One of the huge parts of our summer plans for at least the last 12 years include swim meets! This summer is no different!
Wordless Wednesday
Reply
Category Archives: Lily
Wordless Wednesday – Lily Graduation
Tuesday Thoughts
- The weather this year has been all out strange. We had none, zero, nada weather delays or cancellations during the school year, The first time in at least five years if not more. The spring was cool, we had only 1 80 degree day in May. And now this week, is expected to be rainy and 70 for the entire week! I am really disappointed since this is my first week off work but I am working on things inside so hopefully I can spend more time outside very soon!
- My biggest goal for the summer was to get at least 100 dinner meals in the freezer, I have made a start with 4 taco pastas and 3 pizza crust from yesterday.
- Today, I went to the local Food Lion to find meat on sale because the sale ad changes tomorrow. I am happy to say that I succeeded! I was able to purchase the meat for at least 14 meals for $63 or $4.5 each! This is huge when you are feeding 6 people.
- I picked up a free 8×10 at CVS today!
- I have been working on getting some financial things in order for Lily’s college and I am happy to say that the hardest part is done!
- Yesterday, I booked our Disney trip for Spring 2024 and took advantage of a no interest offer for six months from the credit card.
- The next thing to tackle is Lily graduation pictures. Hopefully I will get some posted tomorrow as well!
- Dinner tonight is “beer can chicken in the insta pot” with modifications.
Five Things Friday
- Today is my first day of Summer break! I have exactly 9 weeks to enjoy some downtime, catch up on cooking, preparing meals for next school year and getting the house back in order.
- This past week has been extremely fast and more busy than I imagined. Zach and Kendall are both at camp. Lily has worked every day multiple shift and we had our first swim meet. My work was overloaded so I did not get to catch up on the things I had on my list including posting pictures from Lily’s graduation and party. These should appear next week!
- We harvested a quart of blueberries from our bush today! This is so exciting because I should say that a quart made it inside.
- The garden is not doing as well as I had hoped. We already have an attack of squash bugs! We did spray for bugs and fertilize on Wednesday. I am planning to pull out the yellow green bean plants as it appears either this was not a variety that grows well or the whole pack was bad. I will try another pack of seeds because I really really want green beans to grow!
- The chickens are fully intergraded. They are all going into the coop at night before the door shuts!! We are consistently getting 5 eggs a day! But we are still attempting to trap both racoons and at least one possum that continue to visit!
5 Things Friday
- I have 8 days before my summer break. 4 days both next week and the week after. Lily graduates’ high school in one week and both Kendall and Zach finish next Friday.
- Zach has dental work scheduled for next Wednesday and I have taken the whole day off for it. I am really not looking forward to it!
- Lily’s car messed up on Monday and we have been sharing a car all week. Hopefully her will be fixed this weekend.
- We started swim team practice this week which is fun and exciting for everyone. But we are all most excited for Braxton to swim!
- We have eaten our first squash from the garden! It was small but delicious! I am hoping for many many more!
5 Things Friday
- The goal for tomorrow is to move the chickens outside! They have been in training all week. First Lily sat their cage near (1-2 feet) from the chicken run. Next she moved the cage to beside the chicken run and finally inside the chicken run. They spent over 4 hours in a small cage in the chicken run today. Tomorow we open the door! After doing some research this is a full 2 weeks later than when we moved out the original chickens.
- We did determine that before we leave the new chickens we must create a barrier at the bottom of the chicken run. It would be possible one of the small chickens to fit through the wire and escape. The plan is to use cable ties and cardboard as a solution until the chickens are bigger.
- I have now purchased 4 gallons of strawberries from a farm in Mocksville. They have been the sweetest and best tasting strawberries we have eaten. I do have 2 bags frozen I am hoping to add another 2 bags to get us through the winter.
- Lily’s community college graduation was yesterday! It was so neat. Check out yesterday’s post for pictures.
- We need to install the cardboard on the chicken run, install a new radio in Lily’s car and work on our new rain barrel tomorrow. Sounds really busy! I also have an awesome garden update to share!
Lily’s Davie Davidson Graduation
Lots of pictures, no words.
Almost Wordless Wednesday
This is a really busy time of year….
Kendall was a buddy at the Special Olympics
Lily is planning for Graduations!
Zach continues with Middle School Baseball
Disney Groups!
Saving on Saturday
The chicken coop needed to clean out and new bedding added. I am allergic to both hay and straw so I have been purchasing shaving to use. Although it is not extremely expensive, every little bit counts so we are cleaning out at work and have an abundance of paper. I bought home some of the paper and shredded it using my shredder. Today, we clean the chicken coop of the shaving and filled the coop with shredded paper bits. We re-used the bedding and chicken poop by adding it to our tomato beds to help with growing. Total spent for new chicken bedding was $0.
Last week, I had meal planned but that plan went out the window. This meant that I had 2 cups of chicken left in the fridge. I had also planned to do a fried rice with brown rice and a cup of black beans. These items needed to be used. I ended up making chicken enchiladas with enough leftovers for 2 lunches. and Lily used the brown rice, black beans and added a can of chicken to make herself a rice bowl for lunch. This actually made enough for 4 meals for her!
So far this month we have spent $215 on groceries. This includes $144 Amazon subscribe and save. This has become a huge money saver for me as it allows me to stay stocked up without buying everything at once. This month I have also used rewards from a couple of credit cards as well. I am hoping to keep the grocery spending under $350 for the month. The kids have been bagging up snacks for school at night was we have used most of the individual bags but have plenty of larger bags. They also have been “digging” in the freezer for treats such as popsicles and “Hot Pockets” I know the Hot Pockets were purchased in August of last year and forgotten about. Money spent on food this weekend $0!
We have started 34 tomato plants and 24 pepper plants from seed this year. Today we moved all these plants to the greenhouse. I was so excited to find that my “mosquito” plants have all survived the winter in the greenhouse. The goal is to keep as many plants as possible alive so we can transplant the first of May!
We did use a bit of sweat equity today but we also saved alot of money!