44% ~ 41% ~ and 54% off!!

What's Schoolin'?

We have used a globe ball in our home school for YEARS.  It's an all-time favorite.  It has finally started to deflate a little bit but after over 10 years of homeschooling I'm getting a bit wrinkly myself!  They sit on the floor and roll the ball to each other (okay, they toss it, but they are *suppose* to roll it!).  The person getting the ball calls out where their right thumb is touching.  It's simple, but brings awareness to geography in a fun way.  Right now it's on sale for 54% off.  Ours was a ball we found at Wal-Mart over 10 years ago but this one is from Learning Resources - a name I've trusted for 2 decades.




I'm passing on another sale that caught my eye.  We've used Insect Lore and just love the butterfly kit but have never bought them ourselves due to the price.  Well... now they're on sale at Amazon!  It's so cool to see the caterpillars grow, change, and fly away. It is 44% off right now.




This Ant Farm is 41% off right now:



I hope you find these sales helpful. I appreciate any shopping you do on Amazon through my blog - thanks!

What's Cookin'?

Tortilla Soup:  The other night we had tortilla soup but I didn't use a recipe.  I put a quart of chicken gelatin/fat I had saved plus another quart of filtered water.  I added about 2 cups of shredded cooked chicken (I cut it against the grain with my kitchen shears).  I also tossed in a handful of flash-frozen tomatoes from my freezer.  Then I added spices:  chili powder (home-mixed), Real Salt, dash of cayenne, and some cumin (magic ingredient!).  I crushed a handful of organic tortilla chips in each bowl and ladles the soup on top.  We were able to serve leftovers for lunch today.  Dh said he could eat tortilla soup once a week... I need to add it to my "favorite dinners" list to use in menu planning!

Chicken Stirfry concoction:  Staying with the chicken theme... Last night I dug the following out of my freezer: 1 C shredded zucchini, 1 C flash frozen green beans from market season last Spring; 1 C of bagged frozen cauliflower; 1 bag of pre-cooked frozen spaghetti noodles left over from a previous meal (I wanted rice but we're plain out for now).  I cut up another 2 Cups of pre-cooked chicken I still had in the refrigerator.  After letting it thaw (okay, the truth is that I waited too late and stuck the pan with all above ingredients minus the chicken in a 200F oven in hopes to speed up the defrosting!) I put about 4 T butter, 4 T coconut oil, and 4 T palm shortening to melt and put all of the ingredients (including chicken) except for the noodles to heat thoroughly.  Then I added about 1/2 C of sour cream plus 1-1/2 C water and mixed it well.  I added the noodles last since they were already cooked and heated everything through again.  Oh - I almost forgot the seasoning :).  I put a few slugs of Tree of Life fermented soy sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, Real Salt, ConcenTrace (hidden trace minerals!), and paprika.  Everyone seemed to like it.