In My Home This Week: Planning for the Unknown

In my home this week:

The roses look much like this this year, but the lantana is already growing and the spider wort is no longer there.

I knew this time was coming, so it's not unexpected.  We are prepared for it as much as one can be and cautiously looking forward:  our home will bulge a little at the seams as my son and his family move in with us as they sell a home, buy a home, transfer job, etc.  He is already here with us and his family will be here next weekend to visit and then later in the month come to stay with us while they are in transition.

It is not my first time having a child return home.  Only my boys have come back thus far, both when leaving the service and getting established in their civilian life (or transition to another branch of service) and now.  It's never too hard, nor easy as you'd hope.  It is always a bit of a challenge and a bit of a fruit basket turn over but it works out.

One way I cope is to accept a small room and board fee.  Keeping our budget in line is foremost and if that sounds mercenary, I will say in my defense that it's a nominal fee that literally covers the extra cost of food.  My sons have always appreciated the fact of paying their way and at the same time of having home comforts.  I try to strike the balance between the two. 

My Frugal Week: Out and About

Saturday:  No prep work done yesterday for today's meal but I wasn't much worried about it.  I knew I had several frozen homemade entrees in the freezer, there was produce to use up prior to leaving home.  I came home from the Strawberry Festival and popped a meal in the oven, made us an appetizer plate of cheese and crackers (by the way anyone else like Stilton as much as I do?) and put on a pot of coffee.  In honor of what we're terming 'the start of vacation' we had an adult beverage with our cheese and crackers.  Lovely.

Yes, we went to the local Strawberry Festival. Not sure what John spent but I'd guess less than $1.50.  My own stack of books was $2.20 and I donated the rest of the third dollar to the Womens Club Building Refurbishing Fund.  It's a good cause since the Women's Club is in an 1830s home and a project that is near and dear to me is historical preservation.  Happily will I donate to any group that is trying to maintain one of our few remaining historical homes.

We did not buy a thing to eat or drink at the festival.  Yes, we could have and likely would have enjoyed it, but with food waiting at home it was unnecessary.

I spent $5 on a cute handmade cottage-y unpainted bird house.  That will go on the front porch and is one of my upcoming UFO projects (the front porch).

I bought two new pillows for the living room back in late winter and like them fine but not quite...This past week when Bess was visiting she used the quilt I keep on the back of the wing back chair.  Remember it's a patterned quilt I had reversed to the white backing .  Well when Bess put the quilt away, she folded it pattern side out and I was smitten.  The colors are not garish bright but they are bright and clear and I realized that what my living room has been missing is that additional pop of color.  I left the quilt as it was and have been really liking how it looks with the small patterned pillow in front of it.  Well this morning I saw an ad on Facebook for a company that sells pillow covers and one in the ad caught my eye.  I went to the site and looked and found two pillow covers I loved for $7 each.  I think the two covers will be just the pop of color the room needs and just enough pattern to add interest.  And thankfully so very affordable.

Budget Recipes to Share

Sorry for the blurry image but the image I saved was rather small.  I enlarged it so you could better see the cover.  This book was printed in 1971.  The book is listed on Amazon for prices ranging from $.01 to $12.  There were several listings on eBay ranging from $1 to $15. 

In April, I decided to cook my way through this cookbook, which I purchased at a thrift store.  I confess I am a soft touch for any title with the words 'budget', 'thrift', or 'frugal' and if it's a cookbook as well, just go on and mark it 'Sold'! 

That said, I'll tell you what I like about the book.  It's set up initially with menus and the recipes to go along with the menus.  I like to READ menus, y'all, almost as much as I like to cook.  It's just one of those things that almost always wins me over to a cookbook and I can assure you that almost all of my most favorite cookbooks have menus.

There are pictures for the main menu pages, some photos of recipes that are listed without menus, and on nearly every page either an Economy Tip or a sidebar of just plain good information.  Even the inside covers have handy charts for figuring cost per serving or listing how much of an item is needed to feed 1-4 people, all good useful information.

In My Home This Week: A Spring Frame of Mind

In my home this week:

We've been infected with Spring fever.  I suppose it's the smell of honeysuckle and privet in the air and the soft sunrises with birds screeching.  It could be the sweet serenade of the mockingbird who sits on the porch railing each day or the leaves fluttering on the trees.  It could be the long shadows that stretch across the lawn or the clear blue skies or the roses blooming with abandon.  It could be the rabbits that dance on the lawn in the early morning and late evenings or the bird nest on the cabinet shelf on the back porch.  The endless sun, gorgeous blue sky, the green trees...It could be just about anything that IS right at the moment.

It makes me restless, has my feet tapping impatiently, wanting to be off and away.  Shall I leave home for a bit or take flight in a book?  There's the question.  One I shall ponder over this weekend as I look at the week ahead.  For certain, this weather is not meant for working long and hard or dwelling inside of a home.  No, it is outdoors weather, fresh air thinking weather, dreaming weather.

Weekend Reading List

I hope you all will take time to relax today and peruse some of these items I'm sharing.  I think they are sweet, funny, useful...Just a good old fashioned mixed lot of nice little things to explore.  Enjoy!

I'll start with TV news.  A new program on HGTV...I saw a pilot show today called 'Good Bones' but apparently it's also billed under "Two Chicks and a Hammer".  You can read up on the program here.  I liked the pilot right well.  Not quite a Rehab addict but it's a renovation type program with a mother and daughter team and they house was really pretty if overpriced on the renovation part.  Frankly I'm so tired of marathon showings of the.same.programs.times.one.hundred each week that it's nice and refreshing to see a new program on the horizon.

http://www.hgtv.com/shows/good-bones

My Frugal Week: Adjusting and Readjusting

The yellow knock out rose bloomed this weekend.  I really do mean to try to get a cutting from this to root.  I think a row of yellow knockout roses would be pretty in front of my back porch, in between the chairs I mean to plant the seats of...Spring dreams!

Saturday:  We had a quiet day at home, which is not at all unusual for us.  We really do like to 'keep' Shabat what it's meant to be, a day of peaceful rest where we try to put our focus on God.  What does that have to do with being frugal?  We very rarely will do any shopping on a Sabbath.  I encourage myself to forgo housework as much as possible. I generally only make our bed.  I plan meals ahead and do as much prep work and cooking as I can on Fridays.  Dishes are put away before Shabat begins on Friday evenings so I can simply rinse and stack dishes all day long on Saturday.  It becomes the restful day it is because I work hard on Fridays to make sure that its that way.

Made pizza for lunch today.  I didn't chop vegetables yesterday so I kept it simple today with just olives and onions and the hamburger I made yesterday.  I made the dough from scratch.  One thing about a rising yeast dough is that it's quick to mix and then walk away from it and let it do it's stuff.  I made our dough half whole wheat flour so it had a nice texture and added fiber. 

We opened windows and so the AC didn't come on until nearly 5pm.  I recalled we'd set it a little lower than usual the night before because the house hadn't gotten stuffy so I reset it to our more usual temperature.  This allowed us another 45 minutes of no AC.  When the AC came on the second time we shut all the windows.  The AC ran only two full cycles and never came on again that evening.

I did load the dishwasher after dinner, as we had a full load of dishes.  I set it to wash on a short cycle.   Dishes air dried after the cycle was done.

Retirement Remedies: What I'm Wearing This Spring, Working With a Limited Wardrobe

I have new pieces this year, but not a huge number. Fortunately many of my accessories are weight change friendly and so they have moved into this new season with me.  Some of the photos are reproduced from last year's photo log but either pieces are the same or so similar that it really oughtn't change how they will look overall. 

What I've bought this spring is four t-shirts in pink, baby blue, aqua and beige, an olive green top, a new scarf, a black maxi, a navy blue tunic with long sleeves and a pair of white jeans.  I guesstimate I have spent about $70 this year for my spring/summer clothing and I don't plan to buy any more this season.  I have a few pieces I'm recycling from last year: a chevron striped taupe and white maxi skirt and a blue gauze shirt, a white tank and a gray tank top.. I have a shirt I picked up over winter at TJMaxx for $10 that will do nicely for spring as well that is a coral 3/4 sleeve top.  I have a pair of blue jeans and an orange t-shirt Katie gave me.  These few outfits shown here incorporate several of  these pieces.  I am not limited to just these pairings pictured, however.  I   I can create many more outfits using the pieces mentioned.  What you see here are just a few of my current ideas and I've yet to try several pieces (such as the navy tunic), not to mention several pieces Katie and Virginia have given me that I haven't even worked into outfits yet.  For all that my wardrobe is very modest many of the pieces I have will do (and have done) for many seasons.  I notate under the photos below other possible outfits I can make using the main pieces.