my morning

What I Wore Wednesday

I'm joining the crowd on this one with my first "What I Wore Wednesday" post!

For those of you who are wondering what WIWW is, I will explain. Basically it is an idea that someone came up with to help keep moms from being slobs everyday! :)

As a mom it is sometimes difficult to get up and get yourself ready when you have the responsibility of another little person (or for some of you, several little people), but that shouldn't be an excuse for not putting some time into what YOU look like. WIWW is simply taking a photo of at least one outfit you wore during the week and putting it up for the world to see!

I have never done this before, but I am really excited to begin doing it! I will be linking up with the Pleated Poppy for this one (notice the button on the right)

Shirt- GAP

Skirt- re-purposed from an old shirt (with the help from a local shop-Mission Savvy)

Necklace- t-shirt necklace made using some of the shirt used for the skirt and some extra fabric that Mission Savvy had!

So there you go! My first WIWW post!

Maybe next week you'll join me??

Have a blessed day! :)

roll-ups and granola bars

I've been in the kitchen for a little while this morning! I decided to go ahead and pre-make Wednesday's dinner and try my hand at some homemade granola bars.

I got this great recipe for Southwest Roll-ups from Moneysavingmom.com to make for dinner on Wednesday evening. I modified the recipe a little bit (left out the cheese), but I assume they will be delicious just the same! I only made 6 roll-ups though. I thought I was half-ing the recipe so I should have made 8, but because I left out the cheese and put more filling in each wrap I only ended up with 6. For our family of 2, that should be 1 dinner for 2, and enough left for a lunch for both of us as well. I wrapped them up and put them in the freezer until Wednesday!

I also decided to try making granola bars. I love granola bars and probably spend too much money purchasing store bought, pre-packaged ones. I got a recipe from Joyful Abode. Once again, I made modifications to the recipe (I seem to be completely unable to just follow the recipe as it is). I used only a little bit of brown sugar and honey, and substituted some Agave. My bars have no dried fruit (because I am currently out), but instead contain pistachios and coconut. I typically wouldn't use pistachois in my baking because they are expensive, but I had some that were given to me as a gift and they were about to be completely stale. They are still cooling, so I am not sure if they turned out, but I will let you know! I am hoping that making my own, and packaging my own, will save us a little bit of money this month. We'll see! Making granola bars may become a new item on my weekly list!

a good reminder

Tsh over at simplemom.net gave a great encouraging reminder of daily life and contentment!

The mundane things in life tend to get...well...mundane! Laundry, washing dishes, washing diapers, making beds, etc. Her encouragement was good for me and I hope it will be for you too!

http://simplemom.net/living-a-good-story-in-the-mundane/

saving...when there's not much extra

My family lives on a pretty tight budget these days so that I am able to be home to care for and raise our precious little lady! Living on one income can be very tough at times. We really want to put money away in our savings account for a rainy day (or a larger purchase like a house some day), but putting away a large chunk of money each month is nearly impossible on our budget!

So I started thinking...putting away a little bit (even just a few dollars) each month is better than nothing right? Right!

We have this change jar. You might have one too! Mike is always putting the extra change from his pockets or pennies found in the couch cushions in this jar...its actually more like a cup. Typically the change just stays there or gets used for parking when we drive downtown, but now there is a new purpose for this cup of change--its our savings for the month!

Each month we plan to roll the change and deposit it into our savings account. We will roll everything we can and leave the extras for the next month. I called the bank to see if they had a coin counter and they don't, but the very nice woman I spoke with recommended rolling the change rather than taking it to a coin counting machine that charges to change your coins to bills. Your bank may have a coin counter that would make depositing your change much easier! Its definitely worth calling about. If not, the bank will give you the wrappers for rolling your coins (at least mine did).

So, its not much, but this month we are putting $28.50 into our savings account. Better than nothing! And it really took no time at all! I sat down this morning with my coffee, pandora, change, and wrappers and rolled all the coins. Any amount that was too small to be rolled was put back in the cup to wait for next month's rolling!

Just an idea to help you find a way to save something...rather than nothing...on a tight budget!

my button!

As you may have noticed, things are changing around here (read this post if you are unaware of what I'm talking about)!

With the change also comes a new design...and a blog BUTTON! To the right you will see a place for you to "grab my button". You can copy the code and put my button on your blog!

Once you do that, let me know! And if you have a blog button of your own, I will put it on my page too! :)

direction

For the most part this blog has been personal in nature, basically consisting of updates of my life, things God is teaching me, and little blibs about things I find interesting. I really love that many of you enjoy reading those things, but recently I have been contemplating doing something a little different with this space.

While it will still be titled the same--{life lover}--it is going to take on a little bit of a different feel. I've been thinking through what it is that I am really passionate about and trying to take my blog in a more specific direction. What I've determined is that I am really in love with simple living.

Just ask my mother and she will tell you that I am a minimalist! My family really does try to live in the most simple way that we can in our context/culture. There are many things that we do to make our lives simple, yet still be able to love life! My goal is to provide you with encouragement, ideas, and resources for loving living a simple life on a tight budget...which is what we are trying to do with our lives.

I hope you will join me on this new adventure, and continue reading this page and sharing your thoughts!

Much love,
Rachel