Thrifty Thursday

One of my favorite activities when we go to St. Augustine.  Ride down old A1A along to Ormond by the Sea and view the incredible ocean views.  Cost for gasoline under $5.  

I'm afraid this week's post is a bit short...Vacation last week and not much time at home this week.  That is due to change, however.  I'll be back on my savings trend.

Friday:  Last day of vacation.  I did nothing today except prepare a simple meal for our lunch and that was leftovers from yesterday.  We spent the entire day enjoying our last day of vacation.

Boiled eggs earlier in the day and made egg salad for John's work lunches.  I added the water I used to boil the egg to my saved water and poured over the rose bushes I need to plant.

A Little Economy, A Little Splurge

                                    This photo a good example of my splurge/thrift notions
                                      Thrift store treasures and new purchases co-mingle

A while back reading Cranford, I came across a few paragraphs in which Mary noted the strange economy of various households in Cranford.  It explained the scene in the series where Miss Mattie notes to her sister Deborah that the candle had burned down below the unlit one on the mantel.  Apparently the two sisters preferred to have their neighbors think that they burned two candles each night.  In fact they did...but only one at a time, lol.  They burned one at time and kept them as nearly even as possible by putting out the other when it was below the level of the second candle, at which point they used the flame to light the second candle, and put out the first.

Menu Day - Shaking Things Up

 

Vacation is over...Insert extremely sad face...It was grand, truly it was and I had the best time all around.  Now Shabat is over and it is the start of a new week.  I thought I'd like to tackle menu plans right away from now on.  After all this is my 'first day' and the day when I really need my plans for the week to start afresh.  

Coffee Chat - Vacation Is Fun!

Hello Hello Hello!  Won't you join me for a cup of coffee and a chat?  Just store bought cookies in the cookie jar this week.  I broke down last week and bought them so I wouldn't have to bake right away when we got home.  I took one package of sugar wafers with us...That was more for nostalgia's sake.  Granny almost always had the Nabisco Sugar Wafers on our pantry shelf.  I bought a less expensive brand but to me they taste just the same.  Then John spied chocolate chip cookies on sale at the grocery while we were out of town and we bought those.  I've got cookie overflow!  There are far far worse things to have an overflow of, don't you agree?

Choosing Our Way

 Recently we took a short trip.  I was surprised to find my attention caught by signage all along the way.  It made me think about a portion of our life at present where we are questioning and seeking answers.

Menu Monday - Here and There

One more day of work for John after today and then he's off for a few days more than usual.  We've made plans to  lend a holiday feel to our time off this go round.  That means planning picnic worthy meals as well as meals that can be served at home or quick meals after we've been gone all day.  No rhyme or reason to the way the days are laid out, so I'll not label them, just jotting down a week or so worth of menus.

Coffee Chat

I don't know where time went this week.  It seemed it was Monday just yesterday...and here it is Sunday!  It's not like I did anything special this week or even got projects tended to either.  It was just one of those sorts of weeks.  I did my routine work, I was tired, I went to bed, got up and did more and was tired.  Over and over again all week long.  It didn't seem as though the week was rushing past...until I realized yesterday afternoon that Thursday had come and gone and Friday was fast passing by as well.

Thrifty Thursday/Frugal Friday

                                                             Our picnic lunch. 

Friday:  Up earlier than usual this morning.  I'd promised John a big breakfast since we had nothing to do until late afternoon.  While breakfast was started, I also started dinner for today and tomorrow.    I noted that a friend of mine had lined her crock pot with aluminum foil one day...I took her idea a step further.  I wanted to cook two entrees but I didn't want to mess up both of my crock pots.  Instead I used foil to shape two dishes inside the largest crock pot.  I put chuck roast and onions in one dish and two chicken breast in the other. Both meats cooked on low for the same amount of time.  The juices remained in each dish...I was very pleased with how this worked.

Menu Monday - May Thunderstorms

Monday Monday...Gracious but Mondays do seem to come around rather often!  I've been struggling today and it's all to do with a silly back that wants to spasm and be painful (currently under control, thankfully).  I can't imagine what I've done.  Was it cutting the branches last week?  Tugging on the heavily laden wagon?  Lifting too many grocery bags at once the other day?  Who knows?  It hurt and though I just use the standard over the counter pain reliever, I feel slightly groggy from them.  It's an adventure when you are medication sensitive, lol.  Aleve tends to sort of knock me into a cotton stuffed head sort of person.

A Size for Everyone, Not Just Some

I've spent the afternoon and evening  yesterday reading through the blogs on my bookmarked list.  I have a mix of blogs.  Some cooking, some decorating, some simple living, some faith based, but almost all have one common theme: every one of them has a frugal slant.

I'd just finished reading a blog in which the author stated what she felt was excess, taking a slap at anyone who didn't subscribe to the same viewpoint, when I felt the need to stop and think.  Truth is while this author accomplishes a lot in a small space, her 'style' of frugality is not mine...and I resent being told that it should be.  I've been frugal for 33 years or more...I don't believe I've been doing it wrong all these years simply because I don't subscribe to all her methods and ways.  And I think this is one area where we who blog must be very careful.  We can encourage or we can discourage.  It's all in our approach.

A Day in My Life

Much amused by the hoohaw surrounding stay at home wife/mom not working a day in their life, I decided to track a day in my life.  Just one day.  And this wasn't a FULL day, doesn't include blogging, writing, phone calls, creating shopping lists, etc.

Here's my day as it transpired on Tuesday:

When John left I made cinnamon rolls.  The recipe calls for buttermilk.  My carton was only 1/3 full when I made this recipe, so I added as much milk to the carton and set it on the counter for 24 hours.  Wednesday morning, I had buttermilk.

The cinnamon rolls, waiting to go in the oven.  I went outside to finish clearing up the limbs, weeds, etc.

My second wheelbarrow load of limbs...I had two more to go after this.

All winter I've watched a red cockaded woodpecker pick up pecans and come to the Sweet Gum tree with it.  I suspected he was finding a handy place to lodge the nuts and crack them.  Proof that my suspicions were right...He was on the security light pole pecking away when I came out this morning...

Thrifty Thursday - Merry Merry Month of May

My kitchen window garden as of Tuesday morning.  Two romaine lettuce end pieces that are meant to root (the smallest is already producing new leaves as of this morning), mint I mean to plant on Friday morning, a cabbage end piece with five or six new cabbages forming upon it, and a  small bottle with ivy and an African violet leaf rooted in water...

Friday: It was meant to be a fun Friday, though I do confess I was feeling spendy.  I wanted to go to Walmart to find the items on my growing list.  Nothing pricey but altogether bound to get expensive.  Well I had a spendy day all right!  Four new tires and an alignment later...However, as my husband pointed out, we save for rainy days and we were certainly in a rainstorm yesterday.

I wonder as I wander...Randomness

Just a bit of random thinking tonight...

*****

I was just over on Pinterest which  is sort of addictive really.  All those great ideas floating around.  Being the 'saver' sort I love it.  I used to save all these sorts of photos to my computer or rip pages from magazines. Now I save them to Pinterest instead.  It's only been in the last couple of months or so that I've really started accumulating followers.  Some are people I know.  Some come via people I know.   And some?  I'm just not sure.

May Day - What I did in April

 Finished the Pantry Freezer Challenge for April with more having gone back into the freezer and pantry than we took from it.  I spent about the same as usual so no savings there, but everything we ate, except for dairy, bread and produce was from our pantry and freezer.  That we ended the month with more stock pleased me.  Some of that excess was self produced right here in the house as I made meals and fashioned leftovers into makeover meals, or set aside half recipes of entrees etc.

We bought no luncheon meat at all this month, using what we had on hand to make sandwiches for suppers and work lunches.