In The Refiner's Fire

Pink Tobacco Flowers - non-smokable.  They made a beautiful border this year in my garden. I'm convinced firmly that life just is busy at this stage, and that is okay.  I don't always enjoy it though, especially when John has seven-zillion things happening all at once and we don't spend as much time as a family as we'd all like.  It appears we're going to have a week or two of relative quiet (as much as we can during Advent).  Here's hoping! I've been working hard at stretching our money and cleaning out the house, as well as keeping up with all the daily things.  Here are some of the frugal things we've done the last two weeks: * Made homemade pizza, bread sticks, biscuits, waffles, applesauce spice cake, roasted chickpeas, chicken noodle soup, meatball soup, oatmeal muffins, banana-blueberry smoothies, and pancakes at home. * Mended a necklace by replacing a broken jump ring. * Borrowed a keyboard from work (I was able to sign it out for a...

A fairy house that our daughter and a friend built. It has been a crazy couple of weeks.  John has a synod meeting for a couple of days, we celebrated Reformation Day with the Confirmation of 8 young people at our church, there were two events at our children's school and we've been trying to get Christmas gifts started and the fall cleaning done around the house.  Whew! I have been trying to take a minimum amount of work home in the evenings and on the weekend for the last two weeks and it's been going okay. That still needs some tweaking but I'm pleased with it so far.  We are doing some big time planning for 2018. Hopefully, I can share that with you when we're through - I'm pretty excited by it! Here are some things we've done that may count as frugal in the last week: *Made coffee cake, calzones, bread sticks, and French bread. * Returned books from the library and picked up some new books and a movie, stopped by later and picked up an item on...

Pan fried Yellow Zucchini breaded in cornmeal. We had SO much zucchini this year. I can only shred and freeze so much, so we asked around for new recipes to try - we already had quite a list of our own. This was a recommendation from a friend.  It was perfectly good, though it's not a new favorite. It will make a nice addition to our menus when we need a break from our 'usual' recipes. We have a kind of crazy week this week - with events two days this week and another event on Saturday .  That means we set up the menu to deliberately have leftovers for several meals.  We're eating mostly form the pantry and freezers as well. Normally, we'd still have a week or two before the garden stragglers are done but we had snow this last weekend, so we're officially done.  Sigh.  Here's what we're eating this week: Sunday, October 29th, Confirmation Day (at church):      Breakfast: Toast, Banana-Raspberry Smooth...

Holy cow - a post two days in a row! Are you as surprised as I am? *Grin* No photo, though.  I just didn't get to that today when we went to the store. We went to one store today.  We've been trying to really watch our pennies lately (long story that I may tell sometime) so we shopped today with what I had in my wallet.  Here's what we purchased: One 15oz can Garbanzo Beans (Chickpeas)  $0.99 One 18oz jar of  Applesauce $1.99 1lb carrots $0.99 1.95lbs Harrelson Apples 1.95lbs @ $1.69/lb = $3.30 2.18lbs Yams 2.18lbs@ $0.99/lb = $2.16 One Red Mango $1.49 One gallon 1% Milk $3 Two 8oz Cheese 2 @ $0.99ea = $1.98 5 8oz Yogurt Cups 5 @ $3/5 = $3 Carving Pumpkins 2 @ $3.99 = $7.98 Total Spent: $30.17 Total Saved (According to the receipt)): $3.10 (9%) We did not make it to the pumpkin patch this year so, we bought pumpkins so the children can carve pumpkins and roast seeds.  We had almost everything we needed for meals this week, so we just b...

Tap.  Tap. Tap.  This thing still working?  *SMILE* Yep, pretty sure this still works! I hope everyone is well and having a good fall. We have been busy.  All the typical things plus 3 funerals, 2 weddings, two family events, and a short trip to visit friends have taken up the weekends.  It's all been good. I'm really ready for a weekend at home! Thankfully, this is that weekend. Even better the children are off today and we got a cozy day at home.  Good thing too - it's snowing here in Minnesota today.  Not a ton of snow (what we usually call a 'dusting'). Anyhow, frugal things from the last week or so, now that I have time to pause: * Made bread, soft pretzels, zucchini bread, and waffles here a home. * Made soft pretzels with the Sunday School children at church as part of our month-long celebration of the 500 th Anniversary of the Reformation. * Used craft supplies and Lego's we had on hand to complete a school...

Last week of Summer Vacation! Lots of veggies in the fridge this week, both from our yard and the CSA.  I seriously had three shelves full in the fridge of vegetables.  So, lots of vegetables this week! John brought home part of a meat and cheese tray and about a dozen sandwich buns leftover from a church lunch and a parishioner gifted us with a dozen delicious cookies.  We're so spoiled! We did buy milk, strawberries, apples and spinach as well as some toiletries this week. We didn't need to buy much. Sunday, August 27, 2017, Sunday      Breakfast: Toast and Jam      Lunch: Pasta with Sautéed Vegetables      Snack: Popcorn, Cookies      Dinner: I honestly don't remember 😊 Obviously something exciting! Ha, ha. Monday, August 28, 2017, Monday:      Breakfast: Oatmeal with dates and walnuts      Lunch: Sandwiches, Spinach Salad...

We played board games a few times this week. My children received Harry Potter Clue for Christmas last year and it has been a hit!  After spending the first part of summer teaching, the middle part working to get my health and energy back, I've been spending the last few weeks catching up on all the things that needed to be done.  I feel like we have been terribly busy.  I know that's not necessarily true but it feels that way.  Since I haven't posted a Frugal Friday for quite a while, I am going to just start with this past week on frugal things we've done. Here we go! * Ate all meals but one at home. * Attended a taco buffet pot luck for one meal.  We brought shredded cheese from the freezer. * Harvested tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and peppers from the garden this week. * Hemmed five new pairs of pants for my son for school this fall. I found that if I order them on clearance sale in June unhemmed, I save a large amount of money and I can ...