Thrifty Thurs....errr....Friday!

So, today I thought I'd quickly share a few (well, one) thing I've found at the used stores of late that was a cool find and also a few awesome things my family gave me for Christmas that they found at the used stores.

1.  First up is a chicken shaped egg holder.  It is dated on the back with a date of 1994 and was dated by hand, which surprised me when I saw it as I assumed it was something new from like Target or something.  I bought this just because unlike my other egg holder I had taking up room in my kitchen, this one I can put up against the back of the counter standing upright and just place my rolling pin in front of it, which saves me from having a clunkier ceramic egg holder taking up space when I am not baking.  I seldom use a dozen eggs at one time for anything (I can think of two recipes that I seldom make that require that many eggs), but it is just so convenient to have the egg holder out of the way when I don't need it while baking :).  It only cost me 2.00, so it was, to me, totally worth it.

2.  Next up is the coolest cookbook I've probably ever been gifted, honestly.  My husband snagged this for me for Christmas from one of our local used stores.  I LOVE this book!  It has a ton of cool recipes in it that I'm looking forward to trying in my menu plan rotation and is laid out very well and is written in language that is easy to understand.  I believe it dates from the 40's if I remember correctly (don't have it in front of me at the moment and I'm too lazy to get up and get it *laugh*).  The best part of this book, other than the loads of awesome recipes in it?  Is the fact that this was someone's favorite recipe book and was a treasured possession (which shows in the degrading binding, which makes me handle it very carefully when I read it over and over again), and it shows.  The book is jammed full of hand written recipes written by the person and their family members and friends over the years, which are treasures in themselves.  There is even a good portion of a PET milk cookbook/pamphlet, which has been great to page through for future use.

3.  Another thing my husband got me for Christmas was a cool vintage cheese dome.  It is really neat.  You could probably fit a cupcake under it if you didn't want to use it as a cheese tray *laugh*.  When I can finally afford to buy fancy cheese again, I'm looking forward to trying it out with some brie or something, but for the time being it just has a place of honor in my kitchen for decoration more than anything :).

4.  My daughter managed to find a candle holder and a fall scented candle for me for Christmas from the used stores (She proudly stated the candle set her back .20 for a new candle and was quite thrilled at the deal she snagged.  She's definitely my kid *laugh*).  I was touched as I'm not used to getting candles as gifts and I'm normally too cheap to really buy them for myself, so it was a neat gift to get.  I found a nice place to put it on display and enjoy seeing it every time I walk by.

I don't know the cost of everything but the egg holder and the candle, obviously, but for the amount of enjoyment I've been getting out of them, I find them priceless :).

And there you go folks.  My thrifty haul from the last few months.  I hope used store shopping (or yard sale finds, for those in warmer climates) are going well for you!  Enjoy!

Happy (Really Late) New Year!!!

Hello again, everybody!  And Hello, February!  

Please enjoy the shots of the during cleaning and after cleaning of my kitchen chandelier.  I always hate cleaning that thing as it takes forever to get the grease and just stubborn dust off of all of those little panels and little bits of metal on that thing.  It looks SO much better now, but it was not a short process to get it done.  I don't have a lot of photos that are up and ready to post, so these seemed to be appropriate for the catch up post today :).

I’ve been busy, so I just haven’t had the time to blog of late, unfortunately.  What have I been up to?  Plenty!

Let’s just list it all out and then get onto coming events, shall we?

1.  I missed blogging about the last Christmas gift I made, which was my mistake, honestly.  I wrapped up my daughter’s skirt before taking a picture of it.  Whoops.  She does love it, though, so yeah for making something she wanted.

2.  I filed for PFD’s as soon as January rolled around.  It’s a yearly thing we Alaskans do, so I was glad to get it out of the way. 

3.  Armina’s emergency room and other medical bills started to roll in like an avalanche, so I’ve been working hard to stay on top of them.  I ended up putting the majority of the bills onto credit card and will work HARD on paying that balance off in the coming months as the balances on the bills were just too much to cash out (thousands of dollars) and our local hospital will send you to collections if you don’t pay your bill immediately, so it is what it is.  This summer we have some big purchases we are going to have to make, so I really need to be ahead of the medical bills as much as I can by then.  I still have a bunch coming in for my husband as he hurt his shoulder and ended up having to get a cortisone shot for it this last month (the injury started with him shoveling the 7ft snow drifts in December), so we’ll see how far I can get to pay off medical bills before I have to worry about putting myself yet deeper into debt.  I’m looking at it as a challenge instead of getting depressed or something by it, as I find that is way more constructive.

4.  To answer some e-mail questions, yes, food prices up here are nuts, like everywhere and yes we have an egg shortage just like the rest of the country at the moment (along with other sporadic and weird shortages, which can be challenging).  Luckily my husband is from a big family, so we’ve managed to network when one of us finds eggs, so I’m doing OKAY egg-wise, at the moment anyway.  Around Christmas things got really short when it came to eggs (none to be had), so I did use up all of my frozen eggs I had in the freezer for baking, which I was happy I did have those for sure.  I also have freeze dried eggs that I can use if need be in my food storage and I’m definitely glad to have them the way things are going.

5.  After my daughter’s allergic reaction, the doctor suggested deep cleaning the dust out of the house to help her avoid any other allergy going bonkers while her body is healing as her dust allergy has always been one that can cause facial swelling if we are not careful.  Normally I wait until Spring to REALLY go after the dust in the house as the forced air heat really blows the dust around and it gets super frustrating, but this year I went with a more Japanese/Asian outlook I guess and am working on getting the house super clean with the new year.  I even had the daughter go through her closets and things and figure out what she wanted to keep and what could go to make it easier to keep her room clean.  It is challenging with the forced air heat blowing dust around and things, but I’m getting there…ever so slowly. 

6.  Okay, another question someone had was am I going to post up an end of the year review for 2022 and, after much soul searching, I decided not to.  I have decided, instead, to just look ahead to 2023 and work on getting things organized, getting things streamlined and getting things DONE.  I seriously hit the ground running in January and haven’t slowed down yet, so I didn’t see the point in looking backwards when I’m running full tilt from the present into the future.  It is really going to be challenging with how prices and things are to get stuff done, but we really NEED to do a bunch of stuff, not just want, so I have to figure out how to make those things happen. 

7.  I have done a lot of thinking the last month and have decided to do things differently with menu planning, shopping and the like.  So, I’ll let you know about that in another post as I’m still working on it, honestly as it is going to take a bit of organization on my part.  Needless to say I’ll be sharing some recipes I’ve tried out the last bit, some new directions I’ve gone in my cooking and baking and stuff like that.  So, stay tuned.

8.  Someone asked if I could post an updated kitchen tour as I haven’t done one in a long time as they saw I’d changed things from some shots I’ve taken here and there of the kitchen.  Yes, I can do that.  It might take me a bit, but I'll work on that.

9.  Another question someone asked is did I ever get my landing and hallway painting done last summer.  No, I didn’t.  I’m hoping to have that on my “to do” list as soon as things start to warm up a bit as it is one of those things that needs to get done. 

10.  We got Alvah’s yearly IEP done the last month, which was good.  We still have to do evals this year, so we’ll have to get a psych evaluation, a physical therapy evaluation and an occupational therapy evaluation done quickly in the next bit.

11.  I was able to get the work samples and our first progress reports and grades in for the year, on time and all approved.  So, yeah for that!  Doing work samples and things is always a full day job because of the way the home school computer system works, so I was so happy to have that done, in and okayed by our contact teacher.    January:  The Paperwork Month (at least for me, it seems).

And yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to so far this year.  We’ve definitely hit the ground running so far.  I will be sharing some of the recipes I’ve tried the last little bit and other things in the coming weeks (I hope, if things stop being so crazy), so hopefully I’ll be back to blogging regularly soon here.  In the meantime “Happy New Year” a bit late and I hope things are going well for you so far this year!