Two Week Frugal Friday Edition

   

   So this wrap up is going to be a little different as in I forgot to start keeping track of things until Tuesday night of the first week.  Time kind of got away from me, the heat turned my brain into mush and there were a couple of days when just walking up and down the hall took all my energy and strength for the most part.  I'm trying to keep as cool as possible by staying in the house and using the swamp cooler in the afternoons and into the evening before switching over to just venting in the cooler night air around 11 p.m. or later and then shutting that down around 6 a.m. before it starts to heat up again.  Luckily Jeff gets home around that time in the morning, so he can just shut the swamp cooler down and I can sleep.  My poor garden has been taking a huge hit with the heat though and some of the plants are burning up no matter how much I soak them at night. 😟  So here is my list as best as I can remember it...

~I've been watering the gardens in the evening and trying to give them a good soaking.
~Swagbucks is running in the background most of the time when I am watching TV so that I can get those points.
~Jeff and I hit the Dollar Tree and found marked downs there.  We got 3 packs of Cracker Jacks for .50 (we got 2 of those and they will be part of a gift bucket that we are giving Isaiah for his birthday), Snickers with Almonds fun packs for .50 each (got 3 of those)and we also bought 2 DVDs,
~Safeway had their Powerades on sale for .48 each so I bought the limit of 10.  They were also clearancing a bunch of products that had packaging changes or were items that they were no longer going to stock.  We got whole grain pastas for .58 and .48 each, eucalyptus essential oil for $3,  and organic baby food pouches for .58 each (Steven loves these and they are great to take when we go somewhere with him).  We also picked up a 12 pack of flavored seltzer water for .99 and a 24 pack of bottled water for $1.89.
~We used a gift card that Jaysn and Rachel gave me for my birthday to go and see the movie "Equalizer 2" and did splurge on popcorn and drinks.  It cost us $12 out of pocket after the gift card but it was sure fun to go and sit in a cool and dark theater on a blistering hot day and just get lost in a movie while munching on popcorn. 😉

~I started a second big mason jar full of homemade raspberry infused gin with more raspberries from our garden.
~We needed something quick for dinner one night so I made a white sauce, put cut up smoked ham in it and then served that over leftover warmed up rice and some precooked smoked buffalo chicken strips.  It was really good!
~More raspberries were frozen.
~I've been picking peas, blueberries and some cherry tomatoes from the garden.
~Some red peppers that were getting to the end of the shelf life were cut up and frozen.
~We were in need of more maple syrup so I got more of that done.

~We are trying to finish eating the rest of the lettuce I harvested from the garden.
~Tuesday I made a nice Greek yogurt sauce with minced green onions, celery salt, diced red peppers and diced celery and mixed that up with some cubed and cooked red potatoes to make a rather delicious potato salad.  The plan was to serve it with ham steaks that night but Jaysn came up and asked if they could BBQ hot dogs and sausages at our place and if we could all have dinner together.  Rachel has also made a blackberry cobbler with berries they had picked down at the river earlier in the morning.  We had a nice family dinner and they were thrilled that I had made potato salad and I was thrilled they were doing the rest of the cooking.
~Jeff cleaned out the glasses and mugs cabinet.  We set some of the larger mugs aside for Heather that Jeff did not use and packed others away to sell at our yard sale this coming weekend.
~I consolidated all of my cupcake and candy making paper products into one large glass jar.  It looks really cute and it takes up less space and keeps them all hand and ay from dust.
~I made 2 loaves of bread and some lemon poppy seed muffins.

~Saturday of the first week Isaiah had his birthday party down at a lake about 2 hours from us.  We took a pasta salad down to share and had a wonderful visit with Heather's grandparents Carl and Sandra.  They are such sweet people.  We ended up not staying for dinner because it was just too hot.  Jeff and I stopped and had dinner on the way home and I ended up bringing a good portion of my dinner home with me and had that for a meal a day later also.
~Jeff got some free wood chips for our garden.  Hopefully that will help not only to keep moisture in the soil, but also build the soil up over the colder months.
~With a Excessive Heat Warning hitting us for 2 days, I cooked up 3 boneless chicken breasts in the Instant Pot and made it into cold chicken salad.  I added curry and some crasins to a portion of it...yum.  This made for 4 meals for us!
~I've been watching the ads carefully and uploading digital coupons to my Safeway card to take advantage of some of the incredible deals they have had lately, including free items.
~The raspberry plants are coming to the end of their fruit production for this Summer but we are continuing to pick what is out there along with a few blueberries also.

~The library has been a wonderful source for free books and movies yet again.
~My cousin Jeremy stopped by for a quick visit and it was so good to see him again,
~We have been going through things and getting them ready to put in Jeremy's new resale store that he is opening.  We have furniture, china, glassware, and vintage linens so far for him.
~I cashed in at Swagbucks for a $25 Walmart gift card.
~I went searching for ink for my printer online at Walmart.com and found it was cheaper to replace my printer with an all in one printer/scanner/copier that came with ink than just to get the ink for my printer.  Walmart did not have the exact model in the store that I saw online but one that was similar so they price matched it for me.  Jeff and I used the Walmart gift card I got through Swagbucks and purchased the printer/scanner/copier to $19 on sale along with a container of kitty litter.  Both were free after the gift card.  We had been wanting a copier and scanner again for us and for the kids to use so this worked out perfectly!
~We were able to get a free product worth $6.99 from Safeway with their digital coupon.  They were out of the second free item so we will check again this weekend to see if they got any more of that item in.  They also had Gatorade for .49 for your first 8 so we stocked up again.  Greek yogurt was marked down to half price so I bought all the key lime ones they had since that is Steven and my favorite.
~Rachel gave me some more of the chickpea curry that she makes and I gave her 2 large squash from the garden.
~Rachel has been picking and freezing raspberries from the garden for Heather.

~Jeff's work clothes laundry has been hung outside to dry.  We do his work laundry separately from the rest of the laundry since he sweats so much in it.
~Steven has been coming up to play here since it is cooler in our house and there is more room to run around.  Wednesday it had even cooled down enough in the early evening that he could be outside in the backyard again so we got out the huge fire truck and riding John Deer tractor for him.  He took great delight in filling up the fire truck with dirt. 😁 Steven also had dinner with us and loved the chow mein noodles, key lime yogurt and cheese stick that we gave him.
~Thursday night Jeff and I each made a homemade personal pizza.  I used fresh basil from the garden on mine.  I had leftover sauce so I froze it for a future meal.
~I had the chickpea curry for lunch...so good!
~We SKYPEd with Josh and Lauren.  I love being able to actually see their faces when we talk and they showed us the new patio furniture they just got.
~My neighbor and I had a really nice visit under the shade of our apple tree on Thursday afternoon.
~I was having some sinus issues so I used my Neti pot to help clean out my sinuses.  We live in farm country where there is lots of dust in the air, the pollen counts have been high and we have had some smoke blow in from forest fires.
~I was also having some problems with inflammation in my gums so I swished with equal parts water and hydrogen peroxide for a minute.  DO NOT SWALLOW this combination.  Spit it out and then rinse your mouth out with water.
~I had some leftover sesame chicken that was not enough for a meal so I decided to stretch it by adding some yellow squash to it from our garden.  Perfect, healthier and yummy!
~Blueberries and raspberries from the garden made for a really nice snack before bedtime.
~Steven enjoyed taking a bath up at Grammie's since we have the deep soaking bath and lots of bath tub toys!

   Saturday is our town wide yard sale and if I get up in time, I will go out and look around for a bit.  We have a company party at a water park in the afternoon/evening about an hour south of us that our kids and grandkids will be joining us for so that should be fun. :)  Be blessed!