Susan 'Sus' Barger

2009-07-12T13:45:00.001-07:00

Today my Husband and I decided to take a stroll along the river side at 'duck park'. The weather was absolutely beautiful. We took along some bread to feed to the ducks. We were surprised and delighted, to find a mama with her three little chicks. Both of us needed this little break from the walls of our apartment. Gary will be laid off for the next two weeks from work and we are already bored to tears and wishing we had money to do something. We will survive and hopefully he will get a chance to relax and enjoy a bit of the summer, which he normally would not get to do. So I leave you with a few pictures from the day. To see more go HERE

Jaxton Conner

2009-06-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

An amazing event took place early today...the birth of a baby.

Jaxton Conner

8lbs 4oz

18 1/2 inches long

Happy Birthday Jaxton. Now for the excitement of watching you grow into a wonderful young man.

My latest paint job

2009-06-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

I spent one evening last week painting the old highchair I had purchased at a rummage sale for $5.00. I decided it wouldn't be fair to the new grandson to sit in a pink highchair. Although his big sister loves it, it just wouldn't do for Jaxton. So I painted it white, with yellow accents. I also added a waste strap, which it never had and replaced the broken crotch strap. I was lucky enough to find one online that was exactly what I needed. So the old chair looks good and is safe for the new baby. Here's a picture of it right after I finished painting it. I had not replaced or added the straps yet.

Anna's Graduation

2009-06-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

We just got back from my Daughters Graduation. We had a wonderful time visiting with my Daughter and Son. I am so proud of her. I admit I cried when I saw her walking in with her cap and gown. Something I never did. She graduated with honors, that's what the yellow cord means. She plans to enjoy the summer and then start college in the fall. She'll be working towards her degrees in accounting, her ultimate goal. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Me, Anna and Her Dad

Me, Anna, Andy and Jim

Anna & Her Fiance' Trevor

My Mother and I decorated the two rooms we had and my daughter, her fiance Trevor, my son Andy and Trevors Mother came by and finished out the evening with us. We had a GREAT time! Here are some pictures of the celebration afterwards.

The View

2009-05-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the view I see outside my kitchen window. The photo doesn't do well expressing the feeling I get when I sit at the table in the mornings sipping tea and listening to the birds twerp. It's the only place here where we live, that I can feel a bit safe. It's a quiet little corner that no one invades but me. Often times a cardinal sits in the bush where I can get a really good look at him. He must see me though, because every time I get up to get my camera, he scoots along.

My Daughter Anna

2009-05-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

This Sunday we'll travel to Highland, IL. where my daughter will graduate from High school. Something I never did. It took me 15 years later to sit in a crowded room with a bunch of much younger drops outs, to prove to myself I wasn't really dumb after all. I nearly aced the G.E.D. exam, with the help of my husband coaching me for months before. But this isn't about me, it's about Anna, my daughter. She's grown into a beautiful woman, without much help from me. I couldn't be more proud of her.

She's been working since she was old enough to and just recently purchased a brand new car with cash, paid in full. Something she had been saving for, for literally her entire life. Always one to never want to spend her money. I can remember standing in wal-mart with her, she couldn't have been more than 8 years old, as she painfully tried to decided what to buy herself with her savings. While her brother filled an entire cart with toys he couldn't afford, she very quietly stood and price checked every doll and game being very careful not to spend to much of her hard earned allowance. Although one of her first words was 'charge it', I don't think she ever really will.

Anna and her boy friend of nearly 3 years now, have recently become engaged as well. Talk about scary for me. The thought of my little girl getting married makes me feel lost and well....old. What happen to the time? Where did it all go? She was just a baby yesterday. Her and Trevor will wait until she finishes college to tie the knot and when asking her if children were in the future, she said "I want to see what it's like to be married for a while first". WHEW!

So Sunday is the big day. Gary and I will go down and meet with my Mother and step Dad. We'll go to the graduation and then go back to the hotel to put together a little party for her. I'm really excited and I hope I can get some good pictures to share.

Memorial Day 2009

2009-05-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

Today we attended the local Memorial Day celebrations. As always it was very nice and very moving. A young veteran spoke to the crowd, barely leaving a dry eye, but most definitely leaving a mark in the hearts of everyone there. I'd like to leave you with the pictures from the day. Young and Old with so much in common....War

Jack Murphy Korean War Veteran

President of the Livingston County War Museum

(AND my Husbands Brother-in-Law)

Left: Juan Ruiz an Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran

Right: Jack Murphy Korean War Veteran

Juan Ruiz speaking to the crowd at the Pontiac, IL Memorial Service

Neat Thrifty Ideas!

2009-05-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

Since loosing my job over a year ago, and my husbands job taking away any and all overtime, we have had to make some drastic changes in our lifestyle. I've turned into a thrifty homemaker and LOVE it. I've been searching online for help to pinch every penny possible around the house and thought I'd share with you what I've done to cut cost. Feel free to share these tips with your friends and family!

'fabreeze' air and fabric freshener: Add a cap full of your favorite fabric softener to an empty bottle and fill the rest with water. Shake and spray.

Best Fabric softener= Put white vinegar in your downy ball. It really WORKS! Clothes come out soft! And Vinegar is cheaper!

Make your own laundry soap with dish soap: Just add one cup of dawn to 7 cups of water in your old Tide bottle and save $$. Add some oxy clean or borax to your whites.

Stop drinking expensive soda pop and instead buy instant tea in glass jars. Enjoy the tea and use the jars for storing rice, beans, noodles..etc.

Drink Powdered milk and save 30% or more on your Milk $$

Homemade coffee creamer:1 can sweetened condensed milk, 3 cups of milk (or as little or more to your liking), your favorite extract flavoring (vanilla, rum, mint, cinnamon, etc...)

Homemade sweetened condensed milk: 1/2 cups hot water, 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup powder milk. keeps in fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Homemade sour cream: 2/3 cup dry milk, 3/4 cup water, 1tsp Vinegar, beat and refrigerate. Keeps for 1 week in fridge.

Hang dry clothing to save on electricity and or laundry $$ if you use a pay machine.

Clean everything and anything with white vinegar. Windows will be streak free!

Drop your cable company and watch movies and tv online for FREE! http://www.hulu.com/

Shop at thrift stores, goodwill, salvation army and Yard sales for clothing and household items. Not only do you save money, but you also contribute to a good cause.

Make your own whenever you can. Look for loads of make your own stuff at http://www.thriftyfun.com/ . Often times you can make your own at the fraction of the price you pay for something store bought.

Turn off lights in rooms your not in. Unplug items your not using, like DVD players. These things suck electricity even when off.

Switch all your light bulbs to CFL or LED lights.

Go to http://www.walmart.com/ for tons of free samples sent right to your mailbox.

Plan your meals and shop smart. Check to see how much each meal cost you per person. Buy store brand when available.

Use bar soap instead of liquid. Liquid soap cost 30% more per oz than bar soap.

If you don't want to make your own soap, us half as much of your regular soap and it will still clean just as well.

Refill those expensive plug in air fresheners with potpourri oils. Just pop off the diffuser cap and refill the glass container.

Use olive oil as a hot oil treatment. Just heat the oil in small baggy under hot tap water. Massage in your hair, put on a shower cap or wrap in a towel and leave in for 15min. Wash out.

You often pay more for packaging and convenience. By doing a few things yourself you can save a bundle. For instance, instead of paying $3.00 for packaged sliced ham, buy a packed whole ham for $7.00 and have it sliced for free at the deli. You can easily get the equivalent of 5 packages of $3.00 packaged ham, out of one whole ham. That's an $8.00 savings! Put enough for the week in a container and freeze the rest. Instead of buying pre shredded cheese for your pizza and salads, buy a block of cheese and grate it yourself. Block cheese is always cheaper per oz. If you don't like grating it each time you need it, simply grate it all at once and put it in a zip loc bag for when you need it.

For liquid hand soap, buy the store brand liquid soap to refill the smaller pump bottle in your bathroom. Add 3/4 of soap to the bottle and fill the rest with water. It's still just as soapy and it makes it stretch farther.

I Baked Some Bread Today

2009-05-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

I spent the evening baking bread. It's been a while since I've baked bread, and was glad I didn't mess it up. I used glass loaf pans for the first time too and am happy to see they came out golden brown and done. In the past I always had very dark bread due to my metal pans. A lot of people are intimidated at the thought of making bread by hand. It's really quit simple. Simply mix the dough, let it sit for an hour, put in loaf pans, bake...and wala!

Here is the recipe for those of you who'd like to try a very simple home made country white bread. Don't be afraid, if I can do it, you can too!

INGREDIENTS
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
3 teaspoons sugar, divided
2 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees to 115 degrees F), divided
2 teaspoons salt
6 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in 1/4 cup water; let stand for 10 minutes. Combine salt, remaining sugar and water; add to yeast mixture. Add 3 cups of flour; beat until smooth. Add enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch dough down; shape into two loaves. Place in two 8-in. x 4-in. x 2-in. loaf pans that have coated with nonstick cooking spray. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.

Nutritional Analysis: One slice equals 87 calories, 0.55 g fat (0 saturated fat), 0 cholesterol, 146 mg sodium, 18 g carbohydrate, 0 fiber, 3 g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 1 starch.

Good Luck!

Jade

2009-05-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Here's Jade today. She loves cheese and was gladly telling me how much so. We had a nice day, just her and I while Papa worked and her parents went fishing. She let me put these pigtails in her hair and surprisingly she left them there. We went for a walk, played in the yard with a ball and took care of her many babies making sure they were all fed and burped. The weather was beautiful, just right for us. Here are some more pictures I took of her today. Enjoy!

No Picture Blog Day

2009-05-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

I don't have a picture today, just a blog. This past weekend our community had town wide rummage sales. We were able to pick up quite a few items for the Grand baby to play with here at our house. Now the playroom is complete with a kitchen center, doll highchair and a shopping cart. What girl doesn't need all of that? So today we babysat and I must say, all the new 'stuff' was a great hit. The weather was nice, so a walk in the fresh air did us all some good. Overall just nice day for us. It's to bad it ends tonight with tomorrow being the dreaded Monday. The weather is suppose to be great this week, so I will get a lot of laundry done. Today while Jade napped and Papa snored in the recliner, I made a pot of beans, potato salad and replenished the ice tea and milk (we drink powdered milk). When I get through with this blog, I'm going to search www.allrecipies.com for a good cheese bread recipe. My husband asked for some kind of biscuit to take to work with his lunch. If I find a good one I'll be sure to post it here. That's all for now. Time to relax and clean up.

Apple Bakes Or Banana Spring Rolls

2009-04-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

It rained all morning until the sun broke through about lunch time. Now the wind is blowing, so much so that it wont be enjoyable to go outside. My tulips are pleased that the rain stopped, but not so happy about being blown about. I'll have to get another picture of them soon. Since the weather outside was so bad today, I thought I'd experiment with a new recipe I found online that I changed up a bit. I think I'll call them Apple bakes. Here's how you make them. They are super easy and quick.

Apple Bakes:

3-4 small-med size apples

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

8-10 won ton wrappers

Olive oil cooking spray

2 Eggs beaten

Powder sugar to garnish (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cut up apples in thin strips or cubes, whatever you prefer. Place them in a mixing bowl and add sugar and cinnamon. Stir to coat all the apple peaces evenly. Lay out won ton wrappers and fill the center of each wrapper with approx 2-3 tablespoons fulls of apple. Wet the edges of the wrappers and fold them like a burrito, sealing the edges best you can. Place each apple filled won ton wrapper on a greased cookie sheet. Brush with beaten eggs.

Place in the oven for approximately 15-20 min. Make sure you watch it careful since all oven times will differ. I just take them out when they are golden brown. Sprinkle with powder sugar if you like, and serve.

The original recipe called for banana's instead of apples and you fry them instead of baking them.

YUM!

Make Your Own Pizza

2009-04-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

I made homemade pizza tonight for dinner. It's actually a regular meal here. At Least 2-3 nights a week. Since we don't eat meat, tonight it was cheese pizza. Some other toppings we enjoy are Onions, pineapple, asparagus, broccoli, green pepper, red pepper and sliced tomatoes. A lot of people I talk to are afraid to make their own crust. It's not hard at all. I can whip up the crust in less than 5 min. Here's the recipe and instructions for those of you who are afraid of making your own dough. It's very simple, trust me.

Ingredients:

1 package of rapid rise active dry yeast

1 cup of warm water (I just run the hot tap water just before it gets hot and quickly fill my cup)

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 teaspoon of olive oil

3-4 cups of flour (I don't measure it anymore, I just keep adding until the dough isn't sticky anymore)

Directions:

First get a large mixing bowl. Open the yeast packet and dump it into the bottom of the bowl. Then add your sugar, water and oil and stir. It will be lumpy looking from the yeast. With pizza dough there really is no need to wait for the yeast to do anything. You can if you wish, I don't. I just start adding flour right away. I add it by 1/4 cups and stir it with a spoon or fork until it gets thick enough to use my hands. Once the dough starts to pull away from the bowl, just dig in with your hands adding small amounts of flour and kneading it right in the bowl until it's no longer sticky. Form the dough into a ball and place it in the bottom of the bowl. Get a kitchen towel and place it over the bowl to let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes.

Your not going to be letting it sit forever and punching the dough down or anything like that. Meanwhile heat your oven to 450 degrees. Oil your pizza stone and place it into the oven to preheat. If you don't have a pizza stone I highly recommend you getting one. Anything you cook on it will not burn. You get an evenly cooked crust without hard burnt bottoms. I even use my stone for store bought pizza. Once the stone has preheated for the amount of time you let the dough rest, pull it out carefully with oven mitts. It will be VERY hot! Avoid touching it with your hands. If you've accidentally left it in to long and the oil is sizzling, let it cool a bit before you place your dough on it. Otherwise the dough will literally cook while your trying to spread it out on the stone. Take the dough out of the bowl, place it in the middle of the stone and sprinkle it with a little flour so your hands don't stick . Spread the dough evenly around the stone. Fork the dough in several places so it wont bubble up. Then add your favorite sauce and toppings.

That's all! it's SO EASY!

Enjoy!

My Son Andy

2009-04-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my Son Andy. I took this a couple years ago, but he hasn't changed all that much. He's turning 17 next week on the 5th of May. He's my baby, the youngest, and such an awesome kid. When he started grade school we weren't sure what his future held. Frankly we were worried! Rightfully so after the very first parent teacher conference when he was in 1st grade. I will never forget. His father and I walked into his class room. All these little desks everywhere, it was so cute. They all had their names on them, with little pictures each child had drawn. We began to search the sea of desk for Andy's. Hmm...are we in the wrong room? We didn't see his desk. The teacher spotted us with confused looks on our faces and asked if we were Andy's parents. After identifying ourselves as such, she directed us to a lone desk that sat right next to hers. I think my heart went into my throat as I realized....Huston....we have a problem! Everyone knows what it means if your the only kid with his/her desk right next to the teachers. It seemed Andy had a talking problem. I'm not sure who he gets that from....*whistles*. Then there was the time his second grade teacher said he couldn't read and had him going to a reading class several times a week. During that parent teacher conference, we discovered he COULD read, and quite well, however the teacher didn't want to deal with him so she sent him to reading class. That and the school needed a certain number of kids in the program to keep the program going. So basically he was being thrown into this class for two reason. Neither of which made me happy at all.

So after all this concern, worry and school issues, Andy has actually come a very long way since those horrible early years of grade school. I am so proud of him! So Happy Birthday Andy, my dear Son. I love you more than words could ever express. You are my sunshine on a cloudy day! xoxo

Winter Shots (looking back)

2009-04-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

I know we're going into Spring, thank goodness, but I thought I'd share this photo I took back in January, 2009. We have a park here with lots of Canadian geese. The locals call it 'duck park'. This was one of those lucky shots. I was walking up on the birds hoping for the best, when one startled, I quickly took the shot. This was the result when I finally loaded them into my computer. I was pleased.

This one I took from the top of a swinging bridge. I hate that bridge, but I was being brave to get the shot. It was so cold that day I was afraid my camera would stop working. I had to keep it inside my coat in between takes. The birds didn't seem to mind though.

They sure are fat things. I bet they're glad spring is finally here. I'll make a point to get down to the park soon and see for myself how happy they are. Until then, enjoy!

Jade, first spring pictures

2009-04-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Jade, my Grand-daughter. She's 17 months old now. They grow up so fast! My husband and I took her into the back yard where she discovered these pretty little yellow flowers ALL over the place. She was so fascinated by them. Papa showed her how to 'sniff' them. You can't tell by the precious picture, but she was actually blowing on it through her nose. We'll have to work on the sniffing part later.

We finally had some warm days. I can't believe just a couple weeks ago we had snow. It really felt good to get outside and let her run in the grass. A bit windy, but overall it was lovely. Here are a couple more pictures I took that day. Grandpa aka 'Papa' enjoyed it just as much as she did.

The Tulips

2009-04-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

I took this picture of my tulips this morning as they were opening to welcome the sun. I wasn't sure they would make it after having had snow and frost on the buds a couple weeks earlier. I chose pink tulips last year when deciding which to plant. I'm glad now I did, they make me feel happy.

They surround an angel statue put there by a neighbor/friend of mine who lost his battle with cancer one week ago today. Jerry was a humble man who worked very hard to put food on the table for his children and grand children. I admire the man for putting up a good fight against life and death. Rest in peace Jerry, you will be missed.