Frugal Friday - The first full week in October

 

This was John's first full week in his new Call.  I'm feeling a bit like I've been tossed in the air an haven't landed yet - we're figuring out schedules and new responsibilities and all that jazz.  It's been good and crazy and I'm so happy we're here!   I figure by the time the new church year starts in late November, we'll be settled into a routine again.  That I'm looking forward to.

 

This week we picked a lot of produce.  We had our frost this week - it was supposed to be  a hard freeze but turned out to just be a frost.  We had picked all the produce possible just in case, so now we have green tomatoes all over the kitchen!   

 

 

We still have green pumpkins on this monster - yep that's a single pumpkin plant and that's not even all of it - it extends in both directions both right and left as well!   We have harvested 9 and there are 4 more that the voles have taken care of.  So a total of 13 pumpkins so far and another 4 that are ripening.  We have a second plant that also went crazy this year but not quite this big.  We've harvested 5 pumpkins off that one and 2 were vole food from that one.   

 

Our butternut and acorn squash plants were done for the year so we cut the fruit and brought them in  and then pulled up the plants.  We didn't catch this one before his was hopelessly caught in the edging, so we pulled up the edging and brought it in too.  It's just wedged into the ironwork and not grown around it, so it should be fine to eat.  We'll eat that early this next week.:

Other frugal things this week:

* We made cornbread, pizza, French toast, sugar cookies, beef stew and chicken noodle soup at home this week.

* I processed pumpkins from the garden so we could use the pumpkin later this year.   I toasted the seeds for snacking. Delicious!

* We did a lot of end of season clean-up in the yard - head heading, removing annuals and vegetable plants after they were done and doing a final reading.

* I picked the rest of the zinnias and put them in the living room and on the kitchen table.

* A parishioner gave us a Hubbard squash as a "welcome tot he community" gift. Yum!

* I caught up the ironing again (I feel really accomplished when that happens!).

* We've kept the heat off and opened the curtains to let the sun heat up the house during the day.  Our upstairs/main level has really poor air flow so this happens pretty quickly.

* I purchased a new dress for my husband's Ordination service on clearance sale for $40. Original price?  $160!  Whoot!

* I polished several pairs of leather shoes.

* I tacked a fallen hem on a pair of my husband's pants and sewed a button back on to one of his suit jackets.

* The children went to work with my husband on their day off.  They watched videos on the computer and played on the air hockey table in the youth room while my husband did his work.  They also played Frisbee in the church parking lot.  We didn't have to pay for someone to watch them that day.

What did you do that was frugal this week?