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Archive for March, 2021

Sparkly Jars

March 29th, 2021 at 09:39 pm

Last fall I canned. A lot it seems, at least for us. The challenge was to find storage for all the jars of this and that and to be honest, we had some of it sitting on open shelves. I figured we weren't going to entertain so who cares if they are out.

Well, we've used a lot of the stuff I've canned and now I have empty jars. Fortunately I can store them somewhere besides the inside of the house.

We've bought other things with glass jars and my husband is always kidding me because I save them all. Well, you never know for what you are going to use them. We like honey and I have some smaller jars that are probably around a pint. Not a canning jar, but a jar. Well, I wanted to share some orange marmalade with some friends and they were perfect. I warned them due to the canning lid shortage I was giving them jars of the marmalade that had to be put in the fridge. But I sure prefer glass jars to plastic ones. 

I figure this is a good way to reuse something over and over. And to be honest, I just like jars. Guess I'm weird.

Being Frugal

March 24th, 2021 at 08:23 pm

A few weeks ago I happened upon 3 books at a thrift store for 50 cents each: "The Tightwad Gazette," and the next two volumes. So, for the sum of $1.50 and tax, I had all three books. Normally I get books from the library, but our library has been getting rid of older books (I'm not happy about it either), so they do not have these books. 

I just finished reading them. Yes, I realize they were set in the 1990s, but some things still ring true. I honestly think a lot of the things we discuss here on SA would make Amy proud. 

One thing she mentioned was although when things were no longer tight as far as money, she continued being frugal because it was so ingrained in her lifestyle. I think for most of us, we would say the same. 

Now that I have finished them, I plan to donate them to a thrift store and hope someone else can get some good from them. I think for less than $2, I derived a lot of pleasure of learning some new things and having some things validated.

 

Weekend Warriors?

March 23rd, 2021 at 08:41 pm

DH and I spent a big share of Saturday and Sunday working in the yard.

Let me make myself perfectly clear, I am not a yard person. I get sunburned easily, have allergies, and basically am not a happy camper. Yes, I wear a floppy hat and long sleeves. 

Anyway, we did get quite a bit done. When we moved into this house almost 23 years ago, the front had these ugly bushes with white rock around them. DH wanted to plant flowers, but rocks are not condusive to growing plants. We hired a friend to add garden timbers in front of this so he could plant some flowers. My friend was the kind of guy who always did everything exactly right. There were some garden timbers around the other side of the yard. Well, 23 plus years have taken a toll on the wood. We decided to pull the timbers and get rid of them. DH sawed them into small pieces to dispose of them. Except I think my friend must have buried the posts halfway to China because I couldn't find the bottom of them. Of course digging around plants makes it dicey to find the bottom. We decided to leave them. We had some limestone pieces we moved and that meant digging up the bottom pieces since it had sunk into the dirt. And those puppies were heavy pieces to begin with.

Well, two afternoons and we got them moved. We figure we saved about $1000 not hiring someone to do all this. It's not perfect, but works. 

We wanted to get it done before planting season because instead of flowers, DH has planted herbs in that area. Our Oregano comes up each year, but he plants others on each side. He had to trim the Oregano since it was starting to creep into the yard since the former rotten timbers no longer provided a barrier. 

We did wind up spending about $26 on bags of top soil becasue we had to fill in the areas where the bottom layer of limestone pieces were that we dug up. 

If nothing else, not having rotten timbers decaying does make the area look better. 

Last year my yard work was helping DH with the "dwarf" burning bushes that were over 12 feet tall. Sure glad he didn't buy regular size burning bushes years ago! LOL They had gotten away from him, so we spent days and days trimming and cleaning up the stuff. Other than our sweat and sore muscles, it didn't cost us anything. 

Just for the record, though, I'm not a good weekend warrior. I was ready for bed at 6 p.m. each night. LOL

A Catch Up

March 8th, 2021 at 08:54 pm

Yesterday was frustrating. I read many of the blogs, but the site would not allow me to comment, told me try later, only after going through what seemed like a zillion of those recaptcha images. Egad.

The weekend wasn't an adventurous one by any means. Basically stayed around home. DH is a clothes horse. I noticed he has been wearing the same few pairs of slacks over and over and I know he has quite a stack. Well, he said he didn't want to disturb the pile by getting them down off the shelf. But, he has two shelves in his closet and he's tall enough he could be putting stuff on the top shelf. So, I suggested we go through his slacks and then put some on the top shelf. He tried on every pair. He found some don't fit or he doesn't like the way they fit. I will wash them and we will donate them. He had a bunch of balled up shirts he uses for his yard work, so I washed them all and folded them. His closet looked so much nicer and he can now wear other slacks because he can get to them. Of course that made me look at my closet. I went through it and pulled some things to wash so I can donate them too. I threw away three blouses because I had been using them to work around the house and they were just plain nasty. I think straightening the closet always makes me feel like I accomplished something.

We had our first small salad with our Aerogarden lettuce on Friday. I teased my husband it couldn't get mush fresher -- I picked it, washed it, dried, and tore it in smaller pieces for the salad and we ate it. 

 

 

I have been working on a small quilt project. A few months ago I bought a quilt top that had to be hand embroidered. I finished that and have been working on hand quilting it. I have not quilted before so it was a learning experience. It is a throw, so it isn't huge. I finished it and even with the mistakes, I'm a little proud of it. But, I'm glad it is finished because I want to go back to making hats and scarves for the knitting group at church.