Hey friends! Yes, I’m still alive and no, I haven’t forgotten about you. Anything but, actually. It kills me to go so many days without updating, writing, designing or posting anything for the blog. It also bothers me to see my readership and traffic  plunge downward because I don’t have the time to put into it as much as I’d like.

I’ve had several ideas of posts I wanted to write: recipes, Fall foliage photos, updates on life in general. Alas, nothing seems to write itself. One subject I’ve had on my mind the past several days is how much money my family is saving just by planning our dinners a few days in advance. Now, I know this isn’t some out of the box idea I was the first to just come up with. However, I wanted to share the tools we’ve used in doing so, so far.

First of all, several months ago my parents introduced Billy and I to the Cozi Calendar app for our Android phones. Its probably on iphone, too, I’m not sure. Its an app that connects the family to one calendar and shopping list. It helps us keep up with so many schedules, plan ahead for dinner and share to-do and shopping lists. In the same app we can schedule our meals AND add the ingredients we don’t have to the shopping list. Then, they’re right there, available, for who ever is doing the cooking or shopping at that point in time.

And of course we use Pinterst to find most of our recipes. I wanted to share all of the ones we have tried:

• These green beans are delicious and suuuper easy to make.
• This brown sugar load baked chicken didn’t receive any standing ovations, in my kitchen, but it wasn’t terrible either.
• I’m not a mustard fan, but we tried the first recipe on this list and I must say: I AM a fan of caramelized honey dijon chicken.
• This slow cooker vegetarian lasagna recipe really is as easy as it looks. We used whatever fresh vegetables we had laying around and then fought over the left-overs.
• Oh. Em. Gee. Pumpkin pasties. ‘Nuff said.
• Billy was begging me to make more of these pumpkin pie muffins. The inside and outside texture combination was absolutely perfect.
• This yummy salad recipe has very quickly become one of my favorite go-tos for taking my lunches to work. I pack them in a mason jar with Ritz-knock-off crackers on the side.
• This is one of our most recent cooking experiments. We wrapped ours in flower tortillas.
• I loved this crisp recipe for summer breakfasts and snacks.
• I used to make a salad really similar to this back in the summer for hot day lunches–who am kidding? We live in Kentucky; every summer day is hot.
• This has become one of our go-to recipes for when we’re low on groceries and too lazy to run to the store. We always keep a little bag of red potatoes on hand just for this.
• We never buy brown sugar, any more.
• Delicious and easy breakfast recipe, but left out the broccoli.
• We’ve made these zucchini fries several time, but usually when Billy isn’t home. They weren’t his favorite.
• Tasty, but still not the same as Red Lobster.
• Tried this recipe with a box of devil’s food cake and it was quite possibly the softest, most moist cake I’ver ever eaten. Amazingly delicious, healthy and sooo easy.
• This pumpkin banana bread turned out deliciously,  however not so easy on the eyes. When I thought it was done… well, it really wasn’t. I’d totally make it again, though.

Ok, there’s my long list. Aren’t you glad I decided to make this one just about food? You’re welcome.

The biggest thing save us money isn’t that we only get what we need at the grocery store, its that we aren’t eating out because we already have a plan.

Again, I do apologize for not speaking for so long. I’ll try to work on mindfully setting aside more time. I’m excited to share my current design project with you, soon. Well, its more like a branding project. There’s been about as much planning gone into it, as design. I got to have my almost-limitless way with a local salon. Its been a fun one to work on.

BTW, What’s new with you since we last talked?!