Thrifty Thursday: New Week New Goals

 

Friday:  Yesterday, after I'd sent off the Thrifty Thursday post, I was sitting here in the quiet listening to the well shut on and off.  It seemed to be running over much.  I set the stopwatch on my phone and the doggone thing was coming on and going off every five minutes.  We weren't running any water anywhere in the house.  

I looked online (thankful yet again for the technology at our fingertips) and there was no really concise answer about timing of a pump priming.  But I did manage to gather the impression that we were having well trouble again.  After two hours of timing, I tapped John on the shoulder and said, "Call Roy...I think we've got well trouble."  

He called his friend, and he suggested we call his son who had taken over the family business of digging and repairing wells.  We got a return call from him about 7pm.  He agreed that it sounded like we had trouble, but said it was safe to run as long as we wanted, or we could cut it off when we were done for the evening.

We turned off the well last night to save the pump possibly burning out from running overmuch.  We were told by the repair man that we could turn it on again this morning and use as we needed.  We held off until 11am and then we turned it on.  We are just now washing the third load of sheets and towels for the week.  

The well repair won't be free...but I'm hoping that due to the internet info and my keen ear for hearing the thing run, will have saved us a load of costs and be a simpler repair.  That's my prayer, folks.   He should be here about 3pm today, so we'll see.

Busy morning in the kitchen and in the house. Laundry, vacuuming, sorting, changing beds, putting out fresh towels, setting plants outdoors to get rainwater as a booster before cold weather comes in, bread baked, fridge sorted, muffins made for tomorrow's breakfast...It's all been happening here so far today.  Now we are simply waiting for supper time and Shabat.

Another misty autumn day.  No complaints.  We need the moisture and it's much appreciated.  

On my Savings Challenge: I moved a little money to savings this week.  In light of expenses this week, I probably won't get to save much more this month, or the next two, but I'm grateful for what I have been able to push aside.  I've very nearly reached my goal for the three months, which was to save for our usual Christmas expenses just by faithfully adding in all the bits of money that came to me.  

Saturday:  The first repairman never showed up.  We called a second one today who arrived within two hours.  The repair was pricey and the damage to our well had been more than we realized.  However, the repair was not a lengthy thing.  We were up and running normally with a new tank, a new valve, a new bladder...yeah.  

We went out to eat as a late lunch, early supper.  I was all for calling off our date but John said, "At this point, supper isn't going to sink our ship..." and he was quite right.  But he did add, "No appetizer..." and I agreed readily.

I picked up fried chicken, which had gone up another dollar so it's now $10.96 for 8 pieces.  I'm hoping that Taylor is going to start getting tired of fried chicken but since she eats only a few items, I'm afraid I'm going to lose that wish. I got olive oil on sale, and a Coconut Cream Pie, which I allow myself to have about once every two years.  They are smaller.  And cost more.  In future, I'll go the extra mile and make my own.

Monday:  I know we'll need a couple more grocery items in the week ahead: milk, dog food (Rufus would be appreciative), fruit, and I want to get Caleb a pumpkin.  I thought I'd let him pick one out after I saw the display Saturday evening at Publix.  I think he'll get a big kick out of choosing 'his' pumpkin.  I'm going to try and wait and see if we can make it to the next sales cycles before I purchase anything since nothing much was on sale this time around.  I don't want to overspend, but sales being scarce these days I do like to take advantage of what I might.   Rufus will eat food scraps and cat food and not complain.

Yesterday afternoon, I made up breakfast casserole for our supper.  I tossed in some bits of tomato, onion, broccoli as well as sausage, cheese, eggs and plain milk.  I got a dozen little muffin cups and 1 9x9 pan. We ate most of the muffins last night which were slightly overcooked.  I'll freeze and save the 9 x 9 pan for another meal.

I took meats out to thaw last night and this morning did a mini marathon of cooking: meatloaf, chili, cooked chicken for the Cobbler meal, and even made hamburger gravy to go over toast for our breakfast. It might sound odd, but it was really cool out this morning and that was a stick to your ribs breakfast that we appreciated.   I've put cooked chicken, broth, chili in the fridge to hold until later in the week.   Tonight, we'll have meatloaf and whatever of that is leftover we'll use to make sandwiches this week.   As I chopped veg to go in the chili and meatloaf, I dropped root and top pieces into the chicken to make the broth.

John went to work on Caleb's bicycle.  He has brand new tires, new training wheels and a chain that has been well greased.  It's a little too big for him but we feel sure he's going to learn to ride it sooner rather than later.   John lamented that it looked so rough.  I pointed out that it will make a great knock around bike for all the kids and in the end, we can always drop it off at the dump and let someone else take it home to freshen up again just as we've done.

In the garden, I have one pea that has come up, several beans standing tall, three tiny tomatoes...Once John mows the yard this week I plan to move the planters off the patio and into the sunny part of the yard near the deck corner (just a few feet away) in the hopes that we shall see a more rapid growth once they are in the sun for more hours of the day.  

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Tuesday:  I'm using good old-fashioned air as air freshener.  It's cool enough to have windows open, really almost too cool.  

 We were outdoors this morning with Caleb, who was determined to try and ride his bike.  So far, he's terrific at balancing and putting on the brakes, lol.  He needs to get that leg strength built up to push the pedals down in a forward motion.  I tried to convince him that going up and down the steps would help build his leg muscles and that lasted about 2 minutes.  Then he said he was strong enough.

John had the idea to rest the training wheels on a raised board and let him just practice balancing and pedaling.  That little set up cost us absolutely nothing, but Caleb got the 'training' time in and really seemed to enjoy it.

Tonight's supper was the TikTok viral Red Lobster Biscuit Mix Chicken Cobbler.  Find yourself the old fashioned 'Baked Dumplings' recipe.  Same exact recipe but instead of making the biscuit dough use a box of the mix.  The family raved over this meal.  It made a big 9 x 13 pan so plenty of leftovers.

Wednesday:  What's worse: one of those shopping trips where you have a long list of items on sale or the one where you have a short list and NOTHING is on sale?    I've glanced over sales ads and really not seen anything that screams "Great Deal!" at me.  So we headed to Publix today and picked up my short list of items.  

I needed dairy: milk, lactose free milk, cheese, half and half, creamer.   Breads. Produce: lettuce, fruit.  I picked up the least expensive of the ones we liked.  I saw bacon was on sale as a  BOGO so I got two.  Those will go in the freezer.  We bought juice, canned pears (4 cans for $8.49...OY and that was the best price!, and pet foods.  The cat food was also a BOGO, so I got two.  I bought a 17# bag of dogfood.  We got our pumpkins. 

Caleb wanted only the tiniest little pumpkin, lol.  I got a big one, too.  Comparatively speaking, his 'baby pumpkin' was $1.69 and doesn't weigh even a half pound.  My huge one was $6.99.

When I came home, I slipped the big bag of food into my container outdoors.  The plastic of the container busted.  So I now need to find an alternative storage method for dog food.  I have empty bins in the shed, but nothing that seals properly to keep ants out.

We took Caleb to Burger King to have lunch and play.  Everyone who had little boys arrived there today and let the kids play.   Worth every penny we spent on lunch, lol.  Seriously, to have 8 little boys wear one another out while playing absolutely made our meal feel like a free lunch.

Thursday:  Where oh where did I put my Gold Stars?!  I've looked everywhere and I've no idea where I stashed them, nor why I considered whatever this spot is as the 'safe' place to put them.  Sigh.

I've been using Gold Stars with Caleb now for about a month and he's LOVED having the opportunity to peel them off the sheet and stick them to his Potty Chart.  Five stars equals a small treat.  He's quite all right with getting a star instead of a piece of candy every time he goes potty and so am I!

However, I put the stars somewhere I can't find them.  I went off to the dollar store today and got several packets of cars, dinosaurs, stars, and something else for a mere $1.  Each packet is more than enough to last us a week or so, so I've got plenty of time to re-locate my gold stars.  I just need to take time to methodically look for them instead of running into the room and digging hopelessly for three minutes in one spot or another that I think they might be at the moment.  I think they've been put in the big file box and that means clearing the top off so I can get into the box to look more carefully.

While I was in the store, I picked up three of the five birthday cards needed.  I need to go back and get two more for toddlers who are turning 2 and 1.

We made the trip out of the house count.  We went to vote (early voting is open in our county this week), went by the bank to make a much-needed deposit (well repair), to the dollar store for emergency stickers (I think Caleb is going to prefer these over the gold foil stars), and then John asked to go by the local diner and pick up lunch sandwiches.  

My shameful duty job today has been to get serious about trimming up Rufus.  Rufus is so dang independent and as loving as he can be, but he does NOT like to be groomed.  It wasn't until about a month ago that I realized how horribly matted he'd gotten, and I do mean horribly so.  I am allergic to dogs and cats, so I tend to avoid touching them much as I love both.  But once I'd become aware of what bad shape, he'd gotten into I've been trying hard to snip him whenever he'd get near enough that I might.  Today I got two big sections cut away from his shoulders and down his front legs.  There's a lot more trimming to be done.  I wore a blister on my thumb from the motion of the scissors and after it burst, I quit for a bit.  I think now those two sections are gone he's realized I'm not trying to aggravate nor hurt him.  For my part I've learned that clipping slowly away underneath the matted areas means that he has less hair pulled which makes him upset.  I swear if I could shear him like a sheep, I'd throw him on his back and get it done!

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