Frugal Friday Wrap Up 5/27/22

Weekend:

   We had Bradley and Isaiah spend the night with us on Saturday and they spent a good part of Sunday with also.  They had made dinner for us (Sloppy Joes with homemade rolls and cheese), yes THEY made it.  They are really good cooks, having learned from their mother Heather.  They watch Pirates of the Caribbean with Jeff and got to bed late Saturday night.  Sunday we had an easy breakfast of cereal and juice.  Bradley and Isaiah happily played with the big Tonka trucks outside and told me about some edible wild plants.  They have an amazing breadth of knowledge when it comes to outdoor life. 😊 Later the helped me trim the blackberry bushes after I got the laundry washed and hung out to dry.  Jeff surprised us all by taking us out to lunch (oh my goodness, was that ever expensive) and then we went to Winco and got some fresh produce, cheese and bagels.  I was very careful to just get produce that was on sale, other than bananas of course. 😉 After coming home, we got out the cornhole game that Jeff built for me and played that in the front yard, waving at the neighbors as they drove by.  Isaiah and I picked some spinach from the garden for him to take home also.  Later that evening, after the boys had gone home, we had leftovers for dinner and relaxed for a bit.

Monday:

~I got some delicates all washed and hung out to dry in the guest bathroom.

~I took 2 suckers off my  big tomato plants (not sure which variety I got them off of) and put them in water to see if they would root.

~I had leftovers for lunch and Jeff took a sandwich.

~Plant something every day has been my motto lately.  I seeded in another variety of kale.

~My mature tomato plants that are starting to put on blooms were put outside of the greenhouse to allow the bees to find them. I did return them to the greenhouse overnight.

~More spinach was harvested and made into a salad and also cut up and put into our dinner casserole.

~I made a chicken, broccoli and rice casserole for dinner using some already cooked chicken.  It was really good!

Tuesday:

~I had some of the leftover casserole for breakfast.

~The tomato plants were put outside again.

~Jeff took a sandwich for lunch.

~Finally I have found a great use for all those empty prescription pills bottles that tend to accumulate in my home.  They are great for plant propagation.  I know there are also places that I can donate them to, but during the pandemic, they were not accepting them, so they piled up since I am on 4 meds monthly.

~More of my potato plants are coming up and I am thrilled!

~I had a full on panic attack feeling like I needed to go and stock up on things that we buy on a regular basis that have wheat or corn in them.  This is understandable when you see how bad the shortages are, especially with wheat.  Sources from around the world are reporting that we are now down to a 70 day supply worldwide and the projected Spring wheat crops are not looking good for most of the world either due to weather and fertilizer shortages.  I did head into town and stuck within my $100 budget to stock up on things that we use on a regular basis, including a case of cream of mushroom soup.  Yes, that has flour in it too!

~I ran into Rachel and Steven when I stopped to see Jeff at work. What a wonderful surprise!😀  I asked Steven if he wanted to come to the Dollar Tree with me to pick out some water toys for us to play with at Grammie's house.  We got 3 water shooting things (not guns but these long tubes that we can fill up with water from a bucket and they shoot pretty far).  It is supposed to be a long hot Summer, so I wanted some toys like that here for him and I to play with and also enough for when his big cousins come over to play too.  While there I also found my favorite canned tamales and got some of those too to add to my pantry.

~Jeff made himself nachos for dinner and I had a glass of wine with some cheese, crackers and sausage.  I cut up the leftover cheese and sausage (it was one of those Hickory Farms snack sets that was a gift from Rachel's sister Michelle.  We call her our bonus daughter and love her dearly!) and put it in a small snack pack bag for Jeff to take with him to snack on at work.  Yes, the one glass of wine helped to dull some of the horrible hip and back pain that I have been having.  Shopping just does me in these days, but it is something that I really do enjoy doing.  It's the thrill of the hunt for me trying to find the best bargains to keep us well stocked, fed and clean.  Haha!

Wednesday:

~It was lightly raining when I woke up and had rained a bit overnight, so I did not need to put "water the gardens" on my list for the day.  Thank you God for your provision!

~My medications that I keep for my morning doses in the kitchen (up high next to the coffee maker of course) were all restocked since I was running out of low on some of them. I keep the rest in a cabinet elsewhere in the house and always make sure that little hands do not get into them. 😉

~Jeff and I had leftover casserole for dinner along with some garlic bread and sugar snap peas.

~I froze a bunch of cooked chicken for meals later.

Thursday:

~I made 2 more loaves of bread.

~While the oven was still hot, I cooked up a package of turkey bacon.  We will use some of it in bacon, tomato and lettuce (from the garden) sandwiches for dinner.

~The laundry was hung out on the line to dry.

~Steven happily played in the back yard with the toy trucks and excavator for awhile.

~He also helped me get all the plants in the greenhouse watered.  

~He and I discovered that we have cucumber plants coming up.  We planted those last week together so it was exciting to see them coming up.

~We planted some beans seeds in one of the raised beds.

~Smoothies were made as a reward for all the hard work in the garden.

~We enjoyed watching a robin feeding her babies.  The robin had made a nest in our breezeway and is not at all bothered by our comings and goings.

Friday:

~Steven was here for the day.  It was not the best weather, so we spent time watching movies and doing little projects around the house.

~Jeff brought home dinner from Panda Express and we both could not finish our meals, so we put the leftovers away for another meal.