In The Refiner's Fire

We were so grateful this week for our CSAs and a couple of gifts we received food-wise.  We thankfully had gift cards and used them to purchase a few things for groceries  - mostly milk, eggs, and fresh fruit - these last two weeks.  Here's our "shopping" for last week: First up: Our mostly veggie CSA:   Here we have (clockwise from back left): Cabbage, Beets, Swiss Chard, Sage, Garlic, Green Onions, Raspberries (YUM!), Lettuce.  In the middle: Purple Kolrhabi, and Parsley.   Here's what we got with our Fruit CSA:     An entire case of blueberries!  Twelve Pints.  I've frozen six.  If you have any good blueberry recipes, please share!   I'm looking for something new.....     Freebees this week from friends and church:     Two bags of buns leftover from the church potluck on Wednesday night.   We also received cupcakes after our 4th of ...

It's been one of those weeks - you know that kind.  The kind where you have several things started and almost nothing finished and then several other things popped up too.  I have two other posts half done - hopefully they'll get up next week! Here are some of the things we did that saved us money this week in the midst of all the half-finished, half-started and additional things that came up this week! * We went to a friend's house to see the fireworks last Friday for the 4th of July.  They have a get-together every year - sometimes a full-blown BBQ, other times just dessert.  We didn't bring desserts since I didn't get any made and they usually have way more than we all can eat anyway.  We did bring glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces that we already had (we bought them in packages of 20 for 2/$1 earlier this spring) to share with everyone.  We came home with a 16 mini-cupcakes that another guest didn't want to take home. * The children and I mad...

Some of the BEAUTIFUL flowers we saw earlier this year at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at the Como Zoo .  I wish my flowers at home looked this good! As I said earlier this week, it's been a rough week and continues on that vein.  UGH.  I've already decided that life is never "normal" and that God is still good no matter what.    We decided that this summer was a perfect time to deep clean the house, do a lot of cleaning up and do some relatively simple and relatively inexpensive updates that we've been hoping to do for a long time.  So I've been doing a lot of cleaning and painting this last week.  The kitchen is basically done (I might have to do a second coat but I'm not sure yet) and now on to the living room!  We're hoping to tear out the carpet in there this week - that's been on my agenda for 14 years now!  There are hardwood floors under there so we're hoping those are in good enough shape to toss an area rug ove...

Pizza Twists!  YUM! So we're sort of having a "no spend" grocery month this month - milk, butter, and maybe eggs are supposed to be the things we can buy.  I had an oops this last week and totally miscalculated a couple of things so we bought fruit and a few other things too.  Sigh.  So glad that this is a new week and we have plenty to eat regardless! Anyway, here's what we're eating - which is mostly from our pantry, freezer and CSA's: Sunday, July 6, 2014:    Breakfast: Cereal and Milk    Lunch: Chicken Noodle Soup, Matzo Bread , Sliced Apples    Snack: Matzo Bread    Dinner: Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Waffles with Sliced Strawberries    Dessert: (at a church function) Pie and Ice Cream Monday, July 7, 2014:    Breakfast: Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothies and/or Cereal and  Milk    Lunch: Matzo Bread, Sliced Apples, Cut Veggies, Yogurt    Snack: Yogurt  ...

Well, .... as they say.... it pays to read the fine print. Somehow I totally missed that our fruit CSA delivers every other week not every week as I assumed.  So we started off on Thursday this past week with absolutely no fruit except one very wrinkled orange that has been in my crisper drawer for who knows how long and a half a pint of blueberries (not counting some canned pears and mandarin oranges in the pantry).  UGH.  And double sigh. That got paired with the host for the BBQ we planned on attending on the 4th of July ending up in the hospital (this wasn't totally unexpected but was a big bummer since we were all looking forward to getting together), and a run to the store was somewhat of a necessity, though in hindsight we could have spent a whole lot less. I don't have a photo because I ran to the store super late on Thursday evening (after we had received word of our host's hospitalization) and was so tired when I got home I just put everything ...