In The Refiner's Fire

My butternut squash plant with SO many blossoms! How is it becoming July already this week?  Wow!  I feel like time has it's own pace these days  - "Is it really only Tuesday?" "Oh, wait it's already Friday!"  Seriously, All of a sudden, July is arriving!  I thought it was still March....  okay, maybe not March, but April....or something. It is Independence Day this weekend in the U.S. - "July 4th!", as it is sometimes called.   We will have a quiet weekend at home.  Neighbors have started setting off some (illegal) fireworks already and we have been treated to several impromptu shows.  A nearby park had a show last Friday and we enjoyed that from our back yard as well.   The warm weather has arrived just in time and the squash are setting blossoms, the tomatoes, beans and cucumbers are setting fruit.  We harvested lettuce and blueberries this past week.  I am thinking we may have cucumbers by the end of this week.  We will see! Here is what we are

A rainbow over our backyard!  It looked like the "pot of gold" was in our neighbor's yard. It was a week with a lot of "normal" happening this week - I am still teaching summer session, John is still doing his typical work and the children are working two days a week, exercising and taking voice music lessons.  In some ways I feel like all I did was work this week! Here are some of the things we did this week that were frugal: * We cooked most meals at home - bagels with cream cheese, PB&J toast, fried eggs on toast or smoothies for breakfast; lunch was mostly leftovers or salads; and dinner was roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots and onions, beef and vegetable stir fry served with rice, chicken noodle soup (made with the roasted chicken carcass), chicken pot pie with corn on the cob, homemade pizza, and a sheet pan dinner using sausages, carrots, onions, potatoes and Brussels' Sprouts.  * John and I each enjoyed one meal provided by our work places. 

My cucumber plants are starting to bloom!   My vegetables are starting to bloom! Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and beans. I am SO excited!   It has been such an odd year for our garden as well - I planted six new pea seeds and only one germinated; I planted an entire packet of carrot seeds and I have one carrot plant.  I had several perennial flowers that came up, are lovely and green, but have not flowered; they typically flower in May.  So strange!  I have more carrot seeds, so we will plant again.  I have also replanted the pea seeds - I would like at least three pea plants.  I also planted more flower seeds for things that either we bought as seedlings and died or that we were not able to find as seedlings this spring.  We will see!   In the meantime, we are trying to eat the food that we preserved last year.  John finished off the pickles already but we have canned (jarred) tomato sauce and frozen kohlrabi and zucchini to eat.  I am planning on canning beet pickles as well with be

My tomatoes are setting blossoms! Hurray! I feel like things are not so frugal right now - we are getting ready to do some major repairs to our home and at least some major remodeling.  We also started paying for singing lessons for the children - this is something that the children will benefit from for a long time and we are grateful for the opportunity.  They are able to take one 15-minute lesson per week through school during the school year, and since they cannot do all the normal things this summer, we decided that this would be a good choice.  Our teacher's price is very reasonable.  We also have had several car repairs - some expected and some unexpected. Here are the frugal things we did this week: We ate all meals at home this past week or took meals with us.  We ate sandwiches, baked chicken with roasted broccoli and cauliflower, pancakes, pasta with meatballs, fried fish with couscous and fruit salad, taco soup with tortilla chips, and a beef roast with potatoes and car

Maltese Cross next to my kitchen window this week - so pretty! We had humming birds visiting the Maltese Cross outside the kitchen window this week - what a treat!  I started feeding the humming birds that have been visiting our yard this year. They have stopped by in the past two years. That means there is other food in the area and I will not be disrupting their patterns or causing them hardship if we have to stop feeding them at some time in the future!  I love having humming birds in my garden!    It has been a quiet and busy week here. We have all been working mostly from home this week - the person the children are working for is ill so they will not be working this week, everyone at church worked from home this week while the building is sanitized in preparation for limited re-opening for worship, and my students had an exam this week so I was able to proctor that from home and lead a couple of discussions from home as well.    Our garden is growing and so are the weeds!  I spen

One of the peonies from my garden this week - so pretty! ; This week was such a strange week.  I live in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and George Floyd's funeral was this week.  I spent a lot of this past week quiet, doing not much other than work and time with family. With everything going on in the world - specifically Coivd-19 and the events around Mr. Floyd's death - I believe it is a very good time to reflect and think. In addition to all this, work is taking an inordinate amount of time and we are taking the first steps on our major home repairs/upgrades/remodeling this next week, which means quite a bit of additional work on our part.  I am excited for the outcome of all of this, but in the meantime, I'm tired! The children were able to obtain a different summer job than the ones they had hoped for.  They started this past week. They will only be working two days a week but it is a good experience for both of them and has skills that will be transferable to other thin

My lettuce this summer - I have three smaller pots too.  Delicious! It's June.  Summer time and our weather has been wonderful!   We harvested more lettuce and radishes this week and the first of our strawberries.  It looks like we will get an actual crop of strawberries this summer. The past two years we harvested a handful or so over the entire season.  This year we may actually get enough to freeze some for later too.  I am very excited!  Rhubarb is still available but we didn't harvest any this week.  I will start harvesting some to freeze for later in the year soon.  As our state opens more, our schedule gets a bit more back to "normal."  I am not sure how excited I am about that.  We will see.  Here is what we are eating this week: Sunday, June 7, 2020:     Brunch: Cinnamon Biscuit Twists and Strawberry-Blueberry-Banana Salad     Snack: Popcorn     Dinner: Chicken Pot Pie, Lettuce Salad with Radishes and Cucumber Monday, June 8, 2020:    Breakfa