In The Refiner's Fire

Produce from our back yard a few weeks ago. It's been a couple of week since I posted a Frugal Friday post - I had the flu, including having to miss a day at work, and then, after catching up everything that didn't get done that day I missed, I have had a raging head cold.  Thankfully, it appears we're all on the mend (Missy caught the head cold too - way worse than I had it, poor thing). It's been a pretty quiet couple of weeks with me being sick and everyone getting into the swing of all things school around here. We've done some frugal things: * Ate most of our meals at home and brown-bagged almost all the lunches.  Enjoyed lunch at our church on Rally Sunday (last Sunday) with the rest of our congregation.  I had a free lunch at work one day too - I guess that's a perk of having to go to meetings... * I paid cash for 3/4 tank of gas rather than getting a full tank with my credit card. * Used a gift card to get ice cream after the first day of...

Heart-shaped potato! I think we're officially starting to slide into fall here.  I'm excited - fall is my very favorite season and my daughter is getting all excited about fall decorations around here.  And, since she's 10, it's all about glitter too. (When I washed the throw rugs last week, my dryer's lint trap was FULL of glitter!  At least the decorations look good!)  I'll share some of the decorations with you as we go through the next few weeks but today it's all about what we're eating! Saturday is BUSY for us this week - Missy and I have a girls' morning and John and Buddy have a Scouting event that will take most of the day and then we have the Harvest Party for our CSA in the evening.   Other than that, it's a "normal" week - if we can call any week normal that is! I didn't get the freezer cleaned out and defrosted this summer, so I'm hoping to do that in the next few weeks so we're eating soup (I had four tu...

HI everyone. September is just speeding by and we've had the flu and head colds already here at our house.  I'm hoping that means we're done for the school year!   I can hope, can't I?  One grocery shop this week.  We bought the following: 2 cans Butter Kernel Corn @ $0.59ea (Store Coupon) 3 cans Butter Kernel Peas @ $0.59ea  (Store Coupon) 2 cans Starkist Tuna @ $0.69 (Store Coupon) Hormel Little Sizzler Sausage 4 @ 4/$5  (Store Coupon) Yellow Bananas 5.45lbs @ $0.67/lb Granny Smith Apples 2.19lbs @ $0.99/lb Pink Lady Apples 2.77lbs @ $1. 49/lb Peaches 3.32lbs @ $1.49/lb Whole White Mushrooms $1.50 (Store coupon) 20 cartons Yoplait Yogurt @ 20/$10 ($0.50/carton) 1 Dozen Eggs $3.49 Total Today: $39.23 Saved (according to store receipt) $3.16 or 7% No photo today because we had a saga with the eggs.  John accidentally left them in the cart at the store (we don't have employees bagging groceries at our store - we bag o...

Flowers from our camping trip. This week has flown by so fast - I guess the last week of summer always does!  I *think* we're actually ready for the first week of school next week.  Hard to believe!  I'm never this ready.  That probably means I've forgotten something important or something like that but I'll take the "Wow! I've got this" feeling I have right now. It's been a pretty frugal week this week, though I did hire a sitter one morning so I could go to work and get things together there.  That wasn't frugal but necessary. Here's some of the frugal things we did: * Blanched and froze both beans and peas. * Collected seeds from my lettuce and basil for use later. * I participated in a local parade and John and the children came to watch.  The children brought home a free Frisbee that a group was handing out.  I was also two hours of free entertainment! * Made and froze zucchini bread again.  We have zucchini coming out of o...