Monthly Update

Time to do my monthly update on my goals and on project declutter. I am sorry but other then the goals of decluttering my closet, drawers, and meeting the number of no spend days none of the other goals have been met.

However, the flood and resultant clean up has helped with project declutter. This month 356 items left the house. These were either sold, given away to friends and family, or donated. I did recycle some old sheets into cleaning rags, but I am not counting them in the total as they haven't really left the house.

It is a new month tomorrow, and hopefully a better month to get those goals completed.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Frugal Friday

It has not been a terribly frugal week here on the old homestead, but I am sure I can find 5 frugal things I did this week.

1.  Waited an extra day before going shopping for the up coming week.

2.  Made 3 meals out of leftovers from previous weeks, thus cleaning out the fridge freezer a bit.

3.  Sold one of the board games I had decluttered (the other 7 were donated).

4.  Dehydrated herbs for use this winter. Still have more to do.

5.  Froze yellow and green beans for use this winter. The garden did not produce as much this year as other years, but I am grateful for what we have managed to put aside for the winter.

6.  Regular frugal happenings for washing and drying, as well as using up every last bit of what we have.

Kris made it home finally. He was stuck in a meeting until 6 which caused him to be later getting home than usual. It seems there have been quite a few changes at his job. The lady that was in marketing with him resigned a couple of weeks ago so he is doing his job and hers, 2 salesmen resigned last week and today his boss resigned for a new job with SGI (Saskatchewan Government Insurance). I guess the meeting was about starting to hire new people to take their places. We don't have to worry about Kris being laid off for awhile as he is desperately needed at this point in time.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thrifty Tuesday

Not too sure if we are being thrifty this past week, but we are trying.

Some sheets have been torn up into rags, and some blankets put away to be used as the core of quilt sandwiches later on.

We are planning a shopping trip for insurance when we come back from our holidays. Harvey plans on taking the property insurance from SGI and searching for options that will save us a bit of cash. Better in our pockets than in the governments/insurance companies pockets. I have been asking neighbours and such who their insurer is and getting quotes from them, Harvey has been going on line and using those companies calculators.

I have been rinsing out dish soap containers to get a couple of more dish washings out of them.

Did some sock darning one evening, and I have a pillow to mend.

We took a break today after hauling two loads to the storage place and went to watch the air show at our airport. It was nice just to sit back and relax for a bit. The Snowbirds did an awesome job as usual.

Then since it was late we grabbed a bite to eat on the way home, the slow cooker with stew was cooled down and placed in the fridge. We will be having that for supper tomorrow. We took our own water, and chairs but it did cost us a bit to get onto the airport grounds. Still it was less money than going out for a dinner in one of our eating establishments.

Tomorrow we have the gentleman from PDAP coming in the afternoon, and the construction company to see if they can fix the cement walls in the basement. I will continue to drop off books at the two second hand stores and I plan on taking some to the library.... There are a few that needed to be put in the recycle bin.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Menu Monday

It is a bit late, but since we just started supper prep thought I would get this posted.

A bit of a switch up already as I had forgotten to take stew meat out of the freezer to thaw last night.

Monday

BBQ Hamburgers, cucumber spears, and some pasta (Harvey always likes some carbs when he eats).

Tuesday

Beef Stew made in the slow cooker.

Wednesday

Pulling out another bag of leftover ham to be made into something.

Thursday

Clean out the fridge night. Since Kris is coming home to help move thing out of the basement, and to do some basement demolition this will work out perfectly. (Must get his room cleared out before he gets home).

Friday

Tuna Pasta Salad. Not Kris's favorite meal, but hopefully he will enjoy it.

Saturday

Pork Ribs in the slow cooker, rice and a big salad.

Sunday

Roast Chicken (must remember to pick one up this week while shopping), salad, potatoes and probably green or yellow beans.

The PDAP  (Provincial Disaster Assistance Program) people are coming Wednesday afternoon. Hopefully we can get a little bit from this. If not we are on our own.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Sunday Ramblings

It is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary time and this phrase stuck in my mind when Father Brian was reading the Gospel.

While Father Brian spent most of his homily speaking about prayer and having a prayer life I couldn't help but ponder these three words over and over again. Mostly in response to my own prayer life, which lately has been hit or miss.

During prayer we seek to be closer to our Lord, to knock on His door so to speak. We ask him to enter our hearts and so become more like Jesus. While the Lord doesn't always answer our questions and our wishes right away, I believe that if we look at our life for the long haul God has always answered us. Just perhaps not in the way we wanted, but in the way He feels is best for us.

I hope I always Ask. Seek. Knock.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Around The Old Homestead

Today has been a relatively quiet day. I have gathered up some of the old board games.

We kept these in the camper for those days or nights that it was too rainy to sit around the campfire. Well the Twister game was one the youth group used. I have listed them on a couple of my cities garage sale sites in the hopes of selling a few. Those that don't sell will be donated to one of the two second hand stores in town.

I started going through my rather large book collection. Harvey said I could only have 4 totes of books put into storage. Today after I spent a couple of hours weeding through he said I could have 7 (bet I can get him a bit higher yet). Mainly because he saw how hard it is for me to part with some of them and he said I was working really hard.

These are the three totes I have filled. Tomorrow I get at it once again.

I went out to the garden and did a bit of picking as well.

I managed to get 4 small green peppers and three rather beaten up cucumbers.

I did get the yellow beans blanched and bagged for freezing.

Then I ran out of freezer bags so I guess the green beans will be blanched and frozen tomorrow along with a bit of dehydrating. I will need to run out after Mass and pick up freezer bags so a little bit of spending in order to save money in the long run.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Frugal Friday

Ahhh, what can I list for this Friday's Frugal Five.

1. Spent some time harvesting herbs and drying them for this winter.

2. Picked green and yellow beans as well as peas. The peas are just enough for our meal on Sunday, but the beans will be blanched and frozen tomorrow.

3. Got a "voucher" from Costco for a bit of money.

4. Dried all loads on the line, even the towels. I told Harvey he could stand crunchy towels for the length of time I can use the clothes line.

5.  I only bought the necessities when I went shopping.

6. Got my Visa bill today (it will be paid in full) and I noticed that my cash back is the highest it has ever been and it has only been 6 1/2 months. Should have enough cash back to buy a couple of Christmas gifts this year.

Tomorrow I will blanch the beans, go through some of my books and list them on a few of the garage sale sites. Hopefully I can make a bit of extra cash.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thursday Tid Bits

Well most of the plywood is off the walls and things are as bad as we thought.

Here are some pictures of what we found.

Big voids where cement is supposed to be. This is going to be a pricey renovation. We have a construction company coming to take a look to see if it is even fixable.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

It Never Rains But It Pours

No, it isn't raining here again. Thank you Lord.

We knew after the flooded basement that the cost of repairs was going to be high. We have the money so that is not a problem.

The problem is in how the previous owner and his builder took short cuts. Nothing like shoddy workmanship to get Harvey riled up!!

We removed 2' of drywall in the library/office/bedroom and Harvey noticed something strange. The wood underneath seemed to be rotting in the closet. When he managed to pull the wood off the wall he found an area where the wall cement did not come all the way down to the floor. Hmmm, after researching on the internet he figured he could fix that small space.

The next day we removed the wall board in the man cave and Harvey noticed something very strange. The plywood under the wall board was rotting....

All of a sudden I heard some slamming downstairs (I was up doing a bit of decluttering, nothing like a flooded basement to get a person cleaning things out).

"Jackie, come down here right now." Harvey called. I could tell from his voice he was getting frustrated and very angry.

I went down and Harvey told me to watch. He stuck his pry bar in the bottom portion near the floor where some rotting was occurring. Well that pry bar slid right in like a knife through butter, and what came out was dirt. Seems like there are many places where the floors and walls don't meet or at least don't seal.

Since we have never had water in the portion of basement that flooded before, the rotting must have started when the previous owner had the house.

Now all the bottom plywood has had the nails removed (there were nails pounded in every 4") and tomorrow we remove it, clean the dirt and mud away. Both of us fear that there will be major construction to get the floors and walls to meet and seal. We even wonder if any of the concrete places in town will be able to fix this mess.

The one good thing is we found the problem before it got worse or we tried to sell the place.

I will post pictures of what we find tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thrifty Tuesday

I am writing this post from my tablet and do not have access to all my lovely pictures. Kind of miss my Thrifty is cool.

Today I found some old sheets on a cupboard shelf in the basement. Some will be folded back up to be used on the futon when Kurt comes home to visit. The remaining two will be cut up into rags. Something I am finding myself very short of lately.

Harvey and I were also very thrifty in doing our own clean up after the flood, and it is a good thing we were. There seems to be more wrong then we first thought with how the basement was built. I will fill you all in tomorrow. This is going to cost a pretty penny.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Menu Monday

While things were totally out of whack last week, they are slowly getting back to normal (or as normal as they can be right now). This means I am going to try and get back on track as well, starting with the weekly menu post.

Some of this weeks meals will actually be from last week, but I do need to use those items (which is why they were on the menu in the first place).

Let's see how well I do this week with keeping things as they are.

Monday

Roast Pork, mashed potatoes, peas from the garden, and some leftover salad.

Tuesday

Chicken wings (baked), hash brown patties, yellow beans from the garden and sliced cucumber from the garden.

Wednesday

Pork chops (hopefully BBQ), along with tin foil potatoes/carrots/onion.

Thursday

Leftover pork roast made into a casserole.

Friday

Salmon fillets, rice, and raw veggies.

Saturday

Clean out the fridge night (pretty sure there will be casserole leftover). If not perhaps soup and sandwiches.

Sunday

Ham, rice, and mixed veggies.

So hoping I can keep to this menu as most of the hard labour in the basement is finished, except for the wall board around the bar under the stairs. We also need to find a storage unit in order to get everything out to finish the clean up and start the rebuild. We just can not move around enough to get started on that. Hopefully we will be able to ask Kris to come home this coming weekend to help with furniture/basement item removal.

Everybody have a wonderful day.

God bless.

A Day Of Rest

Today we stopped working on the flood damage. Harvey had tickets to his beloved Roughriders and so worked for just a couple of hours this morning.

Me, well I had plans to get some baking and cleaning done. I did manage the cleaning, and even have some herbs in the dehydrator. However once I sat down in my favorite chair for a rest.....I fell asleep. I didn't wake up until it was almost supper time. Bad me. However I do feel a bit more refreshed and hopefully tomorrow will see the end of the clean up and we can start sanitizing and rebuilding.

Tonight I plan on making some more cord for my rug and get closer to being finished this project.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Mid Month Update

I am afraid I have fallen behind in my goals for this month. I do hope to get started on them again after next week, but that does not give me much time to finish many of them.

1.  Sew skirt.  Not started as of yet.

2.  Sew tops.  Not started yet.

3.  Finish quilt (no more putting this off).  Not started.

4.  Finish rug (getting pretty darn close to being done).  Working on whenever I get a chance.

5.  I would like to have 21 no spend days this month.  I am up to 12 no spend days, but hope to extend this during the remainder of the month.

6.  Declutter my closet.  Done

7.  Declutter my drawers.  Done

8.  Start a few Christmas gifts.  I made a list, but that is as far as I have gotten.

9.  Cut out two more tops.  Not done.

10. Cut out a dress pattern I have been putting off.  Not done.

I have managed to declutter a few more items, and believe me after all the moving we needed to do with the flood I will be doing a great deal more.

So far this month I have recycled or donated (mostly donated) 58 more items. Pretty sure I can add to this total.

Everyone have a wonderful evening.

God bless.
 

More Flood Pictures

I think my internet and blogger will actually cooperate.

We are hoping that once the electronics dry they will still work. We did try Harvey's laptop charger today and it seems to be working, or at least it charged the battery.

The water stayed well below the bottom of the treadmill, so we are pretty sure that will work.

The water build up in the library/office and spare bedroom.

The water reaching up the old record making machine my Dad had.

We did manage to keep the water below the level that would cause damage to our freezers, washer and dryer.

After a night of pumping out the water.

Just before the water build up got really bad by my bookcases. The books are all fine, just not sure how well the bottom wood on the bookcases is. Hoping it is not too bad and we can salvage them.

Today saw a bit of a rest from clean up. We did start working on the office/library/bedroom, but later in the afternoon. The morning was spent picking in the veggie garden (peas and beans). I am now getting things snapped and podded.

Tomorrow I need to get some pictures of the dry wall, Harvey figures the water has soaked up about 4" so cutting 6 or so inches off should be the fix. The carpet is very heavy and waterlogged, and in dragging one batch out Harvey fell and skinned his arm and bruised his back. We are going to have to cut smaller pieces here.

Hopefully tomorrow will see an end to the carpet removal, and we can start on the walls on Friday.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Pictures Of Our Flood

To start this post off let me say we have the water out of our basement and no new water seems to be arriving. We are getting rain off and on, but nothing like what arrived Sunday evening.

Here are some pictures of the flooding around town.

There were areas that were worse, but for some reason I could not download the pictures. I think you can get the idea though.

These are pictures of our basement.

Can you see the beginnings of our indoor swimming pool?

Blogger is acting strangely for me tonight. It is taking forever to upload pictures, and keeps telling me there is a problem publishing or saving. I will post more pictures tomorrow when things are perhaps a bit better.

I am still taking pictures for Disaster insurance as it is doubtful that our regular insurance will pay anything. Even enough to replace the carpeting in both rooms or to replace some of the electronics would be appreciated. Though we did do up a budget this year to renovate the room with the funky red and black carpet.

Kris is making another trip to the dentist tomorrow. It seems that he is in a great deal of pain from his extraction last week. I have told him to phone us (now that our phone is working...that went crazy after the storm as well) after he has seen the dentist. Hopefully it is nothing serious.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Postus Interruptus

No regular Monday post from me today. In fact all regular chores will be left on the back burner. No project working either or at least very little.

Yesterday we had a major thunderstorm that dropped 5 inches of rain in about an hour or less. This caused major flooding in Estevan, power outages and flooded basements either from sewer back up (my neighbour) or from a high water table (us).

Not only did we get rain, but three waves of hail as well. Some of my flowers may not come back at all, some were just slightly damaged and some still stand proud.

We (guess I should say Harvey has) have spent most of the night pumping out the basement, and really are just staying about even. The water keeps coming in one room and flowing like a little creek to the back room. Right now the pumping centers on the back to try and keep the freezers, water heater and furnace from being ruined.

Pictures of our damage tomorrow hopefully.

With more rain forecast for this area we could be in deep trouble. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Everybody have a wonderful day.

God bless.

Saturday Roundup

No projects have been completed as of yet. I am hoping to have at least one done by the end of the week.

Instead, Harvey took some bird pictures. It seems that as soon as we let the cat out birds come for a visit and chatter at her from various wires around the yard.

This is the rather chubby robin that seems to figure our yard is the best place to find worms and other such goodies.

Here we have a House Finch. We don't often get this small red bird in our yard but we have been enjoying the musical notes that he and his rather drab wife greet us with for the past two days.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Frugal Friday

I don't know if I can manage 5 new frugal things I did, but I am going to try.

1.  Used lettuce from the garden to make salads this week, along with a cucumber or two from the same place.

2.  Managed to go without air conditioning for two full days and two half days (wish it could have been more).

3.  Shopped for the bare necessities this week and plan on doing the same the rest of the month (pantry, freezers, and garden should see us through).

4.  Working on unfinished projects is keeping me busy. Reading books from the library instead of downloading free or almost free books is also saving us cash.

5.  The usual frugalities are still being kept. Love drying all the clothes on the line, baking bread, and picking from the garden.

Hubby says that the beans are ready to have the first picking. Guess what I will be doing tomorrow.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thursday Tid Bits

Well neither of the two storms we were supposed to get hit the city. Instead one traveled a bit north and managed to take out many of the crops due to the hail that fell. It looked like snow on the ground in the middle of July.

Here are some pictures my brother in law took as he traveled out to his farm land just a bit north east of us.

What is left of one of the crops. The crops were looking really good this year too. I am just glad that it didn't hit the garden for a change.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Around The Garden

Some pictures of the garden.

The cherry trees are loaded and the fruit is ripening already.

My perennial bed is blooming nicely.

The coleus is growing nicely. I love the pale green, it is a colour I have not planted before.

Two of the three hanging baskets. I love vinca vine. It will grow right to the ground.

My impatient's are beginning to form the waterfall in the corner. My mini roses are getting larger.

My poor begonias took a bit of a beating when it was really windy. Some of the branches broke off reducing them to about 1/2 the size. Still look pretty darn good though. Another mini rose, this one cream in colour.

The fuchsia is beginning to fill out the container.

Calibrachea filling out this planter on the railing.

The sky is getting black.

It is time to batten down the garden for our next storm.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.