Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

Well, last week was busy (really is there any other type of week?).  I did decent on getting some of my monthly goals accomplished already (yay!), so that was an upper.

My lettuce in the garden is definitely on it's way out.  The red lettuce is shortening to bolt and is trying to do it all at once.  I'm harvesting TONS of lettuce to try and keep ahead of the lettuce before it gets too bitter to use and so far so good, although we're living on salad right now and I still have two big bags of lettuce in the fridge waiting for me.  I might be making a recipe from the "Wartime Farm" companion book that's called "Summer Soup" which, really, essentially it's a spiced up lettuce soup.  Sounds kind of odd, but it'll use up lettuce *laugh*.

I am harvesting rat tailed radishes left and right and the plant just seems to grow radishes while you watch.  I can't BELIEVE the volume of radishes that comes off of one plant.  It's spectacular!  And it takes up so little room compared to the volume of radishes you get off the plant.  I mean I think about how many radishes I would have to plant to make up the sheer amount of pickles I have canned and the amount of radishes sitting in my fridge ready to get pickled  and/or put into salad...I'd have at least two rows of radishes planted taking up room in the garden and they wouldn't continue to produce once pulled.  This sucker just keeps trucking along producing.  Pretty awesome :).

So, I canned sweet rat tailed radishes this time around.  I made a simple brine of 3 cups white vinegar, 3 cups water and 1 1/2 cups sugar to make the brine (heat brine to boiling, pour over rat tailed radishes in hot jars and process for 10 minutes in a water bath canner).  I found some really intriguing recipes for honey sweetened radish pickles on SB Canning's site which I'd like to try, but man I don't know if I want to use up my honey doing that.  Now the radish relish recipe she has posted, though, I think might be pretty cool if I can pick up some onions to make it as the rat tailed radishes would chop down pretty easy I think.

While I had my canner out I also pulled two of my four bags of cherries and canned those up as well (two more bags to go.  Woohoo!).  I can't believe how many cherries I am getting out of my 5.00 lot.  I'm beyond thrilled as these will be SO good come in the middle of winter when we are longing for some fruit that actually tastes good and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to buy.  I love canned cherries and these will come in really handy for desserts.  Since I had some of the cherries cut into pieces in the bags, I also added a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice to the mix to stave off browning and also just because I kind of like the added tang added to sweet cherries when you can them.  They get so sweet when you add the sugar that I think they kind of need the lemon juice added to them, but that's me.

So, I still have a couple of bags of cherries to can and what is left of my rhubarb to can as well.  So, that's still on my list of "to do's" this month.  And my husband put in a request that I use the rest of my strawberries to make strawberry preserves as he loved the last batch I made *laugh*, so that'll be on my list as well.

Anyway, the pickles and the canned cherries, done early Saturday before it got too hot in the house, is seen above. 

I also started two Christmas gifts this week.  I started thinking about it and family has been really good to me this year.  I owe some of them a lot.  So I want to show appreciation to not only the kids in the family but also the adults, so I want to make gifts for the couples in the family, in some cases and in others just individual gifts to those who I owe a debt of gratitude to (if that makes sense).  So, I'm glad I'm starting early on gifts ;).

Just a warning to family members who read this blog.  I'll be marking posts with "Christmas 2016" on it or something similar, but there will definitely be Christmas gift spoilers included, so if you don't want to know what you're getting for Christmas...don't read them *laugh*.

I've really gotten some inspiration on what to make for gifts, so stay tuned.  Some of these gifts are, I personally think, pretty darned neat and I'll include different ideas to make the gifts in the event you don't have the same skill sets as me (which I totally get trust me :).

So, yay for getting things accomplished so far!

So, onto this week's goals!

Canning Goals:

• Continue to can rat tailed radish pickles
• Can cherries if weather and temps permit
• Can rhubarb is weather and temps permit

Cleaning Goals:

• Detail clean den and shampoo carpets (my old cat is just getting old, nasty, and senile, which is leading to me cleaning the den a lot more than I would normally want to.  We'll leave it at that without all of the gross details).
• Shampoo upstairs carpets, especially living room and son's room.
• Dust ceiling fans
• Start to clean out contents of motor home and wash everything (we managed to get a mouse in there chewing on some snack foods my husband left out there a while back, so now it's time to re-wash everything just in case).

General Goals:

• Continue to work on Christmas gifts.
• Load thrift store donations into car and drop off (these have been sitting around taking up space forever).
• Continue to care for garden and harvest things as needed.  Once sections are ripped out, amend soil with compost and prepare it for fall/winter garden preparations.
• Rip everything out of standing freezer.  Rearrange so awkward shaped items stop making things fall  out onto my feet when I open the door.  Take inventory while at it and write a list so I know exactly what I have.

And there you are folks.  My goals for this week.  How about you?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Garden Update

Before I begin this post, I just wanted to say how grateful I am.  I have run into a lot of angels in Earthly form the last few months and you all will never know how much you have helped me during this trying time in my life.  I was so overwhelmed with gratitude today that I sat in my car and cried for a good ten minutes.  I'm not normally a crier so I had to explain to my daughter that I wasn't sad, but instead just thankful.  I have been gifted everything from posts giving me ideas on how to make money stretch further, e-mails of encouragement, to seeds to grow food for my family, to plants, to physical objects we were in desperate need of (including a backpack and school supplies for my daughter this week) to other gifts, some so generous that I am not sure how I will ever be able to repay the good Lord for sending them in my general direction.

There have been times where everything was so dark and depressing that I was wondering if I could make it through and every single time I was on the verge of giving up someone would come along and offer me a light to help me keep walking along.  Thank you all.  I'm going to move on in this post now because I'm getting teary eyed again, but just...thank you all so much!!!  Be assured, when I have the opportunity I will pay things forward and hopefully be able to help someone out the way you all have helped me.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

So, let's get onto other things :).

1.  I was gifted with some inspiration when it came to using up the masses of ground turkey in the freezer that WASN'T turkey burgers.  I made summer sausage with two pounds of ground turkey using the recipe HERE instead of ground beef (seen above before I wrapped the last log and stuck them in the freezer).  I doubled the spices in the original recipe as turkey is so much milder tasting than beef, but I kept the salt at the same for one recipe.  And it was still too salty for my pallet so next time I'm going to take Dorothy's advice and knock the salt back even further.  It's edible, but definitely salty.

Thanks for the recipe, Dorothy!  Now that I finally found my liquid smoke (I KNEW I had some!) I am going to try my hand at making pepperoni with some next (another Dorothy inspiration :).  This will give us lunch meat and pizza fixings for the freezer for a while and is definitely cost effective with the ground turkey.

2.  I survived my husband being out of town (yay!).  My son always regresses when my husband is gone and was in an awful mood while he was away, so I was doubly glad to see him back home.  Trust me, this does belong in my weekly accomplishments *laugh*.

3. I was able to help out someone who needed some assistance with some advertising things she was doing for her son's band.  It has been kind of nice being able to use the marketing degree and I actually enjoy doing stuff like that and doesn't cost me anything to do since I'm doing it all online :).

4.  I baked bread, cinnamon rolls (yum!) and oatmeal cookies this week (I made the cookies so my husband could take some to the airport with him).  I got an oatmeal cookie recipe out of a Family Circle magazine this month (I got the subscription for free through either Mercury Magazines or Freebizmags).  I was all excited to try it out as the gal who wrote it has like a cookie empire going on and this cookie supposedly built her business.  So, I made it, omitting the optional coconut that was in the recipe (since I didn't have any).  And the cookies came out okay.  Not fluffy or crinkled the way they were supposed to, but they tasted alright.  I think that the coconut should PROBABLY have been mandatory instead of voluntary or they should have given instructions to up the flour as I'm thinking the flattened cookies was probably caused by not enough structural integrity.  Next time I'll probably just stick with the old Quaker Oats recipe for oatmeal cookies as I know my husband really likes those.  It was fun trying a new recipe though :).

5.  I bought steaks on sale this week as part of my grocery shopping (I didn't post pictures because of destructive uber cranky son).  They came in a five pack, which doesn't make quite enough for two meals for us around here now that my daughter actually is eating a steak on her own and such, so I took the last two steaks and cut them up into smaller bite sized pieces to use as stew meat.  I figure if there is one thing that will last a few meals it's stew and hopefully I'll have plenty of veggies to use in stew coming in over the next few months.

6.  I've been watching some series on You Tube, which has been fun and I kind of liked being able to just download one episode at a time since I didn't have to worry about like watching an entire DVD from Netflix to quickly get it back or something.  I could watch part of an episode over my morning coffee before the kids got up or at night after the kids were in their rooms. 

7.  I got a 10.00 I-Tunes gift card for doing a survey for a local business a while back (they accosted me while I was shopping when my son was in therapy).  I kept holding onto it to use as a stocking stuffer for my son, but the way he kept biting on DVD's I figured I'd better go and load something new onto the "entertainment only" I-Pad of his to hopefully keep him out of the DVD's.  I found a bunch of classic Thomas the Train episodes for 8.99 and it had like 23 episodes.  I bought it and it has been a God send when trying to get my son to wind down at night while his dad was away.  Totally worth it!

8.  My son's VCR ate a tape of classic (like from WAY back) Clifford the Big Red Dog and my son broke the tape pulling it out.  My son is kind of obsessed with the tape right now so I was freaking out this morning trying to figure out what to do.  My husband took some scotch tape and fixed the tape.  The tape still has a glitch that you have to baby the tape through, but at least it's able to play still (thank goodness).

9.  My daughter has been watching a show that was stumbled on accidentally (my son was messing with the I-pad on You Tube) and she really liked.  Peppa Pig is now a regular conversation item at our house at the moment.  I really need to sit down and watch more episodes as I'm kind of pretending to know what I'm talking about when she talks about it.

And now onto the garden update!

I am drowning in lettuce right now, which is definitely a happy circumstance.  The lettuce loved the cooler temperatures and the rain we received and despite the slugs best efforts the lettuce is doing well.  I actually thinned out a row of lettuce next to the garlic today as the lettuce was shortening to bolt.  I am going to leave a couple of plants of each type of lettuce as they go to bolt, so I can hopefully collect the seeds to plant later.

Just as an aside, stale hard cider doesn't seem to work as slug bait.  It has killed plenty of aphids though.

And we have pea sign!  Which is a saying that sounds dirty, but really isn't ;).  Anyone recognize the reference from "Dune"?  Anyone?  Right, nerd status confirmed on my part *laugh*.

I was actually able to harvest my first small handful of peas today to eat in salad tonight.   And I harvested one yellow carrot from my rainbow carrot rows as it was like a mutant fast growing carrot and was ready to be dug.  We ate it in salad earlier in the week.

I thinned the Swiss chard and processed it for the freezer and got a small batch of potatoes from my smallest potato plant (seen above).  The potatoes are curing in my pantry right now and seem to be doing well on that front.

The rat tailed radish plant I am so excited about!  That thing is producing like mad!  I had read that they would produce a lot, but I never knew how much they would truly produce and ONE plant is taking over the same spot my tomato plant occupied last year.  I can't BELIEVE how huge it's getting.  It's spreading into my lettuce patch and into my driveway.  I'm super impressed and will definitely keep that plant in mind for future years as one seed definitely pays for itself!

I picked a pint's worth of radishes yesterday and went out today and picked another 1/2 pint with tons more developing.  Since this is going to be our major source of pickles this winter (although I'm hoping for pickled beets too if I get any.  I'm hoping to plant the seeds this week), this is a huge boon for me.  I'm going to be making pickles tomorrow morning before it gets too hot in the house.  This time around I'm going to make some sweet pickles with the radishes instead of dilly style.  I'm like abnormally excited about experimenting with different flavors of radish pickles and things right now *laugh*. 

So, there you have it.  Some of my adventures this week.  How did you do?

Pancake Syrup

Being originally from New England, I grew up a complete maple syrup snob.  I loved pure maple syrup.  Actually, one Spring my mom completely underestimated my love of maple syrup.  Our neighbor, a proud self-proclaimed hippy named Tom, gave my dad a maple sap tap and bucket and told him it would be a lot of fun for me to make my own maple syrup that year as I had kind of adhered myself to Tom to watch how he did it on his trees.  My dad, never to turn down anything free, took it and set it up for me, telling me that I would have to collect the sap every morning before we set out for my paper route (which was early) and bring it in to mom so we could boil it after school into maple syrup every day.  I was absolutely thrilled.  My mom wasn't as she was far from a morning person, but she figured a week tops and I'd be over the whole making syrup thing.

Man was she ever wrong *laugh*.  Every morning I'd go out and chip the ice away on that bucket to release it from the tap and carry the bucket inside like I was carrying the crown jewels or something.  We warped every cabinet in our kitchen that year from the boiling times required to get maple syrup and I only think we ever got up to light maple syrup when making it.  We had mason jars FULL of syrup in our unheated back hallway for YEARS afterwards.  Still one of my most pleasant childhood memories as the sense of accomplishment I got from making that syrup sticks with me.

As I grew older and we moved to Pennsylvania, maple syrup was a bit more expensive to buy, but wasn't terribly bad.  Then I moved to Alaska, maple syrup became popular as a sugar substitute in cooking and I watched the price on maple syrup resemble the price on a new car.

I stumbled across a recipe years ago to make your own pancake syrup and I would can it every year when the kids were small to help extend the life of my one lowly jug of maple syrup.  Now a days I give that liquid gold to the kids and my husband and I use the pancake syrup when money gets tight.    I started messing with the original recipe as it would come out kind of thin and would crystallize over time as it was just a basic sugar syrup with flavoring, so I came up with this recipe.

This comes out thicker than regular maple syrup, but it definitely gets the job done.  Just to warn you, though, if you taste it before it goes in the jar and don't think much of it, can it, let it cool THEN taste it.  It comes out tasting different with the additional cooking and cooling times (which I've noticed that happens with a LOT of canning recipes).

Also an additional note here.  If I have extra maple flavoring I'll add an additional tablespoon or so just for a more maple flavor to the syrup but I kept it at 3 TBS because that's the amount I get out of a standard 1 oz jar of McCormick maple flavoring at the store, and thus will help keep the cost of the final syrup down.

Pancake Syrup

Ingredients:

• 8 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 3 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp. canning salt
• 3 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp. imitation maple flavoring (the entire contents of a 1 oz bottle equals 3 TBS)

Procedure:

1.  Prepare canner, jars and lids to standard sanitary canning practices.

2.  Combine sugar, brown sugar, water, corn syrup and canning salt in a large stock pot.  Heat over medium-high heat until mixture boils and sugar is dissolved.  Reduce heat, cover and boil ten minutes, stirring occasionally.

3.  Turn heat to low.  Add vanilla and maple extracts (there will be some violent bubbling when you do this).  Return mixture to a simmer.

4.  Ladle hot syrup into hot jars leaving 1/2" head space.   Process in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.  Turn off heat under canner, remove lid and let sit 5 minutes.  Move jars to a tea towel or other insulated surface and leave to seal. 

Check seals after 24 hours.  Any jars that are not sealed can be moved to the fridge to be used immediately.

Makes approximately 5 pints of syrup.

Monthly Goals: July 2016

 When it comes to goals, a big portion of this month, and coming months really, is going to revolve around getting ready for Christmas as much as I can and getting the pantry in order as much as I can. 

I went out to check the garden yesterday and found my Swiss chard looking like Swiss cheese as the slugs seemed to have been helping themselves to it since it started raining.  Since some plants are still rather healthy, I went through and thinned the chard back to about where the package of seeds told me I should and got two decent side servings of chard for the freezer out of it.  I saw the kohlrabi leaves were turning color and looking like they weren't doing well, so I figured I'd see if I actually got a root vegetable in my planter.  Turns out, nope, I didn't, although it was terribly root bound.  You live, you learn there.  I'll know next time not to plant kohlrabi in anything but the ground.  I did mix the kohlrabi leaves in with my chard when I processed things for the freezer once I learned that the leaves were edible too.   So, a few more greens for the freezer there.

Went by my potato plant in the smallest planter and saw it was starting to succumb to some type of curly leaved blight (probably due to too much rain and too dense of soil in the planter) so I harvested that plant ASAP to avoid any damage to the actual potatoes.  Actually got a decent amount (2 bigger potatoes and a bunch of little new potatoes) out of the plant, but it was sad as there were so many little budding new potatoes still.  I'm keeping a close eye on my bigger planter of potatoes to see how it does.  So far, so good.  Went by the garlic and saw something (I'm thinking my air craft carrier cat might be to blame) had stepped on one garlic plant and just basically killed the leaves off.  I dug it and turns out the garlic hadn't yet put any effort into growing, so all I got out of it was a mini-bulb of garlic.  I'll throw it into dinner one night sometime soon, but depressing as I was hoping to get as much garlic as I could from the garden this year with the unexpected plants I found.

I wasn't really planning on harvesting chard and things in the rain, but it was better than them going to waste.  So, while it was kind of depressing having to harvest things early and not getting as much as I'd hoped from them, but silver lining there is at least I got something out of them.  Glad I check the garden pretty much every day or some of my chard might have just plain gone to the bugs.

I am trying to think ahead to winter and things I want to be able to get from either the garden or the produce stand/you pick farm to see us through and how best to store them.  I researched how to store turnips and other root veggies and things (I haven't had much luck storing them in the past) to find that turnips, beets and carrots like it a little humid but also cold.  Colder than my pantry gets during the winter, but not freezing (which is where my problems come in as all of my outbuildings the vegetables would just freeze in).  Cabbage was the same way.  Apples and potatoes I can store in the fridge, but I couldn't figure out where to store other things where they wouldn't quickly rot on me or take up needed room for other things.  I have a spare fridge in storage, but it also is big, has a freezer I'd have to worry about too and I have no idea where I'd put it as my husband uses his garage and the only place I could think to put it I already have a standing freezer in it's place. 

I finally came up with the idea of a mini-fridge (like they use in dorms) or something similar in size.  I could store that easier, even in the corner of my kitchen if need be and between it and my fridge I think I have a good shot of storing vegetables over the winter months without having to can them all.  So, now, it's going to be keeping my eye out for a free mini-fridge as I plain don't have the money to buy one if I can help it.  Hopefully God will send me in the right direction :).

As for other goals this month, I have plenty.  I somehow have to get a back pack for my daughter for school (her zipper is broken on hers and is just plain beyond my ability to repair) and school supplies.  I forgot that I would need to start worrying about that stuff this month.  Blah!  So, I need to dig out what I have for supplies around here and see what I can come up with on that end before I end up spending a fortune at the store that I don't have.

Oh and my husband's birthday is this month.  So, yeah, it's going to be busy!

Goals for the Month:  July 2016

Sewing Goals:

• Start Christmas projects
• Repair t-shirt holes and other mending
• Repair husband's work jacket (before winter, preferably there, Erika!)

Gardening Goals:

• Collect seeds from heirloom plants as they bolt/seed
• As things bolt/seed pull them out and plant turnips or other cold-winter veggies
• Keep an eye on garden and take care of it like a third child.
• Continue to make different types of rat tailed radish pickles as they produce.
• Continue to dehydrate herbs as they grow.

 
Cleaning Goals:

• Continue to clean out and deep clean kitchen cabinets (I've been ending up doing these one at a time over the last little bit).  Figure out if there is anything that could work better somewhere else and reorganize if necessary.
• Keep cleaning hallway closet (this is my back up plan for somewhere to store veggies this winter if finding a fridge fails to produce anything as it is drafty and cold during the winter, which MIGHT work for vegetables.  Might).
• Clean kid's rooms some more
• Shampoo all carpets thoroughly
• Dust ceiling fans and chandeliers (I hate that chore)

General Goals:

• Keep eye out for free fridge
• Keep eye out for excellent deal on back pack (we might be hitting used stores a lot this month)
• Dig out school supplies and figure out what needs to be bought for back to school
• Figure out birthday gift for husband (keep it simple)
• Keep eye out for deals on meat and produce
• Glean what I can for fruit.  Talk to friends about going to pick wild blueberries when they ripen for the year (I've never done that up here and need someone who knows where to go and hold my hand while I do it the first time *laugh*). 
• Work on non-sewed Christmas gift ideas and start on any that need extra time.
• Go insane (already done!  Ha!)

So how about you?  Up to anything this month?

Shopping Goals: July 2016

Well, "Happy Independence Day" to all other American's out there!  Fourth of July is a important historic holiday here in Alaska, of course, but it's also one that is kind of "meh" in the fireworks factor as when you have pretty much 24 hour sunlight this time of year it makes fireworks kind of disappointing to watch.  Now New Years Eve...that's pretty awesome to behold here *laugh*.  But we did celebrate today a bit.

I would normally have made salads and treats, maybe a patriotic Jello salad or something, but the rain has been near constant here the last little bit and the weather is matching our moods as my husband prepares to leave really early tomorrow.  So, we set off some poppers for the kids, I dug out the only lowly package of hamburger patties from the freezer to make for dinner along with some tater tots (a rare treat now a days) and we watched a new MST3K we downloaded with the kids.  As days go, it could be more celebratory, but it wasn't bad by any means.

Bright side, the garden should start to really produce this month, if the bugs lay off.  I should be able to start really harvesting the outer leaves from the Swiss Chard, hopefully some peas will be had and plenty of rat tailed radishes seem to be popping up on my plant so hopefully I'll be able to make some more radish pickles for the pantry.  The carrots and potatoes are growing, the garlic...well at least ONE garlic plant seems to be growing well...the others don't seem to be doing much, so I'm not sure how much garlic I'm really going to get this year, but we'll see.  And lettuce should continue to produce, as well as the herbs, to make salads from and, in the case of the herbs, also dehydrate for winter.

Shopping goals for this month are...ugh.  Yes, that's a proper term *laugh*.  I have a lot of things to buy for winter that aren't going to be bought with dividends this year, so it's a matter of figuring out how and when to make it happen in the coming months.  I have bulk things of bread flour and other pantry goods to get along with butter for the freezer, meat (somehow) and other things.  The clock is ticking and the money belt is tight, but no matter what these goals need to get accomplished, so "where there's a whip, there's a way"...no wait...wrong quote...great song from the old  "Return of the King" cartoon, though.  My dad used to sing it all the time when trying to get us to do our chores...wait...where was I?  Oh yeah, perseverance through adversity.  Yeah, that'll get done!

I have a list of things I'm getting on Amazon.com this month.  Some of it is canned fruit, to supplement what I already canned to last through winter (hopefully) and some things are just cheaper there than at the store so I ordered some.  I ordered pure maple syrup from them, for instance, as it is cheaper than my local stores were offering it for and my son won't eat pancake syrup, only pure maple syrup.  Things like that.

So, here's the list of things I'm hoping to get this month.

Amazon.com

• A flat of canned pears (used my Amazon.com associate fees to help make the cost around 5.00 for the flat, which worked out cheaper than I could get around here.  Thanks to everyone who has ordered through my Amazon associate links.  It helps :)
• A flat of canned peaches (big cans).  These were really cheap one night, so I ordered them to help supplement my home canned goods.
• Coffee
• Maple syrup, 1 quart (this will be enough to last my son all winter, I hope)

 
Bulk Stores/Regular Stores:

• Bulk sugar (got this over the weekend at Fred Meyer...I needed it for canning and was running low)
• Bulk Bread Flour (bulk store)
• Meat (wherever I can find it cheap)
• Canned Green Beans (keeping an eye out for a good sale on those)
• Honey (once again, hoping for making good money this month, or a good sale/clearance on honey)
• Cheap produce (if I run into it)
• Oatmeal (regular rolled oats) 
• Maraschino cherries (I want to get a couple of big jars of them as I'll have all the other ingredients in the pantry for fruit cocktail this winter, making it so I won't have to buy cans of it for a while and my husband likes them as well).

And there you are folks.  My list for the month.   Here's hoping I can get at least some of it accomplished.

Weekly Goal Update and This Week's Goals

Can't really say "Monthly Goals Update" doesn't really work since I haven't posted those for this month yet *laugh*.  I'll get to those hopefully tomorrow.  I'm still working out all the goals for the month.

So, how did the goals for last week go?  Well first I got the daughter through her dentist appointment, so that got done :).  I also did go through projects and things I had around the house and figured out a few ideas for Christmas gifts for this year.  At least one thing I found was a kit to make my daughter a doll, so that will definitely come in handy.  I also dug out my yarn and started working on a project for Christmas as well this week.

On the sewing front, I didn't get to repairing my husband's jacket zipper as I ended up doing some chores around here to help my husband get ready to go out of town this week.  To complicate matters my son didn't sleep at all one night (he went to bed at 6:00 am) and didn't sleep well most of the week, so it was kind of hard to get motivated to do much of anything some days.  Luckily, though, the iron supplements and vitamins I've been taking finally started to perk my energy levels up, so I was able to cope with the lack of sleep a lot better.

I also dug out the Fourth of July table runner and put that on the table for tomorrow.

I still haven't found the DVD repair kit, but like Indian Jones in the Adventure of the Allusive DVD Repair Kit, I'm not going to give up! I shall traverse any pile of forgotten stuff to go through and dodge any falling items as I look on the tall shelves in the closet!  I shall not be denied!!!

On canning goals is where I really did do good work this week.  I canned...

1.  Cherry jam (seen up top).

2. BBQ Sauce.  I made this out of canned tomato sauce.

Some people asked for the link to the recipe I used.  I used the recipe HERE but I did do a few things different.  For one, when you used prepared tomato sauce to start, the reducing time is a LOT less.  I only reduced the stuff for about an hour and I still ended up with some getting scorched even on the lowest heat setting (luckily it didn't make the BBQ sauce taste like charcoal or anything when it happened, I just had to scrub the bottom of the pan afterwards).  I also used poblano peppers because I had them in the freezer and skipped the hot peppers and the sweet bell peppers, using the poblano peppers in their place.  It worked out pretty well actually.  I had just enough celery and onions frozen to get the veggies out of the way.  Once the veggies were tender I used a immersion blender instead of worrying about food milling everything and got the veggies incorporated into the sauce that way.

Normally I would have added a tablespoon of liquid smoke to help flavor the BBQ sauce more to our liking, but after searching for a good hour, I have to say that I must be out of it.  I'll just get some liquid smoke at the store at some point and mix in a little bit into the sauce when I go to use it.  It'll work.

3.   Honey mustard got done.

4.  And I got pancake syrup canned today.  I adapted a recipe I had used for years to work better for me and it came out great.  I'll post up the recipe here soon.

5.  After I got done with the pancake syrup and the honey mustard, I went to put the 1 lb package of powdered mustard I had opened into a jar, but there was some left over.  My husband asked if he could have what was left in the package and I said okay.  He then went online, looked up a recipe for hot English mustard, got my scale out, got the last bottle of hard cider and made his own mustard.  I put it into sterilized jar and canned it for him (I tasted it and can see why they say to let it rest for two weeks.  Holy COW that stuff is hot!!!).  I thought that was pretty neat of him to do with just some left over powdered mustard.

When it came to getting cleaning goals done with the kids rooms that didn't get done this week with the son not sleeping and other stuff going on.  I'm hoping to get to that this week.

I did get bread baked today.  The recipe made two loaves of bread, but I really didn't NEED two loaves since my husband is going out of town this week, so I grabbed the other half of the dough and quickly made some cinnamon rolls for breakfast tomorrow with it.  It worked great and the rolls are now slathered thickly with cream cheese icing and are under the Tupperware cake cover until tomorrow morning.  Yum!

My goals for this week will integrate into my monthly goals (I hope *laugh*), so I'll get to that tomorrow.  How about you?  Did you get some of your goals accomplished last week?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Garden Update

This is a week that really hammered home the importance of putting up every little bit of everything I can glean from the garden and other areas this year.

Our governor, despite the will of the people and the legislature that was trying to do things right decided he was going to push his agenda through via executive order.  So, dividends are officially capped, the budget is cut in areas he deems worthy and there are taxes in the works so that he can use all of the money from the PFD to fund a gas pipeline we can't afford, will fail miserably doing it on our own, and will spell ruin for the state.

It was an upper to get that news to say the least.

All I can really do about it on a personal level is continue to e-mail the legislature and just try and deal with the consequences of our governor's actions.  The most notable one that is definitely going to effect us this year is the dividend being capped (and of course whatever taxes go through, which is still up in the air).

IF we get the full capped amount that the dividend is at, the dividends this year are already gone, spent to pay toward dental bills and the rest will be used toward winter tires for my vehicle.  This is depressing as that means no chunk of money toward bulk food purchases for winter and no money toward Christmas gifts for the kids.  So, basically, my job as a food preservationist has just become that much more important and my job as a home economist has become even more crucial.  I'm currently stressing over trying to figure out WHERE I can cut anything, to save money, to spend toward things right now (reread it about ten times and it'll make sense.  Promise.  Drinking some alcoholic beverage might help ;).  I know I'll figure it out, but oy!

Bright side, my husband started a new part time job this week on top of working for his father, so hopefully we'll see our economic situation improve.  I'll be happy if that happens for sure.

 There were some good things that happened this week, though, so let's get to those shall we?

1.  We are REALLLLLLYYYYY tight on money this week, like to the point of choking tight, so I really shopped sales super careful to get the most for my money (I didn't post up a pic yesterday because there just plain wasn't a whole lot that was exciting.  Except for the coupon I redeemed for free feminine care products, which I'm thinking a lot of people don't really want to see ;).  I managed to stay within my grocery budget and still managed to get  a few extra items due to coupons and things cutting down the prices.  Like the free feminine care products, cheap ginger ale, cheap hotdog and hamburger buns, cheap bratwurst (2.00 a package after coupons and sales.  I was able to get two at that price), cheap apples and oranges (personalized prices on those) and cheap breakfast bars for my husband.  I was most excited about the bratwurst, I won't lie as it's a bit more meat in the freezer.

2.  Speaking of being good stewards of money, last weekend we wanted to take the kids somewhere special, but at the same time we didn't have money to take them to like the zoo (which really depresses me sometimes).  We did, however, have some giftcards to Cabella's (a sportsman and hunting type of store).  One we got for Christmas and one my husband won in a raffle at one of the local electrical supply companies.  I did something I normally don't do when we have any type of substantial monies available in gift cards or something.  I asked if I could use the giftcards exclusively.   He was okay with that, which was great.

I desperately hoped, even though I knew the chances were slim, to find underwear there as I REALLY needed some, but unfortunately unless I wanted 100% wool underwear which would have cost 30.00 per pair that was out (and being sensitive to wool that didn't sound like a good idea to me anyway).  I did find socks, though, and they were on sale cheap too (6.88 per six pack of socks), so I grabbed those.

All totaled we had 50.00 to spend.  I was able to get 2 flats of pint mason jars (1 flat regular mouth and the other wide mouth), socks, long lighters which will not only work on our grill but also on our furnace, some candy for my husband (his one purchase while we were there) and some batteries and I ended up spending 3.00 out of pocket after the giftcards were applied.  Nothing really frivolous exciting, but all things I needed, so I was happy with what I got.  Especially the mason jars.  Those will (hopefully) come in handy in the coming months.

The best part, though, was the kids.  They had a blast.  Cabella's has a waterfall/fountain in the middle of the store and tanks with real fish in them, which once my son saw the fountain that's all he wanted to do for a while.  They have big cushy chairs in front of a giant fireplace at the front of the store, which both of the kids loved.  My daughter pretended she was a princess sitting on a throne while she was up there, which was super cute.  They also have taxidermy everywhere which led to a lot of conversations with my daughter about various animals, where they live and what type of animal they are (carnivore, herbivore or omnivore).   We had a lot of fun.

I did end up going to Target the next day and getting some underwear.  I needed it for sure.  Luckily I was able to find some on clearance along with some that were in a bonus package (8 pairs vs. six), so I was able to get off decently cheap.

Checked out the summer toy clearance while I was there and, once again, was thoroughly disappointed in what the store had to offer.  I miss the days when Target first opened up here and we could get some awesome toys on clearance super cheap.  I really, really do.

3.  I had money that I put aside specifically to get my son a new mattress out of the money I made from rebuilding a website.  Man did he ever need one...the mattress jingled when we moved it and had a permanent bow in the middle of it.

We went back to the same outfit we'd bought his last mattress from as his old mattress had survived tons of abuse from my son jumping on it and things over the years and still lasted five years.  We went armed with the model name of the mattress in the off chance that they had the same mattress, and sure enough they had the "newer" version of the same mattress (the company changed the name of the mattress, but it's the same mattress).  I know that the mattress is probably NOT going to last five years this time as my son weighs more, but we'll see.  We took his old mattress and put it on the floor for right now, which is working out well as my son is jumping on that instead of his new bed for the most part. Win, win there.

The best part about it, though, is that the local outfit we bought the mattress from sells mattresses for like 1/2 the price of other outfits, so for little over 100.00 we were able to get a good quality mattress.  Always a nice feeling.

4.  We spent minimum amounts of money this week, spending only what we really needed to spend (with the exception of going to Cabella's), which saved money.

5.  I mended some shirts this week and still have more to go.  Oddly, it seems that all of our t-shirts (my husband's, mine and my daughter's) are all getting holes in the same armpit on the same seam.  These shirts are all different ages and makes.  Just kind of cracks me up that it worked out like that.

6.  I took my daughter to the dentist earlier in the week and got her filling replaced.  The dentist didn't even need to numb her out (yay) and it took like a total of eight minutes.  My daughter got a prize for being so good and she chose a slap bracelet (which totally brought back memories for me).  Unfortunately, my son decided to chew it into oblivion within a few hours.  I feel terrible about it, as my daughter really liked the bracelet a lot.  So, making my daughter a new bracelet is on the agenda for this week.  I'm hoping to figure out something she can wear, but my son won't chew and wreck (which is why jeweler's wire is out), but I know I can figure something out for her and I have plenty of materials around the house I can use.

7.  I used a #10 (big coffee can size) can of tomato sauce to not only make home made pizza last night, but am turning it into BBQ sauce (it's reducing now :) for the pantry.  The tomato sauce only cost me 2.00 and some change when I bought it, so no matter how much BBQ sauce I get out of it at this point, having made pizza with it too, it'll have paid for itself.  And, bonus, I won't have to buy BBQ sauce for the pantry for a while.

8.  I was able to can my first can of rat tail radish pickles this week =D.  I'm so happy that no matter what I at LEAST got one jar of pickles out of the plant (I'm sure I'll get more but I'm paranoid).  I canned them like dilly beans so hopefully they'll come out tasting more like zesty dill pickles when eaten.  Here's hoping!

9.  I had an empty can of sugar from my food storage (a big coffee can type of can) and finally decided I was tired of the utensil system I had set up by my stove.  I had a crock thing I got for like 6.00 from Pottery Barn online a while back, but the thing was just too small and I ended up having two other mason jars set up nearby with my whisks and spring loaded tongs in them (small kitchen, lack of drawer space and things make it so I end up having to store things like that on my counter as it's the only place they'll fit).  So, I placed the coil of garbage bags in the crock and placed it over by my bookcase in the kitchen and then just moved my utensils into the empty can instead.  It's now big enough to accommodate everything, was free and since it was a can that held food before the label even kind of goes with a kitchen theme (so I left it on).  The system works a LOT better this way and nothing was wasted :).

And now onto the garden update (with a bit of frugality in gardening thrown in)...

The garden, due to me using the hose to water it now and also some heavy (and I mean HEAVY) downpours, the bugs seem to be less on the plants, however slugs and aphids are still sticking around.

A shot of the garden is above there.  The peas are insane!  I've never had peas grow this tall in Alaska the entire time I've been here and I've grown them more than a few times.  I had to go and scrounge around my husband's scrap pile and grab some conduit he'd demolished from some jobs to use as poles to trellis up the peas some more and they are ALREADY over the tops of the 6 foot poles.  I'm trying to figure out how to bend them over and tie them to the trellis in the hopes they'll grow sideways in their vining little ways instead of up higher.  I mean even if I could even find trellis to go higher right now, I wouldn't be able to harvest the peas at any higher height, so I've definitely got to make them fall in line here.  Bright side, I have blooms on the peas everywhere, so hopefully I'll get a decent amount of them this year :).

The chairs in the picture, by the way, were some freebies I got years ago at one of the used stores.  They didn't want them because they were dirty (seriously) and so I grabbed them for the kids.  We have used them on and off for the kids to sit on, but now the kids are older they are a bit big for them.  So, I keep them to put planters on, or in this case, grab and turn into some shade for the garden plants when the heat starts climbing and with all the sun we get toward the summer equinox.   Sometimes it helps to stop the plants from bolting so quickly.  Sometimes.

I harvested ginormous amounts of lettuce from the garden this week.  I'm praying that the weather starts to cool down a bit here or I am not sure how great my swiss chard is going to do this year.  I have a couple of stalks that haven't gotten big at all and are already bolting (seriously???).  I figure I'm going to thin those out and make them for dinner at some point this week and hopefully the other plants continue to grow and do okay without bolting on me.

The red lettuce is already starting to shorten to bolt as well, so when that occurs I'll rip it out, sow the soil with some compost, and start planting more cold weather hardy seeds in preparation for a fall/winter garden.  I'm thinking I'll plant turnips, but I want to check my companion planting guide to make sure everything jives right.  I made the mistake last year of planting a potato plant next to a tomato plant.  Turns out tomatoes put out such a deep root system that they just choke off a potato plant's ability to produce many potatoes.  So I ended up with very few potatoes last year.  This year I was more careful, so I'm PRAYING the potatoes produce a good bumper crop and my other root vegetables do well in the coming months.  I really need them to do well *fingers crossed*.

I was able to harvest a BUNCH of sage and thyme this week as well.  The herbs are seeming to love the wetter summer we are having this year.  I've never seen rosemary this happy before.  I'm hoping to maybe rip the plants out and put them in little planters to keep them going inside through at least part of the winter (with how little light we get it can get kind of hard to keep plants alive during the winter) as they seem really healthy this year and just might survive the transplanting without issues.  

A shot of the front bed.  I love the huge chive plant that has developed :).  I never thought I'd have chives in my garden (not good at growing them at all), so yay for volunteer chives!  The chocolate mint is JUST starting to come in, so I'm wondering how great of a year my mint is going to have (although with mint it can just really start growing while you watch, so we shall see).  I'm hoping to make it into tea for gifts and for drinking this winter, but we'll see how it goes.  The wave petunias were not deterred by the tree's root system, so I'm thinking I finally found a good choice for plants for the front bed that will actually grow!  Always nice :).  And looking at pretty flowers (with some food mixed in, of course) cheers me up every time I go by the bed.

So there you are folks.  Some of my frugal adventures this week (more on my goals post tomorrow).  How did you do?