Frugal Friday Wrap Up 10/8-10/14 2016

 

   I stayed home for the most part this week since I am still in recovery mode from that flu.  I did make a quick run down to the post office and bank, and we walked down to a friend's truck farm, but I did not leave our tiny town.  Being sick and being in recovery mode has saved us money because it has kept me out of the stores. ;)  Onto the savings...

~My cousin Marisa, who is a cookbook author, food blogger and canning expert, had 2 Victorio hand crank food strainers that she was giving away.  I was able to snag the more modern one with 4 different screens.  All I needed to do is pay for the shipping.  Woohoo!  My girls, cousin Jeremy and I will all get lots of use out of it. :)
~I worked on my points programs as my energy level allowed.
~Jeff and I watched some of the dvds I borrowed from the library along with some that we already owned.
~My grandsons loved all the shirts, a pair of boots, the Lego magazine and a pair of shorts that I sent over with my hubby for them on Saturday (I was home sick in bed).
~I made a green bean casserole and added some sliced turkey to it.  We also had some acorn squash from the garden.  This was our quick and easy dinner on Monday night.
~We had a hard frost heading in on Monday night.  I went out and salvaged everything I could from the garden.  I got squash, cabbage, tomatoes, beans and more blackberries and raspberries.

~I picked the last of the roses from the garden and made a mini bouquet with them.  Our cat knocked the hand blown vase over shattering it sending glass and water everywhere.  My sweet hubby cleaned that up while I saved the roses and got another vase out.  The flowers are now living in the kitchen where there is less chance of Rufus knocking them over.  I was sad to lose the vase but just happy that no one was hurt.
~Monday night I had some Cold Care PM tea to help ease my congestion. I repeated this on various nights throughout the week.
~Tuesday morning I woke up to a killing frost outside.  I took my camera out and tried to capture some of the beauty of the frost.  Silly me, I forgot to put shoes on so I had a cold crunchy walk across the grass. ;)

~Tuesday morning, as I thawed out from my barefoot picture taking, Josh and I had a lovely visit via SKYPE while I sipped on a hot cup of coffee. :)  SKYPE is a wonderful thing!
~Had our DIL Heather shop the pantry here.  We sent her home with tomatoes from the garden, pepperoni and pineapple for their homemade pizza that night (I'm so glad she mentioned that she was going to stop at the store to buy those things and that we were able to save her a trip) and some homemade raspberry syrup that my mom has us bring for the whole family here.
~One of our friends own's a truck garden and had a large pumpkin patch.  We took the grandboys down and they each picked out their own pumpkin and were thrilled to do so. :)  Isaiah picked a smaller one and Bradley got the biggest one he could find and had my hubby carry it back up to our house. :)  They only charge $5 per pumpkin.  I had some cash on me from some checks from Pinecone Research and used that.

~Our backyard apple tree is large and had dropped a bunch of apples that were rotting on the ground.  I paid the oldest grandson to pick up a bunch of them for me.  He got $2 and a bonus of a candy that he picked out of the candy jar.  His little brother Isaiah did not want to work on the apples.  Bradley now has some spending money for his trip with his mommy and grandma later this week. ;)
~The grandboys found some of the bubbles that I had here and decided that they wanted to play with them which was fine with me.  They then went out and played football in the front yard with G-pa (my hubby).  The boys wore their G-pa out.  LOL!
~Jeff moved our potted basil, thyme and flat leaf parsley into the enclosed hot tub area.  That kept them safe from the killing frost on Monday night.  I am hoping we can eek out a bit more growing time with them by having them near the warm hot tub even during the freezing weather.
~We continue to enjoy watching old episodes of Northern Exposure.  I have no idea why I did not get into that show when it was being broadcast.  It's a great show!
~I looked at our calendar and realized I have one less week than I thought I did before my parents and brother come for a visit.  I got busy cleaning and also planning out a menu and a birthday party for our oldest son.  He will be 29 this year...just one year away from 30!  Where has the time gone?

~There were some over ripe bananas in the fruit bowl so I made 3 loaves of banana bread with them and then threw the peels around some of my rose bushes.  We will enjoy the bread and the roses will love the peels.
~Our weather report told us to expect some high winds and lots of rain for a few days so I took all the hanging plants that were still alive outside down and removed the wreath from the front of our walkway.  I also called my son Chris and let him know to get all the kids toys picked up out in their yard.  The boys would be heartbroken if they lost some of their toys, especially their playhouse.
~Since we were told we might lose power with the storm, I gathered up candles and flashlights to have ready just in case.
~My hubby moved more bags of pellets up onto the back porch so we would not have to go out and get them from their storage area in the old cover dog run.
~We were supposed to help my cousin move on Saturday but with that being one of the worst days rain wise for this storm, I got ahold of him and we rescheduled for Sunday.  There is no need for all this furniture and stuff to get soaked or pay for a moving van on a day when he can't use it.
~Since I was craving soup and Chinese food, I made some shrimp and miso soup with udon noodles.  I added some squash, green onion and swiss chard from our garden to it.  Really good stuff!

~Sometimes you just have to have cookies!  I found a Pumpkin Spice cookie mix that I had bought on clearance awhile back and made them up.  They were a nice change from our regular cookie choices of peanut butter or chocolate chip and perfect on a cold and rainy day.
~I had Jeff pick up another huge bag of dog food for Caesar since we were getting low.  Jeff was in town for his bowling league and right across from Walmart where we get it.  He used a gift card that I had earned to pay for it.
~Jeff had to go in for a mandatory meeting at work on Friday night and the company provided pizza for all the workers for dinner.  Since it was just me at home for dinner, I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and finished up the acorn squash from our garden that I had cooked earlier in the week.

~Rufus has been getting into the kitchen cabinets looking for mice.  The cold weather has driven them indoors.  We have DCon out for them and I don't want him getting into the DCon or catching a mouse that has ingested it either.  I put some heavy duty rubber bands that I had saved from bunches of broccoli across the knobs and used them to keep him from being able to get those cabinet doors open.

   The first windstorm that I had been preparing for did not turn out to be as bad in our area as originally was forecasted for and I am so thankful for that.  We have round two hitting Saturday so we shall see how that goes...be blessed!