Culinary Inquiries, Explanations, Explorations and a Menu Plan!

When it comes to food and eating around here, I've been getting some inquiries on how things are going on that front here, asked some questions about some of the ingredients I've mentioned and/or shown on the blog recently and other things.  So, I figured I'd kind of conglomerate a few of the posts I was working on into one big post and just hit a couple birds with one stone (I hope *laugh*).  

First up, people have been asking me how the freezer inventory system I mentioned here was going for us this year.  

Well, the short answer is...it's not.  

"The best laid plans of mice and men" pretty much sums up the whole idea of having a freezer inventory going and just rotating things out as I needed to.  I'm not downing the original plan.  It's a good plan.  I stand behind the idea of it and I think it would work.  On a normal year.  Unfortunately, the year, as everyone knows, got turned on its ear pretty early on and the plan pretty much immediately fell apart.  Suddenly supply lines became unreliable, food shortages hit with weird things being out of stock (and still being sporadic in supply, like chicken, or yeast, etc) and there are some pretty dire predictions on how things, such as meat, are going to be this winter in the availability category.  So, instead of doing a freezer inventory like I had planned, I immediately changed plans to a pretty simple one.

The plan breaks down as this.  Stock up on meat as it is available.  Stock up on meats I know we will eat and just creative in the way I cook those meats as needed.  DO NOT waste freezer space on things that are on sale cheap that you MIGHT eat sometime in the future...maybe.  Start to weed out things that I got on sale cheap in the past that we hadn't eaten yet to reclaim that freezer space for things I know we will eat and fill in those gaps as I can.

And that, my friends, is it.  No "shopping sales" or anything like that comes into play here.  In my mind there is no point in trying to shop sales for more than say, fresh produce or something (and that is a crap shoot), as supplies of items is so unreliable that I don't see the point in wasting gas and going into the stores and than finding that they don't have what I needed to get anyway.  We always kind of had that problem up here, but with Covid it has gotten way worse.  Canned goods were out of stock so much and still sell out regularly up here to the point that I just started buying in bulk from Amazon as I could find things and just paid what I had to stock up on things.  I'm super glad I bought that freezer full of beef when things first hit as the price on meat has gone up and I've even noticed that the beef package I bought has gone up in price by a significant amount since I got mine (by like 500.00).  I go into the physical store once a month, if I can get away with it, to pick up my son's prescriptions and while I'm in the store I'll go and see what I can find for things like chicken or pork chops to supplement what I have in the freezer (or like the last time I went in I got some ground Italian sausage and some breakfast sausage as well as we were out of both).  Past that we just get whatever we can through the order online and pick up at the store program.  Is it the cheapest way to do things?  No, not even close.  But it is the best way to keep Alvah safe as he plays with everything when he is in a store, gets sick at the drop of a hat as he doesn't understand the whole "keep your hands away from your face" thing, won't wear a mask for more than a few seconds and I want to keep my kids (and others) as safe as I can.  

When it comes to putting up baked goods in the freezer, I threw that idea out the window pretty much on day one when the pandemic started to really take off.  I don't want to waste the space in the freezer with bulky baked goods like loaves of home made bread and things.  I'd prefer to save that space for the veggies I'm putting up in the freezer for this winter with the CSA box and things.  And honestly, I'd prefer to save the flour and make baked goods when we need them to just make that flour stretch further.  I'm supplementing with home ground flour from the many buckets of wheat I have, but I want my nice commercially ground flour to last as long as I can to make my life easier.

So, yeah, hopefully at some point in the future I can pick up the freezer inventory idea, dust it off, and try it again.  But, it isn't happening this year that is for sure.

Next up is the questions with people asking me about some of the ingredients that they've seen in my posts (wait until I show my pantry if you think those are different *laugh*).  Since Covid hit, I've been trying really hard to focus more on feeding therapy with the son (since he doesn't have swimming or therapy anymore, or at least for the foreseeable future), so I have gotten some odd to some ingredients to add to my repertoire.  For instance, the spatzle threw a few people.  Spatzle are just German egg noodles.  I am hoping that they'll be close enough (since I got commercial ones instead of making them myself) to regular wheat pasta that he might start eating them.  That will give him a bit more nutrition in his diet.  Same with the black rice.  If I can get him to start eating just tiny bits of that, it has SO much more nutrition than white rice, that I'd be super happy paying for it.  Feeding therapy is basically like throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks sometimes, so if you start seeing some oddball things showing up in photos, those are probably things I'm throwing at that proverbial wall *laugh*.

I've also been trying to source more food with just more simple ingredients, trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup more for the sake of my family's health.  It's led to more nutrition label reading (I already read them obsessively looking for that peanut allergen warning) and then sourcing things out.  That has led me to getting more things imported in from Europe and countries that I know will declare peanut on their labels to keep the son safe, so yeah, um...I've gotten some interesting things added to the pantry this last year.  Some of the things are just to try out, some for nutritional profiles that I was impressed by (my family is going to hate me by the end of the year probably as they are looking at a foreign fruit and saying, "What is THAT?" *laugh*) and some things I just ran into in cookbooks and wanted to try out (like the juniper berries are to use in some German dishes that I ran into that sounded good and I knew, having had juniper berries in the spice cabinet before, that you can't really substitute out juniper berries with other spices).

To further the culinary adventures we are having...well there is me and my love of cooking and just exploring different things as they look neat.  For instance we recently tried Okonomiyaki (if you want a more Americanized version that is probably cheaper to make Budget Bytes has a pretty good one here) because I had a ton of cabbage to use and the daughter and I got into watching "Little Forest" on Amazon Prime video at night.  The daughter actually asked for me to make the "cabbage pancake" and after a little research I found out what it was and made it.  I made ours with bacon instead of pork belly, made and used some dashi stock in the batter (which honestly if you can I would suggest doing that or adding a bit of fish sauce to the water or something and making your own "pseudo dashi" as just using water would make a really bland pancake) and while I did order actual okonomiyaki sauce from Amazon (which I am glad I did as it is basically a sweetened sauce made of vegetables, which would be hard to replicate), once I read the reviews on Kewpie mayonnaise I just used Miracle Whip instead and it turned out pretty tasty (sorry purists).  The husband and I were kind of "meh" on it as to us it tasted like a cabbage pancake (go figure), but the daughter really liked it.  So, while I'm not going to go crazy making it into regular menu rotations or anything (as it is a fair amount of work to put together and cook), I might definitely make it again if the daughter asks for it :).  

With home school this year we are also doing some culinary explorations.  The Raddish boxes have been fun so far and that adventure will continue through the year (which should lead to some interesting menu plan additions) and so far we had to make, of all things, an ancient Mesopotamian/Sumerian meal to go with the daughter's history unit on Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.  We were instructed to make a salad with certain vegetables in it, a lentil stew (meat was optional and yes, it literally just said "meat" as your ingredient.  Lamb was suggested, but I used beef because that is what I had) and flat bread (I ended up using their suggestion for pita bread as I ran out of time and couldn't make the flat bread from scratch).  The finished meal, minus dessert, but plus added crumbs on the table (it was kind of a late dinner, I was tired, and I forgot to shake the table cloth...what are you going to do?) is seen above (we had grape juice, versus the wine and/or beer that was suggested with the dinner :).  

The dessert was interesting.  It was a dessert where you took plain yogurt, added honey to sweeten it and then you took fruits (fresh and dried), which was dates, figs (reconstituted), apples (we just had a couple in the fridge) and pears (we used canned as that is what I had) for us.  You then took your fruit after you reconstituted your dried stuff and you mixed the fruit with honey as well and then put it on top of the yogurt.  And I have to say that while this was something that was hard to source ingredients for (I had to order peanut safe dates from Amazon and also had to order lentils from Amazon as well, along with dried mint), it came together in the end really well.  I even got Cilantro the day before from our CSA box, so I was able to use fresh cilantro versus dried in the recipe.  

The lentil stew was REALLY good (I put the link to the Pinterest image version above as it is easier to read).  I was really impressed.  Even the husband liked it and took the leftovers to work for lunches (which you KNOW he liked it if he is willing to eat leftovers).  And really, it isn't that expensive to make (really the mint and the cilantro are the most expensive things if you have barley and lentils).  The dessert was really good too and really simple.  I also learned that fresh dates are worlds and worlds above the dates we can get in the stores up here and I will definitely look to purchase fresh in the future if I need some.  I thought I hated dates until I ate this menu.  And don't worry date fans, I did store my dates in the fridge per the instructions on the package, so hopefully they'll keep moist and good for a while that way.

Nice thing about the school related menus, as well, since a lot of it is feeding therapy/speech therapy related, I can get reimbursed for my materials.  So, at least the culinary adventures are a bit more affordable this way as I can use our school allotment to help us pay for it.

I also made Hunter Schnitzel one night for dinner and another night I made sausages with "fancy" German Sauerkraut (basically home made sauerkraut stewed up with some stock with added bacon and a few ingredients.  Can you tell I got a German cookbook for my anniversary?  *Laugh*),   It has been a lot of fun exploring the foods of different cultures of late and I'm looking forward to trying out more new recipes in the future.  I figure this year might not be working out the way anyone was planning on, but that doesn't mean cooking has to be boring :).

So, yeah, basically my pantry items have expanded this year to include things like Japanese ingredients, German ingredients and other eccentric ingredients (like I now have mint and dates in my everyday ingredients...it'll be interesting).

Right, so now that I've babbled about everything in creation, let's get to this week's menu plan, shall we?

This week's Dinner Menu

Wednesday:  Sliced beef in gravy (using left over beef roast), mashed potato and turnips, salad.

Thursday:  Hamburgers, french fries.

Friday:  Chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, spiced black beans (use dried beans)

Saturday:  Grilled pork chops, grilled corn on the cob, garlic toast (home made bread).  

Sunday:  Home made pizza (or stuffed manicotti...still up in the air on this one), bread sticks, salad.

Monday:  Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps (Raddish box recipe) 

Desserts:  Melon (honeydew, Wednesday), strawberry cheesecake, lemon bars.

Breakfast items (to make):  Zucchini muffins (Raddish kit recipe).

And there you go folks.  Tangents and a menu plan for this week.  I'm so happy I got at least a menu plan worked out *laugh*.  How about you?  Eating anything interesting lately?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap (Times 2)

 Man, I'm behind again when it comes to blogging.  I keep hoping things will work out so that I have time to get some back blogging (of which I have about, oh, 18 unfinished posts to finish up and publish...doh), but it seems like life keeps throwing things into my path and I just run out of hours in the day.

So, what has been going on around here?

Well, a lot.  A friend of ours has lost their business and income due to Covid and now they are having to move into a small apartment they have on their property and having to rent their house to hopefully survive.  We made them a care package of food to help supplement what they are getting at the food bank and dropped it off to them this last week.  Things are rough for so many people right now, including so many people I know.  I wish I could do more.  As is with prices continually going up on pretty  much everything, it just seems like money never goes far enough for us, so I can imagine what it is like for so many others right now.

Then we ended up with another mouse problem.  Bright side, it did NOT get into the pantry (thank goodness) and the steel wool seems to be working well to keep them out of there.  Downside is that due to the steel wool keeping them from getting into the pantry, the sucker got caught in the wall and was stuck in the wall between the pantry and my master bedroom.  It was LOUD trying to gnaw through the wall to get into the bedroom and the scratching and everything and I think I didn't get any sleep for a few days as a result.  I even took the trim off of the bedroom wall, opened a hole a bit in the sheet rock on the bottom of the wall and really tried to help the sucker get out of the wall so it could "play with the cats" for a few moments before the cats dispatched it.  Instead it ended up dying in the wall, so I've been leaving windows open and the furnace turned off a lot to help air out the downstairs until the smell dissipates.  The husband wants to open up the wall to try and see where the mice are getting in at so that he can close up the hole, but he's not sure when he's going to find time to do that, so we'll see how it goes on getting that problem buttoned up, hopefully soon.

So, as a result of the mouse and the cats trying to dig through the walls to get to play with a new toy, they managed to dig out a bunch of the steel wool I had around the pantry walls.  So, that led to more than a few days of gutting the pantry and leaving spaces open for the cats to access so they didn't break anything trying to get to the wall and, once they had given up on the mouse being alive, it was a matter of slowly working on getting the pantry reorganized and put back together.  In the process a lot of cheap cardboard "pantry pack" boxes broke on me, resulting in me bruising the Heck out of my foot in the process, which then led me to getting frustrated beyond belief and then finally giving up and going on Amazon where I put 100.00 on my Amazon card to get a can organizing pantry system going.  I immediately started to experience buyers remorse on making the purchase because we are broke and don't have money and such, but at the same time I realized that I really had to make some investment in organization and storage just to make sure things get rotated correctly and I don't go insane (or break a foot) in the process.  I ended up ordering a couple of these units (no associate link, just sharing) as they are adjustable and have really good reviews.  We'll see how it works out.

I want to thank those that e-mailed me with recommendations (or posted advice) for skin creams for Alvah.  I ordered the ones that were recommended to me.  I'm always willing to try new creams with the son's skin being so terrible, especially right now.  Hopefully one of them will work as he's not sleeping worth a darn and a lot of that is just due to him being super itchy.

On the eczema front, I've really started working on feeding therapy hard core.  One of the things that hit me all of a sudden was how much Alvah liked ripping apart the nori when we were making his Ticket to Tokyo Radish box.  Knowing that ripping things and experiencing textures was an important part of picking up new foods, I went online and started researching seaweed snacks.  I found these snacks (once again no associate links or anything) that were made with perilla oil.  I had never heard of such a thing, but after researching it I found out that perilla oil could actually help allergies, so I got those to try out on the son.  He actually ripped apart some so far AND took a bite out of one.  He spit said bite out, but for him to bite it so quickly is definitely a good step forward :).

He's also been big on eating fruit snacks of late, so I ordered some gummy vitamins to try and feed him.  I ended up having to order the Amazon brand gummy vitamins which are REALLY sour tasting, but he's been a trooper about taking them.  I have to rip them into smaller pieces and he kind of powers through eating them, but he is taking them, which is such a relief that he's getting some added nutrition into him.

I also after discovering the YouTube channel "Kimono Mom's Kitchen" on YouTube started watching her videos on how she got her young daughter to start eating solid foods.  Her daughter sounds a lot like Alvah in her eating habits (would NOT eat solids until nine months of age, etc) and she came up with a way to start getting nutrition into her daughter by adding dashi stock to EVERYTHING her daughter consumed.  Basically this was a way to condition her daughter to the flavor and it would kind of bled into what she was eating and she wouldn't notice it.  Since dashi is super healthy and I have a big bag of dashi stock granules in the fridge that I got for Japanese cooking (since going out for dates just doesn't really work for the husband and I, I started making things like miso soup at home when I make a Japanese meal.  It has been a really great, and surprisingly easy, way to make dinner special but without worries about getting pick up and wondering about peanut cross contamination while eating around the son), I figured it was worth a shot to start adding small amounts of the dashi granules to things like rice when I cooked it.  He can definitely taste the dashi, I think, as he doesn't eat as much as he used to when I would make it without (the rest of us can not tell at all), but he IS eating it, which, to me, is definitely a good thing and is getting him just a TINY bit more nutrition in his diet.

So, yeah, none of those things are really "money saving" but to me they were definitely worth the accumulating additional debt over.

Now, onto some money saving things that occurred!

1.  My rice cooker that I got at the used store has just never worked...right, for lack of a better word.  You would plug in the cord and nothing would happen and you'd have to plug it in up to eight times before the menu screen would light up and you could get going making your rice.  My husband took apart the rice cooker last week and immediately figured the problem was the retractable cord making a loose connection.  He removed the old cord and replaced it with a spare cord he had in his spare pieces and parts.  With just labor and a part he had around the house (and some soldering skills) the rice cooker now works a TON better then it ever has, is much faster cooking said rice and it definitely saved me from having to buy a new rice cooker (as the problem with it not powering up was getting worse and worse and I was worried that I'd have to spend money to get a new one) as the son much prefers the rice cooked in a rice cooker compared to the pressure cooker (honestly I can't tell any difference in quality, but he does somehow).

2.  I harvested some lettuce from the garden this week and also pulled the green onions I'd planted on a whim.  I was actually impressed with how big the green onions had gotten and I even had some small onions to show for it!  I cut up the onions and put them into the freezer to use later in miso soup and things.

Our CSA boxes the last few weeks have been really nice too.  We got a TON of zucchini (two of which I actually gifted to our friends in their care package as they wanted some), turnips, potatoes, broccoli, edible pod peas, daikon radish, strawberries, tomatoes and other things.  I've really enjoyed the variety of things we have gotten from the box this summer and I'm really glad I used part of our stimulus money to spend the 200.00 on the box.  We've definitely gotten more than 200.00 worth of produce out of the box and it has allowed me to put up a bunch of different vegetables for the winter time, which we'll definitely appreciate this winter :).

3.  I was able to actually get chicken at the store, which was great and has officially made it so that the meat is stocked pretty well for the time being.  I am hoping I can keep it that way in case of further shortages, especially this winter.

4.  The daughter needed a new pair of sneakers, which was my fault for waiting so long to get her some.  She has been in the same size of shoes for a few years now, so I just was not used to the kids wearing out shoes before they outgrew them.  I used an online converter to figure out what her size would be in women's shoes compared to kids sizes and went on Amazon.  I found some good sneakers for her for MUCH less than buying them from local sources and they should be in on Friday.  Hopefully that will help to alleviate her hurting feet when we go out anywhere.

5.  Speaking of going out places, we have gone a few places this summer.  The latest one was this last weekend we went to visit Willow and show the kids what there was to see.  

We parked the truck and took a very short hike to check out the old highway that they replaced years ago (the new highway is over the railroad tracks there) and my husband told the kids how he used to travel the old highway when he was a kid.  We had a good time and it is easy to social distance when you basically just take a long drive *laugh*.

6.  I put in an online order with Carrs.  They had melons on sale for 3.33 a piece for mini watermelons, honeydews and cantaloupes.  I ordered one of each, figuring there was no way that they wouldn't be out of stock on at least a couple of them.  Well, I ended up with all three *laugh* so we've been eating melon for dessert the last little bit.  I have to say I've been enjoying it greatly, especially since it didn't cost us much to get them.  

7.  We invested in a big container of food grade CO2 at a local business.  It was kind of expensive this time around as we had to buy the canister, but the refills will be cheap now that we have the container.  I bought a CO2 converter hose set up online to refill Soda Stream bottles from a big CO2 canister, so we should be good to go on refilling the Soda Stream bottles on our own instead of having to pay for new canisters or refills, and at a much cheaper price (a really big bottle of CO2 will cost us less than 40.00 to refill while a new Soda Stream canister costs us that much).  So, now I'm looking forward to trying out new flavors of sparkling beverages now that I don't have to worry about hording the CO2 for the son's soda.

And, yeah, I'm going to call it good there as I have to make lunch for the kids and get started on afternoon schoolwork.  I hope everything is going well with you all and here's hoping I can get back to blogging regularly again here!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap (Times 2), Plus a Garden Update

Believe it or not I am working on blog posts, but I just got delayed due to school starting around here (we decided to start early so we could book time to take more time off at Christmas) and also, it turns out, by stopping the son's sleeping meds, not only did his mood improve dramatically but it also ended up making his digestion start working overtime, so I've been dealing with some bouts of unpleasantness in that area of late.  Between all of that and his eczema flaring badly, it's been kind of rough around here of late when it came to finding time to get things done.

I honestly almost didn't write about money saving things that have happened of late, as there isn't a whole lot to report.  But, I'll give you a rundown of things that have happened of late.

1.  First big thing to report is my husband finally got time to work on the lawn mower.  He bought parts and replaced and tinkered and nothing was working to get the mower to actually fire up and run.  He finally pulled the heads off the lawn mower to find the motor just full of gunk (mud, etc) and he realized that some major seals failed.  So we are looking at basically an engine rebuild or having to buy a new mower.  We're not sure what is the most cost effective at this point.  We just decided we're going to just let the lawn go, probably until winter (we don't have an HOA or anything to worry about) and if worse comes to worse we'll rent a push mower to do the front lawn so it doesn't look too horrible.  Over winter we'll try and save up enough money to hopefully cash out a new mower next year or be able to cash out a new motor.  It seems to be the best recourse at this point to avoid having to put over a thousand dollar onto a credit card or draining our savings down to nothing to pay for one.

2.  I finally settled on a Mueller brand pressure cooker as it got rave reviews on Amazon and I have to say so far it has worked great and I'm really happy with it.  It is definitely better quality than my old pressure cooker, so we are already off to a good start.  I've used it to make a pork roast, some rice (my rice cooker is having issues...something to do with capacitors my husband is telling me, so I have to have him look at it so it'll power up correctly) and mashed potatoes.  So far, so good :).

I was able to get the cooker for about 74.00 after an online coupon on Amazon was applied, so I was happy with that as the coupon saved me about 5.00.  Every little bit helps.

3.  I've been doing a ton of rearranging around here and one of the things I did was I went through and found all of my Rubbermaid modular pantry storage containers that I had that I could move things around and use, combined it with a big Tupperware pantry storage container I had and I decided to put some things up on top of my fridge to make them easier to get to (or just put them up there if I didn't have room for them elsewhere, such as the juniper berries).  

Some things like the spatzle and the black rice are part of my son's feeding therapy plans, so I'm going to be happy to have them within easy reach.  

I was even able to stick a couple of containers on each side of the fridge, tucked behind the front storage containers so I could fit a few more things on top of the fridge.  I really like the organization of the items and it actually looks pretty good.  

4.  I fixed a lamp my in-laws had given to us (okay, so I begged them if we could have it, which probably helped to sway them a bit *laugh*) that used to belong to my husband's grandparents.  Grandchildren had played rough with the lamp (it is a "working" spinning wheel lamp, so calls to children like nobody's business) and had broken a few things on it.  I was able to get it mostly working.  We still have to restring it as there is a knot in the string that is on the lamp now that causes the gears to slip and the lamp to come unstrung.  I'm happy I was able to mostly fix it, though, as both my husband and I really like the lamp.  I was able to fix it with parts I already had around the house (I'll share pictures of it later as the ones I took came out blurry).

5.  I completely rearranged the pantry (I know, like when do I keep it the same for more than six months at a time *laugh*) and so far everyone seems happy with the way it is working out.

6.  My mother-in-law called and said that raspberries were ready to pick over at her place.  I managed to get enough for two quart jars of berries.  I had decided that this year I wanted to can the berries whole in syrup to use in desserts and things as just freezing them seemed to lead to freezer burn quicker than I liked.  It was hot and humid and when I saw that I was going to get probably two quarts of berries out of what I picked, I decided to not can them (I'm running out of room on my pantry shelves anyway) in the hot water bath canner, but instead to freeze them in quart jars instead.  It worked great and now I have two quarts of raspberries in the pantry ready to defrost and use in desserts and then I can use the syrup they are canned in for other purposes as well :).

7.  Our CSA has been really helpful in filling in gaps in the freezer for winter storage.  I processed four heads of broccoli this week, a head of cauliflower, some more kale and we are going to be using a big zucchini, some small cucumbers and other items with our meals.  

And now, a Segway into a garden update!

I'm really happy with how the CSA is working out as well...the garden is growing.  Kind of.  I THINK I can hopefully start harvesting lettuce this week.  After a long, long wait.  Past that I don't have any peas developing yet, the chard is just dead in the water and hasn't done anything since it popped out of the ground no matter how much nutrients I dump on it and the Asian broccoli I planted did the same thing.  So, basically I might get enough lettuce out of the garden this year to make a difference and past that I'm just praying the potatoes don't let me down.  It has not been a good garden year.

And there you go folks.  Like I said, there hasn't been much going on around here in the money saving department.  I hope things have been going well for you all and stay tuned.  We've been having some interesting meals around here of late, so menu plans will hopefully be shared again and give some inspiration and I'm hoping to post up my monthly goals here in the next couple of days :).

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap (Plus a Garden Update)

Okay, first, I just want to assure everyone that no, we were no where NEAR where that really big earthquake was and we are just fine :).  Actually, we didn't feel a thing (for which I'm thankful for, honestly), not even a tiny tremor as the earthquake was WAY far South of where we are.   Even my husband's uncle, who lives down South, said everything was fine where he was, so it's all good.  I'm sorry if I panicked everyone by not posting after the earthquake.  Honestly I didn't even know it happened until my mom called me in a panic because the news reports were mentioning Anchorage (which is on the coast thus part of the tsunami warning that went out to basically the entire coast of Alaska) and she knew that my husband worked in that area and was all worried he was taken out by a tsunami or something.

I was going to blog earlier (to help assure people we were okay), but was down all weekend pretty much with a bad headache (at least typing was not on my list of "can dos"), so that didn't happen. 


Right, so let's get down to other business.

What have I been up to lately?  Well, I finally got independent learning plans (or ILPs) into the home school and got those approved for the kids.  Curriculum that I ordered through the home school came in (including the Radish box and Kiwi crates, which astounded me how fast we got those in), I got the one book that is on back order with Moving Beyond the Page ordered and in and we are ready to go to start school next week (a couple of weeks early compared to the public schools up here, but we want to bank some time ahead so we can hopefully take December off for the Christmas holidays :).  It was such a HUGE relief to get that all done and supplies in as there is a huge demand for home schooling right now (go figure) and so a lot of home schooling curriculum suppliers are running out of things pretty fast.  Thank goodness I'm kind of obsessed with getting things done in and in early, so we are at least good to go and I don't have to panic about trying to figure out where to find materials.

The next thing I've been working on is I have been working my tail off trying to get my bedroom to not be a horrible cluttered mess.  This had to start somewhere so I ended up having to clean my bedroom closet first (you can scream like a scream queen from a horror movie now as that is pretty much what I did when I opened up the closet and saw what was ahead of me *laugh*).  I brutally decluttered things out of the closet and moved things around, which led to me donating a bunch of things to the used stores, but got me to a point that I was able to fit a couple of big items in the bedroom into the closet, thus giving me room to move stuff around.  I've got plans for the bedroom in the next couple of weeks and am trying REALLY hard to get it painted this week if I can, so hopefully it'll all work out so I can get done before school work starts up again.

The next big thing that happened was the son's sleeping medication just plain stopped working.  It has been slowly getting worse in its effectiveness, but this last week it just plain quit.  I started giving him the max dose I was allowed to give him to see if it would work, but I think all it did was make him sick feeling, because last night I just plain decided not to give him the med (I mean when his sleep schedule has been to sleep from 6 am to noon every day, what is the point?) and he has been so much happier today, so much more energetic and so much more like his old self that I'm really glad I stopped giving him the medication.  I have a virtual appointment with his doctor on Wednesday and we'll see what she has in the way of advice or guidance to see if we can get him a bit more sleep (and better quality of sleep to boot).  I have to say I loved it when he was sleeping and I'm already really missing it as he does okay with little sleep (so it seems), but it is downright killing me.

So, on the money saving front...

1.  We made up our first Radish box "Ticket to Tokyo" last night for dinner.  The son actually did seem happy to help in his own way and tore up a bunch of seaweed sheets when he realized how brittle they were, happy as a clam until mom shrieked like a cartoon character when she realized what he was doing and was able to save two sheets to make the sushi rolls with *laugh*.  Luckily, I was was able to save the torn seaweed sheets and added some to the yakisoba noodles (basically noodle stir fry) and it just added one more veggie to the mixture.  I did NOT use short grain rice for the sushi rolls and just used the medium grain rice I had in our normal stores.  It worked perfectly fine, I just added  a bit of extra water to make the rice super sticky when I cooked it :).

The box called for certain vegetables, like Napa cabbage.  Well, Napa cabbage is going for roughly the same amount as a down payment on a car right now (my jaw dropped at the price), so I said "no" to that one and used some bok choy that came with our CSA box instead.  Kohlarbi was one of our vegetables this last week, so I used it in the sushi rolls and in the yakisoba noodles because why not?  And really, everything turned out really well and I was really happy with everything.

Oh and just because I keep forgetting to take pictures of the actual CSA contents when I get them, I figured I'd share a picture of the inside of the fridge instead.  I LOVE having the problem of "where am I going to stick all the fresh produce" when I get some at the moment.  It is a huge thrill for me to have this much fresh produce in the house right now :).

The box called for chicken tenderloins, but unfortunately chicken is really hard to find at the stores right now unless you want wings or a whole chicken (so it seems the few times I go into the store anyway) and I finally ran out of the boneless skinless chicken thighs I got from the butcher.  So, instead of chicken teriyaki skewers we had pork teriyaki and I just ended up baking the pork and peppers in the teriyaki sauce as I don't have any skewers either.  Sometimes you just make do with what you have and call it good.

I used 1/2 of the English cucumber we got in our box the week before last to make pork gyros for dinner one night (I love farm fresh vegetables versus store bought as there is NO WAY a store bought cucumber would last two weeks in the fridge up here) and then I used the other 1/2 in the sushi rolls.  For the gyros I used a pretty old container of plain Greek yogurt I got for free at the beginning of the Monopoly game with Carrs this last go round (before the pandemic made me just not caring about the game anymore).  It was more like cheese versus yogurt so I added a bit of sour cream to it to loosen it up.  It worked great and no one missed the meat being pork instead of chicken, which was good :).

2.  I had wanted to get some really good German take out for the husband for his birthday (it is this week), but our local German restaurant didn't survive the pandemic *sniff*, so I went to good old plan B.  Amazon.  I ordered a German dessert mix and a few small items I'd need to make hunter schnitzel (do not to ask me to give German names to that as I'd slaughter it) and hopefully we'll be good to go on the new "at home restaurant" style meal.  Here's hoping it all works out well.

3.  My electric pressure cooker died on me last night and started leaking steam everywhere and then when I went to use it again (after replacing the sealing ring and a deep, deep cleaning) to give it a heat up and then a pressure test it failed both admirably well.  I use the pressure cooker actually quite regularly, especially to cook things like beans, so I know I'm going to have to get a new one.  I am depressed about it, I'll admit it, as it is going to cost a decent amount of money to replace (at least as small appliances go).  I redeemed my credit card rewards through Amazon (that I got for ordering the kid's home schooling curriculum stuff through and will get reimbursed for) and will be able to get at least 30.00 off with gift cards, so that is something anyway.

I am definitely not going with a Gourmia brand one this time, that's for sure.  That sucker lasted less than two years and I sure did not use it everyday like a lot of people do with their pressure cookers (and yes, I called the company to ask their advice and didn't get anywhere).  I guess with pressure cookers you get what you pay for.

Anyone got recommendations on a good brand of pressure cooker to buy?  I'm not sure if I want to buy an Instant Pot as it sounds like the quality control is all over the place (at least via Amazon reviews), so I'm definitely open to advice in this area.

4.  I had a personalized price of .43 per lime this week at Carrs (UNHEARD of cheap), so I used the personalized price to get 5 limes through my online order.  Since the personalized price was for large limes (which is all they have listed online), but the store didn't have any, they replaced my 5 large limes with 5 small ones, but only charged me for one large lime.  So, I got 5 small limes for .43!  I have to say as awesome goes that was pretty awesome!

5.  I continued my quest to fill up my pantry as much as possible before winter.  I took what I had left from my grocery budget after getting what we needed at the store and ordered things from Amazon in bulk to fill in holes.  I got enchilada sauce really cheap (like 12 big cans of enchilada sauce for less than 12.00, which at the store those size of cans normally got for at least 3.00 per can) and a flat of  Van Camps baked beans for decently cheap (I'm trying to make things like baked beans from scratch as much as I can...or at least I WAS until my pressure cooker died, but I wanted to make sure I had them for those nights when you just don't have the energy to bother).  I also blanched and froze bok choy and kale from our CSA box to add to out winter stores as well.

6.  I requested a free sample of unscented/hypoallergenic spray deodorant to try out on the son and see how he reacts to it.  The free sample shipped this week, so we'll see how it does when it gets here.

7.  We ended up with hornets building a nest in our roof, and at a really nasty spot to get to.  I went and bought Raid at the store (which you need a treasure map to find hornet killer it turns out), which turned out to be on clearance, so I got it for 50% off normal price (which was nice as I had to guy two containers worth to get rid of the hornets).  My husband managed to outlast the hornets by spraying the entrance to the nest enough that it seems like the hornets finally died or moved on.  Since the nest was right by our front door, I was happy to see them go.

8.  Our lawn mower broke down for the first time in eight years.  It is a 30 year old lawn mower (at least) and has worked really well for us, so my husband is going to attempt to get parts and fix it (it is a Craftsman brand, so goodness knows if parts are available or not anymore with Sears going out of business).  Here's hoping it can be fixed.

9.  I fixed a couple of holes in a comforter and hemmed a few pairs of pants this week.

And now onto the garden update!

If there was one word I could give to my garden the last little bit, it would be "ignored".  Between the son not sleeping, his eczema going crazy, all the home school stuff I've been juggling and everything else going on (new pay schedule at work for the husband, allergy flare up with the daughter so we have to make sure her eye isn't swelling up on her, etc etc), I just plain forget about it sometimes as we've been getting enough rain I haven't had to worry about it dying from not getting enough water or anything.  I finally went and checked it yesterday for the first time in a couple of days.  I have to say out of everything the weeds are growing the best. 

The lettuce was finally grown enough that I thinned it a bit and we tried the lettuce.  It is VERY bitter tasting, probably due to all of the rain we've been having and I'm going to have to use it sparingly.  Luckily we've been getting an entire head of lettuce each week from the CSA (and a huge head at that), so we aren't hurting for salad fodder, but that was kind of depressing.  We have a few broccoli sprouts that survived whatever bug onslaught was taking them out, but they are so small I doubt they'll get to a point I can harvest anything by the end of the summer.  The peas are growing (yay) and I keep putting them onto the trellis to climb and keep them off the ground (they stay on the ground they are getting eaten, so I want to make sure they have every chance to get big and produce).  The peas are a variety that only grown to about 2 feet in height before producing, so I'm kind of hopeful they'll start producing peas sometime soon.  If I only get potatoes and peas out of the garden this year that'll be something and I'll count my blessings :).

And there you go folks.  An update on what we've been up to this last week.  How about you?  Been up to anything?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap (and a Garden Update)

Yippee!  I'm finally doing this post on a Friday! 

....

Yes, things like this make me happy.

......

What?  Stop giving me that weird look.

It's the small things in life.  What can I say?

For once I purposefully decided to put off blogging so I could do this post on an actual Friday and hopefully get back onto a more even blogging schedule.  Honestly, it's been busy enough that it was probably best that I waited.

So, what has happened the last bit?

Well, home school stuff was a big portion of what I've been up to.  This year I am determined to have more of a REAL curriculum planned for Alvah instead of winging it from quarter to quarter.  So, the last weeks has seen me planning, planning and planning some more.  Bright side, some materials have come in so I can get my first round of reimbursements submitted to the home school today and then supplemental learning materials I ordered SHOULD be in by early next week, so yay for that!  The last few days I've just been putting together the learning plans for the kids (with the daughter it is just two classes that I'm doing myself; art and home economics, but the son is everything).  I got the daughter's art class plan done and submitted to our contact teacher to see what she thinks of it (she's on vacation till Tuesday, so we'll see what she thinks when she gets in) and the supplemental materials for the class ordered.  Yesterday I spent the entire day, pretty much, doing a list of books, publishing information and the other nitty gritty types of things for the son's learning plan.  I got through general education materials (books, work books and the like) that goes on all school year and encompasses all semesters.  Today I hope to start on the semester specific lists.  I hope our contact teacher likes to read as the learning plan for the son will be thorough, but it is going to be long *laugh*.

I also broke down and out and out forced my husband to go and get a new mattress last weekend.  I didn't want to pay for it any more than he did, but it got to the point that our old bed was, quite literally, crippling me.  It got to a point where I was having to sleep on multiple pillows just so I could get my leg aches down to a point that I could ignore it enough to get some crappy quality of sleep and my arms were in such bad shape I'd wake up every twenty minutes to roll over because the arm I was sleeping on had gone numb.  I used some of the dividends to pay for the mattress and I was depressed to find that since we'd been to the mattress store, what, a month or so ago, that the prices had doubled and/or tripled in some cases due to Covid.  I paid the price and flinched, a lot, but I am so glad we got a new mattress.  I've been able to sleep again and wake up without being in complete agony.  That, to me, is worth its weight in gold.

For some reason, when it comes to painting, my neck and shoulder going out one me really took the wind out of my sails and I've had a really hard time getting motivated to start on my master bedroom.  Since this is last "official" room in the house that I have to repair and paint you'd think I'd be gung ho to get it done, but it's been hard to get my bottom motivated to start on it.  I'm hoping next week will be the week that I'm able to finally get that room done.  After that it's just the stairways/landing, which is going to be the hardest spots in the house, so at least I'm getting there.

So, let's get to some other things that have been going on around here...

1.  I have been absolutely loving our CSA box through Pyrah's Pioneer Peak Farm (just a shameless plug for the farm as it is awesome).  Last week we got a loaf of artisan bread (which didn't last through dinner), strawberries (which didn't last through the night because we ate them for dessert), collard greens (got blanched and frozen as soon as we got home as they were wilted from driving in the hot car), lettuce (we've been eating lots of salads around here :), three ginormous potatoes and some basil. 

I was really excited about the basil as I had a great plan for some of it.  I took the tomato from the previous week's box that I had left, sliced the tomato up and made myself some tomato slices with basil and mozzarella cheese.  I ended up eating the entire tomato in this format for lunch and it was delicious (a couple of slices seen above).

2.  One of the add on things you can buy with the CSA boxes is culinary lavender that is grown locally.  I was talking to the gal who was running the CSA pick up table and she told me that lavender lemonade was to die for.  Well, I had lemons in the fridge and some sweetened condensed milk to use up from making Brazilian Lemonade.  So, I took one cup of lavender syrup, one cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice, six cups of water and a half of a can of sweetened condensed milk and mixed it all in a pitcher and made my own creamy lavender lemonade!  I ended up having to add some extra sugar (believe it or not), but the lemonade was super awesome yummy!  I pretty much ended up drinking the whole pitcher myself *laugh* (pic seen up top and above).

In other news the weather has been so cold, rainy and odd this summer that I'm so, SO glad I shelled out the money for the CSA box.  It has really taken the stress off of me about the garden HAVING to do well no matter what.  With the supplemental stuff from the CSA it has really been a great to not panic if a bug has eaten off the seedlings, again, from the broccoli I planted and stuff like that. 

3.  Carrs/Safeway started their own, kind of odd, version of "Freebie Friday" like Kroger used to do.  Except Carrs/Safeway does it on Saturday.  You load a coupon for a free item onto your card (you have to be signed up for their e-mails to get in on this I think) and then you only have till Monday to redeem said coupon.  I always load the coupon for the freebie item, but had never gotten to the store on a Monday to redeem one.  This week, however, we ended up running low on milk and a few other things before our usual Wednesday shopping trip, so I was able to add a container of shredded Parmesan cheese to my order and I get it for free.  Cesar salad is definitely on the menu plan for next week :).

4.  I signed up for a freebie Charmin toilet paper extension for the bathroom so that we could use the "mega" rolls of toilet paper in the bathrooms in the future if we need to (I made the mistake of buying some mega rolls from Amazon last year and the paper would not fit in our master bathroom and just ended up being a nightmare).  The freebie actually came really fast and I was happy to get that in the mail this week.

5.  I ended up going into Carrs (like into the store) last night to pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner (I had a personalized price of 4.49 for a chicken this week and we didn't want to pass that up).  While there I found that they had pork chops on sale for 1.79 lb if you bought the entire loin cut into chops.  I have been wanting to go to the butcher shop to purchase more pork as we are starting to run low, so I was thrilled to find the sale.  I picked up two huge packages of pork chops for 15.00 or less each and got them in the freezer when I got home.  I am so paranoid about keeping everything stocked as stocked can be anymore as the price on things keeps going up, availability is still questionable (like I had to order an 8 pack of toilet bowl cleaner and a big container of dishwasher rinse aid from Amazon as I couldn't find it at my local stores) and I'm worried about what the fall and winter will bring.  So, I'm just rolling with my paranoia at this point and stocking up on things. If I don't have to buy much at the store this winter I'm not going to cry, let's put it that way :).

While in Carrs I hoped to score some pita bread as the daughter wants to have gyros for dinner since we were able to get a cucumber in our CSA box this week (I am going to take a picture of our haul from this week and share it later as it is pretty spectacular), but they were, once again, out.  So, I am going to try my hand at making them from scratch this weekend.  Wish me luck as I've never done it before.

6.  The weather was going to get hot again this week and when I saw the weather report I knew that I wasn't going to want to bake anything once the temps got hot at around dinner time.  So, I did my baking the day before the weather heated up.  I even made a cake with lemon custard filling (which went into the fridge and I forgot to take a picture of) so we'd have a nice cool dessert to eat throughout the week.  It worked out great and I am SO glad that I did a baking day when I did.

I even baked some cookies for my husband to take into work.  They were a thank you present for a co-worker who had given my husband some really nice tools and things that he didn't want anymore and had refused to take any money in repayment for the tools.  He likes cookies, so we gave him cookies instead *laugh*.

7.  I found "Tasting History" on YouTube and have been having a great time watching all of his videos as they are a lot of fun and really engaging.  He's one of my top three channels I watch now.  I watch Party Kitchen (their closed caption/subtitled videos anyway), Townsends (always a favorite) and Tasting History regularly and it has been really relaxing for me to watch their videos :).

8.  I harvested some chives and some green onions/scallions from the garden.  Not much, but it's something :).

9.  I got my new cell phone in the mail and spent a lot of time texting people my new number (it's amazing how many people you have to get in contact with to change over cell numbers when you have a special needs child) and getting my contacts switched over to my new phone.  Not quite done, but I'm getting there.

10.  I used credit card rewards to help toward buying my husband some birthday gifts.  It was nice being able to save a few pennies doing it that way.

Right, so let's get to a garden update!

Well, things are growing.  The chard has not done much, no matter what I do with it, which is sad as I love chard and it is supposed to take cooler weather well.  Oddly enough I have to date not had much luck growing chard from seed, but if I pick up seedlings and plant them it does fine.  Go figure. 

The lettuce is starting to finally grow a bit taller.  I'm hoping to get it a point where I can thin it this week without worrying about ripping all of the little seedlings out of the ground.

The peas are enjoying the weather this summer and are growing taller every day.  Since this is one crop I was really hoping would do well this year I'm hopeful that I might get a decent amount of peas out of the plants. 

I was able to save some water this last week as we got so much rain (some downpours were so hard I was worried my garden would just wash away by the end of it) that I was able to skip watering it, which was nice.

One crop that is LOVING the weather this year is the potatoes.  The plants are growing by leaps and bounds and if they keep up this way I'm really hoping I'll have a nice crop by the end of it.  They have actually grown in the last couple of days since I took these pictures.  They are impressing me.   At this point I'm mainly worried about blight getting them since it has been so wet, but so far they are looking good.  Same with the peas.  No powdery mildew has attacked them yet,  So, here's hoping!

And there you go folks.  Some of the things I've been up to the last bit.  How about you?  Been up to anything lately?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap (Times 3) and Garden Update

Well, hello again everybody!  I hope everyone in the US had a good Fourth of July yesterday. 

It's been a mixed bag of crazy around here the last three weeks.  So, let's just get down to it.

Father's Day weekend ended up being a complete flop around here.  Our friend Roger, a very spry 73 year old who took wonderful care of himself, died suddenly in, of all things, a gardening accident.  Roger was a really close friend of my husband and they had been home visiting companions for a long time before Roger moved to Utah to be around his grand kids years ago.  I didn't know Roger that well when he moved as he moved right about the same time I married my husband and moved to Alaska, but Roger and I were constant Facebook companions and got to be good friends that way.  It was a shock to say the least and it has been hard on a lot of people losing such a great man.  Roger was very active in the historical village community and worked as wood wright for years as a volunteer and got to know a good amount of people that way, not to mention his other charitable works, his career as a teacher before he retired and other things.  It did comfort me a bit and I was able to comfort my husband by telling him that Roger died doing two of the things he loved most in the world.  Gardening and spending time with his wife. 

Due to Covid there was an online funeral via Zoom we were able to attend, so I felt good knowing that my husband could at least "be there", even if he couldn't be there in person.

The husband and son got colds at the same time and the husband is still feeling pretty ucky, so Fourth of July ended up being kind of a wet blanket too.

But, there has been some good that has happened the last bit, so let's get to that.

1.  Our CSA box started this last week and I have to say that I'm impressed so far.  We received tomatoes, bok choy, rhubarb, lettuce, carrots and kale.  I hope the volume of veggies keeps up like this through the summer because if it does I might be able to preserve a decent amount of stuff.  Today I'm going to blanch and freeze the bok choy and the kale.

2.  I got a great price on green cabbage at the store (.69 lb) so I got three cabbages as part of my online order this week.  So, be prepared for me sharing some new cabbage recipes here in the next bit (yes, I am getting back to blogging this month.  I'm determined :).

3.  We received our mineral rights dividends on July 1st this year versus in October.  Because the dividend came in early, Christmas shopping for the kids got done in July versus October (odd, I know, but I wanted to make sure I got the presents while we had the money to do it) and I paid off one bill.  We have so many expenses coming in (medical bills, we need to buy a new mattress, etc) that I'm being super careful to try and spend the money wisely.  We'll see how it goes.

4.  We went and picked up 9 buckets of hard white spring wheat from my brother-in-law that was a part of the free food storage he and my sister-in-law had gone and picked up from a family that was moving a while back.  When we were offered the wheat we were not going to turn it down, so we picked it up and put it into the garage until I can find a better place for it.

5.  Speaking of wheat, I FINALLY got my wheat grinder in!  The wheat grinder works well and the grinding burrs and stones have a lifetime guarantee on them, but man getting this thing was a nightmare and the customer service was non-existent.  Believe it or not what finally got the wheat grinder shipped to me was me calling the company (again as I'd called and e-mailed many times to check on things over the months) and cancelling my order because Amazon had wheat grinders in stock and the 2 to 3 week delay in shipping that the company had kept assuring me was holding true for their orders had turned into a near 3 MONTH period where they hadn't even activated my order yet so I was seriously thinking that I was never going to get the wheat grinder  I told them to cancel the order, they shipped the wheat grinder on a Saturday and I received it the same day the charge appeared on my credit card.  Thank goodness Amazon was able to cancel the order I had placed through them for a wheat grinder or I would have not have been a happy camper.

Anyway, yay I finally got a wheat grinder and it fits in the spot I had picked for it on the new kitchen cart.  Always nice when a plan comes together.

6.  I was gifted a bunch of apples as a gift for my anniversary.  So, I canned a LOT of applesauce.  I harvested a bunch of rhubarb from my plant, made rhubarb sauce and mixed it with some spices (cinnamon, nutmeg and a pinch of allspice) and then mixed it with applesauce to make rhubarb applesauce (obviously). 

I realized that I was going to be short on pint jars to jar up all of the applesauce so I took some empty applesauce jars I had from applesauce I had bought a few years ago and had been saving and froze 8 pints of the rhubarb applesauce in jars and then a couple pint equivalents in freezer bags as well (I froze the jars with no lids on them so the sauce could expand in the freezer and it worked great). 

I then took the rest of the applesauce and sweetened it a bit and jarred it up.  I ended up with a lot of applesauce, which I'm very happy about as we actually eat it quite a bit, and I put those up in the pantry a few days ago (I had the boxes of jars of applesauce on my counter top till then...it's been busy).

7.  I started finding ants in the house and was paranoid about those suckers finding food in here, so I went out to the shed, dug out the diatomaceous earth I had bought several years ago to battle the spider mites when they were invading and spread a nice thick layer around the house.  So far it is working well and the big pile I dumped on top of the ants nest that was right against the house seems to have made the ants life more than a little hard.

8.  For Father's Day the one thing that my husband really wanted for dinner was BBQ hamburgers.  I went and tried to clean my old grill only to have things start to disintegrate on me as I cleaned it.  When the grill covers started to actually fall apart as I was cleaning it, I knew that it was time for a new grill.  I was just going to make burgers on the stove, but the husband decided we should just buy a new grill.  We didn't want to spend a lot of money, so we went online and found a grill on sale at Home Depot with an online sale for less than 100.00.  We placed the order online and went and picked it up at the store.  They even fully assembled the grill for us before we picked it up, which was nice as we didn't request that they do that.  It works well.  It's smaller than our old grill, but I'm okay with that. It cooks well which is the most important thing.

9.  I painted the daughter's room and painted the upstairs hallway.  So, officially, the upstairs is done!  Yay!  

10.  Painting over my head so much took a toll on me and my neck and shoulders ended up flaring up horribly.  My sister-in-law, a massage therapist, was nice enough to work on me and gave me some stretches to help.  I'm in a lot better shape thanks to her.  We'll invite her family over for dinner sometime, hopefully soon, to thank her for helping.

11.  I ended up running out of white paint in the middle of painting the daughter's ceiling.  I ordered more paint online, as well as some cleaning brushes for the paint brushes and things.  I used an online coupon code they had going on to get 40% off of my order and I was able to get curbside pick up for my order.  

12.  I redeemed some credit card rewards for Amazon gift cards and used the money toward buying things for the house and to get the husband some new jeans.  Sears finally closed in our area, so I'm hoping that Amazon will be a good source to buy the husband's preferred brand of jeans from decently cheap.  We'll see when they get here and what kind of quality they are.

13.  My husband bought me some roses for our anniversary on his way home from work.  Our anniversary was spent quietly at home, which was fine by me :).

14.  The used stores reopened up here, so we ended up having to go and buy some clothes.  My husband went in first and bought himself a few shirts and then I went in after he rejoined us and picked up the daughter some new jeans (she's now in the same size of jeans as me now and had been borrowing jeans from me for a couple of months) and I replaced a few pairs that had fallen apart on me as well.  I was also able to pick up some new curtains for my master bedroom (I think they'll fit) that I can hang up after I'm done repairing and painting the room.  I keep hoping to get that room done, but it just hasn't happened yet with everything else that has been going on.  I saved a ton of money compared to going to a store (or ordering from Amazon) and buying new, so I'm happy.

15.  My cell phone has been steadily dying on me and it has gotten to a point that it freezes up on me multiple times a day and isn't holding a charge anymore.  I went and checked with Tracfone, but did not find anything I wanted to purchase through them.  Instead of transferring my number, which was going to be an absolute nightmare with Tracfone (they aren't great about doing stuff like that it turns out), I went to Consumer Cellular (the people who we have my daughter's cell phone through) and just purchased a new phone and just added a new line to my daughter's cell phone plan.  This will allow me to use her unlimited talk and text and share her data plan (all of which she currently doesn't use much at all) and will give me a dependable phone again.  I took advantage of a promotion they were running that allowed me to get a 20.00 credit back when you added a new line, so we'll be seeing that discount on our next bill.

Now I just need to wait for the phone to come in the mail and start transferring my cell number with everyone.  

And now, onto the garden update!

1.  Well, everything in the garden is officially growing, so that's good!  The potatoes finally popped up all over the garden.  Since this was the one crop I really wanted to do well this year, I'm happy to see the seedlings pop up.

The lettuce germinated really well.  I'm going to wait until the seedlings get bigger and then I'll start to harvest the seedlings for baby lettuce in salads while I'm thinning the seedlings out.

Most surprising is that the green onions not only survived, but they seem to actually be growing, so that was a nice surprise!

Even the peas finally germinated and seem to be growing decently well.

The Asian broccoli I planted got mixed in with the lettuce and chard I planted, thanks to my cat, so I'm not really sure what seedlings they are, but I'm hoping that they are germinated and growing.  We'll find out as the plants get older.

And there you go folks.  Some of what life has thrown at us here the last bit.  How about you?  Been busy?