In My Home This Week: Sprinting Into March

This week in my home...

 ...is looking very much like any other week with the added bonus that I've pretty much taken my living room apart (the gallery wall specifically) and am desperately trying to rework it and the mantel with just what I have on hand.  AND I've taken down the wall of pictures in the bedroom and am stacking things against the wall there trying to see how they might look together.  I'm minus two frames at the moment and have one picture I'm still debating but it desperately needs to be updated with a new frame and mat if I do want to use it.

Yes, it's a mess here just now and I'm not even apologizing for it exactly because I do love to switch things up to usher in a new season.  We've certainly not had a horrid winter weather wise but what with our losses this month, and an anxious period of strained waiting for what's surely meant to be good news...well I'm about ready to pass this season off and begin a new one!  And as always when I can't control changes elsewhere in my life, I take it out on my home and force it to change.

One of my current troubles is that I get ideas.  They start small and sort of bloom into bigger ones.  I start out in one direction and end up taking an unexpected turn in another.  As I plundered my things Friday looking for stuff to use, I came to a conclusion I've been uneasily acknowledging subconsciously: I have a number of things but not quite enough of any one thing to carry out a full theme.  So I end up with a lot of stuff overall and hardly anything I can use.  It's the whole overstuffed closet syndrome all over only it's shed and drawers and stashes here and there.  All of the things I have were gotten cheaply and are nice-ish but I change directions before I've finished up collecting to fulfill one idea and that is to my detriment.

Assigning Value to What I Do: A Corsage for Me

Feb. 20:  We traveled up to see Katie and family.  I packed a supper for us of sandwiches, granola bars and fruit.  John stopped to buy coffees for us on our way home.  Savings:  $12 the cost of burgers, fries and drinks...Not to mention a few extra calories.

I don't purchase sandwich bags any more.  I wanted the sandwiches to stay together and the sandwich filling had no stickiness to it.  I wrapped them in waxed paper squares and placed all of our lunch in a bread sack.  I have plenty of quart and gallon zippered bags on hand but it was kind of fun to figure out a different way of doing things.

Katie did it again...she pulled things she had tired of from her closet and gifted me a stack of new to me clothing.  A blazer and a short cardigan, several tops, a bra and a pair of pants.  She has a knack for realizing when I'm smaller again and these items are a size smaller for me, even the bra..and they fit!  I'd just told John on the way up that I am, sadly, down to one blouse that fit really well and a lot that were just a bit too large or a bit too small.  I think I'd best pull out those 'bit too small' ones and try them on, as I've apparently lost a little more weight.

Coffee Chat: Fair Weather or Foul

Hello dears.  Come in, come in.  I'm afraid I've nothing baked but there are graham crackers and peanut butter and if you're feeling adventurous there's marshmallow cream (real stuff not the vegan recipe I posted, lol).  If you're feeling a bit more sophisticated there's Chocolate Hazelnut spread.  All are delicious and yummy on a graham. And sort of homey and comfortable, too, which is what I need at the moment.

Because so many of you keep asking, I'll tell you straight away there is no sign of Blossom.  She had on a collar with a name tag and phone number on and there've been no calls.  I don't believe anyone picked her up.  She wasn't prone to going for car rides.  With a tag and collar she's not likely to have been mistook for a lost dog.  The nearest dog shelters are 30 or more miles away... No, I expect that Blossom went where all good country dogs go eventually and it breaks me to say so but there you are.  It's now pushing a week since I last saw her or heard her bark in the fields.  I cannot deny the obvious.

Yet, I keep her bed on the front porch awaiting her return and turn on the porch light just in case she's wandering back again.  I listen to every barking dog to be sure it isn't her unique beagle bark I hear.  My heart leaped in my chest Monday when I came home.  As I drove up the driveway I saw something sitting in Blossom's favorite chair.  It was Misu, but for just a moment, I thought it was Blossom. They were the exact same size, right down to weight.

Do You Know Beans?

While I looked through my vintage magazines and on Pinterest this weekend, I came across quite a few recipes that had beans.  Not the usual bean recipes at all, let me assure you.

I know that many of us who are frugal are too well aware of how they are a great budget booster. They are a wonderful source of many vitamins and minerals, fiber, proteins.  They are terrific for extending meals and if both beans and rice are combined in a meal you have a complete protein source without having to serve meat.

I thought I'd share these with you:

From February 1948 American Home magazine:

Bean Sausage

4 cups cooked pinto, navy, or black-eyed peas
1/2 tsp sage
Dash of red pepper or Tabasco
2-3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt

Drain and mash beans.  Mix with the remaining ingredients.  Shape into flat cakes and fry in bacon fat until well browned.  Makes 12 cakes.  224 calories per cake.

In My Home This Week: Count It All As Joy

In my home this week:  I look for joy...

We're just in from a visit to Katie.  I realized after I got home that I never once took a photo of that dear baby of hers who has changed and grown since last I saw her.  It was so sweet to listen to her chatter and talk and plainly at one point, she looked at her Mama and said "Katie"!  I promise it was not just me who thought it.  Her other grandmother was visiting at the time and she heard it, too!

It was a lovely day...Gray and overcast and not at all the spring warmth promised.  It rained and that not forecast for days.  The traffic was heavier than it was the last time we were out...but it was a lovely day.  I enjoyed the time with my girl and her girl and her husband.  I enjoyed the company of my grandchild's Mimi and the big silly German Shepherd who would randomly come to me, nudge me gently and then grin when I turned to see what she wanted.  I enjoyed the conversation with my husband while we traveled.   

I anticipated coming home and finding my pets all waiting upon us. Blossom has wandered and she wasn't waiting.  She's been absent for 24 hours.  It's amazing how empty the space about this house feels without her barking to fill the air. I have stood on the porch and listened for her beagle voice.  Not a peep.  I've contacted my niece and my brother.  Their pronouncement that they hadn't seen or 'heard her' testifies to her unique beagle-y sort of bark.  And feels a bit ominous as well. There are hundreds of acres here between roadways upon which she might have wandered while chasing down rabbit trails and deer trails.  I hope her instincts will lead her back here.  I've scanned the roadsides hard and looked deep into yards trying to see her short little self within five miles of home.   Once upon a time the animal shelter called this little dog "Joy".  That's what she's brought to us and I want her home!  Prayers will be appreciated for the dog and I mean that just as deeply and sincerely as I ever mean it when I ask for prayer.  

I Wonder As I Wander...In The Wind

I am particularly fond of the high winds that bluster and blow and push in the winter time.  They rattle the branches of trees and scurry leaves along so that raking isn't necessary.  If your flag pole is tall, the flag wraps tightly around the pole and hangs on.

I like to walk, the wind at my back, pushing me along.  I admire the colors of the land which look sun bleached and sere.  Beige and grey and blonds against a brilliant blue or steely grey sky.  It's beautiful in a take your breath sort of way.  Even the shadows that fall across the grass have a grey depth that makes me want to weep for the beauty of them.

Funny thing, winter.  So many describe it as death, but really it's beauty, stripped bare and scaled down to the basics, beautiful.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

One of these windy days  I heard the geese honking overhead, hundreds of them.  I went out on the back porch and looked up in the sky and one long straggling vee flew past and then there were hundreds more circling away on an air current.  They flapped their wings and struggled and for all that, they stayed in a circle that spun them right back from where they'd just come.  How exhausting it must have been to them, fighting to move ahead and being caught up in the endless draft that swirled them around and around, further and further away from the vee of fellow travelers.  Every now and then, with what appeared to be a huge amount of determination and mighty effort, one would break free and fly away from the dreaded current.

Assigning Value to What We Do: Sweet Savings

Feb 13:  Really nothing much to this day.  We stayed in our pajamas all day long, which was luxury, ate leftovers for dinner and supper, had bagels for breakfast.  We went nowhere and didn't do anything either.  All in all, a very easy relaxing and low cost day.

I packed John's lunch for work tomorrow.

Feb 14:  I bought Valentine's M&Ms at CVS a couple of weeks ago (with an extra cash bucks/coupon/sales combo I think I spent $1.50) and that was our big treat this holiday.  I sent a small jar to work with John to snack upon during the day.

Made John's breakfast and packed up his lunch.

Inventoried the fridge freezer and the meats in the big deep freeze.  By my estimation we have just enough meats to last us until March begins.  That is not a conservative estimate either, but based on what we'd normally eat and how many servings we can expect from each.

I know that I will need to buy meats this month to restock but it is a creative process to figure out where the money will come from. At present I've set aside a small portion of a small check we get each month savings $87.  This brings my current total set aside for beef purchase at $139.