I'm sorry I am so delayed in posting this but we were really busy getting ready for the baby shower on Saturday and visiting with family every night she was here. It was a lot of fun and Rachel and Jaysn were so blessed with wonderful gifts for baby Steven. 😇 My mom left to go home Sunday and I spent the day on the couch. I'm still tired but actually did get some good sleep last night. Yes, I had some flares and crashes, but nowhere near how bad I thought it might be mainly because my husband, mother and rest of the family were very good about making me rest when needed. I also got some closure on the difficult family situation and my mother was wonderful helping me talk through some things and her being very supportive. I love my mom! Anyway...onto the savings!
~Jeff and I finally got my hair cut.
~I have been wanting a new lighting fixture for the dining room so we stopped by the Habitat Resale Store and found a fixture there for $5 and bought 3 glass shades for $1 each. He already had the long electrical cord here that he added to it to make it reach the power source so he wired that in himself.
~Goodwill yielded light bulbs, a massager (that is what I went in looking for) and a DMI cable so we can hook the computer directly up to the TV and stream TV shows that way.
~I wrapped all the gifts for Steven's baby shower in recycled gift bags and tissue from the Dollar Tree.
~I fixed one of my favorite windchimes using clear fishing line. I always keep some of that on hand because you can use it to fix so many things. Did I mention that I also got it as a freebie?
~I froze the rest of the split pea soup that I had made earlier for some future meals.
~PinchMe let me get in on the free samples a bit early! Yay!
~We hot tubbed several times to ease sore muscles.
~I used my credit that I earned mostly through Swagbucks at Amazon.com and got $95.25 off my
order. I opted for free shipping for the entire thing.
~Breakfast for dinner is a favorite around here. We meant to have it last week but did not get around to it. This week we did. Homemade pancakes with homemade syrups along with some Linguica sausage. YUM!
~Banana peels were put around the rose bushes to help fertilize them. Roses love banana peels.
~I watched some more TV shows online.
~Tuesday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day so I took advantage of that. I washed Caesar's bedding and hung it out on the line to dry along with two fabric activity books that my mother had made for Jaysn and Josh when they were little (I already gave Chris his years ago for his boys).
~Two more loaves of bread were made. I let them rise outside on the top of the hot tub cover to take advantage of the heat coming up from that and of the sun coming down through the hot tub enclosure roof.
~Going through my pantry, I found a multigrain salad mix so I cooked that up and added some quartered cherry tomatoes, diced celery and some diced red bell peppers to it. Delicious and healthy!
~I watched several videos on YouTube about how to grow fruit trees from seed.
~The refrigerator got a good cleaning and I found some things that needed to be used up ASAP along with some things that just needed to be tossed. :(
~I used an old toothbrush to help get in the cracks and crevices of some kitchen appliances that I was cleaning.
~Wednesday morning I had coffee with a dear friend at the little coffee shop here in town. Priceless to be able to get caught up with each other again. 😁
~Wednesday I did the grocery shopping and found some great deals on strawberries ($2.88 for 2 pounds), crackers ($1.49 a box), butter ($1.49 for your first 2 pounds), hams and turkeys. Since the turkey was .59 a pound and a great national preseasoned brand, I bought it and changed my menu for this week.
~I cooked up the turkey when I got home from the store, got it all sliced up and ready to go for dinner on Thursday night when Chris, Heather and the boys were coming over to have dinner with us and my mom and then I made a huge stockpot full of Turkey Noodle Soup with the carcass. It came out so thick and lovely! I did however have to stay up pretty late so the soup could cool down enough for me to get it all put away. I was exhausted and really sore after doing all that but it saved me time and energy while my mom is here and we had the kids and grandkids over for meals
~My mom brought some of her silver serving trays over for us to put goodies out on at the baby shower.
~I skipped going to the thrift stores while I was in town to do the grocery shopping. I did not have the energy to do that and get the shopping and cooking done. Saved me some money. Haha!
~I worked my points programs as much as time allowed.
~My mother and I made a Unicorn Cheesecake pie, peanut cluster candies, chocolate dipped strawberries and mint chocolate chip brownies.
~We watched the movie "Pete's Dragon" on Netflix with my mother since she had never seen it before.
~My mother, being the generous woman that she is, brought us over more of her homemade jams, jellies and fruit syrups.
~I cooked up the ham for dinner Friday night and served that with sliced baked sweet potatoes, salad and the Unicorn Cheesecake pie.
Even with so much activity going on, I still managed to save a lot of money this week and am pretty darned proud of myself. I have lots of leftover turkey and ham that will be used in other meals and some frozen too. I love having all that cooked meat in the freezer!
Glad to read that your family situation is improving, Debbie, and that you got to spend some quality time with your mom. Hope you have a wonderful week!
ReplyDeleteHugs
Jane
Thanks Jane. :) The family situation kind of came to a head and I realized that I honestly no longer care or want anything to do with it or them. Closure is a good thing. :) Be blessed my friend!
DeleteSounds like you had a really great week. How fun to have your Mom their for the baby shower.
ReplyDeleteI bought an itty bitty ham last week that was on sale. Baked it up with a honey-brown sugar glaze. Froze some of the meat for later. Used the bone along with homemade chicken stock to make an awesome split pea soup. Added home grown kale ( first pickings of the year) to the crockpot about 15 minutes before serving. Winner - found a new use for kale that I really like.
Been gardening - slowly. I only spend about a half hour at a time working in the dirt. It's hard to reign myself in but I know it's necessary. Picked asparagus for the first time.
Dog seems to be improving on his new meds and new dog food. We see the vet next week for a recheck. To help with the bills, I'm back shopping at the non-profit grocery store. Bread products are $0.10 each. One day the limit was one; today the limit was two. So far, have only bought bagels and one loaf of bread. OPP $0.20 instead of close to $9. The store is a little out of the way but not really. I had just gotten lazy. Also picked up some veggies and dairy products and avoided the cookies, ha!
Cheers, SJ
Hi SJ, I am so glad to hear that your dog is doing so much better. :) I had not thought about adding kale to split pea soup...I'm going to have to try that. :) Good for you for shopping at the non-profit grocery store. Any money saved is always good! Have a great week my friend.
DeleteSo glad that your Mum was able to help you in all the ways that only a Mum can. I like her already. It sounds like you are beginning to take more steps forward than backward with your health. Hope you have a wonderful week.
ReplyDeleteHi Jayne, my mother is so precious and I treasure the relationship she and I have now. She is not only my mother, but one of my closest friends. :) Praying all is well with you!
DeleteWow, what a frugal list, Debbie. We love pancakes for breakfast at our place and I put banana peels around my rose bushes too! It's lovely when my Mum comes to stay here, she lives a long way away and I miss her. Lovely to read you had such a good time with your mum. Meg:)
ReplyDeleteHi Meg! Pancakes are such great comfort food, especially when topped with homemade fruit syrups. ;) I'm glad that you too get to spend time with your Mom. It's hard when they live so far away. When my parents lived in Hawaii we did not see them that often but now that they live in Montana full time, we see them several times a year. :) Be blessed!
DeleteI'm sure your U-Tube videos have mentioned that most fruit trees in orchards are grafted. When we had a peach orchard, and a cherry orchard, there was rootstock that was grown, but the actual variety that we wanted was grafted onto the rootstock. That way, the cutting from the preferred variety was able to grow on a sturdier rootstock. Often, the seeds produce a not-preferred variety of fruit that is often much smaller, more sour, etc. I well remember "seedling" cherry trees from my childhood with teeny, tiny sour cherries on them and I picked them and made jam once (but mostly a huge mess, if I remember). Cherries need pollinators, so there were several trees that were grafted with 2 or 3 kinds of cherries interspersed into the orchard--like Royal Anne, Sam (black like Bing) and those seedlings on the same tree--just 3 huge branches/sections of each on the same rootstock. The rest of the orchard was a mixture of light and dark cherries, but the entire trees were one variety.
ReplyDeleteWith the peaches, we took cuttings from our existing orchard and had them grafted when it was time to plant another orchard. It was all done at a nursery, with our cuttings on their root stock. I know we had the orchard grafted onto semi-dwarf rootstock the last time I was involved with the process, to keep the height down on the new trees. The trees from my earliest childhood were on standard stock, so were much taller. Pruning also helped with the height of the trees, they were topped yearly.
So, I'll be waiting with bated breath to hear if there are fruits that can be successfully grown by seed to get an end product that you want. I'm intrigued.
Thanks for the lesson on how most fruit trees are grafted Becky. :) I too am curious to see how this all turns out!
DeleteI had to look up Linguica sausage. I'd never heard of it LOL It sounds tasty though and so do those pancakes and syrup :)
ReplyDeleteGreat savings, my friend.
xoxo,
rue
Rue, it is similar to what we called Portuguese Sausage and was something that all of us who grew up in Hawaii ate. They even served it at McDonald's with eggs and rice for breakfast there. :)
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