Frugal Friday - Week of June 21, 2020

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.  The children also enjoyed fresh homemade cookies from their work.

* I made John an apple pie for Father's Day.  That is his favorite!

* I mailed fabric and sewing notions to my Mother, who loves to sew, and is currently unable to purchase sewing notions due to the lack of availability where she is and that she really should be staying home in the midst of a renewed Covid-19 outbreak in her state.  She now has thread, a needed zipper, material and patterns for three additional projects and a few other notions.   I had all these things and, since my Mother is over 80 years old and has a heart condition, it was far better to just send them.  She will pay me back for the shipping and will send back what she cannot use.

* I picked three bouquets of flowers from the yard for the house.

* I harvested blueberries from the bushes I planted last year!  They are so delicious and the bushes are just loaded with berries!  Two of my bushes ripen first (now) and one will ripen in about 3 weeks.  

* I shortened an exercise top for our daughter.  I think it was intentionally long but it did not look good that long.  We cut off about 4 inches and made a matching, stretchy headband with the extra material.  

* We had an arborist come and look at our Norwegian Maple.  We have one tree in our yard and it is a beauty! It has some places on it that we were concerned about; as our tree is "old" for this species.  They recommended fertilizing as there were some signs that it is not getting enough of certain nutrients, something common with suburban trees.  We will do that.  They can do it or we can do it ourselves.  We are comparing our options but have not decided which one we will do yet.  I am glad that there was nothing to be really concerned about.  There was no fee for the consultation.

* Our daughter painted two paintings this week using items she already had.

* We picked up requested books from the library and dropped off several we had already read for return.

* The children have been playing badminton in the back yard or taking a basketball down to the public courts at nearby park.  Since they are siblings, they can play at a socially distanced hoop together.  

That's all I can think of for this week!  What did you do that was frugal?