http://omg.yahoo.com/hot-topics/giving-back/41
Celebrities that are making a difference.
This web site shows you a lot of them!
It’s great to see what kind of a difference they can make
and it makes you want to help support them too!
*If you are not a member or attending a church I strongly suggest that you call your local churches or just show up to a church and start attending. It will make a huge difference in your life. And everyone will welcome you into their church! Especially if you’re a single parent and don’t really get much time to yourself. Go to church, use this time to take your children or infants to the classes there or the nursery, let them play with the other kiddos there, and let the nursery ladies there take care of them, that’s why they’re staying in the nursery so you will be able to hear about God! They’ll have a blast and use this time for yourself to go in and listen to the Sunday school or the Preachers sermon, sing in the choir, there are lots of things you can do to serve Him and at the same time give yourself a break and relax and refresh to make things better at home as well. And think about how much better your children’s lives will be growing up knowing about Jesus and being excited about going to CHURCH! And most of them have services Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evenings. And if you can’t afford a Bible any church will gladly give you one! If you’re in the Tulsa area and would like to go to my church let me know.
Call 211 and ask them for any numbers you can get to get help with food, bills, holiday gifts for your children, anything you can. Sign up with Salvation Army, Goodwill, any place you can to get help with everything you can. If you’re a single parent there are lots of places you can get help from. And please don’t be afraid to ask DHS for help. That’s what they’re there for. And it’s not as hard as you think to go in and ask for help and get what you need. They help with foodstamps, WIC, childcare, medical care, etc. All sorts of things. And all these things come out of your taxes when you are working so don’t feel bad about using them when you need to. When you’re in any of these offices look around on the walls, they’re a plethera of information! Sometimes they even have piles of coupons and stuff you can use.
Also if you’re signed up for WIC in some places they have WIC stores. Ask anyone you know that’s on WIC and your WIC office if there’s a WIC store around you. You don’t have to stand in the grocery store forever going through all the different things trying to figure out what you’re supposed to get and what you’re not, and then have everyone ticked off at you at the register when they’re in a hurry and the cashier has to send someone all the way to the back of the store to get you the right milk, etc. I have a WIC store here, and they’re great! I walk in with my voucher, they say what % of milk do you want, which cereals, which cheeses, etc. They know it all off the top of their heads and anything in the store is just WIC stuff. There’s no confusion! They usually will give you a free dozen eggs and they make the entire shopping experience soooo much better! And they’ll help you carry it to the car if you have little ones with you. I have stopped going to the grocery store at all for my WIC items because I didn’t want to search through 100 feet of cereal to find which ones I could get then figure out what sizes and stuff. It was a mess! Now it’s so much easier!
Go to your local library to print things, or use their computers, to search for things to help you and your family. You can print off coupons and all sorts of things there. They usually limit the amount of time you can spend on the computers though. FYI Also, if you have little ones, go to the different web sites and sign up for all the free things they offer. Huggies, pampers, similac, nutramigen, you can get tons and tons of coupons from these places and they sure do help. Why not be able to get 3.00 off of your Huggies every time you buy them, right?
Look in the newspapers and find all sorts of free things you can do especially around the holidays. You can go look at Christmas lights, go to different stores like Bass Pro Shop and they have events where you can make ornaments, all sorts of things all over town. Some of the schools and the community have craft things and lots of stuff your kids can do. Sign up for everything free! Why not, right? 
Look at local web sites like www.craigslist.org and others that people are giving things away for free. Sometimes they might have some left over diapers from a package and offering them free, you just never know! There may even be part time work you can do to help someone else out and get some extra money for you and your family as well!
And finally when you can get off the system! Get off of it! Start taking care of yourself and move on with it. Call DHS and WIC and all those and tell them you don’t need it anymore. Don’t just take it when you don’t need it because others may really need it. And you feel so much better when you can finally take care of yourself again. And YOU WILL!
Here are some ideas for things to give to places when you’re taking stuff in to help during the holidays for people who are not as fortunate than yourself. It gave me some ideas of things that I never would have thought of. I just never even thought of these things. I always went and got canned meats and veggies not thinking about all the other things. This can include at holidays when you’re helping the needy, at your church food pantry, etc.
They can always use stuffed animals to give away to the children when they come in with the parents. And Lord knows we all have TONS of stuffed animals around for all of our kiddos that they don’t even play with.
When you get your Sunday paper and go through to cut all the coupons out, don’t throw them away. Give them to a local place that can pass them on to people who might need them. Especially for diapers and medicines and stuff since they’re so much.
Diapers are ALWAYS short handed in all sizes
Baby wipes
They only give out 5 or so diapers a month because they can’t get enough of them
Feminine products
Soap
Toothpaste
Toothbrushes even for the little guys and gals
Dental floss
Deoderant
Dishwashing detergent
Laundry soap
All bathroom items for adults as well as infants/children
Any clothing you don’t want (including undergarments)
Trash bags
School supplies
Coloring books
Crayons
Canopeners
FOOD IDEAS - things I never would have thought of and things that kids will eat
Canned meats
Beans
Rice
Pizza dough
Cookie, bread and dough mixes
The big blocks of sliced cheese or velveta
Goldfish
Pretzels
Ketchup
BBQ sauce
Really any condiments
Peanut butter
Jellies
Boxes of crackers
Dried potatoes
Stuffing mixes
Coffee
Dry Creamer for coffee
Cold Medicines
Allergy Medicines
Pet foods
Asprin
Around the holidays you could give different spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate chips, flour, sugar, brown sugar, marshmallows, olives, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, butter, pudding, jello, tea, oil, EVOO, stuff like that they probably can’t afford to get these things. It might even be nice to make a set of recipe cards on how to make all the different things for holidays. You never know they may have no idea how to cook the things they’re getting.
These are just things that don’t cost much at all and would probably make a really big difference in someone’s life if they couldn’t afford these things. Just think about how you would feel if you were without even one of these things and couldn’t afford to go buy it.
This is a pumpkin bread recipe my dad received from one of the church cook books in 1978 and it was made by a lady named Margaret Main in Kansas.
Mix wet ingredients together in a different bowl
—————————————————–
1 cup oil
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin (canned)
Slowly mix dry ingredients in with the wet. Can use just a whisk but a mixer works better and is easier.
You can add nuts if you want. I used walnuts on half of mine. Don’t have to use these.
Don’t forget to spray or butter and then flour your pans so your bread will come out easy and not break.
If you use regular bread size pans you can make 3 of these and cook it for 350 for 1 hour.
I used the mini pans with about 1″x2″ loaf pans and it only took 30 minutes for them to cook.
Alrighty, now this was fun! I needed something to take to church for our Thanksgiving dinner so this was it. Chocolate covered marshmallows rolled in coconut and red/green sprinkles!
1 bag of large marshmallows
1 pkg of sucker sticks from the craft store
1 pkg of semi-sweet chocolate bark
2 pkg of chocolate chips
1 bag of fresh coconut
cutting board
large knife
sauce pan
large glass or metal bowl
1 long skinny plate or bowl with sides to keep the coconut in
cooking mitt
hot pad
spatula
parchment paper
A pretty tray to put them in
Lay a large piece of parchment out on the counter area where you’ll be working at. I always pull out a long piece and double mine just ’cause that’s me. But we are in an economic crisis too so don’t waste your parchment paper.
Set out the long skinny plate or container and pour as much of the coconut as you can get in it.
To get all your marshmallows ready I just dumped the entire bag out and started taking sticks and putting marshmallows on the end. If you push them all the way through until you feel the stick with your other hand then they will kind of be stuck inside and it will keep them from coming off when you dip them. Once you have the sticks in them just start lining them up on the parchment so you can dip them real fast.
On a cutting board chunk up pieces of chocolate bark use knife and push down with hand to slice pieces and break it up. Always keep your fingers above the knife when doing this because you’re pushing so hard you could really hurt your hand if you’re not careful. And I’ll ban ya from my blog if you get hurt.
Put a sauce pan on the stove with about 1.5 cups of water in it on high to boil. Put glass or metal bowl on top of sauce pan then put the chunked up chocolate and a bag of the chocolate chips in bowl and give it a bit, then start mixing it with a wooden spoon or a spatula. When it’s all creamy it’s ready! You don’t want chunks in it, and be patient they’ll melt. Use your mitt to hold onto the bowl on top because you don’t want to tip it over or get ANY water in it at all. It’ll ruin your chocolate. I wouldn’t suggest you microwave the chocolate for this, I tried it and it didn’t work with that much. Of course Alton Brown says you can just put a little EVOO on just the chocolate chips and it melts right down for gnashes and stuff.
Use your oven mitt to take the bowl to the cabinet by your parchment, Sit it on the hot pad but leave your mitt on because you’ll want it to hold the bowl in place. Grab a marshmallow and don’t be afraid to just plunge it in or drag it completely through the chocolate. Then pull it up and shake it real good to get all the excess chocolate off. Keep shaking until the chocolate is no longer stringing off. Then roll it in the coconut and set it back on the parchment to set. Don’t put exactly right by each other (when you serve them you can). Continue to dip and roll as many as you want. Scrape down the sides of your chocolate with a spatula and even when it looks like there’s hardly any there go ahead and keep rolling and running the marshmallows through it, there’s still quite a bit.
Once they’re finished drying you can place them on any type of tray you want. I just put mine on this big gold tray from Wal-Mart and it was I think under 3.00? You can put them right next to each other and it won’t hurt them at all. I think the more you put on your tray the better it looks! And you get to have all that fun of making them.
Oh wait! I don’t know if you have rules in your house or not but in my house the kiddos get to lick anything that was used to make anything chocolate if they want. hehe! I remember my Great Grandmother “Gammy” letting me lick a wooden spoon with chocolate all over it and I got it ALL over my face when I was a little girl. Then she painted a picture of me with the chocolate all over my face and it’s still hanging in my parents’ hallway and that was over 20 years ago’ish.
Woohoo!!
Check out the 918moms.com web site! It’s all the information this lady could find about the Black Friday shopping specials in the Tulsa area. Rawk on! What a good person to put all that information together like that for everyone.
Here’s another link as well it takes you directly to the Black Friday information on her site. http://918moms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=410
Sushearch! Then total chilax and dig in with some good grindage!
I’m totally into California Rolls, not so much into the real sushi thing but I sure do looooooove the california rolls and caterpillar rolls especially. That’s my next project. Getting stuff together now to learn how to make things and I already have the rolling mats, chopsticks, etc. Also getting the good recipes together for the sauces.
I went into a local grocery store here today with my son. I asked the lady who stands in the front and makes sushi what ingredients I needed to make the spicey sauce she makes. She told me exactly how to make it and it was so nice of her.
So my son and I went and got her a pretty White Spider Chrysanthemum to say Thank You! She was feelin’ all Thanksgivingy so I thought we would too. She was so surprised and kept saying This is for ME?
I love giving people flowers. It’s so nice!
Dear Lord,
So far today God,
I haven’t gossiped,
I haven’t lost my temper,
I haven’t been greedy, nasty,
selfish, over indulgent,
or told anyone to mind their own business
and stay out of mine.
I’m really glad of that.
But in a few minutes
I am going to get out of bed,
and from then on I am going to need a lot more help.
Been cooking some fun stuff, going to cool places and visiting relatives, etc. Will be blogging again soon.
