February 22nd, 2026 at 09:20 pm
It's hard to believe February is almost over. Next Sunday will be March 1st already.
Life here at Hummingbird Hills remains busy. I do have a couple of plants coming up from the seeds I planted. Now, if I can just keep them alive until the danger of frost is gone, I'll be money ahead with plants.
I made all my own Valentine's Day cards and gave those out. I am working on Easter cards now as well as some birthday cards. DH has been playing with his laser. We bought a couple insulated cups at the thrift store and he tried to laser something on one of them and it didn't work, so I covered the area with a solid vinyl and then cut out "Dog Mom" and put it on top of that. So, we have about $1.50 invested in this mug. I am usually drinking water so I feel I don't have to worry if I lose this one since we have so little invested in it.
My other project has been using some scraps of material to make a bedspread. It's not really a quilt, I just sewed patches together and then put some batting and a bottom sheet on top. I am not quilting it. I tied each square with some thread becasue I didn't have a needle that I could use with yarn that was sharp enough to go through the three layers. But, the major cost was the sheet and batting. I used some leftover material that I had cut out for the bedspread and didn't use to make a pillow sham. So, I have less than $50 invested in the bedspread and the pillow sham for a king size bed. Our dogs tend to jump on the bed, so I wanted something I could wash and dry and didn't cost a lot.
A friend of mine volunteers at a thrift store and they throw away candles that have been mostly burned. I asked her if she could save them for me. I'm going to melt them down and make new candles with some additional wax. I figured this would be a good project and a way to reuse some of these things.
It seems like groceries have gone up a little more in the past couple of months. I continue to try and buy stuff on sale and buy with the ads, but even so, it still is expensive and it's just the two of us. I do not know how big families are doing it.
So, this is just a small catch up on what I've been doing. Spending some money, but hopefully saving some too.
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Food / Groceries,
Saving Money,
Shopping,
Gardening
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3 Comments »
February 5th, 2026 at 03:47 pm
Unfortuantely that rodent saw his shadow so it's six more weeks of winter or six more weeks until spring...guess it's all how one looks at it. We still have snow on the ground and even though we finally have double digit temperatures, it seems to be windy and therefore still seems cold. But at least my face doesn't freeze when I venture outside to feed the birds.
I think the bad weather has taken a toll on the birds. I really think I saw a bird sitting on the feeder scolding me for taking so long to come out and feed them. Normally any birds scatter and go a fair distance while I fill up the feeder, but the last time, they didn't go very far and I barely got two steps away and they were digging in.
We live in the country and so we stay put when the weather is bad. Saturday wasn't horrific, but when we planned on going to see a grandson play basketball, we changed our minds because the snow was drifting and driving on country roads in these conditions isn't always safe.
We spend a lot of time working on things. I have a Silhouette machine and decided I wanted to organize some things. Let me backtrack a little bit. Sadly, we don't have recycling programs in our area and I abhor throwing things away that could be recycled, so I'm trying to reuse/repurpose items to keep them out of the landfill. I got the hairbrained idea to paint some of the plastic containers to use for storage (non food storage). Well, I discovered yellow acrylic paint doesn't cover very well and stuff keeps bleeding through. So, 3 coats of yellow and 2 coats of dark green and I finally got the stuff covered. But I have a nice container to store my seed packets (I cut out "seeds" to put on it and used some leftover material to embellish it.) I painted some cans and then used more material to decorate them. I have a small container I wanted to store the little rings off of milk jugs (under the cap) since I crochet around them and make Christmas wreaths to give away. I then got the bright idea to cut out my herb names to put on the glass jars I have for them. And while I was at it, I got out all the bits and pieces of material and cut out squares that I'm in the process of sewing together to make a bedspread/tied quilt. I commented to DH that maybe I'm silly for doing all this and he said he was proud of me for using what we have to make other things. I guess that is totally out of sync with so many anymore that rush out and buy brand new.
Yesterday I planted some seeds in my decorated cans. I have been saving some of the clear plastic containers with lids and planted some seeds in them as well, hoping they will make mini greenhouses for the first step in the growing process. If I can get these seeds to grow, maybe I can save money in plants this spring.
Posted in
Saving Money,
Gardening
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