Family – Pollywog's Place Blog

Perpetual Meal Plan – Summer 2024

Published on May 15, 2024March 8, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

I’ve been working on getting these meal plans finished and I’m over halfway there! I won’t go into a lot of detail but this is the same format as the Winter Plan, and the Spring Plan, but with a few different recipes to change things up. I really can’t tell you how many times my family has thanked me for these menu plans! They are loving all the benefits of having all of these meals pre-planned.

You’ll also notice that I keep adding some other features toward the end as I find a need for them… I figure that if they are helpful to me then they may be helpful to others. These are all things that have been helping to keep our home running a little more smoothly through all the stuff we’ve been doing around here between house remodeling projects, taking care of animals, adding on to our garden, and just LIFE.

perpetual-menu-planner-summer-cover Download

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Chicken Salad Tostadas

Published on May 1, 2024April 17, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

This recipe came about during a pantry challenge night… we were using up some leftovers and things that needed to be eaten from the pantry. I have incorporated several of these pantry challenges into our Perpetual Meal Plans to help us use up things in the fridge so they don’t go to waste!

We had made some chicken salad from some leftover baked chicken for lunch and still had plenty left over. There were also some soft avocados, refried beans, and some old corn tortillas that needed to be used up. (I had bought them for a different recipe and never made it.)

Mr. Awesome just kept layering things on his tostada and it was so GOOD that we will definitely be repeating these! Tostadas can be made with so many different things so don’t be afraid to get creative and make your own version!

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Apple Dapple Cake

Published on April 29, 2024March 25, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

We have this recipe listed with our St. Patrick’s Day meal but this is good at any time of the year. Although it isn’t a traditional Irish Apple Cake I think that St. Patrick would’ve enjoyed this just as much!

We like to use Granny Smith apples for this cake but any kind of apple would work.

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Our 2024-2025 Homeschool Curriculum, Schedule Plans, Resource Links, and Daily Routine – Lots of FREE resources!

Published on April 26, 2024April 11, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

It’s that time of year again for us… time to get the next school year planned out. We finished up our 2023-2024 school year before Easter and I’ve been busy gathering supplies and making schedules as I coordinate with everyone for vacations, holidays, and special trips that we have planned.

It is always SO TEMPTING to take a few months off to just focus on this house but I know from past experience that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE.

We switched to more of a Charlotte Mason-style approach and it was GREAT for the most part. We still have a couple of kids who just hate anything to do with math so that’s been a little challenging but we’re making progress. We’ve also really enjoyed using some of the FREE courses with Under the Home Homeschool.

FREE Homeschool Planning Scratchpad

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Get rid of the socks… not just the stinky ones!

Published on April 22, 2024March 29, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Another quick tip for helping to control that Laundry Monster and keep things neat and tidy in the kids’ rooms is to get rid of the socks! I’m not talking about just the stinky ones, the mismatched ones, or the ones that have seen better days and I’m not saying to get rid of all of them.

You may want to consider getting rid of some of them though as it has been found that some people will tend to procrastinate on doing their laundry until they are out of socks and/or undies. If you only have a set amount of socks then you would, in theory, need to wash clothes more often. If you have more socks than clothes then you may, in theory, also buy more outfits which results in more clothes that have to be dealt with.

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2024 – 2025 Homeschool Planning

Published on April 19, 2024March 25, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

There are so many ways to go about planning out a school year but this is the easiest way I have found for me to do this as we don’t use any one site or curriculum. I am usually gathering materials and ideas throughout the year so I try to jot them down or put them in a special place until I am ready to sit down and plan out what we would like to use.

This year I used the ‘Arts of a Balanced Home Education’ List from Brightly Beaming Resources as a guide for helping me to plan… it went along well with a lot of the Charlotte Mason ideas I have been trying to implement in our routines.

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Eclipse Gardening 2024 – Picture Overload!!!

Published on April 17, 2024April 11, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

We had a great time watching the Solar Eclipse even though we didn’t experience totality. The kiddos did their Morning Circle Routine and then watched a couple of lessons about the eclipse. Then they had a quick lunch as they were so excited to get out and watch for the eclipse.

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Keto Fried Chicken

Published on April 15, 2024April 17, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

One of Mr. Awesome’s most talked about memories of his Granny is about her Fried Chicken and he loves it when his mom brings over Fried Chicken… on the other hand, I can take it or leave it. When we started eating healthier the idea of giving up his favorite fried foods was almost a deal-breaker until I came up with a recipe that didn’t require a ton of special ingredients and that tasted almost as good as the ‘REAL’ thing… if it’s got Mr. Awesome’s stamp of approval then you know it’s got to be GOOD!

We like to use the chicken with the skin on but this would also work with boneless skinless chicken or chicken tenders… just adjust the cooking time. This recipe is similar to the recipe that we use for the Fried Gizzards so you might want to check those out too! While I’m not particularly crazy about Fried Chicken, I can eat my weight in Fried Gizzards… no jokes!

These are the measurements that I use but sometimes I do have to make extra breading mixture up. That’s ok though because I just add a little to the bowl for the chicken and then store any leftover breading or pork rinds in the freezer which makes it easy to fry up a quick snack when we want one later on. If you don’t care for pork rinds you can just omit this step in the recipe.

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A New Addition

Published on April 12, 2024March 25, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

We’ve really been enjoying the warmer days and being able to get outside so much. We love watching the changes going on around us… God is so AWESOME and His wonders never cease to amaze us. To watch things through the eyes of my younger children is a blessing as well because there are so many things that we tend to take for granted in our daily lives.

This was meant to be a quick post to show you our newest addition… so without further ado, please meet Cookie:

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Our favorite seed and plant sites

Published on April 10, 2024April 11, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

We all know that I’ve been a bit hyper-focused on the garden situation here… I may have gone a wee bit overboard but that has not been confirmed yet.

I just recently made a couple of more orders for seeds and plants… there are so many things that I want to try and I’ve really been trying to limit myself to a few new things every month but sometimes there are deals that are just too good to pass up or things that are only in season at certain times. There are also a few items that we are waiting to be restocked so we have to grab them when they become available or we won’t get them at all… so much to keep track of. I like using the ‘Diary’ section of the Gardenate app to help me keep track of some of these things.

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Flea Market Finds and a Special Delivery from Zoe’s Toolbox!

Published on April 8, 2024March 29, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

We recently went to the local Flea Market for a family outing and we found a few interesting items… not as many as our last Flea Market shopping trip but still a few. We didn’t really have anything in particular that we were looking for… just some fun, quality time as a family.

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Crazy Delicious Low-Carb Substitutions You Can Make Today!

Published on April 5, 2024February 22, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Are you trying to eat healthier but having a hard time finding recipes? Well, there is a secret that we use here and that is that we often try to use our favorite recipes but we make substitutions to make them a bit healthier.

The other issue is that a lot of the foods that are marketed as ‘Low-Carb’ and ‘Keto’ are full of mysterious ingredients and SUPER EXPENSIVE. If you are trying to eat healthier then they shouldn’t be charging you more to fill you with more JUNK! Remember that just because the label says it is HEALTHY doesn’t really mean it is!

Many of the substitutions we make are things that can be found easily in the produce section or canned food aisle of any store or we can even grow a number of them in our gardens… that sounds better to me. If you can’t have your own garden then you can still shop for seasonal veggies to make substitutions with and you will save a bit of money… maybe you can even check out the local farmer’s market for fresher veggies?

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