One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1692 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Mavis Garden Blog – Pictures of Tomato, Kale and Artichoke Seedlings

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 14, 2013 · 22 Comments

I thought I would give you an update today on how some of our seedlings are doing. I’m sure you know by now I am a big fan of grow lights. But the thing is, I’m running out of room. I can only fit 6 trays under my 3 lights.

Pretty soon I’ll have to start hardening some transplants off and moving them to the greenhouse. I still need to get some sort of heater set up out there, hopefully I’ll get around to it this weekend, we’ll see. I may also start a few seeds and prop them up against the sunniest windows in the living room too. I’m sure the HH will be thrilled with the news.

I planted my first bath of tomato seeds on February 1st and the first set of true leaves are just starting to appear. I don’t know what it is about those first set of true leaves, but they sure make me smile. Maybe it’s because I know I’m only about 5 months away from biting in to a real homegrown tomato.

I started my second batch of tomato seeds 7 days ago. They are cute too, but it’s not the same as seeing those defined tomato leaves.

This is kale. Whoop t do. After seeing {and later posting} this picture on facebook, I am determined to grow a giant, lush border of kale around the chicken coop. Not only will my hens enjoy pecking at the leafy greens from behind the fence {which I will totally allow them to do} but when the kale garden has reached it’s peak, I think I’ll open the chicken run and let them have one giant kale feast.

Although, I’m not exaclty sure how I’m going to weigh the kale if I do that. Hmmm. I may need to re-think this idea.

Any my artichokes! Take a look, they are doing a great job of acclimating to the great outdoors. I set the artichokes out for an hour outside the first day, and two hours yesterday. Today I will bump it up to four hours, and hopefully by the end of next week all 40+ artichoke plants will be living outside in the greenhouse until it’s time to plant.

Yee- Haw! Starting seeds is fun.

So, have you started any seedlings yet?

How is it going? Are you using grow lights or the windowsill this year?

Mavis wants to know.

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Valentine’s Day – February 14th

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 14, 2013 · 10 Comments

Did you know that the origin of Valentine’s Day actually dates back to Pagan time? Apparently, February 13th, 14th, and 15th were reserved for a fertility festival known as Lupercalia–lending to the modern day celebration on February 14th and celebration of love {kind of}.

{Cranberry Shortbread Hearts Recipe}

St. Valentine’s Day as we know it, though, is a bit trickier. According to history, two martyred men with the name of Valentine could be the holiday’s namesake. The first, Valentine of Terni, was martyed in roughly 197 AD. Little is known about his life, other than he was, in fact, a martyr. The second, Valentine of Rome, came around 289 AD. He is rumored to have been a priest under the rule of an Emperor named Claudius. The emperor felt that single men made better soldiers and forbid his men to marry. Ol’ Valentine disagreed and began marrying the men in secrecy. When he was caught, he was imprisoned. From here the story gets a little silly–he either healed the jailer’s blind daughter or fell in love with her, either way, he died in prison, a martyr for the cause of love.

In 496 AD, the Pope declared February 14th to be St. Valentine’s Day–a Christian feast day. Exactly when the holiday morphed into the more common celebration of love is unknown, though. In 1400 AD, Paris opened the High Court of Love on February 14th to deal with matters of the heart {i.e. marriage, divorce, infidelity, and abuse}–so the concept must’ve been common place . There are even references to Valentine’s Day in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The actual lace-cards, candy hearts and chocolates appears not to have surfaced until around the mid 1800’s. But, by 2009, Valentine’s Day had become a full-blown commercialized frenzy, generating more than 14.7 billion dollars in retail sales. I think it’s safe to say, the holiday has officially caught on.

{Chocolate Heart Peanut Butter Cookies}

In my lifetime, I’ve always thought Valentines Day was invented by the Hallmark company. Who knew it dated so far back?

As for me, forget the the flowers and chocolate. I’m hoping for a truck load of dirt this Valentine’s Day. How about YOU, how do you celebrate the day of love?

With Love,

Mavis

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Easy Slow Cooker Recipes – Taco Soup

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 13, 2013 · 14 Comments

I made a batch of taco soup this morning for dinner tonight and it turned out awesome! I had a big bowl of of the stuff for lunch, and it was mighty tasty if I do say so myself.

You probably already know by now how much I love my crock pot. Yep, I pretty much want to marry it because it makes dinner time so easy. If you don’t own a crock pot, you need one. Seriously. Everyone should own one. Well, unless of course you live in a yurt in Mongolia and don’t have electricity.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef, buffalo, venison, chicken, possum {whatever you make tacos with}
1 onion, chopped
2 cups pinto beans soaked overnight, or 2 {15 oz} cans drained and rinsed pinto or black beans
2 cups corn kernels
1 cup pasta sauce
2 cups water
2 {14.5 ounce} cans peeled and diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons DIY Taco Seasoning or 1 {1.25 ounce} package taco seasoning mix

Directions

Cook the ground meat over medium heat until cook thoroughly and browned. Stir in tacon seasoning and let rest for a few minutes. Add all the ingredients to the crock pot, cover, and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

Serve warm with tortilla .

Go HERE for more Easy Crock Pot Recipes

My favorite Crock Pot – Crock-Pot Cook’ N Carry 6-Quart Portable Slow Cooker

My Favorite Slow Cooker Cookbook – Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook: 1400 Best Slow Cooker Recipes!

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Meet Lucy… Our New Puggle Dog

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By Mavis Butterfield on February 13, 2013 · 78 Comments

Meet Lucy, she is a 2 month old puggle and we absolutely LOVE her. Technically she is Monkey Boy’s dog, but for some strange reason I seem to be the one taking care of her during the day and taking her outside to use the facilities.

For being a puppy {and I have zero experience with this of course} I think she is doing a fantastic job. We take her outside every 2 hours, then bring her in and play for about 15 minutes.

Then we place her “reward snack” in her open crate and hang out with her next for a few more minutes until she settles in. After that we close the crate door and she takes a nap. So far so good. We have the crate in the office right now where at least one of us is during the day.

We were told to crate train her for the first couple of weeks so she can get a routine down and to help potty train her. After this process is over we will get her a proper dog bed and hopefully she will sleep in Monkey Boy’s room. From what I’ve heard, the crate training method, when done properly, is more of a “happy place” for the dog. If and when they need to be transported {to the vet or on a plane} they won’t freak out because the crate is a familiar place to them.

I’m curious if once she graduates to her big girl dog bed if she will still want to sleep or hang out in her crate {I hear that’s pretty common}. Plus, I think it will be fun to see where she hangs out during the day. One of our neighbors has a dog that rests on a couch that faces out to the street and we can see him pretty much anytime of the day in his “spot” when we drive by. It’s kind of funny actually and we look forward to seeing if the dog is in the window every time we drive by. I wonder where Lucy’s spot will be.

As for what we are feeding her?

We are feeding her Nutri Source dog food because it’s what the pet store suggested, but if you have a small dog, maybe you could chime in and tell me what you are feeding your dog. I want to make sure she is getting the right food to eat.

The pet store also sold us a bag of treats to reward good behavior {Zuke’s Mini Naturals} for $18.99. Clearly we were robbed because I just checked Amazon and they sell them for $8.99 a bag. Can you say Holy crap that’s quite the mark up?

We have an appointment with a veterinarian for a new puppy check up so I’ll ask them too, but it’s always nice to hear other people’s opinions when it comes to pets.

So what do you think? Is she a total cutie? Do you think she’ll make a great garden dog?

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.