the young fellow at the butcher one day he let slip that both the butcher and supermarket get their meat deliveries Monday.
2. Check the use by date. If it’s yesterday or today, you should be ok, but double check it doesn’t have yesterday’s date on it. Even supermarket staff can make mistakes.
3. Always go for meat as far back in the case as possible. Yes the meat at the back might not be reduced, but always try and get one that’s not been sitting at the front of the case all day.
4. When you get home, open the packet and sniff the meat. There’s nothing worse than freezing meat and defrosting it only to find out it was off when you bought it. If it is off, take it back straight away. You should still have your receipt and the packaging which will make getting a refund easier.
5. Freeze the meat as soon as possible. If you are not eating it tonight, it goes in the freezer. Freeze it in a container or plastic wrap. Label with what it is, and the date you put it in. I also add the amount which helps when I’m deciding what to do with it.

Buy following these five simple steps you’ll have a much less rocky relationship with reduced meat, and hopefully save a few $$ on your weekly shopping bill.

I just purchased my prudy pink diary for the financial year.

Why a financial year diary? Basically for tax reasons. My diary is not just a tool I use to keep track of appointments, it also helps me keep track of expenses for tax purposes. An appointment with the accountant and invoice are noted on the appropriate day. Hours worked. Weekly pay (if it varies). Bonuses. Car travel. When it comes to tax time all the information I need is in my diary, which also doubles as evidence if necessary for the tax office for many expenses. So how do you get the most out of a diary? Follow these steps to make effective use of your diary:

1. Find a diary that is suitable. Don’t buy a week to a page if your work/day runs in 15 minute increments and appointments. Similarly, if you’re appointments are one or two a day, don’t get a day to a page lump – you won’t use it. Mine is a week to a page, because I rarely have a day that needs something more these days. I just need a quick note like: “M&M Doctors 3:10pm” or “Pay rego bill”, rather than keeping track of appointments.
2. Create opportunities to USE it. Carry it in your bag/briefcase/car. The key to using a diary if you haven’t until now is to make it easy to use. An analogy I use is water – when people want to drink water they have a bottle next to their computer. You need to create the opportunities to make you do something you’re not used to.
3. Use colours to make it pretty. Highlighting different activities (work, kids, home etc) with different colours not only makes it pretty, it’s a useful tool for seeing at a glance who/what is going on in advance. This is an example of a week from my diary last October. Green was for the kids, pink for Tupperware and blue was for house/family stuff.
   
4. Set time aside time to update it. Once a week, once a day, whatever time you need to make sure everything is in your diary and it’s up to date. It can be after dinner when going through the kids bags and pulling out school notes. Or first thing in the morning when you check your emails. Whatever works for you. I find twice a week works well for me. I consult with the calendar, empty the kids bags, check my email and make sure everything is in there. I often follow this with a pile of phone calls to make appointments or information, and jot that down too. That way all the appointments are straight in my diary and I don’t need to remember to do it later. Set your phone to remind you if necessary.
5. Check it EVERY DAY. There’s no point going to lots of trouble to make sure all your appointments are in there if you don’t check it each day to remind yourself what your commitments are. Better yet, check it the night before. Again, if necessary, set a reminder on your phone