'Tis the Season

This is a wonderful season with Thanksgiving and Christmas fast approaching.  However, there are many who are strapped because of job loss, etc.  Please consider adding an extra bag of rice or beans, mac & cheese, canned goods, etc to your cart with every trip to the grocery store and donate it to a food pantry or local family.  If you attend church, you can organize a group to bring foods together to donate to needy families. 

Please remember those in need  - most of the grocery store chains will be running wonderful sales in time for Thanksgiving, so please consider buying a bit extra to share.  You never know when your turn to be in need will come.

Chicken Breasts

I like to use chicken breasts in recipes, but I hate the 2.99/lb price tag for the boneless variety, so I don't buy them often.  Right now, Food Lion has split chicken breasts for .77/lb which is DIRT CHEAP!!!  And it is not that difficult to cut the hunk of breast meat out.  It may take you a couple of minutes of time, but when your done 'processing' your chicken, save the bone and skin portions (in the freezer) to make broth later.  Double whammy savings!

Phonics Tiles

I found these at my local dollar tree for (of course) $1 and they sell online for $5-$12 a pop - so if you are a homeschooler or just interested in teaching your young child reading skills, go pick some up. *Steph - if they don't have these in your area, let me know and I'll ship you some!

http://www.abcstuff.com/items/LT032.html

Old Socks

We often have 2 problems related to socks - #1 - the mismatch with no clue where the other one is; or #2 - the elastic stretches out (especially on hubby's socks - hmmmm, bet there's a link there). So my dilemma is what to do with old socks and I have a couple of ideas

1 - sock puppets - a good and time consuming craft idea for children which can followed by puppet shows for hours of free entertainment

2 - dusting - slip the old (clean) sock on your hand and it becomes a mitt without the $5 price tag of buying the name brand mitts, plus you have reduced, reused and recycled some old thing that could have been useless trash into something useful once again.

What other good uses do you have for old socks?