Tuesday Tidbits and Stuff

 

As usual during the winter, it has been a quiet day on the old homestead. I did my mending, worked on my embroidery for a couple of hours, did the household tasks, and admired the work Harvey has done restoring the dining room table. 

Late this afternoon my yogurt maker arrived. Tonight I will sterilize the containers and start my first batch of Greek yogurt, using products I already have in my fridge (bought purposely for this). Pretty sure this will save us money in the long run and give me my yogurt fix every day. It will also enable me to use up some of the jam from two years ago. This machine will also make soft white cheese so I will be trying that as well. I am really looking forward to producing more of my own products, especially if those dang tariffs and the tit for tat ones that will occur as well come to fruition.  

I got our first power and gas bills for the year, and actually they are not too bad. Mind you December was pretty mild over all. So waiting a couple of months to see what the change will be is a good idea. 

There has been a bit more decluttering, a piece here and a piece there. It will surely add up over time, or at least I hope it does. 

Off to get supper in the oven and then to visit a few of you before we eat.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Menu Monday

 The first full week of menus for January. Lots of appliance cooking happening again this week.

Monday

A container of meatballs that I made when batch cooking in November. These will have mushroom soup poured on top and be cooked in the toaster oven. Making mashed potatoes to go along and we will finish off the salad today as well.

Tuesday

Ham and rice casserole that I also prepared earlier. I will make a marinated salad to go along with this. Also cooked in the toaster oven. 

Wednesday

Celery Soup, egg salad sandwiches served with.

Thursday

Lazy Cabbage Roll Casserole (made from the saved filling from my Cabbage Bread baking day), once again in the toaster oven. Hopefully we can finish off the marinated salad as well.

Friday

This is our 49th wedding anniversary, and since we are supposed to be getting more snow, I think instead of going out we will order something in. 

Saturday

Chicken Legs done in the slow cooker. Serving this with rice, and mixed veggies.

Sunday

Bacon wrapped fillets, baked potatoes, and corn. 

So there is our menus for the coming week. 

Everybody have a wonderful evening. 

God bless.

Sunday Ramblings

 

The temperatures are rising, but that will be bringing snow and cloudy sky. I was hoping to be able to finish my rose quilt square this month and start on another, but that might not happen. Still I have things on my project/goals list that I can work on and perhaps even complete. I really should post my goals here at some point, perhaps on Tuesday.

I have also been tidying the sewing/craft room and making an inventory of various craft supplies. There are very few items I need, but there are some that would be very nice to have. I might continue to save in order to purchase some of those "nice to have" items at some point this year. I would love a heat press and mat for Cricut t-shirts and things of that nature. A mug press would be lovely as well. I do have aida cloth and linen for cross stitch but could always use some more in different stitch sizes. 

Yarn, well I am good for probably the next 4 or 5 years as people keep gifting me yarn that they are not using. Fabric, probably enough to last at least a year for myself, but if I want to make anything for Harvey, Kurt or Kris, I will need to purchase. Still I will use up what I have and of course, since I am on a no waste year, the scraps will be used as well for quilts, runners and perhaps even a bag or three. 

I will need to inventory my lotions and potions next. Not that I have that much in the potion category, but I need to take a closer look at those cleansers, masks and facial things. My skin is really drying out this winter so I am using much more hand and body lotion than usual for me. 

There are certain areas of the meat freezer that need a bit of restocking so I am really hoping for some great sales on beef and pork over the coming months. 

Harvey almost has my table ready to put back in the dining room, and I think I will make a few more table cloths and placemats to protect the surface. I believe that was the problem to begin with. He will also need to fix a few things on the cabinet and the buffet. 

As far as books for my other hobby, I will continue to download as many free ones as possible, though there are a few of my favourite authors that I will need to purchase. Still it is less expensive to purchase the ebook, and so I will continue to do this.

So far this year (of course it is only 5 days into the year) I have used appliances to cook dinner 3 of those days and expect to do so much more often. In fact this upcoming week I will be appliance cooking most days, and only using the oven to bake some pies and bread all on the same day and filling the oven. 

So enough of my rambling thoughts, and off to make our supper which will consist of stuffed chicken breasts done in the toaster oven, the leftover rice and noodles, and the leftover salad.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Saturday Roundup

 

No finished projects to share, but I did manage to get at least on goal completed. Christmas is put away for another year, and I have managed to declutter a few more items from the house. 

I have also looked at my monthly menu and find that I have lots of meals that I can use appliances to cook with. Of course there are a few times I will need to fill the oven, but I am going to make sure it is full. No more half filled ovens. 

Tomorrow, after Mass I plan on baking some pies and using up the frozen bananas in banana bread. Most of these will go in the chest freezer as we have plenty of sweets still from Christmas to work our way through (even after giving some to Kurt and Kris). 

I hope to have some finished projects next week to share with you all, or at least some that are very close to being done.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Simple Living

 

I often wonder what simple living entails. We look back with fondness on how our grandparents, and other distant relatives lived, thinking they had a simple life. But did they really?

I can't see myself trying to cook on one of the old wood stoves that they used. Having to make sure they had enough wood chopped or coal stored for a frigid winter here in Canada. 

Using oil lanterns to light my home and breathing in all the smoke that could be given off would not be good for ones health. Candles, while lovely do not give off enough light. 

I knit, sew, weave, embroider and make quilts for pleasure. I can not see me having to do so in order to be dressed and warm. 

Washing clothes by hand in the winter would be tedious to say the least and take many days to dry.

The definition that I found online states:

Simple living is about getting rid of the excess and focusing on what matters most. Simplifying is making an intentional choice to minimize stuff so that you have more time to spend on things that are meaningful to you.

Now that is something I can get behind. It is however hard to minimize "stuff" and still be frugal. I am always afraid that if I get rid of something, I will find I need it in a few months. I do rid my home of those items that are broken, unusable, or which are now unnecessary. I do have many appliances, but those make meal prep much easier. Or, as has happened numerous times my oven breaks down. 

Do I need 5 sewing machines? Probably not, but one belonged to my mother, 2 are regular machines and when one needs to be cleaned I use the other, one is a serger, and one I use for embroidery work (plan to use this one a bit more this year to make some lap quilts and add some pop to a few of my sewing ideas). 

I did remove many books a few years ago, and now just collect them on my ereader. Most of which are free. There are a few cookbooks that can be removed as well, once I copy the few recipes I use from them. 

There are a few too many baking pans so I need to go through them once again. I am not like my mother-in-law who would bake 7 pies a day (the most I ever did was 4, and that was for a birthday at the school), so pretty sure I could remove a couple of those from the closet. 

Really, nothing I own causes me to not do things I enjoy and are meaningful to me. I do need to downsize if we ever move to a smaller place, and have storage limitations. Yet, I do have some simple storage ideas that could help with my hobby stuff. Most of which I already have. 

I am beginning to think I might have made living a simple life much more complicated than it needs to be.

What are your ideas about simple living?

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thrifty and Frugal Thursdays

Thrifty and Frugal 

Very cold today so I have been inside putzing around. I am working on using things up, mostly stash, but a few foody items as well.

This week has not been the thrift and frugal time that I have wanted, but I suppose once in a blue moon that can happen.

1.  Grocery shopping this week saw me saving $41.21 purchasing on sale items. However even with that savings the cost was more than I hoped it would be. 

2.  Found an empty tote to put the decorations in from the upstairs tree. I did not need to purchase another.

3.  Started to use up some of the free facial items I have received as part of my "pamper myself a bit more" challenge.

4.  Using up all leftovers, either as a meal for the two of us or for lunches.

5.  Washed out some baggies that contained things other than meat. 

6.  This is the week I add to my savings envelope my leftover allowance. This week it was $40.00. Haven't done the change jars as of yet.

So that is about it for this week.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Mid Week

 

We had a quiet New Years here at home. Perfect, as far as I am concerned. I do know that many of Harvey's family got together tonight, but being the "black sheep" (kind of) of the family really does have it's advantages. One can stay quietly at home and even go to sleep before midnight.

I believe that life is getting a bit complicated what with tariff expectations, and the usual cost of living increases. Day to day living is not getting much easier, especially in small city Saskatchewan. 

I am hoping that having those few frugal challenges will help with our savings and manage those cost of living increases that I think are ahead of us. While I might be a bit frightened of what lies ahead, I do not plan to live in fear.

Today, I figured out the cash savings on me using my "tinkle cloths". We pay about $1.00 per roll of toilet paper when on sale (perhaps just under so let's call it $1.00). Most weeks we save about 2 rolls (perhaps 2.5, but we will call it two). That is $2.00 a week, $8.00 a month and $96.00 a year. Washing those probably costs me $3.00 a month so a clear savings of $60.00 a year. I think I can probably cut down the cost of cleaning them come summer when I can hang them up to dry (might start doing that this winter on the lines downstairs). 

I also noticed that our electrical consumption went down in December when I was really using appliances to cook. It fell by $22.00 and that is amazing to me. Makes me think that getting a hot plate type appliance and an electric frying pan could be great ideas to help save on electrical costs as well. Noticing those slight differences is awesome to me. 

As a frugal person (more so than Harvey, though my frugalness is catching on) this makes me very happy. It also make me wonder if there are other simple ways to make life very affordable, while still living a comfortable life.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.