In My Home This Week: Sweet Days

In My Home This Week:

...I sent out sweet memories...
We always call February the 'Sweet Month' in our family.  With four birthdays and Valentines (and once upon a time three more birthdays of Grandparents), it seemed to be the month of perpetually eating something sweet.  Our home seemed to always smell of sugar and butter in this month.  These days, not so much and it's not just due to the change in diets.  No it's as much to do with two of our birthday children being a great long distance away.

I sent Amie a package last week, wanting to make sure she received it in time.  And she did.  I got a very sweet message from her telling me that I'd 'made her cry'.  Well then.  That made me cry.  What did I send her?  A vintage replica Strawberry Shortcake doll that I found in the toy department at Target.  A bag of her favorite candy, Lemon Sours (Sourheads).  A handmade card that espoused our love of her.  And a big envelope that was proved to be the tear worthy part of the gift.  That envelope contained a variety of things I'd saved through her growing years: grade sheets, her first poem, class pictures, Girl Scout badges, a letter to Santa, the first picture she drew, handmade Christmas items from elementary years and a variety of other such things. You know, the stuff that Mamas save and cherish.

Assigning Value to What We Do: Mid-February Savings

 I   first used this image to introduce this post this year and I've decided to keep using it for this one.  John is always telling me how proud he is of me for what I do here in our home and how much he appreciates it all.  I'm not assigning value this year to remind him but to remind me that what I do makes an impact financially, as well as having an emotional and marital impact.

February 6:  I teasingly suggested to John yesterday when we were in town that he could just pick out a card, I'd read it and we'd put it back and not bother with the buying.  He'd have none of that!  No indeed the man gave me two cards for my birthday and a toy shelf recorder, which is something I've never in my life had and I've enjoyed tootling about the house (very badly) upon it.  We've homemade cupcakes and I've discovered that mine, which were frosted with lemon curd are neither too sweet nor too tart, but very pleasing.   I made 11 cupcakes and frosting for half and I don't think all the ingredients together came to much over $1.50...Which beats the heck out of the recent 'sales price' at the grocery of $3.99 for four.  At that rate, I saved $9.50...

 By the way, one year when we were very broke, we did that card trick at the store.  It was rather satisfying to know that we'd each chosen something that brought either tears or genuine laughter and it were all the wealthier for having shared that silly moment.

It was quite cold this morning, so I lit the propane heater to take the burden off the electric heat pump.  I also turned on a kettle of water to add much needed moisture to the air and we opened windows on the sunny sides of the house, which all made the houe feel quite nice rather quickly.
About noon the temperature indoors was sufficiently high to cut off the propane and let the heat pump run now and then.

Coffee Chat: Oh How the Wind Did Blow!

Come on in dears.  If you'd been here in the past two days I'd have urged you to shut the door quick behind you.  Monday  I was sitting here earlier listening to the seed pods being blown off the tree around back.  The pods would hit the roof and then roll down the ridges on the front side to the ground.  It amused me that the house was quiet enough to hear such  small thing rolling about on the roof.  It isn't often that quiet here when John is home.  It was, honestly,  nice.

I walked down to the mailbox earlier and the dogs were glad to see me.  I've been trying to do this more often of late.  I did it on Saturday but then John came down in the car to fetch me.  He was certain I'd find it a hard slog to come back uphill.  I humored him and got in for a ride back but Monday afternoon I slipped out while he was napping and walked down and back.  As I said the girls were awfully glad to have me walking with them.  Blossom kept running up to me as though to say how happy she was, but a bit later, when she'd already rushed down hill, I saw her peeking around a bush to see if I were really meaning to walk down hill.  I assured her I was on my way

As I walked down hill, I lifted my nose into the air and sniffed hard at the freshness.  I found a beautiful bit of lichen on the ground that looked as though it had bloomed.  I scooped it up, accepting the treasure tossed at my feet by the wild cold wind.

In My Home This Week: Brrrrr!

This week in my home...

Lord love February in Georgia! This past week it's been 80F and sunny, cloudy and humid, rainy, and blustery and frosty cold.  Yes, the whole gamut of weather in a week's time. Yet signs of spring will surface here and there.  My own daffodils have been diligent in trying to bloom since December but I saw my first official February bunch growing roadside Friday as we returned home.

We survived the first week of February rather well.  We are now down by two birthdays (just two more to go and one of those is well on its way). We have paid property and car taxes and prepared our tax returns, so all the big heavy stuff is behind us and we start fresh.  I'm ready for a lot of freshness in my life...aren't you?

Assigning Value To Our Days, Frugal Friday: Ushering in February

A few of the daffodils have bloomed...I think Perennials are well worth the money and should be the bulk of any gardeners purchase until the landscape is established.

January 30:  Made biscuits from scratch today.  A can runs $1.59 on sale.  Frozen are $2.99 for a dozen and they are closer to my homemade version.  I'll call my savings $2.59 for my batch.  I've split it between today's meal and tomorrow's.

I had leftovers of dinner today.  I decided that was sufficient for supper tonight, no need to make an extra meal when I wasn't feeling up to par.

I had a bit of leftover cooked cabbage.  I set it aside to go into tomorrow's dinner of Chicken Stirfry.

Although we typically do not wash laundry on Shabat, I discovered the cat used Blossom's bed as a litter box.  In getting the bed into the washer, I got some of the mess on my clothes.  So we did two loads of laundry today.  All were hung outdoors in the wonderful warm sunshine.

I told you I'd do this so...I gave myself an acrylic gel manicure.  I used the bought on sale kit and the bought on clearance polish. Savings $45.00.

Book Review: A Fifty-Year Silence

I was intrigued reading the copy for A Fifty-Year Silence, Love, War, and a Ruined House in France by Miranda Richmond Mouillot and the book  did not disappoint.  Truthfully I hated to put the book down at any moment because I found the story intriguing and well written.

Ms. Mouillot describes the very passionate relationship between her grandparents who were divoced for fifty years and the impact their lives had on her live, both as Holocaust survivors and as lovers.  Ms. Mouillot researched diligently to try and piece together what drove the two apart and what caused the fifty-year silence that kept them tied irrevocably to one another and led them to live continents apart alone, never again entering into marriage.

As the writer explores the history of those early days of courtship, marriage and Holocaust she unravels a world of memories that both of her grandparents prefer to forget.

In a way, it's also a coming of age story for the author as she sorts out the intricacies of a relationship she neither understands nor can ignore.  This true story is mystery, romance and tension all rolled up into one.

I highly recommend this book.  I was not compensated for this review but did receive a copy of this book from bloggingforbooks.com.

Coffee Chat: Groundhogs and Geese

Hello dears, do come in.   I've been thinking all day of some sweet treat I might make that is low sugar and tasty but haven't come up with a thing thus far.  I really  must buy myself some more Splenda.  I'd gotten quite good at substituting with it once I figured out that adding 2 tablespoons of sour cream would offset the dryness that resulted in subbing Splenda for sugar.  Now I think I might substitute nonfat yogurt for the sour cream and have the same results.  Ah well...I can always make us a piece of cinnamon toast which is quite welcome this time of year, agreed?

Our weather has been all over the place, typical of this season.  Warmer and muggy as it is today , cold and breezy, rainy, snowy...Yes, snowy, though ours could have been measured by the 1/4 cup  measure per acre. A little further north there was several inches and then beyond that it was half again as much as we had.