Apple Pie, Coupons, and Travel Planning

I've been ignoring my little blog...so here are a few things I've been up to lately:

Yesterday I canned some delicious looking apple pie filling.  Yum!  Here's the recipe I got from my mom.

Apple Pie Filling  (makes 6 quarts)
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup corn starch
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
Combine ingredients in a large pot and stir in 10 cups of water. Cook on stovetop until thick. Add 3 Tblsp. lemon juice.
Raw pack apples in jars. Fill with syrup, leaving 1/2 inch of space at top.
Can in water bath for 20 minutes.

Then, when you're ready to make a pie, you bake it at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.

I also made this using peaches instead of apples.  I can't wait to eat those pies!  Meanwhile, they look very pretty on my pantry shelves. 

Here's something else that's been keeping me busy:

Yep, you guessed it - I've started couponing ("couponing" is a verb now, right?).  I'm not getting extreme like some of the people on those TV shows, but on my last trip to Walmart the checker said, "Wow, you saved like $9.00!"  She was impressed.  And like my husband said, "$9.00 is $9.00!"  I'm also doing pretty good at Rite-Aid and Walgreens getting good deals, and even some stuff for free.  So, I'm slowly building up a little "stockpile" of things that I know my family will use.  I made myself this little clutch organizer to keep my coupons in:

It has a little elastic band and a button, and the flap will wrap back around and attach to the grocery cart.  So far it has worked great, and holds lots of coupons.

Also consuming a lot of my time lately: planning our family trip to Israel!  We leave in just 14 days!!! We are SO excited.  I've been busy trying to get all the little details taken care of and a tentative itinerary planned out. We are very independent travelers.  We don't do tour groups. I do all of the research and planning myself (that's half the fun!).  I can't believe our departure date is coming up so soon!  I still have so much to do.......