News

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve not been as active on this blog in the past – say – 4 months. There’s a very good reason for that.

I’m about 5 months pregnant.

We’re expecting our 2nd son (another boy! so excited!) around Thanksgiving.

Many people have asked why I waited so long to tell. I just told my Facebook followers less than 2 weeks ago! Well, I’m just weird like that At this point, if you saw me in person, I am clearly pregnant. But I’m still slowly telling people. I waited a long time to tell with Bear (I showed much later with him). I’m also sure that having a miscarriage in January added to my hesitation, as we found out we were expecting again less than 8 weeks later.

I’ve been feeling great – so good, in fact, I was sure I was having a girl! Women who have had lots of children often say they can tell by the characteristics of their pregnancy whether or not it’s a boy or a girl. But since my diet is completely different than when I was gestating Bear (we’re wheat-free, dairy-free now and a lot more raw foods!), I think that has contributed to my health. I had to give up green smoothies for the most past for the first 16 weeks or so because they made me sick. Very strange since I had no other aversions except for coffee (which happened with Bear as well). I still have to be very careful when I drink them because they make my blood sugar crash, which makes me nauseous.

So that’s the big news I’ll still be posting recipes and updates, and there are already plenty of recipes to surf on this blog. And I’ll be sharing with you my birth plans (VBAC!), as well as processing my last birth and what we’ll be doing differently this time.

Now – off to the farmer’s market!

Making Money on the Internet

I’m in central Vermont, on a family vacation, and not doing much frugal shopping. I am, however, contemplating how I will use my $500 IKEA card!

Speaking of gift cards, you don’t have to sign up for offers and spend money to get gift cards. You can get them for free! Have you joined Swagbucks yet? I’ve got 200 something Swagbucks myself, after havig recently cashed a bunch in fr gift cards. If you haven’t heard about Swagbucks, you need to! Basically, you log in and use their search engine (which uses Google & Ask.com) and you win Swagbucks which are redeemable for gift cards and other stuff. This is the coolest of my “free” recommendations because you are simply being rewarded for something you do anyway! If you want to be referred, simply click on this link and I think I get some referral credit I tried 2 other search engine reward programs that I didn’t like at all. Swagbucks is definitely the way to go, especially since there is no special toolbar you need to download.

I also use Mypoints and InboxDollars. Both programs reward you for reading e-mails and then clicking on the links. The difference is that My Points pays in gift cards, whereas Inbox Dollars pays in cold, hard cash. Again, I can refer you to these programs if you’d like. You can simply click on this link for InboxDollars, but for My Points, I have to refer you via e-mail. Inbox Dollars will give you $5 just for signing up.

In Vermont

I’m in central Vermont, on a family vacation, so I’ve been trying to scope out the local food. Thus far, I have not had much success. They are about 2 weeks behind in their growing season because of the rain and dreary weather, so all I’ve successfully scored that I know is local is some strawberries.

I will write a follow-up post on some of the local fare. I’m looking forward to the farmer’s market on Saturday, even though we leave on Sunday. Also, I’ve joined Twitter. My name is also Oceanskater on their if you want to follow me, and I’ve added a Twitter badge to my blog.

My IKEA Card Arrived!!!

My IKEA card is here! That was SO fast! 5 weeks and 1 day from the day I started the deal, and only 2 weeks since they received my paperwork and I was approved! And yes – I called to verify the balance

Our Neighborhood’s First Farmer’s Market

Saturday was this year’s first farmer’s market! I could not have been more excited. I love being able to walk less than half a mile to the village square and get fresh produce that was often picked within the last few hours! I also love being able to support local farmers and businesses by purchasing their goods.

This year, there are 4 farmers (last year, there were only 2) and lots of vendors. One of my best finds was a huge head of red leaf lettuce for $1.50. I also bought organic bok choy, strawberries, fresh mint, and a funny looking cucumber.

I also found a gluten-free, dairy-free baked item! I was talking to a new vendor who had lots of delectable looking treats, and mentioned I couldn’t eat wheat or dairy. He said the lemon bar is made with almond flour and even had an ingredient list to double-check that there was no dairy or soy. And it was really good! I loved being able to share it was my son (and my husband, who loves anything lemon). Be sure to look for them if you’re in the area; their name is Baked Orchard.

They had a clown and Bear kept popping his balloons and then crying. Poor guy! So his dad made him a “balloon” out of an empty, unused dog waste disposal bag Very creative!

My $500 IKEA Gift Card Was Approved!

I’m 6-8 weeks from a $500 IKEA gift card! I checked my status this afternoon and found this message:

You have been approved by the sponsor(s). Your redemption certificate was processed on Jun 9 2009 12:04PM. Your free gift will be mailed out within 6 to 8 weeks of the processing date.

– Thank you.

Woo-hoo! That was fast To read my 1st update, click here. Also, if you want to do your own gift card deal, I suggest surfing over to MoneySavingMethods.com to read more about it.

Gluten-free Pigs in a Blanket

I made pigs in a blanket last week for fun, and they came out quite well!

“Pigs” in a Blanket
2 cups baking mix
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon Earth Balance soy-free margarine
2 ½ teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
1 egg or egg replacer
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup water

I also added :
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (for a “cheese-y” flavor)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix the above ingredients to make the “batter”.

Then:
6 hot dogs, cut in half & boiled (I used chicken dogs)

I put about a tablespoon of the batter on a greased cookie sheet and flattened it. I did this 12 times, and then put the half dogs on top. I put about another tablespoon & a half of batter on top of the dogs and sort of mushed it together with my fingers.

Before the oven:

I baked it for about 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees F and then served it with fresh salad with my lemon mint dressing. Yum!

Here’s the cooked evidence (don’t mind the blur; it’s an iPhone photo):

Gluten-free Baking Mix

People often ask me what I use for my standard gluten-free baking mix. Here it is:

Baking mix
2 cups brown rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons xantham gum

I make big batches of this. Then I use this for my bread (measure out 2 3/4 cups, and then use another 1/2 cup of flour, generally buckwheat, garbanzo or sorghum) & for biscuits & cinnamon rolls.

Soy-free Earth Balance Margarine!

I’m loving Earth Balance’s new soy-free margarine! It took me a while to actually find a store that carries it, but it was worth the effort. I still using coconut oil as a butter substitute, but it’s nice to be able to spread something on my bread. I even used the margarine to make the pizza dough for my Rancho pizza, as well as pigs in a blanket this week. Recipe to follow!

$500 IKEA Gift Card Challenge, Update 2

Here’s another update on my $500 gift card challenge.

Since May 24th, I’ve been waiting…and waiting…..and waiting for my Platinum offers to approve (to read my 1st update, click here). I was starting to get pretty discouraged! Carrie over at MoneySavingMethods.com said generally, the offers approve in 10 day cycles, so by the 11th day, the offers that are going to be approved should have been approved. Well, yesterday was the 11th day, and nothing else approved. 2 of the offers that had not yet approved were ones I had to cancel early, and I wondered if that affected the status. So I surfed through some of the other offers to see if I could do a couple more, but none of them looked appealing and all of them required mailing something back after the trial period (and I would have had to pay for the initial shipping & handling). Whatever is sent back should be sent with delivery confirmation (thus needing to be sent priority mail), and since the postal rates went up again recently, I decided to wait a few more days, lest I spend extra money that I didn’t need to spend.

I woke up this morning, checked my status, and all 4 of my outstanding offers approved!! Woo-hoo!

I printed out the necessary forms and mailed them off this morning. So far, I have spent $58.60. I will have to mail one other thing back, and possibly more if I didn’t read the fine print correctly. Now, I wait and see how long it takes to get the gift card