These shirts are for the 80s night. We ended up at a comedy show that night which was good.
Our individual pictures that we did not purchase. We did get a picture of us together.
This was in the distillery on our Nassau tour
June the official start of Summer! I love the hot weather and am really enjoying my summer break. June was a good month and July should be even better. We have several trips coming up and a whole month of no work or at least school work. Summer is here!
Emergency Fund- Goal is $1000- $300. This is a struggle for me. It seems we make a step forward and then several steps back. We are at least moving in the right direction but I am hopefully to be back to $500 which is where we started the year.
Groceries- Goal $820 per month. We spent $1084.93 I had anticipated that our grocery budget would remain high this month. I am trying to stock both the pantries and the freezers so that does mean higher cost. I would like to keep it lower than $900 for July but we shall see.
Gas- Goal is $500. June total is $336.76. This does not include the HUGE expense of new tires for my car. I am anticipating a higher total for July as we have 2 road trips planned.
Blogging- For 2025- the goal will be 10 posts per month. This is actually post number 18 which is the most I have ever posted in a single month! Go me !
Debit- Goal is 200000 total debit for the end of the year! I am not going to discuss this but we are struggling and I am working to get a better handle on where our money is going.
Health/Exercise-I am actually weigh 191 I have finally got back into the routine of walking in the pool a couple of times a week. My weight has gone up and down so no real change this month.
Reading through the Bible this year-Today is day 181 which mean I am half way there! I am super proud of myself and plan to continue on track. I will admit that this summer is much harder to stay on track than during the school year.
This week has been both a struggle and exciting in the garden. But the sunflowers have not disappointed!
With the excessive heat warning for most days, I planned to get up and out in the garden before 7am. I spent I think 4 mornings in the garden, catching up with weeding and harvest for between an hour and an hour and half each day. The blueberries are awesome, we have been able to freeze approximately 2 gallons. More good news is that we have several watermelons that are growing and we have started the slow trickle of tomatoes coming in. Unfortunately, I dont think we will be able to harvest enough tomatoes for making all the salsa we need. Some of the romas are already dying out. I even tried treating for blight. We are also losing the majority of our peppers. We lost our first 3 squash plants to squash bugs but I am hopefully that I was able to save a couple of our zucchini plants. I do have a second wave of squash plants in front of the sunflowers so that we may get another harvest by the end of June. I also planted a couple more zucchini plants but I am not sure if we will get any more of those. We did start to make improvements to help things out, first our drip irrigation is just not working. The parts were several years old and just is not doing it. We decided to purchase a sprinkler. It arrived today and I will let you know how it works.
Another change is we decided to purchase a 3rd green stalk planter. This year, I have attempted to start more pepper seeds and it will have 30 pepper plants. My thought is that we can move the layers to the green house if needed toward the end of the season to give us up to an additional month of growing time. Of course it was purchased on sale!
Food Preservation
I did mange to get some things preserved this week. On Monday, I canned 4 pints of green beans from our garden. We already have 2 quarts frozen. With this addition we should have a year supply. I also have both bush and trellis green beans still growing which is exciting.
I cooked 8 packs of chicken thighs which became 4 broccoli chicken rice casseroles, 3 are in the freezer for quick meals during the school year. I also made a batch of chicken broth which was 5 quarts and 1 pint. This is exciting!
My main focus of the week has been to clean out and organize our kitchen and pantry. For the first time since February everything has a permanent home and is not on the floor!
No wonder I am tired~
This is the day we chose to celebrate our 21st anniversary!
The first full week of summer break. The focus for this week is preserve food and eat at home. The kids are all on a busy schedule so I am trying to have some left-overs in order to have something for their lunch/dinner as needed.
Breakfast- Saturday-Bacon and Biscuits Sunday- Left-overs for everyone Monday, Tuesday=-blueberry and strawberry muffins, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk ,sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs. I may also make some baked oatmeal this week.
Lunch- Saturday-Grilled chicken and zucchini bake. Sunday-Hawaiian chicken and rice. Left-overs or what ever you find most days.
Dinner- Saturday-Beef Lo Mein Sunday-Chicken sausage and penne pasta, Monday- KFC bowls . Tuesday- Pasta Salad at the swim meet. Wednesday- Totachos Thursday-Beef and broccoli, Friday- Broccoli/Chicken/Rice with extra in the freezer
I know I said there would be less pictures but I could not resist adding these! These sunflowers are gorgeous! I am waiting for the ones outside the deck to catch up.
Next up is a volunteer tomato plant. I have now discovered it is a cherry tomato plant but I don’t think i have EVER saw some many blooms on a plant.
.And we even have some tomatoes forming
Last but certainly not least I did meet my goal for the week. To can one item and to add one item to the freezer for future meals. I was able to can 9 half pints and 4 pints of Taco meat. 2 half pints did not seal. We used one to finish up dinner and one will be use for Totachos this week. I was able to freeze 7 prepared baked ziti this week as well!
We are harvesting squash, zucchini, a few cucumbers, peppers and green beans! I LOVE THE SUMMER!
1. Lily purchased a new car. I was emotional support only!
2. I am trying to start and keep a routine of spending time first thing in the morning, out in the garden. Yesterday, I spent and our harvesting and tying up the tomatoes. This morning I spent another hour, trying to get our volunteer tomato and watermelon bed organized and productive.
3. Our pool is finally open. That means that Kendall and Zach are both working. They both are eager to make money this summer, so they picking up extra shifts. Zach worked every day but Wednesday this week and Kendall worked every day but Thursday. Kendall is also picking up extra shifts at the YMCA as well.
4. My end of school gift to myself was to have the house cleaned on Wednesday. I am so excited and will be trying to keep things clean as we go now.
5. In July we have vacation plans for 2 of the weeks. So I am working to get things prepared ahead for the school year. The garden is also very time consuming at this point as well. I am not going to make official goals for the summer but do plan to try and get meal both frozen and canned every week when we are home.
Summer is here at or at least so close I can taste it! I have to work on Monday and Tuesday of this week but then I am free! The focus of meals will change to summer as well as to things that I can cook once and have for at least 3 if not 4 other meals. My thought is that if I am cooking then I have to make it worth my while.
Breakfast- Saturday-We ended up eating at Rick’s in Denton as Bojangles was closed. Sunday- Breakfast bowls Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk ,sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs. I am planning to make banana bread at some point and also a baked oatmeal one day but we shall see.
Lunch- Saturday-Snacks as we were at the swim meet. Sunday-Outback for Father’s Day. The kids are not responsible for finding their own lunch.
Dinner- Saturday-Matt and I had a date night with Sushi Sunday- Chicken tortellini on the Blackstone ,Monday- Baked potatoes and Cucumber appetizers. Tuesday- Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad. Wednesday- Baked Ziti with lots to spare Thursday- Hot ham and cheese sliders with veggie tray Friday- Tacos (I am hoping to make and can some meat as well.
Let the fun begin!