Simon and Ruby

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SimonandRuby

I thought I'd take a minute to share with y'all my friend Lindsay's jewelry shop called Simon and Ruby. Lindsay makes all the jewelry herself and sells it in an Etsy store. All the pieces are quite beautiful, and very reasonably priced! And an added bonus, 5% of each purchase goes to World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization.

Lindsay and I went to Berry College together, and I'd love to help her out! So ladies (and gents), check out the jewelry if you need some gift ideas for the women in your life! If you don't see anything you like, but like Lindsay's style, you can always have her make something custom for you!

Here are a couple of my favorite pieces:

*All photos by Lindsay Black Farrar

Chicken Pot Pie!

I wanted to pass on this recipe for Deep Dish Chicken Pot Pie that my lovely friend Kim Hendrix gave to me. We eat this about once a week, it's so easy to make, and very budget-friendly. And an added bonus- it's got all your food groups, and two servings of vegetables!

Here's the list of ingredients:

1 pound of boneless chicken, cubed into small pieces (about 1")
1/4 c. zesty Italian dressing
4 oz. cream cheese
2 tsp flour
1/2 c. chicken broth
1 package frozen mixed vegetables-thawed
1 refrigerated pie crust

And the directions:

Heat oven to 350. Cook the chicken in the Italian dressing in a skillet until mostly cooked all the way through. Add the cream cheese, let it melt and mix it in. Add in the flour, one teaspoon at a time. If one teaspoon is enough, you don't have to add the other. You don't want it pasty or cakey, but you also don't want it runny. Add the chicken broth. (Add more flour if it's too runny after adding broth.) Add the mixed vegetables. Stir it all up, and let it heat through for a minute or two.
Put into a deep dish pie plate (mine is 10") and cover with the pie crust. Cut slits in the crust to vent.
Heat for 30 minutes at 350 or until crust is nice and golden.


A few notes:
This is a really cheap recipe, and once you buy the ingredients to make it once, you have enough to make a second one later. One can of chicken broth makes two, one 8 oz box of cream cheese makes two, and pie crusts come in packages of two! I use the Tyson individually frozen chicken tenderloins (if you use these, I use about 5 or 6 pieces), and one package lasts for several different meals. The frozen vegetables I buy when on sale, and I typically get them free (with a coupon.) So this is a meal that I typically can throw together if I have nothing else planned. And one bottle of the zesty Italian lasts forever, and you can use it for salads. Typically with the chicken broth I put the other 1/2 c. in a freezer container and freeze it for the second batch, so it won't go bad.

I hope you all enjoy!

*A bonus little note: Andrew is potty training right now, and he just came running naked around the corner with the biggest smile on his face, "Mommy! I tee tee in the potty!" And y'all he did it all by himself, he even pulled his pants down! And, an added bonus, it was #1 and #2. He's there, folks, just days away from being completely potty trained!!

Andrew's Christmas for $16!

Last night Brian and I did all of Andrew's Christmas shopping. From the couch, in our PJ's, with Andrew in the room with us. And it only cost us $16. How? Amazon.com and Swagbucks!

Here's a look at what the little man is getting under the tree this year:

Buzz Lightyear!

Woody!

Read Aloud Bible Stories

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Storybook DVD

Max & Ruby Book w/Flashcards

PlayDoh Burger Builder

And a previously purchased Toy Story book with sounds.

And, we got it all (minus the Toy Story book) for $16! Tell me that ain't the deal! Here's how it worked out. We're avid users of the internet. Between being informed consumers, parents of a toddler, and pregnant, we use the internet to research every little thing. Instead of using Google, we use Swagbucks. It works...exactly...the...same. The Swagbucks search engine is even POWERED by Google! Except, Swagbucks rewards you for searching, and Google does not. The more you search, the more chances you have to win a 'buck'. After accumulating enough bucks, you can trade them in for Amazon.com gift cards! We had accumulated enough bucks from searching to cash in for $65 of Amazon gift cards! It's so simple, y'all, it's silly not to do it. Especially if you use the internet to search anyways, why not get rewarded?

Interested now? Good! Click on this link to sign up, all you need is your name and address, and email. You don't give out any other info.

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/JennyManley

And here's a bonus: for every referral you make, for example, if you got one of your friends to sign up under you (like I'm trying to do here...) you get matching Swagbucks until they reach 100! So if my friend Betty signs up using my referral link, I'll get 100 Swagbucks (over time). Which, to me, translates to $10 in Amazon money ($5 Amazon card is 45 Swagbucks).

Check it out, get rewarded for doing something you probably already do!

The Golden Egg

Last week we were surprised to find that one of our chickens laid her first egg! The 'biddies' as I call them, are five months old now, and it was high time they started laying. I found the egg one morning while Andrew was at Mother's Morning Out, but decided to leave it for him to find when he got home.

It's hard to tell who was more excited, Andrew or me! I ran around cooing at the hens telling them what pretty girls they were and that they'd get some extra scratch the next morning. Since last week, we've gone from getting one egg a day to three! Pretty soon all five will be laying, and we'll have a steady supply of fresh, not-organic-but-pretty-close brown eggs. My goal is to be able to have a dozen for our family for a week, and give the rest to the food pantry down the street.

Hope you enjoy these picutres of Andrew and his prized egg. After he grabbed it he said, "Thank you, chickens!" He was reluctant to take it into the house, he wanted to leave it in the chicken coop, until I explained that we could eat it! What a neat experience for a little boy! We're hoping once he gets older and understands more about the care of chickens, he'll be able to take over the feeding and watering. He does a great job 'helping' us, so we're off to a good start!