Frugal "Friday" - Week of May 3, 2020

Dwarf Iris in my garden this past week.

This past week, our children turned 15 years old.  I feel like that time has flown so quickly!  At dinner on their birthday, we spent time reminiscing about past birthdays. It was fun to hear what they remembered and how much they enjoyed the different things we have done.  We have not had a party since their 10th birthdays and will have one next year for their 16th birthdays, so not having a party this year was fine. 

The printable birthday banner (I've had it on the computer for a while and don't remember where it was from - if you know, please let me know so I can add a link!) and a decoration from our Christmas box.  I was trying to get the extra decorations and it looks like I missed the end of the banner!

I found a printable banner on my computer that I had download from online a while ago and our daughter assembled it.  We hung it between the kitchen and living rooms.  Then I hung some fold out decorations from our Christmas decorations and a few balloons that we had on hand.  I picked dwarf iris from the garden and made a bouquet for the table.  The children asked for store-bought cupcakes and ice cream for dessert that day, so John stopped at the store and picked those up on the way home from his day at work.  We had purchased a couple of small gifts (earrings for our daughter, fun pens for our son, and a pair of summer shorts for each) and had a couple of homemade gifts as well.  The Grandparents all called and talked to the children and several of their Aunts and Uncles and friends sent "Happy Birthday" texts or emails or videos.  They really had a good day with very little extra expense.  We needed to purchase the summer shorts anyway and the cupcakes and ice cream came from the grocery budget.  Every year we take photos of the children in front of our big tree. When they were little we would sit them in the branches (its's a great climbing tree); now they stand in front and our son has to watch his head from hitting the branches!  We took a couple goofy photos of the two of them "social distancing" - arms length from each other - just to remember this year was the year of Covid-19.  Since they live together, I did not feel any qualms about taking a few photos of them with their arms around each other.  Both children really enjoyed their birthday!

Here are some other things we did that were frugal this week:

* We made waffles, cookies, cinnamon biscuit twists, fish tacos, pasta with meatballs, sandwiches, potato soup, and a few other things I'm forgetting at home this week.

* I cleaned out two dresser drawers and set things aside for donation.

* I mended a seam that had pulled out on a sweatshirt.

* John brought home more mushrooms, wild blueberries (frozen from last year) and jam as gifts from church (we have a mushroom farmer in the congregation).  Another parishioner gave us a roll of venison sausage.   Many in our congregation are not able to tithe right now but are giving in kind in maintenance work, yard work, volunteering to sew quilts or supply bags (school, infant, or hygiene) for Lutheran World Relief, assemble and mail paperwork, or deep cleaning or giving food for us to use (part of our salary during this time) or donating time or food to the food shelf.  The upside of not having in-person worship is that some major, deferred maintenance on the building is able to get completed - they were waiting for a time when they church could be empty to replace ceilings and repair the roof.  Now is the time!  And the roofing contractor is certainly grateful for a large contract right now!   And we have a couple of currently out of work carpenters that can do the inside work; with appropriate social distancing, of course.

* I picked two bouquets of dwarf iris for the kitchen table.

* I planted more radish seeds for a second crop in about 6 weeks.

*   Our project this week was cleaning out and setting up my sewing/craft area as a work area for me.   That area was a complete mess, so we are about halfway done.  I will be teaching online this summer and most likely in some type of hybrid online-in class model this fall.  The kitchen table has been an okay place for me to work but not great, so a better space is needed.  This should work! 

* We ordered flowers online from small local florists for our Mothers for Mother's Day.  We would have ordered flowers anyway, so we tried to help small, local business.  The flowers were delivered Friday and both our Mothers say they are lovely!

* Spent a lot more time working on the yard this week.  I'm almost done with the initial weeding that I do every spring. I find that doing a thorough weeding before the flowers and vegetables really grow in the spring saves a LOT of time and work later.

*  My husband and I both set aside a pile of books each to read from the books we already owned.  When we are done reading we will see if these are books we will keep in our library or donate.  Some of these books we have read before, others we have not.

That's all I can remember!

What did you do this week that was frugal?