Second-hand for the "germ-o-phobe"

One thing every frugal person knows is to get things second hand whenever possible.  But some of us can't help but think about who else had it first, what they did with it, and what kinds of diseases they might have been carrying.  I'm not talking about someone with a serious mental disorder like OCD, but just people who the heebie-jeedies from something someone else has used again and again.  My hubby and I are in the category of people who over think about what's on an object.  On the other hand, we don't have much (meaning ANY) disposable income, and we have three going kids, plus we've moved a lot and had to downsize each time, but we've had good friends and family, plus a few random kind strangers, who have  helped us out.   When we've been given something second-hand that we can use, we graciously thank them for their generosity and then clean the heck out of it!  Here are a few of our tips for second hand stuff:

Wash all clothes, even if you think they're clean, and use detergent!

Be very selective where you get anything upholstered from.  Our couches we free from people we knew very well and had visited with on multiple occasions.  For a year and a half we had a second hand mattress from someone we knew from church.  Even then we still sprayed some Lysol disinfectant and vacuumed these things really well. Lysol is my friend.

If it's been stored outside or in a garage or something, you could sprinkle a little boric acid on it (keep away from kids)  to kill any bugs (a worry in places where it rarely gets cold enough to freeze the bugs) and after a few hours vacuum it off.  This is usually overkill (no pun intended) but if your imagination gets going.....

Things that aren't upholstered or porous can just be cleaned with some all purpose cleaner and a rag.

Interestingly enough, most of our stuff is second hand, but we almost never go to thrift stores or yard sales.  I'm signed up for freecycle, and regularly check the free section of craigslist, but it seems my timing is always off and it's already gone, or I don't have any way to get there in a timely manner.  They're still worth trying.  We get most of our stuff for free from friends and family members.  In our church, every family is assigned a few people to visit and help them if needed.  When these people (known as visiting teachers and home teachers) visit, they often ask if there's any way they can help the family.  So whenever we've been asked this question, we try to think of things we really do need.  Like when we had one dresser for our family of 5, which was occupied by little kids who want to pick their clothes and dress themselves, we put the word out that if anyone was getting rid of a dresser, we could use one.  A little over a week later there was a knock at our door and when we opened it there was a four drawer dresser there with no note or anyone around.  I peeked my head out the door to look around and didn't see anyone, so I yelled out "Thank you!" to the darkness, in hopes that my springtime Santa would hear me.  A lot of out kids clothes have either been presents from family for their birthday or Christmas (when family asks, mention this first) and people we've gone to church with who have kids a little older than ours that pass on the still wearable clothes to our kids when they wear out.  Our baby most wears clothes his older brother didn't ruin at that age, plus whatever hand me downs others send our way.
Furniture is an interesting thing.  I promise we help others out of the sincerity of our hearts because we care, but it seems like we always get way more back than we give, and I mean literally.  We helped my husbands boss move (into a bigger place) and they decided to get new furniture right after moving in so they sent a lot of they "old" but still perfectly good, stuff our way.  We got a couch, kitchen table and chairs (before that we'd been using a card table and folding chairs, that we'd also gotten from someone who didn't use them), a shower curtain, lamps ( the bedrooms in our place don't have overhead lights so lamps were a need), plus more dishes than we could use (we donated what we couldn't use to charity).  Our high chair was from when we were helping a friend of our deal with no longer having small children at home (through tragic separation) and he asked us to take everything to the dumpster and keep what we could use.  The high chair was about the only thing we could use.  Our beds we bought new with our tax return, but before that we had a mattress on the floor from some people at church who never really used it, and before that it was an air mattress.  If you go back far enough, we had a new bed that we got for a wedding gift, but had to sell it to some friends to make an interstate move in our car.
We've gotten a few miscellaneous things from family members and friends who didn't need it or someone offered it to them and they were kind enough to keep us in mind.  We've also tried to keep others in mind when we have stuff we can't use.
One other thing we learned is to own less stuff, and want to own less stuff.  The less you own, the less you have to clean, the more room for your kids to run around the house, and he easier it is to find what you're looking for.
I'm long winded I know, I guess I just seem to have a lot of experience with second hand things.  Which is great because I don't end up with buys remorse afterword!

It really IS a magic eraser!

I just had to share this! 
Today I bought a canister set from Walmart because I was tired of storing open bags of baking products in the fridge (air-tight containment is a must anywhere, but down here it's even more so to avoid attracting unwanted visitors!)  So I'm jazzed about that, but the sticker on the outside of the largest canister would not come off.  Only parts of it pealed off by hand, so I soaked it, only a little bit more of that paper part came off, but none of the sticky residue.  So I tried scrubbing it with hot, soapy water, that got a little more paper off, and maybe a tiny bit of the sticky stuff, but it was not working how I wanted it to work.  So I got online and did a search on swagbucks to find an alternative.  I found this website, which had many suggestions, but one of them was one of those magic erasers.  I always keep some of the Walmart knock offs on hand because I have a 3 year old who takes the phrase "the world is your canvas" literally, and they work wonders in getting crayon off the wall.  I even got some still somewhat wet nail polish off the wall with them once!  So I gave it a try and it worked BEAUTIFULLY!  I was again amazed!  When I first saw these advertised I thought it was another ho-hum product that wouldn't do much more than any other cleaner.  But WOW!!  They're amazing.  Another cool thing for those of us who are tree huggers (or at least try to be sometimes) is that the Walmart brand (I don't know about the name brand because I'm too cheap to buy it) makes the boxed completely from recycled cardboard, and it's of coarse recycle-able.  Plus, the magic erasers don't have any extra packaging around them, and when they wear out they just dissolve so nothing goes into a landfill!  I never realized Walmart was so green!

What have you found to be your magic cleaning product?

I love my job!

Just a quick note to say that I love my job!

Job?  You might think, I've never mentioned being employed before.  Well, I'm talking about the role of mother in my home.  I was thinking about people who say that motherhood doesn't define them, and that got me to thinking.  Why wouldn't you want to be defined as someone who cares for others, teaches others, helps people work through their problems as well as making a nice place for people to come home to?  Sounds like a glorious job to me!  And it is, it's called....wait for it.....being a HOMEMAKER!  I know you'd never think to read anything like that on a homemaking blog! ;)  I so love seeing my kids cute little faces every day and hearing the creative and sometimes off the wall things they think of.  I laugh at their perception of the world sometimes, I marvel at how forgiving and trusting they are.  I'm happy to know that my husband works everyday so he is happy to see food when he walks in the door (I'm also happy that we even have an income at all!  We've gone through way too many times when we haven't).  Although I'm not a huge fan of housework, I'm happy that we have cleaning products, I'm happy that we have food to make dirty dishes, I'm happy we have a washer and drying so we can have clean clothes to wear, and I'm happy that my baby is learning to feed himself so the mess in the high chair and on the floor doesn't get to me.
I think being defined as a woman who serves others and learns to be a better person in the process is wonderful!

Mediterranean Potato Salad

First off, let me say that I am NOT a potato salad person!  I never was big on it, and then I lived in Germany for 6 months and they LOVE potato salad.  In six months, I probably had some kind of potato salad close to a hundred times!  And I NEVER enjoyed any variation of it, and they make it like most Americans.  Fast forward to the past few months, my husband's chiropractor suggested he try to follow a little more of a Mediterranean diet.  So I set out to find at least a few dishes so that we could incorporate it into our meals a little bit more.  So I braved the potato salad world once more and am pleased with the results!
2 pounds potatoes
1 green bell pepper, minced (this is the part that I dislike the most, but my hubby LOVES it, so I just set it to the side so that he could have some but I could avoid it!  Maybe that's why I actually liked it!)
1 large cucumber, sliced and quartered
1/2 cup sliced red onion ( I used a little less than a a half cup and soaked it in water for a few minutes before adding it so the onion wouldn't take over the flavor)
8 ounces crumbled feta cheese
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
salt and pepper to taste
3 pita breads, cut in wedges (the store I went to didn't have pita bread, so I used multi-grain thin buns and they were very tasty and looked like wedged pita bread!)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add potatoes, and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes.  Drain, cool, and chop.
In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, (green peppers), cucumbers, red onion, and cheese.
Whisk together the lemon juice, salad dressing, salt and pepper.  Pour over salad and toss to coat.  Serve with pita bread wedges.

This is another one that I was very surprised to see that my kids enjoyed it!  The even asked for seconds!

Stove Top Beef and Penne Casserole

I am all about saving time and doing few dishes, so one pan meals really appeal to me!  I have this recipe that is good, but the kids will only eat maybe one serving and the recipe makes a LOT.  Good to freeze some and enjoy later.  And it's not one pan, but we'll get into that in a minute.

2 cups dry penne pasta (or small pasta of your choice)
2 Lbs. lean ground beef
1 med onion, chopped
2 cans (12 fl. oz. each) evaporated milk
1 can (15 oz.) 100% pure pumpkin
1 can tomato sauce
1 Tbs. packed brown sugar
1 Tbs paprika
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups frozen peas, thawed

Cook pasta in large saucepan for 1 to 2 minutes less than package directions (pasta should be slightly firm in texture); drain.
Cook beef and onion in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until beef is no longer pink, drain.  Reduce heat to medium.  Stir in evaporated milk, pumpkin, tomato sauce, sugar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, salt, garlic powder, and black pepper.  Cook, stirring occationally until mixture begins to simmer.  Add pasta and peas; stir until heated.



I decided the other day to make this recipe, but ran into quite a few snafus. We were out of milk and out of evaporated milk, out of tomato sauce, I usually used cooked and pureed squash, but we didn't have any.  To top it off, I started cooking only one pound of ground beef and realized that the recipe called for two pounds right around the time the first pound was done cooking and the rest of the beef was frozen and raw.  I got to thinking about the website Everyday Food Storage where Crystal talks about replacing one or two things with food storage things to help incorporate it into your diet.  She also has conversion charts for using non-instant powdered milk, which I happened to have on hand, in making things like evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk or buttermilk.  We also had two fresh tomatoes, and died onions (another food storage item), so my recipe looked more like this:

1 heaping cup dry whole wheat penne pasta (macaroni works really well too)
1 pound ground beef
2 Tbs (about, I didn't really measure) dried chopped onions
1/2 cup + 1 Tbs dry powdered non-instant milk
1 1/2 cup water
2 finely diced tomatos
1   6 oz. jar of baby food-squash
1 scant T packed brown sugar
1 scant T paprika
1 scant Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 cup frozen peas

Cook beef with onion, drain, add powdered milk and water, stir VERY well, add dry pasta.  Turn to medium heat, while heating, add other ingredients, cover, and simmer, stirring occationally.  Cook for about 15 minutes or so until pasta is tender.

I really reduced the salt, it's one small change we've been working on to be a little healthier.

One pan, using what I had on hand, and it was really good!  Since my tomatoes were so juicy it ended up being a little watery, but you could add a little flour or corn starch to thicken it up (interesting fact: flour will give sauces a more opaque appearance, while corn starch will give a more glossy, clear look).  It would also be good with a side of some hot homemade biscuits!

Baby bedroom

Lately I have been really tired and not very productive.  I started evaluating what could be causing such fatigue.  It wasn't hard to pinpoint, my son who just turned one STILL insisted on waking up several times at night to nurse.  Sometime almost continually for several hours.  With the older kids we would put them in another room and let them cry it out.  Now we are in a two bedroom apartment and the bigger kids are in one bedroom, we're in the other (complicated, I know).  The baby sleeps in our room.  I would just let him cry it out in our room, but my husband has to get up early most mornings to work 10 hours of manual labor in the heat, so he could use as much sleep as he could get.  I was exhausted and frustrated, and we even tried putting him in the living room, but it wasn't a good fit because the high ceiling and larger room echoed, waking up the other kids and keeping us up, plus we couldn't totally block out the lights from the parking lot outside. So I finally de-cluttered a little bit and moved some stuff around and viola!

The closet is now the baby's bedroom!  It stays dark, it's little warmer than the rest of the house, which is good because he almost always wakes up cold, and all the clothes and the size make it so his cries don't echo and wake up everyone.  You know what?  We've had him in the for several nights now and he's one woken up at night once!  Even when my hubby and I are talking at normal levels in our bedroom.  So it's been wonderful!  We can sleep more and cuddle with each other rather than having someone between us.  It's just all round great!  When my husband goes into the closet to get dressed in the morning it's about the time the baby wakes up anyway, and about the time I get up so it works out great!

Sun dress

A while back I made a summery dress with this pattern.  Well for my birthday, my mom sent me a gift card to JoAnn fabric (thanks mom!), I went there and the fabric I liked was on sale!  So I got enough fabric for two dresses and have made one already!

My five year old daughter also made me a necklace out of clear beads and insisted that I wear it while taking the picture.
I make a few changes to the pattern.  I shortened the sleeves, didn't put any facing on the inside collar, and when it came to hemming, I just did a ziz zag stitch all along to raw edge, and then folded it up and did a straight stitch to hold it up.  It was SOOOOOO much easier than folding it over twice and trying to get it to stay and not going crazy!  I also made the tie a lot wider and made a smaller hem on it so I didn't go crazy turning it right side out!  And I made the tie one long part and didn't attach it to the dress so I can switch it up with other belts later on if I want to.  I'm pleased with the way it came out!