5 Things Friday 3/3/17

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Sheila

We are all so tired. I thought it was just me until both Zach and Kendall fell asleep on the way home last night. I am hoping that we can all catch up with a less busy than usual weekend.
I have reduced my hours at work, in hope to achieve that work/life balance that everyone is talking about. So far so good as I was able to work just half a day today! It is amazing how much better I feel!
I am starting to feel as normal as I think I ever will. We have slowly worked on getting things back on a schedule. I was even able to ask and got approval for my days off through next November at work. I still need to locate a place to stay on part of our trip to Michigan but at least we are definitely going.
The weather has been really warm and I definitely can feel the spring fever starting for me this means starting to plan for my garden. I am really excited that mint, rosemary and oregano survived and will not need to be purchased. I am really hopeful that the dill will return as well. Beside purchasing plants the only expense we will have this year is the purchase of dirt.
Zach face seems to be healing. We will really be able to tell on Monday night when we remove the glue. I am working to prevent infection and so far it has not appeared.

Saving on Saturday-11/12/16

Posted on November 12, 2016 by Sheila

This has been a day of beginning and ending for savings around my house. First I will share the beginning. We are planting fruit trees as part of our landscape. I ordered a set of six fruit trees of dwarf size to plant in the back yard. I specifically picked the dwarf size in order to use them as a bounder. They don’t look like much now but hopefully in five year we will be able to harvest and enjoy some fresh fruit. In case you are wondering we chose two apples up front, followed by two pear, a cherry and peach tree. The big debate is now do we add one or two more to complete the border.

So now we are at the ending, the weather has really started to feel fall like here. During the past week we have several nights that have gotten cold enough for a frost. Tonight, Saturday, the forecast is for a hard freeze. The girls and I went ahead and harvested all the remaining green peppers and tomatoes from our garden and pulled up most of the plants for the compost pile. I am hoping that the tomato will ripen in our window sill over the next week or so. The green pepper were chopped with some being frozen for soup and other left to use during the week.

I have been doing some shopping over the last week and will plan to share all my deals in the next couple of days.

5 Financial Things Friday 11/04/2016

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Sheila

1. My goal for the month was to spend $50 or less on groceries. I am already going to admit defeat with this. We realized Thursday morning that we are completely out of dog food. I know that I could always purchase a small 10 pound bag to last for the month of November but it will cost close to the same 25# pound at Costco. We did make a Costco trip and managed to spend $100. I am hopeful and actually fully expect that we should not “need” any more groceries until December.

2. I was able to cash out for a $25 gift card to CVS on Swagbucks yesterday. This will be my grocery money for the rest of the month. I do not count this in the budget because this is free money.

3. Because of yet another problem with the gas pipeline, gas in our area has jumped again and shortages are expected. The price difference between my town and Costco was 14 cent. We braved it today and actually drove the van until it read 0 MILES TO EMPTY, to fill up at Costco we saved around $3 this way.

4. We were at Costco at lunch time today and since I am not really a fan of hot dogs nor pizza, I picked up a rotisserie chicken to eat for lunch. Zach and Lily ate some with me at lunch. We brought the rest of the chicken home and made an awesome chicken salad. Finally with the skin and bones, I made chicken stock in the crock pot. I was actually able to use 2 crock pots for this and should have about 100 cups of stock!

5. The crazy weather has allowed our garden to continue producing a small amount. We are still harvesting basil, oregano, dill, tomatoes, jalapeños and green peppers. I hope that we will reduce the initial cost next year because we our dill and mint plants will reproduce themselves.

Five Things Friday-10/28/2016

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Sheila

This week has been a really hard week for me. I am think that the stress of the last several months in addition to our crazy busy schedule caught up with me. I have been struggling to just keep my head above water and even lost it several times this week. However, I do see light at the end of the tunnel and God continues to provide blessing big and small on a regular basis. I have decide that I am going to stop “trying to catch up” and enjoy the moment. What this did mean for me was that I shredded all the receipts on my desk that I want to write about. This weekend is not full and should give us all some time to slow down and catch up.
Lily is loving charter school. Even on the days that regular school is out. I am continuing to see progress and hear her working to finish assignments. This is officially the end of the first quarter and I am 100% confident that we made the right decision with NC K-12.
Zach’s last baseball game was Monday of this week. He LOVES baseball which is a huge surprise to me. He is already talking about the spring. He is also growing and will need new cleats and a new uniform. I hope he continue to try different sports, but if baseball is what he loves than guess we will spend more time on the baseball field.
The three little kids all had Dentist appointments on Thursday. We are excited that no one had any cavities. But the even better news is that it was discovered that Kendall had several wires that were continuing to rub against her cheek. She thought this was normal and therefore had not complained. Our orthodontist office was closed and will be closed to Monday morning but the dentist cut the wires. Kendall already is acting much happier and is back to eating regular food.\
The weather here is strange but enjoyable. We were able to turn off the air in mid September and are still not using the heat. Our electric bill for Oct is below $200 and I am hopeful for an even lower bill in November. The other benefit to the weather is that we are still harvesting a few tomatoes and peppers. In fact this is by far the best harvest of pepper that we have ever had. I am so excited to be able to flash freeze and may be able to use for the entire winter! Our first frost is still at least 2 weeks away according to the weather, so I am watering and growing!

Wordless Tuesday- Sweet Potatoes

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Sheila

We still don’t have our first frost in the forecast but at least one of the sweet potato vines has started turning brown. We decided it would be best to go ahead and dig up the potatoes while they are still healthy. This is always fun!

We feed the vines to our neighbor’s goats and bull.

The potatoes were HUGE! Now to enjoy the fruits of our labor! The best part is these potatoes were completely free because I started from potatoes from last year!

5 Things Friday 10-14/2016

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Sheila

This week was suppose to be a slower week but my work had an quick sudden unexpected increase and so it has turned into a long long busy week.
Kendall’s brace are bothering her. I am sure it is not to the extend of some of the folks I have talked to. She is not a complainer in fact she will often say that her mouth is not hurting but takes every suggestion to heart and tries to make it feel better. I am hopeful that by the end of the weekend she will be back to normal. I am also a bit concerned because today, her face appears to be swollen.
My goal for this weekend is to get the sheets all washed and bed smelling wonderful followed by getting all three of the kids rooms really clean.
The weather continues to be on the mild side so we are harvesting a few tomato and peppers still. We are planning to wait until the first frost to harvest sweet potatoes the longest growing period but it is very tempting to want to grab some now.
Lily is learning to cook, this week she made dinner on Thursday night which was a turkey pot pie. She needs a lot of supervision for the chopping but it turned out wonderful.

Square Foot Garden Update

Posted on July 30, 2016 by Sheila

The squash bugs won, sort of anyway. After a couple of weeks of trying to kills by hand and using soapy water, we have lost all our squash plants and even our cucumber plants that started. I was able to make 8 containers of squash casserole and thanks to our neighbor 4 packs for squash lasagna.
I replanted 14 squash plants and it appears that 4 or so have survived the heat. We have cucumber relish and one jar of pickles. I hope that these new plants will start to produce and allow us at least a couple of gallons of pickles.
Matt was able to get our rain barrel collection system put together this week and one rain storm we captured over a 55 gallon drum of water. We have been able to water the entire garden and hopefully save our sweet potatoes and some tomatoes for the past 3 days without running out. We hope that in the near future we will be able to store at least 2 of these drums for use during these hot dry spells.
Last night we pulled up all of the corn plants without harvesting a single ear. I have learned a couple things that I plan to try next year before giving up on growing corn after 2 years of no benefit. First, against what square foot gardening says, I think we need a deeper bed. The roots for the corn were very small and the kids were able to remove from the ground without difficulty. The current plan is to purchase and add another board to the sides of the bed. We will also be moving as much of our compost dirt as possible into these beds to help with deep roots and better soil.
We are starting to get all three types of peppers, green, jalapeno and banana. I am hoping that given enough water we will have a good abundant harvest.
Within the next week, we should also get our first watermelon and cantaloupe.

Monday Musing 1/25/20016

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Sheila

We have 5 weeks before Zach and Kendall start back to school and 4 before Lily begins her adventure in a Charter School. The next three weeks are what we consider slower because the girls have cheer on Monday and Thursday. They will also have piano once a week.
I was able to make a deposit on our next Disney trip this week using money that we have earned from Swagbucks. Matt and I are both using this site to earn extra money. I am so excited. The goal of this trip is to totally pay for it with money not included in our regular budget!
Our garden has not produced like we had hope but one of the biggest reason is the heat. Currently in NC, we are experiencing Day 26 of the summer with highs in the 90s. A typical summer is 29 days of 90 degree temperatures.
Matt has assembled the new water barrel to start collecting any rain water. Hopefully we will be able to water the garden on a regular bases without increasing our water bill.
I did plant 3 additional tomato plants and a dill plant this weekend with hopes of increasing our harvest.
We have really enjoyed our 2 trips to Emerald Point, a water park, this summer. We hope to go a couple more times but plan on spending only 4 or 5 hours at the park instead of 8.
The plan for August is to re-stock the pantry so our spending may be really close to budget.

5 Things Friday

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Sheila

We have survived our busiest week of the Summer! Vacation Bible School everyday in addition to swim and piano. Matt is also working tonight and tomorrow so things are different to say the least. One of the causalities of this week is this is only my 5 or 6th blog post for the month. I am hoping to get several post out this weekend to play catch up.
I had two specific yes! answers to pray today. I am so thankful and excited!
Our garden tomatoes are starting to come in, slowly but surely, I have made 2 batches of spaghetti and a couple of cans of tomato sauce.
We purchased a new kitchen table and finally got it assembled yesterday! It will seat 7 regular and up to 12 with the expandable end!
Today is payday so I need to sit down and work on the budget today. I am excited that both our gas and grocery budget is below for the month. In addition we have only eaten out once this month!

Prepping for the Summer!

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Sheila

June 9th- 5th grade graduation was the most important thing on the schedule, however this did not occur until 1pm so there were a few more things to accomplish today. Today is the last full day of school and my last day off while school is in session. We have big plans for the summer including using our season passes for the water park and enjoying the pool as much as possible. I am also really trying to get a good handle on our finances and eliminate/reduce significantly our spending. Finally, we are schedule to pick up 120# of chicken breast next Tuesday, an hour prior to the beginning of our first swim meet.

Given that information, my plan for today was to prepping as much stuff for the summer and next week as possible. We made a trip to both Food Lion and Aldi this morning to gather needed ingredients for our chicken. I am planning a separate post with the specific details of what we are doing differently this time when we pick up the chicken. I did cook 36 cups of rice. I separated most of this into 3 cup portions to use with the chicken next week. I also made a double batch of taco rice, of which one meal is for the beach, which went in the freezer but the rest is fast easy meals. I made a huge batch of egg salad and started 6 mini loaves of bread for some real good sandwiches. Our garden is starting to produce so I was able to cook up 3 containers of carrot, squash and onions to use in casseroles this winter. In addition I was able to freeze another bag of dill and basil.

I am pleased with the progress today and hope next week will not be as hetic and busy as I am afraid!

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